Cat Playing Cupid

23

RYAN KNELT BESIDE Rock, holding him while Mike pulled aside the overgrown bushes. "What do you have, boy?" she said softly, trying to sound puzzled. "What's there?"

But when Mike, parting the overgrown camellia branches, saw the small dark bones of the fleshless hand he grabbed Ryan's shoulder, pulled her and Rock back so they would disturb nothing more.

"What the hell?" Clyde said, moving up beside them, looking down at the frail hand then looking up at Mike as if his father-in-law could explain this. "He's found…Someone's buried here?"

"Apparently," Mike said, frowning at Clyde. He looked at Ryan for a long moment without expression, and she felt her heart sink. He knew something was going on, her dad could smell a scam a mile away. Why had she thought they could pull this off?

But they had to make him believe this was an innocent discovery, they had no choice. "Could this be a family grave?" she said, looking beneath the branches as if for a grave marker or tombstone. But again Mike pulled her back. "Let the department look, Ryan."

"I didn't think…," she said, and stood with her fist to her mouth, as if embarrassed that she might have disturbed evidence, and distressed by the grisly discovery. She watched Mike flip open his cell phone to call the department, listened to his short discussion with Dallas when Mabel had patched him through.

"Dallas is still up the valley," Mike said. "He and Lindsey-headed this way."

The three of them stood in the silence of the ruins staring at the dark, frail bones and at the gold bracelet half covered with earth. The only sounds were an occasional birdcall, and the scrambling of a squirrel among the crumbling walls. At last Mike turned, studying Ryan again. "Rock did great. But that was no test, he's had training."

"I swear. We just got home! I haven't had time to do any training. This was the test! To see if we want to train him."

Mike was silent.

"I know he did great. I'm so proud of him," she said, kneeling to hug Rock again. "But he's bred to this, and he's so bright and eager-and he did track Charlie when she was kidnapped. Maybe that's all it took, that one time of being really committed, and he settled right in."

Mike looked at her coolly, knowing as well as she that her explanation wouldn't wash. "Whatever you've been doing," he said quietly, "it's working just fine." And he turned away from them as if listening for the sound of tires on the dirt and gravel road, though Dallas should be another fifteen minutes or more.

"I'll have a look around," he said, "meet Dallas around front, show him where we are." And he moved off toward the building, walking slowly and studying the ground. Behind him, Clyde gave Ryan an uneasy look, and she shook her head with concern. Not only did he not believe her, he was hurt that she would lie to him, and that in turn hurt Ryan.

From the roof above, Joe Grey watched and listened uneasily, his paws kneading with distress because Flannery wasn't quite buying this. The tomcat, having made his way up a dead oak to the roof of the two-story mansion, was crouched, now, on the lower roof of the bedchamber wing concealed by overhanging branches, as worried as Ryan and Clyde by Mike's skepticism.

Earlier, watching Rock find Clyde, he'd wanted to cheer, had felt wild with the thrill of the big dog's eager skill and of his own training technique. He'd watched Rock find the grave, then listened as Mike called Dallas to report the body. Now, listening to Mike tramp away over the fallen rocks, he watched Clyde cuddle Ryan close.

"Did he buy it?" Ryan was saying softly, trying to reassure herself.

"He'd better have," Clyde said. "Why wouldn't he? Rock was sensational. He might argue that you've been training him, but he'll never guess the truth."

Rock, at the sound of his name, pressed close against their legs. Both Clyde and Ryan were quiet, petting him and staring down at the dirt-stained bones, wondering what, exactly, Mike Flannery did think. And above them Joe crouched, wondering the same, then wondering about what he'd heard earlier at the far end of the grounds where a stand of eucalyptus trees sheltered an old, half-fallen garden shed.

Twice he'd thought he heard noises among the rubble, but when he galloped across the broken walls to look he'd seen nothing move, and had smelled nothing unusual among the sharp, nose-tingling scent of the eucalyptus trees. Deciding it had been only a squirrel scrabbling about, he hadn't gone on to the decrepit shed, he'd hurried back to the wall, not wanting to miss the moment when Rock found the body.

Below him, Clyde and Ryan sat down close together on the moss-covered concrete bench, Rock leaning against their knees, the three of them happy just to be together, content in the peaceful surround. For a moment, watching them, Joe felt a sharp pang of loneliness-or was it a stab of jealousy?

It was at this moment that Ryan looked up at him. She wasn't surprised to find him there. She grinned at him, and winked. Clyde looked up, the three of them shared a long look filled with pride in Rock, and in what they had accomplished. The little family remained so, Joe on the roof, the three below quietly snuggling, until they heard from down the hill, beyond the mansion, tires on the gravel road.

They listened to the vehicle approach and then pause, its engine idling, and they could hear another car behind it. They heard men's voices, then the crunch of tires again. And in a moment Dallas's tan Blazer came into view around the far end of the mansion, careening over the rough ground, followed by the coroner's white Ford van and then Detective Davis's car. They could see Mike in the backseat of the Blazer, showing Dallas the way.

As they parked near the grotto, Lindsey got out, too. She was wearing a white tank top and jeans, a Levi's jacket thrown over her shoulders. She paused as if asking Dallas a question. He nodded, and they headed for the grotto while Davis backed her car around, for easy access to her trunk, to the evidence chest and her several cameras. The coroner pulled up beside her as Juana stepped out; the detective was in uniform as usual, dark skirt and jacket, dark hose and black Oxfords. Dr. Bern wore an old pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.

