Cat Deck the Halls (14 page)

T
HE CHILL, SUNNY
morning had warmed considerably as Charlie left her car, walking between the pale stucco courthouse, the broad parking area, and the courthouse gardens that were bright with red and pink camellias and cyclamen. Moving into the station through the heavy glass door, she stopped at the dispatcher's desk to chat with blond, middle-aged Mabel Farthy. She admired Mabel's countertop Christmas tree, and handed Mabel the bakery box that she'd bought from Jolly's Deli, picking it up on her way from the gallery.

“Not homemade,” she told Mabel. “The spirit's willing, but I can't seem to find the time. They're good, though,” she said, opening the box of Christmas cookies. “I sampled a couple, at the deli, just to make sure.”

They gossiped idly until Mabel's radios demanded attention, then Charlie moved on down the hall to Max's office. There she paused, swallowing back a laugh.

Max sat at his desk, deep into a stack of paperwork. When he looked up and saw her, his lean face broke into a grin.
Across the room, Dallas sat on the leather couch behind a messy stack of files spread out before him on the coffee table. But it was the other three occupants who made her smile: from beneath the credenza, Dulcie's green eyes and Kit's yellow gaze met hers, as wide and innocent as kittens'. And from the book shelves behind Max, between volumes of the California Penal Code, Joe Grey looked boldly back at her.

Max's closed, cop's look had vanished at the sight of her, his brown eyes lighting with pleasure. “Come join us. Get yourself some coffee, we were just going over the Greenlaws' break-in, you can help us brainstorm.”

Flattered, Charlie poured a mug of coffee and sat down in the leather chair from where she could catch glimpses of Dulcie and Kit. Max's office was welcoming and comfortable, nothing like the old, noisy corner of the open squad room, before he'd bullied the city into remodeling the department—nice oak desk, leather chair and couch just nicely worn, the deep-colored Persian rug that Charlie had contributed, and three walls hung with her drawings of Max's other love, his buckskin gelding.

Settling down into the leather chair, balancing her coffee, she thought how handsome Max looked, leathery and lean—and all hers, she thought, suppressing a grin. “What did you get on the prints?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing on the woman who broke into Greenlaws'. Nothing on the prints from the Christmas-tree scene.”

“You mean they haven't come back yet? They must be backed up.”

“No, I mean both sets came back negative. National, and regional.”

“I can't believe that.”

“It happens. Guy doesn't have a record, never been in the military, has never applied for a government or sensitive job.”

Behind Max, Joe Grey looked royally annoyed. But at Garza's glance, he busied himself washing his paws. Max and Dallas were used to Joe prowling their offices, but this intense scrutiny wasn't needed. Charlie knew both men enjoyed the tomcat's company, though they wouldn't admit it. Maybe a friendly, visiting animal is as therapeutic for a cop as it is for a hospital patient. A little purr to break the tension. Therapy cats for cops, the latest medical break-through—soothing feline intervention for overstressed law enforcement. If she didn't stop, she was going to giggle.

But as Max laid out what they did have on the Greenlaws' burglar, the cats were not in a nurturing mood. Watching the three little beasts, Charlie could see clearly their sharp annoyance at the lack of information.

There was nothing the three cats valued so highly as the nationwide electronic data available within the department—that intelligence, plus their access to the officers' private discussions, all provided needed answers and filled in empty spaces. Without these visits, their clandestine assistance to Molena Point PD would be much less helpful; every investigation in which the cats took part was, unknown to the officers, a cooperative effort between feline and cop, reinforced by nationwide electronic resources.

“Possibly we have the make on the woman's car,” Max said. “Car's been parked for several days on different streets near the Greenlaws'. Four neighborhood complaints. Brennan was about to have it hauled off. It's registered to Evina
Woods. Eugene, Oregon, address that turned out to be a vacant lot. Cameron is lifting prints—but there's not much else we can do, unless the Greenlaws file charges.”

“I thought,” Charlie said, “that by this morning Lucinda might have changed her mind.”

Max shook his head. “I've never known Lucinda to be so indecisive. Or hardheaded. She knows a break-and-enter can turn ugly. Says she wants a couple of days to watch the woman, see what she does.”

“That just isn't like Lucinda,” Charlie said. “What if this
is
connected to the break-ins at the school? Or to the murder or whatever happened in the plaza?”

“We don't know that,” Max said.

“You said yourself you don't believe in coincidences.”

“I don't believe in jumping to conclusions, either. But,” he said, his voice softening, “we do know that the little girl wasn't molested, and that's good news.”

“Has she told Davis anything?”

