Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 40, No. 6, June, 1995

Zoe, swollen feet propped on an ottoman, filled a substantial red leather wingback. An aluminum walker leaned against the wall. An open pack of Kools lay beside a gallon pitcher of iced tea on a card table in front of her. The table, piled high with papers, evidently served double duty as a desk. Even with every window open and a fan valiantly churning the air, the room was muggy and choked with tobacco smoke.

McLean’s hand traveled involuntarily to his tie; he hated the damned things but felt first impressions were vital. His only concession to the heat was a shortsleeved pin-striped Arrow shirt and no jacket. He pulled a notebook and a thin sheet of fax paper from his pocket. The fax, which he’d received in his truck only minutes before, was the floorplan for City Center Antiques.

Tina settled onto a short stool at her grandmother’s left, their kinship obvious in their high cheekbones and delicate chins. Zoe settled back. “You started work very early.” She motioned toward her apartment’s west wall and the fire-ravaged store on the other side.

McLean acknowledged as much as he sat down at the card table, gratefully accepting the offer of tea. The glass, to his surprise, was crystal.

Tina, noting his reaction, flashed him another smile, one tinged with sadness. “My great-grandmother’s.”

Zoe glanced sideways at her granddaughter, then turned lively but troubled eyes to McLean. “So, you’ve come to help us.”

His gaze was one of kind neutrality. “I’ve been hired to find out what started the fire.”

Anxiety flitted across Zoe’s face and a hint of anger creased Tina’s. “That doesn’t mean I’m not in your corner. After all,” he allowed a glimmer of smile, “I’ve been retained by your lawyer. But my purpose is to discover the truth.”

“And then?” Tina asked.

“And then I report to Sarah Shallott. She takes it from there.” Sometimes. McLean was known to force conclusions occasionally, not always with felicitous results when his demand for justice overrode good sense.

“I see. So if I did nothing wrong, I have nothing to fear from you.”

“Even if you did something wrong by accident, you have nothing to fear.”

Tina’s look said “yeah, right,” but her lips didn’t move.

McLean, already familiar with the fire department report listing basic information for everyone involved — names, addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth — went over them again quickly. That out of the way, he turned to his own inquiry. “Some of these questions probably repeat what you’ve already been asked, but...”

“That would be difficult,” Tina said shortly. “We filled out a quickie form under the flickering light of a burning building. That Arnold Frye never asked a damned thing. Yesterday morning he told Grandmother the fire started in her pile of rags and he hoped she could live with it. Because of that, that man, my grandmother may lose everything.”

Zoe didn’t look up from her folded hands. “Don’t swear, dear. It’s not becoming.”

Tina squeezed her grandmother’s arm. “You worry about the silliest things.”

“No, dear, I worry your anger will cause more trouble. Please continue, Mr. McLean.”

He flattened the computer-generated floorplan on the table, then led the two women skillfully from room to room, short questions triggering long answers as he built a pre-fire picture of the building and its contents.

They knew the building from the intimacy of long use, first as owners, then as reluctant renters. Zoe had neared retirement giving public demonstrations on furniture restoration for a marginally likeable man. A long drop from the proud woman who’d inherited an entire city block during Eisenhower’s first term.

“I was always careful with those rags, Mr. McLean. Knowledge gained from my grandfather. Hard-learned knowledge. He burned down the first store on this site sometime around 1895.”

Tina nodded. “She was careful, believe me.”

McLean did, but for other reasons. He sipped his tea, jotted a few notes, and kept going. The stifling room made his neck, confined by the tie, want to explode. Did they know what Firth’s plans were for the holes in the second floor? No. Had they ever changed the fuses in the store? Zoe vaguely remembered where the box was but couldn’t remember the last time she’d changed one. That had become Firth’s problem when he took over.

“Did you always have a packaging operation?”

Zoe shook her head. “Another one of Clement’s brainstorms. I don’t know if it made money, and I hated having those plastic packing pellets around. Terrible things. They stuck to everything, got into everything. Still I guess it wasn’t too bad an idea. He sold collectibles by mail, and the packing was certainly good for that.”

When he asked if the packaging room doubled as a dressing room, he drew guffaws. The hair dryers were used to tighten shrinkwrap around valuable shipments.

From an ingrained sensitivity to lost dreams, McLean hesitated before broaching the last subject. “I believe you worked for Mr. Firth. How did he come to take over the store?”