A Cold Christmas (9 page)

Where did you come from, Mr. Tim Holiday? And why did you come here?

The refrigerator had a six-pack of beer, bottled water, ice cubes, and frozen dinners. Here was a man who kept life simple. Aspirin in the medicine cabinet. Nothing hidden in the toilet tank or any of the light fixtures.

The telephone in the kitchen was working. Pushing redial got her the library.

A stack of Hampstead newspapers lay on the floor by one end of the couch. She picked up each one and shook it, hoping for a receipt, a scribbled note, a grocery coupon, anything. She got more than she'd hoped for. Beneath the last paper was an envelope with two old snapshots. A younger Mat James and a young woman, a different woman in each picture. She turned one over, saw written on the back “121110078.” Account number for the safe-deposit box the key belonged to? The second picture had a different number.

She locked up Holiday's apartment with numb fingers. The wind hit her as she stepped out onto the sidewalk. She sat shivering in the pickup waiting for it to warm up.

This block had no residences, only businesses, and most would close at five-thirty or six. It was already four-fifteen and completely dark. With a squad of seasoned investigators, she could get each place checked out, clerks and customers questioned, leads turned up, before memories faded. She didn't even have Osey.

Demarco? She didn't know what he'd done in military intelligence—an oxymoron, surely—or how good he was.

She got Hazel on the radio. “I sent Osey home. He's so sick he can barely stand. Get me Demarco. Have him call me on the cell phone. I'm going to check something at the bank, since it's open till six.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“Do you happen to know who operates the rare book store and sewing machine repair shop on Poplar Street?”

Pause. “No, sorry, but George might know. Can you hold while I try him?”

“Yes.”

Minutes went by. Through the windshield, she watched a woman come from the florist's shop sheltering a wrapped bouquet of flowers. A couple went into the restaurant. “Susan?”

“Still here. How is George?”

“His wife says he'll live, even though you couldn't tell it by the way he's carrying on. He says it used to be owned by Mitchell Graham, but he died a few years ago and just recently his grandson sold the business. To a Will Baines.”

“I don't suppose he knew where the new owner lives?”

“Out on Falcon Road.”

Susan scribbled down the address. “Thanks, Hazel. Anything going on?”

“Not even the mice are stirring.”

*   *   *

Hampstead National Bank was a new building on First Street, yellow brick with white trim around the windows. Inside, it had green tweed carpeting and a row of tellers behind bulletproof glass. Even Hampstead had its share of crime. Susan sat on the padded tweed armchair by the desk of the vice president.

Karen O'Maly smiled. “How can I help you?” She was a plump woman with red hair, hazel eyes, and blue slacks slightly too tight.

Susan explained why'd she'd come and showed her the safe-deposit box key.

“He doesn't have one here,” Karen said.

“Are you sure?”

Karen smiled, showing the dimples in her cheeks. “Oh, yes. He has a checking account here, but that's all. No savings, no safe-deposit box.”

Susan thanked her and left. Her cell phone rang just as she was getting into the pickup.

“Demarco.” Clipped. Military.

“The victim lived above Graham's rare book shop on Poplar Street,” she said, just as clipped. “Hit all the businesses in the vicinity and question everybody. Owners, clerks, customers, walkers by. See what they can tell you about Tim Holiday. Get what you can tonight and go back at it tomorrow.”

“Yes, ma'am. Anything else?”

“That'll do to start.”

She called the Fredericks County Bank, the only other bank in town, and found the safe-deposit box wasn't there, either. Damn it. Was everything about this victim a secret?

*   *   *

Falcon Road ran along above the river. Will Baines's house, wood frame painted dark brown, was tucked neatly into a grove of cottonwood trees.

She parked in the driveway just behind a black minivan and climbed flagstone steps up to the rear door. A burly man in his early forties, black hair, wearing a gray sweatsuit, came to the door. He had a hand-held computer in one hand and didn't at all fit her mental picture.

“Chief Wren,” she said, although she thought he knew who she was before she identified herself. “May I come in?”

He looked the type that fled out the back door when cops came knocking at the front.

