Cat Spitting Mad (17 page)

They tried again, with the kit pushing too—she was stronger than she looked—but the bolt seemed frozen in place.

“We need help,” Dulcie said, licking her bruised paws, crouching to race up the stairs—flying to the kitchen, to knock the phone from its cradle.

C
harlie was
so scared she was almost sick. Parking around the corner from the duplex, she left the van's street-side door open as she'd been instructed. She didn't fear Crystal, she feared whoever had killed the Marners and would be looking for Dillon. Dulcie said that already Officer Wendell had come prowling, in a way that was more than suspicious.

Hurrying along the dark street, she looked warily into the black interiors of the scattered cars parked against the curb, ready to run if someone stepped out to grab her. But despite her fear, she had to smile. She felt like Alice Through the Looking Glass for sure, stumbling around in the night, following orders from a cat.

Quickly up Crystal's drive into the shadows, she moved along the side of the garage until she found the pedestrian entrance, a black rectangle where the door stood open. She could see nothing within. Clutching the hammer that she had pulled from her toolbox, she wondered if she'd be quick enough to use it if someone grabbed her.

A voice from inside made her jump. “She's across the garage,” Dulcie said. “Under the stairs. We couldn't slide the bolt—we finally did loosen this one. Hurry. Crystal's gone, you can use your flashlight. Oh, hurry.”

Flipping on her flashlight, softly pulling closed the door behind her, she fled across behind Dulcie, her light sweeping across washer and dryer and furnace, pausing on the door beneath the stairs.

She slid the bolt. The door flew open in her face, knocking her backward. Dillon hit her in a tackle that sent her sprawling, the girl's shoulder in her stomach. She couldn't get her breath.

“Get off, Dillon. It's me—it's Charlie.” For a thirteen-year-old, the kid was strong. Fighting for her life, she crouched over Charlie, punching, blind with fear. When Charlie grabbed her hands, Dillon kneed her in the stomach, broke her grip, and ran, taking the stairs two at a time. She was halfway across the apartment when Charlie caught her, grabbing Dillon's red hair, upsetting the coffee table, nearly strangling the child before she got her stopped.

“Hold still! Be still! It's all
right.
I'm getting you out of here. Away from here. I'll hide you.”

“That's what
she
said.”

“Stop it! I'm Clyde's friend—Harper's friend—you know that!”

Dillon stared at her, didn't know her well enough to trust her. Charlie wished she'd brought Wilma. “I'll explain when we're out of here. Explain as much as I know. We—I think there's more than one person want
ing to kill you.” She scanned the apartment, half expecting Crystal to appear.

“Just let me go. Let me go home.”

“I can't.” Dragging the child, Charlie stepped to the windows.

The drive below was empty. There were no new cars on the street. “Come on.”

“Where? I don't want—”

“My place. You can hide at my place.”

“Take me to the cops or I won't go! Captain Harper will—”

Charlie held her shoulders, looking down at her. “Harper is under suspicion for your kidnapping. And for the murder of Ruthie and Helen Marner. We know he didn't do it. It gets complicated. You'll have to trust me. If you want to save yourself and help Harper, we need to get out of here.”

“Just take me to the station. Is that so hard? Take me to Max Harper.” The kid was incredibly stubborn, not nearly as mild-mannered as her parents. Had Harper taught her that, to stand up for what she wanted like that?

“Harper isn't at the station. He's taken administrative leave.
He
can't hide you. How would it look if you turned up at his place, when some people think he kidnapped you?”

“
He didn't! Harper didn't kidnap me!
He
didn't kill them!
”

“I know that. That's why you're in danger. That's why Crystal kidnapped you. Because you're the only witness.”

“But Crystal rescued me from that man.”

“What man? The killer? Who is he?”

“I didn't know him. It was nearly dark. I thought at first it was Captain Harper. It wasn't. It happened so fast.”

A car came up the street. Crystal's black convertible, turning up the steep drive, its lights sweeping across the windows. Charlie pulled her away from the glass.

“Dillon, Crystal's been in touch with the man we think killed them. We think she's using you to blackmail him. That when she's done with you, when you're no use to her, she means to kill you.”

“I don't—”

As the garage door rumbled open, Charlie pulled her out the front door, dragged her running down the steps as the overhead door closed again. Charlie couldn't remember whether she'd shut the door under the stairs. They ran, Charlie holding Dillon's arm, racing down the street and around the corner, falling into the van.

She didn't switch on her lights; she hit the overhead for only a second, staring into the back among the ladders and cleaning equipment.

Three pairs of eyes shone back at her. She doused the light and took off, spinning a fast U-turn as Dillon crouched on the seat, her hand on the door handle. Charlie jerked her hand away.

“If you don't trust me, you trust Wilma. I'll take you there.”

