Hidden Fire, Kobo (37 page)

She twisted around to the backseat. "Muffins,"
she said, putting the bag on the console. "Maybe a little stale, but they
should tide you over."

"Thanks." He swung through the
parking lot and stopped at the bottom of the path leading to the Art buildings.
Sarah jumped out of the truck and took off at a rapid clip, waving over her
shoulder.

He got that twinge of emptiness again. He
shook his head in wonder and drove down B Street, finding a slot behind the
Business Service Building.

Fifteen minutes later, thanks to Rachel
Michaelis, he had the address he needed, plus a few more owned by the same person.
He figured he'd be back in under an hour, plenty of time to catch up with
Sarah.

He plugged the first address into his GPS
and headed out, ending up in a lower-middle-class residential neighborhood. According
to the Rachel, a Gloria Osgood owned the house. Whether she lived here or not
remained to be seen. She owned three other properties in Eureka as well, one of
which was the listed address Kovak had found for Walter Young, who was employed
by the University as a janitor.

The third property, about a mile away,
was rented to a Trent Wallace, who also had a university job. The one on this
street and the fourth came up with Gloria Osgood's name. He guessed she lived
in one of them. What he didn't have was an ID on whoever was using Walter Young's
ATM card.

He circled the block. Behind the house
was a detached double garage, butting up to a vacant lot. Returning to the
street where the house sat, he parked a few doors down and strapped on his
ankle holster with his off-duty weapon. He opened the back of the truck, took a
clipboard from his kit and tucked a pen behind his ear. Sarah was pretending to
be a potential student. He'd be inspecting something. Or taking a survey, he
decided. He'd play it by ear. From the house next door, a dog barked and a
curtain moved aside in a front window.

He stopped at the sidewalk, faked making
notes and approached Gloria Osgood's house. The knee-high lawn was as much
weeds as grass. One of the windows was boarded up, the wooden porch steps
sagged. He dismissed this as the current residence of Gloria Osgood, or anyone
else, for that matter, but he'd go through the motions.

Like someone who had every reason to be
there, he strode up the cracked concrete walkway toward the porch and rapped on
the door. When there was no answer, he knocked once more, then walked around
back, still scribbling on his clipboard. The ever diligent survey-inspector
man. He punched the telephone number for the house into his cell. After listening
to an out of service recording, he disconnected and turned toward the garage
behind him.

He paused. Listened. Strains of the
Grateful Dead filtered from that direction. A weed-infested brick walkway led
from the back porch of the house to the structure. Hairs on his neck stood up.
Glancing around to make sure no one could see him, he slipped his off-duty gun
from his ankle holster into the waistband of his jeans and pulled his jersey
over it.

The music stopped. Randy crept forward,
moving around the padlocked garage door. The side wall had a small window,
curtained, but he crouched low, staying beneath it. Beyond the window was an
entry door. He debated his options and decided to stick with his cover. Too
much trouble explaining being a cop this far out of his jurisdiction. Rising,
he gripped his clipboard, arranged his features into bored friendliness and
raised his hand to knock.

* * * * *

Sarah took a calming breath and found the
office of Bradley Quinn, head of the ceramics department. She paused in the
open doorway. He glanced up from a mound of paperwork on his desk. Bushy black
eyebrows jutted over dark eyes. "You must be Sarah Tucker. Come in. I'll
be with you in a minute."

When she'd made the appointment
yesterday, nobody had asked for a reason and she hadn't given one. Randy's idea
of being a prospective student made sense. Returning to school after a life
crisis. Certainly David's death qualified for that.

She took a seat in one of the two wooden
chairs facing his desk. "Thank you for being willing to see me on such
short notice. I'm not normally this impulsive, but I decided it was time to get
on with my life and, well … here I am, getting on with it."

"So, what is it I can do for you?"
he asked. His blue oxford cloth shirt was unbuttoned at the neck and his
sleeves were rolled up.

