As I started around the building, walking on a cleanly shoveled sidewalk, a school bell rang across the street, and John Hay Elementary’s children, bundled from head to toe, came racing outside for a chilly recess. I didn’t wait to see if I could catch sight of Tracie and Heather. It was too damn cold.
The Queen Anne had been done up in spades, complete with a porte cochere, which, I believe, is French for a covered driveway designed to keep passengers out of the rain. Set smack in the middle of the circle was a solidly frozen fountain of sculpted lions with fangs of icicles dripping from their fierce muzzles. If the rehab folks had been paying attention, they would have used Queen Anne High’s grizzly mascot instead of lions to create their driveway fountain, but then again, rehab developers as a species have never been known for their sentimentality.
I was headed for the main doorway when I encountered a man in coveralls who was standing on a tall ladder under the portico. He was busily taking down a long plastic garland that had been draped over the doorway.
“I’m looking for Rex Pierson,” I said.
“That’s me,” the man replied, looking down at me a little curiously but making no move to climb back down the ladder. “Are you the fella who called about the vacancy?”
“No. I’m not.”
He went back to working on the garland. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m a police officer,” I said. “Detective Beaumont, with Homicide.”
In many situations the word “homicide” causes an immediate reaction. This was one of those times. “Be right down,” Rex Pierson said, bringing the garland with him.
While he was still on the ladder, it had been impossible to tell how big he was, but once he was on the ground, I realized that Rex Pierson was a giant of a man-six seven at least-with forearms like small tree trunks and hands the size of serving platters.
He carried the tangle of garland as far as the glass doors of the building, punched a code into the security phone, and led me inside, where he dropped the garland in a large heap along with several others on the carpeted entryway floor.
“What’s this all about?” he asked me, wiping his chilly hand on the leg of his coveralls before extending it to me.
“I’d like to talk to you about Sunday night,” I said. “About your giving Andrea Stovall a lift down to the school district office.”
“Well, of course I gave her a ride,” he said. “I mean I couldn’t very well let her go down there all by herself, not after what happened.” He squatted down and began straightening the garlands.
“What exactly did happen?” I asked.
“Well, after that crazy bastard came bustin‘ in here and practically knocked her door down, I wasn’t about to leave her alone.”
“What crazy bastard?”
“Why, you know, the guy you cops are lookin‘ for, the one whose wife got iced just down the hill here. In fact, I started to call you about it, but my boss said to let it be. Said it would be bad if prospective tenants heard about it, so I kept my mouth shut, but I’ve been thinkin’ to myself that maybe he did her first, his wife I mean, and then came lookin‘ for Mrs. Stovall. Or maybe it was the other way around. At any rate, by the time we got down there, it was already too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“To warn her, his wife, that her husband was on a tear and looking for her.”
“Maybe you’d better tell me exactly what happened. From the beginning.”
“The alarm in the building went off, right around eleven I think it was. Since I’m a resident manager, the alarm sounds in my unit, so I went looking to see what was going on. We’ve had a break-in or two, but nothin‘ very serious. Somebody had come in through the front door, pried it open and come in, but there wasn’t any sign of them on this floor, so I go up in the elevator, stopping on each floor and listening.
“Up on five I hear this crazy guy pounding on the door and squalling for somebody to open up. So I go up to him and ask him what seems to be the matter. He’s raving away that his wife’s in there, in that apartment, and that if they don’t open up, he’s going to break the mother down.
“So I call through the door to Mrs. Stovall-it was her apartment, you see-and ask her if she’s okay, and she says she is but that there’s nobody in there but her, that she’s all alone. Then this guy starts yelling again, saying that she’s lying, so I ask Mrs. Stovall real nice and quiet-like if she’d mind opening the door so he could see for himself that his wife wasn’t there, and she did. She opened it right away, and this guy goes barging in like he owned the place.
“I wasn’t worried about that, although I think Mrs. Stovall was. You see, I can handle guys like him. They’re no problem. Anyway, he went stormin‘ through the apartment, lookin’ in closets and bathrooms and out on the balcony and even under the bed, but just like Mrs. Stovall said, there wasn’t anybody there. She was all alone.
“After he finishes lookin‘, I tell this guy that maybe he made a mistake and that he should get the hell out. He starts out the door and then he turns and looks back and tells Mrs. Stovall that if she ever breathes a word of it, he’ll take care of her.”
“He threatened her? Those were his exact words?”
“Near as I can remember. Anyway, he left then, without any more hassle. I wanted to call the cops, but Mrs. Stovall was all shook up, cryin‘ and shakin’ and she says that she has to go down to her office and warn her friend-Marcia was her name. That’s what she said, gotta go warn Marcia.”
“And you offered to take her?”
“Wouldn’t you?” he returned.
“I suppose I would,” I replied. “So what happened then?”
“I take her down to the office, you know, the school district office, just down the hill here. She points out this Marcia’s car in the parking lot and says she must still be there. She jumped out of the car before I even had it stopped good, and she went inside.”
“How?”
“What do you mean, how? The way most people do, through a door. She let herself in with a key, but she came back out a couple minutes later and said she couldn’t find anybody there, but she brought a note out with her and put it on the driver’s seat in the other lady’s car.”
So consulting a handwriting expert wasn’t going to be necessary in order to learn who had written the warning note. “A” was indeed Andrea Stovall. What I wanted to know now was exactly what Pete Kelsey had just found out and didn’t want Andrea Stovall to tell.
Pierson had finished straightening the tangle of garlands and was now busily wrapping them around a huge wooden spool. It was one of those spools the phone company uses for storing and transporting cables. Most people couldn’t have hefted it by themselves, but Rex, muscles bulging, lifted it as though it were a child’s plaything.
I stood there for a moment watching him. “No one reported the disturbance to the police, did they?”
Rex shook his head. “Mrs. Stovall said not to. He settled right down as soon as I got there. Most people do.” He smiled, and I saw what he meant. On my best days, I wouldn’t have been a physical match for Rex Pierson, and neither would Pete Kelsey.
“By the way, is she here?” I asked.
“Who? Mrs. Stovall. Could be. I haven’t seen her today. She’s usually at work by now, but then, I’ve been busy taking down the decorations. You can try giving her a ring on the security phone if you like. She might be there.”
I tried the phone, but if Andrea Stovall was inside her apartment, she still wasn’t answering. I was sure, her sickness-excuse to the contrary, that she had indeed gone out of town and was lying low someplace. I could only hope that Kramer knew where.
Hanging up the phone, I turned to Rex. “Do you mind taking me up to her apartment?”
Rex Pierson stopped what he was doing and looked me straight in the eye. “That’s not legal.”
“But what if something’s happened to her?”
His eyes bulged. “You don’t really think something’s happened to her here, do you?”
“We should check.”
He nodded wordlessly and led the way to the elevator. Wide school hallways had been broken up by strategically placed walls. Polished floors had been covered over with carpet. Only an occasional bulletin board or trophy case and the broad, glassed-in stairways gave any hint that the place had once been a school.
