Hidden Fire, Kobo

by Terry Odell

  "That will be wonderful," Sarah said to the woman. "Won't it, dear?"

  Randy blinked. "Yes. Thank you."

  "There was no need to be rude," Sarah said. "That sweet woman must get up before dawn to bake. She's treating us like guests, not customers. It wouldn't hurt to show a little appreciation."

  It was more like thirty seconds, but the woman came back, all smiles and motherly clucking. "Here's a couple of to-go cups, too. Coffee for the road."

  Sarah took the proffered paper sack, which was warm in her hands, and the two foam cups. She smiled at Randy. "Why don't you check us out, dear, and I'll fix your coffee."

  While he was at the counter, Sarah added a liberal amount of what appeared to be real cream to Randy's cup. When they got back to Pine Hills, she was going to insist he see a doctor.

  She snapped the lids on the cups and brought everything to him. "I've already had two cups of coffee," she said. "I'm going to the ladies' room before we start driving."

  "Meet you out front," he said, scrawling his signature on the credit card receipt.

  The contrary part of her nature surfaced and she took her sweet time in the bathroom, fixing her hair, checking her makeup. She wasn't someone who he could order around like a suspect. Or a Person of Interest.

  She screwed down her lipstick, capped it and dropped it in her makeup pouch. On her way through the lobby, she paused at the brochure rack. Maybe she could get together with the other Pine Hills merchants and put together a flyer. This was a major route through Oregon and there were enough shops in Pine Hills to entice people to stop if they'd advertise. She perused the offerings, selecting several she thought might serve as examples.

  Clutching the brochures against her chest, she left the motel in search of Randy. The parking lot was small, but far from full, yet his truck wasn't there. She swore she'd heard him say "out front". She was about to head to where they'd parked for the night when she saw the black F-150 round the side of the motel.

  He stopped alongside the motel entrance. Not unexpected, he was on the phone. She climbed in, tossed her purse onto the backseat, slipped the brochures in the door pocket and fastened her seatbelt. "Ready whenever you are."

  "In ten, then," he said into the phone and closed it. He sipped some coffee, put the cup in a holder and swung the truck out of the parking lot and down the highway. Ten minutes later he was pulling into a coffee shop parking lot.

  "Why are we stopping?" she asked. Maybe he needed a pit stop. No, he reached for his briefcase.

  "Breakfast."

  "What about the muffins?" She could still smell their spicy aroma.

  "I need some protein. I'm a big guy. We can save them for a snack later."

  With a shrug, she unfastened her seatbelt and retrieved her purse.

  Inside, they waited at the hostess stand. "I'm meeting some friends," Randy said. "They're here already."

  Friends? What was going on? Curiosity overpowered her irritation at being left out of yet another one of Randy's loops. She looked through the restaurant for a familiar face.

  Randy's hand at her back said he knew where to look. She let him guide her to a small private room at the back of the restaurant, dominated by a group of tables pushed together in the center. As they entered, Kovak and Chief Laughlin rose from seats on opposite sides of the table, close to the windows. Chief Laughlin was impeccably dressed, his suit jacked draped neatly over the back of his chair. Kovak was more casual, in black denims and a long-sleeved polo. Kovak held a chair for her, next to his. The table was strewn with papers and each man had a laptop. A thermal coffee carafe sat in the center of it all.

  Puzzled, she sat and hooked her purse strap over the back of the chair. It wasn't even eight a.m. and Pine Hills was three hours away. "Hi," she said. "Fancy meeting you here?"

  Kovak chuckled. "Glad you could join us."

  Randy sat next to Laughlin and set up his laptop.

  Okay, this was getting too far into James Bond territory. For about a nanosecond she thought about excusing herself. No way. This was obviously a police meeting and they were letting her sit in. She caught Randy's eye and he winked at her. Damn her transparent face. She tried to adjust her expression to that of a composed professional. Like heck. The grin escaped. This was going to be exciting. She browsed the menu on the table.

  A waitress came by and set food in front of Chief Laughlin and Kovak. "You need a few minutes?" she asked Randy.

  "No, I'm ready." He grabbed the menu, glanced at it, pointed and handed it to her.

  She nodded and jotted something on her pad. "Southwestern omelet. Thank you." The waitress turned to Sarah. "And for you?"

  "Wheat toast with a side of berries," Sarah said. "And some orange juice." She looked at the menu again to see what Randy was getting. She kept it in front of her face until she knew her irritation had passed, then handed it to the waitress.

  "Coming right up." The waitress shuffled off, carrying the menus.

  Smothered in salsa, it had said, with three red peppers next to it. Hot. Well, it was his stomach and damned if she was going to give him any sympathy.

  Chief Laughlin was tackling a stack of pancakes and Kovak had two fried eggs staring at him. Randy was doing something on his computer. She couldn't stand the silence.

