The Cracked Pot (4 page)

"I don't have a clue," Bill admitted as he took the dish out of the microwave. He stabbed a meatball, ate it with rel ish, then asked, "Do you want one?"

"How can you eat at a time like this?"

"I can eat anytime," he said, "And if you want any of these, you'd better grab them now."

"I've lost my appetite," I said as I stared out the back window. I could see bobbing lights in the yard, and from the look of things, the sheriff had every deputy in the county searching for the lost potter. I just hoped when he did turn up, he'd be able to tell us what had happened, and why.

An hour later there was a tap on the door, and I jumped up to answer it. Sheriff Hodges looked upset, and I wondered what he'd found.

"Is he dead?" I blurted out. Probably not the best thing to

ask the sheriff, but it had been weighing heavily on my mind.

"I have no idea. We couldn't find him."

Bill was right behind me. "If you want to search the house, you're going to have to get a warrant."

Hodges asked, "You'd actually make me do this the hard way? What are you hiding, Bill?"

I wanted to intercede, but I knew from the set of my hus band's jaw that the best thing I could do was get out of the way.

He wasn't even trying to keep his voice reasonable now. "I'm not hiding; I'm standing on my constitutional rights, and I'm telling you to your face. I'm not about to let you or anybody else bully me into doing something I don't want to do."

"Fair enough. Then we'll have to do this my way. I'll be back in half an hour with a search warrant, and in the mean time, there will be a deputy sitting in your living room."

"He can wait outside," Bill said.

This had gone far enough. "You both need to grow up. Come in and get it over with," I said.

"No," Bill snapped. "He's not going to parade in here acting like he owns the world."

"Hang on a second, Sheriff," I said. "We'll be right back." I closed the door and looked at my husband. "What has gotten into you? It's a reasonable request."

"I didn't like bullies in school, and I don't like them any better now. Carolyn, I'm surprised at you. I thought you de spised that man."

"I'm the first to admit that I'm not his biggest fan, but he's got a job to do, and for once, it looks like he's actually trying to do it. If we get stubborn about this, we're costing the police time to make a more thorough search of the area. What if Potter is hurt, and he dies because nobody found him sooner just because we were posturing? How are you going to be able to sleep at night then?"

Bill returned my stare, then lowered his gaze. "Let him in, then."

"Not unless you agree to it, too. It's just as much your house as it is mine." I rubbed his shoulder gently. "I promise, you can chuck him out as soon as he looks through the place."

He grinned slightly. "I guess that's something."

He opened the door. "Come on in." As a deputy started to follow, Bill added, "Just you, Hodges."

The sheriff must have decided not to chide Bill about his means of address, or his demand. He turned to his deputy. "Wait here. I'll be right back."

"I should go in with you, sir."

The sheriff snapped, "What you should do is obey or ders. In case you didn't hear me the first time, I said to wait outside until I'm finished."

Properly cowed, the deputy took a few steps back and Hodges came inside. After a quick but pretty thorough search of the place, he nodded once we got back to the front door. "Thanks for letting me cross this place off my list."

"Just let us know when you find out what happened to him," Bill said, the snap gone from his voice.

"Will do," Sheriff Hodges said as he left.

Once the door was closed again, I turned to my husband. "What happened? I thought you were going to rub his nose in the fact that Mr. Potter wasn't here."

"You were right. It would have been petty, and I'm a big ger man than that. What? I am."

"I never said a word," I said, trying to suppress my grin.

"Woman, are you looking to pick a fight with me?"

"Me? Not on your life. What are you going to do now?"

"What else is there to do?" Bill asked. "I'm going to bed."

"How are you going to sleep until they find out what happened to Charles Potter?"

He smiled at me. "Like a newborn with no conscience, a clean diaper, and full belly," he smiled.

