Cat Spitting Mad

7

FROM HARPER'S KITCHEN, the smell of coffee drifted out across the porch as the cats watched through the screen, Joe Grey fidgeting irritably, rocking from paw to paw, his ears back, every wary alarm in his feline body clanging, as he listened to Max Harper, at the kitchen table, giving his formal statement to Detective Ray.

Harper's long, Levi's-clad legs were stretched out, his thin, lined face was expressionless, his brown eyes shielded in that way he had-a cop's closed face-so you could read nothing of what he was thinking.

From the time he had left the Marners and Dillon at the restaurant, until he arrived at the station three and a half hours later, an hour after he was due to go on watch, he had been in contact with no one. As far as Harper knew, no one had seen him.

"I left Cafe Mundo at about one twenty-five, maybe five minutes after Dillon and the Marners. I rode home along Coyote Trail, around the foot of the hills. That's the shortest way. The Marners and Dillon headed north up that steep bridle trail behind the Blackwell Ranch."

"And Crystal wasn't with you?"

"No, the horse she was leasing was to be shod today. I got home about two, unsaddled Bucky and cooled him off, sponged him and rubbed him down. Cleaned his tack and did some stable chores. Fed him, gave the dogs a run, and fed them. I had just come in the house to shower and change when the phone rang.

"It sounded like a woman. I couldn't be sure. Husky voice, like someone who has a cold. She wouldn't give her name. Said she thought I'd be interested in Stubby Baker because I was the one responsible for his going to prison. Kathleen, do you remember Baker?"

Officer Ray looked up at him. "Paroled out of San Quentin about three months ago. Mile-long list of scams."

Harper nodded. "She said Baker had come back to Molena Point to work a land scam involving the old Pamillon place. Said there was a problem with the title, one of those involved family things, and that Baker thought he could manipulate the records. Work through a fake title company, pretend to sell the land, and skip with the money. She said he had fake escrow seals, fake documents. Said he was working with someone from Santa Barbara, that the buyers were a group of older people down there, professionals wanting to start their own retirement complex.

"I'd seen Baker up around the Pamillon place, I'd ridden up there several times because of those cougar reports. And I knew Baker had been nosing around in the Department of Records. That, with her story, made me want to check him out.

"Baker's staying in a studio apartment over on Santa Fe. The informant said he was scheduled to meet with his partner at four that afternoon, at Baker's place. That they were getting ready to make the transaction. That the buyers were going to put a lot of money up front, that they had complete faith in Baker.

"The last scam he pulled here in Molena Point was so shoddy I can't envision anyone trusting him. But I caught a shower, dressed, and went over there. I thought if I could make his partner, get a description and run his plates, we might come up with enough to search the apartment, nip this before those folks got taken. I drove the old Plymouth."

Some months earlier, Harper had bought a nondescript 1992 Plymouth to use for occasional surveillance. Usually the detectives picked up a Rent-A-Wreck, a different car for every stakeout, so the local no-goods would find them harder to spot.

"I parked at the corner of Santa Fe and First behind some overgrown shrubs, sat with a newspaper in front of my face. Watched the apartment for over an hour. Not a sign of Baker. Only one person went up the outside stairs-the old woman from Two D. Baker's in Two B. No one came down, no one left any apartment I could see, and there's only the one entrance, there in front, except fire escapes. Even the garbage is carried out the front. I could see all of the second-floor balcony, could see Baker's door and window. Didn't see any movement inside, no twitch of the curtain, no light burning.

"Maybe Baker made me and had a quick change of plans. I left at ten to five, swung by my place to pick up my unit, got to the station at five."

Detective Ray pushed back her long, dark hair. "Did anyone see you, anyone you knew?"

"If they did, they didn't speak to me. I didn't notice anyone, just a few tourists."

"Did you know the woman who made the call? Recognize her voice?"

"As best I could tell, she wasn't anyone I've talked with in the past. No, I didn't recognize her." Harper frowned. "It wasn't that woman snitch who bugs me, at least not the way she usually sounds. That woman speaks so softly, with a touch of sarcasm…"

Outside the screened door, the soft-voiced snitch twitched her whiskers and smiled.

"This one-yes, probably disguised," Harper said. "Sounded older, rough and grainy. If it was a disguise, I bet it gave her a sore throat."

And both cats watched Harper with concern. This giving of a formal statement and all that implied had them more than frightened, left them feeling as lost as two abandoned strays in a strange city.

Max Harper was the one human who made their sleuthing worth the trouble, who, when they helped to solve a case, would see the perps successfully prosecuted-the one law enforcement type who made their sneaky feline efforts worth the trip.

And Harper was more than that to Joe Grey. Joe had a deep and caring respect for the police captain-for his hunting abilities, for his dry humor, which was almost as subtle as the humor of a cat, and for his general attitude of quiet power-all traits that the tomcat greatly admired.

But now, crouched in the dark beneath the deck chair, Joe imagined with painful clarity Max Harper facing Judge Wesley not as a witness for the prosecution but as a prisoner about to be prosecuted. The thought made his belly queasy and his paws sweat.

He might torment Max Harper, might be amused by Harper's irritable response to certain anonymous phone tips-amused by Harper's unease at never being able to identify the source of certain information. But he would gladly rip apart whoever had set up this scam.

And there was no doubt in either cat's mind that it was a scam. Some lowlife was out to ruin Harper, with the help of the American justice system.

During Harper's statement, Charlie had not left the room. When he was finished, she poured fresh coffee for him and Detective Ray, and dished up the breakfast she had kept warm. Harper was wolfing his scrambled eggs when the blacksmith arrived.

