Cat in the Dark (19 page)

“She copied them. See where I made some little notes? On the copies, you can barely see the pencil marks.”

She sat down on the couch, looking very small. “Why would Dora do that? What could she want with my statements?”

Harper handed her the other set of legal-size papers that he had taken from the Sleuders' duffle bag. These statements had a different letterhead, under the name Cumming, and were dated the previous year, detailing the Sleuders' own stock earnings.

She looked at them, looked up at him. “I don't understand. Dora and Ralph had some investment problems last year, about the time these are dated.”

“What kind of problems?”

“They were cheated of a lot of money. The men were caught, and one of them went to prison.”

“Is that the name of the firm that cheated them?”

“It could be. Yes, I think it is.”

“You said only one of the members was convicted?”

“Yes. Dora was very upset because the other man, Warren Cumming, went free.”

“Did Greeley know about the swindle?”

“Oh, yes. He wrote me all about it—he was furious. And of course Dora called me several times. She'd get so angry, with the trial and all.” She looked again at the Sleuders' statements.

“Look here, at Dora's little squiggly marks beside some of these stocks. I have some of the same stock. Coca-Cola, Home Depot. Maybe,” she said, “maybe Dora was comparing how much she and Ralph made on that stock—before they were swindled—with how much I've made. It doesn't really make sense, but Dora's—was funny that way. And she was so bitter about their loss. Well, anyone would be bitter!”

Harper put his arm around her. “Later today, when you feel up to it, would you come down to the station and give me a formal statement?”

“Yes, if I have to.” She was very pale. “I'll look for Greeley first, and then I'll come. I—I'll need to make arrangements—funeral arrangements.”

“Not yet,” Harper said. “I'll let you know when you can do that. You don't have any idea where Greeley might have gone? Where he might have stayed last night?”

“No. He's a night owl. But he can't go very far without a car—he's too cheap to take a cab.”

She moved away from Harper, looking up at him. “Thank you, Captain Harper. Soon as I get myself together I'll drive around the village, see if I can find him. I don't know how I'm going to tell him about Dora.”

Charlie stayed with Mavity for a while after Harper left, making her a cup of tea and fetching her an aspirin from the medicine cabinet. When Mavity felt better, she drove Charlie up to work, then went to look for Greeley.

Charlie, getting back to work, kept puzzling over Dora and Ralph. They had seemed such simple folk, plain and uncomplicated, not the kind to deceive Mavity, and surely not the kind to be into drugs. That strange twist, if it was true, put a whole new light on Dora and Ralph Sleuder.

Pulling on her painting shirt and climbing back on the ladder, she was unable to stop worrying over the Sleuders, unable to stop wondering what Harper would uncover when he looked into their background—wondering how much Mavity might not have known about her dead niece.

Y
OU'D THINK
he'd have the courtesy to call me,” Mavity complained, “but not Greeley. Always been that way. Walk out, gone a couple of days, and then home again and never a word.” She'd pulled herself from the shocked, quiet state she'd been in that morning and was herself again, cross and abrasive, and Charlie was glad to hear the little woman grousing. They were in the back apartment, in the kitchen-office. It was three-thirty in the afternoon and Mavity, after searching futilely for Greeley, had just gotten to work.

“Ever since we were in high school, he's gone off like that. Drove Mama crazy. She called the police once, reported him missing, and when Greeley found out, he pitched a fit. Left home for three weeks, no one knew where.” Mavity shook her head. “Mama never did that again—she just let him ramble.” The little woman was wound tight, her voice brittle with worry. She had shown up dragging her cleaning things. “I need to do something. I can't bear to stay home by myself. I left him a note, to call me up here.”

“If you feel like it, you can go up and help Pearl Ann. Mr. Jergen wanted some extras, and it had to be today. Some repairs—he wants the work done while he's out. Pearl Ann has a dental appointment so she can't stay too long, then she's catching the Greyhound to San Francisco.”

