Cat Fear No Evil (26 page)

But there was no time to try to dig the bag open. Chomping down securely on the blue suede, he leaped onto the trellis and tried to climb.

The trellis was a frail thing, and the vine was just as thin, hardly strong enough to hold a good-size sparrow.

A sturdy enough pine tree stood beyond the window, its branches rising above the building, but the trunk was too far away for a leap, even without his burden. If the cops arrested Consuela and Hollis, he had two choices. He could secure the jewelry for Dorriss, and could pretty much write his own ticket: hide the bag on the roof and, when the law finished searching the condo and took away those two losers, call Dorriss. What could be easier?

Or he could choose the most impressive piece or
two, a bracelet or choker that would fit around his neck perhaps. Dump the rest on the roof for the pigeons, then go on to follow his own plans.

Dragging his burden off the trellis onto the clay roof tiles, he could hear, below, businesslike voices from the living room as the cops questioned Consuela.

T
he binoculars had been Joe's idea. Clyde had to
admit, the 7×35 lenses gave him a sharp, almost intimate view through the third-floor window of the condo where Consuela and the uniformed officer stood talking. “I don't see the plainclothes guy.”

“See the cat?”

“Not a sign of him.”

That made Joe nervous. “What are they doing in there? Wish you could lip read. Why don't you call Harper, see if he got the warrant, see if that's what this
is
about.”

Clyde lowered the binoculars, looking at Joe. “Harper doesn't need to know I'm here. And how would
I
know about a warrant?”

“Just play dumb. Tell him you came up to the city because you were worried about Kate—tell him the truth, Clyde. He doesn't need to know what else you're interested in, or where you are at this particular moment.”

“So when I tell him I came up to see Kate, he's go
ing to offer gratis information about a search being conducted by San Francisco PD?”

“Feel him out, draw him out. You can do that. Maybe those guys are just fishing—that's more than
we
had time to do.”

Their plan had been to walk through the complex trying to see into the garages that occupied the first floor beneath the apartments. They'd thought maybe there'd be windows in the back. But they hadn't had time to look for the Packard before they saw Consuela and the black tomcat, and then the cops showed. Now, as the uniformed officer moved out of sight, Clyde's cell phone rang.

“Damen,” he said softly. Then, “Where are you?”

Joe leaped to the back of the seat to press his ear to the phone. Kate was saying, “We're at Ghirardelli Square for breakfast, waiting for our order. I've made an appointment with an appraiser, for Lucinda's jewelry, just before noon. I just stepped outside to do that, and to check my messages; the shops and little gardens are so beautiful. You didn't have to come, Clyde. Where are you?”

“Just up from you, opposite the yacht harbor. Do you—Hold on.”

Above them in the condo, Consuela had left the window. But the black cat had appeared at the other end of the condo on a balcony. Clyde felt Joe's claws digging into his shoulder as together they watched Azrael climb up a bougainvillea vine, clawing his way toward the roof. The black cat moved slowly, dragging something heavy that was dangling from his clenched teeth. “What is that thing?” Clyde said. “Something blue. Looks like a woman's purse.”

On the phone, Kate gasped, “That's…”

But Joe was out the window, slashing Clyde's hand when Clyde tried to grab him, dropping to the street behind a passing car. He could hear Kate shouting into the phone as Clyde bailed out behind him, swerving into the path of a cab. Joe was safely across when tires squealed, and then Clyde was across, yelling as Joe headed for the end of the building where a pine tree rose, as bare as a telephone pole, its high, faraway branches brushing the roof where Azrael had disappeared.

Storming up the tree, Joe leaped for the roof, his claws scrabbling and slipping on the slick, rounded tiles. Ahead of him among a maze of heating vents and chimneys a black tail flashed and was gone. Watching for the tomcat to show again, Joe studied the shadows among the rooftop machinery.

Joe waited for some time, then slipped in among the pipes and wire mesh boxes, sniffing the air. All he could detect was the smell of machine oil, ocean, and fish from the wharves.

But then, where the shadows of two chimneys converged, he saw a faint movement. He remained still, his heart pounding.

Azrael appeared suddenly, leaping to the top of a wire cage. Dropping the blue bag between his paws, he hunched low over it, watching Joe. Crouched in attack mode, his amber eyes were slitted, his teeth bared. At this moment, against the sky, he looked as huge and fierce as if the beast did, indeed, bear the blood of jaguars as he boasted.

