Cat In The Dark

21

HIGH UP THE HILLS, a narrow hunting trail led beneath a tangle of toyon bushes, a track no wider than a cat's shoulders, and along the path in a spill of sunshine, Joe and Dulcie crouched feasting on a fat mouse, the last of five sweet morsels they had caught within the hour skittering among the roots and leaves. Above the cats, the toyon's hollylike berries were hard and green, having just emerged from their summer blossoms; the afternoon was warm and still, the only sound was the twittering of some sparrows pottering among the upper leaves.

Suddenly sirens screamed, blasting up from the village.

Rearing tall so they could see down the hills, the cats watched an ambulance careen up the winding streets followed by two police units, and skid into the dead-end street below Clyde's apartments-and they took off down the hills, Joe with visions of Clyde falling off the roof, Dulcie's sudden fear involving the power saws. Bolting down the slopes, charging through bushes and tall grass and across the last street, they scorched past the hot rubber stink of the ambulance and squad cars and into the patio.

Men's voices from above them, from Winthrop Jergen's open windows. The police radio. Max Harper's quick commands-and the faint but unmistakable smell of human blood. Racing under the stairs and up the inner wall, they slipped beneath Jergen's sink and pushed the cabinet door open.

The smell of blood, of death.

Slinking across the linoleum, they crouched at the edge of the living room. The instant the uniforms' backs were turned, they bolted under the cherry credenza, peering out at Winthrop Jergen's sprawled body. The smell of his shaving lotion mixed strangely with the stench of death.

The lamps were all lit, every light burning except the lamp that hung over the edge of the desk. The toppled swivel chair and scattered papers and files were all soaked with Jergen's blood. As the medics rose and moved away, the cats got a good look at Jergen, his throat ripped as brutally as if a leopard or tiger had been at him-but this was not a hunting kill, this was the result of human malice.

As the photographer got to work, the flashing strobe lights nearly blinded the cats, forcing them to squeeze their eyes shut. The after-flashes, the blazing white reverse-images of Jergen's body, were as eerie as if his light-propelled spirit kept flashing back, trying to rejoin his corpse.

Beyond the windows, clouds had begun to gather, dimming the late afternoon. The tangle of officers' feet moving carefully across the Kirman rug, skirting around the body, Charlie sitting quietly on the couch out of the way, and the familiar forensics routines filled the cats' vision and minds as the photographer shot his last roll and Officer Kathleen Ray began to collect evidence, her dark hair swinging around her shoulders. The first item she bagged, lifting it carefully from the floor beyond the file cabinets, held the cats' complete attention.

A device from the freezer, the thing that held the ice cubes, but covered with blood, dripping blood, its handle sticking up like a bloody knife, making them see too vividly a human hand jabbing and jabbing that blunt instrument into Jergen's soft flesh.

The cats' own bloodthirst was normal; it was the way God had made them. They were hunters, they killed for food and to train their young-well maybe sometimes for sport. But this violent act by some unknown human had nothing to do with hunting-for a human to brutally maim one of their own kind out of rage or sadism or greed was, to Joe and Dulcie, a shocking degradation of the human condition. To imagine that vicious abandon in a human deeply distressed Dulcie; she did not like thinking about humans in that way.

Pushing closer to Joe, she watched Officer Ray's familiar procedures, the tweezers, the tedious routine of picking up each fleck of evidence, the bagging and labeling, and slowly the thoroughness of her actions began to ease Dulcie. She imagined the intricacies of the laboratory studies that would follow, the carefully established methods, and a sense of rightness filled her.

Then the fingerprinting began, the black powder, the lifting tape, the fingerprint cards, all carefully thought out and calming, techniques that were the result of a wonderful human intelligence.

Humans might be sense-challenged, without a cat's balance and keen hearing and superior sense of touch, to say nothing of the cat's night vision, but the human's inventiveness and mental skills made up for those failures-people might be capable of brutality, in a shocking short circuit of the human spirit, but the best of mankind were still wonderful to observe.

And, she thought, what are we-what are Joe and I, that we can understand the achievements of humankind?

By the time the forensics team had finished, night had closed around the apartment, the black windows reflecting the blaze of lights within, turning the room stark and grim. The coroner arrived, completed his examination and bagged the body, and slid it onto a stretcher. As the paramedics carried it out, Officer Ray collected the last bits of evidence from where the corpse had lain. No one had touched the computer, except to lift fingerprints from the keyboard and monitor. The screen still glowed pale green, etching into the delicate glass the image of a financial spreadsheet.

Max Harper had sent Officer Wendell over to Mavity's cottage to take her down to the station, and patrol units were looking for Pearl Ann. Harper sat with Charlie on the couch, questioning her. "Did you see Mavity and Pearl Ann come up here to clean?"

