Dead Heat Part 25

In the morning, we lay in bed and watched breakfast television, which wasn't very good and full of far too many advertising breaks for my liking.

'What do you have to do today?' I asked Caroline while running my finger down her spine.

'Nothing until four o'clock,' she said. 'We will have a run through of a couple of movements. Then tonight's performance is at seven thirty, like last night.'

'Can I come again?' I asked.

'Oh, I hope so.' She giggled.

'I meant to the concert,' I said.

'You can if you want to,' she said. 'Are you sure? It'll be just the same as last night.'

'You could surely eat the same dinner two nights running?' I said.

'Only if you cooked it.'

'Well then,' I said. 'I want to come and hear you play again tonight.'

'I'll see if I can find you a ticket.'

'So what do you want to do until four o'clock?' I asked.

She grinned. 'We could stay in bed.'

But we didn't. We decided to get up and go and have some breakfast at the restaurant on the ninety-fifth floor of the John Hanc.o.c.k Building, which, according to the tourist guide in the room, was the second-highest building in the Midwest, after the Sears Tower.

I took the lift down to the lobby while Caroline went to put a note under the door of a fellow violist with whom she had agreed to go shopping, explaining that her plans had changed. As I waited for her, I asked the concierge for a map of the area and found the John Hanc.o.c.k Building clearly marked. I also found O'Hare airport to the north-west of the city centre. And something else on the map caught my eye.

Caroline arrived, having delivered her note.

'Are you aware,' I asked, 'that the state of Wisconsin starts only a few miles north of Chicago?'

'So?' she said.

'Wisconsin is where Delafield is, and that's where Delafield Industries Inc. are based.'

'But how far away?' she said. 'Some of the states are huge.'

I found out. The hotel concierge was most helpful. Delafield, Wisconsin, he said, was under two hours' drive away. Yes, of course, he could organize a rental car, all he needed was a credit card. Caroline lent me hers. Better safe than dead.

Interstate highway 94 conveniently ran directly from Chicago to Delafield and, as the hotel concierge had said, it took us less than two hours in our rented Buick.

We turned off the interstate at the Delafield exit and found ourselves in an urban environment repeated thousands of times across the United States. The junction was surrounded on all sides by flat-roofed commercial and retail development, including gas stations, drugstores, supermarkets and the ubiquitous fast-food outlets each with an over-tall sign designed to be visible for miles along the highway in each direction. I thought back to when I had opened the Hay Net and the flurry of objections that had been raised by the local planners over the modest sign I had wanted to erect next to the road. In the end I had been given my permission, on the condition that the top of the sign was not more than two metres from the ground. I smiled to myself. The Cambridge-s.h.i.+re County Council planning officer would have had palpitations in this neck of the woods.

Beyond the retail areas with their acres of tarmac car park, and sitting on a small hill, I could see some substantial industrial buildings with the words DELAFIELD INDUSTRIES INC DELAFIELD INDUSTRIES INC. in big bold black letters on a yellow sign sticking up from the roof. Below the sign, painted large on the side wall of the factory in fading paint, was the legend THE FINEST AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY IN AMERICA THE FINEST AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY IN AMERICA.

I wasn't really sure what I hoped to achieve by coming all the way up to Delafield from Chicago. It just seemed to me to be an obvious thing to do, having discovered that it was so close. I had no idea what I would find. Indeed, I had no idea what I was even looking for. But if I was right and Delafield Industries was indeed the intended target, then if anyone knew the motive for the bombing, it would surely be Rolf Schumann. Whether he would tell me or not was another matter.

We drove up to the main gate where a st.u.r.dy-looking barrier blocked our path.

'Can I help you, sir?' asked a security guard, who appeared from the gla.s.s-fronted grey booth on my left. He wore a dark blue uniform complete with flat-topped cap and a belt around his waist with more gadgets hung from it than I believed was prudent. Surely, I thought, a belt with all that weight would pull his trousers down, rather than hold them up.

'I was pa.s.sing and wondered if Mr Rolf Schumann was in,' I said.

'And your name, sir?' the guard asked. He, himself, wore a plastic name badge with BAKER BAKER embossed on it. embossed on it.

