Hidden Fire, Kobo (19 page)

"Calm down, Detweiler. Your name's
on the police report filed on the initial break-in, which was Saturday night
and you were off-duty. Since there was nothing other than property damage, the
town council's not looking favorably at a detective being called in after
hours. Neville's getting his nose out of joint on the call-back exacerbated the
problem. Are you aware his sister sits on the town council and she thinks her
big brother can do no wrong?"

Great. Politics. "No, sir, I wasn't
aware of that. But it's not like I wrote the man up. All I did was—"

"Was well within reason. I'm not
questioning that. However portions of your conversation were broadcast over the
radio and he had issues with your tone. Thinks you put him down in front of his
peers."

Clenching his teeth, Randy counted to
ten. "Would you like me to apologize, sir?"

"That won't be necessary. I'll tell
the council you were acting on your own time in the best interest of the
citizens of Pine Hills." He twirled his glasses by an earpiece. "But
I'm not going to enjoy it. How's the murder investigation going?"

Randy reported that Sarah had given him a
lead on the victim, which seemed to brighten Laughlin's mood. "Sir, it's
possible both the murder and the vandalism are related. I think we might make
better use of our resources if I work on that angle and let County handle the
murder."

"I've got enough trouble with the
town council, Detweiler. Let's not add conflict of interest to the mix. Your
relationship with Sarah Tucker isn't exactly a secret and we've been down this
road before. I'm assigning the vandalism case to Kovak. See what you can do to
help close the murder while I try to juggle manpower hours and keep the council
off my neck. You get your ass to the Sheriff's Office." He fanned a stack
of spreadsheets and put on his glasses.

* * * * *

By seven, Randy's ass was in a chair in
Eldridge's office.

"You think the two crimes are
related?" the lieutenant said. "And," he consulted his notes, "Hugh
Garrigue is the key?"

"The pottery angle seems to connect
them," Randy said. "Clay under the vic's fingernails and someone
apparently stole Garrigue's pottery, going to great pains to make it look like
vandalism. We don't get a lot of heavy crime and it seems too much of a
coincidence. Kovak's working the Pine Hills side of the case."

Eldridge picked up a sheaf of notes. "You
have good people skills, Detweiler. See if you can use them on the right people
at Humboldt State and sweet-talk them into providing us with Hugh Garrigue's
fingerprints. The university system must require it somewhere down the line. We
haven't had any luck with IAFIS."

IAFIS, not the Western Identification
Network. So, the fingerprint search had gone from local to nationwide. "Will
do. What about the cops in Arcata?"

"Whatever it takes. If they're half
as busy as we are, I know they won't mind handing off some of the workload.
Anything you can do to give us the whereabouts of Hugh Garrigue, dead or alive,
will help." Eldridge scratched his head and referred to his notes again.
He leafed through several sheets of paper, stopped and perused one, then looked
up. "Don't take this the wrong way, but it would be a big help if you'd
play central clearing house. That crime scene was a bitch. Reports aren't
getting to the people who need them. CSI is backlogged and they have a tendency
to put distributing reports on the back burner. The detective assigned to the
case is Ken Hannibal, but he's got twelve other active ones. I've informed him
you're available."

Glorified gopher. But he'd get first look
at the reports, maybe find the linking clue. "No problem."

Eldridge gave him an understanding smile.
"If you weren't assigned here, what would you be doing?"

"Finding anything that connects the
burglary to the murder. Start at that end, work from that angle."

"Advantages of small-town
departments. Here, everything is compartmentalized. Crimes Against Persons are
separate from Property. Another place where communication can break down. But
since you're not one of ours, I don't see why you can't work both angles, as
long as you keep the murder priority one."

"Understood. Where should I set up?"

Eldridge showed him to a cubicle, its
desk stacked with file folders. He frowned. "You've got a phone here, but
no computer."

Randy indicated his briefcase. "I've
got my laptop."

"Good deal. You know where
everything is, right? Break room, johns?"

Randy nodded.

"Faxes come in over there."
Eldridge pointed to a closed door in the far wall. "Good idea to have
someone call and tell you when they're going to fax something over, so you can
wait for it, or it'll get lost."

He nodded again.

"All right," Eldridge said. "Sheriff
has called another one of his dumb-ass meetings. Media coverage, so we have to
stand there looking supportive while he talks nonsense about privatizing the
county jail, tries to explain why we don't use Tasers instead of bullets—like
the bad guys aren't armed with assault rifles, for God's sake—and why we're not
closing cases like they do on television. What a waste of my time. On top of
that, I've got sixteen deputies to cover, but call me if anything breaks, or if
you need me. Hannibal should be checking in."

Randy moved piles of file folders to the
floor beside the desk and plugged in his computer before using his cell to call
Sarah. From the sultry way she answered, he knew she'd checked her caller ID.
And that she was alone.

But he wasn't. Deputies walked back and
forth along the corridor between cubicles. Damn, this was why he kept work
separate from his personal life. He cleared his throat. "If it's not too
much trouble, I could use that list of customers."

"I'll fax it to you. It's first on
my list."

"Let me check the number." He
walked down to the door Eldridge had indicated and went inside. Not much more
than a closet with a table, a phone and a fax machine. Papers had already
accumulated in the incoming tray. There was a wire basket next to the machine,
but apparently nobody bothered moving the faxes. He stepped closer and gave
Sarah the phone number taped to the front of the machine. "Call me when
you send it so it doesn't get lost."

"Okay. Probably within half an hour."

