Lead-Pipe Cinch

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Lead-Pipe Cinch Page 6

by Christy Evans

I started to cross to Katie’s when we walked out, but Sue grabbed my arm and pulled me toward her shop.

  “You were telling me about the accident,” she said, “and there was something more you were going to say. You can get your bread fix later.”

  Daisy and Buddha greeted us with happy barks when we unlocked the shop. They knew Sue was a soft touch and she didn’t disappoint them, slipping them each a green treat.

  She didn’t get them ready for a bath, though. Instead, she sat down on her stool behind the counter and motioned me to the other stool.

  “Now, make like Paul Harvey,” she said. “I want the rest of the story.”

  “I knew the guy.”

  “But you said it wasn’t anyone on the crew, Georgie. And if it wasn’t anyone from Pine Ridge, who was it?”

  “Someone I used to work with.”

  “The guy from Tiny’s?” she exclaimed. “The hunk with the designer wardrobe and the four-hundred-dollar haircut?”

  My brain, the part that didn’t want to deal with Blake’s death, wondered how Sue knew about four-hundred-dollar haircuts, much less had the ability to spot one.

  “That’s the guy that fell in the moat?”

  “His name is—was—Blake Weston.” I crossed my arms over my stomach, as if I could hold myself together that way. “We were friends, then more than friends. It ended badly, and I hadn’t seen him in several years.”

  “Until he walked into Tiny’s.” Sue finished my thought. “No wonder you looked like you’d seen a ghost. He didn’t seem much like your type, though. Way too slick.”

  I chuckled. “And what is my type?”

  Sue reddened. “You know what I mean, Georgie. You’re a plumber now, and you hang around with people like me and Paula and Wade—and none of us exactly have a designer wardrobe, unless you include Wrangler and Fruit of the Loom on the list.”

  “I’m still an apprentice,” I reminded her. “And I hang out with people like you because you and Paula and Wade are my friends. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t have other kinds of friends before I came back to Pine Ridge.”

  “Did you?” Sue said. “Have other kinds of friends?”

  Unfolding my arms, I stood up and walked across the shop. My back was to Sue. “I don’t know.”

  I fiddled with a display of cat toys, lining them up carefully on their metal peg. “I knew a lot of people in San Francisco, and I worked and socialized with them. But I don’t know if they were friends.”

  The gloom was getting to me. I squared my shoulders and turned to face Sue. I steadied my voice and forced a matter-of-fact tone as I summarized my years at Samurai.

  “After I got my master’s degree, I started a computer security company. When I started expanding, Blake was my first partner, and we did well. The computer industry was exploding, and we were the hot new thing.

  “Guys with money came looking for us, offering to help us grow. They didn’t want to interfere in how we ran the company, or so they said. But when the industry started cooling off, they changed their minds.

  “I knew a lot of things about hardware and software”—I walked back to counter, and picked up the thumb drive we’d left sitting there before lunch—“but not a lot about office politics. Blake did.

  “When the money guys decided to ‘go in a different direction’ ”—I made air quotes with my fingers—“I was the one who left.” I forced a smile I didn’t feel, and hoped it wasn’t too obvious. “And now you know, the rest of the story.” I mimicked the popular radio host’s signature line.

  Sue glanced at the thumb drive I held loosely in my hand. “That’s how you know all that stuff about cookies and worms and spyware and all that stuff you told me about? That was the kind of stuff you were doing?”

  “Among other things.” I shrugged. “But I left all that down there, and I don’t want to do it anymore.” I grinned again, and this time I did feel it. “You and Barry are the only ones I make an exception for.”

  “So this Blake guy was, what? More than somebody you worked with, that’s for sure. Are we talking close business partner, or maybe ex-boyfriend?”

  “We dated,” I hedged. That wasn’t a lie, exactly. It had been a little more serious than that, at least on my part, but a girl has to have some pride. I wasn’t ready to admit he’d been willing to dump me the instant the investors offered him the corner office.

