Cat Fear No Evil

28

The binoculars had been Joe's idea. Clyde had to admit, the 7X35 lenses gave him a sharp, almost intimate view through the third-floor window of the condo where Consuela and the uniformed officer stood talking. "I don't see the plainclothes guy."

"See the cat?"

"Not a sign of him."

That made Joe nervous. "What are they doing in there? Wish you could lip read. Why don't you call Harper, see if he got the warrant, see if that's what this is about."

Clyde lowered the binoculars, looking at Joe. "Harper doesn't need to know I'm here. And how would I know about a warrant?"

"Just play dumb. Tell him you came up to the city because you were worried about Kate-tell him the truth, Clyde. He doesn't need to know what else you're interested in, or where you are at this particular moment."

"So when I tell him I came up to see Kate, he's going to offer gratis information about a search being conducted by San Francisco PD?"

"Feel him out, draw him out. You can do that. Maybe those guys are just fishing-that's more than we had time to do."

Their plan had been to walk through the complex trying to see into the garages that occupied the first floor beneath the apartments. They'd thought maybe there'd be windows in the back. But they hadn't had time to look for the Packard before they saw Consuela and the black tomcat, and then the cops showed. Now, as the uniformed officer moved out of sight, Clyde's cell phone rang.

"Damen," he said softly. Then, "Where are you?"

Joe leaped to the back of the seat to press his ear to the phone. Kate was saying, "We're at Ghirardelli Square for breakfast, waiting for our order. I've made an appointment with an appraiser, for Lucinda's jewelry, just before noon. I just stepped outside to do that, and to check my messages; the gardens are so beautiful. What's this about your car? Where are you?"

"Just up from you, opposite the yacht harbor. Do you- Hold on."

Above them in the condo, Consuela had left the window. But the black cat had appeared at the other end of the condo on a balcony. Clyde felt Joe's claws digging into his shoulder as together they watched Azrael climb up a bougainvillea vine, clawing his way toward the roof. The black cat moved slowly, dragging something heavy that was dangling from his clenched teeth. "What is that thing?" Clyde said. "Something blue. Looks like a woman's purse."

On the phone, Kate gasped, "That's…"

But Joe was out the window, slashing Clyde's hand when Clyde tried to grab him, dropping to the street behind a passing car. He could hear Kate shouting into the phone as Clyde bailed out behind him, swerving into the path of a cab. Joe was safely across when tires squealed, and then Clyde was across, yelling as Joe headed for the end of the building where a pine tree rose, as bare as a telephone pole, its high, faraway branches brushing the roof where Azrael had disappeared.

Storming up the tree, Joe leaped for the roof, his claws scrabbling and slipping on the slick, rounded tiles. Ahead of him among a maze of heating vents and chimneys a black tail flashed and was gone. Watching for the tomcat to show again, Joe studied the shadows among the rooftop machinery.

Joe waited for some time, then slipped in among the pipes and wire mesh boxes, sniffing the air. All he could detect was the smell of machine oil, ocean, and fish from the wharves.

But then, where the shadows of two chimneys converged, he saw a faint movement. He remained still, his heart pounding.

Azrael appeared suddenly, leaping to the top of a wire cage. Dropping the blue bag between his paws, he hunched low over it, watching Joe. Crouched in attack mode, his amber eyes were slitted, his teeth bared. At this moment, against the sky, he looked as huge and fierce as if the beast did, indeed, bear the blood of jaguars as he boasted.

Warily, Joe approached him. As he rounded on Azrael, he heard from the apartment below a crash that sounded like furniture breaking, heard Consuela swear, then a softer thud, and one of the cops shouted. At the same instant, Joe made a flying leap onto the mesh box and straight into Azrael's claws. Burying his teeth in the tomcat's shoulder, he bit and raked, ripping his hind claws down Azrael's side. Azrael, twisting with the power of a thrashing boa, bit into Joe's belly. Below them glass shattered, a cop barked an order, and then silence, sudden and complete.

Coming at Joe with all the screaming power of an enraged jaguar, Azrael slashed at Joe's face; Joe tasted blood. Clawing at each other, the two toms slid across the tiles rolling and scrabbling. And as Joe leaped for the black cat's throat, the pounding of hard shoes came running, sliding, and Clyde loomed over them, diving for Azrael. Azrael gave a violent surge that hurled Joe sideways, slashed Clyde's arm, and twisted out of Clyde's hands, snatching the bag where it had fallen among the shadows. Weighted by his burden, Azrael sailed off the roof into the overhanging branches of the pine and was gone, scorching down in a shower of pine bark. Joe streaked down after him, hitting the ground with a thud that knocked his wind out. Already Azrael was half a block away flashing through the condo gardens and up the hill at the back, his neck bowed sideways as he dragged the blue suede bag. As Joe leaped after him, he heard Clyde running across the roof above, and down wooden stairs somewhere at the back.

And as Joe fled after the black tom, intent on Kate's vanishing jewels, down the coast in Molena Point, Dulcie and Kit lay quietly in Detective Juana Davis's office observing a material witness to the death of James Quinn. Listening to the woman who, though in part responsible for the real estate agent's demise, seemed without knowledge of that fact.

