When Hell Freezes Over Read online

  “Apologize?” I answered disbelievingly. “You got me out of a damned tight spot!”

  “You wouldn’t have been there if I’d been a little bit more on the ball. I’m supposed to be the expert you hired. Tomorrow we’re going to arrange for a bodyguard, and we’re going to the police about what happened.”

  I shook my head, a bad idea because I was developing a thumping headache. “No. No police.”

  “But that’s nuts! You could have been killed.”

  “I already told you why not. There’s been no mention on this side of the pond about the murder case I’m messed up in, and I’m not about to add any fuel to the publicity fire. But I’ll think about the bodyguard.”

  Shannon started slamming things back into the medicine cabinet. “You’re just too stubborn and unreasonable for words! Michael! You’re not even listening to me!”

  My mind had definitely slipped sideways. When Shannon had mentioned what had happened earlier, the scene had sprung into my consciousness, everything vivid like a video playback. The two men holding me and the one in charge standing back.

  “I’ve seen one of those men before.”

  She turned to me. “What?”

  “It just came back to me. The leader tonight. There was something in his eyes. I should have realized it earlier, but I guess those knocks on the head distracted me. The last time I saw him, he had a length of pipe in his hand and was standing in front of Angus’s Jaguar. He had no fear of me simply flooring the car and squashing him all over the pavement. You could see it in the way he looked at me.”

  I stopped and looked through my memory at both times I’d seen him, looked deep into those bottomless eyes again.

  He knew I was terrified of him.

  Eleven

  I actually slept for five uninterrupted hours that night, a good thing, since I’d felt about ready to fall on my battered face. More importantly, what woke me was not the same boring nightmare, but the blizzard outside, its wind rattling the windows, sounding like some hungry animal circling the house to find a way in.

  Not wanting to disturb the family by wandering around their house in the middle of the night, I remained in bed thinking, my brain turning over what had happened in the previous two weeks.

  When I was a child, I used to have a recurring dream where my bedroom window would suddenly be sucked away by a violent storm. I knew a malevolent force out there was after me, even though I couldn’t see it. The furniture in the room would begin disappearing, crashing out through the ragged window opening as the force searched for me. I would usually be left hanging on to the light fixture on the ceiling or the doorknob in an attempt to save myself. Sometimes I made it, but often I didn’t. When I didn’t, I’d always wake up just as I was clinging by my fingertips to the window opening.

  That night, snug in a warm bed in that old farmhouse, the wind outside brought back the memory of my childhood nightmare for the first time in many years. My present situation resonated strongly with that old dream. What I didn’t know was whether it would be better to hang on with all my strength or let myself get sucked out to discover what it was that was after me.

  Eventually, I slipped back into a light doze without having seen any clear way forward.

  ***

  By morning, the storm had blown itself out, and even though it was still dark when the O’Brien household began stirring, I could see from my room’s window that the day would be bright and clear, but probably all the more cold because of it.

  After ducking into the bathroom for a quick shower, I slipped into the same dirty clothes I’d been wearing since leaving Glasgow two days earlier. At least my shirt was clean. Shannon had washed it the previous evening and left it hanging on the doorknob. Downstairs in the kitchen, I found only Shannon’s mum, sliding a pan of muffins into the oven.

  “Sleep well?” she asked without turning around.

  “Well enough, thanks.”

  “There’s a pot of fresh coffee. If you want tea, I’m sorry to say that we have none. You can wait for the muffins or have some toast now. Toaster, bread and coffee are all over there,” she said, indicating a side counter with her head.

  “Coffee’s fine,” I answered as I picked up a mug and poured some. It was deep black, scalding hot and very good.

  Finding a seat at the far end of the kitchen table, I sipped my coffee and watched Mrs. Cathcart bustle efficiently around the kitchen making lunches and getting breakfast pulled together. I would have offered to help, except from the way she kept stiffly silent and her back to me, I got the distinct feeling that it would not have been welcome.

  Upstairs, the sound of pounding on a door and irritated shouting told me that young Robbie was up and Rachel was being hounded to get out of the shower. Shannon called out that he should use the downstairs bathroom if he really had to go that badly, then slammed a door herself.

  Grandma put two cloth lunch bags on the table and looked across at me, her expression pinched and unfriendly. “My granddaughter told me who you are,” she sniffed. It sounded from her tone of voice as if she thought that being me was something criminal. “You just make sure my Shannon doesn’t regret taking on your job. You were a hero of hers when she was in high school.”

  “Mother!” Shannon said, appearing in the kitchen doorway.

  Mrs. Cathcart was unrepentant. “I’m only saying what any mother would. You’ve been through too much this past year.”

  “That’s enough!” Shannon walked farther into the room. “Michael, please forgive my mother’s—”

  Her son’s noisy entrance cut her off. I kept my head steadfastly down, sipping my coffee while life went on around me. When Shannon asked about completed homework, Robbie sounded rather dodgy on the subject, a lot like I’d been at his age. Rachel, who arrived shortly after with damp hair and a petulant expression, wanted to go to a party on the weekend, something that would obviously require further discussion. In the background, the radio was set to CBC ’s Ontario Morning, with news of the past night’s storm, as well as what was cancelled and what was not.