"Thanks." He went back to the
cubicle he'd been assigned and settled behind the desk. "And if you have
anything else, call Kovak at the station. He's officially on your case now."

"Is that what the chief called you
in about?"

"More or less. Neville wasn't happy
with my attitude."

She snorted. "
Your
attitude?
Are you in trouble? I could tell your chief a few things about Neville's
attitude."

"No, it was a formality." No
need to bother her with the town council connection. Not until it was official,
anyway.

"I'll let you get to work," she
said. "If you want to talk tonight, call me."

"Will do. I might not be on your
case officially, but Eldridge's given me the green light to find a connection
between the burglary and the murder, so you're not totally off limits."

"Well, I'm certainly glad to hear
that."

He chuckled. "Professionally. Nobody's
said anything about what I do and who I see on my own time."

A plainclothes officer walked by, pausing
as he reached Randy's desk. Reflexively, Randy's shoulders straightened. "Thank
you very much, ma'am," he said in his best cop voice. "I appreciate
it. You have the department fax number."

Sarah giggled. "Someone's there?"

"Yes, ma'am, that's correct."

"Well then, detective, I will get
right on it." She'd turned up her bedroom voice five notches. "Of
course, there's something else I might like to get on, but I guess that will
have to wait."

He fought the grin. "Thank you."
He ended the call and looked up at the hovering man, a bear of a redhead with
biceps straining his shirtsleeves. "Can I help you with something?"

The man extended his hand. "Ken
Hannibal. You're working with us now?"

He returned the handshake. "Randy
Detweiler. Randy's fine. I'm supposed to be coordinating with Pine Hills PD."

Hannibal loosened his tie. "Glad you're
aboard. Understand you think some California potter might be our John Doe."

"Hugh Garrigue," he said. "It's
a possibility, yes."

"Great. You can start with that."

"Can I get an internet connection
here?" Randy asked. "Or a phone book? I want to see what the cops in
Arcata can tell me."

"You'll have to get Tech Support to
give you a login and password if you want access to the law enforcement
databases. I'll approve it. If you're just web surfing, there should be an ethernet
cable," Hannibal leaned down, "right about here. Yep. Here you go."
He dangled the wire toward Randy.

Randy clicked the cable into the side of
his laptop. "Thanks."

"Okay, Randy. I'm swamped. Check
with the lab and see if you can expedite the reports. Talk to Lorinda. She's
civilian and gets a bit huffy if she thinks you're implying she's not doing her
job. All that does is slow her down more, so play nice." He dropped a
sheaf of papers on the desk. "These are all the calls that came in with
possible leads on the victim. If it's not your Garrigue fellow, you can follow
up."

"Thanks." Randy picked up the
slips and glanced through them.

Eldridge dropped another stack. "And
these are from our helpful citizens who think they have leads on the killer. I've
marked the ones from some of the frequent guests of the county penal system.
They're probably making stuff up to earn a few Brownie points, but they have to
be checked out. Never know when one of them actually saw something useful. Up
to you if you want to save them for last or get them out of the way first."

Randy swallowed. They'd had about fifteen
calls in Pine Hills, already eliminated. There had to be at least fifty in each
stack.

Randy stared at the piles of message
slips Hannibal had dumped on him and immediately phoned Human Resources at
Humboldt State University instead. If they could verify Garrigue's prints, he
might eliminate one stack.

The receptionist who took his call
admitted to having prints on file for all faculty members, but was reluctant to
turn them over without a warrant. Moving up the food chain didn't help,
although he did get the number for campus police. He gave another polite thank
you and called them.

After four transfers and altogether too
many waits on interminable hold, he found someone willing to talk to him. Randy
clicked his pen, poised over a legal tablet with the names of everyone he'd
already spoken to, each with a line drawn through it. He printed the woman's
name at the bottom of his list as he introduced himself—again—and went into his
spiel.

"Sergeant Michaelis. Rachel. Help me
out here. We've got an unidentified victim. You know as well as I do, the
longer the case sits around, the less likely we are to solve it. Step one is to
identify the victim. We have a witness who thinks it might be a member of your
faculty. We have prints. A comparison would either identify him or eliminate
him. It's a win-win for you. He died in Oregon, so it's not going to fall into
your laps. If you send me the prints, we can see if they match."

"Who?" Concern filled her
voice.

"Hugh Garrigue." Why hadn't
anyone checked with the locals? Dumb question. Because he'd reported it on a
weekend and this was only one of who knew how many cases Eldridge supervised.

As if she'd read his thoughts, Rachel
continued, "Wait a minute." Papers rustled. "Weekend shift did a
Check on Wellbeing of Hugh Garrigue. Someone went by his campus office this
morning. Nothing out of the ordinary. Same for his studio. Nobody there, but no
signs of foul play. He comes and goes."

"Have you talked to anyone who's
seen him?"

"Sorry. No missing persons report
was filed with us. What makes you think your victim is Garrigue?" Rachel
asked.

Randy gave her the abbreviated version.

"The man travels a lot, but I'll see
if I can find an emergency contact or next of kin in his files."

"Thanks," Randy said. "Human
Resources has been pretty evasive."

"Yeah, privacy reigns. And you're an
outsider."

"One more thing. Do you happen to
know who Hugh Garrigue's dentist is? Aside from the prints, we have a piece of bridgework."

"No, sorry," she said. "I
knew the man to say hello to, but we never got that personal."

"I understand."

"There aren't many dentists in
Arcata. If you strike out, I suggest you include Eureka in your search."

"Will do."

There was a pause that told Randy she was
working out a mental compromise.