Cat Pay The Devil

20

J oe slunk into the cat carrier growling at Clyde, watched Clyde fasten the latches, and felt the carrier rudely snatched up and swung out of the car; the next moment they were entering Chili’s, into a heady miasma of broiled hamburger, French fries, and various rich pastas that hit the tomcat with a jolt. He hadn’t realized he was so hungry. Clyde greeted Davis and they settled into a booth, Clyde dropping Joe’s carrier on the leather seat, which smelled of uncounted occupants and of spilled mustard.

“Have you eaten?” Clyde asked her.

“No,” Davis said. “Nothing but coffee, I’m awash in it.”

Joe, if he sat tall in the carrier, could see the sturdily built detective across the table, her short black hair smooth and clean, her dark uniform regulation severe. Where most detectives wore civilian clothes, easy and comfortable, Juana Davis preferred a uniform. Joe’s theory was, she felt that it made her look slimmer. “I’m starved,” she said, picking up her menu.

When the hostess came, glancing apprehensively into the carrier, Clyde said, “Just got off the plane. Trained cat, very valuable. He does movie work.” The yellow luggage ticket hanging from the handle was an excellent touch, and seemed to impress the thin, swarthy waitress.

“What movies has he made?” she asked with a considerable accent.

“Oh, he’s done over a dozen films as a bit player, but only two so far where he starred, where he had top billing.” Clyde mentioned two nonexistent movie titles, hoping she hadn’t lived in the U.S. long enough to know the difference.

Davis, sitting across from Clyde, remained straight-faced. When the waitress had taken their order and disappeared, Davis said, “I’m not going to ask why you brought your cat. Or why you took him into Liz Claiborne’s.” She looked at Clyde for a long time. He said nothing. “Are you going to explain to me what happened in there? I heard a pretty strange story from the deputy who just came from talking with the manager.”

Clyde looked at her blankly.

“About the tissue,” Davis said patiently. “And about that tomcat running loose in the store.”

Clyde gave her a disingenuous look that to anyone but a cop would reek of honesty. “He got out of his carrier. Guess I didn’t fasten it securely. Cat picked up a used tissue somewhere while I was describing Wilma, asking if she’d been there. I thought I had the carrier door fastened.”

Davis did not respond. Joe wished she’d show some expression. As warm and thoughtful as Juana Davis was on occasion, that cop’s look could be unnerving.

“Juana,” Clyde said, “Wilma’s like my family, you know that. I’m really worried about her, I had to just go in and ask, had to do something. I…with Wilma gone, I didn’t have anyone to leave the cat with.

“But then,” he said with excitement, “when I left the store, luck was with me. Incredible…” He reached in his pocket, drew out the wrapped credit card, laid it on the table, and opened the tissue. “Looks like, for once, my stupid civilian nosiness paid off.”

Davis looked at the credit card, at Wilma’s name, at the dark stain that appeared to be dried blood. She looked up at Clyde. Still a cop’s look, silent and expressionless, a look designed to unnerve the toughest convict.

“It was in the gutter. Among some trash, right where I parked my car.”

Juana’s rigid demeanor and her unreadable black Latina eyes made her look more severe than she was.

“I figure,” Clyde said, “either someone robbed her and dropped this-except why was it bent? Or that Wilma was mugged and kidnapped, and had time to drop it herself. To bend it and drop it. A carjacking, maybe? You think that’s blood on there? Could she have slashed someone with it, then dropped it hoping it would be found?”

Joe was glad he was concealed inside the carrier so Davis couldn’t study his face as severely as she was studying Clyde’s.

“My guess is,” Clyde said, “she was shoved in a car outside Liz Claiborne’s, had the card in her hand, slashed at her abductor, and dropped it as he slammed the car door and took off.”

“Why would she fold it?”

“To make a better weapon? That sharp corner?” Clyde took a sip of his coffee. “I don’t know, Juana. I only know it’s Wilma’s, it has her name on it, and it’s an act of fate that I found it, that I ever saw it.”

