Part 5 (1/2)
For about two and a half seconds, I toyed with the idea of going back to tell him about the guy with the limp. But why bother? He probably wouldn't believe me, and I didn't want to subject the boys to another disagreement between us. Besides, Elizabeth would be expecting us, and I wanted to get the boys home on time.
I kept driving, never dreaming that such a small choice would turn out to have such large consequences.
Chapter 10.
The next morning dawned gray and cold, a harbinger of the coming winter. The previous night's wind had stripped away the last remaining leaves from the trees, leaving the mountainsides looking stark and uninviting.
Before leading Max outside for his morning ritual, I threw on a pair of sweats and a jacket. The frigid air bit through both in short order. Teeth chattering, I tried to hurry Max along. Unfortunately, he enjoyed the brisk morning air, so the two of us were at cross purposes. As usual, he won. One of these days, I swear I'm going to convince him that I'm the boss.
When I finally got home again, I climbed into a steaming hot shower and stood under the spray until I felt some of the chill leave my bones. As I warmed up, I started to wonder why the man with the limp had turned up at the recreation center. Had he been trying to steal Kerry's truck? If so, he must not be very good at what he did. A competent thief would have had that truck open, hot-wired, and gone before I'd even noticed him messing around with it.
Hard on the heels of that thought came a flash of irritation with Elizabeth for her reaction when I delivered the boys safe and sound to her doorstep last night. Sure, we'd been fifteen minutes late, but it was only fifteen minutes, and we had a good reason. Wyatt had been concerned but cool. Elizabeth had started fretting about letting the boys go anywhere until somebody figured out what was going on in Paradise.
Unfortunately, the police wouldn't do anything until something really bad happened; meanwhile, the good people of Paradise could suffer a whole rash of irritating incidents. One or two more, and I knew Elizabeth would keep the kids home-which seemed blatantly unfair. On the other hand, if I could figure out what was going on, maybe we could put a stop to all this nonsense before the whole thing got out of hand.
After attacking my hair with a blow dryer, I dressed in an oversized green sweater, a soft pair of jeans, and tennis shoes, then hurried downstairs to Divinity a few minutes before we opened at ten.
It was Sunday morning, so I wasn't expecting much foot traffic. I'd just finished making a pot of coffee and digging out the lone remaining piece of leftover coffee cake when the front door opened, and Jawarski stepped through.
I smiled when I saw him-right up until I realized he had his cop face on. Letting my smile evaporate, I poured two cups of coffee and shoved one across the counter at him. ”You look down in the mouth. What's going on?”
Jawarski leaned on the counter, grabbed the mug with one hand, and wiped the other across his face. He has a nice face. A solid, steady, reliable kind of face that also happens to be s.e.xy as h.e.l.l. In the time I've known him, I've never seen him without his regulation cop mustache, and I'm not sure I want to. It suits him.
When he finally looked at me, I saw that his eyes were the color of storm clouds, and I knew I wasn't going to like whatever he'd come to say. Two seconds later, he proved me right. ”Tell me what you were doing at the recreation center last night,” he said.
”I was there for basketball practice. I'm a.s.sistant coach of the Miners this year.”
One of Jawarski's eyebrows rose. ”I heard about that, but I wasn't sure it was true. Since when?”
”Since yesterday. At least, yesterday was my first practice. I actually joined the team earlier in the week.”
”Why are you coaching basketball?”
I ignored the implied insult in that question and spooned sugar into my cup. ”Why shouldn't I coach basketball?”
”No reason,” Jawarski said quickly. ”I'm just surprised, that's all. It doesn't seem like something you'd enjoy.”
I slipped out from behind the counter and carried my cup and cake to one of the wrought-iron tables in the seating area. I settled in comfortably and helped myself to a chocolaty bite. ”That shows how much you know. For your information, I wasn't always this sedentary. When I was a kid, I did a lot of things I don't do now.”
Jawarski dipped his head, conceding the point, and joined me at the table. ”So you just had a desire to turn back the clock, is that it?”
”No, Brody and Caleb asked me to take the job. They needed another adult on the coaching staff, or the team was going to fold. Now tell me why you want to know.”
He propped his feet on an empty chair and scrunched down on his tailbone. The day had barely started, and already he looked beat. ”I want to know because Kerry Hendrix thinks you vandalized his truck last night.”
”What?” The coffee cup was halfway to my mouth when he said that, and the shock made me spill about half of it into my lap. I let out a yowl and stood, brus.h.i.+ng ineffectually at the hem of my sweater and the front of my jeans. ”Kerry Hendrix thinks I-? What a jerk! He thinks that I-?”
Jawarski listened to me sputter for a few minutes, then offered another bit of information. ”He says he saw you in the parking lot when he came outside last night. Everyone else had been gone for half an hour or so, and you had no reason to stick around.”
”What an idiot.”
”He also says that you were upset with him for-” He consulted his notebook and read, ”-'for putting you in your place in front of the boys.' ” Jawarski gave me a long, slow look. ”You want to tell me about that?”
”No, but I will if you insist. I thought he was pus.h.i.+ng the boys too hard. He didn't agree with me, and he didn't like me challenging him in front of the kids. The boys insisted they were all right, and Hendrix sent me back to the bench to count towels.”
”And why were you there so late?”
A couple of people slowed to look into the shop's windows. I waited until they'd walked on again to answer. It was the first time in a long time that I'd actively willed customers away from the store, and that made me even angrier.
”I was there,” I snarled, ”because I saw someone messing around with his truck. At first I thought it was Hendrix, but when I got closer, I realized the guy was too short, and it couldn't have been him. I shouted at him, and he ran away. That's when I realized that it was the same man I almost hit the other night-the man with the limp.”
Both of Jawarski's eyebrows shot up at that. ”You're sure it was the same man?”
I nodded, torn between feeling contrite and being p.i.s.sed as h.e.l.l. ”I probably should have called and told you-and if I'd had any idea I'd need to prove my innocence, I would have-but how was I supposed to know that jerk would accuse me of vandalizing his truck?”
”Let me get this straight. You saw the guy with the limp at the rec center last night. The one you thought you hit. The one you thought had been shot.”
”Unless there are suddenly two men with the same limp skulking around Paradise in the middle of the night.”
”And you're saying he's the one who vandalized the truck?”
”I don't know for sure,” I admitted, ”but he was doing something, and when he ran away he dropped a long piece of metal.”
”How do you know that?”
”Because I heard it hit the pavement. I don't know what it was, but he could have been using it on Kerry's truck.”
Scowling, Jawarski pulled out the notebook he always kept in his s.h.i.+rt pocket. ”Hendrix doesn't say anything about seeing a man with a limp.”
”That's because he was long gone before Kerry ever came outside.”
”So n.o.body saw him but you?”
I smiled and shook my head. ”Brody and Caleb were with me. They not only saw the man with the limp, they also saw me pick up the metal piece he dropped.”
Jawarski looked surprised at that. ”You have it?”
”Of course I have it. After I saw what Kerry's truck looked like, I thought it might be some kind of evidence. It's in the back of the Jetta.”
He gave me an atta-girl smile that pleased me a whole lot more than I wanted it to. ”Did you happen to see where the guy ran off to?”
”I saw him get into a dark-colored SUV, but I couldn't get close enough to get the license number. I have no idea who was driving, and I didn't see where they went.”