Cat Deck the Halls (16 page)

F
ELINE PROMISES ARE
not, from a cat's viewpoint, really meant to be kept. Except, of course, when the cat is closely watched and can do little else. Five minutes after Pedric returned up the hill with the evidence hidden in his coat, while he was busy in the kitchen and Lucinda was on the phone to Max Harper, the cats slipped out and headed for the rental house, reassured that the pot shards were on their way to the police.

Even as they raced down through the wet woods, they heard the Greenlaws' garage door open, heard the car start. They ducked when they glimpsed Lucinda backing out. Then, in a moment, her car came around and down the hill on the street below, heading for the village with the plastic bag, delivering, hopefully, a vital key to the identity of the strange neighbors—certainly Lucinda might notice her neighbor drop a flowerpot and, already curious and entangled in the mystery of who these people were, would of course hike on down at the first opportunity, and fetch the possible evidence.

Perfectly logical, Pedric said. No need for the snitch to be hanging around the kit's house, to “accidentally” see that evidence, no need to invite unnecessary connections regarding the cats. They had already been in the cops' faces this week, during the murder investigation at the plaza, and during the search for the little girl, why encourage unnecessary speculation and awkward questions?

But now, with neither Lucinda nor Pedric watching, the cats approached the rental house studying the blind-covered windows above them. Didn't anyone in there ever want to look out at the daylight, or ever long for a breath of fresh air?

The driveway was still empty, the car still gone, and so, presumably, was Betty Wicken. There was no sound from within the house, the morning was quiet except for the scratching of a fat gray dove, in the bushes. Were the two men gone? If they, too, had left the house, the empty rooms were prime for a quick break-and-enter. If Evina's niece might be held prisoner in there, this was the moment to find her.

Or were Leroy Huffman and Betty's brother, Ralph, still sleeping? Crouching beside the front door, the cats listened. The house seemed taller than it was wide, just the garage at the front, the entry, and one small window. The kitchen and living room were at the back, with a view downhill to the village. Upstairs there seemed to be three bedrooms and a bath—a classic circa-1940s house that hadn't received much attention since it was built, some seventy years ago. Circling, they paused below the kitchen, where the dinette window jutted out—the kind of shallow bay window that one would decorate with potted plants. The Wickens' decor
ran to newspapers and tattered paperback books stacked on the wide sill, ragged garish books such as one might pick up for a quarter in a used bookstore. They could hear the footsteps of two men, and could hear them talking, then the rattle of a cup against a saucer and the rustle of papers. The coffee smelled like it had been cooking for hours.

“If they stay in the kitchen,” Kit said, “we can be in and out, and they'll never know.”

They thought the windows, with their dry, cracked frames, would be a snap for the three of them together to jimmy, but by the time they'd leaped up, trying half a dozen double-hung panes, working at the old locks with impatient claws, they decided these round, brass closures were stronger than they looked. All the windows were locked tight or perhaps stuck tight with the ancient paint. Sealed for eternity, as far as they were concerned.

The garage might have proven easier, except that its three small high windows were covered, inside, with plywood. They sniffed beneath the electric garage door and smelled a miasma of grease, mildew, new paint, and gas vapors.

At the far side of the garage, a small door opened to the backyard. Leaping up, Joe swung on the knob. It turned freely, but kick as he might against the molding, the door wouldn't open. “Feels like it's bolted from inside.”

Beside the little door stood an overflowing garbage can amid a half-dozen sodden cardboard boxes filled with empty bottles and wet, wadded newspapers. Very high above were three small, mesh-covered ceiling vents. Maybe big enough for a cat, maybe not. Leaping from the top of the garbage can, Joe managed to snag the mesh of one—and
got his claws hung in it. He couldn't get loose. Panicked, fighting the screen, he tore it enough to free himself. He dropped down, his ears back, swearing angry hisses.

“Mesh is nailed or stapled on, and sealed with old paint.”

“Come on,” Dulcie said. “We—”

“The car's coming,” Kit said. Ducking into the bushes, they watched the old green Dodge turn in to the drive, parking before the front door. Betty Wicken stepped out, her long, dry-dull black hair tangled on the collar of her black peacoat. Moving quickly up the steps, she was just stepping in through the front door when the cats, with swift timing, shot in behind her. They made not a sound, did not once brush her ankles as they passed her and ducked under the hall table. The whole house shook when Betty slammed the front door.