"I have a bachelor's in Art."
She dived into her rehearsed speech. "I've worked in a variety of media,
but ceramics has always been a favorite. I managed a gift boutique with my
husband until he died about two years ago. I woke up one morning and realized I
missed the creative end of things. Selling pottery wasn't as fulfilling as
making it." She gave him what she hoped was a prospective graduate student
smile and waited.

"You know you'd have to go through
the formal application process," he said. "We don't exactly sign up
grad students off the street." His bushy eyebrows met over the bridge of
his nose. He rummaged in his desk drawer and came up with a manila envelope. "All
the information's in here."

"Oh, of course. I didn't mean I was
expecting to enroll today. I've been taking a trip down the coast with a friend
who had business in town. I've seen some great things come out of Humboldt, so
I thought I'd stop by, maybe take a tour, talk to some students, get a feel for
the atmosphere. I'd hoped to talk with Hugh Garrigue—I'm a big fan of his
work—but the woman I spoke with yesterday said he wasn't available. Do you know
if he'll be back soon?"

The man's eyebrows bunched again and he
looked at the papers on his desk. He frowned. "Only the renowned Hugh
Garrigue knows. He's adjunct faculty. Some of us real faculty actually teach
for a living."

He clawed his fingers through his thick,
black hair. "Sorry. That was uncalled for and I apologize. The man's
gifted with clay, but he sometimes forgets about the day-to-day
responsibilities. I've been left in the lurch here and I'm taking it out on
him." He smiled. "Obviously, the man has brought recognition to our
little campus."

"I understand your frustration. I'm
happy to fend for myself if you're busy."
A little time to snoop on
her own would be perfect.

He glanced at his watch, rested his hand
on the stack of papers and looked at the ceiling as if searching for a message
in the stains on the acoustic tiles. He smoothed his eyebrows and put one hand
on his phone, giving Sarah a half-smile that said she ought to be grateful for
the service he was about to do for her. "Tell you what. I'll see if I can
get in touch with one of Hugh's teaching assistants. If she's free, she can
show you around."

A few minutes later, she was walking
through campus to the ceramics lab building with Nikki, a twenty-something
throwback to the Sixties wearing torn jeans, Birkenstocks and a tie-dye
t-shirt. Come to think of it, the entire town of Arcata was a throwback to the Sixties.
They even had an eatery called Alice's Restaurant. Maybe she and Randy could go
there for lunch.

"So, like what are you looking for?"
Nikki asked, pulling the door open. "I've got a lab to supervise at
eleven-thirty."

"Nothing in particular." They
turned a corner and the drone of potters' wheels floated through the space,
along with the smell of wet clay. "How long have you studied with Hugh
Garrigue? His work is getting harder to come by, it seems. Must be nice to be
able to be exclusive."

"Whatever. He's good for the basics,
but nobody gets to see him mix glazes or load the kiln when he's firing his
personal stuff. His secret formulas are locked up somewhere and he doesn't work
here when he's creating one of his collections."

"I heard he has apprentices doing
some of the basic household pieces he sells. You know, his coffee and tea sets.
I can understand him not wanting to crank out a thousand coffee mugs." She
tried to keep her tone casual, her face mildly curious. Surely it would be normal
for a prospective student to try to get the inside skinny on the workings of
the school.

"If he does, it's not here,"
Nikki said. "He teaches the undergrads throwing and sculpting techniques."
She huffed. "That is, for about one out of four lectures and labs. It's
us—the grad students—who do most of it."

"What about the advanced work? Like
what you're doing. Is he helpful?"

She looked away before answering, as if she
was afraid someone would hear. "Overall, yes. He's not always accessible,
but I guess you've figured that out for yourself."

"That doesn't sound fair,"
Sarah said.

"Maybe not, but we come out of this
place with an advanced degree and we can say we studied under the magnificent
Hugh Garrigue. It's an entry ticket to gallery showings."

