Cat Fear No Evil (18 page)

When she stared hard at him, he moved on. When he'd passed beyond her view she sat down at the table with her back to the wall, where she could see the street. Annette brought her usual pot of tea and paused, a question in her eyes. Kate said nothing. She ordered a bourbon and soda as well, and a shrimp melt on French and a salad. Annette stood a few minutes making small talk, as Kate continued to watch the window.

Annette and her husband, an army sergeant, had moved to San Francisco when he was transferred to the Presidio. She liked to tell Kate of the new places she had discovered in the city, and Kate loved to make suggestions. The absence of the man outside the glass did not ease Kate's anxiety, he could be just down the street waiting for her, maybe standing against the next building just beyond the window. The early evening street did not, tonight, hold its usual charm. The cozy shops along this block presented, tonight, a more threatening aspect of North Beach. She felt safe only within the restaurant, she did not like to think about go
ing out again. She thought, when she was ready to leave, she might call the police.

But what kind of complaint would she make? The man hadn't confronted her, he hadn't touched or spoken to her. She could only say she'd been followed. Very likely they would think she was a nut case, imagining things. She supposed she could go out through the kitchen, to the alley, slip around the block to her car. She closed her eyes, trying to slow her pounding heart.

When she opened her eyes she saw him directly across the street walking among a crowd of tourists. Same man, looking directly across to Dolphin's windows, his slumped shoulders and rocking walk making him easy to recognize. When he'd passed beyond her view she rose and moved to the front window, standing to the side where she wouldn't be seen.

He had crossed to her side of the street but was heading away; soon he disappeared. Had he followed her from her office? Followed her clear across town and somehow found a parking spot near where she parked? Or had he already known her favorite small restaurants? Had he simply swung by each, looking for her? Why hadn't she gone somewhere different, someplace she seldom frequented? She was still at the window when a young woman burst in through the front door, turning to look back at the street.

She looked familiar, and Kate watched her with curiosity. She was looking around for someone. When she spotted Kate she nearly lunged at her.

“Kate? Yes, you are Kate Osborne?”

Kate had started to back away—but she
did
know this woman. Nancy something, the design client who
had approached her at the office, whom she had turned over to another designer. She was a delicate, elegant person, maybe in her early thirties. Beautifully groomed with a flawless creamy complexion, her face scrubbed clean, her blue-black hair smoothed into a simple chignon. She had wanted to do her apartment with South American furnishings; Kate had been sorry to turn down the project. The woman was simply dressed in a cream skirt and creamy sweater and carried a pale silk raincoat. Her dark eyes were huge. “You
are
Kate Osborne?” she repeated. “We met…”

“Yes,” Kate said. “I remember. You—What's wrong? You look distressed.”

“Could we step away from the window? There's…I think…I know it sounds wild, but I think a man has been following you.”

Kate led her to the small corner table. The young woman sat down so that she, too, could see the street. “I'm Nancy Westervelt.”

“Yes. I hope you found a designer you will enjoy working with.”

“I have an appointment next week. Thank you.” The woman chafed her hands together lightly, as if she were cold. “Tonight when I saw you on the street I thought I recognized you. When I turned to look, my attention was caught by a man who seemed to be following you. I watched him. When you came in the restaurant he drew back out of sight but then in a minute he slipped forward and looked in the window. Then he went on past, crossed the street, came back along the other side, and kept watching. He so bothered me that I knew I must tell you.”

“I appreciate that. When did you first notice him?”

“I saw you get out of your car. He was in a cab right behind you, he got out as you were parking. He started right off following you, though I didn't realize at first what he was doing.

“Maybe it's nothing, but it frightened me.” Nancy's voice was soft and well modulated. They sat a few minutes discussing her design project, waiting to see if he would return, both watching the window. Then, in the shadowed door of a T-shirt shop across the street the man appeared, as if perhaps he had been there for a while but had just stepped forward. Nervously Kate glanced toward the kitchen, where the back door opened to the alley.

The young woman's eyes widened. “Can you go out the back? If you could slip out that way, and around to your car…you could take my raincoat, there's a hat in the pocket, you could pull that down over your hair.”

Kate almost laughed, the idea of a disguise was so bizarre. And what if he caught her in the back alley? She would like to call the police, she was really tired of this. She wished she knew the names of the two detectives that Dallas Garza had worked with here in the city. If they knew that she was a friend of Garza's, would they be more likely to help her? More likely to believe that she'd been followed, and to listen to her?

