Hard Winter Rain

by Michael Blair

  “No,” she said. “I don’t want money. I—I called to ask if you know where Annie is.”

  “Who?”

  “Annie,” she said again. “Do you know where she is?”

  “No,” he said. “Of course not. It’s been thirty-five years, for crissake. How would I know where she is?”

  “I just thought you might have kept track of her, that’s all.”

  “Well, I didn’t,” he said. “Now, don’t call me again. Goodbye.” When he hung up the phone, his hand was shaking.

  At 2:45, Shoe parked in the visitors’ lot of Ramona Ross’s condominium in Ladner. He’d called her an hour ago and she’d agreed to see him at three o’clock. The sky overhead was grey and a fine rain was falling, but to the east the sky was a roiling wall of black as a winter storm moved down from the coastal mountains. He waited in the car until 2:55, then went into the foyer, keyed her code into the house phone, and announced himself. She buzzed him in and greeted him at the door of her apartment, dressed in tailored slacks, a bright green turtleneck sweater, and an appliquéd vest reminiscent of the 1960s.

  “It was such a shock to hear about Patrick,” she said when they were seated with a glass of sherry for her and a diet ginger ale for him. “He was such a nice young man, to die violently like that. And so close to the holidays. His wife must be devastated. I know what it’s like to lose a loved one. My husband, David, died in a car accident forty years ago. We’d been married just four years, but not a day goes by that I’m not reminded of him in one way or another.”

  She sipped her sherry, then said, “I never remarried. Not that I have any regrets. But I hope that Patrick’s wife—Victoria, isn’t it?—finds the strength to get on with her life. Patrick would want it, I’m sure. My David would have. And I did, in my own way. Life really is just a constant series of changes that we must adjust to, isn’t it?” She paused for a few seconds, then said, “You wanted to speak to me about Claire Powkowski and William Hammond. Was there something specific you wanted to know?”

  “How well did you know William Hammond?”

  “I didn’t, really. Not well, anyway. However, I knew Claire Powkowski quite well.”

  “You said Claire Powkowski was Hammond’s partner,” Shoe said. “When I asked him about her, though, he told me she’d just worked for him, answering phones and managing the office.”

  “She was more than just an employee,” Mrs. Ross said. “Much more. Yes, indeed.”

  “I’d be interested in anything you could tell me about her and William Hammond.”

  “Oh, goodness,” she said. “I’ll need more sherry.” She stood and went into the kitchen, returning a moment later with the sherry bottle. “I met Claire just after the war,” she said when she’d refilled her glass. “I was sixteen and working as a waitress in a waterfront diner where Claire was a regular. She was about the same age as my mother, but I liked her, and when it was quiet, we’d talk. I knew she’d been a prostitute during the war, and might still have been, but she wasn’t like the other prostitutes who came into the diner. She wasn’t as cheap-looking and she was much better spoken. She had some education, I think. Not a lot, but more than I did then. And she talked about the men she’d been with as though they were lovers or boyfriends rather than customers. She made being a prostitute sound romantic and glamorous. I learned the hard way it wasn’t.” Colour rose in her cheeks. “Fortunately, I learn quickly.”

  “How did she and Hammond meet?” Shoe asked.

  “I’m not certain how they met,” she said. “But it was during the war. They were involved in some black market shenanigans, I think. After the war Claire helped him purchase some army surplus lorries and they went into the cartage business together. They hired veterans to drive, William—she called him Billy—handled sales, and she took care of the books. At first Claire was a silent partner, but later she took a more active role. They did quite well. Claire had contacts in the military as well as the city and provincial governments. Former clients, I presume.”

  “Was Hammond’s relationship with Claire strictly business?”

  “Gracious, no. Despite her profession and the difference in their ages—she was twelve or thirteen years older than he—they were lovers from the time they met till the mid-fifties.”

  “Was it Claire who got you the job with the gasket company?”

