The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 5 (104 page)

“All right. Let’s check his bank accounts, see if you can get more background. An English teacher?”

“Untenured. Single, lives alone, forty-two years old. The administrator I talked to said Eckle just sort of drifted along, did his job, didn’t make waves. He couldn’t name any particular friends either, and it’s a small school, Tawney.”

That light sparked in Tawney’s eyes, too. “Make the calls. I’ll put in for the travel.”

 

 

SIMON COVERED the nearly finished wine cabinet with a tarp. It made him feel a little foolish, but he didn’t want Fiona to see it, or ask him about it. Maybe he didn’t want to think too deeply about the fact that he was making it for her, just because she wanted one.

It had been weird enough waking up and knowing she was there. Not in bed, of course, he mused as he added a third coat of poly to his stump-and-burl-wood sink. If the sun was up, so was Fiona. But she’d been there, in his place, his space.

His bathroom smelled of her, just as his kitchen smelled of the coffee she’d brewed while he’d still been in bed.

And the weird thing? He was okay with it. He’d even been okay, after a moment of puzzlement, when he’d opened a drawer for a spoon and found his flatware organized into type.

He’d thought, glancing around, the kitchen was tidier—but since he wasn’t sure exactly how he’d left it, that was just a maybe.

By the time he’d been ready to start work, she’d fed the dogs, taken them through a quick training session, showered, dressed and watered her flowerpots.

He heard the cars for her first session and had deliberately angled himself on the shop porch so he could check out who got out.

He’d modulated the volume on his music so he could hear her if she called out—and
that
was a sacrifice. But he remained undisturbed and alone throughout her morning classes.

Even Jaws had deserted him.

Which was fine—better than fine. He didn’t have to worry about getting stray dog hair in the poly or ignoring sticks or balls dropped and that pleading look for playtime.

He’d gotten more templates cut out, several pieces glued up and clamped and now, at what the shop clock said was still just shy of noon, he was giving his sink another coat that brought out the rich grain of the wood, deepened the tones.

He caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and paused to watch her and the dog approach.

“Keep them back, will you? This is wet. One shake and they’ll have hair all over it.”

“Sit. Stay. I just thought I’d see if you want a sandwich or . . .”

She stopped, stared. And he had the great satisfaction of seeing her mouth literally drop open. “Oh my God. Is that the stump? That’s my stump?”

“My stump.”

“It’s amazing!” Instinct had her fingers reaching out to touch. He slapped them back.

“Ouch. Okay, sorry, it’s wet. It’s upside down. That’s how it works. Of course.” Sliding her hands in her back pockets to keep them from the reach/slap, Fiona circled the sink.

“The roots form the base, holder, whatever it is for the bowl so it looks like something that grew in a magic forest. Who knew tree roots could look so amazing? Well, you did. But the bowl. What’s the bowl?”

“Burl wood. I found it months back. It needed the right base.”

“The color’s so beautiful. Like glass syrup. It’s just beautiful, Simon. I knew it would be interesting, but I didn’t know it would be beautiful.”

Gushy praise over his work invariably made him itchy. But oddly with her, with that dazzled delight on her face, he felt only satisfaction. “It’s not finished.”

“What will you do with it when it is?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged because he’d caught himself wanting to give it to her. It suited her down to the ground. “Maybe sell it, maybe keep it.”

“You’d feel magical every time you washed your hands. I’ll never look at a tree stump the same way again. God, wait until people get a load of this!” She laughed over at him. “Anyway, I’ve got a couple hours until my first afternoon class. If you’re hungry, I can make you a sandwich.”

He considered it, and her. “Listen, I don’t want you to wait on me because if you do I’ll want you to wait on me.”

She took a second. “You know, I understand that, oddly enough. Okay, how about a trade?”

“What kind of trade?”

“I’ll make you a sandwich, and you make me some wood slat things. I wrote down the lengths I want.”

She pulled out a list, handed it to him. He frowned down at it.

“What are they for?”

“For me.” She smiled.

“Fine. You don’t have a width.”

“Oh. Hmm. Like this?” She held her thumb and forefinger together.

“About a quarter inch. What kind of wood?”

