Cat Shout for Joy (15 page)

 

18

M
ax Harper's office
smelled of overcooked coffee, cinnamon rolls, and gun oil. The sweet-­scented bakery box stood on the credenza just above Joe as he strolled in, his coat damp from the early fog. He shivered once, glanced up with interest at the bakery treats but padded on past. Behind Max's desk he leaped up into the bookcase. Max glanced around at him, broke off a piece of his own cinnamon bun, and laid it on the edge of the shelf. Handily Joe licked it up, every crumb, then lay down against an untidy stack of pamphlets, DOJ reports, and government busywork. Detectives Garza and Davis were settled at either end of the couch with their coffee and snacks. Both looked unusually pleased. They paid little attention to Joe, and that was the way he liked it. He'd worked long and hard to become no more remarkable than the tattered volumes on the shelf behind him.

Juana's uniform was dark against the leather couch, a Glock automatic holstered at her side, along with handcuffs, cell phone, and radio. Dallas's pale jeans were neatly creased, his black polo shirt and tan corduroy blazer soft and well-­worn, as were his leather boots. He set his coffee cup on the corner of the oversize coffee table, which was covered with files and binders. And, holding Joe's attention, two batches of photographs were aligned atop the other papers.

The pictures in one set were as ragged as jigsaw puzzles: color photos formed of tiny, chewed fragments pieced together and glued to sheets of white paper—­images of shoes, or of shoeprints with fancy treads. Juana hadn't wasted any time. Joe imagined her moving Ben's bed away from the wall, kneeling in her black skirt trying to favor her painful knee, fishing out pieces of the mouse nest a few at a time. He wondered if the mouse was watching. He tried not to picture it attacking Juana, but he had to turn away to hide a smile.

He thought of Juana sitting up late last night in her second-­floor condo just across the street from the station, sorting through the torn fragments, carefully fitting them together piece by tedious piece. In one photo of shoes he could see part of what might be the porch of the remodel. In another, a waffle shoeprint gleamed at the edge of what could be the wooden ramp. That pasteup showed a fragment of running pants, too, with a black satin stripe down the side just like a pair Tekla wore—­though, since he'd become alert to that pattern, he'd noticed a number of runners in the village with the exact same kind of pants.

Lined up with the fragmented pictures lay whole, untorn photographs taken at various crime scenes. The shoe patterns matched in both sets of pictures—­but manufacturers turned out thousands of each model, Molena Point shops probably sold hundreds. Had Ben taken these shots because he thought Tekla might be the mugger, following a guess, laying out a possible scenario to see where it led?

But now, though the pictures could be a great breakthrough, the department still didn't have the shoes to match them. Even what
looked
like Tekla's shoe next to what
looked
like the remodel property was in fact circumstantial.

They needed the shoes themselves. Shoes might give them fingerprints and maybe DNA, evidence far more conclusive than a photograph. And still the officers were ahead of Joe. They knew which San Francisco trial was involved, they knew who had been convicted and with what sentence and would be looking for connections. But now suddenly, as Joe pretended to nap on the shelf, watching the chief shift a pile of papers and pull out his yellow notepad, there it was.

The answer. The missing piece of information for which he had hurried out of the house this morning after gulping breakfast, scorching away over the foggy roofs, never pausing at Dulcie's cottage, making straight for the station. There on the yellow pad was the answer, neatly set down in Max's angular handwriting, the information Joe had missed when he arrived at Celeste Reece's house too late to hear all the facts.

12 November, San Francisco County Court: Trial of Herbert Gardner. Rape and murder of a minor. Guilty, all counts. Death penalty. Incarcerated San Quentin awaiting execution.

A list of the twelve jurors followed. Bonnie Rivers's name was at the top. Max's notation indicated that Bonnie's husband, Gresham, had died when their car was forced off the road and down a cliff north of the Golden Gate, that Bonnie had been hospitalized with severe leg injuries.

The second name was a Jimmie Delgado. Joe scanned the attached newspaper clipping. Delgado was killed riding his bicycle at night on a slick San Francisco street during a heavy rain. The time was just past midnight. Delgado worked as a waiter. The bike was his only transportation. The driver was never found, there were no witnesses, no clue to the make or model of the car that caused his death. Rain washed away any skid marks. Dark blue paint streaks were found on the bike. The car, if it was ever found, might yield more evidence. Or not, Joe thought, aware of San Francisco PD's heavy workload. If they'd found no viable suspect yet, they might soon file the case away among hundreds of others that remained unsolved. He read the list trying not to stretch up and peer over Max's shoulder. What he wanted to do was drop down to the desk beside the chief where he could see clearly Max's jotted notes.

