Cat Pay The Devil

19

M ax left the Greenlaws’ moving fast through the village, emergency lights flashing, seeing only Charlie’s face, her green eyes searching his, feeling the cloud of her red hair against his cheek, her presence filling his whole world; for a long and painful moment the earth had dropped away, leaving only Charlie and, around her, an empty and chilling void.

He had Ryan on the speaker. “The kitchen door was unlocked,” she was saying; her cell phone cut in and out a couple of times, then came in clearer. “I know she locks that door when she goes out to the barn.” Ryan’s voice shook, her Irish/Latina temper blazing. “Who the hell…Her car’s here, Max. She’s fed the horses and brought them in from pasture, put the dogs in a stall to feed them, and shut the door.

“Sandwich fixings laid out for our dinner, sliced roast beef and potato salad in the refrigerator. Coffeepot’s been plugged in for hours. Boiled dry. And, Max, she left her work out. She would never do that. Scattered everywhere, computer on, drawings and manuscript all over.”

No, he thought, Charlie wouldn’t leave her work strewn about. The first thing she did when she finished for the evening, before she went to take care of the animals, was to put everything away: backup computer disks, manuscript in the file, drawings safe in the long drawers of the map cabinet. All in its place, ready for the next day’s work.

“Maybe,” Ryan said, “when she got my first message that I’d be late, maybe she decided to get back to work. But she…She isn’t here,” she said uncertainly. “Dallas called me earlier, told me that Cage Jones has escaped…And then I heard it on the news…Could this be part of it? Dallas described what…What they did to Wilma’s house.”

“You were in the kitchen, Ryan? Did you go into any other part of the house?”

“I’ve been through every room, closets, the works.”

“What time was this?”

“Just now.”

“You checked the whole house. Did you…?”

“Nothing seems disturbed. Kitchen isn’t messed up, just looks like Charlie was interrupted, that maybe she stepped outdoors for a minute, which could explain the door being unlocked. If she played her messages, she knew I was delayed. Cement truck was two hours late, there was a wreck on Highway 1 and we…”

“You never did talk with her, then? Just the messages?”

“That’s right. Cement truck arrived, we had to pour and finish out a three-car garage, then pour foundations…,” Ryan said helplessly. “It was dark when I got here, no lights on in the house. Only the automatic security lights outside. Both dogs were barking, in the barn.

“The instant I parked and opened the cab door, Rock leaped out over me-he never does that any more. Roared out of the truck snarling and barking and headed straight for the barn. Circled and circled, and then flew around back. He was on to a scent, Max. Wanted to take off through the woods. I grabbed his collar, pulled him back until I could see what was going on.

“There were tire marks behind the barn, fresh ones. Rock was going wild. They were close together, not a truck. Some kind of small car…a track that came down the bridle trail! Came down to the barn, turned around, and went back up again. And there were fresh footprints, three sets. I thought…One set was smaller, like Charlie’s paddock boots.”

Max thanked his stars it was Ryan who’d gotten there first, not someone who knew nothing about investigation; she had learned well from her uncle Dallas, and would disturb as little as possible. He imagined Charlie going into the barn, someone stepping from the shadows, grabbing and dragging her, Charlie fighting…

Turning onto Ocean he flicked on his siren, moving fast. Despite Ryan’s worry over Charlie, Max could hear the pride in her voice at the behavior of her untrained dog; he marveled, too, that Rock would be so responsive. But Rock was bred to that-the Weimaraner was a sight-and-scent tracker and retriever used on all kinds of game. A well-bred specimen like Rock was a powerhouse of intelligence and determination.

He spun a turn onto Highway 1, cut across two lanes, and took off for the hills. Ryan said, “The ground in the alleyway between the stalls was all scuffed up; I kept Rock close to the stalls. It was all I could do to hold him, pulling and snarling. And the horses were nervous, snorting, shying when I approached their stalls. The two dogs were wild, leaping at their stall door. I didn’t dare let them out, I was afraid they’d take off, and what good would that do?”

The Harpers’ two half-breed Great Danes were long on enthusiasm but, except for basic obedience training, were still too unruly to be of any specific use. If someone had tried to take Charlie by force, Max thought they would have attacked if they’d been out of their stall. And Ryan was right, they would sure give chase if someone had Charlie. Feeling ice-cold, he fought the sinking fear that threatened to overwhelm him.