  "Did you enjoy your anniversary?" she asked Kovak. "I thought the bowls Janie picked out were perfect."

  His ears turned bright pink. "Yes, we had a nice weekend." He busied himself mopping up some yolk with a piece of toast. "I understand you helped with the gift selection. Thank you," he mumbled.

  "I like to help my customers find something special, you know. It goes with the territory."

  She noticed Randy and Chief Laughlin giving Kovak a questioning look. More than his ears were pink now.

  "All right," Randy said. "Are we ready to start?"

  "Almost," Chief Laughlin said. "Sarah, I guess you're wondering what this is all about?"

  Ya think? "It does seem a little strange, yes."

  "We're going to review some police cases and have a brainstorming session. One of the drawbacks to a small town," Chief Laughlin said, "is the lack of privacy. Not to mention the constant interruptions. I had to be in this area for a cousin's wedding and I thought we'd be able to work away from curious eyes and ears. Since you're involved and I know I can trust you to keep things confidential, we're including you."

  Delight filled her, then questions. What was going on in Pine Hills that they didn't want to meet there? "Oh, yes, sir. Thank you. I won't say anything." She toed Randy's leg under the table to get his attention. "So, I'm thinking this wasn't really a trip to walk on the beach and commune with the redwoods."

  Kovak raised his eyebrows in Randy's direction. "There will be time for that after we're done here. After all, the big guy's still on vacation."

  "All right, then," Chief Laughlin said. "There are multiple jurisdictions involved, between the Washington cops, the Oregon County Sheriffs and the Pine Hills PD. And if we add Garrigue to the mix, that brings in California. Not to mention the possibility of the feds on the smuggling end. Communication within agencies is bad enough, never mind between them. Let's see if a few small-town cops can untangle this mess."

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Randy pulled a legal tablet from his briefcase and wished for a whiteboard. But the chief's decision to keep this under the radar precluded anything like that, especially in a public venue. When Laughlin laid out his plan after the lunch meeting with Eldridge, Randy couldn't believe the chief was venturing into such gray areas. Kovak had driven down this morning and the chief had spent the night about an hour away. All he'd said was he smelled a rat and so, for the time being, they were into the world of cloak and dagger. Beat spinning his wheels.

  "Sarah," he said. She looked at him, a smile on her lips, her eyes sparkling. An eager puppy. "What we're going to be doing here is brainstorming. That means we're going to toss out ideas. Any ideas. Nothing's too off-the-wall."

>   Kovak put down his fork. "And we're also going to play devil's advocate with everything we say. Doesn't mean an idea is good, bad, right or wrong. We toss them all around."

  "Feel free to jump in," the chief said.

  Sarah's eyes lit up even more, if that was possible. "Me?"

  The chief smiled. "Of course. You've got a lot of information we don't have, especially when it comes to your customers and what they purchased."

  She nodded, her smile diminishing. Her expression was solemn, businesslike. Randy knew she'd realized this was more than a party game.

  "Go for it." Randy nodded to the chief.

  "Okay. From the top. We have our dead John Doe. We have a burglary. We have diamond smuggling." Laughlin drew three circles on a page and set it in the center of the table. "How are they connected?"

  "If we knew that," Kovak said, "then we'd probably have solved the case by now."

  "Pottery," Randy said. "Clay under the victim's nails, pottery in Sarah's shop, diamonds in the pottery."

  "The mugs at Saint Michael's," Sarah said.

  "Right." The chief drew another circle and wrote "Saint Michael's" inside. He took a red pen and surrounded the John Doe, burglary and Saint Michael's with a colored border. "These three are all within our jurisdiction, even though they're spilling into others. Let's start with Sarah's shop."

  The chief stopped talking and Randy sensed the waitress' approach. He moved things around, making enough room for his plate. The heady aroma had his mouth watering. "Enjoy," she said.

  "You're a glutton for punishment, aren't you, big guy?" Kovak said.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I know your stomach. Salsa. Hot salsa, if I remember the menu correctly. Hope you brought your Tums."

  Randy saw the sideward glance Sarah threw at Kovak, as if thanking him for bringing it up. "I don't need you telling me what I can or can't eat, okay. And I like salsa." Which he did, but if he had bothered to read instead of picking the first egg dish on the menu, he'd have chosen something else. Keeping his eyes on his plate, he forked up a huge mouthful of his salsa-covered omelet. He swallowed it, refusing to reach for his water glass when his tongue caught fire. Instead, he spread some strawberry jam on a slice of toast and bit off a mouthful. The sweet jam counteracted the spicy salsa and he went on eating.

  "Back to work, children," the chief said. "Sarah, the special pottery seems to be central in this case. Let's think about it. Your potter—"

  "Hugh Garrigue," she said.

  "Right, Garrigue," the chief continued. "He receives smuggled diamonds. Bakes them into pots, or whatever he does. So he's a distributor, not a fence."