"Pearl Ann was up here. I could see her through Jergen's bathroom window, probably repairing the towel rack. Mavity was headed for the stairs when I left, carrying her cleaning things. But, no, I didn't see Mavity enter the apartment."

"What time was that?"

"Around three-fifteen, I think. I got to the Blackburns' about three-thirty. I usually take Mavity with me; she cleans while I do the repairs. But today-Jergen had asked for some extras, so I sent her up to help Pearl Ann."

"What sort of extras?"

"Clean the refrigerator, fix the towel rack that had pulled out of the bathroom wall, and repair a leak in the shower. He said he had a late afternoon appointment up the coast, wanted the work done while he was out. Mavity was going to do the refrigerator while Pearl Ann took care of the repairs."

"And did you see his car, before you left for the Blackburns'?"

"I wouldn't have; he keeps it in the garage. I thought he was gone. I…"

"What?"

"I think he must have been gone. Or-or already dead. Pearl Ann had the windows open, and he would never have allowed that."

"You didn't see his car when you came back from the Blackburn place?"

"No. Isn't it in the garage?"

"There's a black Mercedes convertible parked down the street. We passed it, coming up. I've sent Brennan to check the registration and to check the garage."

Officer Ray came out of the master suite to say that the towel rod had been reset and that there was fresh caulking around the bottom of the shower and between some of the tile. Soon Lieutenant Brennan returned. The garage was empty. He had run the plates on the black Mercedes parked down the street. It belonged to Jergen. Harper returned his attention to Charlie.

"What time did you get back from the Blackburns'? Were the two women still here?"

"Around six-thirty. They were both gone. I came up to close the windows, and he-I found him."

"You realize I have to consider you a suspect, Charlie, along with Mavity and Pearl Ann."

"That's your job," she said quietly.

"Was anyone else in the building when you left? Clyde or any other workers?"

"No, just Mavity and Pearl Ann. Clyde hadn't planned to come up. He had a busy schedule at the shop."

"Do you have an address for Pearl Ann?"

"It's that old brick office building down on Valley, across from the mission."

"The Davidson Building?"

"Yes. She rents a room above those pokey little offices. But she'll be on her way to San Francisco by now; she planned to spend the weekend."

"How long have you known about her weekend plans?"

"For weeks. She was really excited-she grew up somewhere on the east coast and she's never seen San Francisco."

"How long has she been in Molena Point? How long has she lived at the Davidson Building?"

"Four months, more or less-to both questions. Said she moved in there the day after she arrived."

"She picked a great place to settle."

"She's very frugal with money. I think she doesn't have much."

"How long has she worked for you?"

"The whole four months."

"Married?"

"No, she's single. And she's a good worker."

"What kind of car?"

"She doesn't have a car-she walks to work."

"What brought her to the west coast? Where does she come from?"

"Arkansas maybe, or Tennessee, I'm not sure. She told me she wanted to get as far away from her overbearing family as she could."

"How old is she?"

"Twenty-seven."

Harper made some notes. "Did you and Mavity talk about the sheaf of statements we found in Dora Sleuder's luggage? Did she give you any idea why Dora might have them?"

"We didn't talk, no." She looked at him questioningly.

"Did Mavity keep a gun?"

"No. She's afraid of guns." She looked at Harper, frowning. "But that-that terrible wound… Mavity couldn't… A gun couldn't cause that?"

"So far as you know, she did not have a gun?"

"Well, she might. She told me once that her husband kept a gun, that after he died she was afraid to touch it. She asked Greeley to lock it away for her in a strongbox at the back of her closet. She said her husband had always kept a strongbox, a little cash laid by at home in case of some emergency."

Beneath the credenza, the cats tried to follow Harper's line of thought. Was he guessing that Jergen's throat could have been torn after a bullet entered and killed him, perhaps to confuse the police?

The cats remained hidden until Harper had sealed Jergen's apartment and Brennan had secured the stairs with crime scene tape. When everyone had gone, Dulcie leaped to the desk.

Though the officers hadn't touched the computer, Captain Harper had called the FBI in San Francisco, arranging for a computer specialist to examine the files. The file on the screen said BARNER TAX-FREE INCOME FUND and was in Winthrop Jergen's name.

"How much will the Bureau agent find," Dulcie said, "if he doesn't have Jergen's code? And, more important, if he doesn't have Pearl Ann's code?" She sat down beside the phone. Lifting a paw, she knocked the receiver off.

"Hold it," Joe said. "Harper's still down there. The police units are still out front-they must be searching the building."

