The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras (7 page)

I stayed across the street in case it was a rabid dog or a mugger lying in wait. It was late, dark, cold, and wet, and I guess my imagination sort of got the best of me, but as I drew near, I could see it was a person curled up asleep.

Except she wasn’t asleep, because she stood up and said, “Hi, Hubert.”

“Kaylee, what are you doing here?”

“Can we go inside? It’s freezing out here.”

I unlocked the door and led her back to the kitchen where I started a pot of coffee. I sat her down in a chair and stood next to the kitchen counter.

“What’s going on, Kaylee?”

“I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Where do you live?”

“Nowhere.”

“Where did you used to live?”

“What difference does that make?”

I pulled out another chair and sat in it facing her. “Look, Kaylee, you must have waited for me because you wanted me to help you. And since you stayed out in the rain and cold by my door for hours, you must think you don’t have any other options for help. O.K., I’m willing to help, but you have to cooperate, O.K.?”

A lot of dirt or grime had stuck to her thick makeup, and when she wiped her sleeve across her face, it left a smear, and under the smear was a welt. She didn’t say anything.

“Where did you used to live?”

“I didn’t know you lived here,” she said, ignoring my question and looking around my living quarters. “I was waiting for you to come in the morning and open your store.”

“Kaylee, if you don’t answer my questions, I can’t help you.”

“I’m not going to tell you where I lived.”

“Then you’ll have to leave,” I said and stood up.

“Are you going to throw me out?”

“If I have to.”

“You’re not very big.” She was right, of course. I’m five feet, six inches tall and weigh one hundred and forty pounds, but I didn’t think I would have any difficulty manhandling Kaylee if I had to, but of course I had no intention of doing so.

“I can’t leave you on the street. I guess I’ll just call the police.”

“I’m not going back there. You can’t make me go back.”

“I’m not trying to make you go anywhere. I just need to find out what your situation is.”

She pouted for a moment and then she put her head down. When she looked up again, she had a forced leering smile. “My situation is that I’m a woman. And you’re a man. And we’re are all alone late at night in your house. Does that give you any ideas, Hubert?”

“Yes,” I said standing up, “It gives me the idea to call the police,” and I picked up the phone.

She started crying. “Please don’t call them,” she sobbed. I kept dialing, but slowly.

“I’m from Texas,” she said.

“Where in Texas?”

“Wildorado.”

I put down the phone. “Where is that?”

“This side of Amarillo; you can tell when you’re there by the smell from the feedlots.”

“You left to get away from the smell?”

“Sure,” she said unconvincingly.

“How long have you been in Albuquerque?”

“Two days.”

“You ran away from home?”

“I’m not some teenager. I just decided I wanted to move to Albuquerque.”

I sighed. “When people move, Kaylee, they usually have furniture or at least suitcases.”

She looked at me hopefully. “I can get that stuff. If you hire me as a salesgirl, I could buy furniture and stuff.”

“I don’t need a salesgirl.”

“Do you need a girlfriend?”

“No, I don’t need a girlfriend either.”

“You already have one? I don’t care. I wouldn’t say anything to her.”

“We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you. You’re the one who needs help. Right now you need a place to stay, so you can sleep here tonight. In the morning, we’ll figure out what to do next.” I thought about my five-hundred thread count Egyptian long staple cotton sheets. I have to admit I’m a bit squeamish. “You also need a shower.”

“I don’t have any clean clothes to put on.”

“You didn’t even bring… never mind.” I went to my chifferobe and took out one of my shirts and a pair of sweat pants. “Take these into the bathroom. Take off your clothes and throw them out here on the floor and then take a shower and put on these.” I handed her the shirt and pants.

She followed my instructions, but I guess I should have added that when she threw her dirty clothes out, she could stand behind the door while doing so.

“Jesus,” I said, and looked away.

“Thanks, Hubie.”

“Close the door and take a shower.”

I took everything out of her clothes and put them in the washer. I looked through her wallet. She was right about not being a teenager; her driver’s license showed her to be twenty-one. There was a picture of a young guy about her age, a ten, two ones, and some change, and a astrology card for Leos.