“Those tracks, Max…Where could they go, up the bridle trail like that? There are just woods up there, and patches of open hills. Just that narrow trail…Shall I saddle up and…?”

“No! I’m almost there, just turning off the highway.”

In Gilroy, Joe ducked under a dress rack when he saw Clyde coming into Liz Claiborne’s, and he fled for the dressing rooms, where Clyde might not come pushing in. Winding in and out of each little cubicle, sniffing at the carpet, he sorted through a hundred scents of powder, perfume, hair spray, and less appealing odors; he nosed at garments discarded on the benches and floor. Talk about messy shoppers. He had just caught Wilma’s scent and found her booth, when a young clerk came back to the dressing rooms. She, too, wound in and out picking up rumpled clothes.

When, in Wilma’s abandoned booth, she picked up a navy blue windbreaker that some earlier customer had left, Joe stared up at her from beneath it. He looked as innocent as he knew how to look, while gripping in his teeth a lipstick-stained tissue that bore Wilma’s scent. Above him, against the wall, hung three pairs of jeans, two sweaters, and a blazer that Wilma had tried on; he had reared up on the little bench to make sure.

When the clerk picked up the jacket and saw the tomcat, she let out a yip-but then she laughed and knelt to stroke him. “Aren’t you a handsome fellow. Where did you come from? What did you do, just wander in? Did someone bring you in, some shopper?” She glanced behind her down the row of dressing rooms, then toward the door, as if expecting someone to come looking for their lost cat. Then she petted Joe and baby-talked him until she had finessed a rumbling purr from the tomcat.

She was an exceptionally pretty brunette. Long, silky hair and big brown eyes, and she smelled like fresh green grass. When she tried gently to remove the tissue from his clenched teeth, he snarled at her until she withdrew her hand. But he had not intimidated this lady.

“What do you want that for, you silly cat? Maybe you like the smell of lipstick? Cats,” she said, laughing. She was obviously a cat person, and for that Joe was grateful. “You are a pretty fellow. Where did you come from? What are you doing in here besides stealing tissues?” Laughing again, and despite his earlier growls, she boldly picked him up.

Making nice again, he purred against her shoulder and gave her the look that Dulcie called “lovey eye.” He made up to her so shamefully that he soon had her practically purring herself. When she came out of the dressing rooms carrying and stroking him, Clyde was standing at the cash register talking with a clerk. Seeing Joe, he did a double take, then quickly collected himself.

“There he is,” he said, as if deeply relieved. “I’ve looked everywhere.” He grinned at the girl, and reached out to take Joe from her arms. “Cat got out of his carrier.

“What a bad cat you are,” Clyde cooed, staring deep into Joe’s angry yellow eyes. He did not try to remove the tissue from Joe’s teeth. “I looked and looked for you. Come on, kitty, baby-such a bad cat. Come on, Joe, baby. Come to Papa now.”

This performance earned, the moment they were alone in the car, an incensed scolding. “Kitty, baby? Come to Papa?” The tomcat was so furious that, when Clyde tossed him into the front seat, he deliberately scratched Clyde’s hand. “If I weren’t so good-natured, I’d have bloodied your face! If you ever again call me kitty baby, I swear I’ll kill you, Clyde. Slowly and painfully, as I would disembowel a gutter rat!”

But then, because he was totally wired after what he had found, proof that Wilma had been there, Joe broke into a grin. “Actually, that was some rare performance you gave in there. Juvenile. Insulting. But crudely amusing.”

Clyde stared at the tissue that Joe had laid carefully on the seat. “What did you find? You think Wilma handled that?”

“I know she did. Wiped her lipstick and powder on it, maybe before she slipped a sweater over her head. She tried on jeans, two sweaters, and a green linen jacket, all of which she left hanging neatly in the dressing room, her scent all over them. Good-looking jacket, but not her color.”

Clyde dangled the tissue carefully by one corner, took a clean tissue from the box beneath the dash, wrapped the evidence in it, and placed it in the glove compartment. “This is evidence to us, Joe. But how do I present it to the law? What would I tell Davis?”

“I don’t know. All I know is, Wilma was there, and recently. Could you say the smear of lipstick looked like Wilma’s, so you picked it up just in case?”

Clyde raised an eyebrow.

