Hidden Fire, Kobo (33 page)

"And you're all the opposite,"
she said, looking from one man to the next. "You don't trust anybody. You
assume everyone's lying."

"I think I like your outlook better,"
the chief said. "Unfortunately, it's one of the first things to go when
you become a cop."

"We need a third possibility,"
Randy said.

Kovak jumped in. "Pemberton is as
innocent as Sarah. Someone gets him to go ask for the mugs. Maybe pays him,
gives him some excuse why he can't do it himself."

"You think I shipped the mugs to
someone else in Washington?" Sarah asked.

"Another possibility," the chief
said, adding more notes to the page. "Let's think about this. Pemberton
had a sketch of a pattern. How would he know about it if Garrigue didn't send
it, unless he was a collector?"

"Garrigue has a catalog on his site,"
Randy said.

"Did anyone look to see if that
pattern is on his site?" the chief said.

Randy and Kovak exchanged a glance,
avoiding the chief's eyes. They shook their heads.

"Look it up," the chief said.

Randy opened his browser and found
Garrigue's site. "Sarah, you should do this." He slid his laptop
toward her. She flipped it around and started clicking. He suppressed an
unexpected surge of desire as he watched her working so intently, totally
engrossed in the task. Within minutes, she'd become a part of the team. An
active and productive part.

She chewed her lip. "It's not here."

"Bingo," Randy said. "That
helps explain how he kept the pots out of the hands of the general public. I'm
leaning toward the theory that something went wrong this time, probably the way
Sarah suggested. Garrigue wasn't around to do what he normally did to give his
cohorts advance notice."

"Are you hooked up to your police
network on your computers?" Sarah asked.

"Yeah, it's a satellite link,"
Randy said.

"If I give you names, can you find
people?"

"Within reason," he said.

She pulled her purse to her lap and
fished around. "Here," she said. She displayed a flash drive. "Some
of my records. Can you check something?"

* * * * *

Sarah dropped the flash drive into Randy's
waiting palm.

"I thought the cops took your
computer files," he said.

"They did. This was in the pocket of
my sweatshirt in the laundry. I forgot I put it there when I was working in the
shop." Heat rose to her face. Randy smiled, then plugged the drive into a
port on his laptop.

"All right, Sarah. What am I looking
for?"

She moved around to the chair next to
his. He pushed his plate out of the way and slid the laptop to her. His empty
plate, she noticed.

Stop it. He's a grown man and if he wants
a bellyache, that's his business.

"Why don't you have a regular mouse?"
she grumbled as she struggled with the touchpad. After a few moments to get
comfortable with it, she opened the right file. "Here," she said. "It's
not complete, though. I started my marketing spreadsheet before the cops took
the rest of my files."

Randy leaned over to look. Close enough
for her to feel the warmth he radiated. "It's not much, but maybe it'll
trigger something." She stared at the names, trying to place each with a
transaction, but failed miserably. It had been so busy and she'd barely had
time to get familiar with the stock. She highlighted a few names. "I
waited on these and I know they bought Garrigues, but there were a lot more."

Kovak grinned. "That's what we do.
Take way too much information and narrow it down. We can split the list. Why
don't you try to eliminate your regular customers."

"I thought you looked at everyone,"
she said, darting her eyes at Randy.

"We do," he said. "But we
prioritize, too. One question. Were all the Garrigue mugs like the ones we saw?"

"No. He sent several different
shapes and sizes. If these were going to be part of my regular stock, I'd have
codes for everything. But it was last-minute and we were swamped." She
felt like she was letting Randy—and the entire police force—down. "I'm
sorry."

"That's all right. There aren't that
many names here. If the three of us split the list, we should be able to run
them through the DMV for starters. I'll take the first ten." He jotted the
names on his tablet and passed the computer to Chief Laughlin.

"Nice to be playing detective,"
the chief said. He scribbled on his tablet and handed the laptop off to Kovak. "Makes
a good change from pencil-pushing and bean-counting."

"Am I allowed to watch?" Sarah
asked as Randy entered names into a database.

"For now, yes," he said. "We're
trying to match names to people. If you recognize any of them, that'll help."

He clicked, waited and the screen
displayed a picture. She looked at it, frowned and shook her head. "Can't
remember. Jennifer waited on so many customers."

He brought up a few more pictures. "The
problem is without anything to narrow the search, we're looking at everyone
with each name and some of these names are common enough to have multiple
results." He displayed another picture. She shook her head. Randy tried
again. And again.

"No. No. Not him," she said as
he brought up a series of bad driver's license pictures.

"Wait," Kovak said. "This
name rings a bell." He turned the screen toward her. "Walter Young
was on your guestbook list. Do you recognize this picture?"

She studied the image on the monitor. An
older man, creases and wrinkles surrounding hollow cheeks, lanky dark hair. "No.
And I think I'd remember if I saw this guy. Of course, he could have come and
gone while I was in the back."

"Hang on." Kovak pulled his
briefcase from the floor and opened it, searching through file folders. "Here
we go. Right. Walter Young. One of the people who used the bank's ATM." He
handed it to Sarah. "You mentioned he'd been in your shop. That's why the
name was familiar."

"Do you have the picture?"
Chief Laughlin asked.

"Getting there." Kovak rummaged
around a bit and handed her a stack of photos.

She leafed through them, looking for the
one she remembered. "This guy." She handed the picture to Kovak. "But
he's not the man in the driver's license picture."

