Hard Winter Rain

by Michael Blair

  “How well do you know her?” Shoe asked.

  “She seems competent.”

  And damned with faint praise, thought Shoe. “Is there anything, do you think, to the rumour that she and Patrick were having an affair?” he asked.

  “I couldn’t say.” Merigold looked at his wristwatch. It was gold and wafer thin, with an oxblood leather strap that fit his wrist more snugly than looked comfortable.

  “Do you have any theories about why Patrick was killed?” Shoe asked.

  “No, I don’t. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting with Mr. Hammond in three minutes.” He stood up.

  Shoe thanked him for his time. There were a few other people in the company with whom Patrick had worked. Although Shoe very much doubted any of them would be able to add anything useful, he spoke to them anyway. At ten o’clock, doubts confirmed, he returned to his office and looked over the list of former employees of the gasket manufacturing company that Sandra St. Johns had printed for him. It included home addresses and telephone numbers. He dialled the number for Ramona Ross, the office manager with whom Patrick had become friendly, but there was no answer, human or machine. He spent the next hour speaking to other people on the list, as well as the owner of the brewery in Port Moody. No one was able to shed any light on Patrick’s death. He tried Ramona Ross’s number again. Still no answer. According to the printout she lived in Ladner, in South Delta, about a thirty-minute drive from downtown. Perhaps tomorrow he’d take a drive out there. There was something else he had to do today.

  Mr. Seropian had been acting strange all day, muttering to himself and staring at her through the rows of suits and coats and dresses hanging on the overhead conveyor. It was obvious he had something on his mind and Barbara was certain she knew what it was. He wasn’t satisfied with brushing against her breasts or her backside a couple of times a day, accidentally on purpose, as her mother used to say. He wanted more.

  What was it, she wondered as she sorted through a bundle of shirts, that made almost every man she had ever worked for think she would be willing to have sex with him to keep her job? Did she give off some kind of scent, like those moths she’d read about? She’d heard about women who’d had their employers charged with sexual harassment, but as far as she was concerned, those stories were a cruel joke. Maybe women who worked in banks or for politicians could afford to complain that their bosses told dirty jokes or demanded sex in exchange for a promotion, but nobody gave a hoot if a grocery store manager played grab-ass with the checkout girls or if jerking off the supervisor was the only way you could get time off to attend your kids’ school recitals. In the real world, if you needed the job bad enough, you gritted your teeth and went along with it. And in the twenty years since her husband had died, leaving her with two kids to raise on her own, she’d needed a job bad enough more times than she cared to remember.

  The familiar throb of pain reminded her that while she’d raised two children, she’d borne three. As she’d done every day for thirty-five years, Barbara wondered what had become of Annie. She’d be a grown woman now, married, perhaps with children of her own. But Barbara’s last memory of her was as an infant, sleeping sweetly as the woman from the adoption agency took her away.

  Mr. Seropian came to the front of the store. His thinning grey hair stuck out in all directions, his cotton undershirt was stained, and he smelled of sweat and dry cleaning fluid. Barbara braced herself.

  “I never done anything like this before,” he said. He swallowed nervously, his sharply protruding Adam’s apple bobbing and his droopy brown eyes uncertain.

  Barbara waited. If it was this hard for him to ask, maybe it would be impossible for him to fire her if she said no. He swallowed again and looked at the floor as he spoke.

  “I gotta let you go,” he said.

  Barbara grunted as though she’d been struck in the stomach. She gripped the edge of the counter.

  “It is for my nephew,” he said, still unable to look her in the eyes. “My wife, he is her sister’s boy. He is useless bag of shit his father says, but...” He shrugged. “I am sorry.”

  “I understand,” Barbara said, fighting back tears, her throat tight. “He’s family.”

  “My wife,” Mr. Seropian said, “she says to give you two weeks of pay and nothing more. I will give you two weeks of pay and two weeks more of pay in money so she will not know.” He meant cash.

  “Thank you,” she said. “That’s very kind of you.”