The next two jurors were the Molena Point victims who had died, James Allen and Ogden Welder. Max noted that Merle Rodin had died but had not been a member of the jury, that Rodin had not been in San Francisco during the trial, and according to his wife, knew only what they saw on the news, to which Merle had paid little attention. The next juror, the third Molena Point murder victim, was Ben Stonewell.

Of the last seven jurors, three were still in the city. Citizens, Max had noted, too well known, of sufficient standing that the killer might have backed off, might be reluctant to attack them. Four jurors had moved away, two to the East Coast, one to Mexico, the other an uncertain destination. The moves had all occurred after the two “accidental” San Francisco deaths. Below the jury list were the names of Molina Point's other four victims, who were not jury members, with a note:
“Shills?
” Attacks that had been set up to put MPPD off the trail? Most of them were elderly—­was that choice meant to further mislead the purpose of the assaults?

Joe eased back on the shelf. Now they knew the
why
of the killings, to vindicate the convicted rapist. The murder victims had all been jurors, all but Merle Rodin. Maybe the guy hadn't meant to kill Rodin, maybe Rodin did simply fall on that brick when he was attacked, a minor slip in the killer's plan.

But Ben's murder was no accident. Now the department had the motive for the killings, and the list of further possible victims. But did they have any suspect who might want vindication? Anyone connected to murderer Herbert Gardner?

“Gardner had no family,” Max said, startling Joe, answering almost as if Joe had asked. “No siblings, not one relative that the investigating officers found, not even a close friend. No one he ran with, no drinking buddy. No women he dated, which is strange. Except the young woman he killed,” Max added. “And nothing in the presentence report, either.”

But
how go
od
were
those investigations?
Joe wondered
. How thorough was that particular assistant district attorney, how good are these new, young probation officers?
He'd heard too many stories of sloppy work by young, newly hired government employees.
How dedicated
was
the PO who did the presentence? Had he just jumped through the usual hoops and gone no further, had he not really cared?

Settling more comfortably on the bookshelf, tucking his paws under his chest, Joe thought about someone out there, still on the loose, eaten up with rage over the conviction of Herbert Gardner, someone who loved Gardner well. A girlfriend whom investigators had missed, a sibling or parent that the law hadn't found? Sure as hell Gardner hadn't committed those murders himself, locked up in Quentin waiting to die.

When Max's private line buzzed, he ignored it as he and the two detectives laid out plans for a deeper investigation into Gardner's background, a more thorough search than SFPD, the CBI, or the parole office had made—­but a search to be conducted in cooperation with those departments. When the line buzzed again, again Max ignored it. He had finished giving the two detectives instructions when a faint sound beyond the closed door brought Joe alert.

No one else heard the brush of a soft sole on the hard linoleum. Joe stood up rigid, listening. Max was saying, “ . . . send Mike Flannery up to the city as soon as he gets home from Alaska, he can do some of the legwork, he's a hell of a better investigator than . . .”

The sound came again, the presence had not moved away: someone was standing close against the door, listening. Silently Joe dropped from the bookshelf to the desk and down to the rug. He approached the closed door, ears back, his walk stiff, his growl rising. Behind him he could feel Max and the detectives watching him. Silently Dallas rose, his hand relaxed beside his holstered weapon; he jerked the door open.

Evijean Simpson stumbled and nearly fell. She caught herself against the doorjamb, her right fist lifted as if she'd been ready to knock. “There's an urgent call from Detective Ray. Chief, can you pick up?”

Max glanced at the phone he'd ignored, nodded to her, and turned to answer. Evijean left, heading back to the front desk. Joe Grey leaped innocently onto Max's desk and curled down yawning beside him, his head on the notepad as close to the phone as he could get. But Kathleen's voice was too low; without the speaker on, he couldn't hear much.

“He did?” Max was saying. “Where? I'll be damned. Yes, get on over and pick him up.”

There was a murmur from Kathleen. Joe wanted to reach out a paw and turn on the speaker
.
Max said, “Retrieve what pictures you can, print them, too, then get both items to the lab. Ask them to move on it. As soon as you're done, let's see what you have.” He listened, then, “You bet,” he said, grinning. Hanging up, Max looked across at the detectives.

“The cell phone and notebook the snitch called about? Billy found them, near where Ben died.”

Joe felt his claws dig into the blotter, and quickly sheathed them.
Billy found them?
He'd searched all over hell for that phone and notebook.
And Billy Young found them?
he thought, half annoyed, half smiling.

“He was cleaning the dryer vent in the remodel,” Max said, “where it dumps out into the yard. They were stuffed back inside, behind the flap.”

Joe wanted to yowl. Why hadn't he
looked
there? He'd passed that vent a dozen times, had smelled nothing but the lingering scent of dried blood from where the body had lain, and the mixed, personal odors of the medics and coroner. He'd been so sure about the roof shingles—­a bad guess—­but not the vent, had passed the vent and hadn't even thought to lift the flap and look behind it!