“She still hasn't spoken. Maybe she
can't
speak, though the doctors could find no physical cause.”

Dallas said, “The bloodstains on her clothes and around the Christmas tree were human, all type O positive, that's pretty common. Looks like the body was dragged into the car that was backed up into the plaza.”

“And still no witnesses?” Charlie said. “No one came forward after the newspaper article?”

“Not yet,” Max said. “If we had a make on the vehicle, something besides the tire casts…”

“They don't match the car around the Greenlaws' house?”

Max shook his head. “We've found no connection.”

“But what if there were? What if that woman turned out to be the killer, hiding at the Greenlaws'? Is Lucinda thinking of that?”

“That's all conjecture, Charlie. We can't force Lucinda to file.”

“But Pedric…”

“Pedric is standing back, this time. If we had anything to put that woman at the plaza—”

“Not her prints?”

“No. Nothing.” Max rose to fill his coffee cup. “Half my mind says Lucinda's being foolish. The other half says listen to her, let her run with it.”

Charlie looked at him. “That's why she talked you into leaving the camera and backpack there. Into printing the pictures, copying them, then putting them back in the empty apartment.”

Max nodded, his thin, lined face expressionless.

“Anything on the people this woman's watching?” Charlie said.

Dallas said, “The names they gave the rental agent are Betty and Ralph Wicken, Eugene, Oregon. No record under those names on the West Coast. We're waiting for the national report. There's another man with them. He's not on the rental agreement.

“The Kodak envelope was marked Jane Jones.” Dallas shook his head. “Really original. I talked with the photo clerk at the drugstore this morning, he remembers a woman, same description as Greenlaws' burglar, bringing in an envelope of photos she claimed was given to her by mistake. She said both inner envelopes got into the one
outer envelope, into the one with her own name on it. She may match the description of a customer who did some machine copies at Mail Boxes.”

“The woman,” Max said, “could be spying on a strayed husband, maybe he and his girlfriend moved into that rental. In that case, without a complaint from the Greenlaws that she broke in, we have nothing.”

“Unless,” Dallas said, “we feel she or the Wickens present a threat to the school. With those pictures…”

“I'm on my way up to talk with Dorothy Street,” Max said, “to show her the photographs.” He looked at Charlie. “We ran half a dozen sets last night, and some enlargements, before I took them back to the Greenlaws'. And we're increasing patrols around the school. We can't let this lie, with children involved. If we had the Wickens' fingerprints and could come up with an old warrant, something to bring them in for questioning…I don't…”

Charlie's attention was snapped away by a flurry of movement beneath the credenza. Pretending to choke on her coffee, she leaned down—staring straight into Kit's blazing yellow eyes.

The tortoiseshell was so tense and excited suddenly that Charlie was afraid she'd speak. Dulcie must have feared the same, the way she was pawing at Kit.
Oh, Kit!
Charlie thought as she mopped up her coffee.
Be still, Kit! Please be quiet!
What had Max said that so electrified the little cat? What did Kit know? Or suddenly remember?

T
HE CATS VANISHED
from Max's office like smoke, one instant there, the next instant slipping out the door: three swift shadows, quickly gone. Charlie left close behind them, muttering something about shopping. Max said, “Come back around noon, I'll try to get away for lunch.” He'd patted her on the backside and sent her out the door.

She'd wanted to follow the cats, but by the time she pushed through the glass door to the street, they were gone. She stood scanning the gardens and then moved to her car, stood looking back at the roof to catch a glimpse of them.

She saw only a flock of pigeons fluttering down as if returning to their strutting ground after being rudely rousted, and imagined the cats flushing them up in a panic as they sped away across the tiles. Sighing, she got in her car, and with no cats to follow, she went shopping.

 

K
IT TOLD
J
OE
and Dulcie on the way, running full out, as wild as bees in a windstorm. “When I went down there,” she said, leaping a narrow span between peaks, “that woman came out of the house and threw a clay flowerpot at me.” She went silent as they raced across an oak branch above the Christmas traffic.

“So?” Dulcie said. “So what's the excitement? You're lucky she didn't…”

But Joe Grey was grinning from ear to ear; and he and Kit raced ahead like Thoroughbreds sprinting for the finish line.

Kit looked back at Dulcie once, with impatience. “Come
on.
Hurry! Before she throws it away!”

Dulcie hurried, puzzled and irritated. Kit ran so fast she couldn't talk anymore; not until they were in sight of Kit's own house did she stop again, long enough to blurt, “Fingerprints! Dallas and Harper want fingerprints, and that woman…”

“Threw the pot,” Dulcie interrupted, getting the picture at last, and they were off again, streaking for Kit's house.

