Hard Winter Rain

by Michael Blair

  Why hadn’t the central fire detection system gone off? Shoe wondered. For that matter, the house also had a state-of-the-art intruder alarm system, installed a few months ago, which hadn’t gone off either.

  He heard the sound again, louder, and the vibration through the floor was stronger. The surface of the pool shimmered beneath the blanket of smoke.

  “Hello,” he shouted, voice hoarse from the smoke. “Is anyone here? Abby?”

  He heard a faint cry, followed by another thud, not so heavy this time. He heard the cry again. It sounded like someone calling for help.

  Holding the collar of his coat over his mouth and nose, eyes watering, he made his way through the smoke to the door to the dressing room.

  “Abby!” he shouted.

  There was a muffled response, barely audible. “Is someone there? I’m in the sauna. Help!”

  He reached for the door handle, but even before his fingers touched it, he felt the heat. Gingerly, he placed his hand flat again the door, then quickly removed it. It was almost too hot to touch. Smoke poured from under the door, coiling wraithlike around his legs.

  He remembered seeing a fire extinguisher during an earlier visit, but couldn’t recall where. At the far end of the pool, though, there was a green garden hose rolled onto a portable carrier, used, he presumed, to hose down the pool deck and water the plantings. He ran to it. The hose was connected to a wall faucet. He twisted the tap, opening it fully. The free end of the hose whipped as water gushed from it, the metal pistol-grip nozzle banging against the tiled pool deck. He grabbed the flailing nozzle and ran back to the door to the dressing room, the hose unrolling behind him.

  The dressing room door opened inward. Adjusting the spray to wide, he directed it at the door, then reared back and kicked the door open. Smoke and flame billowed out, a ferocious heat searing his face. Protecting his face with his coat, getting as close as he could, he tightened the spray and played it back and forth through the doorway. The fire seemed to absorb the pitiful stream as if it were nothing. Slowly, though, the flame and heat subsided and he was able to move through the doorway into the dressing room.

  The source of the fire was a pile of broken wicker furniture that had been stacked against the cedar-strip door to the sauna. The wicker hissed and steamed as Shoe hosed it down. In a few minutes, the fire was all but extinguished. The room was still stiflingly hot.

  “Abby,” Shoe called. The cedar strips of the door were charred and the ceiling was smoke-blackened, but miraculously the fire hadn’t spread to the structure.

  “Joe, is that you?” Abby Hammond shouted, voice muted by the insulated door. “Jesus, get me out of here, will you?”

  Shoe kicked the charred furniture aside. Smoke and ash billowed up around him. Protecting his hand with the sleeve of his coat, he pulled on the door handle, but the door wouldn’t budge. He looked down. A blunt wedge of splintered wood had been jammed under the thick door. The wood had come from one of the smashed wicker chairs. A fire extinguisher lay on the floor by the far wall, red cylinder dented. It had likely been used to hammer the makeshift wedge tight. The thudding had been Abby trying to open the door, but her efforts had only jammed the wedge tighter.

  Shoe used the fire extinguisher to work the wedge loose. When he got it out and opened the door, Abby burst out of the sauna and into his arms. She was naked and drenched in perspiration. Her skin was flushed and she seemed unnaturally warm to the touch.

  “Jesus god,” she sobbed, clinging to him, gasping. “Oh, Jesus.”

  He held her for a few seconds until her breathing slowed, then said, “Let’s get you covered.” She seemed surprised that she was naked, crossed her arms over her breasts. He walked her out into the solarium, where he found a beach robe on a lounge beside the pool and handed it to her. As she put it on he saw bruises on her shoulders. Her left cheek was also bruised and her left eye was blackened and swelled almost shut.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Del Tilley,” she said. “He killed Mrs. Rodriguez. He tried to kill me, too, but I think I was stronger than he expected. And it probably distracted him that I didn’t have any clothes on.” She took a breath. “I was swimming when I heard Mrs. R screaming and ran into the kitchen just in time to see him kill her. God, there was so much blood. Then he came after me, but I fought him off and ran in here and locked myself in the sauna. He tried to break the door down, but it opens outward and there’s a big barrel bolt on the inside, so he locked me in, I don’t know how. I tried and tried to kick the door open, but I couldn’t. Then the door started to get too hot.”

