Cat's Claw (A Pecan Springs Mystery)

something.”
    But Hatch had left about three weeks after Potts came on board. Hatch and Kirk had gotten into it, a real knock-down-drag-out, and Hatch was outta there. Fast. No notice, no nothing. Just
gone
.
    “Got into it over what?” Sheila asked, looking up from her notebook. “What did they argue about?”
    Potts shrugged. “Hatch was talkin’ to a customer, was what I heard from Dennis Martin.” The baby stood up on his lap and began to pull his hair.
    “Talking to a customer?”
    “Yeah. The way Kirk has his system set up, it’s against the rules for the techs to deal directly with the customers.” Potts pulled the baby’s hands down and the boy began to cry.
    “Why? I mean, why is it against the rules?”
    He put the baby on the floor. The little boy plopped down on his bottom and began to scream. Potts raised his voice over the noise, but didn’t move to placate him. “Lots of shops operate like that. Keeps the clients out of the techs’ hair, is the way Kirk explained it. Clients ask dumb questions—takes the techs too much time to answer them.” He grinned crookedly. “If you ask me, it’s more like it keeps the techs from lettin’ the clients know that they’ll work on the side cheaper than the shop can do it. In this shop, the jobs go in and out through Kirk or Henry Palmer, at the counter. Nobody comes around back. The tech’s got something to say to the client, he’s gotta write it on the job ticket.”
    The baby was screaming louder. Sheila leaned forward. “But Hatch didn’t do that?”
    Potts yelled, “Hey, Ruthie, come and get the kid. He’s bawlin’.”
    The woman padded out of the apartment kitchen, picked up the crying child by both arms, and perched him on her hip. She directed a dark look at Sheila, as if the crying were her fault, and went back into the kitchen.
    “Hatch didn’t do what he was supposed to do?” Sheila repeated.
    “I guess not,” Potts replied with a shrug. “That’s what Henry said, anyway.”
    Henry?
“Mr. Palmer knew why Hatch was fired?” That didn’t square with what Palmer himself had said. He’d claimed not to know what it was about.
    “Well, he wasn’t fired, exactly. I mean, we’re not employees, we’re just contract. Larry told Henry not to call Hatch in for more work. But sure,Henry knew all about it. He and Hatch were buddies, so if Larry didn’t tell Henry what was going down, Hatch would’ve.” He grinned slyly. “It was definitely okay by Martin and me, y’know. Meant more work for us.”
    Sheila understood that reasoning. “Any idea who the customer was that Hatch was talking to?”
    “Nah. But if you really want to know, it wouldn’t be hard to find out. Just look at the job tickets from around the middle of August, when it happened. It would be one of Hatch’s jobs about that time. Maybe the last one.” He frowned. “How come you’re asking about all this stuff? It’s ancient history.”
    Sheila nodded and made a note to check the job tickets, wondering why she hadn’t thought of that. Or more to the point, why Palmer hadn’t suggested it. And why Palmer had lied about knowing the reason for Hatch’s firing. That was worth checking out.
    “One more thing,” she said. “A notebook computer was brought in recently. The customer’s name was Timms. Did you work on that?”
    “That’s the one the cops picked up, right?”
    “Correct,” Sheila said. “Was it one of your jobs?”
    Potts shook his head emphatically. “Nope. Never saw it, never touched it. Dennis and me talked about it afterward—after the cops took it, I mean. He didn’t work on it, either.”
    In the kitchen, Ruthie was banging pots and pans. The baby had begun to bawl again, and the rock music from the neighboring apartment was now so loud that the walls seemed to vibrate. Sheila stood and thanked Potts for his cooperation. When she told him that they needed his prints, he cheerfully agreed to show up at the station the next morning.
    “Yeah, okay. I’m cool with that. Anything I can do to help.” His shoulders slumped dejectedly. “Sure hope I don’t gotta look for a newjob,” he said. He gestured toward the kitchen. “Ruthie got laid off last week. She’s babysitting a couple of neighborhood kids during the day to help out. Things are a little tight around here. I’ve got two more semesters to go before I can get a full-time job with health benefits.”
    “I hope everything turns out okay,” Sheila said, meaning