'Why wouldn't I be? Has something changed? Are you about to tell me what's going on?'
I looked over at Eve putting dishes in cabinets. 'Not here,' I said. 'Not now.'
'Uh-huh. Well, good-bye. I have to go to the Port Authority to collect your package. I assume I still work for you?
'God,' I said. 'Yeah, uh-huh, sure. And there's something else I want you to do.'
'You're lucky I don't have another case right now But I'm raising my rates.'
'I'll pay anything.' I had a feeling that was truer than I knew. 'You know Appleseed Baby Foods?'
'Baby food's not exactly my specialty. Is that the one with the babies and fruits all over the label?'
'Yes. It's owned by a guy named Mark Sanderson. He lives up here; I'm not sure where. The Appleseed plant is up here, too,' I added, realizing she probably didn't know that. 'I want dirt. Get a skip tracer, someone with a computer who can chase paper for us.' 'Us?'
I let that one drop. 'Get Velez, he's good.'
'Are
'No, and there may not be anything at all. It's just a hunch. But whatever there is, I want it. Tell Velez sooner is better than later. You have anything new on the other thing?'
'The paintings? I would have told you if I had,' she said. 'You're sure they were stolen? You're sure they exist?'
The woodstove clanged as Eve opened it, fed another log into the fire. 'Yes,' I told Lydia.
'Well, I'll keep looking. But if they do, I think they're on ice.'
'I think you're right. I'll call you in the morning.'
'Lucky me.'
We both hung up. Eve brought my jacket and shoulder rig in from the hook where I'd left them. 'What are you going to do now?' she asked.
'I'm going to talk to Ginny Sanderson again.'
'At her father's?'
'No, she's not there. He told me this afternoon she hadn't been home for a few days. But Grice lives in Cobleskill. I'm going there.'
She caught my eyes with hers. 'If these people are what you say, if they're involved in murder ... Be careful, Bill. My paintings aren't that important.'
'To you they are.'
'Not that important.'
We walked together across the porch, down the steps. 'Thanks for dinner,' I said.
She smiled. 'I don't have guests very often. I'm glad you came.'
Leo bounded down the steps and sniffed circles in the driveway. The cold wind tossed the tops of the trees around as yellow light spilled from the windows of the house. I took her hand, squeezed it lightly; then, feeling suddenly unsure, I let it go. I turned up my collar against the wind, walked down the driveway toward my car.
Chapter 12
I headed along 10 in the direction of Cobleskill, but I didn't get that far.
After the driveway there was a wide curve around the wooded slope where Eve's land came up to meet the road. The other side of the road was flat farmland, and my eyes traveled restlessly over the fields and down the slope, for no reason I could name. In the deep emptiness of the wind-swept night there was nothing to see.
But there was: off to my right, way down the slope, lights. Headlights, double, one set white, one piercing yellow, spaced widely, the way they would be on a truck. And near them, a paler glow, light through a window.
I stopped the car. This was Eve's land. Her studio stood at the end of a road, a road from the valley. I wasn't sure that clearing was what I was looking at now, but as I watched the headlights swing around and start to move off, it suddenly seemed like something I wanted to know more about.
I didn't know where the road came out down in the valley and it would have taken me twenty minutes to get there anyway. The truck would have to do without me. But the paler light still shone, and there might be something in that. I pulled off, parked, started down the slope on foot.
The darkness and winter brush made it slow going. Wind swept through the trees, swirled leaves, shook branches. It carried on it the scent of rain. There was no moon to help me; my footing was uncertain. I could have used the flashlight, but there might be someone still down there, and getting myself noticed wasn't the point.
From the bottom of the slope across thirty feet of clearing I saw my hunch was right: the building with the lit windows was Eve's studio. The glow was gentle and even, the light diffused through the frosted glass. The door was open a few inches, throwing a rod of light across the clearing toward where I'd stopped at the edge of the woods.
I began to inch around the clearing, keeping behind the trees, to where I could approach the building from the rear. There was only the one door, but I could work my way back to it against the wall of the building, which seemed a better idea than strolling across thirty feet of empty space.
It might have been, too; or it might have worked out the same in either case. I never had time to think about that. The only thought I had, as a shadowed figure rose suddenly at the edge of my vision, pain exploded in the back of my head, and the world turned red for an instant and then softly black, was that my woodsmanship wasn't what it ought to be.