He led her into a living room with a comfortable-looking couch, a braided rug in front of a stone fireplace, fire blazing, and chairs of the same vintage as the couch. A footstool sat nearby, to prop up cold feet before the fire. No Christmas tree.

Through an archway, she could see a dining room filled with computers. On the oval dining table, on the desks lining the walls, and on the floor. Screen savers flickered. Too bad. She would have liked to know what he had on those computers.

She sat on the footstool and held her hands out to the fire. “Rare books and sewing machines?”

He grinned. “You think computer people can't read?”

She couldn't get a fix on this guy. Cocky, engaging, apparently open. But her cop antenna hummed. He didn't like her here, but he didn't ask what a cop was doing showing up on his front step.

“Do you know anything about sewing machines?”

“Somehow I can't believe you came here to ask me about sewing machines,” he said.

She shook her head. “I came about your tenant.”

Surprise flashed in his eyes. “What about him?”

“He's dead.”

Baines looked startled. “Bummer. What happened? Was it the flu?”

“He was shot. You know anybody who might want to kill him?”

“I don't even know the guy. Never says anything to me. Pays the rent. As far as I know he hasn't torn up the place.”

“How long have you known him?”

“I inherited him when I bought the business.”

“How long have you been here?”

“A few months.”

“What made you choose Hampstead?”

“A friend moved here. I thought I'd give it a try.”

“And just decided to buy a business?”

“I've always wanted a bookstore,” he said.

Yeah, right, she thought. “Do you own a gun?”

“No. The man was shot?”

“Weren't you curious about your tenant?”

“Not really. As long as he paid the rent and didn't cause trouble, I was satisfied.”

“Were there references for him?”

“Surprisingly, yes, since Graham's papers were a mess,” he said.

“May I see the references?”

“Sure.”

From a metal file cabinet in the dining room, he went through drawers and pulled out a folder. He handed it to her. The label read “Tenant.” She opened it and found a single sheet of paper with “References” at the top and three names below.

Johnny Pechkam

Stu Palmer

Caley James

9

“Grandma's here,” Bonnie announced, bouncing into Caley's bedroom on Tuesday afternoon. “She brought doughnuts.”

Caley liked Mat's mother well enough, but when Ettie moved to Hampstead, Caley's heart had given a clutch. It had turned out okay, and even though she hated to admit it, she didn't know what she'd do for baby-sitting without Ettie. Caley struggled to pull on her coat, then searched for her keys. Damn it, where are the car keys? Oh, here.

Ettie, trim and pert in well-fitting copper-colored pants and sweater with yellow flowers, was in the kitchen putting doughnuts on a plate. She was in her sixties, attractive, slender, with short platinum hair, Mat's blue eyes, and his charming smile. Despite having been divorced herself, she refused to accept Caley's leaving her son. “It'll work out,” she always said.

“Hi.” Caley stumbled into the kitchen.

“Are you sure you should be going out? You look dreadful, dear. Can't they find someone else?”

“It's a funeral,” Caley said.

“Oh, I'm sorry.”

“No one I knew. And I'd rather play for a funeral than a wedding any day. I hate weddings.”

“Well, my goodness, why?”

“Mostly they just want any appropriate music at a funeral and they leave it up to me. For a wedding, the bride wants something, the bride's mother wants something, the groom's mother wants something. Sometimes the groom wants something. They argue. They fight. They pick awful stuff and have to be gently persuaded to use something else. They pick stuff I never heard of that I have to practice hours to learn and then they change their minds and give me a whole new stack.”

“Is it for the evil prince, Mommy?”

“No, darling. It's no one we know.”

“The old lady who froze to death on her couch?”

“How do you know about that?”

“Mrs. Frankens. She said no one checked on the poor old soul, and when they did, she was stiff as a Popsicle.”

“Well, I don't think it was quite like that. Back around five.” She kissed all three kids.

“Your mother is very stubborn sometimes,” Ettie said to Zach.