  "Why?" Sarah asked. "And how did I get the pots?" She chewed her lip. "You said to toss out any ideas, right?"

  "Right," Randy said. "You have something?"

  "I don't know. But Hugh Garrigue was out of town. His associate shipped me the pottery. She said he's usually particular about handling that himself. What if she sent me the pots with the diamonds by mistake? What if they were supposed to go to his fences, or smuggling ring, or whatever?"

  "Good thought," Kovak said. The chief wrote "mistake?" on the sheet. Randy started his own notes, noticing Kovak doing the same.

  "Looking at the other side," the chief said. "What if it wasn't a mistake? That Sarah is a distributor?"

  She stopped drinking her juice and put her glass on the table. Emphatically. "That's not true."

  "Relax, Sarah," the chief said. "While we don't consider you a knowing participant, to anyone else there's enough evidence to investigate. It adds a layer of distance from Garrigue."

  "But this is the first time I've had more than a couple of Garrigues to sell," she said. "What about all the other shops?"

  "Right," Randy said. "A sweet gimmick, if you ask me. He pops this stuff all over the country, a little at a time. More layers."

  "More complications," Kovak said. "More people involved, more chances something will go wrong."

  "Have we checked with the other shops?" the chief asked.

  "I was investigating," Randy said. "I've been waiting on customer lists. Most of these businesses are small, like Sarah's. They don't all keep records as detailed as hers. I can call and hound them some more, but County's on it."

  "Here's what I think," Sarah said. "It doesn't make sense that someone would go to all the trouble of hiding diamonds in pottery without a way of getting them to the right people. Constructing the mugs is way beyond normal pottery making. So if the smuggler does all that, why would he put the pottery for sale where anyone could buy it? Unless it's not a smuggler at all. Some rich fruitcake's idea of a joke. You know, random acts of kindness." She pulled a face. "Which is totally crazy."

  "Especially since someone would have to break the pot, yes, it's totally crazy. I think we can rule out an anonymous philanthropist," Randy added.

  "But wait," Sarah said. "People came into the store requesting specific pieces. So maybe there's some way that Garrigue—if he's the smuggler—tells them which pieces to buy."

  "Risky," Kovak said. "What guarantee does he have that the pots or mugs or whatever would still be in the shop? That a totally innocent customer didn't buy them first?"

  "Mr. Pemberton," Sarah said, her hands fluttering like butterflies.

  "What about him?"

  "He came into the shop before I got the shipment." She looked at Kovak. "That was one of the things the cops used against me. That I shipped those mugs to Mr. Pemberton before they were on sale to the public. But he knew exactly which ones he wanted. Even had a sketch."

  "So someone tipped him off," the chief said. "Kovak, find out if the other shops had advance orders and if so, what they were for." He looked at Sarah. "I'm assuming he can't bake these diamonds into any old piece of pottery."

  She shook her head. "No, I'm amazed he can do it at all. It's not the normal way to construct a mug."

  "All right, Sarah," Randy said around a bite of sausage. "What can you come up with as reasons Mr. Pemberton came into your shop? Three for starters. Remember, nothing is too crazy to consider."

  She moved her berries around in their bowl. "Okay. One, it was exactly what he said it was. His wife collects Garrigues and he wanted to surprise her."

  "Good. Two."

  "You don't think that's true, do you?" she asked.

  "Doesn't matter," Kovak said. "We're brainstorming. Ideas first. We'll analyze them later."

  She forked a berry into her mouth and chewed it, looking thoughtful.

  "Two," she said. "He knows about the diamonds and he gets to the store early to buy the pottery before it goes on sale."

  Randy nodded. "Keep it up."

  She frowned. "Why doesn't someone ask Mr. Pemberton?"

  "He's disappeared. Nobody knows where he is," the chief said. "Someone must have tipped him off."

  Her lips curved upward. "Ah, but he gave me his card. One of those fancy-sounding English addresses." She knitted her brows. "Shropshire. Some kind of a tree. Larch? No, laurel. The Laurels, Shropshire. There was something else in there, but that's a start. I should have his address on my spreadsheet." She beamed with delight.

  Randy took another bite of toast, washing it down with coffee, avoiding Sarah's eyes when he spoke. "No such place."

  "What?"

  "The Washington cops have been following up," the chief said. "Doesn't exist."

  Her face fell. "I can't believe it. I thought I was a pretty good judge of character, but I've been so wrong lately."

  Despite the fact he was sitting at a table with two of his colleagues, one of whom was his direct superior, Randy took her hand, small, warm and soft, in his. He loved the way it disappeared, as if she'd become part of him. "It's your nature to believe people. To trust them. Take them at face value. And until recently, there was no reason not to. Most of Pine Hills' citizens are exactly what they seem to be. High-profile crimes like these don't happen there."

  "And you're all the opposite," sh
e 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?"

  * * * * *