Hidden Fire, Kobo (34 page)

He straightened, giving the call his full
attention. "Go on, Maggie." He drew a line under his row of Xs.

"One of the residents. Mrs.
Voorhees. I saw them in her room. She said her nephew gave them to her for her
birthday and she gave two to the nursing staff because she didn't need four."

"I don't suppose you know where he
got them?" He held his breath in anticipation, but didn't expect much.

"That's the thing. Her nephew is a
couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. He likes to bring her presents, but
most of the time they're secondhand. Used books. Thrift store stuff. Garage
sales. She said she wouldn't put it past him to dip into Dumpsters or trash.
She tosses most of what he gives her, but these mugs were nice. She could tell
they'd been repaired, but she didn't want to hurt his feelings and ask where he
got them."

"Thanks, Maggie. What's Mrs.
Voorhees' first name?"

"Valerie. Valerie Voorhees. Her
monogram looks like a W."

"Do you know the nephew's name?"
he asked before she went off on that tangent.

"Oh, sorry. Freddie. That's what she
calls him. Actually, she calls him her penny-pinching, drug-dealing nephew
Freddie. But I think she's joking about the drugs part. He visits every couple
of months and brings her tacky presents. Except for those mugs, I guess, which
would have been expensive. I think he lives in Portland."

"His last name?" Randy squeezed
the question in while Maggie stopped for breath.

"Oh, I didn't think about that. I
assumed he was a Voorhees, too, but there's no reason to assume that, is there?
He could be anything. Would you like me to ask? I can think up some kind of a
reason so she doesn't think I'm snooping. Then again, she doesn't remember
things for very long, so even if she did wonder why I'm asking, she—"

"Maggie. Whatever you decide will be
fine." He rubbed his forehead which now throbbed in counterpoint to his
belly. "Do you know when he gave his aunt the mugs?"

"Yes, that I know. They have a
celebration every month for the residents who have birthdays and I baked a
chocolate cake. The party was July fifteenth." She paused. "Although
that doesn't mean he came for the party, does it? Only that he probably brought
them some time in July."

"Do visitors sign in, Maggie?"

"Oh, of course. That's right. I didn't
think about that, because I'm there all the time as a volunteer, not a visitor.
But there should be a record. I could sneak a peek at the books. Staff is so
busy, they're always glad for help and I could, you know—"

"I get it, Maggie. Thanks for doing
this."

"Always glad to help our police
department. Are you enjoying your vacation?"

Yeah, right.
"Yes, I am."

"Oh, my. I'm probably interrupting
you. Tell Sarah I said hello. Bye."

"Goodbye, Maggie." He
disconnected and lowered his head to his hands.

"Got something? Kovak said.

He groaned. "Freddie. Maybe
Voorhees. Maybe he lives in Portland. He brought the mugs to Saint Michael's.
Maggie said Mrs. Voohees refers to him as her penny-pinching, drug-dealing
nephew."

"Drugs?" Kovak's eyebrows
lifted. "I'll run some databases." He cracked his knuckles and bowed
his head over the keyboard again.

"Maggie Cooper," the chief
said. "Big heart. A bit on the talkative side."

Randy laughed. "A bit. But she did
give us another name to check." He scrolled through Sarah's customer
records, not expecting to find anything. Unlikely a drug dealer would be using
his own name.

"Damn, I'm good," Kovak
exclaimed.

"You found nephew Freddie?"
Randy asked. "That was fast."

"Not yet. Haven't started that one.
But someone else is going to be buying the beer for at least the next month."
He glanced at Laughlin. "Except you, Chief. Of course we'll pick up your
tab."

"Tell me what you have and I'll
decide," Laughlin said.

Kovak scribbled something on his notepad.
"Ta da.
Ingraham's Panga Fishing.
Puerto
Peñasco, Mexico."

"Which is where?" Randy asked. "Enlighten
the geographically challenged."

"Sea of Cortez." Kovak studied
the screen. "Would you look at that. Al Capone used to go there."

"Stick to the here and now, Kovak,"
Laughlin said.

"You think I should go down there
and question this guy? Janie and the kids would love to come along." He
grinned. "It fits with my 'gone fishing' alibi for today."

"In your dreams, Kovak," Laughlin
said. "You've got a phone. Use it."

Kovak shrugged. "Can't blame a guy
for trying." He scribbled something and pulled out his cell.

* * * * *

Sarah shook out her hair and smiled as
she approached the table. She prepared herself to deal with whatever the men
were doing. They were pictures. She wouldn't think about the real person behind
them. Only telling herself not to think about it made her think about it. Like
someone saying not to think of an elephant. She turned her thoughts to her
peaceful beach and took a chair across from Randy, leaving an empty between
herself and Kovak. All three men were working at their computers and jotting
down notes.

"Still busy, I see," she said.

Randy looked up from his laptop and
smiled, then gathered the papers spread over the table into a stack and turned
them face down. "Maggie says hello," he said.

Sarah grinned. "I'll bet she said
more than hello."

"Actually, she did. Have you ever
run into a Mrs. Voorhees at Saint Michael's? Valerie?"

"Staff or resident?" she asked.

"Resident," Randy said.

Sarah tried to place the name. "I
don't think so. Not in my ceramics class, anyway and I don't meet too many
others." Kovak and Chief Laughlin seemed totally involved in their
computers. She leaned sideways, trying to peek onto Kovak's screen to see what
doing real police work looked like. He must have sensed her prying eyes,
because he looked up and smiled. Her face heated. "Sorry. Sometimes I'm
too curious for my own good. If those are secret databases, I apologize."

He chuckled and pushed the computer
toward her. "We do have our own law enforcement sources, but sometimes it's
faster to start with Google."

She saw the familiar search engine logo
at the top of his screen and laughed. "So, have you found anything useful?"

