Cat Spitting Mad (14 page)

T
he Garza
cottage smelled of spaghetti sauce laced with marsala. Beyond the windows, the February sky was dark but clear. A thin sliver of moon shone above the treetops. The ringing of the phone mingled with the chiming of the courthouse clock from down in the village. When Garza answered, Joe Grey was already stretched out along the back of the mantel, his eyes closed, his studied breathing deep and slow, feigning sleep. The time was 7
P
.
M
. He could just hear the crackle of Dulcie's voice from the other end of the line.

Garza listened. “Peninsula Title Company?” Then a long pause. Then, “Yes, of course I'm interested. Can you tell me your name?”

He listened again attentively, making notes on a pad. Dulcie's voice would have, Joe knew, that soft, insinuating tone that so annoyed Max Harper. The name Garza jotted down was
Caroline Jacobs.
Joe wondered why Dulcie had chosen that name, from the list of four woman officers he'd given her. Maybe because it had a nice rhythm.

Duplex, Dolores above First. Helen Marner to Crystal Ryder. $480,000. Closed February 9.

“Oh, yes, this is very helpful information. Any information we receive about Helen Marner is of course of departmental interest. Can you get me a copy of the escrow papers?

“I see. Yes, of course I understand. I will simply make an inquiry. If Miss Powers wants to furnish us with a copy, I'll send a man over.” Garza paused. Joe cocked his head, straining toward that faintest murmur from the other end of the line. Dulcie, at this moment, was most likely stretched out on Wilma's desk blotter, taking her ease beside the handset, and feeling smug. These little tips to the law really brought out the ham in his lady. Maybe she should have her own talk show.

“Tell me,” Garza said, “were you responsible for making a delivery to my home this morning?”

Whatever Dulcie's response, Garza grunted as if unconvinced. “Do you know anything about such a delivery? Whatever you say will be strictly confidential.

“I see. But you do know where I live,” Garza said. “You did have my phone number.”

The premise didn't necessarily follow, but it was a good try. Joe heard a faint click from the other end.

Garza stared at the phone until the canned recording came on, then hung up. Joe settled back into his relaxed sprawl and shut his eyes, waiting for Garza to play the tapes that the detective had found inside his morning
Gazette.
Garza had unwrapped and examined them and dropped them in his pocket.

And he did not play them now. He rinsed out his coffee cup, slipped on his jacket, and left the house for an appointment.

Joe spent a restless night pacing the cottage. Kate and Hanni were at a play, and Garza had not returned when he grew too impatient to stay inside, and went to hunt, slipping out a loose downstairs window, through the burglar bars. He did not look for Dulcie and the kit; they had promised to stay inside. Keeping to the local gardens, he contented himself with house mice. He ended up at home in time for breakfast.

Slipping in through his cat door, past a tuft of tortoiseshell fur, he stopped in the living room, laughing. The kit had learned very quickly to taunt Clyde.

“Why
can't
I sit on the table? Joe Grey sits on the table! And I don't
want
scrambled eggs. We had breakfast. We dined in Jolly's alley,” the kit said grandly.

“Hush,” said Dulcie. “Let me finish.”

“It's a really shabby duplex,” Dulcie was saying. “But a lovely location and view. Charlie would love it.”

Clyde said. “Would
you
like a scrambled egg, Dulcie?”

“I would,” Dulcie said softly. “The kit ate all the blintzes.”

Joe shouldered into the kitchen, to see the kit, looking hurt, jump onto the table. He watched Clyde pick up Dulcie and set her beside the kit, apparently in the interest of fairness. Leaping up beside Dulcie, Joe stretched out across the open newspaper. Clyde, scowling at him, added two more eggs to the skillet.

“It was Wark that the kit saw,” Dulcie said. “It had to be. And it was Wark Joe saw snooping around the Garza cottage.”

Clyde looked at Joe. “Did Garza catch him?”

Joe flicked a whisker. “None of them saw him; they slept right through, even our big-time detective.”

“You sure it was Wark?”

“I'm not sure. Could have been Baker. But the kit saw Wark talking with Crystal.”

Clyde sighed. “Did the man at the cottage see you, Joe?”

“Of course he didn't see me.”

Clyde dished up the eggs, setting the cats' three plates on the table. Having nowhere to put his own plate, he stood at the stove to eat. “If you were looking out the window, those white markings would shine like neon.”

“You think I don't have sense enough to keep away from the glass? That is so insulting.”

