Cat Pay The Devil

7

T he beefy man sat on the bed going through the overnight case Wilma had taken to the city; her thin hanger bag was thrown on the floor, the clothes spilling out. Dulcie stared in at his long, heavily angled face, long upper lip and heavy features. Jones must be well over six feet, big boned, big hands, thick shoulders. The other man was smaller, tall but of light frame. Thin face, maybe thirty. Thin shoulders, thin long hands, long brown hair under a brown baseball cap. Both men seemed, to Dulcie, parodies of what humans should look like. She could not bear to think how they might have hurt Wilma, what they might have done with her.

Wilma’s flowered chintz coverlet was wadded up on the floor, the white wicker night tables overturned, the door to the red iron stove flung open and ashes scattered over the flowered rug: Did they think Wilma hid her valuables in the woodstove? But, what valuables? What did Jones think she had? Finished with the overnight case, he dropped it on the floor, stood, and began going through Wilma’s closet, throwing clothes out into the room, running his hands over the wall behind. The white wicker dresser had been jerked away from the wall, cosmetic jars scattered on the floor, as were the contents of her traveling makeup case. What would she hide in there? The case she kept in her overnight bag, neatly supplied, ready for an impromptu junket, a habit learned when she was a probation officer and so often had to travel. Dulcie, seeing that Wilma wasn’t in the bedroom, backed away toward the guest room, Kit pressing close.

The guest room had been trashed, too, closet doors flung open, drawers pulled out and dumped, guest sheets and towels spilled on the rug, the bed shoved aside, the covers pulled off. If they thought Wilma kept valuables in the house, a large stash of money, or jewelry, why would they look in her luggage? And if they had Wilma, why had they brought in her luggage and packages? This made no sense. If Jones wanted it to appear that Wilma had come home, why bother to trash the house?

Did they want it to look like she’d been here, then was forcibly taken away? Did they want the cops to think that the housebreaker who’d killed that woman last night had done this? Take advantage of the moment, make it seem that Wilma had come home, had a snack, started to unpack, and then the break-in or forced entry had happened?

“Her car…,” Kit said. “Is her car here?”

“I smelled exhaust. It…She…I didn’t look inside!” Racing for the laundry and the door to the garage, Dulcie leaped up the door, scrabbling her paws to open the dead bolt…But it was open. Those men had been in the garage, had left the door unlocked. She could smell them. Swinging on the knob, she kicked at the wall until the latch gave and the door careened in, carrying her with it.

She saw Wilma’s car as she dropped to the concrete, could feel heat still radiating from it, smell the stink of oil and exhaust. She did not want to look inside, could not look inside that car. Kit stared at her, waiting, then reared up, trying the doors, but they were locked.

Ever since Dulcie and Joe Grey discovered they could speak and were thinking like humans, ever since they’d helped trap their first killer, not much in the human repertoire of assorted evil shocked the cats; their clandestine roles as police informants had hardened Dulcie to most human viciousness. But now fear held Dulcie as cruelly as she, herself, had ever gripped a mouse between sharp teeth. And it was Kit who leaped to the hood first, and pressed her nose to the windshield. Ice cold, Dulcie followed.

The hood was warm beneath their paws. Pressing her nose to the bug-splattered glass, Dulcie shivered with relief at the empty front seat and floor. She stared into the back as far as she could see, then leaped to the workbench and stretched out across space, her back paws on the bench, her front paws on the side window, to see the dark floor of the backseat.

Empty. She began to breathe again-but then she caught the faintest scent of blood and stiffened, studying the pale leather upholstery.

There was no dark stain, and the scent was so faint she wondered if she was mistaken, if it might be a blood smell that the tires had picked up. Dropping down to the concrete, she examined the warm tread, but she could detect no blood scent there. She watched Kit sniff at the trunk, her mind awash with every grisly kidnapping she’d ever heard about-and Kit did smell something, she was sniffing intently.

But then she dropped down again, lashing her bushy tail, and turned her round yellow eyes on Dulcie. “Only gas fumes,” she said quietly.