  “Please,” he said, finally looking at her. “You are a fine woman, a good woman. I think you are very, ah, fine. But my wife...” He shrugged with his hands, said, “I mean to you nothing disrespectful,” and returned to the back of the store.

  At three o’clock Barbara went to Mr. Seropian’s office to collect her paycheque, to which he’d added two weeks’ severance. He also gave her an additional two weeks’ pay in cash from the metal cash box he kept in the bottom drawer of his desk.

  She folded the cheque around the cash and zipped the thin packet into the pocket of her purse. “Do you want me to work till the end of the week?”

  “I am sorry,” Mr. Seropian said, shaking his head. “I wish you good.”

  When she left the store, she almost got on the wrong bus, the one that would have taken her east along Hastings to Burnaby. A hollow feeling of panic clawed at her. She’d been through this before, many times, but it had never frightened her quite so much as now. She had enough money to pay another month’s rent and that was it. She couldn’t afford to fall even one month behind. Maybe she wouldn’t be evicted right away, but it would be very hard to catch up. She could call Kenny or Ellie, she knew, but her son and daughter weren’t really any better off than she was. Kenny, thirty-two and manager of a Radio Shack store in Calgary, had two kids and a mortgage and he and his wife, Arlene, who worked part-time in a beauty salon, were barely getting by themselves. Ellen, thirty, was divorced with three young children and an ex-husband who didn’t make support payments. Barbara knew too well what raising a family on your own was like.

  The man who’d claimed to have been a friend of her husband’s, he’d offered to help her find a job. She wasn’t sure why, but she was uneasy about accepting his help. There was something about him that made her nervous, uncomfortable. Not that he’d put any conditions on his help. At least, not yet, she told herself. There were always strings attached. Nothing came for nothing. Nothing good, anyway. In any case, she had thrown away the slip of paper on which he’d written his telephone number. Maybe, though, if the trash hadn’t been taken out, she could still find it.

  There was someone else she could call, but she knew she could never bring herself to do it. He might have been willing to help her, for old time’s sake, but the price would be much too high.

  “Bill, have you got a minute?”

  “For you, Charlie, anytime. What is it?”

  “There’s something I think you need to see.”

  “Well, don’t just stand there with your mouth open. Show me.”

  “Yes, sir. These are copies of requisitions submitted over the last five months by Del Tilley. This one’s for video surveillance cameras, monitors, cabling, as well as for installation of same. Here’s one for motion sensors and infrared detectors, another for personal mobile communications devices, one for a digital camera and additional memory cards, and one for four microcomputers, networking hardware, and various software. They all have your signature.”

  “I see that.”

  “These are the purchase orders issued by the purchasing department, and these are the shipping documents and invoices from the supplier, a company called Advanced Security Systems.”

  “It’s a whack of money, I’ll grant you, but I approved Tilley’s proposal to upgrade security after that woman from accounting was assaulted in the garage and half a dozen cars were broken into and vandalized. Mine was one of them. So was yours, as I recall.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “So what’s the prob
lem?”

  “Well, as near as I can tell, very little, if any, of the equipment was actually delivered.”

  “Go on.”

  “I tried calling the supplier, but all I got was an automated call answering system that informed me all their representatives were busy and to either leave a message or wait on the line. It then put me on permanent hold.”

  “You didn’t leave a message, did you?”

  “No, of course not. I didn’t want to tip off whoever is behind this scheme that we’re on to him. And I think we both know who that is.”

  “Humph.”

  “Sir, I’m going to initiate an internal audit of the security department budget to see if there are any other discrepancies.”

  “Fine.”

  “I would also like to check out Advanced Security Systems, to see if it exists at all. I suspect, however, that it’s a fiction. And I think we should run a background check on Del Tilley.”

  “All right, do it.”

