Hard Winter Rain

by Michael Blair

  He didn’t reply, but all expression went out of his face.

  “According to Ramona Ross,” Shoe went on, “Claire Powkowski was your business partner before you merged with Lindell Enterprises. Is that right?”

  “She worked for me,” Hammond replied. “But she wasn’t my business partner. She just ran the office and answered the phones.”

  “It may be nothing,” Shoe said. “But I’d like to follow up on it. I’m supposed to meet with Ramona Ross on Tuesday.”

  Hammond shook his head. “It’s ancient history,” he said. “None of it has anything to do with Patrick’s death.”

  “How can you be sure?” Shoe said. “Patrick was killed barely a month after speaking to Ramona Ross about Claire Powkowski. And you.”

  Hammond’s expression was stony and his voice was hard. “Are you telling me you think I had Patrick killed?”

  “No,” Shoe said. “But he may have been killed because of something he’d recently learned about you or your past.”

  “And you think I know what it is.”

  “Do you?”

  “No,” Hammond said. “There’s nothing to know.”

  “In which case,” Shoe said, “there’s no reason why I shouldn’t continue with my investigation.”

  “You’re talking like a cop now,” Hammond said. “But you’re not a cop, are you? You’re my employee.”

  “When you asked me to do this,” Shoe said, “I told you that you’d better be ready to see it through to the end.”

  “Well now I’m asking you to drop it,” Hammond said. “You’re poking into things that are none of your goddamned business. Things that have nothing to do with Patrick’s death.”

  Shoe shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  “Goddamnit,” Hammond snapped, standing up, face tight with anger. “I’m ordering you to drop it.”

  Shoe stood with him, towering over him. “And if I don’t?”

  “You can forget about our deal.”

  “Do what you have to,” Shoe said.

  “Fine,” Hammond said with a heavy sigh of finality. “If you show your face around the office, I’ll have Del Tilley’s goons throw you out on your ass.” He stamped to the study door and opened it. “Now get out.”

  Shoe paused in the doorway. “By the way,” he said, “I had dinner with your ‘Miss Rose’ last night.”

  “Who?”

  “‘Miss Rose.’ Barbara Reese.”

  Hammond blinked. “Really?” he said. “Well, next time you see her, remember me to her, won’t you?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me your mistress was Randy Jenks’ wife?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It just didn’t seem like a good idea at the time. Besides, what difference would it have made?”

  “I killed her husband, damnit,” Shoe said in a burst of anger. Hammond raised a ragged eyebrow in surprise. Shoe took a breath, reigned himself in. “You didn’t want me to find her. Why?”

  “I didn’t give a damn one way or another whether you found her or not,” Hammond replied with a shrug. “I still don’t.” He was silent for a moment, eyes unfocused, expression pensive, then he looked at Shoe. “Did you tell her it was you who killed her husband?”

  “She worked it out,” Shoe said.

  “Humph,” Hammond grunted. “Well, I hope you’re both very happy.” He swung the door shut in Shoe’s face.

  On the way out, Shoe met Abby in the front hall. “Have a happy Christmas, Joe,” she said with a smile.

  “How’d it go this afternoon?” Kit asked as she poured more wine into Victoria’s glass.

  “God, Kit,” Victoria said. “It was awful.”

  It was not quite eight o’clock in the evening. Victoria and Kit were in the dining room of the Salmon House on the Hill in West Vancouver, sitting at a table next to the broad windows overlooking the vacant terrace. A thin fog hung in the dark limbs of the pine and fir trees beyond the edge of the terrace. They had just ordered.

  Victoria had been exhausted after spending most of the afternoon at the funeral home with Patrick’s mother and older brothers, and when Kit had suggested they go out for dinner somewhere she’d almost said no. She was glad now she hadn’t. She’d been cooped up long enough in that house.

  “I didn’t expect it to be fun,” Victoria said. “But it was all I could do to keep from screaming. I don’t understand these people, Kit, how they could spend the whole day there. It’s as if Patrick’s death is the most important thing that’s ever happened to them. It almost made me ill, watching them wallow in the sympathy of perfect strangers.”

  “That’s a little cruel, don’t you think?” Kit said.