The darkly clad, square Latino woman and the younger, bald-headed coroner made several trips carrying their equipment into the grotto, setting it down on the brick paving, away from the grave. As Dallas asked questions of Ryan and Clyde and Mike, Lindsey stood some distance away, staring across at the grave. Joe could read nothing in her expression.

Was she imagining those other weathered bones, up in Oregon, thinking about Carson Chappell's skeleton, lying alone in that remote forest? Thinking about Chappell dying there, alone?

As Joe watched, the abandoned grotto that had lain peacefully for so long with little intrusion was suddenly alive with activity, with the bustle that always seemed out of place as the living intruded on the silent and helpless dead.

Yet only this controlled invasion by police investigators could help the dead now. Only this obsessive examination of the remains, and the accompanying prodding into their personal lives, could vindicate the dead.

But suddenly Joe's attention centered again on Lindsey. What was wrong? She had taken a step forward to see better, was pressing her hand to her mouth, staring down into the grave.

Dallas, looking across at her, shook his head slightly. Their glance held for only an instant. Neither spoke. What was this, what was happening? Surely something about the scene engendered a shock of recognition.

Why did the hand of a skeleton evoke that alarmed response? Was it something about the bracelet? What did Lindsey and Dallas know that seemed to be secret? And, watching them, Joe realized he'd been making some huge assumptions.

He'd been thinking of the body as a victim, but they didn't even know if this was a body, it might be only a buried hand. If a body was there, no one knew yet if it was a murder victim or a natural death, only John Bern could determine that. This woman might, indeed, be a peacefully demised member of the Pamillon family, duly laid to rest in her own private garden.

Joe watched Davis shoot several rolls of black-and-white film and then some color, and then record the scene again with the video camera. Then, kneeling, Davis helped the coroner with the slow process of uncovering the frail bones.

They bagged and labeled the fragments of rotting garments, too, gently brushing away the dirt with a small, soft brush in order to discover minute debris, though after this length of time, given rain, wind, and small animals, perhaps nothing useful remained. Watching their tedious work, Joe glanced at Clyde and saw that he didn't look well. He was pale and seemed ill. Leaning out over the edge of the roof, Joe studied his housemate with alarm. A dead body shouldn't upset Clyde, he was used to crime scenes.

Unaware of Joe's scrutiny from above, Clyde was totally fixed on the body that was slowly being revealed. And suddenly he didn't like watching.

He had, indeed, in his lifetime witnessed any number of crime scenes and considered himself an unemotional observer. But now, as John Bern worked the earth and rotted cloth away from the skeleton's frail leg bones, a shock turned Clyde's stomach queasy: The thin femur bones encased in a pair of heavy hiking boots seemed as surreal as a scene from some science fiction movie.

The leather laces were still tied, and he thought crazily, how could a skeleton untie its own boots? Fragments of dirty hiking socks were stuck to the thin bones, and the incongruity, the sense of the unreal, turned him cold. He glanced at Ryan, expecting her to respond with equal unease. But his bride just stood looking, quiet and unruffled.

"Did Olivia hike?" she asked Dallas. "How strange. I imagined her…She was so into social functions. Fundraisers, high tea, charity bazaars. I didn't picture her tramping the hills. The photos I've seen of her…they were all in elegant dresses."

"The Pamillons had horses," Bern said. "Haven't you seen pictures from the thirties, of riders wearing laced-up boots over those flaring pants?"

"I guess I have," Ryan said. "But why would they bury her in riding clothes?"

During this exchange, Lindsey had moved out of the way of the coroner and detectives, and stood pressing close to Mike. He had his arm around her, but she was so rigid that Joe thought she must be trembling. The tomcat was so interested in her reaction that he nearly lost his footing on the roof's rotting edge-hastily he backed away.

Wouldn't that be a crock, Clyde's tomcat falls off the roof smack in the middle of the crime scene-a cat who should be down in the village hunting mice, doing cat things. Clyde would have to explain why he had brought his cat up here, and Mike would want to know if Clyde had needed his cat for Rock's tracking test, would want to know if Clyde had used cat scent to lay the trail, and wouldn't that blow it!

John Bern was numbering and labeling the bones, while Dallas examined the space around the grave in widening circles, collecting samples of earth and debris, his square face serious and intent. He was reaching beneath the overgrown camellia, carefully sorting through dead leaves, when he froze, his hand in midair.

"Something's here," he said softly, lifting away dead leaves. John Bern turned to look, then knelt beside him.

Carefully the two men cleared away leaves and earth until they had revealed a slab of pale marble, rectangular and precisely cut.

"'Olivia Pamillon,'" Dallas read, "'1880 to 1962.'"

Ryan looked at Clyde, stricken. Above, on the roof, Joe Grey crouched low, his ears down. This was a legitimate grave? A proper internment into which they had no business digging? The three of them had fabricated their complicated ruse, had brought Bern and the detectives up here for this? Had brought the law up here for nothing? And now they must watch, hiding their shame, as the frail bones were covered again-must hope, Joe thought crazily, that Olivia Pamillon's spirit could still rest in peace and wouldn't haunt them for the rest of their living days.

"Why," Davis said, "would they bury a family member here, and not in the family plot? And why without a casket?"

"These bones-" Bern began.

It was then that Lindsey stepped forward, touching John Bern's arm. "That is not Olivia Pamillon," she said softly. "That body is not Olivia."

"No," Dallas said, "it doesn't appear to be Olivia. Unless…" He looked at Lindsey. "Unless there were two bracelets."