Cat Pay the Devil (5 page)

T
he beefy man sat on the bed going through the
overnight case Wilma had taken to the city; her thin hanger bag was thrown on the floor, the clothes spilling out. Dulcie stared in at his long, heavily angled face, long upper lip and heavy features. Jones must be well over six feet, big boned, big hands, thick shoulders. The other man was smaller, tall but of light frame. Thin face, maybe thirty. Thin shoulders, thin long hands, long brown hair under a brown baseball cap. Both men seemed, to Dulcie, parodies of what humans should look like. She could not bear to think how they might have hurt Wilma, what they might have done with her.

Wilma's flowered chintz coverlet was wadded up on the floor, the white wicker night tables overturned, the door to the red iron stove flung open and ashes scattered over the flowered rug: Did they think Wilma hid her valuables in the woodstove? But, what valuables? What did Jones think she had? Finished with the overnight case, he dropped it on the floor, stood, and began going through Wilma's closet,
throwing clothes out into the room, running his hands over the wall behind. The white wicker dresser had been jerked away from the wall, cosmetic jars scattered on the floor, as were the contents of her traveling makeup case. What would she hide in there? The case she kept in her overnight bag, neatly supplied, ready for an impromptu junket, a habit learned when she was a probation officer and so often had to travel. Dulcie, seeing that Wilma wasn't in the bedroom, backed away toward the guest room, Kit pressing close.

The guest room had been trashed, too, closet doors flung open, drawers pulled out and dumped, guest sheets and towels spilled on the rug, the bed shoved aside, the covers pulled off. If they thought Wilma kept valuables in the house, a large stash of money, or jewelry, why would they look in her luggage? And if they had Wilma, why had they brought in her luggage and packages? This made no sense. If Jones wanted it to appear that Wilma had come home, why bother to trash the house?

Did they want it to look like she'd been here, then was forcibly taken away? Did they want the cops to think that the housebreaker who'd killed that woman last night had done this? Take advantage of the moment, make it seem that Wilma had come home, had a snack, started to unpack, and then the break-in or forced entry had happened?

“Her car…,” Kit said. “Is her car here?”

“I smelled exhaust. It…She…I didn't look inside!” Racing for the laundry and the door to the garage, Dulcie leaped up the door, scrabbling her paws to open the dead bolt…But it was open. Those men had been in the garage, had left the door unlocked. She could smell them. Swinging on the knob, she kicked at the wall until the latch gave and the door careened in, carrying her with it.

She saw Wilma's car as she dropped to the concrete,
could feel heat still radiating from it, smell the stink of oil and exhaust. She did not want to look inside,
could
not look inside that car. Kit stared at her, waiting, then reared up, trying the doors, but they were locked.

Ever since Dulcie and Joe Grey discovered they could speak and were thinking like humans, ever since they'd helped trap their first killer, not much in the human repertoire of assorted evil shocked the cats; their clandestine roles as police informants had hardened Dulcie to most human viciousness. But now fear held Dulcie as cruelly as she, herself, had ever gripped a mouse between sharp teeth. And it was Kit who leaped to the hood first, and pressed her nose to the windshield. Ice cold, Dulcie followed.

The hood was warm beneath their paws. Pressing her nose to the bug-splattered glass, Dulcie shivered with relief at the empty front seat and floor. She stared into the back as far as she could see, then leaped to the workbench and stretched out across space, her back paws on the bench, her front paws on the side window, to see the dark floor of the backseat.

Empty. She began to breathe again—but then she caught the faintest scent of blood and stiffened, studying the pale leather upholstery.

There was no dark stain, and the scent was so faint she wondered if she was mistaken, if it might be a blood smell that the tires had picked up. Dropping down to the concrete, she examined the warm tread, but she could detect no blood scent there. She watched Kit sniff at the trunk, her mind awash with every grisly kidnapping she'd ever heard about—and Kit
did
smell something, she was sniffing intently.

But then she dropped down again, lashing her bushy tail, and turned her round yellow eyes on Dulcie. “Only gas fumes,” she said quietly.

