Cat Laughing Last (24 page)

H
arper raked
in the largest pot of the night, stacking his chips in neat rows. “That would have been tight,” he said, “keeping a twenty-four-hour surveillance on the Traynors, pulling men off patrol.”

Garza nodded. “Better off in custody. New York is sending Vivi's case file?”

Clyde stared at his cards and said nothing. And from the bunk in the laundry, Joe and Dulcie watched with slitted eyes, pretending to be asleep.

Harper said, “Homicide put it in the mail this morning. No wonder Traynor's agent was upset.”

“All right,” Clyde said, “that's enough. Let's hear it.”

“If not for Traynor's agent,” Garza said, ignoring Clyde, “hassling NYPD, they might never have identified the body.”

Joe had sat up, staring at the two cops so intently that Dulcie nudged him. He lay down again, tense with interest. At the poker table, Charlie and Ryan were quiet, watching Harper feed the story to Clyde piece by puzzling piece, the captain loving every excruciating minute.

And Joe and Dulcie looked at each other, buzzing
with questions. Had the case come down like Joe thought? Was that what Garza and Harper were saying? Had Adele McElroy and NYPD found the missing piece? Did Harper and Garza have to be so damned oblique? They were not only teasing Clyde, they were driving two poor innocent cats nearly crazy.

“You're not saying,” Clyde snapped, “that Elliott Traynor is wanted in New York? For homicide? You're saying he killed someone? This guy is famous. You're saying he—”

“He didn't kill anyone,” Harper said mildly.

“Vivi?” Clyde said. “Vivi killed someone?”

Harper shrugged.

Clyde laid down his cards. “No more poker. No more beer. Nothing more to eat until you guys lay out the story.”

The officers began to laugh.

Ryan said, “…he and Vivi
were
married three years?
Were
married…?”

Charlie repeated what Harper had said earlier. “
Did
Elliott know that she would be last? That she would be Elliott's last wife, Max?”

Clyde said softly, “Elliott Traynor is dead. When did this happen?”

“Before we ever met him,” Garza told Clyde.

Joe Grey felt his heart pounding, and felt Dulcie's heart pounding against him. He'd been right. A wild guess, a shot in the dark, and he'd pounced on the big one. Had nailed his quarry right in the jugular.

Clyde looked hard at Harper. “This is not Elliott Traynor, this guy in the Traynor cottage who's the spitting image of Traynor, who looks like Traynor's picture on his book jackets, who is supposed to be
suffering from terminal cancer? Who is overseeing the production of Traynor's play and finishing up Traynor's novel?”

“Fry cook from Jersey,” Garza said. “Dead ringer for Traynor.”

Clyde shook his head. “And Traynor's agent was worried because his work was so bad? A fry cook is writing Traynor's book? And is Vivi a fake as well?”

“That's Mrs. Traynor,” Harper said. “They came close to pulling it off.”

“They killed him?”

“Not sure yet,” Harper said. “New York's working on that.”

“How did you…?

“Someone knew,” Garza said. “Or suspected. Someone blew the whistle. Called the agent, told her it was time to take her problem to NYPD, to talk to the detectives.”

Clyde shuffled the deck. “I'm getting lost here. It would be nice if you guys would start at the beginning.”

“Talk about chutzpah,” Harper said. “Fry cook with no literary talent, impersonating one of the country's top writers.”

“And you have them in jail.”

“Brought them in late this morning,” Garza said. “They were packing up, getting ready to skip. We're holding them on illegal disposal of a body, until New York decides if it was homicide.”

Garza counted his chips, then looked up at Clyde. “Elliott Traynor died six weeks before they were to fly out here. No one knew; there was no report made of his death. For all intents and purposes, Elliott boarded the plane with Vivi.”

“No one might have known,” Harper said, “except that Traynor's book wasn't finished when they left New York. When they got out here, the writing suddenly turned inept. Apparently this fry cook can't write worth a damn.”

