Cat Laughing Last (20 page)

The face matched that of his sleeping friend. The
name given was Lenny Wells—Susan's dog-walking companion. The address was in San Francisco. He went through the billfold, stubbornly pulling out credit cards with his teeth. He found no other identification. But this guy with the fresh scar on his forehead had to be Augor Prey.

Using teeth and claws, he managed to slide the little plastic cards back into the tight leather compartments, leaving curious indentations for Prey to puzzle over, and coveting, not for the first time, the luxury of human thumb and fingers. He searched the dresser, easing the drawers open, trying his best to be quiet and not make scratching sounds, and glancing up frequently to be sure Prey hadn't awakened.

He needn't have worried; the guy slept like the dead, didn't make a wiggle. Maybe he'd OD'd on too many sugar doughnuts. Finding nothing in the drawers but a few pairs of jockey shorts and athletic socks, and nothing taped beneath the drawers against the rough undersides, he inspected beneath the dresser.

Nothing for his trouble but dust in his nose and whiskers. When he crawled beneath the bed, his inventory included five large dust balls, three gum wrappers, and a wadded-up paper bag, which, when he got it open, proved to be empty. He found nothing remotely resembling Catalina Ortega-Diaz's letters.

When he shouldered the closet door open, he found the interior bare except for a row of rusty wire hangers. Apparently Prey preferred the backs of chairs for keeping the wrinkles from his jacket and spare shirts. Not until Joe slipped stealthily up onto the bed itself and approached Prey by padding across the blankets did his search pay off.

Watching Prey, ready to leap free from grabbing hands, slipping to within inches of Prey's stubbled face and redolent night breath, Joe pushed an exploring paw beneath the pillow.

Under the pillow lay a gun, just beneath Prey's head. Joe could smell burnt gunpowder, as if the piece had been fired recently but not cleaned. The cold barrel lay against his paw; he touched along its length, careful to stay away from the trigger, then gingerly he pressed a paw against the back of the cylinder.

He could feel one shell casing, in the little exposed part of the cylinder that protruded out beyond the barrel. That could mean anything. A full load of five or six shots? A partial load? Only one bullet, in that particular chamber? Or even a spent shell. But surely no one would fire a gun and leave the empty shell casings in the cylinder.

He sure wasn't going to try to open the cylinder and eject the shells to find out, even if he could manage that. Not without some pistol training—which he didn't think was in his immediate future. And not while crouching on the bed with his face just inches from Augor Prey's face.

He had no way to know if this was the gun that shot Fern—but it sure did smell of burnt gunpowder. Slowly he backed away, watching the sleeping man, moving softly across the bed. When his heart stopped pounding, he leaped to the dresser again and sat for some time studying Prey.

The wound on Prey's forehead was still angry, and darkly scabbed over. Joe could see the rectangle of sticky lines where adhesive tape had been pulled off. When Prey stirred and moved his hand, Joe dropped
down to the rug again as silently as he could, and headed for the bathroom.

Onto the counter, among the jumble of toiletries, one leap to the high windowsill, and he pushed out beneath the screen.

Dropping to the grass, he headed through the village, for the house just beyond Molena Point's tallest eucalyptus tree, where the kit had gone to look for Prey. There must, he thought, be another two dozen houses in the village with eucalyptus trees and pyracantha bushes; and who knew how many of those rented rooms. He and Dulcie, picking the three they knew best, had gotten lucky. Trotting along the sidewalk beside the deep flower gardens of a handsome Tudor cottage, he wondered if his anonymous report of the revolver would be enough for Harper to get a warrant, either for Prey's arrest or to search the premises. Ahead stood the hundred-foot eucalyptus, at the edge of the little sand park.

The park, running between the Bakery Restaurant and the beach, was a block-square oasis of low sand dunes, twisted cypress trees, and patches of hardy shore plants. The eucalyptus stood on the corner, its pale bark peeled off in long rolls like parchment, its white arms stretching against the night sky. Among its clumps of long silver leaves, he could see something dark, high up; something alive and clinging, wriggling nervously from the highest branch. He caught the gleam of frightened eyes.

“Wow,” said the kit from that great distance.

“Come down,” Joe said softly. “Come down, Kit.”

“Can't,” bawled the kit. She clung like a dark little owl, high and alone in the night sky.

“What do you mean, can't? Why did you go up there? You're not afraid?”