But she didn't know their names, and anyway she would be embarrassed to call the busy San Francisco PD and ask them to send out a patrol car for something so…something that, when she repeated it back to herself, seemed so without substance.
He has been following me for weeks, I see him standing in doorways…

If her car or her apartment had been broken into, the police would take her seriously. But this…Well, she had to do something. Glancing toward the kitchen, she rose.

Nancy rose with her, handing her the raincoat. “I'll go out with you. He won't expect to see two women.”

Sliding some money onto the table, Kate followed her toward the back. Watching Nancy, she tried not to warm to the woman's gentle manner—but why did she have to be so suspicious? Nancy Westervelt was only trying to help her, was only concerned for her. As they paused by the door to the kitchen, Kate pulled on the raincoat, then the hat, tucking her blond hair up inside. She felt better doing something positive, even if this was melodramatic. Nancy looked hard at her. “I was followed once.” She was quiet a moment. “It wasn't nice. It wasn't something I'll forget.”

A faint nausea touched Kate, a shaky sickness.

As they moved through the kitchen among the busy chefs, among hot, delicious dinners being prepared along the big stainless-steel tables, the workers frowned at them, puzzled. A round, dark-eyed chef appraised Kate so critically that she thought he would tell them to leave. But then Annette caught up with them, handing Kate a foil-wrapped package. Kate could smell the warm shrimp melt. And quickly Annette led them through the kitchen, shepherding them with authority. Between a stack of cans and boxes, and storage lockers, they approached the back screen door covered by a dark security grid.

“Wait here.” Annette's thin, oval face was quietly serious. “Let me look out the back window.” She disap
peared into a storeroom, but was gone only a moment. Returning, she didn't ask questions. “There's no one there that I can see, the alley looks empty.”

They slipped out through the screen door fast, Nancy going first, Kate staying close behind her shrouded in the cream raincoat, the slouch hat pulled down nearly to her eyebrows. She felt like Groucho Marx in drag; she wondered if the lame disguise would fool anyone. Hurrying beside Nancy along the faintly lit alley she headed for the side street that would take them to Columbus again and her car.

T
he roof of the courthouse reflected bright moonlight,
offering no dark niche where a cat could hide. Along the edges of the tile roof, harsh searchlights scanned the night's shadows bleeding up into the sky. Only within the gloom of the oak tree's thick foliage, where the leaves caressed the roof of the Molena Point PD, was there safety. The three cats huddled down, blending as well as they could among the shadows, their paler parts carefully concealed from the dazzling beams. Joe Grey's white chest, nose, and paws were tucked under him as neatly as if he were a rolled-up ball of gray yarn.

It might seem overkill to send the entire department out looking for whoever had dumped that clear plastic package in through the holding cell window. But these days, any object tossed into a police building had to be regarded with suspicion. Anything, any time, could be a bomb. For too many, law enforcement had become the enemy.

Just when searchlights ceased to scour the parking
lot and progressed deeper into the village, a squad car pulled in from the street to park in the red zone facing the station. The cats watched warily.

Young Officer Rordan was behind the wheel. The thin, dark, more-seasoned Officer Sacks rode in the passenger seat. Had they picked up someone they thought had dumped the package, some unintended victim of feline subterfuge? But then the cats saw the three figures in the backseat.

All were female, slim, and young; one with pale hair piled on top of her head, one a tall girl with long dark hair tied back in a ponytail. And, a too-familiar figure with a sassy bob that, even in the glow of the vapor lights, gleamed as red as new rust.

Stepping from the vehicle, Officers Rordan and Sacks ordered the girls out. The three crawled out of the back, angry and disheveled, and were marched into the station, Candy and Leah scowling with rage. Dillon looked frightened and ashamed. Officer Sacks carried two large paper grocery bags crammed full of clothes; the cats could see bits of leather and velour, an expensive-looking running shoe. The officers and their prisoners disappeared inside, and the cats heard a metal door slam. Pushing through the oak's thick leaves to the high barred window, they peered down into the holding cell.

The girls sat sprawled on the stained bunk, all three now sullen and defiant. In the style of fashion-conscious young teens, none was dressed warm enough for the chill evening. Candy wore tight faded jeans, a white tank top that hiked well above her middle, and goose bumps. She slouched at the far end of the bunk watching as Officer Sacks booked Leah and then Dillon: name and address, parents' names, school, and any
statement they cared to make. Leah's answers were so rude the cats wondered if she
wanted
to be locked up for the night or perhaps longer. Her thin, sagging T-shirt looked no warmer than Candy's tank top. Her lipstick was the color of raspberry jam. Only Dillon answered Sacks's questions with any civility, as she glanced past him into the station. Was she looking for Captain Harper, perhaps hoping he wasn't there? She was wearing red jeans and an old, creased leather jacket with nothing but a bra underneath. Her boots were thick and heavy, of the kind that, well aimed, could break a person's leg. When Sacks finished with the girls, they lounged on the hard bunk, scowling and silent.