  “I suppose it is,” Victoria said, sighing. “But, god help me, I just can’t find it in me to like them.”

  “You don’t have to like them,” Kit said. “Have a little compassion, though. They’ve suffered a loss too, you know.”

  Victoria sipped her wine and pretended to look out the window, but she was actually studying Kit’s dark reflection in the glass. Something subtle had changed between them in the last few days. Kit seemed to be slightly more assertive, even territorial, almost bossy. Or maybe she had always been that way and it was Victoria who had changed, in a way she could not put her finger on. She supposed, given the circumstances, that some kind of change in her and in her relationship with Kit, or anyone else, for that matter, was inevitable. As Bill had reminded her, someone had always taken care of her. It was a long list. Her mother. Her father. The doctors. The shrinks. Her aunt Jane. Bill Hammond. Joe Shoe. Patrick. Now who was going to take care of her? Kit? Maybe it was time she learned to take care of herself.

  “A dollar for your thoughts,” Kit said.

  “They aren’t worth that much,” Victoria replied. “Even with inflation.”

  “All right,” Kit said. “I’ll use the direct approach then. What were you thinking about?”

  “The future, I suppose,” Victoria replied.

  “Have you thought about what you’re going to do?”

  “Not really.”

  “How would you like to work for me?”

  “I’m not sure it would be a good idea, Kit,” Victoria replied. “It’s an interesting offer, but no offence, do you really think we’d stay friends long if you were my boss?”

  “No offence taken,” Kit said with a shrug. “Partners, then. You can run the retail end of things while I handle the contract work. I’m getting almost more than I can handle as it is.”

  “What about Hugh?” Victoria asked.

  “He’d work for both of us. What do you say? Could be fun.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Victoria said.

  “Good,” Kit said. “Meanwhile, I’m gonna go grab a quick smoke, if that’s all right. Don’t go anywhere.”

  When Kit had gone, Victoria poured more wine into her glass. “Don’t go anywhere,” Kit had said. Not much chance of that, Victoria thought. She hadn’t been going anywhere her whole life.

  chapter ten

  Monday, December 20

  High white clouds raced eastward through a sky scrubbed clean by a westerly breeze and the temperature had already reached the mid teens. Shoe picked Muriel up in front of the office at ten and together they drove across the Lions Gate Bridge to the funeral home on Marine Drive in West Vancouver. Following a short, nondenominational ceremony, presided over by the funeral director and attended by Victoria, Patrick’s mother and brothers, plus Shoe and Muriel, Patrick’s plain grey casket was rolled out the side doors and loaded into the waiting hearse.

  In the parking lot, Victoria introduced Shoe and Muriel to Patrick’s family. Shoe and Muriel expressed their condolences.

  “Thank you,” Patrick’s mother said. She was a plump, grey-haired woman with a worried expression that tugged down on the corners of her eyes.

  Patrick’s brothers, Kevin and Brian, simply nodded as they shook hands with Shoe and Muriel.

  “May I ride with you?” Victo
ria asked Shoe as the O’Neills climbed into the limousine for the drive to the crematorium.

  “I thought Sean Rémillard would be here,” Shoe said as he opened the car door for her.

  “He couldn’t make it,” Victoria replied. “But he told me he’d be at the memorial service this afternoon.”

  There was another short ceremony at the crematorium, also presided over by the funeral director. It took place in the austere, airy columbarium, the walls of which were lined floor-to-ceiling with hundreds of small, glass-fronted niches containing metal boxes or urns, some fancy, some plain. A number of niches held framed photographs, presumably of the deceased. Some of them were heartbreakingly young. After the ceremony, the funeral director said, “Take as much time as you need to say your goodbyes,” and left them alone. Patrick’s mother knelt by Patrick’s casket in silent prayer while her surviving sons waited, restless with mixed impatience and self-consciousness.

  Outside, as Patrick’s mother and brothers climbed back into the idling limousine, Victoria invited Shoe and Muriel to join her for lunch at the house. They accepted.

  “Will Patrick’s family be joining us?” Muriel asked.

  “No,” Victoria replied with obvious relief. “They’re having lunch at their hotel with Sean and Charlotte.”

