Transposition

by Gregory Ashe

  And that was it. No clothing fibers. No long, dark hairs. Nothing that might indicate who had come into this room the night before and killed Thomas Strong. Hazard even looked under the heavy desk, blowing away dust-bunnies and squinting through one eye. Not a thing. Shivering in the freezing wind, Hazard finally crossed to the window and shut it. Through the glass, he studied the depression in the rooftop snow, and his mind went to the watery footprints he had seen in the hall. There was someone else at Windsor, someone who was not part of the yuppie group downstairs. Now, looking at the wide, deep track in the snow, Hazard thought he knew what it meant: someone had slid down the roof and dropped to the ground. An easy escape after murdering Strong, while everyone else slept soundly in their rooms.

  Letting out a long breath, Hazard watched as the warm air from his lungs fogged the glass. Then he let himself out of the study and locked the door. After securing the evidence in the attic room and locking that door too, he turned and headed downstairs to find Somers. The most likely killer was the one who found the body, and that meant Leza Weaver. And Hazard had to admit that Somers might be right: Adaline Argus, the denigrated and humiliated secretary, had a likely reason for killing Strong as well. So who was this unknown person walking the halls of Windsor? And why might he want Thomas Strong dead?

  AS HAZARD CAME INTO THE DINING ROOM, he was greeted with a chorus of shouts.

  “This is ridiculous,” Benny said, pounding the table with one fist. “You’re holding us hostage.”

  “The whole thing has gone on long enough,” Columbia said. “You’d think we were the guilty people here.”

  “Detective Hazard,” Meryl said, her cheeks as red as her hair, “you can’t keep us here forever. I want to help you, I do, but we’re going to go crazy if we stay here like this.”

  Adaline met his gaze, her eyes small and dark and hard, but she said nothing. Neither, for that matter, did Leza—but Leza, unlike Adaline, was sprawled across two of the chairs, sleek, lightly flushed, and looking immensely satisfied with herself.

  Without responding to the shouts, Hazard met Somers’s gaze and jerked his head at the hall. Somers followed him, and they moved until they could still see through the doorway but, Hazard hoped, not be overheard.

  “Did you have any problems using my phone?” Somers asked.

  “Jesus, will you drop it already?”

  “I wasn’t sure if you remembered my birthday.”

  “I don’t know your birthday. And quit acting like a disappointed girlfriend.” Hazard thrust the phone at Somers. “Lots of pictures. Do you have somewhere to upload them?”

  Somers made a face, and he looked like he wanted to keep pressing the subject of the birthday, but he accepted the phone and swiped at the screen a few times. “There. Safely uploading to the cloud, although I’m going to have a hell of an overage on my data.”

  “Make Cravens reimburse you. Now, listen up: here’s what I found.” Hazard laid out the evidence from the office, including his best guesses, and finished by saying, “We’ve got three suspects.”

  A worried look had crept onto Somers’s face, and he cast a long glance down the hallway before returning his gaze to Hazard. “You’re sure? Someone else is here?”

  “Definitely.”

  “That’s a headache. Ree, any of them could be the killer.” Then Somers began to talk, explaining what he had learned talking to Leza. “Every single one of them had a motive for wanting Thomas Strong dead—not just the way he was treating them, but the fact that he was jeopardizing millions of dollars for each and every one of them.”

  “Each and every one?” Hazard said. “I wonder. A lot would depend on how much of the company each person held. And there are the other partners.”

  “Matley and Gross? But who are they? And where are they? Are they even still part of the business?”

  “Good questions. Let’s see if Cravens can put Swinney or Lender on some research duty. In the meantime, we’ve got a house full of suspects, all of them with motive, all of them with opportunity.”

  “So we look into the gun. And we start eliminating suspects other ways.”

  “You said the text from Strong came at 9:30pm?”

  “That’s what it said on the phone.”

  “Can’t fake that,” Hazard said. “And even if someone had wanted to, Strong’s phone and laptop are locked. If he didn’t send that text, someone else would have had to know his password. From what you said about Strong, he doesn’t sound like the kind of guy who would give other people his information. Or use his birthday as the passcode.”