  “Perhaps Mr. Schumacher—”

  “No. He’s busy. Go outside. And don’t go through purchasing. Do it on your own.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Christ, how long did he think he could get away with this? And for what? Not much more than he takes home in a year, for crissake. What a bloody moron.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  On the way home from his errand in Burnaby, Shoe stopped by the False Creek Harbour Authority marina where he’d moored the Princess Pete. He’d stayed friends with Jimmy Young, the marina manager, who always seemed to be on the lookout for help. Shoe had spoken to Ms. Oswald in Hammond Industries’ personnel department, but the only jobs open required computer skills or accounting experience.

  Shoe and Jimmy jawed for a bit. Jimmy was enthusiastic when Shoe told him he’d decided to retire come the New Year. “I’ve been looking for a fishing buddy who doesn’t talk too much,” he said.

  “I don’t fish,” Shoe said.

  “Learning to fish is easier than learning to keep your mouth shut,” Jimmy said.

  “The reason I came by was to speak to you about a job.”

  “You seem to be a little unclear on the concept of retirement, my son.”

  “For a friend,” Shoe explained. “You’re always complaining about not being able to find office help. Are you still looking?”

  “Patsy seems to be working out okay,” Jimmy said, speaking up slightly for the benefit of the young woman sitting in front of an ancient IBM PC. The monitor bezel was patched with duct tape. “I could use some help in the store, though. Send your friend around.”

  “I’ll do that,” Shoe said. “Her name is Barbara Reese.” Jimmy gave Shoe a card and they shook hands.

  Shoe was five steps outside the door of the marina office when he turned around and went back inside. Jimmy’s eyebrows shot up.

  “You remember Patrick O’Neill?” Shoe said.

  “Sure. I remember him. Nice guy. Not much of a sailor, though. If you look hard you can still see where he rammed his Hunter into the dock. Haven’t seen him in, I dunno—” He frowned, scratching at his greying chin whiskers. “—two years about. Not since I helped him sell the Hunter.”

  “He was murdered on Monday.”

  “Damn.”

  Patsy looked up from the keyboard of her computer.

  “As I recall,” Shoe said, “the fellow who bought Patrick’s boat tried to renege on the sale, didn’t he?”

  “That’s right,” Jimmy said. “He claimed Patrick mis-represented the condition of the boat. He didn’t, though. He provided an inspection report and a complete maintenance history, including the repairs from the argument with the dock. The guy was just tryin’ to weasel out of the deal because his wife was divorcing him and he needed the cash. Patrick was willing to give him his money back and pay my commission out of his pocket, but I told him, don’t be an idiot. The guy ended up havin’ to sell her at a loss—the Hunter, not his wife—and split the proceeds with his ex. It wasn’t him that killed Patrick, was it?”

  “No, I’m sure it wasn’t,” Shoe said. He was snatching at straws.

  Jack wasn’t in when Shoe got home. It appeared that he’d finished painting the living room, though. The paint-spattered plastic drop cloths were neatly folded by the back door and the empty paint cans were stacked nearby. The brushes and rollers were drying on newspaper on the kitchen counter. There was a scrawled sticky-note on the kitchen table: “Out of paint.”

  Shoe made a ham and cheese sandwich, opened a bottle of mineral water, and ate at the kitchen table. After he cleaned up, he went upstairs, took a shower, shaved so he wouldn’t have to do it in the morning (his much-diluted Native ancestry had blessed him with a slow-growing beard), put Henryk Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3 on the stereo, and tried to read. He couldn’t concentrate. His attention kept sliding away from the words on the page. Putting the book aside, he closed his eyes and let himself be drawn into Dawn Upshaw’s haunting vocals. He woke up at nine-thirty to the sound of the front door closing, without any memory of having fallen asleep. A few seconds later January Jack Pine loomed in the doorway of his room and tapped on the doorframe.

  “You get my note?”

  “Yes,” Shoe said. “I’ll arrange a line of credit at the hardware store so you can pick up more paint, but I won’t be able to help much with the actual painting.”

  “’S’all right,” Jack said. “You change your mind about takin’ retirement?”

  “Not exactly. I’m just tying up some loose ends until the new year.”

