Vertical Burn - Earl Emerson [62]
The gold embossing on the office door proclaimed that the premises belonged to COLE ENTERPRISES, LTD.
Finney entered the waiting area through the glass doors, where he hoodwinked a receptionist and then, in the next room, an assistant with hennaed hair and a short black skirt. It was amazing to Finney how far a suit and tie and a manila envelope with PATTERSON COLE—PERSONAL SIGNATURE REQUIRED typed across the front could get him. So far it had been a badge of entry at each checkpoint.
He stepped into Cole’s gargantuan office just as the old man changed into a pair of ankle-high slippers.
“Pardon me?” It was Cole’s assistant, a dark-haired man in a bow tie and horn-rimmed glasses, and a manner about him that quickly proclaimed his superiority.
“I need to talk with Mr. Cole,” Finney said.
“And you are?”
“John Finney. I’m with the Seattle Fire Department.”
“I’m not aware of any appointments this morning.”
“It’s about the fire on Leary Way last June.”
The old man’s gravelly voice entertained a slight quaver. “What about the fire?”
“I have a few questions.”
“If you don’t have an appointment, you need to be leaving,” said the aide.
“Let him alone, Norris. I’ve always got a minute for the fire department.”
Norris remained close to Finney, and Finney had the feeling Norris was not only an aide but a de facto bodyguard, that he’d had martial arts training, perhaps at one of the corporate antiterrorist schools. He was a head shorter than Finney and soft enough to use for a pillow, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.
Patterson Cole walked behind his glass desk and sat heavily in a high-backed leather chair. A brace of windows on the side wall looked out over a sunny Elliott Bay. In one corner stood a glass sculpture of a naked woman crouched to throw a discus. The room had several other sculptures on stands, all glass, all nudes.
“What can I do for the fire department, young man?”
“Did you receive any threats against that building in the past few years? Any disputes with the tenants?”
“You know of anything, Norris?”
“Nothing.”
“Any problem employees?”
“Only person holds a grudge against me is Bibi, my wife.” The skin under Cole’s chin hung like a paper bag with an apple core in it. He had penetrating, pale blue eyes that had probably made him handsome in his youth and a shock of white hair that needed trimming around the collar.
“I’m trying to figure out who might have had a motive to burn it down.”
“Your own man showed me the electrical socket. Scorched all to hell. Cut it right out of the wall and showed it to me.”
“I know there was an electrical socket. But supposing that wasn’t the cause of the fire? Supposing it wasn’t an accident?”
Cole glanced at his assistant. “We’ve already collected from the insurance. You want to go back over all this? What’s the point?”
“How much was it insured for?”
“Who are you?” Norris asked, stepping forward.
Cole tipped his chair back and held the arms of the chair with a steely grip. “That’s a good question. Who the hell are you?”
“John Finney. I’m a Seattle—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Norris. “You said all that. You got any ID?”
Before Finney could fish for his wallet, the receptionist burst through the door. “I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Cole, but this man slipped past me. I thought he was delivering something for the divorce, but I called your wife’s attorneys and they haven’t sent anything over.”
“That’s okay, Doris,” Cole said. “You can close the door on your way out. And call security.”
“I’ve already sent for them.”
“Good girl.”
Norris placed himself squarely between his boss and Finney and said, “You’d better leave now.”
“A man named Bill Cordifis died in that fire. He was my partner.”
“I’m sure he was,” Norris said.
Cole scratched the back of one hand, his fingernails as long as a woman’s, his hands mottled with age spots. “What’d you say his name was?”
“Cordifis,” repeated his assistant.
“I remember. We sent a wreath. I remember