  During lunch, Shoe asked Victoria about Kit’s private detective.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Victoria said. “It wasn’t a private detective. It was just some woman who was trying to hit on Kit. Besides, Patrick wouldn’t have hired a private detective to spy on me. He’d’ve asked you to do it.”

  Barbara Reese stood in front of the counter of Seropian’s dry cleaning store in her coat and beret, closed umbrella in her hands. Mrs. Seropian glared at her from behind the counter as her husband counted a thin stack of twenty-dollar bills out onto the counter. He added five tens, a five and some change. It all but cleaned out the cashbox and the register and Barbara felt bad for him, but she scooped up the money, shoved it into a zippered pocket of her purse, and zipped the pocket closed.

  “Thank you,” she said. She handed him the bad cheque and left the store.

  The sun shone on the street in front of the store and quite a few people were in shirtsleeves or shorts. She had brought her umbrella but was glad she didn’t need it; another rib had broken and it was pretty nearly useless. It didn’t want to stay closed now. A man with very short hair and ears that stuck straight out from the side of his head watched her as she fiddled with the thing. She got it to stay closed, finally, and was about to head for the bus stop when the door of the dry cleaning store opened and Mr. Seropian stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  “Take,” he said gruffly, and shoved a wad of crumpled bills into her hand. Before she could say anything, he ducked back into the store.

  Barbara watched through the window as Mrs. Seropian shrieked at her husband and waved her arms in the air. Then, to Barbara’s total astonishment, Mr. Seropian cocked his right arm back like a baseball pitcher winding up to throw and slapped his wife across the face. The blow landed with a smack Barbara could hear outside, even over the sound of the traffic, and with enough force to make the woman stagger backwards against the counter. Rubbing the palm of his hand on his shirt, Mr. Seropian disappeared into the back of the store.

  Barbara added the bills to the money Mr. Seropian had given her to replace the cheque. When she counted it later, she discovered that he had given her another $120.

  Shoe, Muriel, and Victoria arrived at the funeral home at 1:45. The service was scheduled to begin at two o’clock. Shoe parked between Abby Hammond’s Audi and Bill Hammond’s Lincoln Town Car. Ed Davage sat by the front of the Town Car, on the low concrete wall that surrounded the lot, reading a paperback. As Victoria got out of the car, the former linebacker stood and said, “Please accept my deepest sympathy for your loss, Mrs. O’Neill.”

  “Thank you,” Victoria replied.

  Inside, Shoe took Muriel’s and Victoria’s coats and hung them on the portable coat rack by the entrance to the chapel.

  “I should go in,” Victoria said, but she made no move to enter the chapel. She was wearing a knee-length black skirt and a matching double-breasted black jacket with wide lapels. Against the dark cloth, the flesh of her throat was very pale. Her face, in spite of makeup, looked dry and drawn.

  The front door opened and a man and woman came in. The man was slim, of medium height, and dressed in a long camel-hair coat. He wore gloves but no hat. His hair was carefully styled and still neat despite the breeze. His teeth were perfect as he smiled at Victoria.

  “Victoria,” he said warmly, putting his gloved hands on the sides of Victoria’s shoulders and leaning in to kiss her firmly on both cheeks.

  “Sean,” Victoria replied, turning her head to receive the kisses.

  He stood back and pulled off his gloves while Victoria touched cheeks with the woman, murmuring, “Charlotte, good of you to come.”

  Turning to Shoe and Muriel, Victoria introduced Sean and Charlotte Rémillard.

  “My condolences,” Shoe said as he shook hands with Rémillard. His handshake was confident and quick, practiced and professionally impersonal.

  Charlotte’s handshake was cool and tentative. She smiled distantly. “How do you do?” she said.

  Charlotte Rémillard was almost as tall as her husband. She wasn’t exactly pretty, Shoe thought, but as Constable Worth had said, she was attractive, her looks marred only somewhat by a slightly smallish mouth.

  “I’d better get inside and apologize to my aunt for missing lunch,” Rémillard said as he helped Charlotte off with her coat. Under it she wore a simple but elegant silk jacket and a modestly long skirt, cunningly designed to make her look slimmer than she was.