I put her wallet, belt, shoes, and other meager belongings on the counter and started making huevos rancheros. I normally drink champagne with late night breakfasts, but the coffee was brewed, and I didn’t think popping a cork was a good idea.

At least she knew how to shower; she looked clean and refreshed when she emerged, and she lit into the food like a dog. Without the heavy makeup and lipstick, the puffy lip and welt on her cheek were more noticeable, but I decided not to say anything about them.

I showed her to my bed and told her to get some sleep. She looked around the place. “Where are you going to sleep, Hubert?”

“I have a hammock in the patio.”

She giggled. “It’s freezing out there. You could sleep with me,” she said and started to unbutton the shirt I had given her.

“Keep the shirt on! And if you try any more monkey business, I’m calling the cops.”

I got my thermal underwear and knit hat from my chest of drawers and went to the bathroom where I put them on under my clothes. Then I got my sleeping bag and went out to the patio.

I’m an amateur astronomer, and I often sleep outside because I enjoy gazing up at the stars, although I usually choose warmer nights. Tonight I wasn’t thinking about the heavens. I was wondering whether allowing Kaylee to stay was a good idea. The doors from my living quarters to the workshop and from there into the shop were deadbolted as they always are at night, so there was no danger she would break a pot. And what damage could she do in my living quarters? Rip my sheets? Steal my forks?

I decided not to worry about it, and I looked up in the sky and remembered that I had learned that very day that Pythagoras was the first person to discover that the morning star and the evening star are one and the same, the planet Venus. I looked for Venus, but of course it had already passed the meridian at that late hour, and the next thing I knew, so had I.

12

Kaylee slept late, and when she awoke, I started fixing her another plate of huevos rancheros.

Someone knocked at the door just as I finished cooking, and I went forward to discover Whit Fletcher, Detective First Grade, Albuquerque Police Department. Fletcher is about six feet tall with silver hair always in need of a trim, blue-grey eyes that slant down and make him look tired, and big meaty hands. We’ve had a few dealings over the years, usually ending with me getting out of a jam and Whit getting money. I’ve never actually bribed him, but I have made it possible for him to supplement his income. He’s not really a bad cop. He goes after the drug dealers, wife-beaters, rapists, and murderers with zeal. The American Civil Liberties Union would probably see it as a little too much zeal, but then Whit probably doesn’t belong to the ACLU.

He doesn’t have any interest in arresting pot thieves or people who forgot to get a license for a cat, and he’s not above making a buck on the sly.

“Well, if it ain’t Hubert Shoots, my favorite grave robber. I’m surprised to find you here, Hubert; I thought you would be on the lam by now.”

“It’s ‘Schuze’ Detective Fletcher, sounds like what you wear on your feet.”

“Which is exactly what you should be putting to work walking yourself away. But here you are in your little fence operation as usual.”

“Where else should I be?”

“As far away as possible. That’s where I’d be if I’d murdered someone.”

“Well, you didn’t murder anyone and neither did I.”

“That’s what I told ‘em downtown, Hubert. I said to ‘em, ‘He steals pots; he don’t murder people.’ But unfortunately, they got witnesses that put you at the scene.”

The trembling came on so unexpectedly it was like my autonomous nervous system got the message before it reached my consciousness. I put my hands on the counter so he wouldn’t see them shaking. My heart was so far up in my throat, I didn’t know if I could speak, but I managed to ask what scene he was referring to, and of course he said it was the Hyatt.

“You were there weren’t you, Hubert.”

“Yes, I was, but I didn’t murder anyone.”

“Well, what were you doin’ there, Hubert? I know you weren’t attending the convention of,” and here he flipped open a small notebook and consulted his notes, “the Philadelphia Society, were you?”

“Philadelphia Society?”

“Yeah, they collect stamps. Funny name for a bunch of stamp collectors. Maybe they only collect stamps from Pennsylvania. You weren’t there as a stamp collector, were you?”

“No, I wasn’t. I just went to have a few drinks with a friend.”

“Your friend a man or a woman?”

“A man.”

“Meet him at the bar, did you?”

“No, I went to his room; he’s a guest there.” My mind was racing; had someone killed Carl Wilkes?