“San Francisco? Pearl Ann never goes anywhere. I've never known her to do anything but tramp the cliffs. Hiking, she calls it. Why in the world is she going to San Francisco?”

Charlie laughed. “This will be her first trip to the city, and she seems thrilled. It'll be good for her. She wants to see the Golden Gate, Coit Tower, all the tourist stuff. I've never seen her so talkative. She even showed me the silk pants and blazer she bought for the trip.

“She'll have time to do Jergen's extras, if you help her. He wants the refrigerator cleaned, said the ice tasted bad. Pearl Ann missed it last week. And he wanted some repairs in the bathroom, said a towel rack had pulled out of the wall and the shower is leaking. It needs caulking—these old tile showers. I told him Pearl Ann had to leave early to catch her bus, but what does he care? You sure you feel up to working?”

“I'll feel better keeping busy. There's nothing I can do about Greeley, only wait. The police are looking for him,” Mavity said darkly. Finishing her coffee, she headed toward the stairs carrying her cleaning equipment, and Charlie left to take care of the Blackburn house, do the weekly cleaning and half a dozen small repairs. This was her regular work, the kind of miscellaneous little jobs for which she had started Charlie's Fix-It, Clean-It and for which she was building a good reputation in Molena Point. What her customers valued most was being able to make one phone call, have the house cleaned and the yard work and
repairs tended to all at once. One call, one stop. Her customers didn't know that every repair was a challenge, that she carried an entire library of helpful volumes in the van, detailed instructions to refer to if she ran into trouble. Only three times, so far, had she been forced to call in a subcontractor.

She was urging the old Chevy up the hill when she saw two cats racing through the tall grass and recognized Joe Grey's tailless gallop and his flashy white markings. Beside him, Dulcie blended into the grassy shadows like a dark little tiger. It still amazed her that they traveled so far. The freedom of their racing flight made her itch for paper and charcoal, and when they vanished into a tangle of Scotch broom, she slowed the van, watching for them to reappear.

They came out of the bushes suddenly and sat down near the street, regarding her van as she moved slowly by. They looked almost as if they
knew
the vehicle, as if they were quite aware that she was at the wheel and wondered what she was gawking at.

She stopped the van and let it idle, to see what they would do.

They glanced at each other, a strange little look between them, then they rose again and trotted away. Turning their backs, they disappeared into the meadow grass as if dismissing her.

Driving on, she couldn't rid herself of the notion that Joe and Dulcie had cut her dead. Had not wanted her snooping, had all but told her to mind her own business. Even after she began the Blackburns' repairs she kept seeing the two cats turning to look at her, seeing their impatient, irritated expressions.

The Blackburn house was a small, handsome Tudor with gray stone walls, brick detailing, and a shake roof. Letting herself in, she did a light weekly cleaning, fixed
the sticking latch on the back gate, and put new washers in a dripping faucet. Mrs. Blackburn had left her check on the hall table with a plate of chocolate chip cookies and a note.

She sat at the Blackburns' kitchen table enjoying the cookies and milk, then put her plate and glass in the dishwasher and headed back for the apartments.

She arrived just after six. Mavity had left, her VW Bug was gone. She checked the work Pearl Ann had finished, her patches on the back wall of the building so cleverly stippled that, once the wall was painted, no one would ever guess there had been need for repairs. As she headed out again through the patio, she heard a little clicking noise.

Glancing above her, she saw that Winthrop Jergen's windows were open, the louvered metal shade blowing gently against the molding.

She wondered if Pearl Ann had missed her appointment and was still there, because Jergen never opened the windows. Strange that both Pearl Ann and Mavity would forget to shut them, considering the angry exchanges they'd had with Jergen. Though she could hardly blame Mavity for forgetting, with the events of the morning.

Heading up the stairs, she knocked twice and when Jergen didn't answer she let herself in. He didn't much like her having a key, but as long as she contracted to clean for him, both she and Mavity had keys. She thought, when she pushed the door open, that he must be there after all, and she called out to him, because
beyond the entry she could see the glow of his computer screen.