  “And Sandra doesn’t know any of this, does she?”

  I shook my head. “Would you tell her?”

  Sue burst into giggles. “No way!”

  I tossed the thumb drive up and caught it. “Now, let me see if I can figure out what’s wrong with this thing.”

  I walked back into the office, feeling better than I had since the day I spotted Blake at the McComb job site. I was sad he was dead—we had been close once—but I could stop thinking about him for a little while.

  A very little while.

  chapter 10

  I arrived home with a better attitude, freshly groomed dogs, and a feeling of accomplishment. The thumb drive problem had turned out to be a simple conflict caused by connecting two drives at the same time. All I had to do was disconnect the other drive, and everything was fine.

  I thought about what might have caused the problem as I fed the dogs and checked the refrigerator for dinner.

  Same stuff that was there at lunchtime, plus a fresh loaf of whole wheat from Katie’s sitting on the counter. I’d stopped in after I’d solved Sue’s computer issue.

  The stale bread gave me an idea. A quick check of the cupboard turned up cinnamon and vanilla. With eggs and stale bread I had French toast, and the dregs of the marmalade would substitute for syrup.

  My mother would be proud.

  The pan was hot, and I had just put the first bread slices in when my cell phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, but the area code was familiar.

  San Francisco.

  Another ghost.

  I let the phone play its cheery ringtone. I knew the call would ruin my mood, and my evening. I could just let it go to voice mail, and worry about it later. Or tomorrow. Or next week.

  But if I did that there was a good chance that the ghost, whoever he was, would show up in Pine Ridge. Ignoring the call wouldn’t make a difference. Besides, I’d obsess about it the rest of the evening if I didn’t pick up.

  “Hello.”

  “Is this Georgiana Neverall?” The voice was vaguely familiar. I had heard it before, but it was older and deeper than I remembered.

  “Speaking.”

  “Georgie! It’s so good to hear your voice. How are you?” This time, the voice squeaked a little at the end, and a face attached itself to the memory.

  Richard Parks. He was an intern at Samurai, a student from the local community college with too little money and a terrifying talent. I swore the boy dreamed in machine code, the way fluent foreign language students dreamed in French or German. Within his first week I had realized he could have my job if he wanted it.

  I wondered if he did.

  “Richard?” I asked.

  “Yeah, Georgie, it’s me! It’s really good to talk to you again. I mean, the circumstances and all, that’s not so cool, in fact it’s really terrible. But I just never thought we’d hear from you, after you took that buyout and moved away. And then Blake called and said he’d run into you in some tiny town up in Oregon, but he hadn’t got a chance to talk to you.”

  Richard’s words rushed out, piling on top of one another, and threatened to overwhelm me. It took a few seconds for the meaning to sink in.

  “Buyout?”

  “Oh! I’m not supposed to know about that, am I? Forget I said it, okay? It was just that everybody knew, and it’s been a long time, and . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “What are you talking about, Richard? And how did you get my cell number anyway?”

  “From the sheriff. He called here about Blake, and I might have mentioned that I knew you and did he know how I could get in touch w
ith you, since I knew you were up there.” I could picture Richard’s baby face—heck, he was a baby—with a blush creeping up his neck. Richard may have been a computer genius, but he was still just an awkward kid.

  “Blake told you he ran into me?” I was still trying to process the torrent of words.

  “He said he bumped into you in a local restaurant. Told Stan Fischer he didn’t get much chance to talk, but he figured he’d see you later and catch up. That’s all I heard, but I know Stan talked to him a couple times.”

  I remembered Stan Fischer all too well—the eight-hundred-pound gorilla of the investors, and one of the architects of my ouster. The legend was he’d made his money working the Alaska pipeline in the seventies, and come back to California to invest it. He’d done well, but money and age hadn’t smoothed out any of the rough edges. He’d gone through several wives, a couple girlfriends, and there was office gossip about Stan and an intern. He still looked and acted like a roughneck.

  “So Stan’s running things now?”