  Rachel asked if I wanted a hot muffin when they were ready, looking at me with a comically raised eyebrow as she held it out. “You look really ratty this morning, Michael.”

  “Rachel O’Brien!” an outraged Shannon said from her spot at the opposite end of the table. “That is no way to talk to a guest, especially an adult!”

  I smiled. “It’s all right. Rachel can call me Michael if she wishes, and she’s absolutely right. I’m probably not the picture of vibrant good health this morning.”

  “I checked out your band’s website last night,” Rachel continued.

  “I’ve never looked at it, in actual fact.”

  “It’s a fan website. It has all sorts of things about this concert you’re doing.”

  “I prefer not to live in the past.”

  “Well anyway, you don’t look all that different from the old days, except for the lumpy face.”

  Shannon continued to glare at her daughter, and Rachel flashed a grin across the table. Obviously, she hadn’t formed as strong an opinion about me as her grandmother had, although I could see from her expression that the jury was still out on one Michael Quinn.

  Eventually, the kids had books and lunches stuffed into their backpacks and were hustled out the door to make the long trek down the driveway to wait in a little shed for the school buses to arrive. Robbie looked particularly downcast, since he had been counting on school being cancelled, a wish probably due to partially-completed homework. As soon as the kids had gone, Mrs. Cathcart took off her apron and left the room.

  Shannon got up to pour a second cup of coffee and brought the pot over to me. “I guess Rachel ratted you out while we were upstairstending to your cuts.”

  “I’m sorry your mother is upset. What was that all about anyway?” “Well, the long and short of it is,” Shannon began as she returned to her seat at the far end of the table and busied her hands with pulling a muffin
to shreds without any noticeable intention of eating it,“I told Rachel about you a year or so ago. She’d had her heart broken when her favourite boy band split up just before they were to appear in Toronto. It was the first concert her dad and I were going to allow her to see, and the concert got cancelled. So I told her I’d been through the exact same thing myself.”

  I nodded, remembering what she had said the day before about my departure from Neurotica.

  Shannon finally looked up. “My mom is just remembering how it was when that happened to me. And,” she sighed, “it was also a reference to the fact that my marriage imploded this past year. The concert thing seems pretty silly now, doesn’t it?”

  “Finding out your heroes have feet of clay?”

  She frowned and nodded, seeing something that I could only guess at. “You could say that.” She looked at the clock over the sink. “God! Look at the time! We’ve got to get a move on.”

  “What’s on your agenda for the morning?”

  Shannon, rinsing our dishes in the sink, said, “A couple of things. I want to check out the tag number we got off that car last night, and I want to see what I can come up with at that hotel where your girlfriend stayed.” She turned and must have seen something in my expression, because she quickly added, “Just a figure of speech.”

  I vowed inwardly not to be so transparent in my feelings. “Count me in on the hotel.”

  “You sure? You said last night that today was a busy one for you.”

  “I want to be there,” I said firmly.

  ***

  Using my cell phone as we drove towards the airport, I mobilized the troops back at the shop to get work underway without me.

  “Shame about your car,” Kevin said. “You must really be pissed.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” I asked sharply.

  Kevin sounded surprised. “You don’t know?”

  “No. I, ah, couldn’t get it started last night, so I called a cab.”

  “Well I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you, but it looks like someone took a baseball bat to it. All the windows and headlights are smashed, and there’s a hell of a dent in the hood. The inside’s filled with snow, too.”

  After hanging up, I let loose a string of very ungentlemanly words.

  Shannon looked at me, her eyebrows raised. “What’s up?” She whistled after I’d told her what had happened. “I’m more convinced than ever that you should speak to the police. These are dangerous people you’re playing with.”

  “I’ll just have to be more careful.”

  “You’re pretty stubborn.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  ***

  Even though there had been more than a foot of snow, we made decent time on the drive down to the airport strip.

  Regina had stayed at one of the more expensive hotels. Judged by the line she’d originally fed me, it had made sense at the time she’d checked in there. Somebody who’d been brought up the way she had wouldn’t have considered the cost. Now I was paying the freight for her expensive tastes.

  As we pulled into a space in the hotel’s parking garage, Shannon turned off the engine and looked at me. “This could be a little tricky. Hotels don’t like giving out information on guests—especially if they’ve been scammed. It may be helpful that you’ve tagged along. I can use the fact that you bailed them out as a wedge to get their cooperation. I generally fly by the seat of my pants on these things, though. You’ll have to listen very carefully and follow my lead wherever it goes. That’s very important. No matter what I say, support it. We can’t afford to disagree or start bickering in front of someone we’re trying to get information from.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Michael, even though I’ve only been around you a short time, I can safely say you’re pretty straight-laced.” I thought she was going to saysomething else, but she finally added,“Like I said, I fly by the seat of my pants. If I feel that a certain line will get us results, I’ll run with it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That could mean anything. Just go with the flow.”