Dulcie lay curled in Juana's in box as unmoving as a sleek toy cat. Across the desk from her, the kit lay sprawled across a stack of reports, belly up, fluffy tail dangling over the edge of the desk, her long fur tumbled in all directions like a ragged fur piece. Detective Davis sat at her desk between the two cats, apparently amused by the pair, making no effort to evict them. Across from her, settled at one end of the couch, Helen Thurwell looked up at Davis, calm, composed, and puzzled.

"I thought I'd told Detective Garza everything that might help," Helen was saying. "It wasn't much, but… you're still thinking that it might not have been an accident? That someone killed James?"

Neither cat opened her eyes. Neither cat allowed her ears to rotate following the conversation. Both seemed deeply under, twitching occasionally as if wandering somewhere among mysterious feline dreams.

"I understand that this is painful," Juana was saying. "But I believe you can help. Quinn was your partner for how many years?"

"Nearly ten years," Helen said. "He was a good partner, always careful in his record keeping, always cordial and considerate of our clients, never impatient with them-never stepping on my toes in a transaction. You don't work with someone that long, and that closely, and not grow to care for them."

"No one is suggesting that there was any problem between you."

Dulcie slitted her eyes open just enough to watch Davis. Juana Davis was a no-nonsense sort of woman in her fifties, squarely built, with dark hair and dark eyes. She was a steady, commonsense person, but along the way she hadn't lost her sympathy for another human being. She was just very selective as to who deserved it. Dulcie thought that Juana was still making up her mind about Helen Thurwell.

On a hunch, Dulcie unwound herself from the in box, sat up yawning, and leaped to the couch to settle down beside Helen, curling up close to her, to see what she would do.

Davis's couch was old, tweed-covered, and smelled of cocker spaniel from some past life before she bought it at the Pumpkin Coach Charity Shop. The city did not pay for items the city fathers considered luxury purchases. Dulcie didn't see why a couch would be considered a luxury; but then, she wasn't the city manager. On the coffee table before Helen lay a thick briefcase. Before she reached for her files, Helen turned to stroke Dulcie.

She seemed to know how to pet a cat, so gentle and reassuring that Dulcie began to purr. Interesting that Helen wasn't this reassuring with her daughter-but then, maybe petting an animal helped to ease Helen's tension. And dealing with her daughter did not?

When at last Helen opened the briefcase, she removed a large black ledger. "This was what you wanted? The record of my work days?" Rising, she passed the ledger across the desk.

Juana opened it, studied several pages, and nodded. "Do all real estate agents keep this kind of record?"

Helen shook her head. "The agent who trained me, the man I worked with when I first started out, he taught me to do that. He'd had a court case once where he had to testify about the specific circumstances of a sale. I guess it got pretty ugly. He couldn't be sure of some of the times involved and, as it was a murder case, he felt he hadn't been very helpful.

"Some of our documents are marked with the time of signing as well as dated; others are not. In a case like his, he'd had to go through them all, do the best he could to remember specifics. After that, he began to keep a log. He trained me to do that, and I've done it ever since." Helen looked at Juana inquiringly.

Rising, Juana moved to the credenza. Turning over two clean cups, she poured fresh coffee from a Krups coffeemaker. "Cream and sugar?"

"Neither please. Just black."

Setting one mug on the coffee table and the other on her desk, Juana picked up a sheaf of photocopies that lay on the blotter and stood looking down at Helen. "These are copies of the pages of a notebook." Juana handed the papers to Helen. "The original pages had been ripped in quarters. We taped them together and made copies, then locked them in the evidence room. Do you recognize the handwriting?"

Helen examined the first few pages. "It's James's handwriting. But these entries… these are the names of my clients." She looked up at Juana. "We both had our own clients. We simply worked backup for each other." She examined several more pages.

"I think these are the dates that offers were made, or maybe that a client went into escrow. I'd have to check the ledger." She looked up at Juana. "I don't understand. Why would James keep this? This information is all recorded in my ledger. And in the various papers that are on file."

"You notice the little symbols before each entry? What are those?"

Helen shook her head. "I don't know. Asterisk. Pound sign. Circle. Repeated over and over. I haven't any idea. I don't understand why James would keep any kind of list of my clients."

"Can you find any pattern? Remember any special circumstances about these particular meetings? Would the symbols indicate whether you met with the client in the office, or somewhere else? Whether anyone besides your office associates was present? Anything at all out of the ordinary?"

Helen studied the entries for some time, sipping her coffee. When she reached absently to pet Dulcie again, her hand had grown tense and cold. She sat a minute with her eyes closed, as if thinking. As if trying to remember, perhaps to make sure of something. When she looked up at Juana, her hand had grown very still on Dulcie's fur. And her cheeks were flushed.

"I think… I'm pretty sure there was someone in the office during each of these transactions."

Juana sat watching Helen, her square, tanned face impassive. Helen's hand on Dulcie's shoulder was so tense that under other circumstances Dulcie would have risen and moved away. Helen said, "Marlin Dorriss was… was in the office during each of these meetings. I'm sure of it. Waiting for me somewhere in the office."