He didn't answer. But she could see a spreadsheet on the screen, long columns of numbers. Her attention focused on the room itself, on the overturned lamp hanging off the desk by its cord, on the toppled swivel chair lying amidst scattered in-boxes and file folders. On Winthrop Jergen lying beside the chair, his blood staining the papers and seeping into the Kirman rug.

Charlie remained absolutely still. Looking. Trying to take in what she was seeing.

He lay twisted on his side, his white shirt and pale blue suit blood-soaked. His throat was ripped open in a wide wound like a ragged hank of bleeding meat.

A cleaning cloth lay beside him in a pool of blood, the kind of plaid mesh cloth that she bought in quantity. Though he couldn't possibly be alive, she knelt and touched his wrist. There was, of course, no pulse. No one could live with that terrible wound, with their throat ripped away. She felt nauseated, could feel the cookies and milk want to come up.

Stepping carefully around Jergen's body, trying not to be sick, trying to stay out of the blood, she moved to the desk, fished an identical cleaning cloth from her pocket, and used it to pick up the phone.

But then she quietly laid it down again and grabbed up a heavy postal scale and turned to face the room, appalled at her own stupidity. If the killer was still in the apartment, she had to get out.

What was she was going to do, fend him off with a postal scale?

But she had no other weapon.

Warily she moved into the bedroom, checking the closet, then the bath. Finding those spaces empty, she approached the kitchen, knowing she should run, get
out—knowing this was crazy, that this could not be happening. It was bright afternoon in a village as respectable and civilized as a cup of afternoon tea. Through Jergen's front windows, the low sun gleamed gently, sending sparkles across the calm sea and across the village rooftops; this was Molena Point, tame and quiet, not New York or L.A. with their news of bloody daytime murders.

Finding the kitchen empty, she returned to Jergen's desk, and using the cleaning rag to pick up the phone, she called 911.

But even as she dialed, she wondered if she'd locked the front door behind her. And, waiting for the dispatcher, she laid down the receiver and fled to the door and locked it.

She returned to the desk to hear the dispatcher shouting, “Hello? Hello?”

Standing over Jergen's body, holding the phone in the dustrag, she began to shiver. The metallic smell of blood and the smell of other bodily releases sickened her. She gave the address and stood staring down at Jergen's bloody face and bloody, torn throat, unable to hang up or to look away.

The only dead people she had encountered in her twenty-eight years were those from whom all signs of violence or distress had been gently wiped away, bodies thoughtfully groomed and arranged in the clean satin lining of expensive caskets—an elderly neighbor when she was twelve, her mother's cousin Marie two years later. Her father, when she was eighteen, and her mother when she was in art school. All the deceased were dressed in their Sunday best, their hands calmly folded over their demure chests, her mother's gold wedding band gleaming on her pale finger.

In the room's silence, the faint hum of the com
puter was like a thin voice whispering to her. Moving past the end of the desk and the two low file cabinets, she saw, for the first time, what appeared to be the murder weapon; though for a long moment she looked at it uncomprehending.

On the rug beside the file cabinets lay the metal divider from an ice cube tray. Blood covered its protruding aluminum handle and had run down into the little squares turning them as red as if someone had ejected a double line of red ice cubes—blood ice cubes. There should be a little wooden stick in each like the frozen orange-juice suckers that mothers made to keep their kids from eating junk.

Sirens screamed, coming up the hill. She backed away from the bloody kitchen utensil and moved unsteadily to the wide window beyond the couch. Standing at the glass, she watched the emergency vehicle careen into the lane, followed by two squad cars, watched two medics jump out loaded with an oxygen tank and black bags—as if her report of death had been faulty, as if the caller might have misjudged the condition of the victim. As if Winthrop Jergen still had a chance at life. Behind the medics, Max Harper swung out of his police unit, and two more uniformed officers from the other squad car double-timed through the patio as she hurried to unlock the door.