Something furry brushed by Charlie's cheek and landed in Dillon's lap, purring.

“Dulcie!” She hugged Dulcie, stroking her, nicely distracted. “Why are the cats with you?”

“I'm cat-sitting.”

“You brought them
with
you? Into…?”

“They—followed me when I left, and I couldn't take the time to get them back inside.”

Dillon looked at Charlie hard-eyed and skeptical. “How come you're here? What made you come here? How did you know where I was?”

“I—you won't believe this.”

“Try.”

She glanced over at Dillon. “I had a dream. I dreamed of you and Crystal and a locked door.” Charlie looked again at the child, trying for a gaze of wide-eyed innocence.

“No. I don't believe that.”

Charlie sighed. Did the kid have to be so tough-minded? She thought as she pulled up in front of Wilma's darkened house.

“I'll just get out,” Dillon said. “I'll wake her.”

“In the dark? Alone?” She reached behind the child, and punched the lock. “With Crystal and the killer looking for you? I don't think so.” She gave Dillon a steady look. “We think he's been watching Wilma's house for you. She's seen a strange car cruising.”

Dillon hesitated, her eyes questioning, holding Dulcie tight in her arms the way a smaller child would hold a teddy bear.

Charlie looked at the black yard, at the looming bushes and trees. “How about we bring Wilma with us?” Charlie handed her the cell phone. “Call her, wake her up. Tell her we're out here. See if she'll come.”

Dillon just looked at her.

Charlie took the phone, dialed Wilma's number.

Dillon's brown eyes searched Charlie's. Her red hair was lank, needed washing.

The phone kept ringing.

Dillon said, “I want to see Harper. That man was dressed like him. And he was riding Bucky. I thought—when he first came up the trail, came over the ridge, I thought—we all thought it was the captain. I waved to him and shouted, and he…”

Dillon stared at Charlie, her eyes wide and expressionless.

“Did he hurt you?”

“I got away. He was…So much blood. And their screams…I—Redwing got me away.” Dillon bent over Dulcie, hugging her so hard Dulcie couldn't breathe.

Charlie sat idling the engine, letting the phone ring and ring, watching Wilma's dark windows, and watching ahead and in her rearview mirror for car lights. Or for a car without lights creeping up the street. Why didn't Wilma answer? She never stayed out this late. Charlie wanted to get out and bang on the door, look in the garage to see if her car was gone. But she wasn't leaving Dillon.

She hung up at last. She was redialing when a black Mercedes came around the corner, no lights, heading straight for them.

Crystal was not alone. Beside her in the open car sat a tall man that Charlie didn't know. As the car slid against the van, Crystal's passenger leveled a large-caliber revolver at them, first picking out Dillon, then moving a quarter inch so his sights were on Charlie.

T
he gun
aimed at Charlie's face looked as big as a cannon. Had to be a .45 caliber. The man's hands wrapped around it were thin and long. He had a thin face, dark eyes, short dark hair. Aiming at her, he kept both eyes open in the manner of an experienced shooter. Was this Lee Wark? Stubby Baker? Or someone she'd never heard of? She couldn't stop looking at the gun. He waved the barrel, motioning for Dillon to get out. Dillon didn't move. Dulcie had vanished, sliding to the back of the van. Charlie couldn't help looking at the man's long fingers overlapped around the revolver, at his one finger curved tight to the trigger.

“I want the girl! Now! Both of you—out of the van!”

Charlie stomped on the gas and jerked the wheel hard, crashing the van into the Mercedes in a metal-screeching sideswipe that threw the shooter off-balance and dropped Dillon to the floor. She took off, burning rubber. “Dial the cops! Dial them now! Nine-one-one. Do it!”

But Dillon was already dialing.

A yowl of protest rose from the backseat.

“Shut up,” Charlie snapped. “One more sound, Joe Grey, and I'll pitch you out the window.”

She took the corner on two wheels, her rearview mirrors blazing with lights careening behind her.

“There's static!” Dillon shouted. “I can't make them understand. They can't—Was that a tire? Did we blow a tire?”

“Duck!” Charlie shoved Dillon under the dash as another shot boomed. Four more explosions. Dillon hit the redial. Charlie took a corner so fast she thought she'd topple the van. They were in the middle of the village; she prayed no one was on the streets. She was heading for the police station when a siren screamed behind them. She gave it the gas, watching in the mirror as a black-and-white wedged the Mercedes against a parked truck.

“Give me the phone. Watch behind us. Tell me what's happening!”

Shoving the phone at her, Dillon fled between the seats to the back of the van, where she could see. “It's Officer Wendell. Alone in the patrol car. He hasn't made them get out. My God, he's just standing there talking to them. Just
talking
! No, he's getting back in his unit.
Letting them go.
Charlie, he's letting them go. What kind of cop…?”

