Spider Web (26 page)

L
IN SNIDER’S ERROR SUGGESTED ONE THING. SHE WAS NOT AN experienced liar.

Gabe and I had occasionally discussed the art of lying. Years before we met, he’d worked in undercover narcotics. Gabe’s life and the lives of his fellow officers had depended on him being a convincing liar. Learning to lie, Gabe said, taught a person how to spot deception in others. He maintained that people usually slipped up on the small details rather than the big ones.

“In undercover work,” he’d said, “often an officer works so hard at the big picture of who their character is that sometimes he or she gives themselves away with the smallest detail. And, believe me, the bad guys are looking for that. We’re lucky that most criminals are stupid, narcissistic or both. Still, one rookie I trained almost blew his cover simply by ordering the wrong kind of beer.”

So, if a trained undercover agent could mess up a detail, an inexperienced civilian like Lin Snider . . . or whoever she was . . . might be able to lie about her birthday if she was
thinking
about it. But when someone mentioned your astrological sign in a casual conversation, it would be natural to answer without thinking. Especially if you weren’t adept at living with an alias and you assumed no one was listening.

I drove into the folk art museum parking lot with two questions I was determined to answer. Who was Lin Snider, and why had she come to San Celina? Then there was that even more worrisome question: Should I tell Gabe? He really didn’t need another problem right now, especially if it might not even be real but simply my paranoid delusion. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to think about it for a few more hours before running to him. In the meantime, I would drop by the folk art museum and see how things were going.

The gift shop was busier than I expected, and there was a good-size crowd in the main gallery. We’d run an ad in the
Tribune
about the Memory Festival and our new exhibits at the museum. It had obviously worked.

“You have three messages on your answering machine about the festival,” said Sally Parker, a docent who had just completed training. She was a retired art teacher who’d recently moved here from Idalia, Colorado. “I heard two of them because I was walking by your office. They sounded frantic.”

“Day before the festival jitters,” I said with a grimace.

“I have some spare Valium if you need it,” she said, grinning. Then she brought one hand up to her cheek. “Oops, forgot who you were for a minute.”

I laughed. “Don’t worry, even police chiefs’ wives occasionally need pharmaceutical intervention. Shoot, maybe we need it more than the average person does. I’ll keep your offer in mind.”

Back in my office, I listened to the messages. Thank goodness all three problems were easy enough to solve, and I did so within fifteen minutes. I leaned back in my chair, feeling smug. That feeling wouldn’t last. By this time tomorrow, I’d likely be tearing out fistfuls of hair, hunting down Sally and begging for that Valium.

“Hey, Benni,” a voice came from my doorway. It was Robbie, one of our Cal Poly art student interns. “There’s no more room on the shelves in the big room for all the pots waiting to be fired. What should we do?”

“Let me see what I can do,” I said, standing up and stretching.

Storage had recently become a problem at the co-op. There was no way for us to expand the buildings, because one of the stipulations that Constance Sinclair gave concerning the museum and co-op buildings was that they had to retain their original exterior. She felt it properly honored her ancestors, and who were we to argue? She owned the whole kit and caboodle. When the co-op first started over five years ago, there had been only ten or eleven artists, so the studios felt positively spacious. Sixty-three artists belonged to the co-op now, and though they kept most of their work at home, by necessity, works in progress often remained at the studios. That meant storage space was prime real estate.

I went into the great room where the woodworkers had built shelving along the south wall to accommodate the green ware waiting to be fired in the kiln. Each pot was supposed to have a tag inside to identify its owner.

“Let me check the shelves in the kiln room,” I said.

“There’s one free row,” Robbie said. “Sandy just came by and picked up five of hers.” Her brow furrowed in apology. “I didn’t feel like I had the right to choose which pots to move.”

“No problem. That’s my job. I’ll move a few that are waiting to be fired over to the kiln room. And I’ll leave a note telling the potters to check back there if they can’t find their work.”

“Thanks,” she said, relieved.

I grabbed a chubby gallon pot with elaborate etchings on the side. Inside, the identification tag said Lin Snider.

“Wouldn’t you know,” I murmured, hugging the pot to my chest.