Juana continued to watch her, in silence.

"Sometimes, he'd be sitting reading in a client's chair, beside some empty desk. Sometimes in one of the chairs against the wall just beyond my desk. You know how our office is, each desk with space enough to draw up chairs and sign papers, but no separate conference room for the signings."

"Anyone besides Marlin Dorriss?"

"No." Helen's face colored. "Waiting for me to go to lunch or maybe dinner."

Dulcie was pleased that Helen had the grace to feel ashamed.

"After your clients finished their business and left, did Marlin usually come on over to your desk?"

Helen looked surprised. "Yes, he did," she said thoughtfully. She gripped Dulcie's shoulder so hard that it was all Dulcie could do not to hiss. Dulcie watched Helen, fascinated.

Had Helen never once questioned Dorriss's presence in her office? Had she never wondered if Dorriss would snoop on a client's personal information that was all laid out on her desk? Dulcie imagined him retrieving bank names, memorizing street addresses, information from loan applications, social security numbers. Had he been able, as Helen turned away perhaps putting her papers in order, to jot down bank account numbers, business references, mother's maiden name-a regular buffet of vital information?

"When the clients left," Juana said, "and Dorriss came to your desk, their papers might be still lying there?"

"Yes," Helen said shakily. "Sometimes." She pressed a fist to her mouth. "But he wouldn't… He wouldn't have…" She realized she was clutching Dulcie, and took her hand away.

Juana said, "Do you have a restroom in the office?"

"Yes."

"Did he usually use it before you left for… lunch or whatever?"

"Always. But he… he is very careful about germs, almost a fetish."

Right, Dulcie thought. She could imagine Dorriss in the locked restroom busily recording all the vital information from Helen's clients. This smooth snooping had to be the setup for identity theft. She licked her paw, thinking.

Identity theft could go on for many months before the victim had any clue. Who knew how soon the recipients of such attention would wake to find their houses mortgaged or sold, their CDs cashed, their bank accounts stripped, and their credit destroyed? How many people had he already swindled?

And Dorriss had left town last night, had caught a flight somewhere. Setting out to transfer other people's funds, to collect cashier's checks secured by other people's real estate?

Dropping down from the couch she leaped to Juana's desk where she prowled innocently among the detective's stacked papers. Juana, watching her, moved her cup so as not to have cat hair or maybe a cat nose in her coffee. As Dulcie turned away she spotted it, lying on a stack of papers: The photocopy of a flight schedule, with the name of a local travel agency at the top, and Marlin Dorriss's name beneath.

Pretending to play, gently pawing at the papers, she studied the schedule. Dorriss or the agency had thoughtfully typed a cover sheet, a condensation, on one page, giving seven destinations and dates. The pages stapled behind it would surely give departure and arrival times, airline, airport, flight number. Well, the cover sheet was all she needed. She couldn't help it; she looked up at Davis, smiling and purring. Oh, the detective was on top of it; Detective Davis had run with her suspicions before ever interviewing Helen Thurwell. Dulcie could imagine Davis calling all the travel agents in town until she hit pay dirt.

Dorriss had flown out last night to LA. Two days in LA then to San Diego where he'd pick up a car. He must be driving back up the coast, because the next flight was out of San Francisco, heading north. The itinerary gave not only flights and car rentals, but hotel reservations in Laguna, La Jolla, then Santa Barbara, and Sacramento, before he caught the San Francisco flight. The entire trip would take just under two weeks.

It must be nice to enjoy such a long working vacation. Was this another string of strange burglaries? Or a chorus of well-planned securities sales or purchases and bank withdrawals, all in names other than Marlin Dorriss?

Lying down on the desk, Dulcie watched as Juana rose to see Helen out. Helen looked pleadingly at Juana; she was very quiet now, very subdued, understanding at last that she had been the unwitting collaborator in a high-powered criminal undertaking. The detective put her arm around Helen. "We'll get to the bottom of this. You did nothing deliberately. Try not to worry."

"I was deliberately stupid," Helen said. "So criminally stupid that I got my partner killed." She looked miserably at Juana. "I have no doubt, now, that his death was not an accident."

She shook her head. "James was not careless, he would not have left the gas on like that. He was not forgetful, not even in the smallest matters." She found a tissue in her pocket and wiped her eyes. "I have been stupid for a very long time." She was crying in earnest, her shoulders shaking.

The expression on Juana Davis's face was a mixture of discomfort, sympathy, and a cop's restrained look of triumph. Taking her arm from around Helen, Juana touched Helen's shoulder, heading her into the hall.

And Dulcie, watching the two women, found it hard to muster much sympathy for Helen Thurwell. All the empathy in the tabby's heart was for Juana Davis as the detective set out on what could be a difficult task, heartbreaking for many more people than Helen Thurwell.

Dulcie knew, from listening to Dallas Garza and Captain Harper, that the crime of identity theft might be uncovered and the culprit apprehended; the perp might even be prosecuted, but the damage done might never be undone, the victims' money might never be recovered.