Silence.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I noticed how quiet this part of the building was. There were no telephones ringing, no sounds of voices from the lobby, not even the hum of office machines. I looked back down the hall I’d just come from. There were half a dozen other offices—every one of them was closed. I shrugged off the spooky feeling, and waited a few more seconds before I knocked again. Then I pressed my ear against the door.
Still nothing.
Then, it hit me. Swanson, being an inspector, was probably out inspecting, and I should have made an appointment with him before coming. But seeing as I’d come this far, I could at least write him a message before leaving. To my surprise, when I tried it, the door swung open, and I found myself looking into a large dimly lit room.
“Hello?” Again, I was met with silence.
I glanced out into the hall, and seeing nobody, I made up my mind. I felt along the wall and flipped on the lights. The place was a mess. Along one side, the room was lined with industrial-beige file cabinets, above which were stacks and stacks of rolled-up plans. It was a wonder the man could find anything in there. In the center of the space was a heavy metal desk that looked not much younger than the building itself. On it were masses of envelopes, some opened, some still sealed. Good God. Hadn’t the man ever heard of filing?
I stood in the doorway frozen with uncertainty for a few moments, and then I gathered my courage and marched over to the desk, looking for a piece of paper on which I could write him a note. I was tearing off a page from a message pad when something caught my eye. I glanced at the floor, and yelped.
There was Swanson, not three feet away. He was lying on his back in a pool of blood, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling, his mouth half open, as if in surprise. I had no doubt that he was dead. Even his complexion was gray. I was swept in a wave of guilt as I remembered all the unkind thoughts I’d had toward him earlier this morning.
All at once I became aware of my stomach, roiling dangerously. If I didn’t get out of there fast there’d be more than just a bloody mess for the biohazard team to clean up. I dashed blindly down the hall with my hand over my mouth. As I ran through the main room an older gentleman had the misfortune of stepping in front of me. I bumped right smack into him and we both went crashing to the floor.
He was back on his feet as quickly as I was, and was starting to apologize, but I was already racing for the entrance. I made it outside in the nick of time and was still bent over, gagging and gasping, when a trio of city employees wandered out to check on me.
“Are you all right?” the same gentleman I’d mowed down asked. He took a few steps closer.
I waved him away. It was embarrassing enough to be caught bent over and throwing up, without having anyone come too close.
“Poor thing—she’s sick,” the woman said. Rummaging through her pocket, she came out with a tissue, which she handed to me. “Would you like to come in and sit down?”
I wiped my mouth, and shook my head. I was taking long deep breaths, and my stomach was slowly settling.
She turned to the others. “Somebody get this lady a glass of water.”
I suddenly noticed the spittle of vomit on my jeans. Embarrassed, I wiped at it and excused myself. I hurried to my jeep and slipped into my raincoat. When I returned to the group, the younger man was back with a paper cup.
“Here, drink this.”
After a few sips of water I began feeling more like myself. “Thank you.” The three of them stared at me with worried eyes.
“She’s looking a little less peaked,” the old man said. He was tall and slender and had gray hair.
“We have to call the police,” I blurted. “Mr. Swanson is dead. There was so much blood. I think he might have been murdered.” There was a collective gasp.
“How can you be sure he’s dead?” the woman asked. “What if he’s just passed out? Maybe we should call an ambulance.”
Should we? I wondered. But I had seen death before and knew what it looked like. There was no question in my mind that Swanson was dead. But it wouldn’t hurt to agree. “Yes. That’s a good idea. I could be wrong.”
“He can’t be dead,” the younger man said. He looked like he was in his early – to mid-thirties, and was dressed like a professional in a suit and tie. “I just saw him yesterday.” He no sooner had said this than he marched toward the building, as if intent on proving me wrong. He had just entered the building when the gentleman said, “I think I’ll go with him.” He hurried after him. I was wondering if I should join them too, when the woman placed a hand on my arm.
“I’ll wait here with you,” she said. “You’re just starting to recover from the shock. There’s no point in getting yourself all worked up again.” She was right. The nausea had passed, but I still felt weak. “Oh, it’s just too terrible,” she continued. “Poor Mr. Swanson. Surely you’re wrong about him being murdered. It had to have been an accident. Who would want to hurt him? I simply can’t believe it.”
She had blond hair, blue eyes and the quirkiest eyebrows I’d ever seen. They were penciled in an odd shape. Her dress was too short. She wore a heavy layer of foundation on her face and her oddly bouffant hair was bleached blond. I had the impression of a middle-aged woman trying to look half her age. She gave me a friendly smile.
“There, there. You’ll be fine.”
Over the last few minutes more people had come out of the building. Some must have overheard our conversation because there were now half a dozen observers standing around looking shocked and whispering among themselves.
“Do you think anybody called an ambulance yet?” I asked the woman.
“Oh, dear. I have no idea. I’ll go do that right now.”
“Never mind,” I said, rummaging through my bag. “I have my cell right here.” In my rush to dial, I dropped my phone not once but twice before I got through.