“Tomcat chased me up. I've never been this high.”

“Where's the tomcat?”

“I slashed his nose. He went down again, and Dulcie chased him.”

Joe looked around for Dulcie but didn't see her. He didn't hear any anguished cries from the neighboring yards. “What tomcat?”

“A spotted tomcat, in that house I looked in. Came right through the window at me! Mad! Really, really mad!”

Joe Grey sighed. “Come on down, Kit. Come down now!”

She turned on the branch, heading down headfirst.

“No! Don't do that! Turn around, and back down. You know how to back down a tree with your claws holding you.” He was shouting, angry and terrified that she'd fall, and praying that no one was out walking this late. Or that some homeless soul had decided to sleep in the sand park and would wake highly entertained by their little drama. Why was it that a cat who knew better would lose all good sense when high up in a tree? Why would any sensible cat insist on starting down headfirst, knowing very well that she would be unable to stop herself?

“Turn around, Kit!”

She turned, wobbly with fear, clinging onto one small branch. She started to slip.

“Get your claws in the tree. Back down with your claws! Watch where the bark is loose, don't…”

She backed straight into the loose bark and slid fast, the bark curling down with her. Frantically she scrabbled and grabbed and nearly fell, then got her claws
into a hard place. He could feel his own claws clutching, trying to help her. But at last she seemed to have a good hold. She backed down slowly, though he could still hear her claws ripping the bark. Where was Dulcie? Why had she run off chasing some worthless tomcat? The bark slid again, and he crouched to leap up after the kit, to break her fall.

A voice stopped him. “You'll only make things worse.”

Dulcie pushed against him, her whiskers brushing his, both of them staring up at that small, scrambling creature. “She has to do it on her own. She has to know she can.”

“If she doesn't break her silly neck.”

They waited, not breathing, watching the kit fight her way down. She dropped the last six feet into the sand, crouched there panting, then slogged across the sand to them, her paws seeming heavy as lead, her head and ears down, her fluffy tail dragging.

They praised her for coming down so cleverly, then scolded her for going up so stupidly high. They licked and nuzzled her and praised her again until she began to smile. Then they headed for Jolly's alley, just to cheer her. They were all three stuffed from Clyde's costly deli plate, but nothing else would delight the kit as much as that little side trip. Trotting close together, soon they turned onto the brick walk, beneath the little potted trees. Light from the two decorative lamps reflected in the stained-glass doors and mullioned shop windows. The jasmine vine that hid Jolly's garbage cans breathed its sweet scent onto the cool night breeze.

But the bowls that George Jolly had set out last evening had been licked clean, the other village cats
had been at them. They sniffed with interest the lingering scents of vanished smoked salmon and seafood salad, a little nosegay of mouthwatering goodness where no scrap remained. Facing the empty bowls, the kit hunched down with disappointment.

“You're not starving, Kit,” Dulcie said. She leaped to a bench beside a potted euryops tree and stretched out beneath its yellow flowers. Above the tree, the stars burned like the eyes of a million cat spirits. “You found Augor Prey,” she said, watching Joe, amused by his smug look.

Joe Grey smiled. “Fits the description. Fresh scar on his forehead. Driver's license in the name of Lenny Wells. Revolver under his pillow, that's been fired recently.” He looked intently at Dulcie. “It's time to call Harper. Time to find a phone,” he said shortly.

Since he'd grown dependent on placing a call for certain matters, and since every human he knew had a cell phone, the inability to access a phone anywhere, at any time, had begun to make him irritable—instant phone access was now the norm. He didn't like being left behind.

Right. And he was going to subscribe to Ma Bell Cellular? Walk around wearing a phone strapped to his back like some kind of service cat all duded up in a red harness? Though he had to admit, phones were getting smaller all the time. Who knew, maybe the day of Dick Tracy's wrist radio wasn't far in the future. Maybe he could wear one on a collar, designed to look like a license tag.

Though the electronic wonder that concerned him most at the moment was caller ID. How long would it be until Harper sprang for caller ID on his cell phone?
That was going to complicate life. As would this new system that would give police the originating location of all cell phone calls via satellite. That would be more than inconvenient.

Wilma had subscribed to caller ID blocking, and so had Clyde, in both cases to give Joe and Dulcie some anonymity. But it didn't work very well. Whether the phone company didn't bother to maintain the service, or whether there was some electronic problem, the cats didn't know. But the fear of identification by telephone deeply bothered Joe and Dulcie, and these new developments presented a constant threat of discovery.