Randy explained about the mugs and the
nephew, Freddie. "I was checking your sales records to see if you had
anyone named Voorhees." He twisted the laptop. "If you want, you can
do it."

"How far back should I look?"
she asked.

He shrugged. Looked at his colleagues. "Two
months?"

A nod and a grunt seemed to mean they
agreed.

His chair scraped against the floor and
he rose. "Be right back," he said, rubbing his stomach. And avoiding
her eyes.

"He's a big boy," Kovak said
after Randy left. "But not always smart."

"Sometimes you have to let people
learn for themselves," she said. "A little pain can be an excellent
teacher."

He seemed as adept at reading her face as
Randy. "But you don't like it when people you care about hurt, do you?"

She bit her lip, not pleased at the
direction the conversation was moving. "Can I ask you something personal?"

"Ask away," he said. "If I
can, I'll answer."

"Why does Janie call you Peek?"
Good grief what a way to change the subject. "I'm sorry. That was probably
too personal. Forget it."

His ears reddened, but he laughed. Chief
Laughlin's head was hidden behind his laptop. "It's my initials,"
Kovak said. "P. E. K."

"I'll accept that," she said,
knowing she'd go crazy trying to figure out what the P and the E stood for.
Obviously not something ordinary, or people would use his first name.

"Might as well tell her," Chief
Laughlin said. "Considering how helpful she's being."

"No, that's not necessary," she
said.

"You've earned the right to know,"
Kovak said. "But it doesn't leave this room."

She mimed zipping her lips. "Never."

He took a sheet of paper, scribbled
something on it, folded it and handed to her. She raised her eyebrows and
unfolded it. "Oh. Yeah, I can see why."

"After my grandfathers," he
said. "Apparently those names were common enough in England two
generations ago, but they don't cut it here."

No, she could see how he wouldn't want to
go by Percival Elwood. She tore the paper into tiny bits and put it in her
bowl, where it soaked up the last remnants of berry juices. "I'll keep calling
you Kovak, then," she said.

"Works for me," he said,
getting back to his keyboard.

She took Randy's computer and searched,
trying a few alternative spellings, but nothing popped. "Not here. Guess I
should do more advertising at Saint Michael's," she said to herself.
Actually, she thought, that might not be a bad idea. Maybe get together with
some of the other merchants, arrange for the residents to take a field trip to
their business district. Lunch at Sadie's. No, not lunch. Afternoon tea.

She realized her mind had wandered too
far afield and returned to her search, going back six months. Still nothing.

Randy returned, dropping a newspaper with
the sports section exposed onto the table. "Any luck?"

"I'm assuming you mean the good
kind, in which case the answer is no," she said.

"Never you mind. I've got enough for
both of us," Kovak said. "The wizard strikes again." He tapped
his chest. "I am the all-powerful silverback gorilla. Your friend over
there," he said, pointing to Randy, "despite his excessive height, is
a mere organ grinder monkey."

"That beer you expect me to buy is
going to be in your lap, buster," Randy said, glaring at Kovak. But she
recognized the affection underlying the insults.

Kovak sat there, a smirk on his face.

"I trust you're not waiting for me
to grovel," Randy said. "Spill."

"I think I found nephew Freddie on a
genealogy site," Kovak said. "Odds are against there being two
Valerie Voorheeses with Fredericks in their family tree. And there's an address
outside of Portland." He looked at Sarah with a conspiratorial grin. "
Now
I'll start with our secret databases."

She giggled and made a show of covering
her eyes with her hands. "No peeking. I promise."

Kovak laughed and she left him to his
keyboard. His eyebrows came together and his lips pursed in and out as he
worked.

"May I ask a question?" she
said.

"Ask away," Randy said.

"How did the cops find the diamonds?
I'm still trying to work out how they could be fired inside those mugs."

Chief Laughlin's lips tilted upward. "Sometimes
you're good and sometimes you just get lucky. This was the latter, I'm afraid.
There was a bomb scare at the hotel. During the mandatory evacuation, a K-9
knocked over the mug during the search. It snapped at the seam and the cop went
to put the pieces back on the table when he noticed the diamonds on the floor."

"But how were they hidden? I know I'd
have heard something rattle, even if I was in a hurry to get them shipped."

"Some kind of packing material, I
think," Kovak said. "Like fiberglass."

That made more sense. "Kiln
insulation, I'll bet. It would withstand the heat of firing and they could pack
it tight enough so there wouldn't be air pockets." She was still impressed
at the lengths someone had gone to in devising the hiding system.

"Wait," Randy said. "How
did Mr. Pemberton, or whoever he is, get away?"

"Sometimes the crooks get lucky,
too," Chief Laughlin said. "The theory is he overheard the broadcast
on a radio. Cops were all over the place because of the bomb scare—some
Middle-Eastern big shot was staying at the hotel—and our man must have cut his
losses and run."

Chief Laughlin looked at his watch. "Sorry
to bug out, but I have to get to the wedding." He stood, slipped into his
jacket and straightened his tie. "Glad you joined us, Sarah. Thanks again.
Your information was helpful." He reached across the table and offered his
hand. She shook it, unable to wipe the grin off her face. Or suppress the blush
she knew was spreading across her cheeks.

He turned to Randy. "You are
not
to be back in the office before Monday. If you have anything for me, use my
personal cell or home email." He wrote something on a business card and
handed it to Randy. "You take care." The gaze they exchanged said
there was something going on, more James Bond stuff.

"Yes, sir." They gripped hands
briefly and Chief Laughlin clapped Randy's arm. He squared his shoulders and
strode out of the room, leaving a vacancy three times his size. It was easy to see
how he'd moved up to become Chief of Police. Although he was nowhere near Randy's
height, and shorter than Kovak as well, the man radiated authority.