“Nine one one. Do you need the police, an ambulance, or the fire department?” the operator asked.
“Police, please—and ambulance,” I added.
“What’s your emergency, ma’am?”
“I’m calling to report a . . . er . . . I think he’s dead but I could be wrong,” I said, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. “It’s Mr. Swanson, the building inspector at city hall. There’s a lot of blood, and I’m pretty sure he was attacked.”
“I’ve got an ambulance on its way,” she said, and proceeded to ask me all the pertinent information.
“Are you with the victim now?”
“No. He’s in his office, where I found him. There was so much blood, I had to get out.”
“Has anybody taken his pulse?” At that moment the two men stepped out of the building, wearing grim expressions. They made their way over.
“Not me, but the men who just went to check on him are coming back. You can ask them.” I handed the phone to the older man. He took it, a question mark in his eyes. “It’s the emergency dispatcher.”
“There’s no point in standing here. Come on inside and sit down,” the woman said. “You look a little wobbly on your feet. We have a staff room. We might as well wait in there for the police.”
I followed her into the building to a small room with a coffeemaker and two worn sofas. She offered me a cup of coffee, which I gratefully accepted.
“You’re getting a bit of color back in your cheeks,” she said after I’d had a few sips. “Are you starting to feel better?”
“I am. Thank you. I’m Della Wright, by the way.”
“I’m Johanna Renay. I’m a clerk for the department of revenue.” She shook her head, her eyes tearing. “I can’t believe it. Why, just yesterday Howard was talking about the new house he was planning on buying. It was his dream house. Oh, his poor wife will be devastated.” Hearing the sorrow in the woman’s voice as she spoke of him, and knowing the man had a lovin
g wife made his death all the more tragic somehow.
The two men walked in and the older one handed me my phone. I introduced myself again.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Tom Goodall,” the gentleman said. He shook my hand and turned to Mrs. Renay. “How are you doing, Johanna. I know you and Howard were close.”
“I’m all right,” she said, not very convincingly.
The younger man introduced himself. “Ronald Dempsey,” he said, adjusting his tie and raising his chin self-importantly. He wasn’t a city employee as I’d first thought. I recognized his name as that of a local builder. And if I remembered right, this was the same man who was financing a project right here in Belmont—a new development of luxury houses. I hadn’t seen the prices, but judging by the advertisements all around town, they were in the stratosphere.
“I’m the owner of Prestige Homes,” he added, as if reading my mind. “Mr. Swanson was buying one of my houses—the Mountain View model.”
This surprised me. I’d always thought city employees earned modest salaries. How much did a house in the Prestige Homes project cost? I wondered.
“Aren’t you going to take your coat off?” he asked me. “You must be getting hot.”
“I’m fine. Thanks.” I was just beginning to get over the shivers. The shock, I supposed.
“And by the way,” Dempsey said. “You were right. Swanson is as dead as a doornail.”
I nodded.
Mrs. Renay was taking the news terribly. She wiped the moisture from her red-rimmed eyes, and when she spoke, it was with a tight throat. “Poor man. I can’t believe somebody killed him.”
“I can,” Dempsey said. All eyes turned on him.
“What would make you say such a horrible thing?” Mrs. Renay said.
“The man was impossible to work with. He nearly drove a lot of contractors out of business, having them demolish and rebuild things that were perfectly fine, and making them wait and wait for their permits,” he said, looking as if he was dying to name names.
“Like who?” I asked.
“Smithy, Clarkson, Shuttleworth.”
“Shuttleworth?” I said, shocked. “You mean Syd?”
“I don’t mean him in particular,” Dempsey said, now backtracking. “You have to understand, in real estate, time is money. Builders have to pay interest on their loans. An extra year on a project is enough to eat up all a man’s profits.” I only half listened to what he was saying, my mind preoccupied with Syd Shuttleworth. Dempsey’s words supported what Syd had told us, that the inspector had caused all the delays in the project.
“Weren’t you worried he’d find flaw after flaw to complain about in any house he bought?” asked Mrs. Renay.
“I was lucky he liked my work. Besides, if I’d refused to sell to him, he’d probably have given me a hard time, just like he did to everybody else. Besides, a sale is a sale.”
At that moment, I heard the sound of sirens getting closer. Dempsey, who had taken a seat on one of the sofas, looked at his watch. “Is it already eleven o’clock?” He jumped to his feet and dashed to the door.
“Hey,” Tom Goodall said, “you can’t leave now. The police will want to talk to all of us.”
“Mr. Goodall is right,” I said. “You can’t leave until the police allow it. You may think you have nothing to add, but sometimes a person will see things he doesn’t even realize is important.”
Dempsey’s face turned red. “I don’t have to stay here. I didn’t hear or see anything. You did. Besides, I have more important things to do than to sit around talking to cops.” He pulled a card from his breast pocket and threw it on the table. “There. If they want to talk to me, they know where to reach me.” He turned and walked out.