Max Harper arrived some twenty minutes later. He hardly glanced at the dispatcher's counter but went directly to the cell, his expression tightly controlled, a look that the cats knew very well. A line in his cheek twitched with anger, with disappointment. Dillon Thurwell was, in many respects, as close to a daughter as Max Harper might ever have.

Opening the cell door, he summoned the two arresting officers and sent Leah and Candy back to the jail to be locked up there. Then he turned his attention to Dillon. Stepping into the cell and locking the door behind him, he stood looking down at her, studying the top of her head as she sat staring at the floor. Watching them, the cats crowded against the bars, their ears back, not liking the hurt they could see in Max Harper's stern face. When Dillon wouldn't look up at him, he sat down beside her.

“I called your parents.” He took her chin in his hand, turned her face so she had to look up at him. Her scowl was fierce, and frightened.

“I want to hear your version. I want to hear exactly what you three did tonight.”

“If you called my dad, why isn't he here? How come he's taking so long?”

“I called him on my way down to the station. It's been only a few minutes. Tell me what happened, Dillon. Tell me now.”

“
I
know the drill!” she snapped. “It will go easier for me if I tell the truth. Everything will be cool if I tell you all about it. The truth and only the truth and that will make life just peachy.”

“Which one of you broke the lock?” Harper asked quietly.

No answer.

His expression didn't change. “Who went in through the window?”

Nothing.

“You girls planned your other burglaries more smoothly than this one. I have to say, you accomplished some fancy footwork at Alice's Mirror. Even if it was all going to go against you, in the end.”

She looked at him, surprised, then scowled harder. “
I
broke the lock.
I
went through the window.
I
handed the stuff out. Okay? So what? That's some kind of federal offense?”

“If it were a federal offense I wouldn't have to mess with you. I'd turn you over to the feds. Where's the fourth member of your little club? Where's Consuela? She slip out before my officers arrived? Leave you to take the heat?”

“She wasn't there,” Dillon said. “She's off somewhere.”

“Off where?”

“How would I know.”

“Did she set this burglary up before she left?”

Dillon didn't answer.

“Or did you plan it yourselves, without her? You've been busy, haven't you, teaching yourself how to steal.” He looked steadily at her. “Where do you plan to go with that?”

No response. She tapped her boot on the concrete in a steady and irritating rhythm.

“I don't have to spell it out for you, Dillon. You know how to make your own choices. You're building a life here. You don't get to go back and try again, you don't get to start over.”

Harper looked up when Officer Sacks came through the front door carrying two big paper drink containers with straws stuck in the lids. As Sacks handed them through the bars to Harper, the cats sniffed the sweet smell of chocolate. When Harper handed a container to Dillon, she looked like she wanted to throw it in his face. He watched her, amused, while he sipped on his own malt. From above them, the cats watched Dillon, equally amused. She refused to touch the malt, though she was probably thirsty and hungry, and much in need of a sugar fix, after her anger and fear. A chocolate malt, to a young girl, had to be like a nice juicy mouse to a cat who was hungry and in need.

Max Harper sat with Dillon for some time not talking, finishing his malt. Dillon tasted hers at last, glanced ashamedly at him, and ended up slurping the contents as if she was indeed starving. Sitting on the bunk beside her, Harper put his arm around her. Dillon, letting her guard down, looked now on the verge of
tears. But she glanced up scowling again when the front door of the station opened.

Helen Thurwell entered. The cats were pleased to see that she had come, until they saw Marlin Dorriss behind her. Talk about bad taste, talk about thoughtless and rude.

The couple was dressed to the nines, Dorriss in a dinner jacket, Helen in a long slim black dress with a V-neck, a gem glittering against her throat, suspended on a platinum chain.

Moving to the barred cell door, Helen stood looking in at her daughter. Her frown of distaste included not only the jail cell, but Captain Harper himself. Behind her, Marlin Dorriss stood not five feet from the dispatcher's desk, his back to the sealed freezer bag that lay in plain sight, displaying his paid Visa bills and the torn pages of the little notebook. The cats, watching the potentially explosive scene, were rigid, all three hearts pounding in double time. As Dorriss turned toward the counter, Joe Grey sucked in a breath ready to yowl, desperate to create a diversion—but at the same moment the dispatcher slid the packet underneath the counter out of sight. Both Joe and Dulcie went limp, and their pounding hearts slowed.

