Cat Deck The Halls

28

S AUNTERING INTO Molena Point PD behind tall bony Officer Crowley and little Officer Bean, Joe Grey endured the two officers ’usual joking remarks about freeloading cats, and leaped up onto the dispatcher’s counter, where he lingered for a session of Mabel’s skilled ear scratching. Mabel Farthy had cats of her own, she knew what a cat liked.

“You are a freeloader,” she said softly. “But what would the world be without a few bums-charming bums,” she said, seeing his sudden glance. “Sometimes, Joe Grey, I could swear you understand me.”

And sometimes, Joe thought, I need to be more careful, not telegraph my thoughts just because I like someone! Mabel turned away when three calls came in on a fender bender. And Joe, thankful for the diversion, dropped off the counter again, leaving Mabel to her phones and radios.

Strolling on down the hall to where Harper’s office lights were burning, he could hear Max and Dallas talking. The room smelled of leather and gun oil. Behind his desk, Harper looked up when Joe entered, a twisted smile starting at the corner of his mouth-a smile he reserved for cryptic jokes and nosy tomcats.

Leaping to the desk, Joe gave Harper a preoccupied but friendly look, then stepped boldly past the chief’s shoulder into the bookcase as if this office were his space, as if he, Joe Grey, ran the show here.

Harper turned to look at him, the wrinkle in his cheek deepening, then he continued with what he’d been saying. Joe looked at Harper, and down at Dallas, with bored annoyance, as if hoping they’d shut up and allow him to have a nap. Harper was saying, “…came in to bring me a set of prints.” He explained to Dallas how Lucinda had gotten the clay shards, that she had seen the woman drop the pot, and when the woman left, she’d retrieved it. “Wearing clean gardening gloves,” Max said, grinning. “I got a positive from AFIS right away.”

“Well, that’s a first.”

“Prints belong to a Betty Wicken. One conviction for attacking a police officer with a butcher knife as he arrested her brother. This was in Eugene. Ralph Wicken was arrested for attempted kidnapping of a nine-year-old girl. Kid snatched his car keys, slashed him in the face with them, and ran. Dropped the keys in a storm drain.”

Dallas smiled with appreciation.

“Ralph got a year,” Max said with disgust. “A year earlier he’d kidnapped a ten-year-old girl. She was rescued within hours, and wasn’t molested. Parents dropped the changes.”

The officers looked at each other and shook their heads, that silent, disgusted look that Joe knew well. Of all the crimes on the books, the molesting of a child was the most heinous; and when people withdrew charges or tried to protect such a criminal, they joined in the guilt and cruelty.

“Ralph has a dozen arrests for trespassing and loitering around school yards,” Max said, “but no convictions. One arrest for enticement on the Web, that never went to trial. Reports say the guy isn’t too bright. Apparently the sister intercedes wherever she can, tries every way to keep him out of jail, keep him from getting in trouble.”

Max rose to refill his coffee cup, and returned to his chair. “Greenlaws’ intruder was back in the house, this morning. Lucinda went down and talked with her.”

“She didn’t,” Dallas said, shaking his head.

Max laid out the tale that Evina Woods had told Lucinda, the events in Arkansas, Evina watching the Eugene rental then following the Wickens to California. Evina’s stubborn belief that Leroy Huffman had either abducted or killed her niece.

“We have only Evina Woods’s story,” Max said. “I called the sheriff in Arkansas. When I finally got him on the phone, he was less than friendly, pretty noncommittal. Said the niece, Marlie James, disappeared, but a body had never been found. He didn’t say they looked for her. Said she was eighteen, of legal age, which seems to be stretching it a bit. Said the story around town was she’d run off with some guy. He said she was pretty loose.

“That’s not how Lucinda told the story, not how she said Evina described the girl. Evina said a missing report was filed with the sheriff and then with the D.A. I have a call in for the D.A.” Max leaned back in his chair. “So we have no warrant on Leroy Huffman. And no outstanding warrant for Betty Wicken, and nothing outstanding on her brother.”

“Not enough to arrest him as an unregistered molester?” Dallas said.

Max shook his head. “We have enough, with those photographs of the Home and children, to bring him in on suspicion.”

“Where’s our Jane Doe?” Dallas said.

“Sand and McFarland took her up to the seniors’. McFarland is watching the place, keeping out of sight. There’s no connection yet between Ralph Wicken and the little girl, but this makes me uneasy.”

Dallas nodded. “You want me to talk with Evina Woods? See if I can turn up anything more?”

“I think…” Max began, when the dispatcher buzzed him.

“Captain, there’s a call on your line you’ll want to take,” Mabel said. Harper pressed the speaker button. When a woman’s voice came on, Joe went rigid, thinking that Dulcie, after all, was calling Harper about the blue van. But then, listening, the tomcat hid a smile.