“The wood kind—whatever you’ve got around.”

“Finish?”

“Jeez, it’s a lot of decisions. Just that stuff, the clear stuff. I don’t need fancy.”

“Okay. I’ll run them up when I’m done with this.”

“Perfect.”

It worked out okay, Simon thought later. He got a sandwich without having to make it, and they stayed out of each other’s way during the work. Solemn oath or not, she cleaned up after him—subtly. He saw her sweeping off the porch, and when he realized he’d forgotten to restock his shop fridge and went in for a drink, the gleam inside his refrigerator all but blinded him.

He heard the suspicious sound of the washing machine running.

So fine, they’d trade again. He’d build her some new training equipment when he had the chance.

When he stepped back outside, he saw her pacing the backyard with the phone to her ear. Something’s up, he thought, and crossed to her.

“Yes, sure, that’s fine. Thanks for calling. Really. Okay. Bye.” She clicked off. “Agent Tawney. He was going to try to come out today, but they’ve got something else to do. I think they have a lead. He was careful not to say, but I think they have a lead. He sounded too calm.”

“Too calm?”

“Deliberately calm.” She rubbed the heel of her hand between her breasts as he knew she did when struggling for calm herself.

“As if he didn’t want to show any sort of excitement or interest,” she explained. “Maybe I’m projecting, but that’s how it feels. And he didn’t tell me anything because he didn’t want me to react exactly the way I am.”

She closed her eyes, took a breath. “It’s a good thing I have a full afternoon. I can’t obsess.”

“Yes you can. It’s what you do.” Reaching behind her, he gave the tail of her braid a tug and tipped the topic to take her mind off her nerves. “Are you washing my clothes, Mom?”

“I’m washing mine.” She spoke very primly. “There may be an item or two of yours in there, too, just to fill out the load.”

He poked her in the shoulder. “Watch it.”

She fisted her hands on her hips as he strode away. “I’ve already gone radical. I changed the sheets on the bed.”

He shook his head, kept walking—and made her laugh.

 

 

TAWNEY AND HIS PARTNER took Eckle’s last known residence first, a small three-level apartment building within walking distance of campus. Their knock on 202 went unanswered—except for the crack in the door across the hall.

“She’s not home.”

“She?”

“Just moved in a couple weeks ago.” The crack widened. “Young thing, first apartment. What do you want?”

Both agents took out their ID. And the door opened all the way. “FBI!” Her tone might’ve been the same on
Santa Claus!

Tawney gauged the woman as early seventies with bright bird eyes behind silver-framed glasses.

“I love those FBI shows on TV. I watch them all. Cop shows, too. Is that little girl up to something? You couldn’t prove it by me. She’s friendly and polite. Clean, even if she dresses like most of them do.”

“We were actually hoping to speak with Francis Eckle.”

“Oh, he left right after Christmas. His mother took sick. At least that’s what he
said
. I bet he’s in some sort of witness protection. Or he’s a serial killer. He’s just the type.”

Mantz raised her eyebrows. “Ms. . . . ?”

“Hawbaker. Stella Hawbaker.”

“Ms. Hawbaker, could we come in and speak with you?”

“I knew he was funny.” She pointed a finger. “Come on in. You can have a seat,” she told them and walked over to shut off the TV. “I don’t drink coffee, but I’ve got some for when one of my kids comes by. That and soft drinks.”

“We’re fine,” Tawney told her. “You said Mr. Eckle left after Christmas.”

“That’s right. I saw him hauling out suitcases, middle of the day when hardly anyone’s around but me. So I said, ‘Going on a trip?’ And he smiled the way he does that doesn’t look you in the eye and said he needed to go help tend his mother, because she’d had a fall and broke her hip. Now, he’d never once mentioned his mother in all the years he lived across the hall. Course he hardly mentioned anything. Kept to himself,” she added with a knowing nod. “That’s what they say about people who go out and chop people up with an ax. How he was quiet and kept to himself.”

“Did he mention where his mother lived?”

“He said, because I asked him straight out, she lived in Columbus, Ohio. Now you tell me,” she demanded, pointing her finger again, “if he had a mother out east, how come he never went to see her before this, or how come she didn’t come out to see him?”