  “Hey,” Somers said.

  Ignoring him, Hazard continued, “We can see if Cravens will get a warrant to check the phone records. For now, though, we can suppose that Strong was still alive at 9:30pm and planning on meeting with Columbia.”

  “Planning for a showdown. That sounds like he expected trouble.”

  “He dies sometime during the night, and the killer escapes out the window.”

  “Why?”

  “So he’s not seen coming out of the study.”

  Somers frowned. “But wouldn’t it be more obvious to come in from outside, covered in snow?”

  “Not if everyone was asleep.”

  “But if everyone was asleep, he could have just left the study through the door.”

  “Or, if it was our mystery person, he might have escaped through the window and gone somewhere else entirely.”

  “Not too far, though,” Somers said, cocking his head towards the dining room. Voices were rising in a sound that was quickly becoming familiar to Hazard: bickering. Somers finished by saying, “Windsor’s cut off from the rest of the world, and our mystery man was inside the house again this morning. I’m willing to bet he’s still on the grounds somewhere.” Hazard opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, someone shrieked inside the dining room, and Somers said, “We’d better go see what that’s about.”

  As Hazard stepped into the dining room, a candelabra flew past his head and crashed into the wall next to him. Chunks of cold wax hit the floor as the candles shattered and fell. On the far side of the table, Columbia stood with another candelabra pulled back and ready to throw. Her long, curling hair was askew, and her face was red and blotchy. “You cunt,” she screamed, hurling the second candelabra across the room.

  For the second time, the candelabra missed its intended target. Leza pulled her silk robe around her shoulders, and her face showed a mixture of fear and relief as she scooted the length of the table, trying to put space between her and Columbia. There was something, though—something in her face, maybe, or in her eyes—that made Hazard suspect there was more happening. Somers would know, of course; Somers could read people like a book, while poor, stupid Emery Hazard had to bumble along blindly and try to figure out what the hell they were thinking. Like, for instance, with Somers and this whole birthday thing.

  “Please,” Leza said, hurrying towards Somers. “You promised you’d protect me.”

  “Good Lord,” Somers said, shifting away from Leza as she moved towards him. “You told her?”

  “Told her what?” Hazard asked.

  “I told her that she wasn’t going to get away with it,” Leza screamed, still trying to put herself behind Somers, while Somers kept her at bay with one arm. “I told her that everyone loved Thomas and that her greed and selfishness had ruined a wonderful thing.”

  Columbia, meanwhile, had begun making a sound in her throat, something between a howl and a hiss, and she swept one long arm across the table, knocking chargers and pewter ornaments onto the floor with a tinny clatter. “You bitch!”

  Benny, Meryl, and Ran had drawn together near the fireplace, their faces scrubbed bone-white by fear. Adaline, however, huddled alone against the back wall. She, too, looked frightened, but it was strange. Again, Hazard felt a surge of frustration at his inability to parse the complicated emotions in front of him. Adaline’s face burned with two red circles in her cheeks; she was s
weating, and she looked like she needed a wastebasket or a bucket or a toilet before everything she’d eaten came rushing back up.

  “All those times you said you supported me,” Columbia screamed. “All those times I confided in you, and you didn’t mean it. You’re just like all the rest of them. You self-inflated old whore, you bigot, you—” With what appeared to be an enormous effort, Columbia dragged herself upright and swallowed. Out of the corner of his eye, Hazard saw Adaline creeping along the wall, her face down as she moved towards the door. In a thick voice, Columbia said, “You think you’re any better than me? Do you know what they call you? Do you know what Thomas called you? Sleza. Sleza Leza.”

  Leza’s face screwed up, and she looked horrible and gnomish and vengeful. She opened her mouth and began to shout a stream of obscenities at Columbia. Columbia, in turn, dragged herself onto the table. Picking up a wooden centerpiece—carved, Hazard thought, to represent stylized pilgrims—Columbia got to her feet and ran the length of the table, screaming murder at Leza.