“
Maybe
Prey shot Fern,” Dulcie said. “And maybe Casselrod killed her. If she knew about the letter that Casselrod found, would he try to silence her? Or hire Prey to do it?”

“For a letter worth ten thousand bucks? Not likely. Maybe for ten or twenty letters.” Joe looked hard at her. “In all of this, Dulcie, there's still something missing. Something right in front of our noses. Don't you sense it? I can't leave that idea alone. Some obvious fact that's the key to everything else.”

He began to pace. “Nothing's going to fit, nothing's going to make sense until we find it, or the department does.” He stopped prowling to irritably wash his paw, then paced again. At the far end of the alley he turned to look back at her. “Let's go, Dulcie. Let's make that call—let's nudge Harper, and see what we can stir up.”

A
s the
courthouse clock struck 4:30, its chimes ringing sharply across the dark and silent village, the three cats galloped up Wilma's drive and in through Dulcie's cat door, their backs wet with dew from Wilma's flowers and splotched with primrose petals.

The dark kitchen smelled of last night's roast chicken. Hurrying across the slick, chill linoleum and through to the living room, Joe leaped to Wilma's desk. He felt shaky suddenly, and uncertain.

With this phone call, he'd be playing on pure hunch. No shred of proof, no real information. He'd fingered Susan's burglar, he was pretty sure—or had fingered one of them. But did this information point to Fern's killer as well? So far, all circumstantial.

And as to the other matter he meant to bring up with Harper, that might be all smoke dreams. He could, Joe knew too well, be dead wrong in his suspicions.

Glancing to the hall, he locked eyes with Dulcie, where she sat listening outside the bedroom door to make sure Wilma didn't wake. Wilma knew they used the phone; she wouldn't be surprised that he was call
ing Harper. It was the second call that would be the touchy one, that he would just as soon she didn't know about.

For a moment he wanted to back down; his bold tomcat chutzpah deserted him.

But he'd made up his mind to do this. And when Dulcie gave him a tail-up all clear and an impatient look to get on with it, he swallowed back his misgivings and reached a paw to knock the phone from its cradle.

Dialing Harper's number, he was glad Cora Lee hadn't been released from the hospital yet, that he didn't have to worry about her overhearing him from the guest room. A surgery patient, who would surely be in some pain, probably wouldn't sleep too well. While tossing and turning, in the small hours, he wouldn't want her to discover more than she needed to know.

Harper answered crossly, on the second ring, irritable at being awakened. Joe knew from past calls, and from prowling Harper's ranch house up in the hills, that at night, the captain kept his cell phone on the bedside stand next to the house phone—Joe liked to think that might be because Harper had come to respect and value his two unidentified snitches, who preferred the cell phone number.

“Captain Harper, I can tell you where to find the tan infinity, license 2ZJZ417, the one I called you about last night.”

Harper was quiet.

“And I can describe better now the man who drives it. I believe you'll recognize him.” He gave Harper the location of the cottage and described the occupant of the rented room. “He carries a driver's license in the
name of Lenny Wells.” He could hear Harper breathing. Once in a while, Joe thought, he'd like to hear more than silence to the gems he passed on, would like to hear something besides Harper's smoker's cough and his gruff, one-syllable responses.

“Prey has a gun. A revolver, I don't know what caliber. It has been recently fired and not cleaned. He was asleep an hour ago, with the gun under his pillow.”

He knew that this information would generate some hard questions with Harper. How had the informant gotten into Prey's room? How had he been able to look under Prey's pillow and not wake him?

He couldn't help that. Harper had to take him on faith. He had done that, so far, and had benefited from the exchange.

“Captain Harper, do you have the feeling there's something we're not seeing? Some piece of information that would tie all the pieces together? Something so obvious that we're blind to it?”

“Such as?”

“I wish I knew. I'd be happy to share it. This gut feeling I have, maybe it involves the Traynors.”

Harper remained silent.

“Captain?”

Nothing.

Joe pressed the disconnect, keeping his paw on it to prevent triggering that annoying little voice that said,
If you want to make a call, please hang up and dial again. If you need help…

He knew from his past calls that Harper's lack of response was usually positive. But this silence had seemed somehow heavily weighted.

Was Harper having the same nibble of unease that he himself was experiencing?

