Cat Laughing Last

14

Racing up and down the empty beach in the early dawn, the dog searched frantically for his master, his black-spotted white body sharply defined against gray sky and sea. He stopped to stare at anything moving, a wave, the shadows of a wheeling gull, then plunged on again, racing so fast that his polka dot markings smeared to lines across his snowy coat. His expression was urgent and confused. From a block away, Wilma Getz saw him, where she was walking her usual two miles down the shore. She stopped, watching his frantic seeking.

She could still taste her morning coffee, its flavor mixed now with the smell of the sea. She had pulled on a red sweatshirt over her jeans, against the chill; she wore a red wool cap to keep her ears warm, her long white hair hanging down her back, bound with a silver clip. The time was barely six. She had parted from Susan in the village, after they had walked down from Wilma's house together. Susan and Lamb had turned up the shore to the north for the big poodle's run, where Lamb liked the outcropping rocks and the tide pools in which to pad a hesitant paw.

Wilma stood very still, watching the dalmatian. When the dog spied her, he came racing, so glad to see a human in this empty world. She knelt, fending off his excited licking, and took hold of his collar. Had he strayed from some tourist, a dog who didn't know the area, didn't remember how to get back to an unfamiliar motel? But she already suspected who he belonged to. Trying to hold him still, she searched for a tag or a metal plate on his collar. There were not many dalmatians in the village, and this dog was not one she knew.

The leather collar was old and curled and wet from the sea. There was no identification of any kind to tell her the dog's name or the name or phone number of his owner. He was a young animal, and so thin she could see every rib. He pushed against her, panting and slurping as if she was his last hope.

"Do you belong to the mysterious walker? To Susan's young friend? To Lenny Wells?" The dog shivered and licked at her. She looked up and down the beach. "Do you belong to the man who broke into Susan's house?"

Why would someone abandon such a nice dog? Could the young man have died from his head wound? Perhaps passed out in the bushes after he escaped Susan's, never waking again from a severe concussion? She imagined him slowly making his way to the shore with the dog beside him, trying to get away from the police, perhaps not realizing how badly he was hurt. Where had the dog been while he broke into Susan's? Why hadn't the police seen him when they searched the neighborhood? If Lenny had died on the beach, had the dog, when he could not rouse his master, run away confused and kept running?

But that was two days ago. Someone would have found the body by now. The beach was full of people once the sun came out, kids playing in and out among the greenbelt that met the sand. Why hadn't someone taken charge of the dog, and called the police or the animal shelter?

Turning back toward home with the dalmatian clinging close to her, she walked him through the village to meet Susan. He didn't try to leave her, but pressed against her leg as if in terror that she would abandon him. He had to be starved. She had turned into the village market to buy dog food when she saw Susan ahead, on the far side of Ocean, her multicolored sweater and red scarf bright against the pale stucco shops. Drawing near, Wilma held on to the dalmatian's collar. The minute he saw Lamb he lunged and squirmed, trying to race to the big poodle, leaping and dancing like a puppy so it was all she could do to hold him.

"Same dog?" she called to Susan when they were still half a block apart.

Susan nodded, holding Lamb on a short lead. "Same dog. Where did you find him?" She hurried to them and knelt to inspect the dog, looking at his collar. "Same three long overlapped spots on his left ear. Same thin face and frightened expression. Jobe, Lenny called him." She looked along the street as if Lenny might suddenly appear, then looked up at Wilma. "He wasn't with anyone? You didn't see Lenny?"

"No, no one on the beach. He was frantic, running, doubling back and forth. I couldn't leave him there, even if I'd wanted to. He's clung to me like glue. Do you think Lenny was the man in your breakfast room?"

"I keep wondering. I saw only the back of the man's head, but he was like Lenny. Same color hair, same general build. Lenny always wore-wears a cap, usually with his collar turned up." Susan hugged the dalmatian, drawing a disapproving glare from Lamb. "This poor dog. Has he been wandering for two days, trying to find his master?"

"Harper will want to know about him."

Susan nodded. "Is it all right to bring him to your house? We can put him in the garage. I brought plenty of food for Lamb. Or we could put him on a long line in the drive, leave the garage door open, make him a bed inside."

Wilma was glad she had finished her garage enclosing the carport. It had come in handy. Her English-style cottage had no backyard at all, only a narrow stone walk between the house and the hill behind that rose in a steep, unfenced wilderness. "Of course it's all right." Certainly Susan respected her front flower garden as off-limits to canine romping and digging. Lamb was always a gentleman, although it hadn't been easy for him having no fenced yard to run in.

"Oh," Susan said, watching the two dogs play, "Lamb does like him. But we can't have them together in the house, not romping like that."

"He'll settle down when he's eaten," Wilma said.