  As Rémillard was hanging the coats on the rack, the door to the chapel opened and a dark-suited attendant announced, “The service is about to begin.”

  Shoe and Muriel sat in the second row, behind Victoria, Patrick’s mother and brothers, and Sean and Charlotte Rémillard. The memorial service was short, yet again presided over by the funeral director, who confessed he had never known Patrick O’Neill but had no doubt he was a good man who would be deeply missed by friends and family alike. Shoe had thought that perhaps Sean Rémillard would get up and say a few words about his cousin, but he didn’t. Neither did anyone else.

  At the conclusion of the service, the director nodded to an attendant, who pressed a button on a portable CD player. Shoe heard far-off church bells and distant wind, followed by a sombre organ introduction. The director took a framed portrait of Patrick from atop the empty bier and presented it to Patrick’s mother. To the accompaniment of the swelling art-rock anthem, Shoe and Muriel followed Patrick’s family up the aisle.

  Victoria fell back, leaned toward Shoe, and whispered, “What is that they’re playing?”

  “Elton John,” he whispered back. “‘Funeral for a Friend.’”

  “Well, at least it isn’t that god-awful thing he sang at Princess Diana’s funeral. Patrick threw away all his Elton John tapes after that.”

  In the foyer, Shoe caught sight of Sean Rémillard as he helped Charlotte into her coat. He already had his own coat on. Shoe moved to intercept them at the door.

  “Are you coming to Patrick’s wake?” Shoe asked him.

  “No,” Rémillard said. “I’ve got an interview with the CBC.” He mimed hitting himself in the forehead with the palm of his hand. “I said we would talk, didn’t I? Look, call me later,” he added, handing Shoe a card. “We’re staying at the West End condo.” Then he and Charlotte went out the door.

  Shoe rejoined Victoria and Muriel. Charles Merigold and his wife Evelyn came out of the chapel, followed by Bill and Abby Hammond. Merigold and his wife offered their condolences. Hammond looked tired, skin sallow, sagging black half-circles under his eyes. Abby kissed Victoria on the cheek and murmured condolences. Victoria stiffened as Hammond approached, but he only offered his hand. She took it.

&
nbsp; “Call me if you need anything,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said coolly.

  Hammond nodded curtly at Shoe, then he and his wife left.

  Mrs. O’Neill approached, an unhappy look on her face. “They were supposed to play ‘Candle in the Wind’,” she said to Victoria.

  Victoria coughed, hand over her mouth. Clearing her throat, she said, “I thought the selection was quite appropriate. More so than an ode to Marilyn Monroe.”

  “Marilyn Monroe?” Mrs. O’Neill said, brow knitting. “It was Princess Diana’s song.”

  Victoria rode to the house with Shoe and Muriel while Patrick’s mother and brothers took their final ride in the funeral home limousine.

  Del Tilley watched from his car as the woman boarded the bus at the corner near the dry cleaning store. The bus pulled away from the stop and Tilley followed. Tailing subjects on city buses was tricky but not that difficult, as long as you didn’t mind pissing off other drivers. Tilley didn’t mind that at all.

  The little drama in front of the dry cleaning store had amused him. He wondered what it had been all about. He also wondered who the woman was and why Schumacher was so interested in her. Surely she wasn’t his girlfriend. Schumacher might not be the sharpest pencil in the box, but the woman was a slattern, not Schumacher’s type at all. He liked them snooty, like that stuck-up bitch Muriel Yee. Tilley would have gone into the dry cleaning store and run a little scam on the operators to get her name, but he hadn’t wanted to lose her. Not that it really mattered. He’d followed Schumacher on Friday and knew where she lived. He didn’t know which apartment, but that wouldn’t be hard to find out. She didn’t appear to be heading home, though.

  Although she changed buses once, Tilley had no trouble staying with her. She finally disembarked at the entrance to Granville Island, where she asked directions from a couple on the sidewalk before setting off along the seawall toward the Burrard Street Bridge. Tilley parked illegally in the small lot of a marine supply company on Fir and set out after her, easily catching up with her but keeping his distance. He hadn’t really intended to let her see him outside the dry cleaning store and he didn’t want to risk letting her see him again. At least not yet.