  Shoe looked at Abby’s feet. Through the wet soot he could see they were swollen and bloody. He sat her down on the lounge.

  “How long were you in there?” Shoe asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  It couldn’t have been too long, he thought, or she’d have suffocated as the fire sucked the oxygen out of the small room.

  “Jesus,” Abby said, stiffening, panic rising in her voice, “he’s not still here, is he?”

  “No,” Shoe said.

  “Bill?” she said.

  “He’s in the study,” Shoe said gently.

  “Is he—is he dead?”

  “I’m afraid so,” he said.

  She grasped Shoe’s arm. “I want to see him,” she said.

  He helped her to her feet, then supported her through the kitchen, where she averted her eyes from the housekeeper’s body, and into Bill’s study. She knelt by her husband’s body, gaudy beach robe wrapped round her shoulders, and wept.

  Shoe called 911 from the phone on Hammond’s desk, requesting the police, the fire department, and paramedics for Abby. Abby stood as he hung up.

  “I think we should wait in the living room,” he said.

  “Would it be all right if I got dressed?”

  “Certainly.”

  She looked around the study. “The safe’s been opened,” she said, pointing toward the bookshelves behind the desk. A half a dozen books had been set aside, revealing the open door of a small safe recessed into the wall. Shoe hadn’t noticed it when he’d found Hammond’s body. He hadn’t even known that the room contained a safe.

  “What did he keep in it?” he asked.

  “Not much,” she said. “A little money, a couple of thousand dollars maybe, and some personal items. Old photographs, his father’s watch, his mother’s wedding ring. God, is that what he was killed for?”

  “I don’t know,” Shoe replied. He didn’t think it was, though.

  Abby hobbled out of the study, leaning on his arm, her feet leaving bloody tracks on the carpeting.

  “Can you manage the stairs?” he asked her.

  “I think so, thanks.” She went up the stairs, leaning heavily on the banister.

  The uniformed cops arrived first, a serious young Chinese constable and a weary, overweight senior constable who sucked in his gut as soon as he saw Abby. The cops kept Shoe and Abby apart as they took preliminary statements. The paramedics arrived, close on the heels of the fire department. Abby was working on her third straight vodka on the rocks by then. The paramedics examined her and cleaned and bandaged her injuries, which were pronounced minor. They attended Shoe’s burns, which were superficial but nevertheless painful.

  Then came Sergeant Matthias and Detective Constable Worth, the medical examiner, and the crime scene investigators. The uniformed cops filled Matthias and Worth in while Shoe and Abby waited in the living room. Matthias’ face darkened with anger as he listened. Worth’s face was unreadable. After thanking the uniformed cops, the detectives walked over to where Shoe and Abby waited.

  “Come with me,” Matthias said to Shoe.

  Worth sat beside Abby on the sofa. Shoe followed Matthias into the hall. Through the door of the study, Shoe saw the squat, balding ME leaning over Hammond’s body, hands clasped behind his back. A photo strobe popped, the capacitor recharging with a high-pitched whine, then popped again.


  “All right,” Matthias said. “You want to tell me what’s going on? Who’s this Tilley character?”

  “He’s Hammond Industries’ head of security.”

  “Security? That explains how he was able to disarm the alarm system. Does he carry?”

  “I doubt it. He’s very proud of his martial arts prowess.”

  “And yet Mrs. Hammond was able to fight him off.”

  “She works out a lot,” Shoe said. “She was also extremely lucky.”

  “I suppose being buck naked didn’t hurt, either,” Matthias said. “Good thing for her, though, you scared him off before he really got that fire going. Okay, now maybe you can tell me why he killed Hammond. The safe was open. Was it robbery?”

  “Perhaps,” Shoe said.

  “You don’t sound sure.”

  “I’m not.”

  Matthias looked thoughtful as he rubbed his chin, his five o’clock shadow making a dry, sandpapery sound. “Could Tilley have killed O’Neill?” he said. “His alibi was a bit thin.”