H
IGH UP THE HILLS,
a narrow hunting trail led beneath a tangle of toyon bushes, a track no wider than a cat's shoulders, and along the path in a spill of sunshine, Joe and Dulcie crouched feasting on a fat mouse, the last of five sweet morsels they had caught within the hour skittering among the roots and leaves. Above the cats, the toyon's hollylike berries were hard and green, having just emerged from their summer blossoms; the afternoon was warm and still, the only sound was the twittering of some sparrows pottering among the upper leaves.

Suddenly sirens screamed, blasting up from the village.

Rearing tall so they could see down the hills, the cats watched an ambulance careen up the winding streets followed by two police units, and skid into the dead-end street below Clyde's apartments—and they took off down the hills, Joe with visions of Clyde falling off the roof, Dulcie's sudden fear involving the power saws. Bolting down the slopes, charging through bushes
and tall grass and across the last street, they scorched past the hot rubber stink of the ambulance and squad cars and into the patio.

Men's voices from above them, from Winthrop Jergen's open windows. The police radio. Max Harper's quick commands—and the faint but unmistakable smell of human blood. Racing under the stairs and up the inner wall, they slipped beneath Jergen's sink and pushed the cabinet door open.

The smell of blood, of death.

Slinking across the linoleum, they crouched at the edge of the living room. The instant the uniforms' backs were turned, they bolted under the cherry credenza, peering out at Winthrop Jergen's sprawled body. The smell of his shaving lotion mixed strangely with the stench of death.

The lamps were all lit, every light burning except the lamp that hung over the edge of the desk. The toppled swivel chair and scattered papers and files were all soaked with Jergen's blood. As the medics rose and moved away, the cats got a good look at Jergen, his throat ripped as brutally as if a leopard or tiger had been at him—but this was not a hunting kill, this was the result of human malice.

As the photographer got to work, the flashing strobe lights nearly blinded the cats, forcing them to squeeze their eyes shut. The after-flashes, the blazing white reverse-images of Jergen's body, were as eerie as if his light-propelled spirit kept flashing back, trying to rejoin his corpse.

Beyond the windows, clouds had begun to gather, dimming the late afternoon. The tangle of officers' feet moving carefully across the Kirman rug, skirting around the body, Charlie sitting quietly on the couch out of the way, and the familiar forensics routines filled
the cats' vision and minds as the photographer shot his last roll and Officer Kathleen Ray began to collect evidence, her dark hair swinging around her shoulders. The first item she bagged, lifting it carefully from the floor beyond the file cabinets, held the cats' complete attention.

A device from the freezer, the thing that held the ice cubes, but covered with blood, dripping blood, its handle sticking up like a bloody knife, making them see too vividly a human hand jabbing and jabbing that blunt instrument into Jergen's soft flesh.

The cats' own bloodthirst was normal; it was the way God had made them. They were hunters, they killed for food and to train their young—well maybe sometimes for sport. But this violent act by some unknown human had nothing to do with hunting—for a human to brutally maim one of their own kind out of rage or sadism or greed was, to Joe and Dulcie, a shocking degradation of the human condition. To imagine that vicious abandon in a human deeply distressed Dulcie; she did not like thinking about humans in that way.

Pushing closer to Joe, she watched Officer Ray's familiar procedures, the tweezers, the tedious routine of picking up each fleck of evidence, the bagging and labeling, and slowly the thoroughness of her actions began to ease Dulcie. She imagined the intricacies of the laboratory studies that would follow, the carefully established methods, and a sense of rightness filled her.

Then the fingerprinting began, the black powder, the lifting tape, the fingerprint cards, all carefully thought out and calming, techniques that were the result of a wonderful human intelligence.

Humans might be sense-challenged, without a cat's balance and keen hearing and superior sense of touch, to say nothing of the cat's night vision, but the human's
inventiveness and mental skills made up for those fail-ures—people might be capable of brutality, in a shocking short circuit of the human spirit, but the best of mankind were still wonderful to observe.

