Lead-Pipe Cinch (12 page)

“It’s not really closing time yet, but nothing’s happening here. Why don’t we go walk the dogs, and you can tell me what happened.”

It sounded good to me.

Sue parked her SUV in the driveway behind the Beetle. From inside we could hear excited yelps. They knew the sound of the Beetle, but they also knew Sue’s vehicle and that it always carried the promise of green treats.

Sue didn’t disappoint them. After she gave them treats she let them out the back door, while I dumped the coveralls and grabbed a pair of jeans and a sweater.

Once I was changed we got the leashes and headed out. The weather had turned cool, and the trees were a riot of golds and reds. Soon they would be bare, but for now we could admire the display of autumn color.

The falling leaves also created interesting new smells for the dogs to explore. Daisy alternately dawdled and sprinted, checking out every leaf. Buddha was less erratic. He methodically stopped and examined each spot that caught his attention before moving on at the same deliberate pace.

Their initial enthusiasm waned and they fell into the steady rhythm of the walk. With the dogs under control, Sue started in on me.

“Georgie, if Fred Mitchell had you brought to the station, he had a good reason. Just what’s going on?” She reached out and touched my arm. “Don’t get upset. I know you like to keep your secrets. And I try to respect that. But don’t you think it’s about time you started trusting somebody?”

“You’re taking his side?” I asked. I knew she and the sheriff were becoming an item, but clearly she was further gone than I thought.

“Sides?” Sue threw one hand—the one without the leash—in the air in a gesture of frustration. “What is this, second grade?! Nobody’s taking sides here, Georgie. I just think there has to be a reason, that’s all.”

She stopped and glared at me. “And you keep brushing off my questions. Just like you kept brushing me off when I wanted to come visit you in San Francisco.

“It’s like your entire life is some big secret that we’re not allowed to know about, and it’s really frustrating.”

“Your friend the sheriff hauls me down to his office, strands me in town, and you defend him and then say you aren’t taking sides?”

“Georgie, this isn’t about that, and you know it. What I said was that Fred wouldn’t call you in without a reason, and I wanted you to tell me what the reason was.”

She tugged Buddha’s leash to hurry him up. He responded obediently and picked up his pace. They drew away from me and Daisy, and I was left with Sue’s hurt voice ringing in my ears.

She had taken Fred Mitchell’s side. She’d defended him without even knowing exactly what happened at the station. What’s worse was that she was right.

I hustled Daisy along in spite of her protests and caught up to Sue and Buddha.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I hate it when you’re right and I’m wrong,” I added, trying to lighten the mood.

Sue shrugged. “You have a lot of secrets, Georgie. Maybe it’s time you started sharing what’s going on.”

It was my turn to shrug. “There really isn’t anything
going on
, Sue. The sheriff had some questions. I just thought he was being a little high-handed.”

“What kind of questions, that’s what I want to know. What was so important to him that he had Carruthers haul you down there? I mean, he’d been out to the house to talk to you just last night, right?”

“How did you know he’d been to the house?”

Sue colored. “He, uh, stopped by to talk to me after he left your place. He might have mentioned that he’d seen you.”

“Was he asking you about me? Or was this a purely social visit? What’s up between the two of you?”

We were a few blocks from my house, and the dogs knew it. They strained at the leashes—as much as Buddha ever misbehaved—anxious to get home and get another treat.

“You hungry?” Sue asked, her conversation taking another of its patented abrupt turns. This one, I suspected, had a lot less to do with her conversational style and a lot more with not talking about Fred Mitchell.

I wasn’t going to let her off the hook that easily, but just then my stomach rumbled loudly.

Sue took that as an answer. “Let’s get the dogs home and then we can go grab a sandwich at Franklin’s.”

I shook my head. “Not Franklin’s. Not Tiny’s, either. In fact, I don’t want to go anywhere in Pine Ridge. Nowhere that I might run into anybody I know.”

We walked the rest of the way, running through a list of not-so-local joints until we settled on a Mexican place about twenty miles away. It wasn’t a long drive, but it put just enough distance between me and Pine Ridge.

I wondered if the sheriff would approve of my “leaving town” and decided I didn’t care. Sue volunteered to drive, and I accepted her offer. Much as I loved my old Beetle, her SUV was a lot more comfortable.

I cranked up the stereo and let twenty-year-old rock music fill the car. It made conversation nearly impossible. Sue didn’t object. We both were avoiding the discussion we knew was coming: my confessions about Blake and Samurai Security, and Sue’s relationship with Fred Mitchell.

We needed to talk. We both knew it. Ever since I’d returned to Pine Ridge I had maintained a distance, even with the people I was closest to like Sue and Wade. I was starting to relax a little, but the Blake situation was pushing things along.

I’d grown used to keeping secrets. Attending one of the most competitive schools in the country had required me to be self-sufficient, but it was nothing compared to working in an industry that ran on trade secrets and innovation. Secrecy and security were the standard, and nondisclosure agreements accompanied every move.

Paranoia was a survival tactic that pervaded the industry, and as a security firm it was the foundation of our business. After a while keeping secrets just came naturally.

Sue pulled into the nearly empty parking lot and braked to a stop in a Saint Doris parking place. It was a designation we had learned as kids watching Doris Day movies on TV with Sue’s mom. Doris never had to look for a parking place. There was always an empty spot right in front just waiting for her. Sue’s mom had started invoking the name of Saint Doris when she drove us anywhere, and we had carried on the tradition.

The restaurant was as empty as the parking lot. The food was great, but lunch was several hours past and the dinner crowd was at least an hour away.