The table had a low shelf just above them, which helped to hide them—a shelf thick with dust. Didn't people know how to use a duster? It seemed to Dulcie that they had spent half their lives crouched in mite-ridden household dust beneath someone's unkempt furniture—and household dust was not at all the same as good clean garden dirt or beach sand, was nothing like the fresh earth on the wild, far hills.

When Kit tried to stifle a sneeze and couldn't, Dulcie and Joe threw their bodies against her, muffling the sound. Above them, Betty had pulled off her coat, tossed down her keys, and moved away down the hall toward the kitchen. They breathed easier when she'd gone.

The entry was dim and small. To their right, a flight of stairs led up to the bedrooms; the living room was beyond
it, looking out to the back. Shoddy furniture, early Salvation Army, that made Dulcie wonder what kind of rent they were paying.

Down the hall near the kitchen was a door that breathed out the same garage smells of gas, motor oil, and paint. Joe thought the paint smelled like automotive enamel, with which he was familiar from Clyde's classic-car restorations. In the kitchen Betty poured herself a cup of scorched-smelling coffee and sat down at the breakfast table.

“They fit?” Leroy asked, lifting his big-boned hand to scratch his shaggy brown hair.

Betty nodded. “They haven't changed the locks, the garage, or the house.” She jingled two keys on a ring and dropped them back into her pocket. Using her fingers as a comb, she shook out her black hair, its tangled mass so dry one imagined dandruff drifting into her coffee. With the three tenants thus occupied, Joe Grey peered with predatory interest up the narrow stairs.

Before Dulcie could speak, he was on the first step. “Stay and watch them,” he hissed. “Distract them if they start up there. I won't be a minute.” And he disappeared up the worn carpet treads to the top floor. Dulcie hoped no one else was there—except maybe the kidnapped girl. If she
had
been kidnapped, if Huffman had brought her all this way. That seemed so strange. Why would he? As some kind of hostage protection?

“Supposed to rain again tonight,” Betty was saying. “Maybe hail.”

Leroy smiled, easing his muscled bulk in the small dinette chair. “That hail the other night…Could of fired off a canon, no one'd of heard.”

Ralph Wicken grinned. He was a small man, thin head with short crew-cut hair, ears sticking out as if he might take off in frightened flight.

“Gets dark about seven,” Betty said. “They tuck the kiddies up at eight. Lights go on upstairs, off again around eight-thirty.”

Huffman said, “They've hired more guards, they're all over the place at night. Middle of the day would be better. The day they do that judging, place'll be crawling with people, trucks, power tools, carpenters hammering away. That should be enough diversion.”

“What time do the day-school kids leave?” Ralph said. His eyes were muddy brown, like Betty's, but his brows were thick and black.

“You'll keep away from the kids,” Betty told him. “You mess around this time and blow it, I swear I'll turn you in, Ralph. Leave you in prison for the rest of your stupid life.”

Ralph smiled. Betty seemed pale and nervous. “I mean it. I won't have one of your mindless escapades mess this up.”

Ralph's face flushed red and he lowered his glance. Betty watched him with distaste, then glared at Leroy. “Why the hell did you let him have the camera? I told you—”

“I didn't let him have it, he took it. Middle of the night, sneaked in our room, took it off the dresser.
You
didn't wake up! Well, hell, neither of us missed the damn thing.”

“I don't see what difference,” Ralph whined. “How come you can do what you want, but you're always on my case?”

Betty fixed her gaze again on her brother. “You stay away from that school. There's a hell of a difference.”

“We better take him with us,” Leroy said. “Keep an eye on him.”

Ralph's thin face twisted into a toddlerlike sulk. “No one knows me here. Why do you always have to…?”

“This isn't Oregon,” Betty snapped. “California, these new laws, they find you're not registered, you're as good as locked up anyway. Serve you right,” she said coldly.

The kit, sitting silently beside Dulcie, watched Betty Wicken, puzzled. “Maybe I've seen her in the village,” she whispered softly.

“Where, Kit?”

“A long time ago. I can't remember where, I've been trying.”

