Death Takes a Ride (The Cate Kinkaid Files Book #3): A Novel (23 page)

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Cate spent most of the next day with Uncle Joe. He brought her up to date on a couple of minor but active cases she hadn’t been involved in. They hauled files on old, long-closed cases up to the attic for storage.

He gave her contact information for experts he had consulted in the past, everyone from an authority on poisons to an expert on historic houses in the area. Then there was the beekeeping expert. Cate couldn’t imagine ever needing that one, but Uncle Joe just smiled and reminded her that the PI business could be strange and unpredictable. They loaded as many of the books in his reference library as her car could handle. He gave her a couple of boxes of bullets to go with the gun.

She started setting up her own library when she got home. She put the boxes of bullets in a drawer near the gun, then stood back and considered both gun and bullets with a certain ambivalence. She’d thought often enough about the day she could actually carry a gun in her PI work. Now she had a PI license and a gun.

Be careful what you wish for; you may get it?

That evening, she and Mitch returned to Uncle Joe’s, and
Mitch transferred all the relevant files from Uncle Joe’s computer to hers. They loaded the metal file cabinet and the remainder of the reference library books into the SUV. Rebecca added some potted plants that wouldn’t survive in the house without care. Her worried expression suggested she wasn’t sure they would survive
with
Cate’s care.

“I’m going to miss you guys. I suppose you’re getting up at the crack of dawn to take off?”

Uncle Joe and Rebecca looked at each other. “No way,” he said.

“We’re throwing away clocks and calendars. God gave us this special time of life together, and we’re going to enjoy it.” In a whispered aside to Cate, but one which her husband surely couldn’t miss, Rebecca added, “Sometimes I’ve been afraid Joe was going to wind up as the World’s Oldest Working PI. I’m really glad the Lord sent you to keep that from happening.”

Back home, Cate and Mitch unloaded everything, with Octavia inspecting each item. Clancy claimed the window seat while she was busy sniffing a book called
Diary of a Cat Burglar
, which was surely just another of those odd coincidences. Mitch seemed rather preoccupied this evening. Not really distant or withdrawn, but he definitely had something on his mind as they worked.

“Everything progressing okay with the sale?” she asked tentatively as they took a Pepsi break in the kitchen.

“Going good. Just a couple of minor details to work out yet. They’ve offered me a job, Coordinator of Special Projects.”

“Hey, great!”

“It’s in their Seattle office.”

Cate concealed a ten-story plunge somewhere inside her. “Are you going to take it?”

“It might be the smart thing to do.” Mitch paused, sloshing the Pepsi in the can reflectively. “The company Lance is going to work for down in Texas has contacted me too.”

“Looks as if you have your choice then, of where you want to live and work.” Cate tried to sound pleasantly supportive. She wanted to be glad for Mitch that he had good opportunities. She
would
be glad for him, even if it felt like trying to make cheesecake out of sawdust. “That’s really great.”

“But I think I’m ready for something new,” Mitch said.

He didn’t expand on that thought. Cate wondered if he was waiting for her to ask
what
something new, but her stubborn streak surfaced and she didn’t do it. If he wanted to be male-mysterious, she wasn’t going to beg for his thoughts. He’d be coming out of the sale of Computer Dudes with an impressive chunk of money. Maybe he had in mind loafing with Clancy in the Caribbean for a year, or making a man-and-dog world tour.

She gave herself a mental whack. Now she was sounding jealous of a dog
.

“Hey, I was thinking. I need to talk to someone tomorrow morning, but maybe later we could take Clancy for a run somewhere?” Cate suggested.

“How about if while you’re busy I come over and get the ground rototilled for that garden you were talking about? I’ve already talked to Hank Bowman at church about borrowing his rototiller this weekend.”

Garden? Would Mitch be interested in planting a garden unless he expected to be around to benefit from it? Cate’s spirits lifted with a trampoline bounce, then sank just as quickly. Yeah, Mitch would help plant a garden even if he’d be a thousand miles away when it started producing. Mitch was like that.

“I bought a bunch of seeds, so that sounds great,” Cate said.

She could plan all kinds of menus with produce from the garden. Solitary Squash. Lonely Lettuce. Onions for One.

Mitch arrived the next morning before Cate left for the convenience store to talk to Lily, rototiller and various other tools jumbled in the back of his SUV. By the time she left, Mitch and the machine were churning a trail through the dirt in a corner of the yard. Clancy sniffed every overturned clod, occasionally pausing to dig as if he sensed buried treasure. Although she had to wonder with some uneasiness exactly what Clancy might consider “treasure.”

The visit to the convenience store was brief. Another clerk said Lily was working this weekend, but she wouldn’t be in until 1:00. Cate drove to Lily and Andy’s apartment and warily peered down the driveway from the street. Lily’s pickup stood in front of the apartment, so she was home. Cate had no way of knowing if Andy Timmons was also there, and she couldn’t think of any good excuse to offer for dropping in if he was home.

Maybe she should start a sideline of door-to-door sales so she’d always have an excuse for dropping in on anyone. And a backup career if the investigative business tanked. Kinkaid Investigations and Kitchen Gadgets? Kinkaid Investigations and Lingerie?