Sarah tried to remember if she'd seen any
of Nikki's work last night, if it might be something she could sell. But that
would mean admitting she owned That Special Something and she didn't want to
take a chance someone would make the Garrigue connection.

Nikki led her into one of the studio
rooms where eight students sat at wheels and others worked at benches along the
perimeter of two walls. She thought of the seniors she worked with at Saint
Michael's. She roamed from wheel to wheel. Most students gave her a cursory
once-over and continued creating. Trays of clay figures stood on racks along
another wall, drying until they could be fired. Nowhere in the room could she
see pedestal-based mugs.

"How many workrooms like this do you
have?" she asked.

"Six," Nikki said.

"I don't see a kiln in here. Where
do you fire?"

"The kilns are down in the basement,
near the loading dock."

Under what she hoped was the guise of
legitimate questions, Sarah followed Nikki through the department until she had
to teach her class.

"Good to meet you," Nikki said.
"Hope I didn't put you off. This is a great campus."

"I'll wander a bit," Sarah
said. "If that's all right."

"Enjoy."

Sarah went through the studios, searching
for anything she could report to Randy, stopping here and there to chat with
the occasional student. Most seemed quite pleased with the program, but
consensus was Hugh Garrigue carried around a surplus of ego. He wasn't usually
gone as long has he had been this time, but nobody seemed to think it out of
character.

When noon came and went and she hadn't
heard from Randy, she tried not to let it get under her skin. He might be on
vacation, but he was following a lead. Probably lost track of time. Hunger
gnawed at her stomach and she thought of the muffins in Randy's truck. He'd
undoubtedly eaten them by now. She glanced at her phone. The signal was weak,
but not so low that a call wouldn't come through. At least she didn't think so.
Or had she missed one? She checked the log. Nothing since she'd used it last.
Maybe she'd go outside and try from there. Meanwhile, she set it to vibrate and
shoved it in her pocket where she'd notice a call.

Irritation mounted. They'd discussed
this. He'd promised to stay in touch and this was vacation, or so he kept
saying. Not official police business. Had he been honest?

She stormed down the corridor. A bell
rang. Doors opened. People filled the narrow hallway and she played human
pinball dodging them while looking for an exit.

"Sorry," she repeated as she
made her way toward a door with a red illuminated exit sign above it. She found
herself in a stairwell. Remembering Nikki said the kilns were on the lower
level, she went in that direction.

At the bottom of the stairwell, she
pushed on the metal bar of the steel exit door and found herself in a dimly lit
corridor. She aimed for the red exit sign above a door to her left. On the way,
a door labeled "Kiln Room" roused her curiosity. She twisted the
knob. When it opened, she stepped inside.

A maze of kilns of varying ages, sizes
and shapes filled the room. Wooden shelves held pieces waiting to be fired—some
bisque, some glazed. She picked her way through the room for a closer look.
Nothing resembled the kind of work Hugh Garrigue sold on his website or had
sent her for her shop. Although much of it was quite good, it still had a
student quality overall. Still no pedestal-based mugs. Not surprising, considering.
After all, if they were being used for smuggling, he'd probably make them
somewhere else.

Like wherever he was? And what good was
she doing here? Play-acting. She was no detective. She glanced at her watch.
Twelve-thirty. So much for Randy's promise of an hour. It had been two.

The door opened. A couple walked in
pushing a cart laden with greenware, voices hushed but from the tone,
definitely arguing. Sarah froze for an instant, then ducked behind the nearest
pottery-filled shelf unit, peering between a row of bisque-fired vases.

The woman walked over to one of the
kilns. "This one's free."

"Relax, baby," the man said. "No
worries. Everything's going to be cool. The term's almost over and we'll be out
of this dump." He loaded pottery into the open kiln. "I can hear the
surf, smell the sunscreen and taste the rum. Until then, it's business as
usual." He pushed the empty cart aside. "Okay?" His voice softened.