“Vent's right below where Ben was shot,” Max said. “Just beside the marks in the grass where the ladder had been propped against the house. Blood on both the phone and on the notebook.” Max was quiet, then, “That was Ben's last act, after he was shot? Hide evidence he thought was important, that he hoped we'd find?”

“Shoe photos?” Juana said. “The same photos I pieced together?”

“Apparently,” Max said. “Ben must have thought we'd find the
shoes
, find a match to the crime scene photos. Fingerprint the shoes, and we'd have our killer.”

Juana shook her head. “We've
been
checking the trash pickups, the Dumpsters, the landfill. Those two rookies weren't happy, digging through landfill. We've
got
shoes, cartons of running shoes. I went over them again this morning. Not one of them matches the crime scene photos or the shots I pieced together.”

 

19

E
arlier that morning
as Joe Grey had headed for MPPD, in the chill fog Kit and Pan sat with Misto on the dock, tucked up beside Mary in a warm blanket. The three cats watched John put out food and water for the ferals, watched the wild band approach warily the heap of blanket. But when they caught Mary's scent and the scent of the cats they knew, they relaxed and rubbed against the pilings and approached their food bowls greedily.

Misto, warm and purring, looked out at the incoming tide. In all his travels, he had followed, fascinated, the earth's waters. He had lived on the rough wharves among the commercial fishermen, had once gone to sea with a fishing crew, had watched the hungry waves climb the sides of the keeling boat. Had crouched belowdecks when waves crashed over the bridge, wanting to wash him away, wanting hungrily to drown them all, man and cat alike. He had wandered the land where small blue lakes gleamed among pine forests, had seen the giant osprey dive into diamond-­bright water and rise again, clutching silver trout in their talons. But best of all was right here, right now. The shore where, as a tiny kitten, he had waded in the white sand sinking deep, laughing at the incoming tide. He was once again where he was born, returned to this one perfect embrace of land and sea. Curled up between his son and Pan's lady, the old cat was content. This was the place of his birth, this was where he had been set down by eternity, and this was where he would enter up into that realm once again.

The three cats and Mary lingered for some time as John moved among the feral cats, petting those who were tame enough, talking to them all, making sure none was hurt or sick. The little party left the shore, heading home, in time for John's first clinic appointment.

In the bedroom Mary tucked the frail cat up among his blankets and again Kit and Pan settled beside him. As Misto drifted off into a nap, Pan dozed, too, content to be close. But Kit was content for only a little while. Soon she began to feel squirmy. She wanted to roll over but didn't want to wake anyone. She needed to move; she ached from doing nothing, from being still too long; she needed to run. At last, losing patience, she slipped silently out of the blankets and left the bedroom. She crossed the empty living room, swung on the knob of the front door, and kicked it open.

Outside in the fog she raced across the garden to the next cottage, scrambled up a vine, hit the roofs, and galloped north, bridging between cottages on twisted oak branches. She came down only to cross Ocean Avenue among the feet of wandering tourists, and then up again, up and down the peaks racing, working off steam. Part of her wildness was her very pain for Misto. Part was an explosion of longing for Lucinda and Pedric because she missed them terribly. Having talked with them on Wilma's phone she knew they were safe, but she wanted them
home
. Running in wild circles and from peak to peak, she wanted Dulcie beside her, too, but Dulcie wasn't up to chasing, not now. Leaping and gamboling and too full of herself, and then thinking again about the street attacks and wondering if there was new evidence and what Joe Grey might be finding, she headed for Molena Point PD.

D
etective Ray's office
was small, just space for Kathleen's desk, a visitor's chair, a tall and crowded bookshelf. Her desk faced the door, as an officer's desk always does. The walls were hung with groups of miniature paintings, sunny and unassuming. Watercolors were Kathleen's one quiet diversion from the pressure of the job. Billy Young, entering with the detective, moved away from the entrance, looking at the miniatures, enjoying the small, bright details of Molena Point's hills and woods and rocky shore.

Painting had eased Kathleen's stress as she worked as a model, too, before she left that world for the more honest company of cops in the small-­town department. Kathleen was dressed this morning in slim jeans and a faded tan sweatshirt, her dark hair tied back casually. Billy thought she would be beautiful even in rags. She was kind, too. Kind to Billy, to animals, to everyone. He stood beside her desk watching her lay out her equipment, watched her begin to lift fingerprints from Ben's cell phone and then from Ben's small, spiral-­bound notebook.

“Looks like only Ben's,” she said at last, glancing up at him. He was pleased that she'd allowed him to come on back and witness the procedure. “These will go on to the county lab, they might be able to bring up prints I can't, they have more sophisticated techniques.”