“What did they do with the body?” Clyde asked. “You can't just—”

“Seems Vivi dressed him in old ragged clothes, old shoes. Elliott had lost weight, didn't look well, and that fit right in. She left him in an alley—a dead John Doe, one of New York's homeless.”

“Agent got concerned,” Garza said, “because Traynor's last chapters were so bad. She started poking around, then called Max.

“Agent was waiting for us to check on Traynor, when someone from Molena Point called her. Suggested she get over to NYPD and talk to the detectives, take them a picture of Traynor.”

Clyde didn't ask who called the agent. Under the table, his foot was tapping. He eased back his chair as if he found it hard to sit still.

“The agent's visit paid off,” Garza said. “One of the detectives remembered a John Doe that looked like Traynor. Body was tucked away in the morgue waiting to be ID'd. The detective took the photo and ran with it. Got the agent to bring him some manuscript pages—some that Traynor sent before they left New York, and some later chapters that were sent from here.”

Harper said, “Prints on the chapters Traynor wrote before they left the city matched the John Doe. The other set, on the chapters sent from Molena Point, are Vivi's, most of them. One or two that match up with
the fry cook. And,” he glanced at Charlie, “some prints where the housekeeper had moved the manuscript, when she dusted the desk.”

“You had Vivi's and this guy's prints?” Clyde asked.

“We were able to lift them from the house,” Harper told him, “sent them overnight to New York.”

“Another few weeks,” Garza said, “and Elliot might have been buried in a pauper's grave to make room for new bodies.”

“But why would Vivi…How did Traynor die?”

Harper shook his head. “The body was found by a garbage collector behind a row of trash cans. Unshaven, dirty, shaggy hair. Nothing visible to indicate the cause of death. Usually, whether the coroner suspects murder or not, on a John Doe they'll take blood and tissue samples for later investigation.

“Even though he was really too clean, no thick calluses on his feet, no sores or signs of prolonged ill health, New York thought Traynor was homeless. They're a busy department. Overworked, backed up on investigations, as is the medical department. They didn't take samples. Tucked him away hoping they'd get an inquiry, someone looking for him.”

“But why didn't they run his prints?”

“They ran his prints,” Harper said. “No record. Even if he'd had a driver's license, New York DMV doesn't take prints. Only a picture. Could be, they would never have made the connection except for Traynor's agent and whoever tipped her. I talked with her this afternoon. She's not taking this too well—they were close friends. She's convinced it was murder.

“She said Traynor had plotted a smashing ending to the book, a finale that fit the story yet would blow the
reader away. Said Traynor plotted carefully before he began to write, and that he always adhered to his outline. She said the plot was followed in the last chapters, but the writing was not like Traynor's work. She thought for a while that it was the medication.

“She said that for several weeks after he sent the first chapters, while he was still in New York—when the writing first turned bad—Vivi wouldn't let her talk with Traynor when she called. Vivi claimed he had a bad cold, on top of the cancer and his treatments, that his condition was pretty serious, so McElroy didn't push it. Said she was leaving town for a week's conference. When she got back, Traynor did finally return her calls but he was forgetful and his voice muted, like the cold was hanging on. What upset her was that he didn't want to talk about the book, didn't seem able to talk intelligently about it. She wondered if he'd had a stroke, but Vivi denied that.

“Then,” Harper said, “Traynor decided to come to California to oversee the play and finish the book, despite his illness. McElroy said she was worried about him doing that.”

“But,” Clyde said, “if Traynor died naturally, from the cancer, if Vivi didn't kill him, why wouldn't she have a bang-up funeral and collect his estate?”

“If the book wasn't finished,” Harper said, “she might have to give back his advance. And the guy had four previous wives. Maybe he didn't leave much to Vivi.”

“Then you're saying she had no motive to kill him? That he died a natural death, but she didn't want anyone to find out?”

“That remains to be seen,” Harper said.

