Venus in Blue Jeans (25 page)

“It’s just…everything.” She made a sweeping gesture that included most of the past two days. “I’m used to having everything covered. I’m a detail person. And now I can’t cover anything.”

You could cover me.
Cal managed not to say it, but he couldn’t keep the thought from dancing through his mind.

Docia grinned at him. “Maybe later.”

He realized he’d said it after all.
Well, damn.

The next morning they tried to decide what to do with the animals while they went to work. Nico kept giving Pep predatory looks. Cal had a feeling as soon as they were out the door, Pep would be reduced to a small heap of dogburger.

He rummaged through his closet and found a battered lab coat he’d worn in Kansas City.

Docia blinked at him. “You look like something from
ER
.”

Cal sighed. “That’s pretty much how I feel. I’m just trying to keep the house from turning into CSI.”

He scooped up Pep and dropped him in the wide lab coat pocket. Pep poked his nose over the edge.

“Come on.” Cal started for the door. “I’ll drop you off at your shop.”

At the clinic, Horace took one look at Pep’s nose edging over Cal’s pocket and shook his head. “No. You can put the little rat into one of the pens in back, but you will not carry him around with you. Bad for business.”

“Fair enough.” Cal headed off to check out the pens.

He dragged one of the small ones into his office, then lowered Pep inside, leaving the pen door open. “You can stay in there or come out into the room, but you have to stay in the office, okay?”

Pep gave him a quick look. Cal could almost have sworn he nodded, but he never pretended animals were human. He figured Pep would stay where he was because the office was safer for a very small animal than the outside world. Particularly lately.

The patients that morning were the usual canine hypochondriacs. Or rather their owners were hypochondriacs. The animals were bored, restless and eager to be back at their normal pursuits.

Their owners wanted to know about Docia.

Their questions varied in subtlety, but mostly they wanted to know how serious his relationship with Docia was, the amount of money she’d have to pay out to square the library fund, and whether Docia had attacked Margaret.

Cal smiled and became very dense, except about the attack. He wanted to make sure nobody in town believed even briefly that Docia had been involved.

Unfortunately, this involved admitting he was Docia’s alibi. By the end of the morning he was uncomfortably aware that a large part of the city of Konigsburg was actively speculating about his sex life.

He had lunch with Horace in the break room, although he thought longingly about Allie’s soup of the day. On the other hand, he couldn’t afford to eat out every day, and eating with Horace spared him from more questions for an hour or so.

Horace dropped a piece of paper on the table in front of him. “Here—look that over sometime.”

Cal peered at the sheet. The letterhead used the kind of font he associated with two-hundred-year-old banks. “What’s BK Enterprises?”

“Investment company. Owns the land next door. That’s what they think it’s worth.”

Cal skimmed through the paragraphs of description to the figure at the bottom. He whistled softly. “Are they planning to drill for oil there?”

Horace’s moustache moved up in a faintly savage grin. “Just their first shot. Hobie and I’ll come back with a lowball bid, and then the real negotiating can start. Just wanted to keep you in the loop”

At five, Cal put his lab coat back on and dropped Pep into the pocket again, then set out for the Dew Drop, where Docia would meet him after she’d closed the shop for the day.

Wonder and Allie sat at a table in front. Wonder stared up at him. “A lab coat? You look like you’re doing a pharmaceutical commercial.”

Pep stuck his nose over the edge of his coat pocket.

Wonder groaned. “I should have known.”

Cal lifted Pep out of the pocket and placed the dog next to him on the chair. Pep jumped to the floor and clicked across to Allie, who rubbed his ears.

Wonder clucked in disgust. Pep turned and yipped at him.

“What is it, boy?” Wonder smirked. “You say Lassie’s fallen down a well?”

Ingstrom leaned on the bar. “I can think of three Health Code violations you’re into right off the bat. Probably a dozen more I don’t know about. Make him disappear, Doc.”

Cal dropped Pep back into his pocket.

Docia swept in the door a few minutes later, Janie in her wake. Her hair hung around her face in wisps and her shirt had come untucked again, the usual indications she’d had a rough day.

Allie’s brow furrowed. “Geez, Docia, you look you spent the afternoon in a wind tunnel.”

Cal raised an eyebrow. “Problems?”

She slid into her captain’s chair with a sigh and ran her fingers through her hair. “You might say that. After ignoring us for a year or so, just about everybody in town came into the shop today. If they’d only bought some books, it’d be our most successful day ever.”

“A few of them did.” Janie sat beside Cal and grinned at Pep. “And a lot of people told me they thought the shop was a really nice place and they’d be back. But most of them wanted to know about Margaret.”

“And most of them assumed I had something to do with what happened to her.” Docia scowled. “Ingstrom? Margarita, please.”

Cal watched her push curls out of her eyes. Maybe they’d have time for a little therapeutic sex before dinner.

Ingstrom appeared with a frosty mug in his hand. “Here you go. Industrial strength.” He turned to Cal. “You want anything else before you take your rat outside, Doc?”

“Guide dog, Ingstrom.” Cal smiled reassuringly. “I’m training him.”

Wonder snorted. “I didn’t know elves needed guide dogs.”

“Oh, knock it off,” Docia growled. “The dog’s been adopted. Live with it.”

Janie grinned at Cal. “So he’s yours now?”

Cal shrugged, feeling Pep shift against his side. “At least until Margaret comes back.” Pep whimpered, and Cal rubbed his ears again.

Janie’s smile faded, her jaw tightening. “Right. When she’s okay again.”

Pep moved restlessly in his pocket. It was just about time to leave. He really didn’t want dog pee on his lab coat. A distant rumble echoed outside, and Pep shuddered against his hip. “What was that?”

Wonder raised his head, listening. “Sounds like thunder. Maybe that storm is finally going to hit.”