Dulcie went limp. “Is her cell phone in the car?” Both cats flew to the hood again, peering in at the seat and dark floor; then over the curved metal roof and onto the trunk to look in through the back window, pressing their faces against the glass, leaving smears that would puzzle the police but couldn’t be helped. They could not see Wilma’s little phone, not dropped on the floor, not fallen in the crack of a seat-and Cage Jones wouldn’t stay in the house forever.

“Going to chance the phone,” Dulcie said boldly, and she streaked for the living room again and onto the desk, and hit the speaker button. Her paw was lifted to press the button for the police dispatcher when she thought, How could she call the station? Why would the phantom snitch, whom Harper thought was a human person, be in or near this house? How would the snitch know that the house had been trashed, that there were two men in the bedroom, and that Wilma had disappeared? Only someone who had a key would know that.

Captain Harper himself had a key. As did Joe’s housemate, Clyde. And Wilma’s niece, Charlie Harper.

Swiftly Dulcie punched in the key for Charlie’s cell phone. Charlie would have to lie for her, would have to pretend she’d come in here, herself.

Three rings, and then she got the voice mail. She tried the house, but again no answer, only that canned voice telling you to leave your name and number. Fidgeting from nerves, she punched the digit for Clyde’s cell phone. Answer, Dulcie prayed. Oh, please, Clyde. They won’t be in the bedroom forever. If they see the light, they’ll be after us. And if they don’t…Once they’re gone, the cops might never find them, and they’re all that can lead us to Wilma.

But Clyde didn’t answer, not on his cell, or on his home phone. She left frantic messages on both. If he was at the automotive shop, which was closed on Sunday, he’d be in the very back, in his own exclusive garage, working on one or another of the classic and antique cars he collected, happily puttering away, no phone to disturb him, not knowing anything was amiss. And Dulcie did the only thing left to do. She’d have to conjure up a whopping lie. She tried to think of a good one as, heart pounding, she pressed the key for 911.

One ring, and the dispatcher picked up. Dulcie was glad it was Mabel Farthy. She was describing the trashed house, explaining that Wilma was missing and that two men were in the bedroom when Chief Harper came on the phone…Mabel had summoned him, or had turned on the speaker. At the same moment, as Dulcie started to describe the two men, Kit stared toward the bedroom, hissing, and slipped behind the couch. Dulcie leaped after her as harsh footsteps pounded out, running. The two men raced past, through the dining room and kitchen and out the back door. As the door banged, Dulcie leaped to the window, looking, leaving Mabel shouting into the phone. She heard a car start on the side street, heard it peel away, but couldn’t see it. At the same moment, two trucks rumbled past, loud and intrusive, hiding all other sounds.

“They’re gone,” she shouted at Mabel. “A car raced away a block over, I never saw it, I can’t hear it now, can’t tell which way it went.” That sounded so lame, like she was making the whole thing up. “I couldn’t see!” she told Mabel in frustration.

But even as she pressed the disconnect button, she saw the first squad car pull quietly to the curb. Bless Harper’s men for being so fast! They must have been nearby, even closer than the station, men already in their squad cars, their engines running. Two more units sped past the house, racing to spot the fleeing car.

“You didn’t describe the men,” Kit hissed. “Tell her-”

Moments later, a second squad car halted at the curb, and Max Harper swung out as four uniforms took off running, to surround the house. A key clicked in the front door; the door banged open so fast, the cats only had time to back against the shutters. Chief Harper and two uniforms moved fast, toward the bedroom. The instant they were past, the cats streaked through to the laundry and bolted out Dulcie’s cat door; they just missed being trampled as the two other cops moved quickly up the steps, their hands on their weapons. Dulcie and Kit dropped from the porch into a flower bed, Kit’s eyes wide. This was not the usual procedure for a break-and-enter-but the law didn’t fool around when it came to an escaped convict. And Max Harper didn’t play gentle when a close friend, and his wife’s own aunt, might be in danger.