Joe and Dulcie exchanged a glance of smug satisfaction. But they lowered their eyes when they saw Clyde watching them, and began diligently to wash—the age-old ritual of pulling a little curtain of disinterested preoccupation around themselves.

Garza said, “Apparently she met this fry cook some six months ago. Willy Gasper, working in a little hole-in-the-wall in Queens.” That made Joe swallow back a laugh. This tall, well-dressed, elegant-looking man that everyone thought was an author of international fame—this guy's name was Willie Gasper?

“Think about it,” Garza said. “She discovers a dead ringer for Elliott. Elliott's ill, she assumes he's terminal somewhere down the line. She knows that when he dies, the writing income is reduced, and that very likely four ex-wives could have some claim on his assets. Willie presents a ready-made way to keep Elliott in the picture, convince everyone that he's still alive. Not hard, she thinks, if she offers Willie the right deal.

“She'll have to take over Elliott's writing, but she has his research, and this book's three-fourths finished. She figures she can do that.”

Garza smiled. “Apparently it didn't occur to Vivi that she might not be able handle the literary side of the matter. The opportunity was too good. How could she pass it up?”

Harper said, “The New York medical examiner should have an answer in a day or two as to whether she killed him or he died of natural causes. Meantime, the two of them are in jail raising all kinds of hell.

“When we get this sorted out,” Harper continued, “we may find a link between these two and Augor Prey. We picked Prey up last night. Prey and Casselrod.”

“On a tip,” Garza said quietly. “From this phantom snitch of Max's, that no one has identified.

“Last night,” Garza said, “I'd pulled off the officer I had watching Prey. We had a party to break up south of the village, a free-for-all fight—kids—and someone fired a few shots from a twenty-two. We had everyone down there. Maybe Prey knew the officer had been pulled back. Maybe not. But whoever called in was close enough to Prey to see him packing up—and to see Richard Casselrod follow him.”

Garza frowned, aligning the cards into a neat stack. “I'd like to find this informer. See what other information he might have—see what his interest is in all this.”

Harper was quiet. Clyde was quiet. Charlie rose to refill the plate of cold cuts. And in the laundry, crouched on the lower bunk, Joe Grey smiled.
Don't waste your time,
he thought, glancing at Dulcie, and he put his head down on Rube's leg, feeling pretty good about life.

If he hadn't called Adele McElroy, she might not have gone to the New York police until it was too late, until the body had been disposed of—if he hadn't had that niggling little itch that wouldn't let him rest. Cop sense, Harper called it.

And apparently Harper, too, had felt that a big piece of the puzzle was right there, looking him in the face.

Though Harper, constrained by certain ethics and codes, might not have been able to take the freewheeling approach that a cat could employ.

Joe knew it wasn't smart to get smug about a case until there was an arraignment, a court date, and the wheels of the law were grinding, but he couldn't help it. Dropping off the bunk to accept a plate of snacks
from Clyde, he found himself rumbling with purrs. And when he looked up into Clyde's eyes, the two shared a rare moment of perfect understanding. Clyde was proud of him, and that made Joe want to yowl.

All he and Dulcie had to do now, he thought, giving Clyde a purr and a head rub, was wait to see whether Vivi, maybe with Willie Gasper's help, had indeed killed Elliott. Or whether she simply took advantage of the situation at hand.

Or, Joe thought suddenly, had Elliott himself done the deed? Had Elliott Traynor, following the philosophy of some other terminally ill folks, unwilling to deal with increasing pain and weakness, taken his own life? Had he stepped out of the sickness, perhaps with the expedient use of some powerful and legally prescribed pain medication? Joe was thinking so hard about this possibility that he didn't wonder until later about Willie Gasper's “target pistol,” about the .38 with which Willie had killed the raccoons. He didn't wonder until late that night if Garza had searched the Traynor cottage and found the weapon.

As he curled down on the pillow beside Clyde, he knew there must be more to the story that Harper and Garza hadn't yet told, and he began to wonder, anew, what the two officers were holding back.