"Walter Young's a common enough
name. I'll look for more of them." He passed the picture around the table.
"At least with this picture, we can narrow the search. I'd say he's twenty
to thirty years old."

Randy nodded. "But take it out five
years either way, to be safe."

Kovak starting working on his computer
again.

Sarah searched her memory, pleased when
it finally came though. "I remember now. Whatever his name is, I spoke to
him, but Jennifer handled the sale. He was waiting on a special piece. If your
theory is right, that might make him a suspect."

Randy's phone rang. "Detweiler."
His eyes widened as he listened. "Yes. Yes. Wait. Hang on." Sarah
watched him fill a page with cryptic notes. After several interminable minutes,
he snapped the phone shut and kept writing.

She quelled her curiosity and waited. If
the police chief wasn't going to interrupt, it certainly wasn't her place.

What seemed like hours later, he looked
up. "Charlotte Russell, the county M.E. Apparently she either doesn't know
I'm supposed to be out of the loop, or she doesn't care. Anyway, she gave me
the gist of her autopsy findings."

Autopsy. Sarah's stomach wobbled at the
word.

"Anything helpful?" Chief
Laughlin asked.

Randy faced him, an expression somewhere
between smug and perplexed on his face. "Our killer seems to be a copycat."

"Tell us more," Kovak said.

Randy pulled some papers out of his
briefcase. "Our victim was killed by a right-hander. The cuts on every
other victim were precise. They're willing to say the same knife was used on
all of them." He flipped pages and selected a few, tossing them on the
table. Pictures. Of a dead body. She saw enough to make her glad she hadn't
eaten more than toast and berries. She went back to the other side of the table
and let the two of them work. When they started discussing the depth and
patterns of cuts on the body, she pushed her chair away.

"If you'll excuse me, I'm
going to freshen up."

Randy raised his eyebrows. "You
okay?" Sarah's freckles stood out against her pale skin.

"Yeah, fine. But I think this would
be a good time to take a quick break and leave you to your cop stuff. Autopsies
and killer signatures aren't exactly my area of expertise."

She walked away. Steady, he noted with
relief. He should have thought before tossing those pictures around.

The chief waited until she'd rounded the
corner, then spoke. "I didn't want to say anything in front of her, but I
think one of our questions is answered. The rat I've been smelling might have
come to light."

Both men leaned forward.

"You've heard the rumors about the
jail going private, right?"

"Yes," Randy and Kovak said,
almost in unison.

"It's true. And it turns out that
one of our esteemed town council members is not only involved, but stands to
reap a small fortune if the deal goes through. One of the stumbling blocks was
that they can't fire the deputies who work the jail."

"So you and Eldridge actually got it
right the other day," Randy said. "Pine Hills dissolves its force,
contracts with County and the displaced jail deputies have new assignments in
Pine Hills."

"In a nutshell, yes," the chief
said. "However, I think it's going to hit the fan when the personal gain
angle is mentioned." He smirked. "Sometimes the media can work in our
favor. I think little Miss Penny might have some fun with this story."

"You going to tell us who the
backstabber is?" Kovak asked.

"My money's on Neville's sister,"
Randy said.

"No comment," the chief said
with a shit-eating grin. He reached for his pen. "Back to work, gentlemen.
Where were we?"

A mixture of satisfaction and relief
painted Kovak's expression. "Killer is a copycat."

"Good news is it means we don't have
to connect with those other five killings that nobody has been able to solve,"
Randy said. "Bad news is it means we don't have any leads."

"What about Christopher
Westmoreland?" Laughlin asked. "Any chance he's connected. He had a
thing for Sarah."

"Nope. I checked. His visitors in
prison have all been family."

Kovak looked up from his laptop. "That's
not the only way to get information in and out of prison. Email, phone calls,
letters."

"Agreed, but nothing in any of these
cases connects to anything he's ever done. Not his style." Randy thumbed
through his notes. "What about the prints on the key? The ones that
matched prints from her shop?"

"Without knowing which database to
search, it's not going to be easy. Nothing in IAFIS. For now, they're
examplars," the chief said.

The lack of anything more concrete dumped
more acid into Randy's already complaining stomach.

"Dental records?" the chief
asked, thumbing through notes. "Anything there?"

"Definite maybe on that one,"
Randy said. "I found a dentist who thought it rang a bell. It didn't match
anything in his current patient records, but he bought his practice about six
years ago and he said it could have been done by the guy before him."

"But?" Kovak said.

"But that guy retired to Mexico to
run fishing cruises. The records are all in storage with the new dentist, who
might
be able to get to them in a few weeks. Last I heard, County was working on a warrant.
However, if we step in, red flags will go up."

The chief tapped his pen on the table. "Unless
we can get to the retired dentist first. See if he remembers the patient. Who
knows what makes a patient memorable." He looked at Randy. "You have
any contact information?"

Randy searched his notes. "Ingraham.
Albert."

"You have anything more helpful than
Mexico?" Kovak asked.

"Nope." Randy grinned. "But
you gotta figure it'll be near the water."

"Great." Kovak muttered
unintelligible sounds and addressed his keyboard. "Mexico. Fishing
charters. Water."

Randy's phone rang again. The chief
nodded, went back to his computer.

"Detweiler."

"Randy? Is this a bad time? I know
it's early but—"

"It's fine, Maggie. What do you
need?" He shoved his hair out of his eyes and turned to another page of
his tablet, doodling Xs.

"I saw two more of those mugs, like
the ones Sarah's been selling. At Saint Michael's. I volunteer there, you know,
and Sarah said they might be a clue."