I waited up, hoping for a knock on the front door during the night, but none came. When I woke up the next morning on the couch, my neck was stiff, but sometime in the middle of the night my dear husband had covered me with a blan ket. Why hadn't the old fool woken me up so I could sleep in my bed instead of out in the living room? I decided to give him credit for thinking of me at all. When I peeked out through the drapes in the front window, I saw that the police were gone, along with Charles Potter's car. What had hap pened to the man? I wanted to call Sheriff Hodges to see if he'd learned anything after he left us, but for once, my cu riosity was defeated by my desire to keep the lowest profile I could. I'd been under the sheriff's suspicious gaze before, and I hadn't enjoyed it, not for one second.

"I don't think David slept more than an hour or two last night," Hannah said as we ordered coffees at In the Grounds before I opened Fire at Will. It was our ritual to meet at the coffee shop to start the day.

"I slept on the couch myself," I said as I rubbed my neck. "You're looking chipper, though."

Hannah was a slim brunette whose fortieth birthday was fast approaching, and I'd have to decide soon whether I was going to have a surprise party for her. When I'd turned forty, I'd invited the world to celebrate with me, whereas my hus band had crawled into a hole the day before and had refused to come out for a week. I was still feeling Hannah out to see which reaction she was going to have, but so far, she'd neatly avoided all my queries.

"Am I?" she asked lightly.

"Hannah, what's up?" There was a gleam in her eye I hadn't noticed before.

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," she said, but as she started to sip her coffee, I saw an unmistak able grin.

"Okay, give."

She shrugged. "If you must know, I have a date tonight."

I'd been badgering her for months to go out again. "How did that happen?"

"He asked, I agreed," she said smugly. "It's as simple as that."

"Do you really think I'm going to let you get away with out more details than that?"

"Don't push me on it, Carolyn. I don't want to jinx it," she said.

"Fine, but I expect a full report when you get home, even if it's just long enough to change your clothes for work to morrow."

"You've got a dirty mind," she said with a smile.

"One of us has to," I countered.

Hannah glanced at her watch. "I've got to run. I'll talk to you later."

"I'll be waiting by the phone."

As I walked to Fire at Will along the River Walk from the coffee bar, I marveled yet again at the foresight of our founding fathers. They had taken an average little stream called Pig Snout Creek, changed its name to Whispering Brook, then made the land beside it their retail shopping area, and all of this was done a great many years before San Antonio came up with their much showier River Walk.

"Hi, Rose. Is that new?" I called out to the proprietress of Rose Colored Glasses, a stained glass shop along the walk. Rose Nygren was a tall, skinny redhead with a complexion that would burn under a 40-watt lamp. She was standing in front of her shop, hanging a mobile made up of varied hues of colored glass.

"I'm wondering if it might attract more customers," she said, then turned to me and added, "Carolyn, the whole town's buzzing about what happened last night."

"Did I miss something?" I asked, knowing full well what Rose was referring to.

She raised one eyebrow. "From what I've heard, you're right in the middle of it. Again."

"I can't help it if trouble seems to come looking for me." I studied her mobile, then added, "If you ever want to add any glazed pottery pieces to these, let me know. We could work something out, I'm sure."

She studied her creation a second, then said, "Let me think about it."

If Rose was aware of Charles Potter's disappearance the night before, then the rest of the town must know about it as well. That meant that Kendra Williams—the owner of Hat tie's Attic and the biggest gossip in all of Maple Ridge, Vermont—was no doubt dying to grill me about what had happened. We'd been through an ordeal together earlier, and she'd been under the mistaken impression that we'd bonded. I didn't have the heart to tell her otherwise. Maybe if I hurried past her shop and kept my gaze on the creek, I could pretend not to see her, something hard to do, given her proclivity for wearing faded muumuus over her abundant frame, regardless of the weather or the temperature.

"Carolyn," she called out. "Carolyn!"

I'd have to have been deaf to not hear her. "Hi, Kendra. Sorry I can't stay and chat, but I've got to get to the shop."

"This will just take a second. Tell me all you know."

This woman was relentless. "That will take less time than what you've given me. I don't know anything about anything."

Would she buy it? I doubted it, even though it was the truth.

"Come on," she prodded in a stage whisper, "whatever you tell me will be just between the two of us."