  “I understand.”

  Shannon’s expression as we walked across the parking garage clearly said that she thought I didn’t.

  We entered the hotel’s revolving doors with purpose, Shannon setting the pace. I liked that. People who dawdle when they walk make me very impatient.

  The lobby was quite nice, bright and airy, and since its clientele was primarily drawn from Canada’s biggest airport on the day after a heavy snowfall, predictably busy.

  Approaching the front desk, Shannon said, “It’s too bad you didn’t get the name of the person you spoke to when you called from Scotland. You have no recollection of his name?”

  I shook my head and frowned. I should have been quicker on the uptake that day, but at the time I’d been too stunned to think clearly.

  We only had to wait for a few people ahead of us to check out. I was quite curious, and a bit apprehensive to see what this rather odd private investigator I’d hired would do.

  There were two desk clerks that morning, a male and a female, and Shannon had juggled things so that we’d get the male, since there was a chance he was the person I’d spoken to on the phone. With her nicely tailored slacks, silk blouse and suede coat, she looked businesslike and competent.

  “We’d like to see the manager, please,” she said to the clerk.

  “Are you a guest here?”

  “Not exactly. We were bilked out of a fair bit of money by someone who was staying here.”

  “I’m afraid it’s against the hotel’s policy to—”

  “You see, when she ran out on her bill here, this gentleman made good on her charges.”

  The clerk’s tone shifted to something more officious. “That sounds like it should be something handled by hotel security.” He moved his hand to reach for the phone.

  “No, we’d like to see the manager.”

  “And you are?”

  “A private investigator. We need to find this woman. We played ball with you by paying her bill. Don’t you think it would be the right thing to do to play ball with us?”

  The clerk picked up the phone. “The guest’s name, please?”

  “Genevieve Fleury,” I told him.

  Within thirty seconds, a tall man in a dark suit glided up. “May I be of assistance?”

  “Are you the manager?” Shannon asked.

  “Ah, no. I’m Don Clark, an assistant manager,” he said, all oil and smoothness. “Our manager will not be in this morning. Why don’t we go to my office and see what can be done about your problem?”

  As we walked around a corner, Shannon moved in next to me and said into my ear, “Is he the one you spoke to?”

  I shrugged, but it was tentative. How can you tell these things from a cell phone across an ocean?

  Obviously, our assistant manager had not risen very high up on the hotel totem pole. His office was tiny and cramped with a desk, two filing cabinets and three chairs.

  Once we were seated, he produced a legal pad and a pen from his desk and looked at us. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

  Shannon’s eyes were constantly moving as she took everything in. Then, pursing her lips, she reached into a back pocket and flipped a leather case onto the desk. “I’m a private investigator,” she said. “You are aware of why we’re here?

  Clark nodded. “The desk clerk informed me who you were inquiring about.”

  I started to say something, but Shannon flashed me a look that clearly said, Shut up and pay attention. “This man is my client.”

  Clark nodded again, looking more uneasy. I’d finally placed his voice as the one on the phone. I squeezed Shannon’s arm, and when she looked at me, I nodded as discreetly as I could.

  Shannon leaned forward, fixing Clark with her eyes. “My client generously paid the Fleury girl’s bill—and it was a substantial one—when he was not obliged to. That got someone in
this hotel off an extremely sharp hook.We’d like to exchange that courtesy for some information.”

  “It is strictly against hotel policy to give out any information concerning our guests.”

  Clark’s attempt to put Shannon off fell on deaf ears. “If you would prefer to wait until the police and your boss need to get involved...”

  “No, no,” the assistant manager responded quickly, as fine beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. “That won’t be necessary.” He looked at us apprehensively. “What kind of information are you looking for?”

  “What can you tell us about her?”

  “Not much, I’m afraid. I checked her in. She was quite, ah, distracting. It wasn’t until later that I realized that her charm had a purpose. Of course, no one saw the woman leave or had any more to do with her during her stay.”

  “Too bad.” Shannon smiled. “Well then, Mr. Clark, hopefully you can give us two things. How about the address the Fleury girl gave when she checked in, and I’d like to take a look at your security tapes. I assume you have cameras in the elevators?”

  Clark nodded, not looking happy. As he opened the top drawer of his desk, Shannon flashed me a grin and a quick thumbs-up.

  After taking out a folder, Clark handed two small pieces of paper to Shannon, one at a time. “This is her registration card with the address she gave in Montreal. And this is a photocopy of her credit card imprint. He flipped through a few more pages then pulled a larger sheet out. “This is from a security camera in one of the elevators. We made it for our use in case she ever returns.”

  Shannon passed it to me after she’d looked at the printout for a long moment. It was a good likeness.

  She took the paper back and looked at Clark. “May I keep this and get photocopies of the others?”

  The assistant manager shrugged with resignation. Shannon stood and reached over the desk to shake hands. “You’ve been most helpful, and we really appreciate it.” Once we left the office, she was buoyant. “That went very well indeed. It was a good thing you so generously paid that bill,” she added with a smirk.

  “What’s up now?”