Wendy Hornsby - The Color of Light

His interest perked. “You said she was being extorted for sex, and that Nordquist saw her with someone. You saying it’s that knucklehead?”

I closed the computer. “We may know more when Kevin gets the report on the DNA found on Mrs. Bartolini’s shirt. But until then, a good place to start is next door.”

Maybe he was just tired, or maybe he wanted to get us out from underfoot, but with some caveats he agreed that we could go.

“Hello, neighbor.” George Loper, clearly surprised to find us knocking on his back door at the crack of dawn, pushed open the screen and welcomed us into his kitchen. He wore shorty pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, his sparse white hair standing up in random spikes. There were dark circles under his eyes; he, too, had been robbed of peaceful slumber. “Come in, come in. Glad you’ve come over, Maggie, Jean-Paul. Gladder yet to see you’re okay. Karen and I were just real worried when the paramedics showed up last night; no one would tell us a damn thing about what happened. We headed over to check on you, honey, but the cops told us to go home in no uncertain terms. We’re getting pretty used to the police being over there regularly, but seeing the paramedics, well… Just glad you’re okay. Karen was so upset she had to take a sleeping pill. Sit down, coffee’s fresh. Whatever happened?”

“Another break-in,” I said, pulling out a kitchen chair.

He paused, holding mugs in both hands. “For cryin’ out loud, what is this neighborhood coming to? Who got hurt?”

“The intruder,” Jean-Paul told him, which was true enough for the moment.

Before George could launch into the inevitable barrage of follow-up questions, I asked him, “Those guns you said you got from Chuck, did he give them to you?”

“Give, as in give for free?” He chuckled at that as he poured coffee. “You know Chuck, always working a deal. No, we paid for the guns. Less than sticker, but we paid for them. Why do you ask?”

“You told me he showed you four guns,” I said. “But I was wondering how many he had to sell.”

“You’d have to ask Chuck.” After he said that, a sudden thought seemed to jolt him wider awake. “What happened over there last night have something to do with those damn guns?”

“Perhaps.” Jean-Paul took the mugs from George’s shaking hands before he could spill coffee all over. “The man who broke into the house last night had a Colt from the same armory shipment as Maggie’s father’s, and perhaps your own.”

“I’ll be damned.” George had to sit down. “I’ll be goddamned.”

“When was the last time you saw your gun?” I asked him.

The question seemed to baffle him, but after a moment he pointed toward the ceiling. “I keep it where I can put my hands on it quick if I need to. I checked it when I heard the sirens, just in case, you know. It’s where it’s supposed to be. You weren’t thinking my gun-”

“Just making sure,” I said.

“Is that what Chuck was yelling about out there earlier, someone ask him about his gun?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I could’ve gone out and shot him myself when he started in. I’d just got Karen calmed down-you know how Karen likes to keep up on her neighborhood and she was not one bit happy that the cops sent her home-but as soon as we heard him, she wanted to go out there and get into the middle of things, probably make a nuisance of herself. I know my dear wife rubs some people the wrong way, Maggie, and a lot of folks think she’s just plain nosy. But Chuck, he tells her what’s going on and lets her talk his ear off. The comings and goings at your house the last couple of days have kept their jaws pretty busy.”

“I can only imagine,” I said.

“You gotta give Chuck credit though. He’s been keeping an eye on your place all summer. Says he’s worried about squatters. Vacant house, you know, can be a magnet for mischief. And he wasn’t wrong. That Nordquist character was hanging around, and no one wanted that, least of all Chuck. You know, because of the boy’s criminal background.”

“Did Chuck ever confront Larry?”

“Funny thing,” George said, shaking his head about something he obviously did not find funny. “But it happened the other way ’round. They had a pretty good shouting match out here one day, but it was Nordquist who confronted Chuck. Chuck told Karen the guy was just venting an old grievance about an arrest Chuck made years ago when Nordquist was still in high school. Happens to cops all the time; some people just can’t seem to let go of bad feelings, you know.”

Under the table, Jean-Paul squeezed my knee. Larry had apologized to me, but he also wanted me to make amends for pain I caused him. Did he ask Chuck for an apology? Or did our Peeping Tom have something else on his mind to discuss with Chuck? I covered Jean-Paul’s hand with mine and smiled at George; Karen wasn’t the only Loper who could talk your ear off. I did not interrupt his flow.

George reached around for the coffeepot and topped off our mugs. “Chuck told me that the other day when he was on duty at the bank he spotted Nordquist hanging around Bartolini’s deli. He said he went over and told Nordquist to scat, but Beto came out and said it was okay, said the guy was waiting for you. Well, that made Chuck nervous, thinking about what the con would want with you. So when you showed up he caught Nordquist’s eye and made like he was going for his gun and the guy took off running. Chuck got a kick out of that.”

“I wondered why Larry ran away,” I said, remembering Larry lurking along Shattuck behind me; he was dodging Chuck, not me. I had a hunch Chuck was more worried about what Larry might say to me than he was concerned for my safety.

“Did Chuck ask you to keep Larry away from me?” I ask.

“Well, sure, honey. We look after our neighbors, you know. There was no reason for you to be bothered by that overgrown delinquent. I can’t tell you how many times I had to shoo him off the property.”

It was so easy to get information out of George that I almost felt guilty-almost-when I fed him another question.

“Your roses are beautiful this summer,” I said. “Did you ever meet Dad’s friend Khanh Duc?”

He furrowed his brow, shook his head, and then the light dawned. “Duc? The guy with the big wholesale nursery?”

“Yes, Duc.”

“Sure.” He nodded with some enthusiasm. “Whenever I want anything for the garden, Chuck takes me down to Duc’s nursery, gets me a good price. Have you seen his place, south of San Jose? It’s huge, covers lots of prime real estate. That Duc’s a real enterprising guy, gotta give him credit for putting together something like that. The specialty there is roses, but he carries just about everything you can imagine. If you need some plants to fix the mess all those people trampling in the yard made of your Dad’s flower borders, you go ask Chuck to hook you up with Duc.”

“Chuck and Duc are good friends?”

“I wouldn’t say they’re good friends exactly,” George said. “Not backyard-barbecue good friends, anyway. Chuck told me he was an early investor in Duc’s business and he didn’t mind letting Duc show his gratitude from time to time. But friends? No.”

“Interesting,” I said, squeezing Jean-Paul’s hand. “Very interesting.”

From somewhere above us, Karen called out, “George?”

“You’ll have to excuse me, folks,” George said, pushing himself back from the table. “I better go see what the wife wants. When she takes a sleeping pill she wakes up a little disoriented. Don’t want her to fall again.”

We thanked him for the coffee, apologized for dropping by unannounced at such an early hour, and saw ourselves out the back door.