by Jan Burke
I considered going into the stairwell, or a nearby janitor’s closet, but opted instead for the fire escape. What would have been his disadvantage would be my advantage—and outside the back of the building, I might see any exit the killer made from this side.
The bells kept ringing, the hall seemed to be made of the sound. I stepped closer to the window, took hold of the latch on the sash, and vaguely recognized the reflection of something dark before he grabbed me from behind and yanked me backwards, off balance. A large, black rubber hand, coated in something wet and warm and sticky, covered my face. The smell of it mixed with rubber made me want to pull away, but he held me tight, his much larger arm pinning both of my arms; I felt the weird smoothness of the neoprene suit against my skin, on my neck and arms, as he lifted me off my feet, and even as I kicked at him, turned and slammed my head into the wall.
Dazed, I saw nothing but black wetsuit and the wall as he maneuvered me against it; I made some useless efforts to push away, then felt searing pain on my already aching scalp as he took hold of a handful of my hair and yanked it hard. His other hand took me by the belt; he lifted me from my feet by these two handles and swung me toward the wall again.
At the last instant, I realized his intention and tried to shield my face with my arms, twisted my head just enough to prevent myself from hitting completely face-first. It hurt like hell anyway, the impact strong enough to give me a bloody nose. He slightly changed his grip, picked me up, and twisting at the last minute, managed to land another blow to my head. I didn’t feel anything after the moment of impact.
I awakened, if you can call it that, to heat, and the smell of something burning. Neoprene. And rubber gloves. And other things. I had no idea how long I had been out, but I could still hear the goddamn elevator bells ringing and took that to be a good sign. People would be coming into the building, they would hear the bells. No, I thought—slowly, it seemed—people don’t run into burning buildings.
I was dizzy, and facedown on the linoleum, which—a few feet away from me—was also on fire. I couldn’t see very far. The hallway was filling with smoke. I looked for an exit, but the stairwell and the hallway to the elevators were blocked by a bonfire of sorts. An evidence fire, with what looked like a few items from the janitor’s closet thrown in for good measure.
I tried to move, found my hands tied behind my back, but my feet free. Telling myself that being burned alive would hurt worse, I tried to ignore the aching in my head and face and the strain on everything else as I pulled my knees up to my chest, worked my hands down over my rear and feet, then rolled to my back, bringing my hands in front of me. They were bound by an electrical cord, and I decided not to waste time trying to untie them—I needed to get the hell out of the building.
I moved awkwardly toward the fire escape again, staying low, trying to breathe the cooler air near the floor. By the time I had reached the window, the heat was intense, the smoke thickening. As I stood and reached for the window latch, I prayed to God that Arthur Spanning had maintained his building well.
The window opened easily, and set off another loud alarm, but my head was already ringing. I half-crawled, half-fell out onto the fire escape, and only then heard sirens and shouting. I was on my back, looking at the sky, which also had smoke in it, and a helicopter. But although smoke was billowing out after me, compared to the hallway the air here was cool and good, and for the next few moments, all I could do was close my eyes and take big gulps of it into my lungs. Someone in the helicopter said something over a loudspeaker and I’m fairly sure it had to do with me, because soon a fireman was on the fire escape, talking to me, freeing my hands.
“Travis!” I said, sitting up too quickly.
“Someone else in the building?” he asked, apparently pleased I was responding to him.
“No—at least I don’t think so. Outside—a young man, with a bandaged hand—”
“Oh, the owner of the building. He’s okay. He’ll be happy to know that we’ve found you. Come on, let’s get you out of here.”
Travis was waiting for me in the alley, and I made no complaint when the embrace he gave me sent a memo from everything that had hit the wall. It was good to know he was safe, still here, that the killer hadn’t somehow taken him away, too. When he stepped back, paramedics came toward me—but a familiar voice said, “Irene? Can I talk to you first?”
I turned to see Reed Collins, a Las Piernas homicide detective. I was relieved that Ulkins’s death was going to be Reed’s case; relieved, not just because I have faith in his abilities but because Reed works with Frank, and maybe as a way of doing penance for his actions when Frank was taken hostage, he has treated me with kid gloves ever since. I needed a break from bullies.
“Sure, Reed,” I said, “but I didn’t get a good look at him. He came at me from behind, never said a word. He was wearing a wetsuit, but it’s one of the things he set on fire up there.” Remembering how he had grabbed me, I said, “I think he’s right-handed.”
I still wasn’t too steady on my feet. At the paramedics’ suggestion, Reed took me to their big, boxy ambulance so that I could sit down while I talked to him. With Travis hovering nearby, I told Reed what I could.
“A wetsuit?” he asked.
“Yes. It confused me at first, but I think the guy must have heard about hair and fiber evidence or DNA, and was trying not to leave anything behind.”