Above them the sky was deep blue, the clouds white and towering where last night's storm had given way to a bright and dramatic morning. Kit was crouched to scorch up the oak to her dining-room window when she saw Lucinda looking out—the moment Lucinda saw her, the old lady drew back out of sight.

She doesn't want me to see her?
Kit thought, surprised.
Why ever not? That's fine with me, she doesn't need to see us around that rental, after she told me to stay away. Maybe she's wrapping a present and doesn't want me to see, maybe that's why she ducked…

Climbing, the three cats waited hidden among the
densest leaves of the oak until Lucinda left the room, then Kit leaped to the window and slipped in through her cat door, making not a sound. Racing for the kitchen and pawing open a cupboard, she was out again almost at once, carrying in her mouth an empty plastic bag. She bolted out her cat door as Lucinda came out of the bedroom and they were gone, racing downhill, lunging awkwardly through the sodden leaves toward the old rental.

 

A
S THE CATS
paused in the neighbors' driveway, Kit dangling her white plastic bag, across the village in a small café, James Kuda sat at a table in the far corner among the shadows, though very likely he had no need to hide. He was annoyed at himself for feeling edgy. The place was self-service, there was only the cashier, back behind the counter. Kuda sat mulling over what he'd seen.

A weird twist of fate—or maybe providence—that he'd spotted that homeless guy in the village wearing what looked like his cast-away shoes. The shoes that he'd left in the highway Dumpster. Grizzled old tramp. Well, he'd left them there thinking a homeless man might fish them out. Better than some cop finding them. By the time the guy had walked the highway from that Dumpster into the village, there'd be nothing left clinging in the soles, no trace from the plaza. And what police department would have the time and personnel to check every pair of shoes walking around town, when there wasn't even a body to investigate? When all they had was a scared kid who probably wouldn't talk, a
little blood, and apparently some phone call that could be the work of some prankster or drunk?

Not likely they had a bullet, he was pretty sure that hollow-point .22 had stayed in the skull where he'd put it. Rising to fill his cup again, he thought about that kid. Still not sure what to do about her.

It would take some kind of miracle for her to tell what she'd seen. He had to laugh, the cops hauling her around from one place to another trying to protect her. Some kind of security. He'd have no trouble at all if he decided to kill her, if he decided she was a threat. That cop taking her up to those four helpless women, that was a laugh. And that old cracker-box house—might as well hide her in a paper bag.

It might come to that, he thought, he might have to go after the kid, if there was some unexpected turn. Or, worst case, he might have to get out faster than he'd planned—and he wasn't ready, he wasn't finished, yet, with his business.

Well, he wasn't going to panic now, and run, turn his back on half a million or maybe twice that. No, he'd be all right. He'd always slipped through slick and fast, and no one to follow him. It would be the same this time, he just had to keep his nerve. Play it cool, keep an eye on the kid, the unknown element, and he'd be just fine.

 

T
HE CAR WAS
still gone from the driveway, the shards still lying there on the cement, the shattered pieces of clay scattered among dry earth and dead fern fronds. As the cats hit the drive, the fading scent of the woman hung above
them, mixed with the last remnant of exhaust fumes.

Glancing up at the rental and seeing no one at the windows, they began to pick up the sharp fragments of the red clay pot between their teeth and lay them in the plastic bag. They tried not to drool and smear the evidence, could only hope they weren't obliterating the woman's prints. Little bits of dry earth dropped off into their mouths, and Kit got the sneezes. Just as Joe placed the last shard in the bag, they heard a car coming. Snatching the heavy bag between them, they dragged it awkwardly away through the wet leaves into the bushes; and there they crouched over the white plastic to hide it, waiting for the car to pull in.

The car didn't pause, it went on by, speeding away up the hill. The cats had risen to move on when Kit glanced toward home and saw Lucinda's silhouette in the window of the downstairs apartment—exactly where she had promised Max and Pedric she wouldn't go. She was standing at the laundry window, looking out; and she was not alone. Behind her, turned away, stood the shorter, dark-clad woman.

“What's she doing?” Kit hissed.

“Come on,” Dulcie said, peering out from the heavy juniper foliage. “Come on, Kit, we'll leave the bag here and come back for it.”

“That woman might have been looking out, too,” Kit said. “She might have seen, and what would she think, cats putting something in a plastic bag and dragging it away?”