Call it cop sense or feline intuition. Didn't matter what you called it, those little irritating nibbles, for both Joe and Harper, had turned out more than once to be of value. He stared at the phone, trying to steel himself for the next call.

Beyond the window, the sky was beginning to lighten. The time on the East Coast would be about 7:40. He glanced out to the hall toward Dulcie where she lay relaxed, washing her shoulder, giving no indication that Wilma had stirred. He had no idea whether the number he had memorized would be the agent's office number or her residence. Or if, indeed, she worked out of her home.

If he were a New York literary agent, that would be the lifestyle he'd choose. No office rent and no commute. He'd watched a miniseries once on writers' agents. A lot of stress there. But with an office at home, you could get up at three in the morning, if you felt like it, to take care of your paperwork. Plenty of time during the day to hit the street for lunches with editors. And then on other days, one might want to just schlep around ungroomed or unshaven with no one but the occasional delivery person to know any different.

He knew he was killing time, half scared to make this call. Carefully he pawed in the number. He was mulling over the wisdom of leaving a recorded message if she didn't answer, when she picked up. Her early morning voice was low and steamy, like Lauren Bacall in one of those old romantic movies that Wilma and Dulcie liked to watch. But she was even more irri
tated than Harper at being awakened. Hey, it was 7:40 on the East Coast.

Well, maybe New Yorkers didn't get up too early.

“Ms. McElroy, this is about your friend and client, Elliott Traynor. You've been concerned about him.”

“Yes, I have. Who is this?”

“I won't identify myself. I'm calling from Molena Point. You'll want to hear what I have to say. I believe your questions about Traynor might be answered if you would take a photo of Traynor over to NYPD and talk to one of their detectives. Tell them your concerns about Traynor. I can imagine you haven't wanted to do that and stir up the press, but I think that time is past. In fact, the time may be growing short for you to trigger an investigation.”

“Why would I want an investigation? Who is this? I don't understand what you're saying.” She was silent a moment, then, carefully, “You think the police could help me? In exactly what way?”

“I have an idea that your questions about Elliott will be answered,” he said obliquely.

“You realize that I have caller ID. That it won't be hard to find your name and address.”

“Ms. McElroy, I'm doing you a favor. You'll understand that when you've followed up. You can return that favor by destroying any record of this number, by preserving my anonymity. Someday you may understand exactly why that is so important. In the meantime, you will be protecting someone seeking only to help you.”

He hit the disconnect, feeling scared. The woman had, when talking to Harper, given Joe the idea that she
kept careful records of phone numbers and names.

Dropping down from the desk, he sat a moment, carefully washing, getting hold of himself. He did not feel good about this.

He certainly didn't want Wilma dragged into this because he'd used her phone, didn't want Ms. McElroy phoning Molena Point Library, checking the cross-reference, gaining access to Wilma's name and address—or maybe getting that information from some Web directory. He'd sure hear about that from Clyde and Wilma. He prayed that Ms. McElroy would get herself over to NYPD and not waste time tracing calls, hoped she'd see a detective first thing this morning. Because if he was right, there truly might not be much time left.

 

Joe worried all day about that phone call, fretted over it almost to the point of losing his appetite—to the point where at the animals' suppertime, Clyde started feeling Joe's nose for fever and smelling his breath. Talk about indignity.

“I feel fine! Leave me alone! I have things on my mind.”

Clyde looked hard at him. “Do you know that cats can have heart attacks? That cats can suffer from debilitating, life-threatening stress, just like humans can?”

“No cat I know ever had a stroke.”

“So now you're a vet, with unlimited research and information. How many dead cats have you autopsied? This sleuthing business is—”

“You talk about stress. Riding me unmercifully every minute gives me more stress than any kind of activity I might choose!”

“I'm not riding you every minute. I ask one simple question—”

“Two questions. Two questions too many.”

They'd argued until Clyde made himself late picking up Ryan for dinner, then stomped out of the house swearing that it was Joe's fault. And all the time, Clyde didn't have a clue what was really wrong.

An ordinary cat expects the house person to know what's bugging him. An ordinary cat thinks that a sympathetic human is clairvoyant—that he knows when and where you hurt and knows what to do about it. Your everyday cat expects an able human companion to know what has upset him, what kind of food he wants, where he wants to eat his supper, where he wants his bed. The ordinary cat thinks humans can divine that stuff, that they just know. And he's royally put off when some dumb guy can't figure it out.

