Chapter 5 - The Pipe They Couldn't Find
Ellis Grant arrived at Celia Ward's office wearing a church suit and carrying a lunchbox.
He apologized for being late. The bus had broken down, and he had walked the last mile because he didn't want anyone to see which car brought him.
Inside his lunchbox were ordinary things: crackers, a folded napkin, a small orange, and a brass fitting wrapped in a dish towel.
“That was attached to the pipe Quentin carried away,” he said.
The fitting had a blue paint mark and a tiny stamped number. Ellis had circled the same number in his work log weeks earlier because the paperwork said the part was new but its threads were visibly worn. He had kept the journal page in his lunchbox beside the fitting, unable to decide whether the objects would save his job or end it. “My granddaughter asked why I was carrying metal around like a lucky charm,” he said. “I told her sometimes a person needs to remember they saw what they saw.”
Celia did not touch it. She called Detective Walker and arranged for the item to be documented and collected.
Imani stared at Ellis's trembling hands. “You kept it?”
“I took it off before the crew loaded the pipe. I thought if the pipe disappeared, somebody needed to see what it had been attached to.”
“Why not tell us sooner?”
He looked down. “My granddaughter needs me. I got frightened.”
Imani wanted to say she understood completely. She also wanted to shout. Both feelings sat side by side.
“Thank you for coming now,” she said.
Ellis explained the repair scheme carefully. Caldwell Residential had billed for replacing several old service connections. On the day workers uncovered the joints, a supervisor ordered them to photograph a new piece of pipe beside the old line, then close the wall. Ellis refused to sign completion forms and was transferred to nights.
“Did Vivian know?” Celia asked.
“She came through the jobsite. I heard her say the photographs would satisfy the lender.”
“Can you identify the date?”
“It's in my log.”
His testimony was significant but not the entire case. The investigators still needed the lender's records, original invoices, and an independent technical assessment. Celia explained this without diminishing what Ellis had risked.
That afternoon, the county's environmental health office issued a public notice recommending that Cedar Court residents avoid using tap water for drinking or cooking until further testing and corrective measures could be completed. Bottled water was delivered to the complex. The notice said the testing raised concerns; it did not establish the source of every resident's symptoms.
Rochelle James covered the notice without showing June's face.
The public response was loud. Strangers offered money. Others accused residents of inventing a problem to avoid paying rent. One caller told Rochelle, “Those people would complain if you gave them a mansion.”
Rochelle asked the caller whether he had read the lab report. He hung up.
Imani had almost skipped the meeting. Her lower back ached from spending the morning in an office chair, and June had asked whether they could watch a movie together. Alicia told her she could leave early if she needed to; no one person should carry the neighborhood. Imani went anyway, after promising June she would be home before bedtime. She bought a bag of oranges with the last of her grocery cash and left them on the table for anyone who wanted one.
At a tenant meeting in the community center, Imani stood beside Bernice while neighbors crowded around folding tables. Some were furious. Some feared they would be evicted if they signed a complaint. An older man named Mr. Jenkins said he didn't trust either the landlord or the government and wanted to hear from an independent plumber.
“Then we ask for one,” Imani said. “No one has to take my word just because my daughter got hurt.”
A woman near the window raised her hand. “My lease says I can lose the unit if I bring negative publicity.”
Celia said, “Bring me the language. Don't surrender your keys because someone waved a clause at you.”
A tenant named Mrs. Bellamy stood up with her utility bills tucked into a sandwich bag. She had worked in hotel laundry rooms for thirty years and was tired of hearing that a photograph of a sparkling kitchen proved how people lived. “My faucet is brown every other morning,” she said. “If you want a picture, come take one before I run it for twenty minutes.” Imani wrote her name on the whiteboard and asked whether she wanted to help plan the independent inspection. Mrs. Bellamy said yes, provided no one asked her to miss her grandson's school concert.
The tenants formed a committee. Bernice insisted the youngest renters should hold half the seats, because they would be living with whatever solution came next.
“Don't put my old face on a flyer and call the work finished,” she said.
That made people laugh. For a moment, the room felt like a neighborhood rather than a battlefield.
Then Quentin's attorney released a statement describing June as “an unreliable minor who may have been coached.” Malik read it while sitting with Atlas in the police kennel. He thought of the child asking permission to hug her own mother. He deleted the angry response he had begun typing and turned the statement over to investigators instead.
The park surveillance footage arrived the following morning. A camera at the far gate showed Quentin arriving before the volunteers, checking the pile of leaves twice, and walking away when an officer approached. It did not capture the alleged abduction, but it contradicted his claim that he had never been near the area until Atlas discovered June.
Nia brought the footage to Celia's office. “There's another thing,” she said.
The timestamp placed Quentin at the park at 2:11 p.m.
His company time sheet said he was conducting a safety inspection inside Imani's apartment at exactly that time.
Imani felt her skin turn cold.
The lock had been changed. Quentin had a key. And someone had signed a form claiming to inspect her home while her daughter was missing.
“Was anybody in my apartment?” she asked.
May you like
Nia looked at her.
“We're about to find out.”