He grinned. “You just have to know how to handle her.” Going up the stairs two at a time, he jumped the last two and landed on his toes. He slid open the bedroom window and climbed out onto a tree branch, then climbed across to the tree house. Actually, four boards nailed between two limbs. Dad had been going to build him a tree house. Like most of Dad's promises, this one only got a start, but it was a place where Zach could be by himself and think.

He was so cold, he grabbed the old blanket draped over a limb and wrapped it around himself. Sitting cross-legged on a board, back against a branch, he tried to figure out what his dad was up to. Something. He knew from the way Dad acted all weird and mysterious and being around so much. The gun was a super shocker.

When his butt got numb, he gave up thinking, hung the blanket back over the limb, and went inside for his jacket. Zipping up the red-and-white down jacket, he stuck a knit cap in the pocket, grabbed his ice skates, and shoved them under the jacket. If his grandmother saw them she might mention them to Mom. Mom tended to worry. He ran down the steps and told his grandmother he was going to Sam's to play the new computer game Sam's dad gave him.

“Can I go?” Adam asked.

“No, dumbhead, you're too young.”

“What about me?” Bonnie said.

“You're a girl.” He didn't mention that Jo would be there too.

Bonnie stuck out her tongue.

“Be careful, dear,” Ettie said as he headed for the door.

“Back in a few.” Trotting along the drive, he pulled the cap over his ears and waved to Mrs. Frankens, sitting in her window.

Boy, did he have a story for Sam and Jo. A dead man in the basement beat anything they ever told. Probably gross out Jo. Zach kicked a stone, picked it up, and slung it underhand at the telephone wire.

How long would his dad be around? All he did was make Mom yell, and he threw around promises about stuff he never did do. It was easier if he just stayed away.

Shit. Zach raced down the street. The air smelled faintly of wood smoke. The sky was pale blue with no clouds and a sun was up there somewhere. He ran the four blocks to Sam's house, on Inverness.

Sam answered the door, coat on, skates in his hand. “What took you so long?”

“You two be careful, now,” his mom called.

Zach wondered if all adults were programmed to say that to kids. He promised himself when he grew up, he'd never say it to a single kid. It was dumb. Who wasn't careful?

He and Sam sped along the sidewalk, punching each other on the shoulder.

“You want to do something fun?” Sam pushed Zach's shoulder and shoved him onto the dead grass.

“You wouldn't know something fun if it bit you in the ass.”

“Ice-skating.”

“Oh. Wow. Sure is a good thing I brought my skates.”

“Not at Eagle's Pond, you dumbnuts,” Sam said. “Let's go to the river.”

“You're a nut cake. That's over two miles.”

“Come on.” Sam took off running.

Zach had two choices. Let the retard go by himself and fall through the ice or go with him and see he didn't get hurt. With a sigh, Zach took off after him.

Jo ran down the porch stairs to meet them when they stopped at her house. “Where we going?”

“Sam wants us to drown.” Zach pounded him on the shoulder.

“What?” Jo asked.

“The river.”

“You can't skate there,” Jo said in her superior voice. “It isn't totally frozen.”

“You can where I'm going.” Sam zigzagged around blocks until they reached Orchard Drive, then they followed it all the way out to Lakeview. When they finally got to Falcon Road, even Jo was ready to throw Sam onto an ice floe.

By the time Sam tromped them through trees and led them to a sheltered spot, sort of a cove near the river's edge, Zach was whacked. It was kind of neat, though. They could see houses on Falcon Road above, but if they didn't look up, they could be totally in the country. Just trees and the river with frozen patches. They seemed totally alone, until a car went by on the road above.

Zach had gotten hot scrogging along through all the trees and dead bushes and stuff. He unzipped his coat and stuck his cap in his pocket.

“Isn't this awesome?” Sam said.

“No,” Jo said. “The ice is rough and rippled and it hills up where it got frozen over tree roots.”

“Yeah! It's going to take maximum power to skate on this.”

“You're such a jerk,” Zach said. Sam had recently read an old book with the phrase “maximum power” in it, and now everything the jerkhead did, he had to do with maximum power. Zach wondered if he needed a new best friend.