  “Well, Blake’s in charge, but Stan’s pretty involved. That is,” he amended hastily, “Blake was in charge. I guess Stan’s taking care of things for now. You know, until we can figure things out.”

  “So, Richard, about that buyout? What was it you heard?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all, Georgie. I didn’t say a thing, okay?” He sounded more than embarrassed. He sounded scared.

  “It’s not a big deal, Richard. I just wondered what people had heard.”

  “What I heard was that there was a confidentiality agreement, and if anyone talked about it they’d be fired. You know this industry, Georgie. If somebody got canned here, they’d have a tough time finding another good job.”

  I nodded, without realizing Richard couldn’t see me. Of course. He was afraid of losing his job if he talked about my nonexistent buyout.

  I caught a whiff of something burning.

  My dinner!

  “Frack!” I dropped the phone on the table, and grabbed the frying pan. The toast in the pan was turning black around the edges. I dumped the whole mess into the sink, and turned off the stove.

  I’d deal with it later.

  “Georgiana?” Richard’s voice was tiny, carrying from where I’d abandoned the phone. “Georgie? Are you still there?”

  I grabbed the phone back up. “Sorry, Richard. I was trying to burn dinner.” I glanced at the blackened mess in the sink. “Looks like I did a pretty good job, too.”

  “I’m sorry. I called at a bad time. Maybe I should just call you back later, or something.”

  “Never mind, Richard. It’s fine.” I thought for a second. “But just why did you call me? It’s been a long time since I left Samurai, after all.”

  “Actually, it’s about Stan. He’s at the San Francisco airport, and he’s catching the next flight to Portland. He should be up there in a couple hours, and he said he’d like to talk to you while he’s there.”

  “Ooookay,” I said slowly. “I don’t know why he’d want to talk to me, but you can pass along my number.”

  “I don’t know, either, Georgie. I just know he asked me to find you and let him know how to get in touch.” Richard hesitated, and I could picture him, his mouth twisted as he pondered his next words. “You won’t tell him what I said, will you, Georgie? I mean, I know I wasn’t supposed to know and all, but it just slipped out. I swear, I won’t talk to anybody else about it or anything. I won’t even tell them I talked to you if you don’t want me to. Except for Stan, of course.”

  “Sure, Richard. There isn’t any reason for me to mention it to Stan. I’m not even sure I’ll actually talk to him, since there isn’t anything I can really tell him.”

  I finally got Richard off the phone, and turned back to inspect the wreckage of my dinner. The French toast was burned, I was out of eggs, and the frying pan was a crusted mess.

  I called Garibaldi’s and ordered a pizza.

  My mother didn’t have to know.

  While I waited for the delivery driver, I thought about what Richard had said. “Everybody” at Samurai knew I’d taken a buyout? They thought I’d walked away with a bundle of cash and left them all behind.

  No wonder no one had called. And I just bet that rumor was strategically “leaked” to the entire company as soon as I was out the door. It certainly would have sounded better than the truth—that Blake and the board of directors that included Stan Fischer had cheated me out of the company, and left me without a dime.

  And Stan was on his way to Pine Ridge. I wanted to see him even less than I wanted to see Blake. The last time I’d seen him was when I left San Francisco with my tail between my legs. It would be awkward; more so because Stan didn’t have the social grace and charm of Blake Weston.

  Okay, so the charm had worn a bit thin, judging by the way Blake had talked to me out at the job site, but he had been charming when he wanted to be.

  The doorbell rang, and I grabbed my wallet. In spite of everything that was going on, I was still hungry.

  But it wasn’t the pizza delivery guy. It was Sheriff Mitchell.

  And he didn’t look happy.

  chapter 11

  “Good evening, Miss Neverall. May I come in?”

  The tone of his voice didn’t give me much hope that a protest would do any good. It had that we-can-do-this-the-easy-way-or-the-hard-way quality you hear in all the cop shows on TV.

  It had the desired effect. I opened the door wide and invited him in.