Billy nodded, he knew that. Once she'd lifted the prints, he watched her plug a USB connection into the cell phone and into her computer and download Ben's pictures. He bent over the screen beside her, looking. Most of the shots were of construction jobs, details of the Bleak cottage and of other projects before it. But some were of shoes, photos angled at the ground as if secretly and hastily captured. Kathleen paused over each of these, and enlarged and printed it. She lingered longest over those that showed a bit of tread mark in the earth beside the shoe itself. One grid in particular, with a scar across the waffle pattern, made her smile.

“This could get us somewhere,” she said happily, her smile eager and pleased.

Once she'd finished the photos and had fingerprinted the notebook, too, she leafed slowly through its pages, touching only the edges with her thin cotton gloves. “Notes and sketches of building details. Hardware, light fixtures. Make and model numbers.” Not until the back pages did she turn to the copy machine and make two sets of duplicates, five pages each. When Billy stepped up to look, she shook her head.

“I can't officially share these. You know that. Maybe later,” she said, “maybe the chief will. You
are
like his own kid.” And that made Billy blush.

Dropping the notebook and phone into evidence bags, she packed them up to be sent to the county lab. “The fingerprints, if they can sort out any others besides Ben's, those will go to IAFIS.”

“The digital database,” Billy said. Cop work was interesting. This last year was the first time in his life he'd thought about some kind of profession. As a little kid and before Gram died, he'd been too busy working to put food on the table, too busy taking care of his drunken grandmother to think of much else. Any job was welcome. He concentrated on doing things right, on keeping the animals well and happy and safe, and didn't think about his own future.

But now he was not only learning the building trade. Max had urged him into firearms training and self-­defense, too, into the police cadet class the department had started for a few of the village boys. The precision, the quick thinking and keen analysis of police work interested him a lot.

“Come on,” Kathleen said, slipping the phone's photo prints and her copies of the notebook pages into a file folder. “Let's take these into the conference room, lay the photos out where we can compare them.” Reaching for her desk phone she punched in the key to call Max.

K
it caught Joe
Grey's scent on the walk of MPPD. Peering through the glass door, she slipped in on the heels of three young officers—­she slid into the holding cell as another officer came in and two left walking with a clean-­shaven civilian in a suit and tie. A lawyer? Yes, he had that cool, superior look. Beyond the counter Evijean's faded hairdo was just visible beside the copy machine. Now, with the lobby empty, Kit flew to the base of the reception desk, slunk along beside it, and fled down the hall, keeping to the shadows, pressing against the molding where the chief's door stood cracked open.

His office was empty. She could smell where Joe Grey had rubbed against the woodwork, and could detect the horsey scent of the chief's boots, and the scents of Detectives Garza and Davis, but there was no one here now. When she heard voices across the hall she peered out; she watched Kathleen and Billy move up the hall to the conference room and inside, Kathleen carrying a brown envelope and some file folders. Padding in behind them, she watched Max and the three detectives and Billy folding the metal chairs and stacking them against the wall so they could move freely around the conference table. Dallas had shrugged off his corduroy jacket and laid it on the counter. Davis was making a pot of coffee. Joe Grey sat on the counter beside her. Joe was about to lie down on the folded corduroy coat when, catching Dallas's look, he changed his mind and turned away. When he saw Kit he flicked an ear, watched her slip into the shadows behind the trash bin.

From there, she leaped to the counter beside him. She stopped, startled, almost mewled with surprise. She studied the photos laid out on the table, shots of crime scenes, of the victims lying on the ground, an overturned wheelchair. And footprints. Pasted-­up pictures of part of a shoe, or part of a print. Kathleen was saying, “ . . . not one discarded shoe we collected matches up with the crime scene shots, and doesn't match with any of these that Ben took.”

Shoes!
Kit thought
.
They've been collecting . . . thrown-­away shoes?
Oh, my! The shoes that woman dropped in the Dumpster right by my house the night Pan and I got home! Does the department have those shoes?

Max had picked up two photographs and stood comparing them. These might be of the same shoe, one at an attack scene where an elderly woman sat leaning against a stone wall, the other just a fragment, beside a wooden porch. Might or might not be the same.

Kit stared at Max, curious and excited, then dropped from the counter and bolted out of the conference room. Racing past Evijean she barely skinned out the glass door as a civilian came in wheeling a baby.
Shoes. Thrown in a Dumpster. Shoes . . .

With all those photographs, with all four officers looking at footprints, she only prayed those thrown-­away shoes were still there, that the Dumpster had not been hauled away, that full-­to-­overflowing Dumpster full of dead leaves and branches—­and shoes.