She tapped the finger to the side of her nose. “Smells funny. And it smells funnier seeing as he never came back. Left his furniture—or most of it from what I could tell when the landlord finally got around to clearing the place out. Not much else, and I know he had cases of books in there—and they didn’t go with him. Must’ve sold them on eBay or something.”

“You pay attention, Ms. Hawbaker.”

She took Tawney’s comment with a sly smile. “That I do, and since most people don’t pay much to old ladies, I get away with it. In the past few months, I’ve seen him go out hauling shipping boxes or stacks of those mailing bags, and coming back empty. So I figure he sold those books, and whatever. Running money, I’ll bet. Never paid the rent from January on either. And, ’cause I talked to the landlord about it, I heard he quit his job and cleaned out his bank account. Every penny.”

Those bright eyes went shrewd. “I expect you know that.”

“Did he have friends, visitors?” Mantz asked. “Any girlfriends?”

Ms. Hawbaker made a dismissive sound. “Never once saw him with a woman—or a man either if he went that way. Not natural. Polite, I’ll give him that. Well spoken, but he wouldn’t say boo unless you said it first. What’d he do?”

“We’re just interested in talking to him.”

Now she nodded sagely. “He’s what you all call ‘a person of interest,’ and mostly that means he’s a suspect in something bad. He drove one of those little compact cars with the hatchback. That’s what he loaded up and drove off in that day. I’ll tell you something else, ’cause I’m nosy and I poked in—and the landlord and I talked about it. There wasn’t a single photograph in that place, or a letter or a postcard. He never planned to come back, that’s what I say. And he didn’t go to take care of his mother with any broken hip. If he had a mother, he probably killed her in her sleep.”

Outside, Mantz wrenched open the car door. “Now that’s an insightful woman.”

“I don’t think Eckle killed his mother in her sleep, since the records show his mother OD’d when he was eight.”

“She pegged him, Tawney. If that’s not our UNSUB, I’m a Vegas showgirl.”

“You’ve got good legs, Erin, but I’m looking the same way. Let’s track down the landlord, see what we can find out at the college, then I guess we’re going back to prison.”

O
ne day, Fiona thought, she hoped to feel something other than dread when she saw Davey’s cruiser come down her drive.

“Uh-oh, we’re in trouble now,” one of her students joked, and she managed a stiff smile.

“Don’t worry, I have connections. Jana, see the way Lotus is circling? What do you read?”

“Ah, she’s in the scent pool?”

“Maybe. Maybe she’s trying to get a new gauge, work it out. Maybe she’s got a cross-scent and she’s trying to home in. You need to work it out, too. Work with her. Help her focus. Watch her tail, her hackles, listen to her breathing. Every reaction means something, and hers might be different from, say, Mike’s dog. I’ll be right back.”

She moved off, her heart banging against her ribs with every step as Davey walked to meet her.

“Sorry to interrupt your class—and it’s not bad news. How much longer are you going to be?”

“Fifteen, twenty minutes. What—”

“It’s not bad news,” he repeated. “But I don’t want to talk to you with the audience. I can wait. It’s my timing that’s off.”

“No, we would’ve been done, but this group asked for an add-on cadaver-search cross-training. There’re only four of them, and I had the time, so . . .” She shrugged.

“I’ll let you get back to it. Okay if I watch?”

“Sure.”

“Fee?” Jana signaled, then lifted her hands in frustration. “She’s just not getting it, and she seems confused and, well, bored. We nail this at home. She loves this behavior, and we’ve got it down cold.”

Focus, Fiona ordered herself. “You’re not at home. Remember, a new place, new environment, new problems.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know you’ve said that before, but if we make it, every time she goes out on a search it’s a new place.”

“Absolutely true. That’s why the more experiences she has, the better. She learns every single time. She’s bright and eager, but she’s not pulling it in today—and she feels your frustration, too. First thing, relax.”

Do the same yourself, Fiona thought and glanced back to where Davey stood watching.

“Go back to where she started to circle and lose interest. Refresh, reward, reestablish. If she just can’t get it today, take her to the source, let her find it, reward.”