Survival Clause, стр. 36
“Could just be ’cause you remember Elspeth,” Rafe said.
I nodded. “It could. But I’m going to be very surprised if it turns out to be anything but a woman. Or girl. I wonder whether Agent Yung would give me a profile of your stalker if I asked nicely?”
“Couldn’t hurt to ask,” Rafe said. “You prob’ly wanna be prepared for Yung turning her nose up, though.”
“At me? At you? At the idea that this person could have a profile?”
“Oh, I’m sure there’s a profile. I’m just not sure Yung’s gonna wanna share it.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You don’t think it’s her, do you?”
He laughed. “No, darlin’. She was in Memphis yesterday, and inside the police station when I was kissing you. She couldn’t have taken that video.”
Right. “I forgot,” I said. “Besides, if she had any kind of obsession with you—”
“It’d be for dragging me off to jail.” He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, darlin’. But ask her for a profile, by all means. I wanna be there to see her face when you do.”
I turned back to my aunt, who’d been following this exchange with interest. “Agent Yung?”
“The FBI agent who showed up this morning. She recognized Rafe from the first video, and from when he was doing undercover work in Memphis. Except she didn’t know he was undercover…”
“Good grief,” Aunt Regina said. “So she came haring out here hoping to arrest him?”
I nodded. “Grimaldi set her straight. But it looked pretty tense when I walked in on them this morning. Face to face and yelling at each other.”
Aunt Regina shook her head, and then looked past me to the street. “Here’s Sid.”
Yes, indeed. There he was, pulling up to the curb and hoisting his golf clubs out of the trunk of his car. “What are you two planning to do tonight?” I wanted to know. “It’s a Friday. Do you have a big night planned?”
“I’m cooking chicken,” Aunt Regina said, “and then I imagine we’ll watch some TV.”
She looked at my face and laughed. “What are your plans, Savannah?”
“I imagine I’ll be cooking chicken, too,” I said, since that’s often what I do, “and we’ll end up watching TV…”
“I like TV,” Rafe informed us both. “None of the guns are pointed at me, and none of the bullets are lethal.”
He had a point. “What kind of chicken?” I asked my aunt.
She smiled. “Enough for four, if you want to stay.”
But— “Rain-check,” Rafe told her, and made it to his feet just as Uncle Sid reached the front porch and noticed us. “Sid.”
“Rafe.” Uncle Sid waved him back into the chair and turned to me. “Savannah.”
I waved. “Hi, Uncle Sid. I’d get up and give you a hug, but as you can see…”
He nodded, looking from one to the other of us. “Family meeting? Something going on that I need to know about?”
We all hastened to assure him that nothing whatsoever was going on, or nothing he needed to worry about. “A name came up in one of Rafe’s cases that we thought Aunt Regina might know something about.”
Uncle Sid fitted himself in next to his wife, with a grin at her. “And did she?”
“Not much,” Aunt Regina admitted, her tone disgruntled. “It was about that teacher at the high school in Columbia who had sex with the student…”
Uncle Sid was nodding long before she finished the sentence. “I remember that.”
“Do you know who it was?”
Rafe and I asked at the same time, and exchanged a look.
“The kid?” Uncle Sid shook his head. “I don’t think that was ever revealed. I remember the teacher, though.”
“Jurgensson?”
“Kent,” Uncle Sid said. “Nice guy. Played golf.”
“Do you have any idea what became of him?”
But Uncle Sid didn’t. “Haven’t seen him since it happened. Poor bastard lost his job, of course, and had a hard time finding another. Last I heard, he was working some menial job in Tupelo or Tucson or someplace like that.”
“Who told you that?” Rafe wanted to know.
Uncle Sid turned to him. “He made up part of a golf foursome. One of the other players stayed in touch with him for a bit.”
“Name?”
“Art Mullinax,” Uncle Sid said. “I just played a round with him this afternoon. But if he’s heard anything from Kent in the past ten years, he hasn’t said anything about it.”
“It’s worth checking,” Rafe said easily. “Where can I find Art Mullinax?”
Uncle Sid sighed. “He lives on the other side of Columbia, not too far from that house you blew up.” He glanced at me. I wanted to protest that I hadn’t blown up the house; other people did that, but I decided it was better not to derail him. “Big spread called Daffodil Hill Farm. Him and his wife and about fifty acres.”
“I’ll have a look,” Rafe said. “Don’t worry, Sid. I’m not looking to rake up old scandals. And I won’t mention your name.”
“It won’t matter,” Uncle Sid said. “Everyone knows who you are, and that you married my niece. When you show up, he’ll know who you talked to.”
Maybe someone else could go talk to Art, then. Someone other than Rafe. Someone like… oh… Leslie Yung, for instance.
Before I could open my mouth to say so, Rafe had gone on. “I’m just trying to track down the teacher, Sid. Nothing to do with your friends at all.”
I lifted Carrie to my shoulder and patted her back while Uncle Sid looked unhappy. “What’s the use of dragging it all back out after all this time?” he wanted to know. “Just let bygones be bygones, is what I say.”
“I wish it was that easy,” Rafe told him, “but if there’s a connection to my murder case, I need to know about it.”
“What kind of connection?” Uncle Sid threw both hands up. “He wasn’t a murderer, for God’s sake. He was a gentle scholarly guy who taught Latin and played golf. Not the type who would have forced himself on anyone.”
I opened my mouth to mention that