Charlie turned up Ocean fast, without lights. “Is Crystal coming after us?”

“No, she…Yes. Step on it, she's coming.”

She made a fast right. “Where's Wendell?”

“Turned left back there.”

Was Wendell trying to cut them off? Charlie swung another right, into the narrow, unlit alley behind Beckwhite Automotive. Parking in the blackest shadows, she punched a one-digit code into the phone, listened to it ring and ring. When finally Clyde answered, she was shouting, couldn't make herself speak softly. She didn't think her plan would work, but she didn't know what else to do. She glanced up at Dillon.

“Stay here. Stay down.”

Keeping low, she moved out of the van to a wide, sliding door in the back of the building. Using her flashlight long enough to punch three numbers into its digital lock, she slid the door back. Why didn't Clyde have an automatic door?

But why would he? This wasn't the main garage, only the paint shop. She could smell the automotive enamel, sharp and unpleasant. Running out again, she fell into the van, and they roared into the dark building.

 

Three cars left the big garage. The first, an old green Plymouth running with only parking lights, turned toward Ocean. Clyde drove slowly, slipping around the darkest corners until he saw Crystal's Mercedes pull away from the curb where it had been parked with the lights out—as if watching for a car, any car, to come out of the dead-end alley. As Crystal settled in to follow, he concentrated on some fancy driving, as if seriously trying to lose her.

The other two vehicles left by a different route, running dark, heading east toward the hills. The dull, primer-coated BMW, reflecting no light, might have
been only the ghost of a car. It turned northeast. Behind it, the black station wagon headed south.

Crossing above the Highway 1 tunnel, the BMW sped up into the hills, its driver and four passengers enjoying the luxury of the soft leather seats. Dillon and the kit were snuggled together next to the driver, in a warm blanket, Dillon half asleep, so tired that even fear couldn't keep her awake. Joe and Dulcie prowled from front seat to back, peering out, watching for approaching vehicles.

Neither cat saw the black station wagon double back to follow them where it would not be seen.

Moving higher along the narrow winding road, soon they had gained the long, overgrown drive into the Pamillon estate. Charlie wiggled the car in between the detritus of tumbled walls and dead oak trees, parking behind a ragged mass of broom bushes. Only when she cut the engine did she hear another car directly behind them, the sound of its motor bringing her up, ready to take off again.

Then she saw it was Harper. She had already cocked the .38 Clyde had given her, when they switched cars at the shop. Easing the hammer down, she holstered it and nudged the sleeping child. “Come on, it's Harper. Guess he decided to come with us—guess he lost Crystal. You okay? You remember how to get down there?”

Yawning, Dillon bundled out of the van and took Harper's hand. “We have to go through the house.” The cats streaked out of the van behind her, pressing close to Charlie's heels. When Harper saw them, he did such a classic double take that Joe almost laughed.

Charlie looked at Harper blankly. “They were in the van, I didn't have time to get them out.”

“They changed cars with you fast enough.”

“I couldn't leave them in the shop, Max. Those paint fumes would have killed them; cats can't take that stuff.”

Harper scowled at her and didn't point out that she could have let the cats out of the shop, that they'd been only a few blocks from home.

He looked down at Dillon. “What makes you so sure Crystal won't think you'd come here?”

“She found me here. Down where we're going. I was so scared, nearly in hysterics. So scared I couldn't talk.”

“Then why…?”

Dillon looked up at him. “Later when I sassed her, she threatened to bring me back here—to leave me alone down there. I got hysterical. She thinks—I hope she thinks—I'd do anything to keep from coming here.”

Harper grinned. “Good girl. And you're not scared to hide down there again?”

“Not with you here.”

Harper made a sound halfway between a grumble and a laugh. Charlie glanced at him, wishing she could see his face.

Moving deeper in through the fallen limbs and dense growth and heaps of adobe bricks, Harper used his torch sparingly, turning it to a thin, low beam that the night seemed to swallow. Listening for any sound behind them, Charlie and Harper kept Dillon close be
tween them. The three cats padded very close, pushing against Charlie's ankles, Joe and Dulcie peering into the grainy shadows, expecting to see yellow eyes flame suddenly in the torchlight. They might envy the king of cats, but they had no desire to be hors d'oeuvres. The kit, though staying close, seemed more fascinated than scared.

“Talk,” Harper said as they moved in between the fallen walls. “Talk loud and bold. If the big cat's around, he won't bother three big, loud humans. Walk tall, Dillon.”

Dillon stood straighter, holding tightly to Harper's arm, reaching several times to direct his light.

“Is it the old bomb shelter?” Harper said. “Is that where we're heading?”