I breathed a sigh of relief. We could talk in private.

We settled into a booth with menus, a basket of chips, and a bowl of salsa. The waiter appeared a moment later with water and an offer of drinks.

Sue gave me a quick look and ordered a margarita and a diet soda, then sent the waiter away. I furrowed my brow. She never had so much as a sip of wine if she was driving.

“The margarita’s for you, girl. You look like you could use it. I’m having soda.”

I was tempted to argue with her, but I’d tried that already today and it didn’t work very well. “Yes, ma’am.”

She laughed. “I never have to twist very hard when there’s tequila involved,” she said.

It was an old joke. I seldom drank anything stronger than microbrew, but when I did it usually did involve tequila. Sue knew my weaknesses.

“Thanks. I think maybe I could use one.”

Our drinks arrived, Sue’s in an ice-filled tumbler and mine in a saucer-shaped glass with a rim of rock salt. I think I liked the salt as much as the drink.

The waiter took our order and disappeared, leaving us facing the conversation we’d been dancing around for the last several days.

“Sooo,” Sue said, drawing the word out. “Just what did Fred Mitchell want with you? I mean, you hadn’t seen this guy in several years, right? Then he has a stupid accident in your hometown. Not much to tell.”

“That’s what I thought, but there is more.” I sighed and sipped the margarita, tasting the sharp bite of lime and the tang of salt, feeling the warmth of tequila hitting my empty stomach and spreading through me.

I relaxed a little and set the drink aside. No more tequila on an empty stomach.

“Sue, I have never talked to anyone about everything that happened down there and I hoped I’d never have to. It was an unhappy time, and I just wanted it to go away. I really hoped it would stay in the past.”

She nodded. “Understood.”

“Now it looks like I have to tell somebody and try to figure out how much I have to tell everybody else. But I have to have your word that you won’t repeat this to anyone, including Fred Mitchell.” It was my turn to give her a hard look. “
Especially
Fred Mitchell.”

“What is this fixation with me and Fred Mitchell?” She tried to sound like injured innocence, but I didn’t believe her.

I ticked off the clues on my fingers. “First, you blush every time his name is mentioned. Second, he just happens to drop by and talk to you at home. Third, you’re calling him by his name instead of
sheriff
. And fourth, you act guilty every time I ask about him.” I waved a hand. “Do I need to go on?”

She shook her head. “No. We’ve gone out a couple times is all. He did stop to ask me about you, what I knew about San Francisco. That was when I realized how little I
did
know.”

She drew a deep breath and went on. “And when have I ever snitched on you for anything? Did I tell anybody about you kissing Eddie Monroe in fifth grade? And that kegger our senior year, even after I got caught? Not a word. So why would I do it now?”

“Because you have a thing for the sheriff,” I shot back.

I held up my hands in surrender before we could escalate into another argument. “But I get your point. You don’t snitch.”

“Try to remember that.”

“Ouch. You’re right. But I know what kind of dumb moves you can make when there’s a guy involved.” I swallowed hard. This was it.

“Let me tell you how I know.”

Our food arrived. Sue took a bite of her enchilada and waited patiently for me to go on. I picked up my taco but I didn’t eat. Instead I tried to figure out where to start.

“It’s hard to admit a failure, Sue—even harder when you’re the person who always succeeded, the kid that got straight As and went to the best university.

“San Francisco was a spectacular failure.”

I took a bite of taco and stared at my plate as I chewed. The worst was over. I’d said the f-word. Now all I had to do was explain how stupid I’d been because of a guy.

Piece of cake.

The taco seemed to stick in my throat and I swallowed hard to force it down. “When I graduated the computer industry was booming. There were jobs everywhere and my degrees put me in high demand.” I took a sip of margarita, letting the frigid liquid soothe my tightening throat.

“That’s not bragging—it’s a fact. I had offers from all over the country. But I wanted to be in the middle of it, and I decided to take a job in the Bay Area.

“It didn’t take me long to realize I wanted to be the boss. So I started my own company. It was just me at first, and I named it Samurai Security.” I saw Sue’s mouth twitch with the hint of a smile.

“I know.” I grinned just a little. “But I loved the martial arts I’d been studying since college and somehow the idea of an ancient samurai warrior protecting a client’s computer appealed to me.”

“It fits you,” Sue said.

“Yeah. Well, I had some early success and my clients started recommending me to their friends and pretty soon I had more work than I could handle. I went looking for a partner to help share the workload. Word got out I was looking, and people started coming to me, recommended by friends, and friends of friends.

“That’s when I found Blake.” I shrugged. “Or when Blake found me.”

Sue’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh. Even after all that happened I have to admit he was impressive. Ivy League degrees, good dresser, charming, and—I have to say—gorgeous. Not my usual type, but I’m not sure I actually had a type at the time.”

Sue gave me a questioning look, which seemed to shout “What about Wade?”, but I waved it away. “Which is beside the point right now. Anyway, he was gorgeous in a suave, man-about-town way. Not a rugged alpha-male-I’m-the-sheriff way.”

I grinned at Sue, and she blushed. There was definitely something going on there. There wasn’t time right now, but I would eventually get the truth out of her.

“Long and short of it, Blake had all the qualities to be an excellent salesman and company rep. Plus he was scary smart and he knew his way around a security design.

“In a word,
perfect
.”

I ate a couple bites of my now-cool food before I went on.

“We worked together—long hours, no breaks, take-out lunches and dinners, and way too much coffee. It was an intense atmosphere. We spent most of the time together, and there wasn’t a week that we worked less than a hundred hours.”