Maybe there was something they were feeling edgy about, not yet certain how the facts were unfolding? Well, if Harper and Garza wanted to play that hand close to the chest, that was their call. Maybe they knew where the gun was, and weren't spilling that part just yet.

T
he ladies
of the Senior Survival club met early Saturday morning to stand in line for the Iselman estate sale and ended the day falling in love. To their great dismay, the object of their affections was not available, but was spoken for by another. The day was breezy, streaks of clouds blowing so low over the hills that, high up where the Iselman house rose, they seemed to catch on the rooftops. Mavity and Gabrielle and Susan waited in line at the door for the tickets. The house stood on a steep street of expensive residences at the east side of the village, a large two-story structure of stucco and rough-hewn timbers, with multiple wings and patios, and angled tile roofs. At precisely 7:00 A.M. John Tharp, manager of Tharp Estate Sales, opened the front door from within and, holding a large roll of blue tickets, began passing out numbers to be presented three hours later for admittance. Already the line snaked to the street and half a block along the sidewalk. The three ladies took their numbers and greeted Clyde and Ryan, who stood behind them some ten places.

“Will you join us?” Susan asked. “We're having
breakfast at La Junta.” La Junta Hotel's patio breakfasts were a village favorite. “Wilma and Cora Lee are meeting us. After the sale, we're going to look at houses.”

Clyde raised an eyebrow. “I didn't know you were that far along in your plan.”

“Neither did we,” Susan said, “but the marsh houses are being evicted since the city finally made up its mind. Mavity has thirty days to get out, so we thought we'd have a look.”

“Well, it's a buyer's market,” Clyde said. “But we'll take a raincheck on breakfast, we're going to the state park—deli picnic, and a hike before the sale begins.” He moved up beside Ryan to accept their tickets and the ladies turned away to Susan's car.

They read the real estate ads over breakfast, and marked the most desirable houses.

It would take a lot of looking before they found the house that suited, and in their price range. The ladies lingered over the ads, enjoying their breakfast, then hit Iselman's estate sale shortly before 10:00. Shopping for only an hour, they covered the ten rooms that were open to the public carrying away cloisonné bowls, Haviland china, ebony carvings, and some nice old
brass pieces that should do well in the eBay auctions. Packing their purchases into Susan's and Gabrielle's cars, they unloaded them in Susan's garage with only faint unease. With both Augor Prey, aka Lenny Wells, and Richard Casselrod out of circulation, their purchases would be perfectly safe. The first open house was a residence so immaculate, with its creamy fresh paint and white carpets, that they all were afraid to set foot inside. The garden was equally well manicured, each tree and rosebush trimmed to a perfection seldom found in nature. The house had five large bedrooms and four baths, and a kitchen to die for; but no one felt comfortable.

“Too picture perfect for me,” Mavity said. “I'd be afraid to breathe.”

“And me,” Susan agreed. “Not a home for a dog, even as well mannered as Lamb.”

“I like it,” Gabrielle said, imagining herself in the largest, front bedroom, the one with the fireplace. Neither Wilma nor Cora Lee showed much interest. The house was beautiful, with its large living room and sunken seating area, its white satin draperies and white tile fireplace; but it wasn't the home they wanted. Anyway, the price was out of their reach. They moved on to the next open house, and the next, traveling in two cars in case Cora Lee should grow weary.

Some of the houses were elegant. Some showed the love marks of hard wear by large families. Some had good space, an appealing kitchen, or a welcoming garden, but none quite fit. Not enough bedrooms. Rooms too small. And of course the universal complaint: too much money.

Mavity, at the end of thirty days, would receive a
cash payment, the city taking out a low-interest loan for its investment. The council had voted to turn three-fourths of the land back to the marsh as a bird and wildlife refuge, and to sell the remaining acre at a profit for a small, tasteful condominium in the heart of the sanctuary. The “nature” units would be much in demand. Mavity made no comment about the city's intentions. She walked through the open houses with little enthusiasm, caught in the trauma of dislocation, feeling insecure and off-center and frightened. Wilma put her arm around her friend, knowing that when her own time came to move, she'd feel the same.