“Let me think about it,” Joe said. “Maybe I can come up with something.” He twitched a whisker. “Tell Davis you’ve been training me to follow scent, like a tracking dog? That I found it and you’re really proud of me, that it’s the same color lipstick as Wilma’s, and you bet if they ran the DNA…”

Silently Clyde looked at him.

“Guess that wouldn’t fly, either,” Joe said.

“I guess not.”

“I personally think the concept has possibilities. A cat’s sense of smell isn’t as good as a bloodhound’s, but it’s far superior to a human’s. I could-”

“Leave it, Joe.”

Joe shrugged, and looked at the clock on the dash. “Ten of nine. I have time for one more shop.” And he leaped out before Clyde could grab him, was out the window heading for a store that, he’d noticed, featured print denim jackets, just the kind of thing Wilma liked.

Clyde shouted at him, then followed him, running-but before Joe hit the shop door, he stopped. He did a sudden, cartoon cat skid, spinning back to the curb, to the gutter where the tiny, bright corner of a credit card had caught his attention with a hint of Wilma’s scent and the faint, metallic smell of blood.

Pawing aside a crumpled paper bag, he uncovered the bent plastic card. Yes, it smelled of Wilma, all right. It had been folded the way Clyde folded his outdated credit cards when new ones arrived in the mail. He would fold the old card once, break it in half, then fold and break it again before he threw it away.

This card wasn’t broken, just bent. The name Wilma Getz was embossed clearly below the red band that bore the name of a chain bookstore for which Wilma received bonus credits. It was the red stripe across the top that had caught Joe’s attention.

The asphalt beneath where it had lain featured what was clearly a blood spot, dry but fresh. In this heat it wouldn’t take long to dry. He tried to calculate. Maybe an hour? He had no way to ascertain exactly how long since that blood had been spilled, but surely no more than three hours. He was no forensic pathologist, he was just a simple hunter who’d had a fair amount of experience with spilled blood. Taking the card in his teeth, he backed out of the gutter looking up at Clyde.

Gently Clyde reached for it, lifting it gingerly by one edge. He looked at its brightly colored logo and at Wilma’s embossed name. “What’s that on the corner? Is that blood?”

“Blood.”

“You sure?”

Joe just looked at him.

“Human blood?” Clyde asked. He had total faith in Joe’s ability to distinguish human blood from, say, mouse blood or the blood of some canine unfortunate enough to have run afoul of the tomcat.

“Human blood,” Joe said.

“That could be the blood in Wilma’s car, then. Can you tell if it’s Wilma’s blood?”

“That I can’t tell.”

Clyde looked around them, but no one was near to witness their exchange. “This,” Clyde said, “is what we came to find! This, we can show Davis. How the hell did you see this, how did you find this under that trash?”

“Saw the red stripe, then caught her scent. My superior sense of smell, and my superior wide-angle vision, combined with a far more sensitive retina that enables me to-”

“Okay! I’ve read the books. You smelled it, then you saw it.” Reaching down, Clyde gripped Joe firmly, both out of friendship and to keep him from leaping away again as they headed for the car. Joe refrained from pointing out that if he hadn’t left the car, against orders, he would never have found this piece of evidence.

Before Clyde started the engine, he laid the credit card in a clean tissue, folded the corners over, and placed it, too, in the glove compartment. Then he called Davis’s cell, switching on the speaker out of deference to Joe.

She picked up on the first ring, grunted when she heard Clyde’s voice. “I’m sitting in Chili’s with a couple of CHP guys. Sheriff’s deputy just left. I’ll meet you by the register.”

Driving the short distance across the parking lot, Clyde pulled into a slot in front of the restaurant, then looked down at Joe. “That was a long shot on Wilma’s part.”

“Maybe that was all she had time to do. She’d know there’d be a report out for her when she didn’t show up, that her name would be on every police computer…”

“The street sweeper could have picked it up, anyone could have.” Clyde removed the wrapped credit card from the glove compartment, leaving the lipstick-stained tissue. “Here comes Davis up to the front. Get in the carrier; you’re not staying here.” He gave Joe a stern look. “If I can smuggle you into Chili’s, you damn well better behave yourself. No yowling. No thrashing around making a scene.”

“When have I ever yowled and thrashed around making a scene, as you put it? I want to hear what Davis found. Order me a burger. Rare, with no-”

“I know how you like your burgers. Shut up and get in the carrier.”