  “A gun doesn’t strike me as Tilley’s style,” Shoe said. “I think he’d have used his hands.”

  “Maybe he’s smarter than you think,” Matthias said.

  “Maybe he is,” Shoe agreed.

  “Given his line of work,” Matthias said, “he’d probably know how to hire a pro.”

  In the living room, Worth helped Abby to her feet and held her arm as she hobbled on taped-up feet into the hall to where Shoe and Matthias stood.

  “I’m taking Mrs. Hammond upstairs to pack some clothes,” she said.

  “I’m going to stay in a hotel,” Abby said.

  Abby and Worth went slowly up the stairs.

  The bodies were removed, loaded into coroner’s vans, and taken away, but the crime scene investigators continued to work, measuring, collecting, and photographing, leaving nothing to chance. Detective Constable Worth, wearing a hard look on her long, solemn face, escorted Abby through the small pack of media representatives with their cameras and microphones and inane questions and put her into a squad car.

  “You might as well go home now too,” Matthias said to Shoe as his partner came back into the house. “We’ll be in touch if we need anything more.”

  chapter thirteen

  Shoe didn’t go home. He drove downtown to the Hammond Building, where he parked on the street in front of the main entrance. Ed Davage was manning the desk in the ground-floor lobby. His eyes widened at Shoe’s dishevelled condition, the burns on his face, the smell of smoke in his clothes.

  “Is Del Tilley upstairs?” Shoe asked him.

  “No, sir,” Davage replied. “I haven’t seen him since he took Mr. Hammond home at four. Uh, Mr. Hammond sort of fired him this afternoon.”

  “Has he cleared out his office?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  “No, sir.”

  Shoe said, “I need to go upstairs.”

  Davage looked troubled. “No disrespect, Mr. Schumacher,” he said, “but it’s my understanding you don’t work for Mr. Hammond any longer.”

  “Two hours ago,” Shoe said, “Del Tilley killed Mr. Hammond and the Hammonds’ housekeeper. He then tried to burn the house down when Mrs. Hammond locked herself in the sauna. So you can let me go through or you can come with me, but either way, I’m going upstairs.”

  Davage went with him, leaving the security desk in the care of another man. On the elevator Shoe asked him if he knew the lock code to Tilley’s office. He said, “No,” and Shoe said, “It doesn’t matter.”

  They got off the elevator on the twenty-third floor. While Davage unlocked the glass doors to the executive offices, Shoe went into the stairwell, took the big red fire axe down from the bracket on the wall, and went back out to the hallway. Davage’s eyes widened when he saw the axe. They went into the reception area, past Muriel’s empty desk, and down the hall to Tilley’s office.

  “That’s a steel security door,” Davage said. “You’re not going to chop through it.”

  “I don’t intend to.”

  The doorframe was built into what appeared to be the same kind of modular wall panelling used in the rest of the offices. Shoe knew from observing various renovations over the years that the panels consisted of hollow-core, four-by-eight-foot sections composed of some kind of pebbled composite material set into vertical and horizontal tracks of painted or anodized metal. The system was designed to be easily assembled and disassembled as needed to reconfigure the office layout.

  Shoe swung the axe at the section of wall panelling to the right of the security door. The heavy blade sliced through the panel as if it were made of cardboard.

  “He installed a security door in an ordinary wall partition,” Davage said incredulously.

  It took five swings to cut a hole large enough for Shoe to squeeze through. Once inside Tilley’s office, he opened the door for Davage.

  “What are you looking for?” Davage asked, turning on the overhead lights.

  Shoe didn’t answer because he didn’t know. He looked around the office. It was larger than his own, but contained the same standard-issue office furniture: a single-pedestal desk, a poorly upholstered swivel chair, and a credenza against the wall behind the desk, all constructed of grey-painted steel. A tall shelving unit, also steel, held numerous thick blue binders, file boxes, some shrink-wrapped three-packs of blank video cassettes, and a row of paperback thrillers and spy novels. Incongruously, however, against the wall opposite the desk stood a big wood-grained wall unit that looked like an entertainment centre from IKEA.