Warily, Joe approached him. As he rounded on Azrael, he heard from the apartment below a crash that
sounded like furniture breaking, heard Consuela swear, then a softer thud, and one of the cops shouted. At the same instant, Joe made a flying leap onto the mesh box and straight into Azrael's claws. Burying his teeth in the tomcat's shoulder, he bit and raked, ripping his hind claws down Azrael's side. Azrael, twisting with the power of a thrashing boa, bit into Joe's belly. Below them glass shattered, a cop barked an order, and then silence, sudden and complete.

Coming at Joe with all the screaming power of an enraged jaguar, Azrael slashed at Joe's face; Joe tasted blood. Clawing at each other, the two toms slid across the tiles rolling and scrabbling. And as Joe leaped for the black cat's throat, the pounding of hard shoes came running, sliding, and Clyde loomed over them, diving for Azrael. Azrael gave a violent surge that hurled Joe sideways, slashed Clyde's arm, and twisted out of Clyde's hands, snatching the bag where it had fallen among the shadows.

Weighted by his burden, Azrael sailed off the roof into the overhanging branches of the pine and was gone, scorching down in a shower of pine bark. Joe streaked down after him, hitting the ground with a thud that knocked his wind out. Already Azrael was half a block away flashing through the condo gardens and up the hill at the back, his neck bowed sideways as he dragged the blue suede bag. As Joe leaped after him, he heard Clyde running across the roof above, and down wooden stairs somewhere at the back.

 

And as Joe fled after the black tom, intent on Kate's vanishing jewels, down the coast in Molena Point, Dul
cie and Kit lay quietly in Detective Juana Davis's office observing a material witness to the death of James Quinn. Listening to the woman who, though in part responsible for the real estate agent's demise, seemed without knowledge of that fact.

Dulcie lay curled in Juana's in box as unmoving as a sleek toy cat. Across the desk from her, the kit lay sprawled across a stack of reports, belly up, fluffy tail dangling over the edge of the desk, her long fur tumbled in all directions like a ragged fur piece. Detective Davis sat at her desk between the two cats, apparently amused by the pair, making no effort to evict them. Across from her, settled at one end of the couch, Helen Thurwell looked up at Davis, calm, composed, and puzzled.

“I thought I'd told Detective Garza everything that might help,” Helen was saying. “It wasn't much, but…you're still thinking that it might not have been an accident? That someone
killed
James?”

Neither cat opened her eyes. Neither cat allowed her ears to rotate following the conversation. Both seemed deeply under, twitching occasionally as if wandering somewhere among mysterious feline dreams.

“I understand that this is painful,” Juana was saying. “But I believe you can help. Quinn was your partner for how many years?”

“Nearly ten years,” Helen said. “He was a good partner, always careful in his record keeping, always cordial and considerate of our clients, never impatient with them—never stepping on my toes in a transaction. You don't work with someone that long, and that closely, and not grow to care for them.”

“No one is suggesting that there was any problem between you.”

Dulcie slitted her eyes open just enough to watch Davis. Juana Davis was a no-nonsense sort of woman in her fifties, squarely built, with dark hair and dark eyes. She was a steady, commonsense person, but along the way she hadn't lost her sympathy for another human being. She was just very selective as to who deserved it. Dulcie thought that Juana was still making up her mind about Helen Thurwell.

On a hunch, Dulcie unwound herself from the in box, sat up yawning, and leaped to the couch to settle down beside Helen, curling up close to her, to see what she would do.

Davis's couch was old, tweed-covered, and smelled of cocker spaniel from some past life before she bought it at the Pumpkin Coach Charity Shop. The city did not pay for items the city fathers considered luxury purchases. Dulcie didn't see why a couch would be considered a luxury; but then, she wasn't the city manager. On the coffee table before Helen lay a thick briefcase. Before she reached for her files, Helen turned to stroke Dulcie.

She seemed to know how to pet a cat, so gentle and reassuring that Dulcie began to purr. Interesting that Helen wasn't this reassuring with her daughter—but then, maybe petting an animal helped to ease Helen's tension. And dealing with her daughter did not?

When at last Helen opened the briefcase, she removed a large black ledger. “This was what you wanted? The record of my work days?” Rising, she passed the ledger across the desk.

Juana opened it, studied several pages, and nodded. “Do all real estate agents keep this kind of record?”