And,
she thought,
what are we—what are Joe and I, that we can understand the achievements of humankind?

By the time the forensics team had finished, night had closed around the apartment, the black windows reflecting the blaze of lights within, turning the room stark and grim. The coroner arrived, completed his examination and bagged the body, and slid it onto a stretcher. As the paramedics carried it out, Officer Ray collected the last bits of evidence from where the corpse had lain. No one had touched the computer, except to lift fingerprints from the keyboard and monitor. The screen still glowed pale green, etching into the delicate glass the image of a financial spreadsheet.

Max Harper had sent Officer Wendell over to Mavity's cottage to take her down to the station, and patrol units were looking for Pearl Ann. Harper sat with Charlie on the couch, questioning her. “Did you
see
Mavity and Pearl Ann come up here to clean?”

“Pearl Ann was up here. I could see her through Jergen's bathroom window, probably repairing the towel rack. Mavity was headed for the stairs when I left, carrying her cleaning things. But, no, I didn't see Mavity enter the apartment.”

“What time was that?”

“Around three-fifteen, I think. I got to the Blackburns' about three-thirty. I usually take Mavity with me; she cleans while I do the repairs. But today—Jergen had asked for some extras, so I sent her up to help Pearl Ann.”

“What sort of extras?”

“Clean the refrigerator, fix the towel rack that had
pulled out of the bathroom wall, and repair a leak in the shower. He said he had a late afternoon appointment up the coast, wanted the work done while he was out. Mavity was going to do the refrigerator while Pearl Ann took care of the repairs.”

“And did you see his car, before you left for the Blackburns'?”

“I wouldn't have; he keeps it in the garage. I thought he was gone. I…”

“What?”

“I think he must have been gone. Or—or already dead. Pearl Ann had the windows open, and he would never have allowed that.”

“You didn't see his car when you came back from the Blackburn place?”

“No. Isn't it in the garage?”

“There's a black Mercedes convertible parked down the street. We passed it, coming up. I've sent Brennan to check the registration and to check the garage.”

Officer Ray came out of the master suite to say that the towel rod had been reset and that there was fresh caulking around the bottom of the shower and between some of the tile. Soon Lieutenant Brennan returned. The garage was empty. He had run the plates on the black Mercedes parked down the street. It belonged to Jergen. Harper returned his attention to Charlie.

“What time did you get back from the Blackburns'? Were the two women still here?”

“Around six-thirty. They were both gone. I came up to close the windows, and he—I found him.”

“You realize I have to consider you a suspect, Charlie, along with Mavity and Pearl Ann.”

“That's your job,” she said quietly.

“Was anyone else in the building when you left? Clyde or any other workers?”

“No, just Mavity and Pearl Ann. Clyde hadn't planned to come up. He had a busy schedule at the shop.”

“Do you have an address for Pearl Ann?”

“It's that old brick office building down on Valley, across from the mission.”

“The Davidson Building?”

“Yes. She rents a room above those pokey little offices. But she'll be on her way to San Francisco by now; she planned to spend the weekend.”

“How long have you known about her weekend plans?”

“For weeks. She was really excited—she grew up somewhere on the east coast and she's never seen San Francisco.”

“How long has she been in Molena Point? How long has she lived at the Davidson Building?”

“Four months, more or less—to both questions. Said she moved in there the day after she arrived.”

“She picked a great place to settle.”

“She's very frugal with money. I think she doesn't have much.”

“How long has she worked for you?”

“The whole four months.”

“Married?”

“No, she's single. And she's a good worker.”

“What kind of car?”

“She doesn't have a car—she walks to work.”

“What brought her to the west coast? Where does she come from?”

“Arkansas maybe, or Tennessee, I'm not sure. She told me she wanted to get as far away from her overbearing family as she could.”

“How old is she?”

“Twenty-seven.”

Harper made some notes. “Did you and Mavity talk about the sheaf of statements we found in Dora Sleuder's luggage? Did she give you any idea why Dora might have them?”

“We didn't talk, no.” She looked at him questioningly.