"I'll call him when he gets back to the station." She lifted the receiver by its cord, biting gently, and used her paw to maneuver it back into the cradle. Turning, she sniffed at the computer. "The keyboard smells of Pearl Ann's perfume."

"Could be an old scent-she cleans around the desk."

"Cheap perfume doesn't last very long." She took another sniff and then leaped down, avoiding the bloodstained rug. Leaving the scene, the cats were soon following Max Harper through the lower apartments, padding along in the shadows beyond where lights had been switched on and well behind the photographer as he made bright strobe shots of the various footprints that had been left in the Sheetrock dust.

Too bad the department would have to labor to identify each set of prints, procuring shoes from everyone involved. Enough fuss to make a cat laugh, when Joe or Dulcie could have done the job in a second.

No amount of sweeping could eradicate the fine white Sheetrock dust that impregnated the plywood subfloor, and the cats, living close to the earth, knew intimately each set of prints left there: Charlie's and Clyde's jogging shoes, Pearl Ann's tennis shoes, the boot marks of the two hired carpenters, the prints of various subcontractors. Their quick identification could have been a great help to the police. How unfair it is, Dulcie thought, that canine officers can gather evidence that would stand up in court, but a cat can't.

A drug dog's sniffing out of evidence was accepted even if he didn't find the drug-he need only indicate to his handler that the drug had been there, and that was legitimate testimony. But similar intelligence, given by a feline volunteer, would be laughed at.

Just one more instance, Dulcie thought, of prejudice in the workplace.

Silently they watched the officers bag the workmen's trash, the drink cans and candy wrappers and wadded-up lunch sacks, and scraps of wallboard and lumber. They bagged, as well, Mavity's insulated lunch carrier and thermos, and Pearl Ann's duffle bag containing her dirty work clothes.

Pearl Ann would have changed clothes for her trip, leaving her duffle to take home on Monday. But Mavity's oversight was strange; Mavity never forgot that lunch bag.

Officer Wendell returned to tell Harper that Mavity was not at home, that there was no sign of her car and no answer when he pounded, and that her door was locked.

"I looked through the windows. The house was very neat, the bed made, three cups and saucers in the sink. I took a turn through the village but didn't see her VW."

Watching from behind a stack of crated plumbing fixtures, Dulcie licked her paw nervously. "Was Jergen stealing from Mavity? Could she have found out and been so angry that she killed him? Oh, I don't like to think that."

"Whoever thrust that ice tray divider into Jergen's throat, Dulcie, had to be bigger and stronger than Mavity."

"I don't know. She's pretty wiry."

"She might have shot him first."

"I don't think she shot him. I don't believe she would hurt anyone. And where was Pearl Ann? Had she already left when his killer entered the apartment?" She dropped her ears, frightened. "Was Mavity there alone? Did she see the killer?"

"Come on, they're leaving. Let's check the bathroom."

But the bathroom where Pearl Ann usually showered and changed was spotless. The shower was completely dry, not a drop of water.

Usually when Pearl Ann cleaned up, she left the shower floor wet, with Sheetrock dust or paint or plaster on the bathroom floor where she'd pulled off her work clothes.

"Maybe," Dulcie said, "she didn't want to pick up any dirt on her clean new clothes. Maybe she mopped up with paper towels, before she got dressed."

"But why would she dry the shower, too? And there are no paper towels in the bathroom trash basket." Nor did they remember the police taking any trash from the bathroom.

"And there's something else," Dulcie said. "Can't you smell it?"

"I do now," Joe said, sniffing at the shower and grimacing. Over the scent of soap and of Pearl Ann's jasmine perfume came a sharp, male odor. A man had used the shower, and recently. Even a careful wiping-up hadn't destroyed that aroma.

"So Pearl Ann had a man in the shower," Joe said. "So maybe she didn't go up to the city alone. Is that a crime?"

"Did you ever see her with a date? You've never seen anyone come by here to pick her up."

"She still could be seeing someone, or maybe living with someone-maybe wants to keep it quiet."

"Could one of the subcontractors have been here and used the shower?"

"There was no sub scheduled for today," Joe said. "Have you ever seen one of the subs use the shower?"

She switched her tail impatiently. "We have to call Harper- tell him there was a man in the shower and give him the codes for the computer. This could be the key to the whole puzzle."

"Before we make any calls and upset Harper, let's have a look at the Davidson Building-check out Pearl Ann's room."

"Don't you think Harper went over there to search? There'll be cops all over the place."

"He won't search without someone at home," Joe said. "You know how he is. Even if he gets a warrant, he won't go in until Pearl Ann gets back. Says it protects the evidence, saves a lot of fuss in court." His yellow eyes burned with challenge, his expression keen and predatory. "Come on, Dulcie, let's go toss Pearl Ann's place-we'll never have a better chance."