Majoring in Murder

Chapter 23

It was Monday when Leo got in touch with me. He showed up as usual in front of my building shortly after 10 AM.

"I don't have an envelope for you this time," he said, somewhat apologetically. "Carlo wanted me to tell you to be at this address tomorrow night at eight-thirty." He handed me a small folded slip of paper. I opened it and looked at the scrawled address; it was the only thing on the paper. "Be on time."

"Do I need to bring anything?" As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt silly because it sounded like something my mother would ask after a dinner invite. But, knowing Leo's nefarious connections, I knew this was nothing as casual as a neighborhood potluck.

Leo looked over the rim of his sunglasses at me. He had a toothpick between his teeth and his mug shot photo flashed in my mind. His hair was not as shiny black as it had been in the picture. There were more gray streaks visible and new wrinkles extended from the corners of his eyes.

"Bring whatever you normally bring," he said. "But you probably won't need it."

"What's going on?"

Leo seemed visibly frustrated by my questions as he got into his car, as though he was uptight, in a hurry to leave and I was keeping him. He sighed, closed the door, and leaned out. "Quit askin' so many jack-assy questions and just show up," he said and then shook his head. "It's just a meeting Carlo wants you to be at, okay?"

I nodded and said I would be there.

He cranked the engine, put the car in gear, and eased away from the curb. His hand went up as he called back over his shoulder his annoying catch phrase. Exhaust roiled in the car's wake.

I looked back at the tiny slip of creased paper in my hand, at the handwritten address: Consolidated Container, 755 Selig Drive. I shoved the paper in my pocket so I could look up the address later.

When I typed the information into my computer, I found that Consolidated Container was a warehouse off Fulton Industrial Boulevard on the outskirts of Atlanta, closer to Douglas County really. It had been several years since I'd traveled down Fulton Industrial Boulevard. I was with my dad when he had to take an alternate route to visit his brother who lived in Douglasville. That was before my uncle died of cancer and what stands out in my memory of the area is that there wasn't much of anything there except large dilapidated warehouses and distribution centers. From what I could tell by the satellite map, more warehouses and distribution centers had been built since then and not much else.

I printed out the driving directions and carried them to my car so I wouldn't forget them when I left campus the next day. It would have been easier to just send them to my smart phone or GPS to find my way, but as with the history of an internet browser, I didn't trust the digital paper trail. I felt more confident destroying the information I used myself. Burning or shredding the documents I printed after using them was becoming tedious though.

I left school at six o'clock the following day, believing I'd have enough time to find the warehouse. In retrospect, I should've left a little earlier because I ended up making a wrong turn. Like a dumbass, I took a right onto Fulton Industrial Boulevard from I-20 instead of a left and spent five minutes driving in the wrong direction looking for Selig Drive. I guess there are trade-offs with both methods of navigation, whether by GPS or reading a map. It was still easier to burn paper maps. Nothing was lining up with my map, so I eventually turned around, sure that I had screwed up somewhere along the way. I turned left onto Selig and continued past the first couple of buildings. Before I reached the curve in the road, I saw the Consolidated Container building sitting off to my left. The warehouse was long and the trees around it provided plenty of privacy.