Susan snapped Lamb's leash on the dalmatian, handed it to Wilma, and commanded Lamb to heel. Heading home to Wilma's, they soon turned up the stone walk through her deep garden, the air cool and still beneath the giant oaks. The pale stone cottage, with its steep slate roof, mullioned windows, and stone chimney, sat against the hill behind as if civilization ended at its back door, the well-maintained house with its carefully tended flowers an abrupt contrast to the hill's wild tangles. They took the dogs inside through the back door, which opened to the street at the opposite end of the house from the front door, and into the kitchen. Susan fed both dogs while Wilma heated the skillet and laid strips of bacon in it. She had already made the pancake batter. Balancing the cordless phone in the crook of her shoulder as she cooked, she called Max Harper at home before he left for the station. The phone rang five times.

"Did I wake you?"

"I'm in the stable feeding the horses. Had a loaded pitchfork in my hands. This a social call?"

"We-Susan and I-have the dalmatian that belonged…"

"Have you? Hang on to him, I'll be down in twenty minutes. Sure it's the same dog?"

"Susan says so. He was running the beach, lost."

"Did you look around? See anyone?"

"I scanned the beach. Didn't beat the bushes. He acted like he'd been left."

"Be right down. No, I haven't had breakfast," he said to her unasked question.

Wilma hung up, laughing, made fresh coffee, and put more bacon in the skillet.

When Harper arrived, Lamb greeted him with dignity. But the dalmatian was all over him, whining and leaning against him. Harper looked him over, feeling him for wounds, looking at the pads of his feet. Removing his collar, he examined it. He looked in the dog's eyes, his ears, his mouth-wanting to know the dog was all right, Wilma thought, simply because he was that kind of man. But, as a cop, wanting to find anything unusual about the lost animal.

Apparently he found nothing of note. Buckling the collar on again, he gave the dog a pat. The dalmatian lay down by the door, full of breakfast and attention, sighing deeply.

Harper sat at the table between Wilma and Susan, looking with appreciation at the tall stack of pancakes on his plate, and the eight slices of bacon. Max Harper still ate like the wild young bull rider he'd been at eighteen; and he weighed about the same. Clyde claimed Harper took in enough groceries for three men. Everyone had said he'd gain weight when he quit smoking, but he hadn't.

"We have no line on a Lenny White," he told Susan. "No one by that name or fitting that description was treated in the hospital emergency room. We do have a response on the other set of fingerprints-which could belong either to the victim, or to whoever attacked him."

Susan stopped eating, watching Harper.

"There was a fair set of prints on the computer. None on the hammer we picked up, though it appears to be the weapon. Traces of blood and flesh embedded in the creases of the metal. The prints belong to a man named Augor Prey. Does that name mean anything?"

"No." Susan shook her head.

"We'll have a picture later today. Prey's father is a professor of history at Cal, Berkeley. Dr. Kenneth Prey. He taught at Davis while the son was in grammar school. Augor's description fits your dog-walking friend. Thirty-four, slim, about six feet, brown hair, hazel eyes."

Susan nodded uneasily. "If that is Lenny, he gave me a false name. And it's strange. He said he'd moved out from New York, but he didn't sound like the New Yorkers I know."

"Prey seems to have spent his adult years bumming around up and down the coast, working here and there. Never been in real trouble. A few minor arrests, fighting, tearing up a beer tavern, petty theft. No record of burglaries. He ran an antique shop in Salinas for eight months, and worked in a San Francisco book store. He's been living in a cheap room in Half Moon Bay, sometimes works in an antiques shop up there. He's also worked here in Molena Point, for Richard Casselrod, when Casselrod or Fern has taken time off. When he does that, he sleeps at the shop. Casselrod said he hasn't needed extra help recently, hasn't seen Prey for six months.

"If Augor Prey is your Lenny White," Harper said, "it's possible he may have been staying somewhere else in the village. We've found no motel registration in either his name or for Lenny White."

"You've been very thorough," Susan said, "considering that we don't know whether this was a murder or an assault, considering the only charges I could make were for breaking and entering, and vandalism-not for theft."

"It could turn into murder," Harper reminded her. "Meanwhile, the detectives have been over your place again. They have everything they're going to get, pictures, prints, blood. You can go ahead and get someone in to clean up, get your life back in order."

Susan smiled. "I'll call Charlie this morning."

"Please let us know if you find anything missing when you get back home. You still have no idea what they might have been after?"

"No. The only thing I've bought recently that wasn't in the house was the carved chest I called you about. That was in my trunk."

"I'd like to see it."

Taking her keys from her pocket, Susan stepped out to the drive. In a moment, they heard her car trunk slam. She returned carrying a small wooden chest, perhaps eighteen inches long, its lid shaped like a peak, with the top cut off to form a three-sided slab. She set it on the table before the police captain.