“Did Mavity keep a gun?”

“No. She's afraid of guns.” She looked at Harper, frowning. “But that—that terrible wound…Mavity couldn't…A gun couldn't cause that?”

“So far as you know, she did not have a gun?”

“Well, she might. She told me once that her husband kept a gun, that after he died she was afraid to touch it. She asked Greeley to lock it away for her in a strongbox at the back of her closet. She said her husband had always kept a strongbox, a little cash laid by at home in case of some emergency.”

Beneath the credenza, the cats tried to follow Harper's line of thought. Was he guessing that Jergen's throat could have been torn
after
a bullet entered and killed him, perhaps to confuse the police?

The cats remained hidden until Harper had sealed Jergen's apartment and Brennan had secured the stairs with crime scene tape. When everyone had gone, Dulcie leaped to the desk.

Though the officers hadn't touched the computer, Captain Harper had called the FBI in San Francisco, arranging for a computer specialist to examine the files. The file on the screen said
BARNER TAX-FREE INCOME FUND
and was in Winthrop Jergen's name.

“How much will the Bureau agent find,” Dulcie said, “if he doesn't have Jergen's code? And, more important, if he doesn't have Pearl Ann's code?” She
sat down beside the phone. Lifting a paw, she knocked the receiver off.

“Hold it,” Joe said. “Harper's still down there. The police units are still out front—they must be searching the building.”

“I'll call him when he gets back to the station.” She lifted the receiver by its cord, biting gently, and used her paw to maneuver it back into the cradle. Turning, she sniffed at the computer. “The keyboard smells of Pearl Ann's perfume.”

“Could be an old scent—she cleans around the desk.”

“Cheap perfume doesn't last very long.” She took another sniff and then leaped down, avoiding the bloodstained rug. Leaving the scene, the cats were soon following Max Harper through the lower apartments, padding along in the shadows beyond where lights had been switched on and well behind the photographer as he made bright strobe shots of the various footprints that had been left in the Sheetrock dust.

Too bad the department would have to labor to identify each set of prints, procuring shoes from everyone involved. Enough fuss to make a cat laugh, when Joe or Dulcie could have done the job in a second.

No amount of sweeping could eradicate the fine white Sheetrock dust that impregnated the plywood subfloor, and the cats, living close to the earth, knew intimately each set of prints left there: Charlie's and Clyde's jogging shoes, Pearl Ann's tennis shoes, the boot marks of the two hired carpenters, the prints of various subcontractors. Their quick identification could have been a great help to the police.
How unfair it is
, Dulcie thought,
that canine officers can gather evidence that would stand up in court, but a cat can't
.

A drug dog's sniffing out of evidence was accepted even if he didn't find the drug—he need only indicate to his handler that the drug had been there, and that was legitimate testimony. But similar intelligence, given by a feline volunteer, would be laughed at.

Just one more instance
, Dulcie thought,
of prejudice in the workplace.

Silently they watched the officers bag the workmen's trash, the drink cans and candy wrappers and wadded-up lunch sacks, and scraps of wallboard and lumber. They bagged, as well, Mavity's insulated lunch carrier and thermos, and Pearl Ann's duffle bag containing her dirty work clothes.

Pearl Ann would have changed clothes for her trip, leaving her duffle to take home on Monday. But Mavity's oversight was strange; Mavity never forgot that lunch bag.

Officer Wendell returned to tell Harper that Mavity was not at home, that there was no sign of her car and no answer when he pounded, and that her door was locked.

“I looked through the windows. The house was very neat, the bed made, three cups and saucers in the sink. I took a turn through the village but didn't see her VW.”

Watching from behind a stack of crated plumbing fixtures, Dulcie licked her paw nervously. “
Was
Jergen stealing from Mavity? Could she have found out and been so angry that she killed him? Oh, I don't like to think that.”

“Whoever thrust that ice tray divider into Jergen's throat, Dulcie, had to be bigger and stronger than Mavity.”