  “Yes. In 1949 she encouraged me to enrol in secretarial school. She even helped with the tuition. By then Hammond Trucking and Warehousing had a fleet of forty trucks and Claire was working full-time in the office, managing the day-to-day operations. After I graduated, she pulled some strings and got me a secretarial job at Royal Gasket, which William had just purchased. That’s how I met my husband, David. He was the former owner’s son and stayed on as general manager. We married in 1953, but he and his parents died in a car accident in 1957.”

  “Did you keep in touch with Claire?”

  “Oh, yes, we saw each other quite regularly, even after I was married.”

  If Claire Powkowski had been Ramona Ross’s moth-er’s age, Shoe thought, there was a chance she was still alive, but when he asked, Mrs. Ross said, “Goodness, no. Didn’t I tell you? Claire died in 1959. At first the police thought it was suicide, a former prostitute afraid of growing old and living in poverty, but when they learned that she owned the apartment building she lived in, they took a closer look and determined that she’d in fact been murdered. Someone had hanged her from the transom in the doorway of her kitchen and then tried to make it look like suicide.”

  “Was the case ever solved?”

  She shook her head. “No, it never was.”

  “Did the police have any suspects?”

  “Two. One was an office supply salesman named Martin Carruthers that Claire had gone out with a couple of times. He was out of town at the time of her murder, though, at a sales conference in Seattle.”

  “And the other?” Shoe asked, a cold feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.

  “Bill Hammond. But he also had an alibi. He was supposedly having dinner with Raymond Lindell the night Claire died.”

  “You don’t believe his alibi?”

  “I have no proof, of course, but I think Raymond Lindell may have lied.”

  “Then you believe William Hammond killed her?”

  “I think it’s very likely that he did, yes.”

  “Why?”

  “By 1958 William owned more than a dozen other companies in addition to Hammond Trucking and Warehousing, from small manufacturers, like Royal Gasket, to car dealerships, print shops, building supply companies, shopping centres, apartment buildings, and movie theatres. But he’d expanded too quickly and was badly overextended. Then he met Raymond Lindell and his daughter Elizabeth at a Chamber of Commerce New Year’s party. Elizabeth wasn’t much of a catch, according to Claire. ‘Plain as a paper sack,’ is the way she put it. William wouldn’t have looked at her even once if her father hadn’t been one of the richest men in the province. Their engagement was announced on May first, 1959. Two days later the merger of Hammond Holdings and Lindell Enterprises was announced.

  “Claire was furious about the engagement. Although they hadn’t been lovers for three or four years, she still loved him. She told me she was going to give him an ultimatum: either call off the engagement or she’d tell Raymond Lindell exactly what kind of man his daughter was marrying. I tried to talk her out of it, of course. No good would come of it, I told her. But once Claire got it into her head to do something, there wasn’t much that anyone could do to stop her. I should have tried harder. Two weeks later she was dead.”

  “So you think Hammond killed her to prevent her from revealing their relationship to Raymond Lindell?”

  “Raymond Lindell was a very pious and moralistic man,” she said. “His stores didn’t sell cosmetics, playing cards, books, or music, except for Bibles and hymns. He’d have sooner sent his daughter to a convent than let her marry a man who consorted with prostitutes.”
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  “He was also a canny businessman,” Shoe said. “He may have been pragmatic enough to set aside his moral principles in exchange for a much expanded empire and the possibility of an heir.”

  “Perhaps,” Mrs. Ross agreed. “But the question is, did William Hammond think so?”

  “Did you ever actually meet him?” Shoe asked.

  “Yes, on a number of occasions. The last time was at Claire’s funeral. I accused him to his face of killing her, but he just laughed at me.”

  “Did you tell the police of your suspicions?”

  “Yes, of course, but they didn’t believe me. It was my word against that of two of the most influential men in the city.”

  “How did Patrick react when you told him about this?”

  “I’m not sure he believed me, either,” she replied. “Any more than you do. That’s all right. I don’t blame you for being skeptical. I’m not sure I believe it myself sometimes.”

  “Was Patrick only interested in what you could tell him about Hammond or Claire Powkowski?”

  “He asked me about some of the companies William had acquired during the fifties, but the only one I was able to tell him anything about was Royal Gasket.”

  “Did he speak with any of the other employees?”

