Cat Raise The Dead

31

The fog was breaking apart, blowing in tatters. Pulling Buck up, beside a stand of eucalyptus trees, Max Harper watched a black Toyota come up the Prior drive and around the house toward the kitchen. A gray-haired woman got out, probably one of the maids returning from an errand. He could hear no sound now from within the house-the radio and the vacuum cleaner were silent.

He had ridden in a circle around the Prior land along its outer perimeter, crossing the long drive down the hill, then making a second pass closer to the house, looking for any sign where the ground might be disturbed, any sign of digging, just as he had searched every foot of these hills. Though very likely forensics would identify the finger as belonging to Dolores Fernandez.

He wondered how a venerable member of the Spanish aristocracy would view the vandalism and dismemberment of her ancient, frail remains.

Maybe Senora Fernandez wouldn't care, maybe what happened to her earthly self would mean nothing to her now-or maybe would even amuse her.

He pressed Buck in the direction of the cemetery though Buck wanted to shy, began to fuss, didn't want to approach the shadowed grove. When Harper forced him on, the gelding tried to whirl away, snorting rollers. Buck was seldom spooky, and never without cause. He kept ducking and staring into the grove.

Buck's nervous attention was fixed on a spot where three old thick trees stood close together, casting heavy shadows. Harper could see nothing moving there, but Buck was watching something. Max heard, behind him, the car door slam, then footsteps going up the outside stairway at the far end of the house, and in a minute he heard a door open and close. He forced Buck to the edge of the grove, where the gelding tried again to whirl away, snorting and staring like some green colt. Max squinted into the shadows between the heavy oaks, pressed Buck on, amused by their stubborn-willed contest. He seldom had a problem with Buck. But suddenly the breeze changed. Came sharper. And he knew what was wrong with the horse.

He caught the smell himself, the smell of rotting flesh.

Frowning, he let Buck spin around and move away, and at the far end of the grove, upwind from the stink, he swung out of the saddle. Undoing his rope, he made a halter of it and tied the gelding to an oak tree.

He stayed with Buck, talking to him until the gelding calmed, then left him. Walking slowly, he quartered the cemetery around the old graves, looking. Could not pinpoint the source of the putrid scent as it shifted on the wind, could see no sign of digging, but as he neared the three close-growing trees, the smell came so strong it gagged him.

The only thing that looked out of place on that smooth turf was the heap of dry leaves piled against a tree.

Poking around with a branch, he found a small portion of earth disturbed beneath the leaves and, scraping the leaves aside, digging into the dirt, his stick hit something unnaturally soft, something that wasn't earth.

He knelt, gently brushed soil and leaves away with the tip the branch, uncovered a small lump of what looked like rotting flesh, a dark and stinking mess buried in a shallow hole. Covering his nose and mouth with his glove, he knelt to look closer.

It appeared to be hamburger, chopped meat of some kind. And he could smell, besides the rotting meat, the distinctive scent of cyanide.

He had found not a body as he'd expected, but a lump of poison bait.

And as he knelt studying the meat and the disturbed earth, he saw not only scrape marks from digging, but faint pawprints-as if perhaps some animal had been after the meat, and had been frightened away.

Except, the pawprints were under the leaves, not indentations on top. These animal tracks had been made before the leaves were scraped over.

Had some animal buried the stinking mess and scraped leaves over it?

Exploring further, he found where the bait had originally lain, some two feet from where it was buried.

What kind of animal would move rotten meat and bury it? Would dig a hole, push the meat in, and scrape dirt and leaves over it?

Cats buried offal, buried their own offensive mess.

He stood looking into the gloom of the cemetery, then fished his handkerchief from his back pocket and, with the stick, scraped the cyanide-laced meat into it.

Leaving Buck tied, carrying the rotten meat, he headed for the old adobe stable, where he could hear a hose swishing and could glimpse, through the open gates to the stable's inner courtyard, the caretaker at work, hosing off the wheels of the big riding mower. Moving quickly, Harper stepped inside the big double gates.