Cate wasn’t sorry to hurry on home. It was a fantastic spring day, cloudless blue sky, warm sun, a day made for digging and planting. She changed into denim shorts and tank top and stepped out the back door.

Mitch’s shirt was open, sleeves rolled up, shirttails flap
ping, dark hair falling over his forehead as he manhandled the rototiller. The ground hadn’t been worked up in a long time, years probably, and occasionally the machine made a bucking-bronc leap, but he had the muscles to keep it under control. Cate couldn’t say that muscular-male types had ever particularly impressed her, but now . . . Hmmm. She could see a certain appeal after all. Something attractively elemental about a man wrestling with machine and earth.

He made a turn at the corner, spotted Cate, and shut the rototiller off. He grabbed a piece of old towel out of his back pocket and wiped sweat off his face and neck as he walked toward her.

There was something unexpectedly appealing about honest male sweat too. And who’d have thought a streak of dirt across a cheek could be so attractive?

“Hey, how’d it go?” he asked.

“She hadn’t come to work yet. I’ll have to go back later.”

“What do you think so far?” Mitch waved across the expanse of tilled earth.

He’d started by ripping an outline of the intended garden area and was working inward from there. The space was at least double the size Cate had intended. If she had any success growing things, she could supply a vegetarian army.

“It’s, um, a little larger than I expected. But that’s okay,” she added quickly.

“I guess I kind of got carried away,” Mitch admitted. “But you can learn canning and freezing and drying. All that good pioneer stuff.”

Yeah, right. She might also learn to flap her ears and fly.

Perhaps realizing that, he added, “Or Helping Hands can always use donations of produce to give to needy families.”

Donations she could do.

They worked until noon, Mitch rototilling, Cate raking, Clancy digging. All getting dirt-streaked and grubby. They stopped for a quick lunch, then went back to work. By 2:30, when Cate reluctantly stopped to shower, they had rows of carrots, radishes, and lettuce seeds in the ground. Perky little packets impaled on a stick at the end of each row identified what would soon be sprouting there.

Mitch plants
, I water, God gives the increase.
The biblical version of those words had a spiritual garden in mind, but maybe it applied to earthy gardens too.
You okay with that
, Lord? Even if I’m not planting parsnips or rutabagas
?
God had no doubt created them with good intentions, but she hated parsnips and rutabagas.

She was back at the convenience store by 3:10. She didn’t spot Lily’s pickup in the parking area, but inside the store she saw Lily in skimpy shorts and tank top working the cash register. No chance to talk to her, however. The little store was so busy that all Cate could do was ask Lily if she’d get a break soon.

Lily eyed her suspiciously. “Why?”

“I need to talk to you. It won’t take more than a few minutes.”

“Talk about what?” More suspicion.

“About someone you might know.”

Lily’s glossy pink lips compressed into a thin line, but she finally nodded. “Okay. I guess I owe you that. I tried to call you.”

Cate couldn’t think why Lily owed her anything, but she wasn’t about to argue the point.

“I usually take a break about 4:00 if you want to wait until then,” Lily said.

“I’ll be out in my car.”

“Sometimes Andy shows up about my break time too.”

Was that a warning? Cate went to the car to wait and fidget about several things. Why had Lily tried to call her? How did she get the number? Cate purposely hadn’t left a card at the apartment. Again, she thought Andy’s keeping quiet about knowing the gunman at H&B was definitely odd. Maybe, that night she was at the apartment, he was afraid if he mentioned knowing Jackson, she’d tell the police and they’d pull him in for questioning? Details of Andy’s lifestyle might not bear magnifying-glass inspection.

The car heated up on the warm spring day. She moved it into shade cast by a tree on a neighboring lot, angled so she could watch for Andy. No self-service gas in Oregon, and a steady stream of customers kept the attendants on the gas pumps busy. Many gas buyers also went into the store and came out with arms loaded. With nothing else to do, she started analyzing purchases: 60 percent of the customers bought soft drinks, 75 percent beer, and 90 percent some type of chips.

The fascinating life of the fully licensed PI. Kinkaid Investigations and Statistical Junk Food Analyst?

4:00 and 4:30 came and went.

Cate was about to expand her analysis into brand names of beer and soft drinks, or maybe just leave and try to catch Lily another time, when she spotted the woman coming out a rear door of the store. It was 4:35 by then. She had two soft drink cans in hand. Cate stepped out of the car and waved to her.

Lily didn’t apologize for her lateness. “I brought Pepsi and 7UP.” She held out both cans and Cate selected the green one. Lily went around to the passenger’s door and slid inside.

“Thanks for taking time to talk to me,” Cate said. “Andy didn’t come to share your break today?”

“He has the pickup. He was going out to Junction City this afternoon. I guess he didn’t get back yet.”

“He’s looking for a job out there?”

Lily gave her a what-planet-are-you-from look. “He went to look at a trailer for sale. It’s supposed to be a nice one, and he says we’ll have plenty of money as soon as he sells that old bike.” She didn’t sound convinced.