Cat's Claw (A Pecan Springs Mystery)

telephone Smart Cookie and pass the information along. But before I could do that, my naked husband dove into bed and pulled me in after him.
    Who says married sex is dull?

Chapter Ten

    Richie Potts lived in a second-floor apartment in the university’s graduate student village, not far from the campus. As Sheila walked up the outside stairs, she saw a bike with a child’s seat on the back, chained to the balcony railing. A baby stroller with a blue plastic canopy was folded and propped against the wall beside two pots of dead plants. Sheila could hear rock music and feel the rhythmic
thump-thump
vibrations of the heavy bass, although it was difficult to tell whether the noise was coming from the apartment in front of her or the one on the other side of the double entrance. From somewhere close by, the odor of marijuana wafted into the night, mixed with the sour smell of cooking cabbage. A typical student apartment complex, she thought, remembering her own college days, which seemed like a century ago now. She knocked, then knocked again, louder. The door, on the chain, cracked open an inch.
    “Police,” Sheila said to the crack, and held up her badge wallet. “Looking for Richie Potts.”
    Richie Potts was twenty-two, twenty-three at most, red-haired and freckled, with an acne-scarred face and a thin stubble of gingery beard. A red-haired baby—a boy, about eighteen months old—clung to his blue-jeaned leg. A pretty young woman, heavily pregnant, appeared in the kitchen door, then disappeared. The sound of rock music (but not of the bass) was partially shut out when Potts closed the apartment door. When Sheila introduced herself, he pointed to one of a pair of living room chairs, arranged on either side of a sofa and coffee table. She sat down and told him that Larry Kirk was dead.
    Watching the young man closely, Sheila thought that the announcement was news to him. Like Palmer, he seemed taken completely by surprise. But his first thoughts were focused more on the future of his employment than on the death of his employer—understandable, since he had a wife, a child, and another on the way.
    “Jeez,” he said, blinking. “The shop isn’t going to close, is it? Will I be out of a job?”
    “I don’t know,” Sheila said, taking out her notebook and pen. “You’ll need to keep in touch with Mr. Palmer. He may be able to tell you something.” She paused. “When did you see Mr. Kirk last? What can you tell me about him?”
    If Potts wondered about the reason for her questions, he didn’t say so. He couldn’t produce much information, though. He hadn’t seen Kirk that day. In fact, he hadn’t seen him for several days—they hadn’t happened to be in at the same time. He had worked at the shop off and on for only a few months and didn’t know Larry Kirk very well—couldn’t say much about him, except that he was pretty obsessive about stuff being done according to the book, his book. What else? Well, the guy hated guns, which was kind of ironic, wasn’t it? In fact, he had taken a day off to protest the student concealed-carry proposal in Austin, which Potts himself supported.
    “You just never know when you’re gonna need a gun,” he said, shaking his head darkly. “Like, if somebody starts shooting up your historyclass or something.” The baby climbed up on the sofa and crawled into his lap. “We had a big argument about that, me and Larry. I said we oughtta have the right.”
    “Do you own a gun?” Sheila asked.
    Potts shook his head. “Just think we oughtta have the right,” he said again.
    Sheila nodded. “What about Dennis Martin and Jason Hatch? Do you know them?”
    Potts knew Martin, but didn’t think he was a very good tech. “Too slow,” he said, with another shake of his head. “That’s what Larry said, too. I think he was getting ready to tell Martin to take a hike. There’s plenty of other guys who can work faster. You know what I’m sayin’? You gotta figure stuff out quick. Martin’s slow. Which drives Larry up a wall.”
    Sheila was taking notes. “Jason Hatch?”
    Hatch had been at the shop when Potts himself came on the team. He was older, not a graduate student like Martin and Potts. Richie had the idea that he’d been working there for quite a while, since the place opened, maybe. He was good. “Best I’ve ever seen,” Potts said judiciously. “He could scope out a problem way faster’n me. Faster’n Larry, too, which is sayin’