Hidden Fire, Kobo (38 page)

"Okay," she whispered.

They definitely weren't arguing anymore.
They were also between her and the door. Sarah made herself as invisible as
possible, hoping they wouldn't go much further. Heat radiated against her back.
She ignored it as she tried to ignore the sounds of growing ardor from the
couple. Neither showed signs of abating and sweat trickled from her scalp down
her neck. Soon, her shirt was damp and clung to her. Her leg muscles protested
the position. She shifted, nudging the pottery rack enough to jiggle the vases.

She froze. The couple was still
lip-locked. Had they heard?

"You hear that?" the man asked,
still kissing the woman.

Sarah held her breath.

"Mmm. Hear what?" the woman
murmured.

"Sounded like pots moving. I should
check."

"Geez," the woman said. "You're
more paranoid than I am. Things settle in here all the time. Someone slams a
door down the hall and everything rattles." She gave a throaty laugh. "Besides,
I've always said I can make the earth move for you." From the shadows,
Sarah saw the woman adjust her blouse and finger-comb her hair. "We should
be going anyway. I've got a class in ten minutes. You can take up where you
left off tonight."

Sarah peeked between the shelves and bit
her lip to keep from crying out when she realized who they were. She cowered
behind the pottery, willing them to move faster, to leave already. When the
door finally closed, she grabbed her phone and punched in Randy's number.

Answer. Where are you?

The ringing stopped, but she heard
nothing from the other end. "Hello? Randy?" she said in a loud stage
whisper.

Some faint static, then nothing. She
pushed the door open a crack, looking in both directions down the hall. Empty.
She hurried to the exit door and crept onto the loading dock. With a full-strength
signal on her phone at last, she ducked behind a stack of cartons and called
Randy again.

"They're here," she said as
soon as she heard him answer. "Both of them. I was wrong again. I didn't
think they were together, but they were and it sounded like they're involved
like we thought he might be only it's both of them." She paused, gasping
for breath.

"Slow down, Sarah. Deep breath.
Count to ten."

"Ten, shmen. It was them. You have
to get here. Fast."

"What are you talking about?"

"Saturday. Two customers, waiting
for Jennifer to get their stuff. First I thought they were together, but they
didn't match. He was in jeans, not sloppy, but a notch below casual. She was
all elegant. They separated and I remember thinking I was right that they weren't
a couple. That they simply happened to be standing next to each other when I
came out. He went off to browse and she stood near the counter, but then I had
customers to deal with."

"So two of your customers are on
campus. Did you find out who they are?"

She clenched the phone in her fist. "Not
her, but he's the ATM guy. My customer. The one who wasn't really Walter Young."
She paused. "I didn't mention that part, did I?"

"No, you didn't. All right. Where
are you and where is he?" The concern in his tone made her shudder.

"I'm outside the ceramics lab
building, at the loading dock. Behind a pile of cartons," she added. "Kind
of hiding."

"Good move. Stay exactly where you
are. I should be there in ten minutes, tops."

Automatically, she checked her watch. She
hoped his estimate wasn't like his one-hour prediction. "All right."

Seconds ticked by, each one taking
several minutes. She watched the entrance to the loading area for Randy's black
pickup, ears tuned for the return of the man who wasn't Walter Young and his companion.

Randy wheeled the F-150 through town and
strove to keep his pulse under control. The sound of Sarah's voice when she
called sent his pulse racing, sweat dripping and nausea roiling. It also gave
him a good excuse to leave Gloria Osgood's parlor and her disgusting lemonade.

His encounter at the garage had yielded
nothing more than a squatter who Kovak would have pegged as a taco short of a
combination plate. The real Walter Young's house was locked tight and deserted,
but well maintained. Curtains or shades on all the windows. No car in the
carport.

From there, he'd tracked down Gloria
Osgood, the property owner who made Maggie Cooper seem reticent. However, in
exchange for some information and what was turning into a killer headache, he'd
endured three glasses of her homemade lemonade. Apparently the concept of sweet
was foreign to her.

Wearing black slacks and a long-sleeved
tunic-length shirt with flowers appliquéd across her ample chest, the woman had
greeted him warmly and insisted he come in and sit if she was going to answer
his questions. "It's so nice to have someone to talk to," she'd said.
"I recently retired from nursing. I'm still getting used to all the free
time. Maybe I'll pick up some part-time hours."

Her steel-gray hair was cut short, her
gray eyes magnified by black-framed glasses. She'd confirmed Hugh Garrigue had
rented from her years ago, when he was newly arrived in town. Although she was
aware of his current standing in the art community, she hadn't seen or heard
from him since he paid his last rent check.

"He has family in Alabama, I think
he said. Or was it Arkansas? One of those redneck states. I remember that much,
because he seemed so westernized," she'd said. "No Southern accent at
all." If the man had managed to get a word in edgewise. He wondered if she'd
heard him speak enough to discern an accent.

She'd had nothing negative to say about
Walter Young. A perfect tenant. That in itself sent Randy's cop antennae
twitching. Nobody was perfect unless they were trying to be invisible. Paid his
rent on time, kept the yard looking nice. Worked at the University. She knew
nothing about his family. Those details didn't matter to her. When someone
filled out a rental application, she merely verified they were employed where
they said they were and the University had vouched for him. Likewise for Trent
Wallace, her other renter, although Randy hadn't had a chance to check out that
property.

Randy would have liked a peek at the
rental agreements, but couldn't figure a way to ask for them within the boundaries
of his quickly fabricated cover story. As it was, she'd kept the conversation
bouncing around like a tennis match and he didn't think his questions were
beyond the scope of his make-believe survey about rental property owners. The
vacant house, she said, was going to be renovated in the spring and she'd
thanked him for letting her know someone had been living in the garage.