  “Better ’n trippin’ over ’em. See you in the morning.”

  “Good night,” Shoe said as Jack went off down the hall.

  Shoe managed to read a few more paragraphs, then turned out the light and lay in the dark for a long time without sleeping.

  chapter six

  Friday, December 17

  The Municipality of Delta was an irregular pancake of land south of the main channel of the Fraser River. Largely farmland, and some of the most fertile in the province, it had been reclaimed from forest and marshland and was, as Bill Hammond was wont to say, “flat as piss on a plate.” Which was not surprising, since Delta was just that, an accumulation of millennia of silt in the mouth of the Fraser River.

  Ramona Ross lived on 53rd Street, just north of Ladner Trunk Road. Shoe had no trouble finding the address, a three-storey, wood-frame condominium apartment building in the traditional angular West Coast style of Arthur Erickson. He parked in one of the spaces designated for visitors and went into the vestibule. He keyed in the door code for R. Ross.

  “You’re early,” a woman answered sharply. “I’m not ready.”

  “Ramona Ross?”

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Joseph Schumacher. I—”

  “Oh,” she said. “I thought you were the taxi. How can I help you?”

  “I’d like to speak to you about Patrick O’Neill.”

  “Patrick O’Neill? In what regard?”

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” Shoe said, “but he’s dead.”

  “Oh, dear,” she said. “I’m leaving for the airport as soon as my taxi arrives.”

  “This will only take a minute,” Shoe said.

  “All right,” she said. “You’d better come up. Suite three on the second floor.” The door release hummed.

  Ramona Ross met him at the door of her apartment. She was a handsome, robust woman who looked to be in her late fifties but who, according to Sandra St. Johns’ printout, was sixty-eight. She had a smooth brow, high cheekbones, and sharp blue eyes behind a pair of slightly tinted wire-frame granny glasses. Her auburn-dyed hair was short and simply cut. Her handshake was firm and warm. She invited him in. A two-piece set of matching luggage stood in the small foyer and she was dressed for travelling in loose-fitting pleated trousers and a lightweight hiking jacket with a multitude of pockets. On her feet were sturdy Salomon trail shoes.

  “How awful about Mr. O’Neill,” she said.
She spoke softly and with slightly rounded vowels. “He was such a nice young man. Was it an automobile accident?”

  “No, ma’am,” Shoe said. “He was the victim of a violent crime.”

  “He was murdered, you mean?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Shot.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “Miss Ross—”

  “It’s Mrs. Ross,” she said.

  “Mrs. Ross,” Shoe said. “You and Patrick spent some time together last month, is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right. He took me to lunch on a couple of occasions when he and Ms. St. Johns were closing the plant where I worked. He also came to see me earlier this month. He was interested in the old days. Excuse me, are you with the police? Shouldn’t you show me your badge?”

  “I’m not the police,” Shoe replied. “I’m employed by Hammond Industries.”

  “Oh.”

  “What did you mean, he was interested in the old days?”

  “I used to know William Hammond, you see, a long time ago. Well, actually, it was Claire Powkowski I knew. She was Mr. Hammond’s business partner in the late forties and fifties. Before he married Elizabeth Lindell and merged his company with her father’s. She—”

  The telephone warbled, two short rings.

  “Oh, dear, that will be the taxi.” She picked up the telephone. “I’ll be right down,” she said. She hung up and turned to Shoe. “I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t have any more time to talk now.”

  “Can I help you with your luggage?”

  “That’s very kind of you.”

  As he carried her suitcases down the stairs, Ramona Ross asked, “When is the funeral?” Shoe said he wasn’t sure, Monday, probably, or Tuesday at the latest. “Oh, dear,” she said. “I shan’t be able to make it. It’s my mother’s ninetieth birthday and we’re taking her camping in Olympic National Park.”

  “I would like to know more about Claire Powkowski and ‘the old days’ myself,” Shoe said. “Perhaps I could drive you to the airport.” But the cabbie was already stowing her luggage in the trunk of the cab.