For as long as it takes me to get inside my shop, I wanted to say, but didn't. Kendra had an information network that beat satellites and relay towers by a mile. I knew she would take the slightest gesture of mine and turn it into a full reve lation without bothering with anything as mundane as the truth.

"Sorry, but it's the truth. I really don't know anything."

She was frowning at me as I brushed past her, but I was too deft to let her stop me. As I neared Fire at Will, I took in the tumbled brick exterior, the forest green awning with the shop's name written on it, the jet black front door, and the display window in front showing some of our best work to the world. In the window, I'd put out a lovely Japanese tea set my pottery instructor Robert Owens had made, a deli cately painted porcelain Buddha Butch had decorated, an interesting vase Jenna Blake had created, and as always, a handful of my glazed and fired tree ornaments. It wasn't vanity that made me include my work with the others. I'd found early on that if I offered something inexpensive to av erage window-shoppers, I might be able to coax them to come in and browse our other offerings. If I was really lucky, they'd try their hand at painting some pottery of their own, the entire purpose of my business. I believed that painting pottery was not only fun but also therapeutic. The world was full of its own set of woes, and my shop offered a distraction from all of that.

"Have you heard anything?" David asked me before I even had the chance to walk into Fire at Will. "There's noth ing on the news, and the paper just mentions finding his car."

"Did you go to the café and eavesdrop?" I asked as I stepped past my assistant into the shop. Shelly's Café was where many of the locals hung out, and I was certain if there was anything to learn outside of the sheriff's office, the café would be the place to hear it.

"I didn't think of that!" he admitted. "Do you mind if I go right now?"

"We open in fifteen minutes," I said, glancing at the wall clock. It was a Salvador Dali–inspired piece that nearly dripped off its hook, something quirky that I was fond of, nevertheless.

The look of disappointment on David's face was too much to bear. "Be back in half an hour," I said.

"Thanks, Carolyn. You're the best."

"That's what I've been saying all along, but nobody seems to believe me," I said with a smile as he raced out the door.

I just hoped I'd have a quiet time of it until he returned. Of course, my hopes were dashed twelve minutes after he left.

* * *

The front door chimed, and I looked up to see a man in his early forties walking in the door. His face was vaguely fa miliar, and I tried to study him without being too obvious. He had a scruffy beard and long hair, and if it weren't for his nice clothes, I would swear he lived on the street.

"Aren't you even going to say hello?" he said.

The voice was even more familiar than the face. I looked past all the hair and realized who it was. "Richard Atkins. I thought you were dead."

Hannah's ex-husband and David's long-lost father was standing before me, and it was all I could do not to go for his throat. He'd deserted my best friend the second he'd found out she was pregnant, an act of cowardice that rated flog ging in the town square, at least in my opinion. Then again, he was David's father, and if he'd come to see his son, to try to make some kind of amends for his desertion, I didn't want to be the reason he turned away.

Richard grinned. "A lot of folks probably have that at the top of their wish list, but so far, I've managed to disappoint them. How have you been?"

"Richard, do you honestly care?"

He shrugged. "Fair enough. Is David here?" He actually sounded nervous at the prospect of seeing his son.

"No, he's out at the moment. A potter disappeared last night, and he's trying to find him."

Richard ran his hands through his hair. "Sorry about that. I guess I kind of freaked out at the last second."

It took me a full ten heartbeats before I realized what he meant.

"Are you trying to tell me that you're Charles Potter?"

"One and the same," he admitted.

That was just a little too much, even for me. "Prove it."

He looked startled by the suggestion. "What do you want me to do, throw a pot? It's a pseudonym. My God, I thought everyone would see through it. I wasn't exactly try ing to advertise my presence to the world, for a great many reasons."

Butch had seen through the obviousness of the name, at any rate. "Then why did you ever agree to come back here in the first place?"

"I was hoping to reconnect with my son," he said.

He had to be kidding. "In order to do that, you'd have to have some kind of connection with him to begin with, wouldn't you agree?"