“Looks to me like he really didn’t want to talk to the police,” Tom Goodall said. “Or maybe he thinks he’s more important than the rest of us.”
Mrs. Renay pulled herself to her feet and sighed. “I guess we’d better go outside. They’ll be here in a minute.”
From past experience I knew just how grueling a police questioning could be. And since I was the one who’d found the body, I was likely going to be the principle player.
Let the torture begin.
Chapter 4
We traipsed out through the main hall. To my surprise there wasn’t a customer in sight. The few employees who were still inside were huddled behind the counter, looking worried.
“I told everyone to keep the office closed for now,” Goodall explained. “There’s no point in having people walking around all over the place until the police are finished here. Besides, everyone is upset. I doubt they could focus on doing their jobs right now.”
We waited at the front of the building.
“Mr. Goodall mentioned you and the victim were close. How long did you know him?” I asked Mrs. Renay, more for the sake of conversation than curiosity. The prospect of being questioned was making me nervous.
“All my life. He and I were in college together.” The faint smile she gave, remembering, made me suspect the two might have dated back then. “Then,” she continued, “a few years after I started working here, he was hired as the city inspector. He’s been here nearly as long as I have. And I knew his ex-wife. Though, I haven’t seen her in about a year—since she and Howard got divorced. He just got remarried to a younger woman only six months ago. Men are so stupid—marrying a woman half his age. Can you imagine?” I was surprised at the anger in her tone. She seemed to read my mind. “I’m just thinking about Sondra.”
“Sondra . . . you mean the ex-Mrs. Swanson?”
She nodded, then frowned. “Oh, dear. I suppose I’d better call his new wife and give her the tragic news after the police are done with us. How long do you think these things take?”
“It shouldn’t take terribly long. No more than half an hour I’d say. They’ll only want the important details. They’ll contact us later with all further questions.”
At that moment a black-and-white cruiser came to a screeching halt at the curb. The officers stepped out and hurried over. A second later, an ambulance showed up and the emergency team hopped out.
“This way,” Tom Goodall said, waving at them toward the building entrance. “Follow me.”
One of the cops yelled out to the ambulance attendants. “Hey. If the victim’s dead, don’t disturb the crime scene.”
The younger officer turned to our small group. “Which one of you called to report this?” he asked through his mustache.
“I did,” I said, stepping forward. “I found him. Do you want me to go with you?”
“No,” the older officer replied.
“Hey, Jack. You think one of us should go in? Make sure those guys don’t touch anything?”
“Good thinking,” he replied. He was a heavyset man with a ruddy complexion. “I’ll talk to the witnesses.”
Mrs. Renay stepped forward and introduced herself with the bearing of someone taking charge. “After Miss Wright discovered the body, Ronald Dempsey and Mr. Goodall went to see if he needed an ambulance. Miss Wright and I waited out here.”
The cop looked around. “Where’s this Ronald? Is he inside?”
“He had an appointment. Seems like it couldn’t wait.” She sniffed, making it clear she did not approve of his leaving. “But he left his business card so you can reach him if you need to.” She handed it to him.
The officer scowled. “He shouldn’t have left. He should have known we’d want to talk to him.”
She nodded. “That’s what we all told him.”
His eyes wandered over to me. “So you discovered the body. Can you recall what time it might have been?”
“I think around ten thirty.” I looked at Mrs. Renay for confirmation.
“That sounds about right,” she said. “It was only a few minutes past ten thirty when you ran through the
main office.”
A second police car drove into the lot and, cringing, I recognized Officer Lombard as she stepped out. She came forward, her thumbs hooked on her belt.
“Why is it that every time there’s a murder around here, you’re sure to be involved?” she asked. I felt my blood simmering. So it was going to be like that, was it? Let’s just say that Officer Lombard and I had a bit of history.
“I think ‘involved’ is a strong word to use, considering all I did was find the body and call the police.”
“But, you have to admit, you sure have a knack for finding dead bodies.” Her tone was only slightly less contentious.
I cracked a tiny smile. “You’re beginning to sound like my mother. But I’d say it’s more a case of really bad luck rather than a skill. Believe me—I would rather somebody else had found him.” I shuddered, remembering the bloody scene.
“Hope you guys don’t mind,” she said to the other officers. “But I’m taking Della with me.” We walked in the direction the ambulance men had just taken. The city employees who had gathered by the entrance now moved out of the way to let us by.
“It’s this way.” I headed down the hall toward Swanson’s office and stopped outside the door. Inside, the two ambulance attendants and the mustached officer were bending over the body. I began shivering afresh. I wasn’t the only one having some difficulty with the situation. Tom Goodall stood a few feet away, looking slightly jaundiced.
I dared a quick look at the victim, this time noticing the hole in the side of his head. My stomach lurched at the sweet metallic smell of blood. Suddenly the room tilted and I dropped into a crouch.
“Put your head down and take a deep breath,” Lombard said. She opened the side door, the same one I’d noticed earlier and a welcome breeze of fresh air wafted in.
Loom and Doom Page 3