“What?” Robbie asked. “Do you need some help carrying them?”

“No, let me do it. That way if anything is broken, it’s on me.”

Another relieved look. “Thanks.”

I walked to the back of the building to the room that held our kiln. Many of the potters took their work to a studio in Santa Maria where there were three kilns, all bigger than ours. However, if your pot was small enough and you were not in a hurry, our price was right . . . free.

I set Lin Snider’s unfired pot down on the table and inspected it closely. She’d etched miniature spider webs in one continuous strand around the belly of the pot. Around the rim, tiny spiders danced across the clay.

A quicksilver of cold ran down my spine. My suspicions gave her choice of images a whole other meaning than if she would have carved sunflowers or ladybugs. I slipped the pot on the shelf, tucking the identification tag back inside.

While rearranging the other pots, I lectured myself. So what if the woman liked spiders? That didn’t mean anything. Besides, spiders always got a bad rap. They were good, not bad. At least most of the time. Dove had been telling me that since the first time I saw a spider as a girl and screamed bloody murder.

“Gardens need spiders,” she had said to me. “God made them for a good reason, and even though there’s some that might hurt you, as a whole, they are a heap more helpful than a cockroach or a weevil. Now weevils, there’s an insect that should make a body scream. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that evil is part of their name.”

So I diligently tried to rationalize away any underhanded motivation behind the spider motif. Maybe she was a gardener. Maybe she thought, like in quilting lore, that spiders brought good luck. For Pete’s sake, maybe she just
liked
spiders. By the time I arrived home, I still hadn’t come to any conclusion that gave me peace. I sat in our driveway still unsure about whether I should tell Gabe about this woman.

Because the truth remained, what exactly could I tell him? What had Lin Snider really done? I added up the charges against her in my head. She’d snooped around the old Harper Ranch. I was almost certain that had been her. She’d “accidentally” met Amanda Landry and finagled an introduction to me. By asking to rent the pottery wheel, she’d maneuvered her way into being in physical proximity to the folk art museum and, again, me. She’d quizzed me a little too much about my life and revealed she knew that Gabe was in the marines despite the fact that I had never told her what branch of service he served in. (Though it had occurred to me that his service was public knowledge, but even so, that meant she went out of her way to find out his branch of service.) What tripped her up was forgetting that she and the real Lin Snider had different birthdays. Of course, I was assuming that she’d stolen someone’s identity. Her driver’s license photo was indistinct and her weight way off, but the same could be said for many people’s license. Were these facts enough to alert Gabe? Especially when he had a situation much more important to worry about?

My brain’s defense and prosecution still debated the dilemma while I brought in the mail, flipped through it, fed Scout, washed the kitchen counter, and turned on the heater so our chilled house would feel welcoming when Gabe finally arrived home tonight. The more I argued my reasons to investigate her, the more flimsy they sounded. Like the calculated plot of a television crime show, it felt like I was trying to force the clues to fit the scenario. Still, it niggled at me enough that I decided to walk down to Emory and Elvia’s house and run it by one of them.

I knocked on the door of their Victorian. When no one answered, I opened it and stuck my head inside. “Hey, any Aragon-Littletons in the house?” I knew there were or the door would be locked.

“Kitchen,” Emory yelled back.

He was standing in front of the stove stirring something that smelled buttery and delicious in a large cast-iron frying pan.

“What’re you cooking?” I asked, peering over his shoulder at the now almost translucent onions, celery and chopped fresh garlic.

“My famous Cajun Kitchen Sink Soup for Miguel. This is just the base. There’s the good stuff.” He nodded over at the counter to a pile of shrimp, scallops, diced smoked ham, cooked chicken, okra and tomatoes.

“Looks delicious.” My cousin’s Cajun soup, learned from Miss DeLora True, the woman who raised him back in Arkansas after his mama died, could convince even a vegetable phobic like me to eat healthier.

“There’ll be enough to share. Just mosey on back here in a couple of hours with your empty pickle jar.”

We smiled at each other. That was exactly how Miss DeLora used to store her soup.

“I might do that. Gabe will be late again tonight, no doubt.”