  On the desk, next to a flat-screen computer, lay a big multi-function remote control. Shoe picked it up. Ed Davage pointed toward the cabinet and said, “Press the power button.”

  Shoe did so and centre doors of the wall unit slid open to reveal a thirty-two-inch Sony television and a rack of four Sony VCRs labelled “A” through “D” with white peel-and-stick letters. The television screen was a solid pale blue.

  “Now what?” Shoe asked.

  Davage shrugged. “I’ve only ever seen him open it.”

  Experimentally, Shoe pressed the “Channel Up” button of the remote. The screen flickered and an image appeared. It was an overhead view of a large marble-topped desk.

  Davage peered at the screen. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “It’s Bill Hammond’s office,” Shoe said.

  Shoe pressed the button again. With a silent flicker of static, the image changed to show Hammond’s desk from a different angle. The cameras were evidently mounted in the ceiling, probably concealed in the recessed lighting fixtures.

  “Son of a bitch,” Davage said.

  Again Shoe pressed the button. The scene shifted to an overhead view of the seating arrangement in Hammond’s office. He continued to press the button, switching to two views of Charles Merigold’s office, then one each of Patrick’s old office, Sandra St. Johns’ office, and Muriel’s workstation.

  “Son of a bitch,” Davage said again.

  This must be how Tilley had known about Barbara Reese’s daughter, Shoe thought. He’d eavesdropped on her phone call to Hammond. Shoe put the remote down and tried to open Tilley’s desk drawers. They were locked.

  “Get me the axe,” he said.

  Davage got the axe from the hall and handed it to Shoe, who used the edge of the blade to prise open the centre drawer of Tilley’s desk.

  The drawer contained the usual collection of miscellaneous junk one would expect to find in anyone’s centre desk drawer. Shoe used the axe again to open the top pedestal drawer, which unlocked the lower drawers. The top drawer contained a set of small screwdrivers, pliers and wire cutters, batteries of various sizes, audio-visual equipment patch cords and cables, and a ten-pack of blank Fuji recordable compact discs.

  In the middle drawer he found an IBM laptop. He took it out and placed it on the desktop, wondering if it could be Patrick’s. Under the laptop he found its power transf
ormer and cables, plus a plastic-coated steel security cable. He closed the middle drawer and opened the bottom drawer.

  It was deeper than the other two drawers, deep enough to accommodate hanging files. It did not contain hanging files, however. It contained a dozen or more VHS video cassettes, neatly arrayed, labelled “Victoria,” and dated. Mementoes of Tilley’s visits to the provincial capital? Shoe wondered. He didn’t think so. The most recent was dated December 5 to 11, the week before Patrick’s death. He took it out of the drawer, removed it from the cardboard sleeve, and inserted it into the VCR labelled “A.” The VCR’s display showed “Play” but the TV screen continued to show an overhead view Muriel’s desk.

  “You’ve got to change inputs,” Davage said. Shoe handed him the remote. He fiddled with it for a moment. Finally, VCR1 was displayed in yellow letters in the upper left hand corner of the television screen and the scene changed.

  It wasn’t a travelogue.

  “Isn’t that Patrick O’Neill’s wife?” Davage said.

  The tape had been shot at a health club. Victoria, dressed in loose-fitting shorts and a cut-off sweatshirt, hair dark with perspiration, ran on a big, computerized treadmill. Beside her, on an identical machine, was Kit Parsons, lean and sinewy in Lycra shorts and a sweat-soaked sports top. There was no sound from the television, but a pair of wireless headphones on the desk hissed and clicked distantly.

  Shoe stopped the tape, fast-forwarded it, then pressed “Play” again. The screen displayed the interior of a café. Victoria and Kit Parsons sat facing each other across a small table, chatting as they ate salad with white plastic forks. Shoe could hear insect-like voices buzzing from the headphones. He was about to stop the tape when Kit Parsons raised her head and looked directly into the lens of the camera. Eyes narrowing, she leaned forward and spoke quietly to Victoria, who turned and looked over her shoulder toward the camera. A second later the scene ended abruptly in a burst of static.

  It hadn’t been Kit’s imagination that they were being watched after all.