Helen shook her head. “The agent who trained me,
the man I worked with when I first started out, he taught me to do that. He'd had a court case once where he had to testify about the specific circumstances of a sale. I guess it got pretty ugly. He couldn't be sure of some of the times involved and, as it was a murder case, he felt he hadn't been very helpful.

“Some of our documents are marked with the time of signing as well as dated; others are not. In a case like his, he'd had to go through them all, do the best he could to remember specifics. After that, he began to keep a log. He trained me to do that, and I've done it ever since.” Helen looked at Juana inquiringly.

Rising, Juana moved to the credenza. Turning over two clean cups, she poured fresh coffee from a Krups coffeemaker. “Cream and sugar?”

“Neither please. Just black.”

Setting one mug on the coffee table and the other on her desk, Juana picked up a sheaf of photocopies that lay on the blotter and stood looking down at Helen. “These are copies of the pages of a notebook.” Juana handed the papers to Helen. “The original pages had been ripped in quarters. We taped them together and made copies, then locked them in the evidence room. Do you recognize the handwriting?”

Helen examined the first few pages. “It's James's handwriting. But these entries…these are the names of my clients.” She looked up at Juana. “We both had our own clients. We simply worked backup for each other.” She examined several more pages.

“I think these are the dates that offers were made, or maybe that a client went into escrow. I'd have to check the ledger.” She looked up at Juana. “I don't understand. Why would James keep this? This information is
all recorded in my ledger. And in the various papers that are on file.”

“You notice the little symbols before each entry? What are those?”

Helen shook her head. “I don't know. Asterisk. Pound sign. Circle. Repeated over and over. I haven't any idea. I don't understand why James would keep any kind of list of my clients.”

“Can you find any pattern? Remember any special circumstances about these particular meetings? Would the symbols indicate whether you met with the client in the office, or somewhere else? Whether anyone besides your office associates was present? Anything at all out of the ordinary?”

Helen studied the entries for some time, sipping her coffee. When she reached absently to pet Dulcie again, her hand had grown tense and cold. She sat a minute with her eyes closed, as if thinking. As if trying to remember, perhaps to make sure of something. When she looked up at Juana, her hand had grown very still on Dulcie's fur. And her cheeks were flushed.

“I think…I'm pretty sure there was someone in the office during each of these transactions.”

Juana sat watching Helen, her square, tanned face impassive. Helen's hand on Dulcie's shoulder was so tense that under other circumstances Dulcie would have risen and moved away. Helen said, “Marlin Dorriss was…was in the office during each of these meetings. I'm sure of it. Waiting for me somewhere in the office.”

Juana continued to watch her, in silence.

“Sometimes, he'd be sitting reading in a client's chair, beside some empty desk. Sometimes in one of
the chairs against the wall just beyond my desk. You know how our office is, each desk with space enough to draw up chairs and sign papers, but no separate conference room for the signings.”

“Anyone besides Marlin Dorriss?”

“No.” Helen's face colored. “Waiting for me to go to lunch or maybe dinner.”

Dulcie was pleased that Helen had the grace to feel ashamed.

“After your clients finished their business and left, did Marlin usually come on over to your desk?”

Helen looked surprised. “Yes, he did,” she said thoughtfully. She gripped Dulcie's shoulder so hard that it was all Dulcie could do not to hiss. Dulcie watched Helen, fascinated.

Had Helen never once questioned Dorriss's presence in her office? Had she never wondered if Dorriss would snoop on a client's personal information that was all laid out on her desk? Dulcie imagined him retrieving bank names, memorizing street addresses, information from loan applications, social security numbers. Had he been able, as Helen turned away perhaps putting her papers in order, to jot down bank account numbers, business references, mother's maiden name—a regular buffet of vital information?

“When the clients left,” Juana said, “and Dorriss came to your desk, their papers might be still lying there?”

“Yes,” Helen said shakily. “Sometimes.” She pressed a fist to her mouth. “But he wouldn't…He wouldn't have…” She realized she was clutching Dulcie, and took her hand away.

Juana said, “Do you have a restroom in the office?”

“Yes.”

“Did he usually use it before you left for…lunch or whatever?”

“Always. But he…he is very careful about germs, almost a fetish.”

Right
, Dulcie thought. She could imagine Dorriss in the locked restroom busily recording all the vital information from Helen's clients. This smooth snooping had to be the setup for identity theft. She licked her paw, thinking.