Davis studied the credit card. She picked it up by the edges and, taking an evidence bag from her pocket, dropped the card in, marked it with date, time, and location, and sealed it. She looked at Clyde again, then looked across the table at Joe’s carrier. Joe yawned stupidly, scratched a nonexistent flea, and curled up as if for a nap. Davis and Clyde were silent until their order came. A burger for Clyde, the same for Joe, sans the fixings. A chicken sandwich for Juana, which probably fit into her perpetual diet.

Clyde opened the carrier, shoved the burger inside, and fastened the mesh door again; he tore into his own burger as if he hadn’t eaten in days.

Joe inspected his order to be sure there were no pickles or offensive spreads, pulled off the bun, and scarfed down the hot, rare meat.

Clyde said, “What have you found out? Can you tell me? Sheriff have any leads?”

Joe stopped eating to watch Juana. Suddenly her dark eyes revealed a depth of anger that neither Joe nor Clyde often saw in the steady officer, a controlled rage that frightened them both; she didn’t like what she’d found. Wilma was not just a missing case, she was Juana’s friend, too.

“Sheriff’s deputies had already done the rounds when I got here,” Juana said. “Three clerks, in two stores, recognized Wilma from the picture we faxed. One clerk saw her leave, saw her go up the sidewalk with her packages but didn’t see where she went. Didn’t know if she got in a car. Sheriff has copies of her Visa charge slips. He checked the motels in the area, in case she decided to stay over. Showed them her picture. Nothing.

“No one’s found her car, no sign of Jones or Sears. We don’t know that Sears is with him, but he’s usually in Jones’s shadow. Sheriff is checking convenience stores, gas stations. CHP is all over the freeway watching for her car, and for Jones or Sears. APB out for the state. If she’s not found soon, that’ll be all the western states.”

“What does Sears look like?”

“Slighter built than Jones, thin face. Younger, thirty-two. Longish brown hair, muddy brown eyes. Jones is a hulk, six four and built like a truck. Gorilla face, long lip.” The detective was tense and edgy. Joe waited uneasily, as did Clyde. There was something more, something she wasn’t telling Clyde. Rearing up against the carrier’s soft top to observe her, Joe shivered. Davis was mad as hell, and about something more. Joe was surprised when Clyde unfastened the carrier, reached in, and began to stroke his back, as if to comfort them both.

“I just got off the phone with the dispatcher,” Juana said.

Clyde’s hand stiffened. Joe went very still.

“It’s Charlie,” Juana said. “Charlie’s disappeared. Charlie Harper’s missing, too.”

Clyde gripped Joe’s shoulder so hard the tomcat hissed. But then he rubbed his face against Clyde’s fingers, which felt suddenly icy.

“Charlie and Ryan had planned to ride,” Davis said. “Ryan was delayed on the job. By the time she got there, Charlie had fed the horses and put them up, and started to make sandwiches. Looked like she went outside again on some errand, or at some disturbance. The door left unlocked, and she hadn’t finished in the kitchen. From that point, no one knows. Ryan got there, she was gone. No note, no phone message. Her car there, engine cold.

“Max is there. Karen is making casts, taking the prints. Ryan found the tracks of a small car or maybe an old-style Jeep behind the stable, leading away up the bridle trail, back into the woods.” Juana looked at Clyde gently, her cop’s reserve falling away. She was close to Charlie and the chief, the small department was like family.

“Whatever the hell this is,” Juana said, “I hope the bastards burn-that we can make them burn.”

Even as evening fell, the cabin and the little cubbyhole kitchen remained intolerably hot, the walls pressing closer, so that Wilma felt there wasn’t enough air. Sweating, confined by the tight ropes, panic gripped her, making her feel almost out of control. She wanted to scream and to beat at the walls, to tear at the rope, tear it off, and she couldn’t even get a grip on it.

She seldom lost it like this. She was trained not to panic, but her training had gone to hell; she wanted to scream, and keep screaming until someone somewhere heard her.