“But he must have been here before, to know that Ulkins worked here on the weekends. He couldn’t have visited in a wetsuit every time.”
“No, but he could have learned Ulkins’s routine without going into the office itself. And today, I think he was already down on the eighth floor when I got there. You might want to check out the tenants on that floor.”
When I told Reed that the glove held over my face had been sticky, he gently took hold of my chin and looked closely at my left cheek, then said, “I need a favor from you.” I saw him glance toward a crime scene photographer.
“Oh.” The thought of having my photo taken in this state was humiliating, but I knew a photo might help a D.A. get a conviction—for assault if nothing else—provided this guy was ever caught. “Sure, go ahead—but Reed, I need a favor in return.”
“Anything I can do—you know that.”
“Don’t tell Frank—not yet, not while he’s away. I’ll tell him soon, but right now he can’t do anything about it, and it will just torture him. You know how he is.”
Reed smiled. “Sure. He has this crazy idea that if he’s not around, you’ll get into trouble. Dumbass hasn’t figured out that you’ll get into trouble anyway.”
“Thanks, Reed.”
They took the photos, and Reed even had one of the lab guys scrape dried blood from different parts of my face. “You think he left some of his blood on my face?”
Reed shook his head, glanced at Travis and said, “Maybe, but most likely it’s Ulkins’s.”
“He tortured him,” Travis said angrily. “Tortured that old man!”
I looked to Reed, who nodded. “We need to wait for the autopsy, but he appears to have some electrical burns on him. A few cuts as well.”
All of a sudden, I didn’t feel so hot.
“Let me get those paramedics back over here,” Reed said, watching me.
“Wait—up on that fire escape—once the fire is out—”
“It’s already out,” he said. “Soon as the fire department gives us the okay, we’re going inside to have a look at Ulkins’s office.”
“Then have someone look for a piece of electrical cord on the fire escape of the eighth floor—the ends are cut. He tied my hands with it. I know it’s a long shot, but maybe he handled it before he had the gloves on.”
He spoke into a handheld radio, asking someone to look for the cord. “Oh, one other thing,” Reed said to me. “There was an LAPD homicide detective here, name of McCain.” He smiled. “I thought Pete Baird’s wife was going to deck him.”
“Rachel’s here?”
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“Yeah, I get the feeling she’s no stranger to this McCain.” He watched me for a reaction, but it was a wasted effort. “Anyway,” he went on, “I’ve had words with the guy, a very serious discussion, on the subject of his pulling his head out of his ass, and I do believe he made daylight by the time he left. But he still claims he wants to talk to you and your cousin here. Thinks this has a bearing on a case he’s working on. I told him I’d ask you to call him later—if you felt up to it—but for now he needed to go on home like a good boy. He said you had the number.”
“I owe you for that, Reed. Thanks—and don’t worry, I’ll call him.”
“He’s not the one I’m worried about at the moment. Let me call the paramedics back over, have them take a look at you, get you cleaned up a little, okay?”
“Thanks—and Rachel—”
“No problem. I’ll get her now. And if I need to talk to you and your cousin again—?”
“I’ll be at home or—Travis, mind if I give Detective Collins your cell phone number?”
Travis read it off to him.
“I called Rachel,” Travis told me as Reed left. “I—I didn’t know what had happened to you, and I panicked and—”
“It’s okay,” I soothed, “it’s okay.” I put an arm around his shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “God, I’m sorry.”
“For what? You didn’t tell me to run inside. I’m sorry I left you out there alone. I was so relieved to see you were okay.”
“Same here, seeing you.” His voice came out just above a whisper. He looked down at his hand, rubbed his wrist beneath the bandage.
“The burn bothering you?”
“A little. I’m all right.”
After a moment, I asked, “Were you and Mr. Ulkins close?”
“No, but W—Mr. Ulkins—was very close to my dad. He was his interpreter, you might say.” He paused, then said, “Imagine doing business in Japan—living there without speaking the language. It’s a little like that. For my dad, anything written was a foreign language. Mr. Ulkins translated that language for him—turned written words into spoken ones—and wrote what my father dictated into a recorder. He was sort of a combination secretary, bookkeeper and reader.”
“Your father must have had a great deal of trust in him.”
“He did. My father didn’t want others to know he couldn’t read, but he couldn’t hide it from Mr. Brennan. Mr. Brennan had the brilliant idea of hiring someone discreet and trustworthy to read correspondence, documents and financial news to my father. W also wrote letters, filled in forms, wrote checks and took care of anything that required reading or writing. Dad said that without W, he never could have run the business.”
The paramedics came back then, so we held off talking more about Ulkins. They helped me clean the rest of the blood off my face, and while I held a cold compress to my cheek, told me nothing seemed to be broken, just bruised—that I should probably go to the hospital because of the head injury. But I wasn’t seeing double or feeling nauseated, and although my head and one side of my face hurt like hell, the initial feelings of dizziness hadn’t returned, so I thanked them for their help and told them I’d take a rain check on the ambulance ride.