Dulcie went limp. “Is her cell phone in the car?” Both cats flew to the hood again, peering in at the seat and dark floor; then over the curved metal roof and onto the trunk to look in through the back window, pressing their faces against the glass, leaving smears that would puzzle the police but couldn't be helped. They could not see Wilma's little phone, not dropped on the floor, not fallen in the crack of a seat—and Cage Jones wouldn't stay in the house forever.

“Going to chance the phone,” Dulcie said boldly, and she streaked for the living room again and onto the desk, and hit the speaker button. Her paw was lifted to press the button for the police dispatcher when she thought, How
could
she call the station? Why would the phantom snitch, whom Harper thought was a human person, be in or near this house? How would the snitch know that the house had been trashed, that there were two men in the bedroom, and that Wilma had disappeared? Only someone who had a key would know that.

Captain Harper himself had a key. As did Joe's housemate, Clyde. And Wilma's niece, Charlie Harper.

Swiftly Dulcie punched in the key for Charlie's cell phone. Charlie would have to lie for her, would have to pretend she'd come in here, herself.

Three rings, and then she got the voice mail. She tried the house, but again no answer, only that canned voice telling you to leave your name and number. Fidgeting from nerves, she punched the digit for Clyde's cell phone.
Answer
, Dulcie prayed.
Oh
,
please
,
Clyde. They won't be in the bedroom forever. If they see the light, they'll be after us. And if they don't…Once they're gone, the cops might never find them
,
and they're all that can lead us to Wilma.

But Clyde didn't answer, not on his cell, or on his home phone. She left frantic messages on both. If he was at the automotive shop, which was closed on Sunday, he'd be in
the very back, in his own exclusive garage, working on one or another of the classic and antique cars he collected, happily puttering away, no phone to disturb him, not knowing anything was amiss. And Dulcie did the only thing left to do. She'd have to conjure up a whopping lie. She tried to think of a good one as, heart pounding, she pressed the key for 911.

One ring, and the dispatcher picked up. Dulcie was glad it was Mabel Farthy. She was describing the trashed house, explaining that Wilma was missing and that two men were in the bedroom when Chief Harper came on the phone…Mabel had summoned him, or had turned on the speaker. At the same moment, as Dulcie started to describe the two men, Kit stared toward the bedroom, hissing, and slipped behind the couch. Dulcie leaped after her as harsh footsteps pounded out, running. The two men raced past, through the dining room and kitchen and out the back door. As the door banged, Dulcie leaped to the window, looking, leaving Mabel shouting into the phone. She heard a car start on the side street, heard it peel away, but couldn't see it. At the same moment, two trucks rumbled past, loud and intrusive, hiding all other sounds.

“They're gone,” she shouted at Mabel. “A car raced away a block over, I never saw it, I can't hear it now, can't tell which way it went.” That sounded so lame, like she was making the whole thing up. “I couldn't see!” she told Mabel in frustration.

But even as she pressed the disconnect button, she saw the first squad car pull quietly to the curb. Bless Harper's men for being so fast! They must have been nearby, even closer than the station, men already in their squad cars, their engines running. Two more units sped past the house, racing to spot the fleeing car.

“You didn't describe the men,” Kit hissed. “Tell her—”

Moments later, a second squad car halted at the curb, and Max Harper swung out as four uniforms took off running, to surround the house. A key clicked in the front door; the door banged open so fast, the cats only had time to back against the shutters. Chief Harper and two uniforms moved fast, toward the bedroom. The instant they were past, the cats streaked through to the laundry and bolted out Dulcie's cat door; they just missed being trampled as the two other cops moved quickly up the steps, their hands on their weapons. Dulcie and Kit dropped from the porch into a flower bed, Kit's eyes wide. This was not the usual procedure for a break-and-enter—but the law didn't fool around when it came to an escaped convict. And Max Harper didn't play gentle when a close friend, and his wife's own aunt, might be in danger.