Wilma didn't intend to leave her stone cottage anytime soon, but it was nice to have a plan for the future, a place to go if she should become ill. And now, driving to the next open house, she couldn't get her mind off Dulcie and Joe Grey.

The cats had made a point of asking when Cora Lee might be going home, but they wouldn't tell her why—only a sly little smile from Dulcie. They were preparing some surprise. Knowing those two, she remained uneasy. As she pulled up in front of the last open house on their list, two cars were leaving, and a black BMW was parked at the curb.

This was probably the ugliest house in the village, a brown wooden box with a flat roof, cracked siding, and peeling trim, the fascia boards pale and discolored. On top of the large main floor stood a second, smaller cube, apparently a single room, resembling nothing so much as the wheelhouse on a Mississippi riverboat. The structure was, in fact, very much like Mavity's little fishing cottage, in a larger and more sprawling ver
sion and without the stilts that held Mavity's home above the muddy marsh.

The house backed on one of the wild canyons that bisected the Molena Point hills. Maybe, Wilma thought, the view from the back would be nice, out over the canyon and across Molena Valley to the low mountains that edged the rocky coast. These fissures that cut through the hills had, eons past, been deep sea canyons, this whole neck of land lying beneath the ocean. It was the canyons, in part, that kept Molena Point from becoming overpopulated. One couldn't build in them, and the lush terrain, with wild bushes and grasses, offered food and shelter to deer and coyotes, to occasional bobcats, and, just this last spring, to a large male cougar. How interesting that the house stood between the two worlds, the rear decks forcing out into the wild land, the front of the house solidly a part of manicured human civilization.

The front yard was enclosed by a tall wooden fence and belonged apparently to one or more large dogs that were not at the moment in residence. The earth was trampled bare beneath a few sickly bushes and dotted with their chewed rubber toys. At least the owners had cleaned up the dog do; and probably they had taken the dogs away for the day—the sight of canine pets could cause a prospective buyer to look twice as hard for interior damage, for chewed door moldings, scratched floors, and stained carpet. The ladies gathered in front, beside the “Open House” sign.

“I don't think…” Gabrielle began, looking the house over, “I don't think this one…”

Wilma took her arm. “Come on. It won't hurt to
look, it's the last one on the list. Nearly four thousand square feet, Gabrielle, and it has enough water credits to start a hotel.”

The ad read,
five bedrooms and five baths, five custom-built fireplaces plus two sunny, legal basement apartments
. The word
legal
should mean not only that the land was zoned for two apartments, but that every water fixture on the premises had a proper permit.

All over Molena Point there were unobtrusive apartments tucked into a hillside basement or over a garage, some legal, some not. All were in demand as rentals. Molena Point's water code mandated an official permit for any household fixture that used water in its functions, from a king-sized shower to a bar sink. New credits were not an option; your house had just so many. If you wanted another washbasin, you had to give up a fixture in exchange.

“There's plenty of parking space,” Susan said. “Three-car garage and this nice wide drive. And the front planting, between the fence and the street, is nice, where the dogs don't play.” That wide area was lush with native bushes, succulents, and large volcanic boulders. Susan's Lamb, though he, too, had a fenced yard, had in his poodle dignity allowed Susan's garden to flourish and even the lawn to present a respectable green carpet.

The front door was open. They saw no one inside. Entering, they formed a divergent group: Mavity in her maid's uniform, Wilma in jeans and a red T-shirt, Gabrielle wearing a linen suit and heels, and Cora Lee in stretch pants and the oversized shirt that hid her bandage. Susan wore a calf-length denim jumper over
a white T-shirt, and leather sandals. They moved into the foyer.

“Oh, my,” Mavity said.

“Oh!” Cora Lee whispered.

