Hidden Fire, Kobo (20 page)

"Tell you what," she finally
said. "Why don't you send your prints to me instead? Bypass the whole
warrant issue."

"You have print experts on campus?"
he asked, immediately regretting the surprise he let through in his tone.

She didn't seem to notice. "One of
our guys was a latent print examiner in Michigan. He retired and left the
state. Works for us part-time. He's good. I'll have him take a look when he
comes in."

"Excellent." He gave her his
contact information and hung up. Next, he found County's print examiner's
office. After extracting a promise from the tech to get a scan of the victim's
prints to the Humboldt State campus cops ASAP, he wandered through the maze of
cubicles, most filled with deputies intent on phone calls or computers. How
many more deputies were out on patrol or traffic duty? Or investigating crimes?
Quite a contrast to the relative quiet of the Pine Hills police station. If
they disbanded the force, would he consider working here?

He shoved his hair back and wound his way
to his desk. The stack of message slips hadn't shrunk. He found a big clip and
gathered them into a neatly fastened pile which he slid into the drawer, where
he hoped they'd never be needed.

The chief's words ricocheted around his
brain.
Keep the Pine Hills PD visible for the town council.
He called
Kovak. "Morning, partner. Have a good weekend?"

"I did indeed. However, judging from
the emails and messages I found this morning, for someone who was supposed to
be taking the weekend off, you were busy. You should have called."

"No way. You're hell to be around
when Janie's mad. Besides, no need to get us both in hot water. Chief reamed me
a new one this morning for working on my day off even though I didn't report
the hours."

When Kovak didn't respond right away,
Randy waited. Kovak filled the silence. "So, they keeping you busy over
there? Got any leads?" His tone shifted from jovial to pure business and
Randy made a mental note of the way his partner had turned the conversation
away from the local red tape.

"You get the weekend reports?"
Randy asked. "Possible ID on our John Doe?"

"Hugh Garrigue, potter, Arcata,
California. Humboldt State. Yes."

"I've got the campus cops trying to
expedite matching his prints. You can try tracking down dentists in Arcata and
Eureka. The chief wants a Pine Hills presence in the murder investigation, but
Eldridge has me looking into the burglary angle as a possible connection, so we
can keep working together."

"Works for me. I'm going to try to
follow up with Sarah's customer list. See if anyone heard or saw anything
helpful. We've still got the key to identify, but that seems tied to the
murder, so I guess your end will be handling that. Did you get the update?"

The key. In the turmoil of the vandalism,
he'd forgotten. "What update?"

"Charlie called first thing this
morning. He thinks some hotels use those keys for safe deposit boxes, too."

"Great. Nothing like expanding the
search instead of narrowing it." He felt the beginnings of a tension
headache joining his heartburn. "All right, I'll start with the banks,
then move to hotels. I'll talk to Ken Hannibal, the county's lead on the case.
Maybe he has some ideas about division of labor. Meanwhile, Sarah's faxing me
her customer list. I'm going to cross reference them with customers of the
other places Garrigue sold his pottery. If any of them are Pine Hills locals, I'll
let you know."

"Works for me." There was
another period of silence. "Look, can we get together and hash this out?
Something's going on around here. The chief's been popping in, checking up,
looking like he's ready to spit nails. Lunch?"

Maybe by the end of the day, the chief
would have informed the force about the town council's rumors, if only to put
his own spin on them. Until then, he'd abide by the chief's request to keep
things quiet. He dug around in his briefcase for his Tums. "Let me get
back to you. Maybe a quick drink after work would be better. It'll be tough to spare
the time for a round trip in the middle of the day."

The silence on the line inched into an
uncomfortable length before Kovak replied. "Get back to me, then. I'll
have to see if I'm clear this evening." The line disconnected before Randy
could respond.

He popped two Tums. Might as well see
what he could find out about Hugh Garrigue. The potter's website provided a
picture of the man, but only a head shot. Right. The guy had his head shot, all
right.

He explored the site, comparing the
pottery to what he'd seen at Sarah's shop, finding a list of all the stores
where Garrigue's pottery had been exhibited or sold for the past five years. He
clicked the print icon and got an error message telling him he wasn't connected
to a printer. Something else he'd have to look into. Meanwhile, he flipped to a
clean sheet on his legal tablet.

He clicked through sites, taking notes,
trying to get an impression of who Hugh Garrigue was. Not a lot of biographical
information, but it looked like the man had quite a following for his wares,
down to a reservations list for pieces he hadn't even made yet. Randy made a
note to follow up with those, once he could reach someone at Garrigue's studio.
He hadn't made it past the answering machine yet. His stomach growled. Maybe he'd
grab some lunch.

He was debating vending machines versus a
local eatery when his cell rang. "Detweiler."

"Rachel Michaelis. Humboldt State
Campus Police."

Had she found something? "What can I
do for you?"

"It's more like what I can do for
you. We got the prints and compared them to ours."

"Already?" Randy looked at his
watch. It hadn't been two hours since he'd talked to her. "That was fast."

"High-profile case, folks take
interest. Besides, it was pretty obvious even to me that the prints didn't
match. I had it confirmed with our expert, but your dead guy isn't Hugh
Garrigue."

* * * * *

Sarah scanned the crowded café in
Cottonwood and found Janie Kovak at a small table toward the back. She smiled
and joined her. "Sorry I'm late. The insurance adjuster had a million
questions."

"No problem." Janie sipped her
iced tea. "I hope this isn't too out of your way."

Sarah shook her head as she draped her
purse over the back of the wooden chair. "The shop's closed and I was
going cross-eyed with the inventory spreadsheets. The drive over gave me some
mind-clearing time."

"I heard what happened. That's got
to suck big-time, especially after … your other problems."