  Somers moved towards the table, already angling himself to catch Columbia from the side and stop her before she reached the other woman. Hazard kept his ground, and he was ready when Adaline made a break for the door. He lunged towards her, and he was surprised when her heel connected with his jaw. The girl was small, but she hit hard and she hit at the right angle. Hazard’s knees went rubbery, and Adaline slipped past him, disappearing down the hallway.

  HAZARD STUMBLED, CATCHING HIMSELF on the doorframe before he fell, and shook his head. It had been a good hit. A damn good hit. The bewildered thought—a very good hit—buzzed at the center of his head like a bumblebee batting against a closed window. Blearily, Hazard focused his vision on Somers, who was wrestling with Columbia and—yes, they were definitely pilgrims—being beaten on the head and shoulders with the wooden centerpiece.

  “For the love of Christ,” Somers shouted as he knocked the centerpiece backward, where it cracked into Columbia’s head. The woman abruptly went still, and in the sudden silence, Somers’s voice became a roar. “Don’t just stand there: go get her.”

  Still trying to straighten out his vision—and, for that matter, his legs—Hazard lurched after Adaline. The small, mousy woman was surprisingly fast, and by the time Hazard had reached the hallway, Adaline was already turning the next corner. Heading for the front of the house, Hazard realized. And for the doors.

  For the next ten yards, Hazard moved mostly by instinct—weaving back and forth, knocking over two occasional tables and a row of fertility figurines that had probably cost more than Hazard’s first car—his only car, for that matter. His head rang like someone had shoved him up the Liberty Bell.

  By the time he reached the end of the hallway, though, the crack to his jaw was starting to fade, and Hazard turned on the speed. He rounded the corner into the entry hall. Ahead of him, both doors stood open, exposing a black-and-white tableau. Snow covered the entire world, and where the branches of trees and bushes emerged from the white shroud, their limbs were stark and bare. Across this landscape, Adaline was a thumb-sized ink stain. Her movements had become slow and uneven as she slogged through the deep snow; with every step, her wobbling became more exaggerated, until she toppled sideways into a drift.

  Hazard flew across the porch and down the stairs. He landed with a crunch of powdery snow, and then he took off across the frozen field. His long legs and his bulk made it easy for him to plow through the drifts. Icy crusts along the snow crackled as he charged forward. Ahead, Adaline had managed to drag herself upright. Snow dusted her hair and sweater; the lumpy wool looked even lumpier than before, and the tail of Adaline’s t-shirt, worn under the sweater, had pulled free and flapped behind her.

  She glanced back as Hazard drew closer; her features tightened, and a brick-red square darkened her forehead. Turned her attention forward, she struggled to force her way through the snow. Hazard felt a momentary flicker of admiration. Then he punched her in the back.

  The blow picked up Adaline and threw her almost a full foot forward. Landing face-first in the snow, she slid another two feet before she came to a stop, looking like a skier who had bungled a jump. Hazard tromped across the final yards between them, seized the back of her sweater, and dragged her out of the snow.

  She was crying—soft, quiet tears, but hot enough to melt tracks through the snow on her face. Perfect, Hazard thought. Of course she was crying.

  “Come on,” he said, giving her a shake and sending snow drifting from her hair and clothes. “You’re all right.”

  “I—I—I—I—”

  “That way,” Hazard said, propelling her towards the house, but he tried to smooth the edge from his voice. “Let’s go. And no more funny business.”

  Adaline shrank into her lumpy sweater until it looked likely to swallow her. Her hair, mixed with the snow, looked even shaggier and bedraggled than before, and tears and snot made shining paths down her face. Trembling, she staggered, took an enormous step, and fell.

  Fishing her out of the snow for the second time, Hazard let his eyes move back to the house. Somers was there, as were the rest of the guests. Lena and Columbia stood on opposite sides of the porch, but they were there, and all of them were staring at Hazard. His cheeks started to heat.

