I glanced at my watch and slid out of the seat. "I wish I could chat, Teddy, but you have that appointment and I have to get to work."
"Whyn't you call me if you change your mind? We could find him together. We could form us a partnership. I bet you could use a guy with my connections."
"No doubt."
I picked up the cardboard box, made a few more polite mouth noises, and returned to my car. I placed the box in the passenger seat and then slid in on the driver's side. I locked both doors instinctively and blew out a big breath. My heart was thumping, and I could feel the damp of perspiration in the small of my back. "John Russell" was the alias for a former Santa Teresa vice detective named Mickey Magruder, my first ex-husband. What the hell was going on?
TWO.
I slouched down in my car, scanning the parking lot from my position at half mast. I could see a white pickup parked at the rear of the lot, the truck bed filled with the sort of buckets and tarps I pictured essential to a roofing magnate. An oversized toolbox rested near the back of the cab, and an aluminum extension ladder seemed to be mounted on the far side with its two metal antislip shoes protruding about a foot. I adjusted the rearview mirror, watching until Ted Rich came out of the coffee shop wearing his baseball cap and brown windbreaker. He had his hands in his pants pockets and he whistled to himself as he walked to the pickup and fished out his keys. When I heard the truck rumble to life, I took a moment to lean sideways out of his line of sight. As soon as he passed, I sat up again, watching as he turned left and entered the line of traffic heading toward the southbound freeway on-ramp.
I waited till he was gone, then got out of the VW and trotted to the public phone booth near the entrance to the parking lot. I placed his business card on the narrow metal shelf provided, hauled up the phone book, and checked under the listings for United States Government.