  “Not about Claire. No one else at the plant knew her. Or William, for that matter, except perhaps as the absentee owner.” She paused, sipped her sherry. After a moment of pensive silence, she looked at Shoe through the tinted lenses of her round glasses. “William Hammond has built himself a nice little empire,” she said. “It wouldn’t have amounted to a hill of beans, though, if it hadn’t been for Claire.”

  Shoe stood.

  “Did William Hammond kill Patrick?” she asked as she walked him to the door.

  “I don’t think so,” Shoe said. From what Ramona Ross had told him, Hammond might have had a motive to kill Claire Powkowski, but there didn’t seem to be a credible reason for him to have killed Patrick. Or perhaps Shoe just hadn’t found it yet.

  “Please extend my sympathies to Patrick’s wife,” Ramona Ross said.

  “I will,” Shoe said. He thanked her for her time, shook her hand, and left.

  It was raining hard at six o’clock when Shoe parked around the block from Barbara Reese’s apartment building. Unable to find his umbrella, he was thoroughly soaked by the time he reached the narrow entrance beside the Asian grocery. A long-legged Asian whore in spike heels, net pantyhose, and a black vinyl microskirt stood in the shelter of the doorway. She smiled hopefully, opening her short faux fur jacket to give him a brief look at her surgically enhanced breasts, barely contained by a scanty tube top. He smiled back at her. She shrugged, opened her umbrella, and moved off through the rain.

  In the vestibule, Shoe shook the rain from his coat and pressed the button above Barbara’s mail slot. Almost immediately, the door release buzzed. He removed his coat and hat as he climbed the stairs to the top floor.

  She wasn’t waiting on the landing this time, but when he got to her door, he found it ajar. He knocked and she called, “Come in.” He went in and closed the door behind him. The apartment was warm and rich with the aroma of tomato and garlic and oregano. A large pasta pot steamed on the range in the kitchen alcove.

  “Right on time,” she said, drying her hands on the hem of a bright, flower-patterned apron. She untied the apron strings, removed the apron carefully over her head and hung it over the back of a kitchen chair. Her hair was up, bringing out the strength of her features, and her eyes were made up, heightening their rectangular look. She wore a loose-fitting pale blue blouse of some fine, silky material, the top buttons open to reveal the dark cleft between her breasts. Her straight grey skirt ended two inches above her knees. Her shoes were flat and sensible.

  She relieved him of his wet coat and hat, hanging them on hooks by the door where they would drip into a boot tray. He offered his hand. She took it and held it as she stood on her toes and kissed the corner of his mouth.

  “I’m glad you could make it,” she said.

  “It’s very kind of you,” he said.

  “I hope you won’t be disappointed. I’m not the best cook in the world.”

  “I’m sure I won’t be.”

  She gestured toward the kitchen table, which was set for two, with red-checked placemats and red paper napkins. A candle guttered in a wax-encrusted Chianti bottle. Without asking, she poured two glasses of red wine from a bottle on the table. She picked up one of the glasses and handed it to him.

  “Here’s to new friends,” she said, picking up the other glass.

  He raised his glass and together they sipped. The wine was rough and slightly acidic, but he’d tasted far worse.

  “I hope it’s all right,” she said. “The man in the store told me it went well with spaghetti.”

  “It’s very good,” Shoe said diplomatically.

  “Dinner’s almost ready,” she said, placing her glass on the table. “I just have to do the pasta. It’s fresh, so it will only take a couple of minutes. Store-boughten fresh,” she added. “I don’t want you to think I made it myself.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” he asked.

  “No, thank you. Sit down. Please.”

  He sat at the table while she dropped four nests of pasta into the big pot. “I borrowed this from my neighbour,” she said. “It’s even got a built-in strainer. I usually just do pasta in a saucepan.”

  Shoe had the uncomfortable feeling that she was trying hard to impress him, but there was a charming genuineness to it that seemed remarkable, considering all she’d been through in her life.

  “I’m pleased that things worked out for you at the marina,” he said.