The cats followed Harper and Turrey to the stables, again streaking into the feed room. In the rising dawn, it was harder to stay out of sight.

Clyde's yellow car was gone from the yard. Whether he had left to give Harper privacy or was angry at Charlie for mothering Harper, the cats couldn't guess. Clyde and Harper had been friends ever since high school, and Clyde was the only non-law-enforcement type Harper hung out with. For Clyde to see his own girlfriend mooning over Harper-if he did see it, if he was even aware of Charlie's feelings-was enough to make anyone mad.

Well, Clyde had had plenty of girlfriends before Charlie; it wasn't like they'd been seeing each other forever. These human entanglements were so-human. Filled with subleties and indirect meanings and hurt feelings. Awash in innuendos. Nothing like a good straightforward feline relationship.

From the shadows of the feed room, the cats watched as Turrey pulled Bucky's shoes, the small, leathered man easy and slow in his movements. As he pulled each shoe, he dropped it into an evidence bag that Detective Davis held open for him. Captain Harper stood aside. Already he had taken an arm's-length position, directing his people but handling nothing. He had approached Bucky only to bring the gelding from his stall and put him in the cross-ties, then stepped away.

The cats watched the blacksmith clean out the dirt from each hoof, and scrape it, too, into the evidence bags. Watched Turrey fashion a new pair of shoes for Bucky. Dulcie had a hard time not sneezing at the smell of burning hoof as Turrey tested the metal against Bucky's foot-the seared hoof smoldered as hot as Joe's anger at Max Harper's unknown enemy.

Of course Harper had been set up. What else? All Joe could think was, he'd like to get his teeth into whoever had hatched this little plot.

But while Joe wanted to slash the unidentified killer, Dulcie just looked sad, her pointed little face grim, her green eyes filled with misery.

Charlie seemed the last one to admit the truth. When Turrey left, and the cats followed Harper back to the house, Charlie said, "Maybe there was some mix-up. Maybe the photos and casts were made where you did ride, before the murder-maybe days before." She stood at the sink washing up the breakfast dishes, her face flushed either from the steam or from stifled tears.

"I haven't ridden up there in weeks," Harper told her. "And the evidence was not taken from where I rode last night."

"Maybe two separate shoes got scarred. Maybe some piece of dangerous metal is half-buried in the trail, and both horses tripped on it. If we could find it…"

Harper patted her shoulder. "Leave it, Charlie."

"But…"

"There's more here than you're seeing."

She looked at him, red-faced and miserable.

"I have good detectives, honest detectives," Harper said softly. "We'll get this sorted out. And we'll find Dillon."

But the cats looked at each other and shivered. Someone wanting to destroy Max Harper had killed two people and might have killed Dillon.

Still, if Dillon was alive, if they were holding her for some reason, the twelve-year-old would be a hard prisoner to deal with. Dillon wouldn't knuckle under easily.

Dulcie's voice was hardly a whisper. "What about this Stubby Baker? Harper said he's been in town only a few weeks. What if Baker was in his apartment? What if he saw Harper watching? What if he could testify to Harper's presence there on the street between four and five?"

"Oh, right. And an ex-con is going to step right up and testify for a cop he hates."

But he sat thinking. "What day was it that the kit had that encounter with Baker?"

"How do you know that was Baker?"

"She watched him through the window. Don't you remember? Saw his name on some letters."

Dulcie smiled. "I do now. The kit is not a great fan of this Baker."

A week before the murder, the kit ran afoul of Baker as she was licking up a nice bowl of custard in the alley behind Jolly's Deli.

Jolly's alley, to the kit, was a gourmet wonderland. The handsome, brick-paved lane, with its potted trees and benches, offered the village cats a nirvana of imported treats. And that particular afternoon she had been quite alone there, no bigger cats to chase her away. Had been up to her furry ears in cold boiled shrimp and a creamy custard when a tall, handsome man entered the alley.

He was dark-haired, slim, with dark, sparkling eyes, a movie star kind of human of such striking magnetism and appeal that the kit was drawn right to him. She sat up, watching him.

"Hello, kitty," he said with a soft smile.

In a rare fit of pleasure and trust she had run to him and reared up beside his leg-never touching him but curling up in an enticing begging dance, asking prettily to be petted.

The man kicked her. Sent her flying. She landed against a shop wall, hurting her shoulder. She had been shocked at his unkindness. Only in that second after he kicked her, when she landed staring up at him hissing, did she see the evil beneath his smiling mask. When, laughing, he drew back to kick her again.

That man's smell had burned into her memory. Within the dark side of her mysterious cat mind, she invented vast tortures reserved for this human, exquisite pain that she longed to visit upon him. Oh, she had told Joe and Dulcie in detail how, when he left the alley, she followed him, keeping to the shadows cast by steps and protruding bay windows. Followed him to an apartment building, where he climbed its open stairs from the sidewalk to a second-floor balcony tucked between tall peaked roofs and shaded by an overhanging tree. Swarming up into the branches, the kit peered past wooden shutters into a lovely apartment of white walls, tile floors and soft leather that matched the way the man looked.

The mail on the coffee table told her his name was Baker. She watched this Baker and hated him. Tried to think of a way to hurt him. Her nose was inches from the glass when he swung around and saw her, and his eyes grew wide. The kit swarmed down the tree and ran.

"A mean-tempered dude," Joe Grey said. "With his record, and Harper having sent him up, you can bet he's connected."

"You may be right, but…"

"Baker's part of this mess, Dulcie, you can wager your sweet paws. And I mean to nail him."