By then, Rachel had joined us. “Richmond,” I said, once she had been reassured that I’d probably be all right. “It’s almost one o’clock. We have to get over there by two, and I don’t want McCain coming along for the ride.”
“I don’t think Mac’s going to be a problem,” she said. “He’s pissed off that we ditched him on the beach, but he knows he brought some of that on himself. And I don’t know what Reed said to him, but he’s backed way off.”
“So let’s get going. I need to go home, change clothes.”
“You sure you’re up to this?”
“He’s not going to talk to the two of you—he’s probably only talking to me because he’s worried I’ll cause problems for him with Margot.” “That didn’t exactly answer my question.” I didn’t say anything.
“I’ll call him and tell him we’ll see him at two-thirty, how’s that?” She talked me into it.
Harold Richmond’s office was on the second story of a strip mall not far from the Los Alamitos Race Course. There was a convenience market and a doughnut shop on the first floor of the small shopping center, so the basic qualifications for a strip mall were met. We had decided to take two cars; Rachel had reasoned that Richmond might need time to copy or retrieve the file we were after if he agreed to supply it. “And one look at you,” she said, “tells me you should be back home as soon as possible.”
I didn’t like to admit it, but she was right. The hot shower had helped, but as I climbed the stairs to Richmond’s office, I realized that my bruises were starting to make me feel a little stiff. We walked down the single, exterior hallway, passed a tax accountant’s office and a nail parlor before we reached Richmond & Associates. The words were lettered in black on a glass door; the door had a silver glaze on it that reflected an image of our weary faces back at us, but didn’t allow us to see in. I had already had a rather disheartening look at my face during my brief visit to my house. I avoided looking at Richmond’s door.
“All set?” I asked the others. They nodded. “Remember, Travis—”
“Let you handle it,” he said.
“Right.”
I pulled at the door; it rattled but didn’t open.
“I called him and he said he’d be here at two-thirty,” Rachel said. She took out her keys and used one to rap on the glass. A muffled voiced answered something none of us could make out, but after a couple of minutes a rumpled version of Harold Richmond opened the door. He looked hung over. It didn’t look as if that was a new experience for him.
“Sorry, I fell asleep,” he said.
In the next moment, his eyes widened in surprise as he saw Travis.
“Thought you had killed me?” Travis said, breaking his promise right off the bat.
Richmond scowled and said, “No. I had nothing to do with that.” He tapped his chest with his thumb and added, “If I had been trying, I would have succeeded.”
Rachel made a show of looking him up and down and said, “We should believe that because you’ve made such a success out of the rest of your life?”
“Hold on, hold on,” I said. “Let’s call a truce for now, all right?”
Richmond didn’t lose the scowl, but he didn’t try for a snappy comeback. I had the feeling I had saved him the trouble of thinking one up. Rachel shrugged and we followed him inside. I was moving a little slower than usual, and let the other two go in first.
“What happened to you?” Richmond asked me, as he got a closer look at my face.
“Diving accident,” I said.
He led the way through a small waiting room. Its walls were covered with dark wood paneling of the type popular in the late 1960s. Thumb-tacked to one wall was a yellowing bullfight poster. The rest of the decor consisted of worn gold shag carpeting, a couple of sagging chairs and a dusty end table—which held a single torn copy of Sports Illustrated. Rachel picked up the magazine as she passed the table and said, “Holy shit, the Dodgers are leaving Brooklyn!”
Travis grinned, Richmond ignored her, and at my pleading look she said only, “Lighten up.”
Richmond led us through a second door and into his office. The room was plain; a metal desk with a computer on it, a bank of old filing cabinets, a safe and a bookshelf. A small metal table held a copier and a fax machine.
There was one chair that looked as if it didn’t bring business to orthopedic surgeons, and Richmond plopped down in it as he sat behind his desk. The other three must have been made by the same people who make desks for parochial school students. Travis and I each took one of these, while Rachel stayed on her feet. She’s tall, so this made her tower above us. Richmond didn’t look too happy as he watched her stalk around his office, but he said nothing.
Travis was also being quiet, giving me hope that he w
as remembering his end of the bargain.
“Who hired you?” I asked Richmond.
“You know I can’t answer that,” he said.
“Professional ethics? If you’re helping someone who’s trying to kill my cousin, you know you’ll lose more than your license over it.”
He rubbed his hand over his face. “I know my client isn’t involved in anything like that.”
“You don’t sound too sure,” Rachel said.
“I’m sure,” he said, a little more forcefully. “If they wanted that type of work, they wouldn’t have come to me. They know I wouldn’t go for it.”