Evina Woods wanted to come in. She told Harper she’d only take a few minutes, maybe half an hour, but really needed to talk with him. Joe didn’t know what had changed her mind, but he eased deeper into the bookshelf, intending to hear it all. Max told Evina to come on ahead, and it wasn’t five minutes later that he rose from his desk and went up to the front to meet her.

He escorted her back to his office, walking behind her, asked her to take a seat, and offered her coffee. She refused the coffee, sat rigidly on the edge of the leather chair, laying her purse on a small table near her right hand. Both officers watched the purse and watched her movements. Joe, sharing their wariness, leaped down and wandered around the table, taking a good sniff at the handbag.

He smelled lipstick, orange Life Savers, old leather that was the purse itself. No gun oil. Nothing that smelled to him threatening. Strolling under the credenza, he lay down, well aware of Dallas Garza’s puzzled glance. Rolling over on his back and rumbling a purr, he dangled all four paws in the air-a pose of amusing and beguiling charm that the tomcat had learned from Kit and that, for some reason, always made humans smile. Eyes closed, he could feel the officers study him for a moment before they turned back to Evina.

“This is about the break-and-enter?” Max said.

“The Greenlaws…” Evina gave the chief a direct look. “They’ve given me permission to stay there for a few days. Lucinda…both of them, they’re really nice people, more than nice. Lucinda loaned me some towels and a cot, and told me to turn the heat up so I’d be comfortable.”

“Lucinda came in, this morning,” Max said. “She told us what you told her, about the Wickens, and Leroy Huffman.”

Evina nodded. “I came in, now, because I just talked to my sister. Beryl called my cell phone, about half an hour ago. So strange,” she said, “here I am way out here on the opposite coast, and we don’t call long distance. It’s all local.”

She looked at Max and then at Dallas, and her voice went quiet. “They found…Arkansas Bureau of Investigation found my niece last night. Found her body.”

She was silent a moment, swallowing. “An ABI agent found Marlie in the woods, five miles north of town. She…” She had to stop again, to get control.

Max said, “The sheriff didn’t call us, as I asked him to. I’m waiting for a call from the D.A.”

“The sheriff wouldn’t call. But the D.A…” She went silent as Mabel appeared in the doorway. The comfortably built blonde stepped in just far enough to hand Max a sheet of paper. Joe could smell the scent of the fax machine. Max looked up at Evina, nodding. “Your county D.A.”

“Does he tell you how she was…That she was buried under…” She couldn’t talk for a few minutes. She said at last, “Buried under the remains of a dead deer?” She looked forlornly at the officers. “So…Maybe so dogs wouldn’t track her scent?”

When Evina reached for her purse, both men came alert. Seeing their concern, she unzipped the bag and handed it to Dallas. “There’s a plastic bag in there, with a pair of Marlie’s panties. I…brought it with me for the DNA. In case…I thought…if her body was found here, that might prove that Leroy…” She was trying hard not to cry.

Dallas withdrew the clear plastic freezer bag. “If this matches up with anything on Leroy’s clothes…” He glanced at Harper.

Max nodded. “Go pick him up, Dallas. Bring him in as a person of interest.”

Joe, seeing the pitiful little cotton panties and Evina’s distress, felt his claws digging hard into the rug. Evina smiled at Max, as if she was grateful someone in law enforcement seemed to want to help, seemed to be straight with her. Then suddenly she burst into hard, wrenching sobs. Dallas sat down beside her and put his arm around her.

She looked up at him at last, gulping. “For the first time,” she choked. “Some…someone…who listens. Well, Mrs. Greenlaw did, but…A cop who listens, and cares. Thank you,” she whispered.

It took Joe Grey a while, after everyone left the office and turned out the light, to stop feeling teary, himself. Evina’s reaction to simple decency nearly undid the tomcat. He had just slipped out from under the credenza when Dulcie and Kit appeared in the doorway looking hot and harried.

“Come on,” Dulcie said. “They’re moving the playhouse earlier than Cora Lee thought. The truck’s headed for the school, and so are Cora Lee and the girls. Kit was at the seniors’, and-”

“And the little girl was there,” Kit said, “with Officer Sand, and Cora Lee was reading her a picture book about Christmas with alligators and then they loaded the playhouse on a truck and had milk and pie and when the truck and car left I came over the roofs to get Dulcie and then we…The Wickens will be there by now with the blue van. Come on, Joe.” And she spun away, Joe and Dulcie following her out of the darkened office and down the hall, Joe yowling at Mabel to let them out.

Mabel scolded him for his impatience as she hurried to open the front door, looking puzzled that they were in such a swivet. The cats galloped through, scorched up the overhanging oak to the roof, and took off for the Patty Rose Orphans’ Home, not really caring, at that moment, what Mabel might be thinking.