  “I—I can’t,” Adaline wailed, and then the tears really started storming. She sobbed so hard that she shook, and she wrung her chapped, red hands and sobbed some more. Hazard’s face was even hotter now, and he took Adaline by the arm and nudged her towards the house. This time, he kept hold of her, and together they returned to Windsor’s front porch.

  The remaining guests stared down at them, silent, their faces glistening with melted snow-flurries and electric-bright shock. Columbia—a red V on her temple showed where the wooden pilgrims had crashed into her—came down two steps, took Adaline by the arm, and hustled her into the house. The other guests lingered, staring at Hazard. He fixed his gaze on the doorway and took the steps three at a time.

  Somers fell into place beside him as he entered Windsor. In a low voice, he said, “You punched her?”

  “Drop it.”

  “In the back?”

  “She was getting away.”

  “Yeah, but Hazard, she’s a—”

  “If you say she’s a woman, I’m going to tear your balls off. And it’s not because she’s trans if that’s what you’re thinking. Woman, man, she’s a person. Nobody gets special treatment.”

  “Uh, right.” Somers squeezed Hazard’s arm and guided him to one side of the entry hall, where he continued speaking in a low voice. “I kept an eye on the study; I thought it might have been a diversion.”

  Hazard grunted; it had been a good idea, but he wouldn’t give Somers the satisfaction of saying so. Especially because he hadn’t thought of it himself, and he should have.

  “Nobody went near it,” Somers continued. “Nobody even went upstairs. They were too busy watching you shove a small, frightened woman into the—uh, stop an escaping suspect. So. Anyway. Let’s see what all that was about.”

  “Let go of my arm.”

  “Yes. Right.” A flicker of something passed over Somers’s face. “You don’t even feel a little bit bad—”

  Hazard made a disgusted noise in his throat and, without waiting for Somers to finish the question, pushed past his partner and headed deeper into the house.

  He found Columbia and Adaline in the living room. The wood and the leather made the space seem darker and smaller than it was, and Hazard paused in the doorway to study the two women. Columbia sat on the edge of a sofa, one hand frozen halfway to Adaline’s shoulder. Adaline, for her part, had her face buried in one of the cushions. Silent sobs wracked her body. The snow on her sweater and hair had begun to melt, and it glistened in the electric lights.

  “Watch the others,” Hazard said.

  “I don’t think that’s the best idea,” Somers said. Hazard threw a questioning look over his shoulder, and Somers said, “This looks like
a sensitive situation.”

  “I can handle sensitive situations.”

  “I’m not saying you can’t. But I think I should talk to them.”

  “So you think I can handle sensitive situations, just not this one? Go watch the others. I’ll deal with this.”

  “No, Hazard.” The sharpness in Somers’s voice caught Hazard by surprise; no matter how Hazard acted, Somers was unfailingly pleasant and agreeable. Something had changed now. The blond man’s heart-stopping features were firm. A trickle of blood was running where his split lip had reopened, and a wave of guilt surged up inside Hazard—and, along with that guilt, a surge of something else. The desire to lick up the blood, to feel the golden stubble on Somers’s chin under his tongue.

  “No,” Somers said again. “I’m going to talk to them. I’m not a glorified babysitter.”

  “That’s not what I—”

  “And please don’t talk to me like that again,” Somers said in an even voice, but his eyes, those tropical water eyes, were close to boiling. Before Hazard could respond, Somers planted a hand on Hazard’s shoulder and guided his partner out of the way. He walked into the room with economical, graceful steps—the casual poise of someone accustomed to drawing the full attention of every room.

  Hazard, after a confused moment, shut the living room door and followed his partner. As they sat on one of the other sofas, Columbia fixed a furious glare on each of them.

  “I hope you’re happy.”

  “Miss Squire,” Somers said, his tone calm and professional, “you’re currently facing a minimum charge of assaulting a peace officer.” He ran his thumb across his chin and displayed the blood. “You also committed assault against Leza Weaver. Two felonies in one day. It’s in your best interest at this point to cooperate.”