“I guess that's what it is. It has bunks, scraps of blanket the mice have chewed up, old cans of food all swollen like they'll explode. It's down beside the root and canning cellars. Part of the roof has caved in, but you can hide back underneath.”

“I know the place.” He didn't sound thrilled.

“You've been down there,” Charlie said.

“Didn't hang around. Those crumbling walls and stairs…” He shone his light among the standing walls of the house as if looking for an alternative place to hide Dillon.

This was not, Joe thought, an orthodox way for a chief of police to be rescuing a kidnapped child.

Which only pointed up that he, Joe Grey, was not the only one who mistrusted Wendell.

He hated that, hated the thought of corruption
among Harper's cops—corruption aimed straight at the captain.

And, like Max Harper, Joe wondered if it was smart to take refuge in a confining cellar where they might have only one route of escape.

Beside him, Dulcie was tense and watchful. But the kit padded along eagerly, listening to every tiniest sound, big-eyed with the thrill of adventure.

Charlie said, “I don't like it that Wilma didn't answer her phone.”

Harper didn't seem concerned. “Maybe she unplugged it. She does that sometimes.”

Charlie glanced down at Dulcie. Dulcie blinked in agreement.

“Here,” Dillon said. “In the old kitchen, the stairs are here. They're crumbly.”

As they started down, the cats caught the old, fading scent of puma. The stairway led down to a long, low-ceilinged cellar with thick adobe walls and heavy roof timbers, a chilly cavern that had been used for canning and root storage, in the days when families had to be self-sufficient. The human's footsteps echoed. Joe didn't like this descending into the earth; it made his paws sweat.

He'd never liked tight places, not since his San Francisco days of narrow, dead-end alleys where his only escape from mean-minded street kids was often down into some stinking cellar, with no idea whether the boys would follow him or not.

Dillon walked leaning against Charlie, nearly asleep on her feet, her head nodding, the blanket from the
BMW that Charlie had wrapped around her half fallen off and slipping to the ground.

A door at the back of the long cellar led through a thick wall and down four more steps to the old World War II air raid shelter, its roof and one wall fallen in, open to the kitchen, above.

“When I hid here before,” Dillon said, “I thought maybe a cougar wouldn't prowl so deep. That maybe he wouldn't come down here?”

“No sensible beast would come down here,” Harper told her. “A cougar doesn't use caves. They want to see around them.”

Right on,
Joe thought, exchanging a look with Dulcie.
No sensible beast, only humans. And cats stupid enough to follow humans.

But the kit padded ahead of them, all pricked ears and switching tail, looking about her bright-eyed at the mysterious and enchanting depths, her hunger for adventure and for deep, earthen places supplanting all caution.

The very tales that made Joe shiver, the old Celtic myths that spoke of wonders he didn't care to know about, drew the kit. The old Irish tales of a land beneath the earth, and of cats who could change to humans. The kit thrived on those stories; she hungered for the kind of tales that made Joe Grey cross.

She's young,
Joe thought.
Too young. Too trusting. Way too curious
. Padding behind Harper's beam into the black maw of the air raid shelter, he felt he was stepping into a gaping and hungry mouth.

The shelter had had two rooms. Where the first had
caved in, they could see the ruins, above, and the clear night sky.

The door frame of the second, roofed portion still stood. The heavy plank door had been ripped off and lay on its side across the opening, barring the lower half. Behind it, someone had pulled a rusty set of shelves across, to further block the entrance. The shelves still held ancient cans of food, rusted tight to the metal surfaces.

Harper moved the shelf unit aside, glancing questioningly at Dillon.

“I pushed it there. Like a fence—it was all I had.”

He swept his light across the small concrete room. “I can't believe these three cats have come down here with us. Sometimes they act more like dogs than cats.”

Joe and Dulcie exchanged a look. He wished he could give Harper an answer to that one.

Within the closed, damp room, they could smell the fresh scent of cougar, his trail coming down the earth slide, a track newly laid within the last few days. The kit backed away from the scent, her eyes huge, and patted at a lone pawprint in the loose earth.

Perhaps the young male had come here out of curiosity, had come down into the excavation to look and to mark, the way a cougar would investigate a new house under construction, stopping to spray the open, studded walls, to sniff at a hammer or at bent nails or at an empty beer can left behind by the building crew—leaving his pawprints for the carpenters to wonder and laugh over, and perhaps feel the cold sting of fear.

Joe, imagining the cougar padding down that insubstantial earth slide, didn't know he was growling.

“What?” Charlie said, kneeling before him. “Has someone been here?”

Joe laid back his ears, giving her a toothy snarl.

“Cougar?” Charlie said, her eyes widening. “Has the cougar been here?”

Joe's eyes on Charlie told her all he needed to say.

Charlie rose to face the door and the open pit beyond, her hand resting on the .38.