  I glanced outside as I closed the door behind the sheriff. His cruiser was parked at the curb, but he appeared to be alone. It looked like an official visit, but at least there weren’t lights and sirens.

  “Have a seat, Sheriff.” I waved at the sofa, but he remained standing. “I was waiting for a delivery from Garibaldi’s. In fact”—I held out the wallet as proof—“that’s who I thought was at the door.”

  I smiled at him. “Seems like the last time you were here Garibaldi’s was delivering, too. If I recall, you like extra olives and pepperoni.”

  Maybe I shouldn’t have reminded him. The last time he’d been in my living room, I’d been recovering from a run-in with the Gladstones who’d killed Martha Tepper and hidden her body.

  He gave me an unhappy look, and sat down on the recliner. He didn’t lean back but sat up straight, his elbows resting on his knees.

  The doorbell rang again. This time it was Garibaldi’s. By the time I got back to the living room with the pizza and some napkins, Sheriff Mitchell had a notebook out and he was fiddling with his pen.

  “Help yourself,” I said, setting the box on the steamer trunk that served as a coffee table. “I always order a large, even though it’s way too much.”

  I was chattering. I knew it and I hated the fact, but my nerves were pulled tight by Richard’s phone call and the impending arrival of Stan Fischer. The sheriff’s unexpected visit didn’t exactly help matters.

  “Thanks,” the sheriff said. “Maybe later. But for now, I need to ask you a few questions. I thought you might prefer to talk here, rather than down at the station.”

  Yow. That sounded like a warning.

  “I appreciate that. As long as you don’t mind if I eat while we talk. It’s been kind of a long day, and I’m hungry.” >

  As if to prove my point, I picked up the slice on my plate and took a big bite. The cheese was still hot, burning my tongue as I tried to chew.

  I set the plate down, careful not to put it where the dogs could reach. They knew better, but the aroma of pepperoni and cheese was sometimes too much for their obedience training to overcome.

  “So,” I said, folding my hands together in my lap. “Questions.”

  The sheriff glanced at his pad and back up at me. “Do you mind if I use the recorder? You know I feel more secure knowing I got the exact response.”

  He’d done the same thing when he interviewed me about Martha Tepper. I nodded. I’d expected it.

  He reached in his pocket and s
et the tiny machine on the table next to the pizza box.

  “That official, huh?” I asked.

  “Just a few details, Miss Neverall. I want to be sure I get everything straight. That’s all.”

  I didn’t believe him, but I was smart enough not to say so.

  He punched a button, tested the recording and played it back, then noted the time and place before he asked his first question.

  “You knew the deceased, Blake Weston?”

  I nodded. The sheriff rolled his eyes. I had to actually talk for the recorder. “Yes, I knew him.”

  “When and where did you see him last?”

  “You mean before he came to Pine Ridge?”

  “Yes. And after.”

  “Well, let me see. I saw him at the construction site twice, and once in Tiny’s. He was at the site on Tuesday morning with Chad McComb, and with Chad and Astrid in Tiny’s that night. And then I saw him at the site the next morning.”

  “And before that?”

  “It was several years ago, in San Francisco. As I told you, we worked together. The last time I saw him was when I left the company where we worked.”

  “That was”—he checked his notebook—“Samurai Security? Where he was still employed?”

  “It was Samurai, yes. But I didn’t know that he was still employed there.” I’m not a very good liar, but I hadn’t known Blake was still a part of the company until Richard called. It was a fine distinction, but it worked for me. “I had the impression he was still doing the same kind of work, though he didn’t say where he was working.”

  “According to Chad McComb, it was Samurai Security. Said he’d never done business with them before, but they came highly recommended.”

  He glanced back at his notes. “You hadn’t seen Mr. Weston since you left San Francisco?”

  “Yes.”

  “Had you talked to him?”

  I glanced at the recorder. The light blinked steadily, my words saved for anyone to hear. “Can we turn that off for a minute?”

  The sheriff hesitated, then reached down and killed the power to the recorder. “Why?”

 

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