They stood in a wide entry, its tile floor and skylight bathing them in brilliance. Potted plants filled the corners. Through a door to their left, they saw a young couple in the large, light kitchen, talking with realtor John Farmer. Glancing up, he waved to Wilma. A stairway rose to their right. Passing it, they moved ahead into a large living room dominated by a fireplace of native stone.

The gray-blue walls wanted paint, and the carpet still showed stains despite an apparently recent cleaning. But the ceiling was high, with tall windows, a spacious room very different from what the exterior implied.

The three bedrooms on the main level, two to the right of the living room and one to the left past the dining room, were all large. Each had a private bath, and two had raised fireplaces.

The oversized kitchen was done in cream-and-white tiles. Opening off this were an ample laundry and storeroom, before one entered the garage. All the walls needed paint, and some needed patching. The doors were marred with claw scratches, made, apparently by a very large dog. Returning to the entry hall, they climbed the stairs.

The upstairs cubicle, which looked so small from without, offered a large master suite with another raised fireplace, a private deck, an ample study that would do for another bedroom, and a view straight down into the canyon. Three levels of decks overlooked the canyon. The ladies glanced shyly at each
other, but no one spoke. They hurried down again, to the basement apartments.

Both apartments were fusty and needed work. But both had their own small kitchens. Either would do for a housekeeper, a caregiver, or as rental income.

Returning to the living room, they could see John Farmer still in the kitchen with the young couple. Farmer was in his forties, a man with surprisingly round cheeks, a pink-and-white complexion, a slim, sculpted nose, and dark hair in a military cut. He sat at the dining table with the blond young woman and the slim, red-haired young man. Their voices were low, their conversation solemn, the couple's expressions excited and serious.

“They're too young to afford this house,” Mavity whispered.

“And whose BMW is that at the curb?” Susan said softly.

The sight of the young man making out a check wilted the ladies. When the couple had left, shaking hands with John Farmer and tucking away a deposit receipt, Farmer joined them.

“Did they offer full price?” Wilma asked.

John Farmer nodded, and put his arm around Wilma. “You folks were serious.”

“We were,” Wilma said. “Very serious. Are they requesting an inspection?”

“Yes. And the sale, of course, is contingent upon their getting their loan. If you'd come half an hour earlier…”

Wilma looked at the others; she didn't know what had come over her; she wasn't ready to sell her house,
but they couldn't let this one go. Maybe the loan would be refused. Maybe the inspector would find some disastrous seepage problem that the couple wouldn't want to bother repairing.

“You can make a second deposit,” John said. “Contingent upon their not completing the sale.”

An hour later, after walking around the outside and inspecting the furnace and the ducts and wiring as best they could, and writing in several contingencies to their deposit, the checkbooks came out. The ladies split the deposit five ways and called their attorney to help set up the venture. The legal work seemed tedious, but they were caught up in the thrill of the purchase and in the trauma of not knowing whether they had actually made a purchase.

 

While Wilma and her friends agonized over their hunger to own this particular house, across the village in Wilma's guest room, Joe Grey and Dulcie were pawing a few scattered cat hairs from the dresser, where they had left a brown, padded envelope. They had placed a computer-printed note on top, weighting it down with Cora Lee's bracelet so it couldn't be missed.

The letter had been Dulcie's longest effort at Wilma's computer. Her paws felt bruised, and her temper was still short. It took a lot of squinching up to hit only the right keys, and took far more patience than patrolling the most difficult mouse run.

They had gotten Catalina's valuable letter out of Joe's house before Clyde might, in fact, decide to pack up and move. Before he fell prey to the hunger for change that had gripped the ladies of the Senior Survival club. At least three of those women seemed fairly itching to box up their belongings.

Now, following Joe out through her cat door, Dulcie said a little prayer for him, a plea that Clyde wouldn't sell their house, that there would be no move for the tomcat, that Clyde and Joe would stay where they belonged, and Joe could quit worrying so foolishly about homelessness and displacement.