He turned to look at me while the vegetables continued sautéing. “Hear anything about the sniper?”

I shook my head no and leaned against the black and white speckled granite countertop. “How’s Miguel? Gabe called this morning and was told he’d come through the night well, but I haven’t heard since.” I assumed he was doing okay or someone would have called my cell phone or tracked me down.

“He’s doing great considering he had a collapsed lung. Elvia said he was already complaining about the hospital food. That’s why I’m making the soup. He’s not on any special diet.”

I grabbed a piece of smoked ham and popped it in my mouth. “Then he must be okay. How’s Mr. and Mrs. Aragon doing?”

“Both are hanging in there. Mama Aragon’s already made him and half the nursing staff her magic flan.”

“Yum. I’d agree to minor surgery for her flan.”

He turned the heat down low on his Viking stove and wiped his hands on the white tea towel tucked into the waistband of his jeans. With two long steps, he was across the kitchen and opening their Sub-Zero refrigerator. Their house might be Victorian, but their kitchen was pure Williams-Sonoma. “You and the chief are in all kinds of luck, sweetcakes. She left a big bowl of flan for y’all. Said the chief was probably missing his mami’s flan.”

“Wonderful, though I’m not sure Kathryn made flan.” Gabe’s mother was Anglo of the Pennsylvania Dutch persuasion; his father was Mexican. Until she retired, Kathryn had been a teacher, a working mother who didn’t happen to be the homemaking type. “But I do know his
tía
in Santa Ana did.”

Emory handed me a clear Pyrex bowl covered with plastic wrap. The top of the flan was the color of ripe wheat, the bottom rich amber. The caramel on the bottom would become a silky, delicious topping when I flipped the bowl over. I don’t know what Señora Aragon put in it, but it was so addictive it had made more than one adult unabashedly lick their bowl as if they were five years old.

“This will be just what Gabe needs tonight,” I said.

“Mama Aragon’s exact words,” Emory replied, turning back to his pan. He scraped the softened onions, garlic and celery into a five-quart stockpot.

“I want to run something by you.”

Emory disappeared into the walk-in pantry. “Keep talking,” he called, his voice muffled. “I’m listening.”

But I waited until he came back out holding three boxes of Trader Joe’s organic chicken stock. “I’m not sure what to do.”

“About what?”

I set the bowl of flan on the kitchen table. Inside this warm kitchen filled with the comforting smells of butter and chicken stock, my worries about Lin Snider seemed silly and self-involved. A sniper was targeting San Celina police officers, a dear friend of mine had been one of his victims and I was concocting a mystery about a woman who was simply looking for a place to call home.

Still.
Her small lies and evasions bothered me. I inhaled deeply, feeling completely paranoid, and then told Emory my latest suspicions about Lin Snider.

He listened patiently while I reeled off the list of reasons I thought this woman was up to no good. When I finished, he waited a beat or two before answering.

“Frankly, I don’t think you have enough information at this point,” he said, stirring the soup. “Certainly not enough to bother Gabe. That’s my two cents minus inflation, which makes it worth about a quarter of a cent.”

“You’re right,” I said miserably. “But it also seems wrong to do nothing. I mean, what if . . . what if . . .” My mind searched for a scenario that would justify my reasoning. “What if Lin Snider is the sniper!”

The statement caused Emory to turn and look at me in surprise. The idea was so preposterous that it could be true.

He shook his head and laughed. “Maybe if this was an episode of
Murder, She Wrote
.” He peered down into his soup pot. “Or
Saturday Night Live.
”

“It’s not that crazy. Gabe’s best SWAT sharpshooter is a woman.”

“How old did you say this woman is? And what kind of shape is she in?”

He had a point. About the age, anyway. “She’s fifty-two according to her driver’s license. If it is
her
driver’s license.” I laid my hands flat on the table, studying my fingers. “She does look around that age. I guess she’s in okay shape. A little on the thin side. She kind of looks . . . delicate?”

“In shape enough to go running through a creek bed lugging a rifle?”

“I heard Gabe say Miguel was shot with a .22. They aren’t that heavy. I know she can shoot. Her dad was a hunter, and he taught her.”