'Butcher,' I said, deciding against 'candlestick maker'. 'Max and Caroline Butcher.' I had no idea why I didn't tell him my real name. If Mr Schumann was, in fact, in, then he might just remember me from Newmarket racecourse and wonder why I had given a false name to his security guard. But it didn't matter.

'Do you have an appointment, Mr Butcher?' asked the guard politely.

'No, I'm afraid we don't,' I replied, equally politely.

'Then I'm sorry,' he said. 'We don't accept visitors without an appointment.'

'OK,' I said. 'But is Mr Schumann actually here?'

'I couldn't say,' he said.

'Couldn't or won't?' I asked.

'Couldn't.' He had lost the politeness from his voice.

'Why not?' I asked him.

'Please, sir,' he said, not amused and not wanting to play the game any longer, 'turn your vehicle around and depart these premises.' He p.r.o.nounced 'vehicle' as if it were two words 'veer-hickle', with the emphasis on the 'hickle'. 'Otherwise I shall have you forcibly removed.'

He didn't appear to be joking. I resisted the temptation to say that I was still owed some money by his company for having cooked a lunch at which his boss had been blown up. Instead, I did as he asked, turned my 'veer-hickle' around and pulled away. I could see him large in the rear-view mirror. He was standing in the road with his hands on his hips, and he watched us all the way down the hill until we disappeared round the bend at the bottom.

'That didn't seem to go too well,' said Caroline somewhat sarcastically. 'What do you suggest we do now? Climb their fence?'

'Let's go and get that breakfast we've been promising ourselves.'

We parked the Buick on Main Street, and sat in the window of Mary's Cafe drinking coffee and eating blueberry m.u.f.fins.

Delafield was somewhat topsy-turvy. What was known as Delafield Town was all the new development near the interstate highway, including the retail parks and the agricultural machinery factory, while the city of Delafield was a delightful old-world village set alongside Lake Nagawicka. Nagawicka, we were reliably informed by the cafe owner, meant 'there is sand' in the language of the local Native Americans, the Ojibwe Indians, although we couldn't actually see any sand on the lake sh.o.r.e.

'More coffee?' asked Mary, coming out from behind her counter and holding up a black Thermos pot.

'Thank you,' said Caroline, pus.h.i.+ng our mugs towards her.

'Have you heard of someone called Rolf Schumann?' I asked Mary as she poured the steaming liquid.

'Oh, yes,' she said. 'Everyone round here knows the Schumanns.'

'I understand he's president of Delafield Industries,' I said.

'That's right,' she said. 'At least he was. It's such a shame.'

'What's a shame?' asked Caroline.

'About his condition,' Mary said.

'What about his condition?' I asked.

Mary looked round as if checking no one else was listening. There was only the three of us in the cafe. 'You know,' she said, shaking her head from side to side. 'He's not all there.'

'How do you mean?' I said. Mary was embarra.s.sed. I was surprised, and I helped her out. 'Is the problem to do with his injuries?' I asked.

'Yes,' she said quickly. 'That's right. Due to his injuries.'

'Do you know if he's still in hospital?' I asked her.

'Yes,' she said. 'I believe so.' She looked around again and then continued in a hushed tone. 'He's in s.h.i.+ngo.'

's.h.i.+ngo?' I said.

'Yes,' she said. 's.h.i.+ngo. You know, the mental hospital.' She said the last two words in little more than a whisper.

'Where exactly is s.h.i.+ngo?' I asked her, in the same manner.

'In Milwaukee, on Masterton Avenue.'

'Do the Schumanns live in Milwaukee?' I asked, more normally.

'No, of course not,' she said. 'They live here. Up on Lake Drive.'

We took our leave of Mary and her m.u.f.fins, not because I had gained enough information, I hadn't, but because I felt that she was just as likely to tell the Schumanns about us, and our questions, as she was willing to tell us about them. Discretion, I thought, was not one of her strong points.

The city of Delafield, the village, had numerous shops full of stuff that one has no good use for but one just has to have anyway. We visited each in turn and marvelled at the decorative gla.s.s and china, the novelty sculptures, the storage boxes of every size, shape and decoration, the home-made greeting cards and the rest. There was a lovely shop with racks of old-fas.h.i.+oned-looking signs, one with fancy notebooks and another with legend-embroidered cus.h.i.+ons for every conceivable occasion, and more. There were toys for boys, and toys for girls, and lots of toys for their parents too. Delafield was a stocking-filler's paradise. Not that it was cheap. Caroline's credit card took quite a battering as she bought far too much to get easily into her suitcase for the flight home. Presents, she explained, for her family, although we both knew that she wanted it all for herself.