“Two men in a hotel room could start people talking, Hubert. Your friend got a name?”

“I don’t think I should give you his name.”

“Why? He won’t be needing it if he’s dead.”

“I don’t know if he’s dead, and I don’t want to violate his privacy by giving his name to the police when he hasn’t done anything wrong to the best of my knowledge. Neither have I, for that matter.”

“O.K., don’t give me his name. He’ll just have to stay John Doe until we find out who he is. And I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do because you and me are friends, Hubert. I’m going to tell you his room number. It’s 1118. Was that your friend’s room?”

So it was Guvelly. He was a jackass, but that didn’t mean he deserved to be murdered.

“No, Detective Fletcher, I’m happy to say that my friend was not in room 1118.”

“Maybe in an adjoining room?”

“No,” I said, “he was on an entirely different floor.”

He leaned against my counter and smiled. “So maybe you can explain what you was doing on the eleventh floor?”

I started to deny it then remembered the security camera near the elevator. Damn.

“I guess I just pushed the wrong button.”

Fletcher stared at me and used a big hand to push his hair back up out of his eyes. “I guess that could happen; there’s lots of buttons in those elevators in big buildings, Hubert. Who would’a thought we’d ever have skyscrapers in Albuquerque?” He shook his head in apparent wonderment and his hair fell back over one eye, and then he just stared at me.

“Well,” I said, “even if I was unlucky enough to accidentally be on the floor where someone was murdered, at least I wasn’t there when the murder took place.”

“You got a problem there too, Hubert. You see, that’s exactly when you were there. We got a little piece of evidence that times you and also ties you in real tight, but I can’t tell you about it even though you and me are friends.”

I stood there with my mind racing, thinking what the other piece of evidence might be, trying to remember if I had done anything that seemed perfectly innocuous at the time but might now look suspicious to police investigating a murder, trying to think what else could go wrong.

And that’s when Kaylee walked in flashing cleavage in my loose-fitting shirt and holding a bottle of Gruet Brut in her right hand.

“Can we open this, Hubert?”

Whit’s eyebrows arched up, and he said, “Who’s the young lady, Hubert?”

“Whit, this is Kaylee. Kaylee, meet Whit Fletcher,” I said, and added without thinking, “from the Albuquerque Police Department.”

Whereupon she gave me a look of betrayal, threw the champagne bottle at me, and ran back to my living quarters. She was trying to lock the door, but I got there in time to force it open, and Whit was right behind me.

She slumped down in a chair and started crying.

“What the hell’s going on here, Hubert?,” said Fletcher. Then he turned to Kaylee and said, “How old are you, Miss.”

“She’s twenty one,” I said.

“You better hope so,” he said to me.

“Oh, come on, Whit. Give me a little credit, huh. She showed up her last night with nowhere to go, so I told her she could stay and then we’d figure out what to do this morning.”

“With her shirt half off and a bottle of booze in her hand, it looks like she figured out exactly what to do. You sure she’s over eighteen?”

She was continuing to sob and didn’t say anything. “I’m sure,” I said.

“Well, I’ve got some more questions for you,” he said.

“I’ve already told you everything I know about her.”

“I’m not talking about her. I’m talking about what happened at the Hyatt.”

Funny how the mind works. I found myself entertaining the irrational hope that this was a dream and I would wake up. Then I found myself actually wondering if we could start over, and I almost asked Fletcher if he would step outside, come in again, and let me have another shot at our conversation. But of course I didn’t ask him that. Instead I said, “Maybe I should talk to my lawyer before I say anything else.”

“Might be a good idea, Hubert. You can call him from downtown.”

13

Before we left, I called Susannah and she promised to come pick up Kaylee.

On the way downtown, I decided the smart thing would be to say nothing until my lawyer arrived, and, just as a change from my recent string of decisions, I decided to do the smart thing.

I spent an eternity in a windowless room with a metal table and four chairs. I tried them each and found one with a cracked weld between the back of the seat and the right rear leg. That caused the seat to flex slightly, and I decided it was the most comfortable of the four so long as it didn’t collapse. Given that I weigh only a hundred and forty, that seemed a chance worth taking.