Whispering, both cats glanced toward the kitchen, but no one had heard. No human had a cat's range of hearing. Mankind was, in many ways, an inferior and handicapped specimen.
God's work left unfinished,
Dulcie thought,
at least in the areas of auditory skills and night vision.

But now Kit's own skills seemed to have faltered. For the first time Dulcie could remember, the tortoiseshell didn't have total recall. The more she studied Betty Wicken, the more shadowy was the memory Kit tried to bring forth of where she had seen the woman. Where and when? Under what circumstances?

Betty drained her coffee and picked up a stack of papers from the kitchen table, flipping through them. They seemed to be magazine articles. The cats could see colored pages torn from slick publications, some stapled together, some with pictures of houses. Was that the Stanhope mansion? Both cats swallowed back mewls of recognition as Betty sat looking at the page. But then Betty flung down the pictures and rose, giving Ralph another glare—a look of distaste and of long-standing resignation.

“Let's get to work.” She headed for the door to the garage, and Leroy got to his feet. Ralph remained at the table, his expression one of stubborn secrecy. Dulcie glanced up the stairs, wishing Joe would hurry; she was crouched to leap up after him when he appeared at the top.

Silently he trotted down to them, a gray shadow with only his white marks to attract any sudden attention. And as Betty and Leroy moved into the garage, the three cats were behind them, diving through on their heels, another bold gamble that left their paws sweating; and they melted among a stack of cardboard boxes standing beside the door.

“What did you find?” Dulcie whispered, edging close to Joe.

Joe Grey pawed cobwebs from his whiskers. “No sign of anyone else, no scent but theirs. I don't think that girl was ever here.” He reared up between the boxes until he could see Betty and Leroy standing at a workbench along the opposite wall—and could see the vehicle parked less than two feet from his nose. His stifled growl made Dulcie and Kit rear up, staring.

As the Wickens stood selecting tools from a cardboard box on the workbench, assembling sledgehammers and handsaws and an electric drill, the cats could only gape with shock. In the dim and crowded garage, parked between a row of storage cupboards and a large tan SUV, stood Charlie Harper's blue van. Charlie's “Fix-It, Clean-It” van, its logo lettered clearly on the side. Charlie's blue Chevy van that she had bought when she started her home maintenance business and had used ever since, the van that should be parked either at a cleaning job, or up at the seniors' house for Mavity's convenience.

“What's it doing here?” Dulcie hissed. “Charlie's crew sure isn't cleaning this house! And why inside the garage?”

“Did they steal it?” Kit said. “But when? Charlie didn't say a word last night. How…?”

“Shhh,” Joe hissed. “Keep your voice down.”

“That Betty doesn't work for her?” Kit whispered. “That woman hasn't gone to work for Charlie?” But Charlie
was
hiring, the business was expanding, and they all knew that it was hard to find competent help.

“Of course she doesn't work for her,” Dulcie said shakily. “I know everyone she's hired. You saw the record checks that Davis ran on the applicants—every one of Charlie's employees has signed a release so the department could check for a record.” The police chief's wife could not afford, for the safety of Max and his men and for the reputation of the department, to hire anyone who had the least potential of turning dangerous or stealing from her clients.

“But how…” Dulcie began, then, “Where's Charlie? Oh, they haven't…This can't be another kidnapping!”

“It's Mavity who drives it the most,” Joe pointed out, staring up at the van's windows, half expecting to see someone looking back at them trying to get their attention. All three cats were thinking of last summer, when both Dulcie's housemate and Charlie Harper had been brutally kidnapped and their lives in danger. But then, “Look,” Joe hissed, rearing up taller. “Take a closer look.”

I
T WAS JUST
noon when Ryan Flannery left her construction job in the village and walked the three blocks to Clyde's house. A cozy lunch, just the two of them in the sunny patio, should take the edge off her grouchy mood. Glancing in the front window, she paused a moment to admire the tree they had decorated, and the garland wreath Clyde had hung on the door, then she headed around to the back. She was greeted by wild happy barks and loud banging as Rock leaped at the gate; and, when she opened the gate, by a dervish of excited hound. Rock danced around her, but never touched her, testimony to the improvement in his behavior. She took his outstretched front paws in her hands, let them rest on her arm as she talked baby talk to him.