"There's an old chest like that in the mission museum," Harper said. "Only much larger-made to use as a saddle rack. Just fits a stock saddle."

The sides and lid of the chest were roughly carved with geometric patterns and simple medallions. The wood was oak, apparently unfinished, darkened by age. One end had split through the carvings. The inside of the box was so rough they could see the chisel marks.

"You said you bought this at the Barmeir estate sale?" Harper asked.

"Yes. I got there before seven that morning, took a number, came back at ten to wait my turn. It was mobbed; the estate sales always are. When I saw this little chest on a table in the den, I just-well I grabbed it up and bought it and got out of there. Didn't even look at anything else."

"Why?" Harper asked, watching her.

"Because of the play. Elliott Traynor's play. Do you know the story?"

Harper nodded.

Susan looked at Harper. "Catalina died on the Stanton Ranch, just a few miles from here. Apparently no one knows what happened to the chests."

"You bought this after you met Augor Prey?"

"Yes."

"Did you ever mention it to him?"

"I-yes, I did. We talked about the yard sales, and about our plans for Senior Survival, about our buying and selling on the Web. I'm afraid I did tell him about the chest."

"How long was this before the break-in? You discussed these matters only once or several times?"

"Only once. Just… just a few days before the break-in." She lowered her gaze. "I told a lot to a stranger. Though most of our conversation," she went on defensively, "concerned my suggestions for him to meet people in the village, meet some younger folks."

Wilma said, "Didn't it seem strange to you that he would need help meeting people? Everyone's friendly, and there's more to do here than a person could handle in ten lifetimes with plays, concerts, classes."

Susan nodded. "I put it down to shyness."

"Did he know where you lived?" Harper asked.

"Yes," she said, embarrassed. "He never came to the house, but I told him where it was, while talking about the weather, about how much wind we get. So foolish of me."

Wilma rose to pour coffee, glancing out her kitchen window. "There's Mavity." She went to open the back door, calling out as Mavity turned up through the garden. "We're in the kitchen. Where's your VW? Don't tell me you're having car trouble?"

Mavity laughed. "That old bug wouldn't dare. I'm parked up the street to clean at the Rileys'. They like me early, but… Well, I saw the captain's pickup truck…" She glanced shyly at Harper. "Wondered if anything was wrong, if anything else has happened…"

Wilma poured coffee for her. "Have you had breakfast?"

"Oh, yes. But coffee would taste good. Yours always tastes better than mine." She sat down, smiling at Susan. "It's pretty early, even for the Rileys. Guess I get restless staying home anymore, thinking about the city tearing down my house. Seems like I can't feel cozy, knowing it will be gone soon. I just wish the city would make up its mind. If they decide to condemn, then get on with it." Mavity's uniform this morning was the ubiquitous white, with pale blue piping at the seams, likely a top-of-the-line model that had seen its share of launderings.

Wilma laid her hand over Mavity's. "You know my guest room's yours as long as you want."

"And my house, too," Susan said. "I'll be going home today, to get that mess cleaned up. And who knows how soon we might find a big place that's just right for all of us."

Mavity nodded, looking both uncertain and hopeful. She reached out to touch the oak chest. "This is old. Look at that crack, and how dark the wood is. It's sort of like those wood carvings my brother, Greeley, sends me sometimes from Panama."

"I got it at the Barmeir sale. I had it in the trunk of my car the morning that man broke in."

"It's nicer than that white chest Richard Casselrod made such a scene over-stole it, is what he did. No other word for it. Jerked it right out of Cora Lee's hands, even if he did throw down some money."

Harper rose, calling the dalmatian to him. "I'll take him up to Dr. Firetti to board. Firetti owes me a favor."

"I…" Susan began. "He and Lamb get along very well. If you don't find Lenny…"

Harper nodded. "That would be fine. But right now, it isn't wise for you to keep him. You don't want Lenny White coming around, using the dog as an excuse. In fact," Harper said, "I'm not keen on you going back home alone."

"I'll be fine with Lamb. If Lamb had been home that morning, those men wouldn't have gotten in."

Harper didn't reply. He rose and left, taking the spotted dog with him. Wilma stood at the window, watching the dalmatian leap up into the cab of Harper's Chevy pickup. And Susan sat looking silently at Wilma and Mavity, realizing suddenly how very much she did not want to be home alone, did not want to go to sleep at night wondering if someone would break a window and come in-except of course Lamb would bark and wake her.

But she grinned at Mavity's wrinkled frown of concern. "A poodle's no sissy, Mavity. Those teeth could take your arm off."

Though in truth, it was Lamb she worried about. Worried that someone would hit him with a heavy weapon or shoot him, leaving both of them defenseless.