“Lucinda might have seen,” Dulcie said. “But she would never let a stranger see such a thing. Lucinda's quick, Kit. She wouldn't…Don't be nervous, it's all right. We'll just leave it here and—”

“We can't leave it. What if someone—”

“No one,” Joe said irritably, “would have reason to look under here. If someone did, who would care about a broken flowerpot?” But even so, before they raced away, Joe pawed damp leaves over the bag with deft swipes, effectively burying it until not a trace of white plastic shone through. Then they raced away through woods—
To catch Lucinda in the act,
Kit thought with a flash of unaccustomed anger at her housemate.

Approaching the downstairs window at the front of the house, they found it wide open. Crouching to leap to the sill, they heard voices inside, and footsteps coming down the hall.

“I will,” Lucinda was saying, “but you'll have to trust
me,
Evina.” The soft scuff of their steps passed by the window, approaching the sliding-glass door. “I'll do what I can, but in return you have to give me your word.”

There was a pause, another scuff, as if Lucinda had turned to face the woman.

“It will do your niece no good,” Lucinda said, “if you do something foolish and end up in prison. How would that help her?”

Evina's voice was low and slightly raspy, with a soft Southern accent. “If you pull the law into this, old woman, I swear you're the one to regret it.”

“I told you I would not. If it can be avoided. That's the best promise I can make.”

“The law did nothing to help me. Nothing to help find Marlie. That sheriff's thick with Leroy's family, he'd do nothing against them. Cops. They're all the same, don't tell me about cops.”

“They're not all the same. Our police aren't like that.”

Silence.

“Our law enforcement folks couldn't be more caring. And they are friends of mine. If I have to go to them, I promise they'll help you.”

There was another shuffle, as if Evina had moved fast. Kit sprang to the sill, growling, meaning to leap in at her. But then the glass door slid open, and Kit dropped down again and raced around the side of the house as Lucinda came out, crossed the little deck, and started up the stairs. Dulcie and Joe held back as the slider closed again, and the woman's soft steps turned away into the empty rooms. They were about to leap to the sill and inside, when they heard her approaching the window.

As they drew back into the shelter of the mock-orange bushes, the small, dark-clad woman swung a leg over the low sill, ducked under the upper glass, eased herself out and dropped to the ground. She was still dressed in jeans and a navy sweater, and was carrying black canvas backpack. Moving past the bushes where the cats crouched, stepping close enough so they could have slashed her ankles, she headed fast down across the yard to the street below and then along the narrow sidewalk.

Silent and quick, Joe and Dulcie were behind her. Trotting along through the neighborhood gardens, taking what cover they could, they tried to look like wandering neighborhood kitties as they followed Evina Woods. Twice she turned to look behind her. The first time, they leaped after a nonexistent bird that seemed intent on escaping them. Evina was so small and fine-boned that from the back she looked like a girl; only when they saw her face did they
see the lines from sun and weather, and the large, prominent nose. Her black hair was short and scraggly, with a reddish gleam where the sun hit it. She made no friendly gesture toward the wandering kitties, as many folk would do; she was not, apparently, a cat lover. The cats, drawing more deeply into the shadows, followed her for two blocks, ducking into the bushes, watching as she got into a big, tan, rusted-out Chevy so old it had tail fins, a dinosaur of a car.

“A '51 Chevy,” Joe said, well schooled in matters automotive from living with Clyde. “I don't remember the name of that model.” They memorized the Oregon license number, though very likely this was the car on which Harper had already run the plates. They watched it head downhill toward the village, its dented top rust red where the tan paint was worn away to the primer. When they could no longer see it, they headed back for Kit's house.

“You can bet Lucinda went down there without telling Pedric,” Joe said. He turned to look at Dulcie. “What's she up to?” They had never known Lucinda to keep secrets from Pedric; the old couple were completely devoted to each other. They rounded the house through Lucinda's camellias and ferns, scrambled up the oak and across the horizontal branch to the dining-room window. There they paused, listening.

Kit and Lucinda were arguing, a heated family disagreement that made Joe and Dulcie back away. The two seldom argued, not with this kind of anger. And now Pedric joined in, snapping at Lucinda. Through the cat door came the lovely smells of Christmas, pine scent from the Christmas tree and the lingering aromas of baking—all spoiled by the angry voices. The two cats listened, shocked, Joe's ears back
and his yellow eyes narrowed. But then as the argument raged, he sat down on the sill and began with great concentration to wash his front paws. He cleaned all four feet and then his silver-gray coat—while Dulcie responded to her friends' quarrel by nervously biting her claws, removing the outer sheaths to sharpen each curved rapier.

Both cats felt they shouldn't be listening to this private family scuffle. Except that this was not strictly a family disagreement, this might soon be a matter for the police, Lucinda's safety was at stake here. And, anyway, who ever said cats weren't nosy?