A year ago, when the big, stray Weimaraner had adopted her, he would have nearly knocked her over leaping on her and clawing her arms for attention, a lovable clown with no idea of manners. Kneeling, she hugged Rock and scratched his sleek, sun-warmed back. He grinned, and
slurped her ear—though the big, silver purebred had mastered the basics of obedience training, he was still a clown, and a challenge.

No one, she thought, unless they were dedicated athletes with plenty of time to devote, should even think of owning a Weimaraner, a breed meant for action and hard work. Without both, the dogs were miserable, and so were their owners.

Rising, she moved into the patio with Rock at her side, and closed the gate behind them. The walled retreat was almost balmy on this bright winter day; and she was inordinately pleased with the small, private world she'd designed and built for Clyde. Clyde had swept away the last of the fallen maple leaves, and the chair cushions were clean and dried of their morning dew. The long, plastered planters were bright with cyclamens and begonias, and a pot of poinsettias stood on the picnic table. The cushion on the chaise still bore the impression of the big silver hound, where Rock had been napping. On the table beside the poinsettias were a cooler, picnic plates and napkins, and a tray laid out with packets of sandwich makings and plastic containers of salad—this, too, attested to Rock's improved manners, that he could now be left alone with a table full of food, she thought smugly. But then she looked up through the kitchen window and saw that Clyde was on guard. He grinned, and waved at her.

Fetching a bottle of nonalcoholic Buckler's from the cooler, she popped the lid and stretched out on the chaise, rubbing Rock's ears as he came to lean against her, and watching Clyde through the window as he filled the coffeepot. It was nice that, since she'd started the nearby job, she
could run over for lunch. Slowly, now, the tension of the morning began to ease.

She'd been so hoping for a quiet holiday season, for lovely, peaceful evenings with Clyde before the fire, admiring their joint-effort Christmas tree, Rock and Joe and Snowball and the two older cats sprawled around them. No serious worries, no violent police matters to prod her with fear for her uncle Dallas and Max and their friends.

Certainly Max and Dallas had enjoyed very little about the Christmas season, with the department looking for a killer and for a vanished body, and trying to identity a silent little girl who was too scared and traumatized to say a word—and now the Greenlaws' strange break-in that seemed to hint at an uglier scenario. And to top it off, there was Charlie's strange preoccupation and her unwillingness to share her problem.

Charlie should be turning handsprings right now, should be ecstatic with her upcoming exhibit and book signing, but instead she was grim one minute, and drawn away the next as if to another world.

In fact, when Ryan thought about it, Charlie was that way with every major crime. Whenever Max and the department faced more than the usual danger, Charlie turned moody and secretive—and that thought saddened Ryan. A cop's wife couldn't live like that. Charlie knew that. They'd talked about it at some length, and she'd thought Charlie was finally committed to living each day to the fullest and not fretting about tomorrow. Committed to living the only way a cop's family could live, and still survive. Charlie
said
she lived like that and thought like that. But if that was true, then what was this preoccupation?

Was worry over Max
not
the only cause of her stress? And a sudden realization startled Ryan: It wasn't only Charlie who seemed to experience these worried, preoccupied spells. Clyde did, too. And Wilma Getz. And even the older, levelheaded Greenlaws. During every increase in crime that stressed the department and kept the men extra busy, Ryan's friends seemed to turn moody and withdrawn, and, sometimes, inexplicably secretive.

She had never before realized this. Or maybe she hadn't wanted to see it. Maybe, she thought, she didn't want to think about it. Didn't want to understand what this was about.

Clyde came out carrying a plate of freshly sliced bread still warm from the bakery, its scent filling the patio. He set it on the table, opened a beer, leaned down to give Ryan a long kiss, then sprawled in a lounge chair, taking a good look at her. “You're wound tight.”

“I'll be better when we can start on the Stanhope house. The damned city—these delays make me want to pound someone.

“But,” she said more cheerfully, “this present job, Clyde…a few more days, we'll wrap it up. The house is charming, if I do say so. I can't wait for you to see it all finished.”

“All your work is charming. It's what you're known for. Look at this house—from a shabby bachelor's pad to a designer's gem.” He grinned at Ryan. “Not only beautiful and intelligent, but incredibly talented.”

