Fabulous sermon. Bye!”
I left her sputtering behind me. Inside ten minutes I was cruising back up the freeway, with no red pickups anywhere in sight, and inside the hour I was home with my doors and windows locked against the gathering darkness, on the phone to Lieutenant Graham.
“I got your message, Ms. Kincaid. I really don’t see that the absence of a Dracula costume at that particular shop means much, but in any case—”
“But there’s more!” I told him. “Skull is following us again. He was at Mercedes’ funeral!”
“You saw Lester Foy? When and where?”
I gave him the details, including the flag on the truck. “So you’re looking for him now? You believe me?”
“Ms. Kincaid, I was about to say that in any case, Lester Foy has moved out of his apartment without notifying us, which means he has jumped bail. So yes, there’s a warrant out for his arrest, but only on the robbery charge. As I said, I don’t think this business about the costume means much.”
“But—”
“Ms. Kincaid, it’s Sunday afternoon. I’m still at the office, and I’m going to be here all Sunday night, too, if I don’t get back to work. Call me immediately if you see Lester Foy again. And please, leave the homicide cases to me.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
UP NORTH IN SEATTLE, YOU PAY FOR THE LONG JUNE AFTERNOONS with the dark winter mornings. It always seems like a good deal in June, but never in November. I had expected some nightmares about Skull, but instead I slept dreamlessly until Monday morning. A good thing, too, since I had to be up early for Juice’s audition with the Buckmeisters. It seemed extra-early when my alarm went off; the weather had shifted yet again, to the kind of dank, cold fog we’d seen up at the Salish Lodge, and between the fog and the time of year, it was still half-dark I scanned the dock carefully from my front door, but the only people I saw were various neighbors setting out for work. Grateful for their presence, I scurried out to the parking lot, locked my car doors and drove off, keeping a wary eye out for Skull’s red pickup. I didn’t see it, and by the time I stopped for my usual latte and bagel, and then parked downtown, the streets and sidewalks were so full of cars and people that the day quickly took on a more prosaic atmosphere. Cold and gray, but prosaic
“Hey, Kincaid, you’re late!” said Juice, letting me in by the side door to By Bread Alone. She wore a white apron over a T-shirt, along with her usual short shorts and cowboy boots—brown ones this time—and her hair was its usual violent green. “Sucky time to get up, isn’t it? ’Course bakers have been awake for hours by now. Your clients are late, too.”
I wondered again how the Buckmeisters, especially Betty, would take to Juice. “They’ll be here. They only show up early when you’re not expecting them at all. Aren’t you ever cold in those shorts?”
“I’m hot-blooded. Just ask Rita.”
Laughing, she led me through the kitchen, with its giant mixers and long counters for kneading, to the café section out front. Most of the tables were bare, but one was set with dessert plates, cake forks, coffee cups, and a vase of carnations. The table beside it was spread with a white cloth, an empty stage waiting for the star’s big entrance. Presentation is half the battle in the food business, and Juice knew it.
“So what have you got to show us?” I asked.
“Surprise,” she said smugly. “You’re gonna have to wait.”
I noticed she had blisters along one forearm. “Let me guess. Something wonderful in pulled sugar?”
Pulled sugar creates lovely, brittle fantasy shapes—not unlike Dale Chihuly’s blown glass—but it has to be kept hot while it’s worked, and even careful bakers end up with a burn or two. The smart ones keep a bowl of ice water close at hand.
“You got it,” said Juice. “But I’m not saying anything else.”
She went back to the kitchen, and I went to look out the window through the thin hazy fog, in case the Buckmeisters came to the wrong door. Across the street, up on the utility roof of a south-facing apartment building, I saw something odd: a uniformed policeman, visible only from the waist up, behind some ventilation equipment. There was no one else around, but he wasn’t slouching, or smoking, or fidgeting. He was standing very still, and something about the