W
hen Dulcie frantically phoned the station, Joe Grey
was asleep in the chief's empty office, sprawled across Max Harper's desk; he snored softly, less than thirty feet from the dispatcher's cubicle, so deep under that he didn't hear a thing until Mabel shouted. He heard Harper double-time up the hall from the coffee room, then, as if she had turned on her speaker, heard the voice on Mabel's phone. Joe woke up, alarmed, leaped from the desk, and peered around the door, up the hall.

Mabel Farthy never lost her cool, the amply built older blonde was totally in control in any emergency as she juggled radio, phones, fax, computers, and officers milling around her counter. But not so now. Her voice shook and she was swearing. She stood gripping the chief's arm, upset indeed, as, from the shadows of the hall, Joe listened to Dulcie's frightened voice on the phone and tried to play catch-up, his every muscle tense with alarm.

An hour earlier he had been lounging on the desk in
Detective Dallas Garza's office as Dallas and the chief discussed a second break-in killing, another woman murdered in her bed. Joe had come into the station, on the heels of Detective Garza, to see what new information might be forthcoming on the first death, and now they'd been discussing a second one. What was coming down here? Some de-ranged burglar who wasn't satisfied simply to steal and get out, but who got his thrills in other ways? The coroner had already told them that the first victim hadn't been sexually molested—just sadistically blown away. And as the officers began to put this second killing together, they waited for autopsy and fingerprint reports on the first one, for which they had two sets of prints besides those of the dead woman and her husband. But there had been workmen in the house, a carpenter and a plumber repairing a bathroom, and the officers expected the prints would turn out to be theirs. Now, with a second, similar case, questions had multiplied like jackrabbits. Joe had lain curled up in Dallas's in-box, sharply alert beneath shuttered eyes, watching Dallas lean back in his desk chair, put his feet up on the blotter, and flip open a file.

The square-faced Latino detective's usual sunny smile had vanished. “Marital trouble in both cases. Five domestics at the Tucker address since the first of the year, four at the Keatings'. Linda Tucker was a shy little thing, real quiet and reclusive. But Elaine Keating…”

“Right,” Harper had said. “She was bad news.”

“Three of those call-outs, Linda pressed charges for battery, and was told how to get help and find shelter. Didn't do much good. She took him right back.”

The detective had sipped his coffee, reaching to stroke Joe Grey, giving Joe a look of amazement—whether amazement that the cat hung around the department, or surprise
at his own friendly feelings toward a feline, Joe wasn't sure. For a dog man, Dallas Garza was coming right along, and that made the tomcat smile. Dallas had, when Joe first met him, considered cats about as appealing as gutter rats.

“We could have a kinky burglar,” Harper had said, “or a copycat murderer. Common knowledge Tucker was sleeping around. Maybe his wife threatened to walk.”

In that case, Joe thought, she didn't handle the problem very well. Even a cat could have told her that a battered woman should keep her plans to herself, get her own affairs in order, put her money where the man couldn't reach it, and then quietly get out. Follow her escape plan and lay low, not telegraph her intentions. No different from a sensible cat quietly stealing away from a pack of coyotes, no disturbance, no movement through the grass to give himself away, just gone. And this sure would be true if a woman had children to get out safely—or pets. It hurt Joe deep down when a fleeing wife, in her haste and terror, left a dog or a cat behind. The poor creature was nearly always abused; most abusers would do that to get back at a woman.

“Elaine Keating had some money of her own,” Max said. “A small inheritance she kept in a separate account. Trouble was, she put his name on the account.”

Dallas shook his head. “If this is a copycat murder, I hope to hell it doesn't start a rash of wife killings.” The detective studied the gray tomcat sprawled across his papers. “What does he find so fascinating? We don't have mice in here.”

Harper shrugged. “This is one of the coolest buildings in the village, with these thick adobe walls.”

“And in the winter?”

“One of the warmest.” Max stared at Joe. “His visits couldn't be because Mabel feeds him, hides away little snacks for the cats?”

“Then why isn't he on Mabel's desk instead of mine?”