Officer Jennifer Keen was a rookie who filled the dispatcher position when the regular dispatchers took time off. She was a pretty brunette with a voice as hoarse as sandpaper. Having glanced at the contents of the plastic package, she had been adequately quick on the draw.

At the cell door, Helen looked from Harper to her daughter. “Which one of you wants to talk?” Her look at Harper seemed almost to imply that the break and enter had been his fault. The cats wondered where Dil
lon's father was. John Thurwell was the nurturing one, the wronged parent who stayed home with Dillon while her mother played fast and loose. It was her father who should be with Dillon now.

Within the cell, Max Harper sat quietly beside Dillon waiting for her to explain to her mother what she had been unwilling to tell him. Dillon was silent, staring at the floor.

Harper opened the cell door and Helen, with an expression of extreme distaste, stepped inside. Closing the cell door behind her, he stood to the side, just below the cell window. Across the foyer, Marlin Dorriss's expression where he stood beside the dispatcher's desk was cool with disdain, as if his relationship with Helen Thurwell really ought not to include involvements with the police, or with her errant daughter.

Watching him, Joe Grey wondered. What was it about Dorriss's expression? Filled with distaste, but something deep down, as well, seemed tense with apprehension. And as Helen tried to get Dillon to tell her what had happened, and Dillon remained silent and un-cooperative, Dorriss began to fidget. At last Helen turned to him.

“I know you have to get to the airport, Marlin. I'll walk the few blocks home; it's a nice evening.” Summarily dismissing him, she reached through the bars of the closed door. He took her hand, pressed her hand in both of his, but did not offer to kiss her.

Not in front of her daughter? Or not in front of the captain? Or did he not want to get that close to the bars of a jail cell?

When Dorriss left the station the cats slipped to the edge of the roof and watched him swing into his black
Mercedes. Heading for an evening flight, where? A trip that would remove him from the village for how long?

When Dorriss had gone and the cats looked again down into the cell, Harper was holding a police report, reading it to Helen in a gesture the cats thought was as much to shame her as to shame Dillon.

The burglary had occurred at the Sports Shop on Lincoln Street. The officers had found the lock on the back door broken, and the girls in possession of some five thousand dollars' worth of imported sweaters, leather coats, and top-of-the-line running shoes.

“How do
you
know how much it was worth?” Helen challenged.

“My officers can add,” Harper told her. “They can read price tags. Mrs. Barker is on her way in.” He looked at Dillon, repeating his earlier questions. “Who took the stuff, Dillon? Who handled the break-in, and who stood watch?”

“I took it! I broke in, I told you! They stood watch. I took the stuff. Okay? How come we didn't hear the alarm?”

“Silent alarm,” Harper said. “It alerts the security firm. I guess, this time, you didn't do your homework.” According to the report, the two officers arrived on the scene as Dillon handed out the first bag. Apparently neither Candy nor Leah had seen the two officers approach them among the shadows of the alley.

Max Harper's lecture to Dillon was short, to the point, and not appreciated by Helen Thurwell. “You are fourteen years old, Dillon. In four years you'll be responsible for your own physical, financial, and emotional well-being. It takes some effort and thought to
equip yourself for that, for the time when you'll have no one but yourself to lean on.”

He put his hands on Dillon's shoulders. He looked a long time at her, the kind of look as when she'd done something stupid that had endangered a good horse. He tilted her chin, again forcing her to look at him. “You've learned to handle a horse competently, under difficult conditions. Now it's time to remember your lessons, to treat yourself with equal respect.

“You cannot,” he told her, “let someone else's emotional baggage cripple you. Even if that someone is your mother.” He looked hard at her. “You cannot cripple yourself to teach your mother a lesson.”

Helen Thurwell looked mad enough to hit Harper, looked like she would grab him, jerk him around, and punch him. Dillon glared at him, but angry tears were running down. He put his arms around her and pulled her close. Above them, the cats hardly breathed. They were so caught by the drama, they hung halfway in between the window bars. The vicissitudes of humanity were sometimes so overwhelming, the scene they witnessed was so emotionally draining, that when Dillon's father arrived to take his daughter home, the cats felt like three limp dishrags hung to dry in the branches.