The phone started ringing, the way they do, the minute I stuck my key in the door that afternoon. I put the groceries I’d bought at Publix on the kitchen counter and picked up the extension.
‘Jack, it’s Mike.’
My partner. ‘You were quick.’
‘Well, partly it’s a slow week.’
‘And…?’
‘And partly there’s not a hell of a lot to report.’
‘Go ahead anyway.’
‘Nothing on any of the people on the list. Squeaky clean, every one of them.’
‘What about Schiller?’
‘That’s the only interesting part. As far as I can make out, nobody knows him. I checked out the Kingston address you gave me. It’s owned by a couple called Renard. They confirmed that a man called Bud Schiller rents it from them and the cheques come in regularly.’
‘Where from?’
‘That they wouldn’t tell me. Anyway, I got the name of the guy next door to the Schiller place, and he said the house is empty most of the time.’
Now what the hell did that mean? ‘Anything else?’
‘That doctor in Waterloo, Joseph Brady, he checks out. He’s Edward Brennan’s family doctor, has been for years, and he rented the condo to Ed for the first time a few years back. Apparently the poor guy needed to recuperate from some illness – nothing specific, you know doctors – but I got the impression this Ed character had suffered various health problems on and off over-’
‘Mental or physical?’
‘Can’t say. But Brady’s a family doctor, Jack, not a shrink.’
‘OK. Go on.’
‘So it was a kind of convalescent holiday. He liked it and kept coming back.’
‘How about EscapeItAll?’
‘Perfectly legit. They own a few condos down the Gulf Coast and rent them through local agencies. Quite a lot of the Toronto travel agents do business with them, and the ones I talked to said they never had any problems.’
‘And the timeshare?’
‘Also legit. There is one thing, though. Virginia Fraser, one of the names you gave me?’
‘Right.’ Ginny Fraser.
‘I talked to the woman she rented from, and it turns out that the dates Fraser got weren’t available originally.’
‘So?’
‘So she paid over the odds.’
‘Ah-ha. On welfare, too. Is that all?’
‘Just about. Gardiner Holdings, that company in the Caymans? Looks like it’s the front of a front of a front. I couldn’t get even get a whiff of the real movers and shakers behind it.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Thanks a lot Mike. You did good work.’ Then I hung up and mulled over what I’d learned.
‘Gee, I dunno, Mr Erwin. I really shouldn’t be doing this,’ Mary said when she found the right key.
‘It’ll have to be cleaned out, anyway,’ I said.
‘Yeah, I know. It’s just… Still, you are a licensed private investigator, right?’
‘Right. And maybe we can check on next of kin, make sure no one’s gonna come down and file a lawsuit against you.’ I hated pressuring her that way, but I had to get inside Schiller’s condo if I was to get any further. I was now more or less convinced that someone – either one of his three pals or someone he had arranged to meet – had gone to the pool and murdered him. It would help if I could find out whether he had anything to hide.
Still biting her lip, Mary turned the key in the lock.
Schiller certainly travelled light. A quick search of the master bedroom revealed only warm-climate clothes and a tattered Tom Clancy paperback on the bedside table. No papers in the drawers, no photographs, nothing. The cops must have taken his passport. The bathroom held only what a single man’s bathroom would, and the guest bedroom was empty except for the bed, stripped down to its mattress. Kitchen and fridge contained the usual – milk, bread, condiments, a couple of TV dinners, cutlery, booze. By the looks of it, Schiller ate out a lot.
In the living room, the stereo, TV and VCR took up one corner. A cabinet under the VCR held a stock of tapes. One of the movies was from a local rental store, and it was overdue by two days. The tape was still in the machine.
‘I’ll take this back tomorrow,’ I said to Mary, casually slipping the tape back in the box.
Mary just nodded and glanced nervously at the door. ‘I think that’s about all,’ I said, ‘if you want to go now.’ Mary was out the front door like a shot. ‘You didn’t find anything about next of kin?’
‘Nothing. No news is good news. Don’t worry.’ She flashed an anxious smile. ‘I’ll try not to.’ And I hurried back to call the courier company. It was late, but with luck, they could get a package to Mike overnight.
‘Jack?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Mike.’
‘Hang on… Just a minute…’ I sat up quickly. It felt like I had to drag myself a long way back from God knew where. I rubbed my eyes and checked my watch. Three-thirty in the afternoon. I must have dozed off after lunch. I opened the fridge and popped the tab on a can of Michelob, then picked up the phone again. ‘Yeah, go ahead, Mike. Sorry about that.’
‘No problem. I took the video down to Ident first thing this morning. It was a bit of a mess – must have been a popular movie down there – but Harry found a match you might be interested in.’
‘Schiller’s got a record?’
‘Not Schiller. The only prints we could find on file belong to a Sherman Smith.’
‘That rings a bell.’
‘It should do,’ he went on. ‘Remember that land scam twenty years ago? Smith defrauded hundreds of people out of their life savings.’
‘What was it, some land in Florida turned out to be swamp?’
‘Something like that. Smith disappeared with the money and was never seen or heard of again. In all there must’ve been over two or three million bucks.’
I whistled. ‘What happened?’
‘The Mounties followed the paper trail for a while, then they lost it. Smith never surfaced again.’
Except as Schiller, I thought. He probably split his time between Florida and the Cayman Islands, travelling on a phony Canadian passport but not staying in Canada for long. Too risky. ‘Do we recognize any of the victims’ names?’ I asked Mike.
I could almost hear him grinning over the phone. ‘I thought you’d never ask. As a matter of fact we do: a Mr Edward Brennan.’
Karen was sitting at a stool at the bar sipping something colourful and cluttered through a candy-striped straw. She was wearing a green silk off-the-shoulder number, one I had seen in her closet, with her legs crossed. I caught an eyeful of slim, tanned thigh as I walked towards her. She smiled and said hello. Her shiny blonde hair fell over her shoulder on one side, and she had tucked the other side behind her ear, fixing it there with a pink flower that matched her lipstick. Nice touch.
I must admit I’d been relieved to find out it was Ed who had the connection with Smith, not Karen. It didn’t mean he was the killer, of course, but it sure gave him one hell of a motive. I still had a lot of questions for Karen, though, and I wasn’t sure how, or if, I could mix business and pleasure.
I ordered a bourbon on the rocks and we walked through to the table. It was a tacky-looking kind of restaurant, with nets hanging from the ceilings and old barrels converted into chairs, but the food was always superb.
Karen examined the menu, then she said, ‘I’d like to start with some oysters. How about you?’
‘Fine by me.’ Oysters! For an ice queen? Maybe Al French had an agenda of his own? So we ordered a dozen oysters and a bottle of Californian champagne, followed by swordfish steak for me and coquilles Saint-Jacques for Karen. She avoided my eyes as the waiter lit candles on the table.
We chatted about this and that. Karen seemed nervous, on edge, attention all over the place, so much so that she seemed skittish. But just when I thought I’d lost her, she’d look me in the eye and come back with the kind of remark that showed she was there all the time, maybe even a step or two ahead.