"I'm all right—for now, anyway. I'm
afraid to think what my next insurance premium is going to be, if they'll even
renew my policy. Bob kept doing that horrible
tsk tsk
thing."

"Will the settlement cover the
losses?" Janie asked.

Sarah thought about her hours with the
spreadsheets. "Barely. It could have been worse. Most of the merchandise I
lost was mine to sell, not on consignment, so there are only a couple of
artists I'll have to pay in full. Not that there's going to be a lot left over
to build up an inventory."

"You'll bounce back." Janie
patted her arm. "You're a survivor."

Their waitress came by and took their
orders. Sarah waited until she'd gone, then leaned forward. "Okay, not to
change the subject—but to change the subject. How was your anniversary? Did the
dessert thing work?"

Janie flushed pink. "Oh, yeah. And
the kids were in Tillamook with relatives. Everyone had a great time."

"I'm so glad."

A flash of sympathy crossed Janie's face.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't be so cheerful. Your weekend must have been rough."

Sarah pondered that one. "The
vandalism, yes. But I think my personal life might have turned a corner."

"Randy?"

"That's part of why I invited you to
lunch," Sarah confessed. "How do you deal with being married to a
cop? The hours, the interruptions—and you've got kids. And that doesn't begin
to address the danger factor. There are crazy people out there and when cops
hear gunfire, they run
toward
it. Aren't you scared all the time?"

Janie sipped her tea. "Not as much
as I used to be. When he first strapped on his gun, I admit it hit me hard. My
knees shook, literally, every time he left for work for the first six months.
But he knows his job, doesn't take unnecessary risks and there's not much
violent crime in Pine Hills. If we lived in New York City, or Chicago—I might
feel differently, but I know he's happy doing what he does and I couldn't make
him give it up. It's tough being married to a cop, but I think our marriage
would fall apart if I asked him to stop."

"I know the divorce rate is high."

"True. And we've had areas of
disagreement," Janie said. "But we were so young when we got married,
we practically grew up together. We didn't know anything different, so we took
whatever came at us."

"Does he talk about his job?"

"Not confidential stuff, but yes, we
share what we can." Janie looked at her as if she could read her thoughts.
Heck, she probably could. Sarah ducked her head and released the silverware
rolled up in her napkin, placing each utensil in its proper spot on the
tabletop.

"I've known Randy a long time,"
Janie said. "He builds walls. Peek and I have always talked. Or we'll go
camping in the mountains. I think having kids helped, too. A couple of toddlers
greet you at the door, smiling, laughing and grab you around the knees. 'Hi,
Daddy' kind of keeps things in perspective."

"You don't mind that he gets called
out in the middle of the night?"

She laughed. "Those are the good
call-outs. I can go back to sleep. The ones I hated were the Sunday afternoons
in the middle of a birthday party for one of the kids and I'd be stuck with a
houseful of four-year-olds. But as a detective, his hours are more regular."

Janie looked thoughtful. "He and
Randy have always been good about covering shifts. I'll admit, Randy's put in
more than his share of weekend duty so we could have family time." She
smiled. "Like tonight. Cammie's in the Youth Dance Club and they're
putting on a show at Saint Michael's. Peek's promised to be home in time."

Saint Michael's. That's right, it was
Monday. "Good grief, I almost forgot. I volunteered to help out. Thanks
for reminding me. Guess I'll see you there."

"I'll look for you. Cammie's a dragonfly.
The purple one."

"Can't wait."

The waitress returned with their
sandwiches and coffee for Sarah. They ate in silence for a few minutes. Sarah
wiped her mouth and set her napkin beside her plate. "Can I ask something
personal?"

Janie's eyebrows lifted. "You can
ask, yes. I can't promise I'll answer."

Sarah chose her words carefully. "Is
it hard to live on a cop's salary? I mean, my shop might not be in the black
for a while now and I wondered …"

Janie gave a wry laugh. "Well, if
you don't mind shopping at the discount stores or driving a twelve-year-old
car, it's not bad."

"Believe me, I'm an expert at
squeezing thirty cents out of a quarter."

"Why are you asking? Wait. Did Randy
ask—are you planning to—"

Sarah cut her off. "No, nothing like
that. Yet. But I've been thinking about it." She laughed. "Thinking's
probably not a good thing. It's just that life with Randy would be so
different. I don't want to rush into anything I might regret. Money shouldn't
matter. David and I started with nothing and I was right back there after he
died." She poured more coffee from the carafe on the table. "And, I'm
almost there again. That's probably why I'm thinking about it." She shook
her head as if Janie had already asked a question. "I'm not getting into a
relationship because money's tight. I can manage on my own."

Janie smiled. "I think you're
already in a relationship."

Sarah felt heat rise to her cheeks. "Well,
you know what I mean. Not one based on financial security. Must be a
combination of the vandalism added to the new no-overtime rule that triggered
all these thoughts."

Janie's face paled. "What … what
no-overtime rule? For cops? When?" The ice clinked in her glass as she
picked it up.

Had she mentioned something she wasn't
supposed to? Randy hadn't said it was confidential. "I'm sorry. I thought
you knew. Randy told me yesterday."

Janie set her glass down without
drinking. "We didn't talk much this weekend. But Peek was … really
attentive. He probably didn't want to spoil our anniversary celebration."
She wiped the condensation on the table with her napkin, then wadded it up into
a damp ball. "Maybe I take back everything I said before. A cop's salary
is lousy, but the overtime made it doable. You start taking it for granted. And
of course, the timing sucks."

Sarah hesitated, but Janie seemed to need
to talk. "Problems?"

"The usual. Car repairs. House needs
a new heating system. Cammie needs braces. And then—"