  “I can’t tell you how grateful I am,” she said, looking at him through mascaraed lashes as a dark flush crept up her throat. She took the apron off the back of the kitchen chair and wiped her hands with it before hanging it from the handle of the fridge door. “The job is just, um, probationary right now,” she added. “To see how I fit in.”

  “I’m sure you’ll fit in just fine,” he said.

  “I hope so. Your friend was such a gentleman, too. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been made to feel like the manager of some restaurant or bar was doing me a favour by hiring me to stand on my feet eight hours a day for minimum wage and a share of the tip pool. Mr. Young didn’t make me feel like that at all. He made me feel like I was doing him a favour by agreeing to work there. And he didn’t look at me the way so many men I’ve worked for have.” A timer rattled. She said, “Excuse me,” and went to the stove.

  As Shoe watched her drain the pasta and transfer it to a large bowl, he recalled an occasion not long ago when Jimmy Young had confessed in his cups to having gone almost two years without sex.

  “Is that all,” Shoe had said.

  “Not for lack of opportunity,” Jimmy had replied. “It positively abounds around boats. I just never seemed to be in the right place at the right time, or was too drunk or stupid or busy to recognize when a woman was interested. And, in retrospect, there were a few. I was trapped,” he’d concluded, “in a sexual singularity.”

  Shoe hoped Barbara wouldn’t be too disappointed when Jimmy made a pass at her, which he would, sooner or later, if the signs were right. Her job wouldn’t depend on it, though.

  Dinner was, to his guilty surprise, excellent. The sauce was spicy, the pasta al dente, and the Caesar salad crisp with just the right amount of garlic in the dressing. Even the wine worked, although he refused a second glass.

  “I’m out of practice,” she said when he complimented her. “It’s been a long time since I cooked for anyone but myself.”

  Dessert was store-bought cannoli and coffee. “Instant, I’m afraid,” she said. “But when I was cleaning I found a bottle of cognac someone gave me. Would you like some?”

  “No, thank you,” he said.

  “Do you mind if I do? This is a special occasion, after all.”

 
“Please, go ahead.”

  She filled his coffee cup, then stood on a step stool to reach a bottle of Remi Martin down from a kitchen cupboard. He couldn’t help but admire her legs, straight and strong and, judging from the pinkish sheen, freshly shaved. She rinsed her wineglass at the sink and returned to the table. She poured an inch of cognac into her wineglass.

  “Cheers,” she said, leaning toward him and touching the rim of her glass to his coffee cup. She sipped and made a face. “Yew, I’m not sure I like this.” She sipped again. “It tastes like tar. Is it supposed to? Maybe it’s gone bad. I’ve had it for a while.” He didn’t know if cognac could go bad. She took another tiny but determined sip. “I just need to get used to it,” she said.

  Dessert finished, they moved into the living room. She sat on the overstuffed sofa, shoes off, legs tucked under her. He sat in the mismatched easy chair. She sipped her cognac and smiled at him. He smiled back.

  “It isn’t bad, once you get used to it,” she said. Her expression suddenly became serious. “Before I get too tipsy, though, I have a confession to make.”

  He waited, a little apprehensively. He wasn’t sure why.

  “I lied to you the other night,” she said. She hesitated and he waited some more. “I’m not sure how to tell you this,” she said. “Or even if I should.” She blushed deeply. “I—I want you to like me.” He started to say that she didn’t have to tell him anything that made her uncomfortable, but she shook her head vigorously, cutting him off. “No, don’t,” she said. She took a breath. “Annie, my first baby? She wasn’t Randy’s. She was Bill’s.”

  Shoe had suspected as much. Nevertheless, he said, “You’re certain?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I took precautions with Randy right from the start. Other than the first time with Bill, there was only one other time we had, um, unprotected sex. It was three or four months after I started seeing him. I hadn’t heard from him in a couple of weeks, but one night I was working late to finish typing up a report when he came into the office where I worked and asked me to have a drink with him. I told him Randy was waiting for me, but he just said, ‘Let him wait.’ I should have said no, but I didn’t. I told you I was stupid. Anyway, I went into his office with him and as soon as the door was closed he practically raped me.”