Violet had taken the butcher knife, jerking it from Wilma’s clenched hand with surprising strength, and was carrying it away with her, toward the stairs. Wilma watched her retreating back; how thin her shoulders were, every bone visible beneath the flimsy shirt.

“You don’t think I can hide you,” Wilma said, trying not to beg. “You’re wrong. You don’t believe the federal authorities can keep you safe. I know they can. Witness protection has hidden thousands of folks with far more dangerous men after them than Sears, and those women are doing fine.”

Violet paused, but didn’t turn to look at her.

“You’re destroying what may be your only chance for freedom, Violet. I can get you into a safe house far away, out of the state. New identity, new name, all the papers. New driver’s license, new social security number. You can start over, free of Eddie’s abuse, do as you please with your life.”

As she tried to gain Violet’s attention, she prayed that in Gilroy her credit card would be found. But that was a real long shot, you couldn’t lay your life on a card lying in the gutter, a card that would probably be swept up by the street sweeper and dumped in some landfill.

“We can hide you in a little house or apartment in the most unlikely small town, somewhere no one would think to look. We’d alert the sheriff there to watch out for you, he’d be the person you could go to anytime if you were afraid. You could be living where no one would beat you, threaten you, hurt you, Violet.”

“He’d find me,” Violet said in a flat voice. “There’s nowhere he wouldn’t find me.”

“He won’t find you if he’s in prison. If you help me get him there, he can’t follow you. I have enough on Cage and Eddie to put them both behind bars for a long time.”

Violet turned, a question in her eyes.

“Believe me. A long stretch in the federal pen.”

“What happens when Eddie gets out? He wouldn’t be locked up forever. He’d know I helped you, he’d come after me.”

“Not if he can’t find you.” She was losing patience with Violet, but she couldn’t afford to snap at the girl. Violet, with no sense of self-worth, could easily become useless to her. “What’s the alternative?” Wilma said gently. “You’re going to sit here like a lump waiting for him to come back and beat on you for the rest of your life? Or kill you? If he’s in jail where he can’t get at you-”

“I don’t believe you can lock him up. He never-”

“He has aided and abetted Cage’s escape, the escape of a federal prisoner. He has kidnapped a retired federal officer. Both are offenses with long mandatory sentences. Mandatory, Violet. The judge has to send him away.”

Violet looked hard at her.

“If the law can make Eddie for theft, too, if Cage and Eddie have made some big haul-if that’s what Cage is looking for, that added to the other offenses could put Eddie in prison for the rest of his life.”

“And Cage, too?” Violet asked warily.

“Of course, Cage, too. That’s the law. Both locked up where they can’t hurt you.”

Violet was very still; Wilma watched her, trying not to let her hopes rise. No matter how much psychology Wilma had studied, it was still hard for her to relate to the masochistic dependence that made an abused woman love and cling to her tormentor. Wilma was too independent to understand the self-torturing, or guilt-ridden pleasure, an abuse victim took in harsh mental lashings and harder physical blows, even in wounds that could be fatal. Such an attitude disgusted her, went against her deepest beliefs. Disgusted her because these women had abandoned their self-respect, were committing self-abuse by their complicity.

She wanted to shout and swear at Violet, almost wanted to strike the woman. No wonder such women were ill treated. Violet’s cowering submission made a person want to hit her.

Violet looked at her for a long time.

“I can help you,” Wilma repeated; she was tired of this, tired of everything. “I will do all I can to help you, will use every kind of assistance that the federal system has to offer.” She prayed she wasn’t promising more than she could deliver. “But you have to want to be rid of him-and first, you have to help me.”

Violet’s blank expression didn’t change. She didn’t speak; she turned back toward the wall and disappeared behind it. Wilma listened in defeat to her soft footsteps mounting to the upper floor.

But then, swallowing back discouragement, she reached awkwardly behind her again to fight open the next drawer, to scrabble blindly for another tool sharp enough to cut her bonds.