Cal had a sudden vision of paper napkins, plates, bread crumbs and cheese bits all turning to muck in Docia’s backyard.

Docia buried her face in her hands. “Well, shit.”

Clete Morris peered at the bookstore backyard from the seat in his truck. The side street where he’d parked gave him a clear view. Store by store, Main turned dark as the last scattering of customers scurried away to escape the storm. As soon as the final store closed down, he’d be ready to go.

Clete hoped the rain would hold off until after he was inside the shop. He didn’t want to track in mud and then have to clean it up later. He was always careful to check before he left, to take care of any signs he’d been there.

People thought he was stupid, although not as stupid as Ham Linklatter. Clete considered that thought useful.

Nobody watched stupid people.

But Clete judged he was smart enough to get by. At least, he knew not to drive the police cruiser when he went to break into the bookstore.

Well, all right, he’d been
told
not to drive it, but he understood the reasoning well enough. The cruiser drew attention, but nobody looked at a pickup in Konigsburg. Likely they wouldn’t even notice the license plate was smeared with mud to cover up the letters.

Clete grinned to himself. “Nice touch,” he murmured. Particularly since he’d thought of it himself.

When the lights finally went out at the souvenir store up the street, he slipped out of his truck and moved to the back gate behind the bookstore, where he’d been careful to leave the lock open when he checked the crime scene tape. Clete frowned. The place was still full of trash, even though those two Mexican girls had been picking stuff up all day. The rain would make a real mess.

He skirted along the edge of the lawn, trying not to step in anything. On TV, they always caught people if they stepped in something.

But then Clete was supposed to be the one doing the catching, and he wasn’t going to catch himself. He would have laughed at his own cleverness, but he was supposed to be quiet when he broke in.

Not that it would make much difference this time. “Ms. Docia High-and-Mighty Kent’s off screwing the vet,” he muttered, “so she won’t be around anyhow.”

Clete wouldn’t have minded having a try at Docia Kent himself, but he knew what the chances of that were. At least he wasn’t sniffing around after that bitch Margaret Hastings, like Ham Linklatter.

As he worked his way along the side of the yard, he thought about just who might have clobbered Margaret Hastings. It probably didn’t have anything to do with his reason for breaking into the shop tonight. After all, he hadn’t been the one who’d hit her. And it might have happened in the alley instead of the backyard. That’s what the chief said.

All he’d done was shoot the damn cat. Served it right for hopping up on the windowsill, startling him when he was in the storeroom. He hated cats anyway, particularly black ones. He figured shooting it was sort of like shooting a rabbit or a squirrel—target practice, more or less.

At the back door he took out his key and slid it quietly into the lock. Lucky Ms. Stuck-Up hadn’t changed the locks when she took over.

And lucky one key opened both doors in the building. Maybe it worked on Ms. Stuck-Up’s apartment too.

That might come in handy someday. Clete filed the idea away for future reference.

The rain cut loose five minutes after Cal and Docia got into the barn. It had already begun dripping as Cal pulled the truck into the drive.

Pep wasn’t happy about the thunder. He ducked down in Cal’s pocket, sort of like a reluctant baby kangaroo. Every time another clap sounded, he shuddered. On the way inside, Cal lifted the dog gingerly to the front lawn, hoping he’d be willing to pee before it really started raining. A bolt of lightning crackled through the air and Pep whimpered, relieving himself on Cal’s boot.

Well, at least that was taken care of.

Inside, Nico curled resentfully in a corner. “It’s not my fault.” Docia shook her head at the cat. “I honestly did not make it rain, and I honestly cannot make it stop.” Nico gave her a look that reeked of disapproval. Clearly, they’d had this discussion before.

After he’d wiped off his boots, Cal pulled out his wok and began to rifle through the vegetables in the hydrator. Maybe some stir-fried noodles with a little extra chili sauce. He piled some celery on the cutting board and started to chop.

Docia opened a bottle of wine. “You’re very good at that.”

“As the only vegetarian in Lander, Iowa, I learned to cook at an early age.” Cal tried to keep his voice light.
Irony. We’re going for irony here.

“When I was a teenager I lived on hamburgers. I would have starved.” Docia frowned. “What did your parents think?”

“My dad said if I was willing to cook for myself, fine with him. My mom thought—thinks—it’s just a phase. Whenever I go home she barbecues for me. I think she’s convinced the smell will win me over.” He poured a good-sized dollop of peanut oil into the wok. “Actually, the smell nauseates me, but I’m pretty good at not letting it show.” Along with some other things he didn’t share with his mother.

“So.” Docia paused, then raised her chin. “Her primary purpose in life is to drive you crazy?”

Cal sighed. He should have known Docia would remember what he’d said earlier.

“My mother has very specific ideas about how her sons are supposed to carry on their lives. Mainly we’re supposed to live in Lander. Pete and Lars made it as far as Des Moines, but that’s still only an hour or so away. My going to Kansas City wasn’t popular, but at least it’s within three hours of Lander, so she kept the nagging to a minimum.”

Docia’s brow furrowed. “Why do I have the feeling that Texas was not something your family was ecstatic about?”

“It wasn’t.” Cal shook his head. “Not for Mom, anyway. My dad didn’t have any problem with it, or at least nothing he ever mentioned to me, and Lars and Pete wouldn’t care if I moved to Uzbekistan. Mom, on the other hand, sees it as a major betrayal of everything good, pure and Midwestern.

Docia frowned. “Has she ever been to Texas?”

“No, and she’s not likely to unless Satan opens an ice-skating rink.” Cal dropped a handful of celery into the fragrant peanut oil and listened to it sizzle. “She thinks warm climates lead to moral laxness. Plus there’s the money thing.”

“What money thing?” Docia picked up a bag of baby carrots from the counter.