The campus came into view at last and he
passed the playing field, crossed Harpst Street and wound his way through the
cluster of buildings Sarah had visited yesterday. Behind the ceramics lab, she'd
said. He hadn't seen this side of the buildings. He searched for a loading dock
and yanked the wheel hard when he spotted it. He'd barely pulled into the lot
when a flash of Sarah's chestnut hair, followed by the rest of her, popped up
from beside the loading platform.

He stopped the truck and she yanked the
door open. Seeing her, hearing the seatbelt click shut as she settled into her
seat, filled him with relief. He suppressed his desire to touch her. And even
more, he refrained from saying anything about how worried he'd been. A lesson
he'd finally learned. She didn't like visible protection.

"Go," she said.

"Where? Do you know where they went?"

"Oh," she said in a small
voice. "Guess not."

He pushed his sunglasses up and pressed
his fingers to his temples. "They could be anywhere. You said they were in
the ceramics lab?"

"Yes, both of them. I don't know her
name, but she's slinky with salon-induced red hair. I'd know her if I saw her."

"So they were both in your store and
both here. How do you know they were pretending not to know each other before?
Maybe they're acquaintances, or business associates and were interested in
different things."

She nibbled at her lip. "A feeling I
guess. In the shop they were … pointedly casual. But here, they definitely know
each other. Well. Very well. As in I was afraid they were going to have jungle
monkey sex right then and there. That well."

"I get it."

She pulled out her phone. "Let me
try to reach Jennifer. See if she remembers what they bought."

He waited, half-listening to her side of
the conversation, trying not to think about the way Gloria Osgood's lemonade
was churning in his stomach.

Sarah put the phone down, grinning like
the canary-eating cat. "She remembers. The man bought a set of four
pedestal coffee mugs. She remembers the cash payment and that he signed the
guest book, said he was a Garrigue collector."

"The mug purchase moves him higher
on our suspect list. What about the woman?"

"She didn't buy pottery at all. She
wanted Jennifer to check on some napkin rings to see if we had enough for a set
of twelve."

"All right," he said. "No
need for them both to buy the mugs if they're together. But what's their
connection to the university? Students? Staff? Faculty?"

"I don't know. They were loading a
kiln. Can't you check with your campus cop friend?"

"About what?"

"I don't know. You're the cop. Find
out where he works, or if he's a student. Or her. They wouldn't have been
loading a kiln without a reason."

"Okay, start at the beginning. One
step at a time."

She recounted what she'd heard, but
nothing tracked. All he heard was Gloria Osgood's yammering. His head throbbed
in rhythm to her remembered words.

"You all right?" Sarah asked. "You
look pale. Your stomach?"

"Headache," he said. The world
went out of focus for a minute and he rubbed his eyes. "There's aspirin in
the glove box."

She found them and handed him the bottle.
He popped the cap and dry-swallowed two.

"How can you stand that?" she
asked.

"One of my many talents."

"So what now? Do we drive around
looking for them? Or—" she looked at her watch. "Come back here
tomorrow morning at nine."

"How do you know that? Did you hear
them?"

"No, but figure greenware will take
nine hours to fire and twelve to cool. They'll have to unload it or risk
someone messing with it."

"Sounds good. I'm going to give
Rachel Michaelis the information, update Kovak and the chief and then you and I
are going to drive up the coast and commune with the redwoods for a couple of
hours. I'm not a cop in California. I have no authority here. Everyone has been
cooperative, but bottom line is it's their job, not mine."

"But don't you want to break the
case? Be the one to provide the missing piece?"

He considered it through the twisted mat
of thoughts in his brain. "I want the case to be solved. Nobody should get
away with murder, or smuggling, or breaking up someone's livelihood. But right
here, right now, I'm happy to hand the efforts off for a few hours to have some
time with you."

Her smile eased some of his pain. So did
knowing he wasn't going to panic worrying about her being caught in the middle
of a police investigation that might get ugly. A walk through the redwoods
would do them both a lot of good.

He backed away from the loading dock and
drove between the buildings and across the parking lot. "I need to call in
what I have," he said. "See if Kovak can send me a copy of the ATM
picture of your customer. Then I'm going to talk to Rachel Michaelis."

She furrowed her brows. "Are you
telling me to go somewhere where I can't hear?"

"No, not at all." He tried for
a smile, but the aspirin hadn't kicked in yet and his face hurt. "I'm letting
you know what I'm doing. Like I said I would."

"That's good enough for me. I could
use a ladies' room as long as you'll be busy."

She left for the building and he punched
in Kovak's number. "Can you trace Walter Young's car?" he asked.

"Hang on. Find something?"

"Just a hunch." He waited,
wishing the aspirin would take effect. Kovak came back on the line. "A '97
Nissan Altima. Black."

"Plate?"

Kovak recited the information.

"I was by his place. It's locked up
tight, no car in the carport. Things are starting to connect. Call County, ask
for Hannibal or Eldridge. One of them should have the witness reports and the
CSI skinny on tire tracks. A partial of that plate rings a bell. It might have
been at our crime scene." He rubbed his temples. "You have anything?"

"Maybe. How does a lead on our
killer sound?"

* * * * *

Sarah stared at herself in the mirror.
Between the heat of the kiln and nerves, she'd sweated enough to wish she could
shower and wash her stringy hair. She settled for washing her face and finger-wetting
her hair, then aimed the air from the hand dryer at her head. More like a
hair-don't, she decided after viewing the results, but there wasn't much else
she could do. Besides, Randy'd seen her looking worse than this and she didn't
think the redwoods would mind.