But when you have more than the usual feline cognizance, when logic tells you that humans aren't really that sharp, then you have to inform them. Though at the moment, Joe wished that Clyde could divine just a little bit of what he was feeling.

He hadn't wanted to go into a big thing of explaining about Adele McElroy, but it would be nice if Clyde could guess. Because he couldn't stop worrying about that New York phone call. He had the gut feeling that McElroy would be in touch with Harper this morning and that very soon, Max Harper would be asking Wilma about her outgoing phone calls. He was irritable all day and didn't sleep well that night, even after
Dulcie told him that Wilma hadn't talked with Harper. He felt all pins and needles, was so filled with questions that two hours before daylight he slaughtered two moles in the front lawn just for the hell of it and conducted a complimentary vermin eradication marathon among the neighbors' gardens. Leaving twelve little bodies lined up on the front porch for Clyde, he headed for the Traynor cottage.

 

As Joe prowled a rooftop looking down into the Traynors' windows, and as the sun rose, sending a fiery glow across the bottom of the low clouds, Charlie stood at her apartment window pouring her first cup of coffee. Looking out at the first streaks of sunrise, and down at the village rooftops that always seemed fresh and new, she was thinking about Max as she did most of her waking moments. But she was thinking, too, about the job he'd given her to do, a sensitive bit of subterfuge that both amused and flattered her.

She hadn't the faintest idea why he wanted the evidence, and he hadn't offered to tell her. But the chance to play detective in the Traynor household had set her up, big time.

She took her time finishing her coffee, enjoying the sunrise, then showered and dressed and took herself out to breakfast, treating herself to pancakes at the Swiss Café. She did Vivi's grocery shopping and stopped by the drugstore, arriving at the Traynors' just as their black Lincoln was pulling out of the drive.

Waving, she turned in, parking by the back door. Using her key, which the rental agency had given her before they moved in and that Vivi had so reluctantly
agreed she keep, she carried the groceries and her tote bag into the kitchen.

Putting away the canned goods, milk, salad greens, and cherries, she waited long enough to be sure Vivi wouldn't forget something and come hurrying back, then got to work with the evidence bags.

She left the house ten minutes later carrying her tote, which now contained six dirty glasses from the Traynors' dishwasher, each lifted out with a spoon and dropped into a separate bag. Out of six, Detective Garza hoped to lift prints for both Vivi and Elliott.

She wondered what Clyde would think of her doing this. Not that he needed to know. Last night, she and Max had planned to have potluck with Clyde and Ryan, but then Max and Dallas had received a call that sent them off to the station. Charlie had used the excuse to go home and curl up with a sandwich and a good mystery, sending Clyde and Ryan out alone for dinner—a far better arrangement, in her opinion.

Interesting, she thought, that Clyde's attraction to Ryan truly pleased her. And it wasn't that she was happy to dump him, to have someone take up the slack when she started seeing Max. It was more than that. She thought Ryan Flannery might be very good for Clyde.

Wheeling out of the Traynors' drive, she met Max two blocks away at the designated intersection. Both stayed in their vehicles. Double-parking beside him, she moved over to the passenger window and handed the bagged glasses through to him. He grinned at her, his brown eyes amused. “Will they notice them missing?”

“I bought six like them at the drugstore, it's a common style. When the agency furnished the house to rent, they didn't want to use the owner's crystal. The new ones are in the dishwasher, where Vivi left these.”

Max gave her a wink that made her toes curl. She grinned back at him, did an illegal U-turn in front of him, and returned to the Traynors'. She felt so pleased with herself that before she began to clean she wheeled the vacuum into Traynor's study, to have an excuse for being there while she copped a peek at the latest chapter. Maybe this would be better, maybe these pages would be as fine as his old work.

She couldn't leave it alone; the flawed novel drew her, habituating and insistent.

But, starting to read, she was more dismayed than before. Even considering that Elliott was ill, the work left her perplexed. She didn't understand this writer who had for years charmed her with his prose. She was convinced his mind was deteriorating, and that was incredibly sad. She wondered if he might be in the first stages of Alzheimer's and wondered if Vivi understood how much Traynor's work had changed, if Vivi really knew or cared. Laying the pages back on the desk, she had a terrible, juvenile urge to grab a pencil and start editing, the way she would have done one of her own amateurish school papers.