The Sourdough Wars

it. We did see you on the way in, so I dropped Ricky off and told him to call the police. I figured you’d spill the beans and I’d feel a damn sight better if I were alone when the highway patrol stopped me.”
    “That’s what we thought happened—Rob and me.” I got up again. “I am genuinely sorry to have bothered you, Clayton.”
    “Just one thing, Rebecca.”
    “Yes?”
    “Exactly what
was
your reason for droppin’ by?”
    For the second time that day, I felt like something from one of the least distinguished phyla. “I don’t really know, Clayton.”
    The blue eyes flashed. “I beg your pardon?”
    “I felt,” I said weakly, “that we needed to talk.”
    “I understand.” He nodded as if he did.

Chapter Eighteen
    When I got home, Rob’s voice spoke to me from my trusty answering machine: “I’ve had it—let’s go camping, and I don’t mean on Castro Street.”
    I wasn’t in the mood for gay jokes, but there was nothing wrong with the basic idea. I called back. “I’ve got my jeans on.”
    “I’ll be right over.”
    We could only go for one night, as we both had to work Monday morning, so we decided to drive to Samuel P. Taylor State Park, a secluded redwood retreat only fifteen miles west of San Rafael, where my parents live. Usually it’s pretty booked up, but we needed to get away so badly we figured we’d get lucky, and we did. Somebody with a sick kid had just abandoned a prime campsite.
    Camping is something all Californians do—in the Golden State, the smallest child can build a campfire. Rob is from the East, so I’d had to teach him the gentle art, but he was getting to be quite a woodsman, which is to say he could grill a mean steak on any campfire I could whip up. And eat the steaks he grilled was about all we did that weekend. That and hike a little. And think. Or at least I thought. I found walking through groves of redwoods and madrones quite conducive to thinking. The only problem was, I kept thinking about the murders.
    Motives were on my mind. Bob might have one, if Mickey were right, but if he’d killed Sally, he certainly put on a good bereaved ex-husband act. I couldn’t think of a motive for Tony, except the obvious one of getting the starter, but I didn’t see how doing Sally in was going to accomplish that. The same went for Anita.
    Clayton Thompson was something else again. He had lots of motives. Perhaps he’d once been Peter’s lover and they’d quarreled. Or maybe he’d actually offered to buy Sally’s starter and she either refused to sell it to him or held him up for more money than the company would pay, and he’d killed her to save his job. Or perhaps she knew about him and Peter, if indeed they’d been an item, because Peter and Sally certainly had, and lots of secrets come out in pillow talk. Maybe she tried to blackmail him and he figured what was one more corpse?
    All pretty fantastic, but Clayton Thompson stuck in my mind. He stayed there until I caught on to the reason for it. And once I got hold of that, I started to evolve a little theory. The only problem was, it had a few holes in it. But Rob might be able to close one.
    “Hey,” I asked, “you realize this whole thing could be cleared up if we knew who called Peter the night before he was murdered? How’re the cops doing with that?”
    He shrugged, “It was a bust. The call came from a public phone.”
    “In the city?”
    “Uh-huh. Lobby of the St. Francis.”
    “Clayton, maybe. Since he doesn’t live here.”
    “They thought of that. But nobody invited to the auction was checked in. Anyhow, you know that lobby. Anyone can walk in and make a call.”
    I decided to let my theory—holes and all—wait until Monday.
    Rob and I got back to the city early Sunday evening, and he dropped me off at my place. We usually didn’t spend Sunday night together, but I could have used him that night. I came home to yet another corpse—Durango’s. Sadly, I fished the little guy out of the aquarium, wrapped him in aluminum foil and gave him a decent burial down the garbage chute, vowing never to get another seahorse no matter what. They just took your love and broke your heart.
    I played the piano a long time to cheer myself up before I went to bed, but it didn’t work. I cried myself to sleep, and not only on Durango’s account. I was upset about that little theory of mine.
    But I had to know. The next morning I should have made three phone calls, but I only made one. To Rob,