“That kind of flattery will get you a long way, with this lady. Meantime,” she said, rising, “I'm starved. I feel like Rock, ready to dive into lunch with all four paws.” Rock, though he had his own bowl of kibble, had been eyeing the
picnic table with ears up and nose twitching. He knew better than to grab, but this degree of restraint wasn't easy on the energetic young dog. Ryan was putting her sandwich together when her phone rang.

“Maybe Scotty,” she said, glancing at her watch. “He stopped in to see Jim Holden again at the building department.” She fished her phone from its holster, listened expectantly—and her hopeful look exploded into a dark scowl.

“They
did
all that. The research! The hearings! The historic look
won't
be changed! We aren't
doing
anything to the outside. What the hell do they…” Ryan's face was flushed, her green eyes burned with anger. Clyde opened another Buckler's and handed it to her.

“We're not
changing
the outside,” Ryan shouted into the phone. “Can't they understand simple English! Can't they read a simple damned blueprint! What kind of…” She listened; then, “I know it's nearly eighty years old! We've been through all that, Scotty!”

Scott Flannery was Ryan's uncle, and her construction foreman. He was her father's brother, a big, burly, redheaded Scotch-Irishman. He and Dallas Garza, her mother's brother, had both moved in with Ryan's dad when her mother died, and had helped to raise Ryan and her two sisters, staggering their work hours and sharing the household chores. Scotty was largely responsible for Ryan's interest in the building trades, while Dallas had honed the girls' interest in fine bird dogs and hunting, and in safe firearms training.

“The Historical Society is totally out of line,” Ryan snapped at Scotty. “They can't have the gall to…”

But they could, Clyde thought, watching her. Everyone
knew that the city historical committee could be incredibly high-handed and officious. When Ryan hung up at last, Rock pressed quietly against her, looking up at her with concern, his pale yellow eyes almost human. The big silver hound might be rowdy, and an aggressive protector of those he loved, but he was supersensitive and highly responsive to Ryan's moods.

“Maybe,” Clyde said, “the two public school teachers who pitched such a fit when children began to transfer to the Patty Rose School, maybe they're responsible for this.”

“If they are,” Ryan said, kneeling down to hug Rock, “that's even more maddening—a personal vendetta. Small-minded personal rage, aimed at hurting the school and hurting those children.

“But,” she said, looking up at him, “it isn't the teachers that make the public school so dull and ineffective—not all the teachers. It's the policies, the administration, the red tape and constrictions and their morass of stupid rules.”

“And whose fault is that?” Clyde said.

“Ours.” Rising, Ryan moved to the table and finished slapping her sandwich together. “The city, the state. The voters,” she said, sighing with frustration.

Clyde, watching her, knew that that kind of bureaucratic control upset Ryan perhaps even more than most people. When Ryan moved down from San Francisco about a year ago, a big change in her life, it was to end the cold patronization of an emotionally brutal marriage. He put his arm around her.

“Slow down,” he said softly. She was almost crying, and Ryan never cried. He took her sandwich plate from her, set it down, and held her tight. She had worked so hard on this
redesign for the old Stanhope studio, so intent on retaining its historic character while creating the needed classrooms. She had endured endless meetings, endless bureaucratic rejections, each of which sent her back yet again to the drawing board. She had put up with senseless arguments that had little to do with the quality and integrity of the designs and a lot to do with people's desire to control.

She looked up at him, swiping at a tear. “I didn't come down here to fight another bunch of small-minded, shortsighted, selfish…I thought I got away from all that.” She pressed her face against him. “I'm so tired of this damned squabbling, I don't even want to do the renovation.”

Clyde held her away. “You'd let the city win? Let the city make you back down, and beat you?”

“Screw them,” she snapped. “I don't
care
.”

“Lori and Dillon didn't back down. They fought the city and won. Two little girls…”

“Two little girls and three adults. And I
said,
Clyde, I don't care!”

Clyde hugged Ryan harder, knowing that she would rally. But he had to wonder about the reason for the harassment. Was it only the small-minded teachers? Or was there something else, besides the petty backbiting and power struggles? And that thought stirred his own cold and protective anger.