Everywhere we went, I managed to bring the Schumanns into the conversation. In the embroidered cus.h.i.+on store the lady appeared to be almost in tears over them.

'Such nice people,' she said. 'Very generous. They have done so much for the local community. Mrs Schumann is always coming in here. She's bought no end of my cus.h.i.+ons. It's so sad.'

'About Mr Schumann's injuries?' I prompted.

'Yes,' she said. 'And all those other people killed in England. They all lived round here, you know. We used to see them all the time.'

'Terrible,' I said, sympathizing.

'And we're all dreadfully worried about the future,' she went on.

'About what exactly?' I asked her.

'About the factory,' she said.

'What about it?' I prompted again.

'It's not doing so well,' she said. 'They laid off a third of the workers last November. Devastating it was, just before the holidays and all. Something about the Chinese selling tractors for half the price that we could make them for here. There's talk in the town of the whole plant closing. My husband works there, and my son. I don't know what we'll do in these parts if they close down.' She wiped a tear from her eye. 'And then that disaster happens in England and poor Mr Schumann and the others ...' She tailed off, unable to continue.

The 2000 Guineas excursion had obviously been a last-ditch effort to try to find a new market for the ailing giant. The resulting carnage, with the loss of key personnel, might prove to be the final nail in the company's coffin.

'Is there much unemployment around here?' I asked her.

'No, not at the moment,' she said. 'But three thousand still work at the tractor factory. No small community can absorb that number laid off at once. Many of them will have to leave and go to Milwaukee to make beer or motorcycles.'

'Beer or motorcycles?' I asked. It seemed a strange combination.

'Miller beer and Harley-Davidsons,' she said. 'Both are made in Milwaukee.'

'And how far away is that?' I said.

'About thirty miles.'

'Maybe they will be able to continue living here and commute,' I said, trying to cheer her up. 'It won't be so bad.'

'I hope you're right,' she said, clearly not believing it.

'I wonder what will happen to the Schumanns,' I said during a pause.

'Don't you worry about them,' she said. 'They've got pots of money. Just built themselves a new house. More like a mansion. It's never the bosses who end up broke. They'll make sure they get their bonuses and pensions sorted before the plant closes. You watch.'

She obviously wasn't as keen on the Schumanns as she had originally implied. After her husband and son are made redundant, I thought, she probably won't have a good word left for anyone to do with Delafield Industries Inc.

Only one person we spoke to knew of MaryLou Fordham. It was the man in the novelty sculpture shop.

'Nice legs,' he'd said with a knowing smile. I had smiled back at him but it was not her legs I remembered. It was the lack of them.

We drove slowly along Lake Drive, staring at each of the impressive residences. This was millionaires' row for Delafield. Each house sat in the centre of its own large garden, with impressive fences, walls and gates to keep out the unwanted. From the road it wasn't very easy to see the buildings due to the many pine trees and the bountiful rhododendrons, but Caroline and I had previously driven over to the far side of the lake and had looked back to identify the Schumann home. As the cus.h.i.+on lady had said, it was quite a mansion: a modern three-storey house in grey stone with a red roof set above a sweeping well-tended lawn that ran down to the water and a dock, complete with boat.

Was this the home of the true target of the Newmarket bombing? Was this the home of a victim or a villain? Was this the home of a friend or a foe?

Only one way to find out, I thought, and I pushed the b.u.t.ton on the intercom beside the eight-foot-high wrought-iron security gates.

CHAPTER 16.

Dorothy Schumann was a slight woman. Although she was not more than five-foot eight, she looked taller due to her slender shape. She had long, thin hands that were ghostly white, almost transparent, and they shook slightly as she rested them in her lap. Caroline and I, and Mrs Schumann, sat facing each other on two green and white sofas in her drawing room, the view down to the lake as spectacular as I had imagined.

'So you met my Rolf in England,' said Mrs Schumann.

'Yes,' I said. 'At Newmarket racetrack.'