“Chichi Barbi is part of that?” Hanni said. “I’ve been gone so much, I haven’t talked with Dallas.”
“They’re working on backup,” Ryan said. “Contacting other districts, to borrow officers. You know Uncle Dallas and Max! They’ll have more men than they need, never doubt it.”
Hanni took another quiche and wolfed it. “That’s the kind of thing that makes me think about sleeping in the shop for a few nights, even with my new security.”
“Dallas would have your hide,” Ryan said. “Putting yourself in that kind of danger.”
“We’re not Dallas and Scotty’s little girls anymore.” Hanni reached for a second helping of mangoes.
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Ryan told her. “Can you imagine their rage, or Dad’s, if they caught you hiding out in your own shop waiting for armed robbers-or if you got shot?” But as the two talked, Charlie’s attention was no longer on Chichi but on the dark little shadow crouched on the roof above her as Chichi made her mysterious notes.
Kit had been sittingon the roof for some time, intent on Chichi, who, in turn, was intent on the shops across the street, particularly on Hanni Coon’s Interiors. Kit had seen Charlie and Ryan go in, and guessed they were shopping for Charlie’s rugs. Next door to Hanni’s, the owner of the antique shop had the front door open, and the round, elderly woman was sweeping the entry and sidewalk. Next to her at the Tweed Shop, the driver of a brown UPS truck was unloading several large brown boxes. On down the street at the Gucci shop with its diamond-paned windows and small, elegant garden, the tall, slim, bald owner was watering his miniature roses and ferns. Chichi, making notes behind a newspaper that she pretended to be reading, was watching them all. And she was making the same kind of cryptic notes in her spiral-bound notebook as she had before. Kit wished she’d spell it all out; that stuff was hard to remember. Occasionally Chichi glanced at her watch as if recording the time of each occurrence. Kit did her best to commit the entries to memory-that seemed easier since Lucinda had written out the first batch for her last night, when she’d spied on Chichi in the Patio Cafe. Now Chichi’s scribbles made sense; now all she had to do was call the station.
In Hanni’s firelit shop, the three women polished off breakfast while they watched Chichi.
“I wonder if that’s her real name,” Hanni said. She glanced at Ryan. “Have you seen her around the village with anyone, any strangers? Has Clyde? She’s living right next door to Clyde.”
Ryan shrugged, and said nothing.
“Well, she has your back up,” Hanni said, grinning. She glanced at Charlie. “Could she be a writer? Doing some kind of research? Whydidshe move in next to Clyde? She was so friendly, that night at Lupe’s.” But then Hanni frowned. “Wanting to get friendly with Dallas and Max? To get on their good side? Or to draw their attention away from someone or something?” Her eyes widened. “Distract them from the burglary that night?”
Charlie said, “It was more than an hour between dinner and the burglary. But� she makes me uneasy, too.” She studied Ryan, her dark-lashed green eyes, her clear tan and bouncy dark hair. “You needn’t be jealous over Clyde, certainly not jealous of the likes of her.”
Charlie left the shop with Ryan, having selected three beautiful primitive rugs that would set her back a bundle, even at wholesale prices. Picking up her own car, she headed up the hills to inspect a new job and a new cleaning crew. Pulling out into light village traffic and turning up into the north hills, she was glad she’d have little, wizened Mavity Flowers to oversee the two new crew members.
This was the fourth year for Charlie’s Fix It, Clean It, and the business she’d built had grown to be nearly more than she could handle. But she was proud of what she had created, and it was too successful to let go; she didn’t want to sell. For one thing, her customers had come to depend on her. Hers was the only service in the village where the same crew would clean the house, make all the minor household repairs, even fix fences and roofs, run errands and feed the dog.
She would feel ashamed at discontinuing the service, at letting down her regulars-to say nothing of the very nice income. She was helping to pay for the new construction on their house, and would, in turn, take a tax write-off on her new office-studio. What she badly needed was a manager for the cleaning business; so far she’d found no one she trusted who wanted to take on the extra work and responsibility.
Winding up into the hills, checking her map to make sure of the address, she was a block from the new job when she hit the brakes. Stopping dead in the empty residential street, she stared up a long, steep driveway.
But then hastily she pulled on past; she didn’t stop again until she’d parked a block away, pulling in behind her old blue van with CHARLIE’S FIX IT, CLEAN IT lettered on the side. She sat a moment behind the wheel, smiling, then flipped open her cell phone.
How often did this happen? She could hardly believe what she’d seen.
The house she had passed was a tall, old stucco badly in need of paint, two stories in front, one story behind, old-fashioned lace curtains at the windows, unpainted picket fence along the steep drive. Halfway up the drive, pulled to the side into some concealing bushes, or perhaps so another car could go past into the closed garage, stood a brown Toyota pickup.
It was maybe ten years old, dull and battered and with a dented tailgate and a missing back bumper. It was without doubt one of the two getaway cars the department had ID’d. Glancing in her rearview mirror, she hit the button for the station.
25 [��������: pic_26.jpg]
Max Harper was headed downstairs to the department’s indoor firing range when the dispatcher came out from behind her counter and called down the hall to him. “You might want to take this, Captain. Caller won’t give her name.” Mabel smiled; she knew that voice. She didn’t know who it belonged to, no one did, but this was a caller the chief always found of interest. “I tried to take the message,” she said, amused. “She wasn’t about to do that.”
Harper turned into his office and pushed the door closed, shutting out the joking and laughing of several officers heading downstairs. As he sat down at his cluttered desk, he could hear through the floor the faint, random popping of the first group as they fired at the moving targets. With his usual wariness at talking with this particular snitch, he picked up the phone.
“Captain Harper, I watched that woman again. She was making notes about the shopkeepers again early this morning before opening time. Just after seven. The Gucci shop, and Hanni Coon’s studio. Maybe it isn’t important, but�”
“I’m always interested,” Harper said softly. She sounded hesitant this morning, as if she thought he might not like her calling. “I always welcome your calls.” He sure didn’t want to lose her; this snitch and her partner had been responsible for a considerable number of arrests and prosecutions. Hitting the RECORD button, he snatched up a pen and pad. Harper liked to hedge his bets, not rely totally on electronic equipment.
“That same blond woman, writing down when people get to their shops or when they close up, if they open the door early to sweep or take deliveries. This morning she wrote down that Mrs. Harkins swept the front walk and watered the flowers then locked the front door again and went down the street for a cup of coffee at Ronnie’s Bakery. She wrote down the time that she left, and how long she was gone.”
Where had the snitch been, to see all thatandto see what Chichi had written? He burned to ask her how she’d done that, ask her some details of her own movements, but she’d hung up on him.
She told him she had seen Charlie and Ryan inside Hanni’s studio, looking at rugs, and that made him smile. Charlie would be high just looking at those rugs-the soul of an artist, he thought. Same kind of kickhegot from locking up some skuzzy felon.