“Likes your company,” Harper said. “If we get an article or two in the paper, to head these guys off…Help them remember we keep a list of wife abusers from past reports…” Harper rose to refill his coffee cup from the pot on the credenza.

“And maybe enlighten the abused wives,” Dallas said. He scratched Joe Grey's ear. “Put those women on alert—without inviting a lawsuit. I'll call Jim Barker, he's a good reporter.”

“Who would sue us? We won't be printing their names.” But Harper grinned. These days, some people would try to sue the cops over a traffic ticket.

The chief rose and moved away down the hall on some errand, and in a minute Joe heard him going downstairs, where the emergency center and shooting ranges were located. Dallas had picked up the phone and was making a date with Barker for a private lunch; but when the detective turned on his computer and started filling in tedious travel sheets, Joe leaped down and trotted along to Harper's empty office, which was darker and quieter; he never had liked the click of computer keys.

Now, an hour later, having been awakened by Mabel's shout from the dispatcher's cubicle, he listened, alarmed, to the canned female voice from Mabel's speakerphone—Dulcie's voice, talking to both Mabel and then to Harper when she knew the speaker was on.

“…isn't in the house, I'm sure. But the house has been ransacked…”

“How do you know this?”

“I…The door was unlocked. I thought I'd glimpsed her car go in the garage, so I knocked. When she didn't answer, I tried the garage door. It was locked, but I smelled a whiff of exhaust, like she had just gotten home. I thought
it strange that she didn't answer, and knocked again. When she still didn't come, I got worried. That's when I tried the back door.

“It was unlocked, and I stepped into the kitchen. I was about to call out when I saw the house was all messed up, furniture overturned; then I heard men's voices from the back. But I didn't hear Wilma. I ran out, called you on my cell. I saw two men run out…One was—”

The line went suddenly dead. Dulcie had hung up or bolted away. Harper snatched the phone, shouting, “Give me your name. You're Wilma's neighbor? Where…? Your address…?”

He turned away at last, came pounding down the hall past Joe, shouting at Garza; the detective swung out of his office, and as the two headed for the back door and a patrol unit, Joe slipped up the hall to the front, where Mabel was dispatching squad cars—she paused long enough to punch in a phone number. Her voice, sharp with dismay, was obliterated as three police units sped away from the station. When they'd gone, she was saying, “…in Wilma's house. Two men. They ran, but…All right, but be careful. You tell anyone I called you, Clyde, you're dead meat!” She listened, then, “You'd better cover for me, or the chief'll have my hide.” Silence. Then, “Said she was a neighbor. Hung up before she identified herself. I…Max would fire me, I swear he would.”

Joe was strung tight as four more officers hurried up the hall and out the front door; he streaked out behind them, leaped scrambling up the overhanging oak to the roof and headed for Wilma's house. Racing across hot shingles and tiles, he forgot the two murders and the disquieting prospect that they might not be the last. Dulcie needed him, and Wilma needed them both—and he guessed Clyde, too,
could use a little support. Wilma was like Clyde's older sister, the only family Clyde had.

Sailing across space and into an oak that bridged the narrow street, Joe scrambled up it to a higher roof. Max Harper was nearly as close to Wilma as was Clyde; they'd both known Wilma since they were boys, the two kids spending hours in Wilma's kitchen eating peanut butter and bacon sandwiches, awed by the beautiful blond graduate student, talking with Wilma about life in a way neither boy could talk with his parents.

Roof after roof; the blocks had never seemed so long. At last, backing down a jasmine vine to the sidewalk, Joe fled across Wilma's street, between parked squad cars and through Wilma's tangled garden. He was headed beneath the bushes for Dulcie's cat door when Dulcie and Kit materialized out of a forest of lavender, Dulcie looking as miserable as he'd ever seen her. Her sleek tabby fur was bedraggled, her peach-tinted ears twitching with distress.

“She's gone,” she panted, pressing against Joe and mewling as pitifully as a lost kitten. “Somewhere…,” she said. “Those men…Cage Jones…” And she collapsed against him, trembling.