“You think he was looking for Kate?”

“I have no idea. Maybe looking for Kate. Maybe checking on Garza. If he was involved in the murders—”

“He could have been looking for you and Dulcie. You'd better come home where you're safe.”

“Why would I be safe at home? Wark knows where I live. He was all around this house, if you remember, after Beckwhite was murdered. Looking in the windows—right in my face. Scared the spit out of me.”

“Then you can move in with Wilma. No, you can't do that. He knows where Dulcie lives.”

Joe said, “Dulcie and the kit can stay with Charlie. Not likely Wark knows about her.”

“And you can stay there, too. You don't need to be hanging around Garza's.”

“Where do you think Garza makes his sensitive
phone calls and tapes his notes? Kate set that up for me, and you helped her—I'm not tossing that away.”

Clyde just looked at him. That ever-patient, put-upon expression of a defeated human.

“I'll keep of sight,” Joe said.

Clyde said, “I'll talk to Charlie about Dulcie and the kit.”

Joe dropped to the floor. “Even Charlie's apartment isn't the safest. There's only one way out, just the front door, down the stairs and through that little foyer to the street. Wark breaks in, you're cornered. No back door, no side windows. And that window over the street—you can't reach anything from there, not a rooftop, not so much as a vine. It's only one floor down, but all concrete. Splatter a cat like—”

“Hush,” Dulcie said. “It's a perfect setup. Charlie can fix a way for us to slip out to the roofs—through a vent or something. You know how clever she is. Wark would have to bring a ladder to get up on the roofs. And he can't jump from roof to roof, or run across a branch, or leap six feet between buildings.”

Joe was unconvinced.

“Anyway, he's after Kate,” Dulcie said. “This time, Joe, he's not after us. He followed Kate in San Francisco. It's Kate you should worry about.”

“Kate knows he's here,” Joe snapped. “Besides, with a warrant out for him, the department will pick him up—haul him back to Quentin.”

Clyde poured a fresh cup of coffee. What he appeared to need, Joe thought, was a double Prozac. With his coffee cup so full it sloshed, he sat down at the table, looking deeply at the cats.

“However this turns out, you two have opened a
whole can of worms with Garza. The guy comes here to do a legitimate piece of police work and—”

“That's a matter of opinion,” Joe said darkly.

“To do a straightforward investigation, and he starts getting anonymous phone tips.”

“One phone call,” Dulcie said, “from a legitimate employee of Peninsula Escrow.”

“And unexplained tapes are left at his door that might be evidence and might not. That might be a plant. Don't you think Garza—”

“So what were we supposed to do?” Dulcie said. “Hold back information?”

Clyde sucked at his coffee. “Crystal Ryder has been in town for maybe six months, living in that duplex. Why, all of a sudden, did she decide to buy it?”

“She had a lease/option,” Joe said. “Apparently she decided to move on it. My question is, why just two weeks before the murder? And it would be interesting to know, as well, why Helen owned a place in Molena Point, when she's lived for years in Santa Barbara.”

“I can answer that,” Clyde said. “She had half a dozen rentals in the village. Max told me that. She had them with a rental agency.”

“A pretty shoddy agency,” Dulcie said, “or they'd have insisted she paint the place.”

Clyde rose to rinse the dishes. “You three have an opinion on everything. You have an inside line to Garza's investigation. You have spied on Stubby Baker. You have tossed Crystal Ryder's apartment and tampered with critical evidence. And you—”

“If you mean the tapes,” Joe said, “if we'd left them there, and Crystal hid them, Garza might never know
they existed.”

“And what about the barrette?” Clyde said.

“We had no contact with the police over that,” Joe told him. “Kate reported the barrette to the police, they told her they'd go right up there, photograph where they found it, and book it in as evidence. It's probably, right now, sitting in the lab being dusted for prints and particles caught in the setting. They—”

“Probably they are going to find cat hairs.”

“Why must you always drag in cat hairs? Why must you always tell us we're messing up an investigation? Do I really have to remind you, Clyde, of the murders in the past, where with our help Harper has made a case?” He looked at Clyde sadly, hurt written in every line of his gray-and-white face.

“The three of you are going to Charlie's. You're going now. And you're going to stay hidden.”

“Dulcie and the kit are going. I'm settled in with Detective Garza and I intend to stay there.”

Clyde slammed down the plate he was drying, nearly breaking it. “At least you won't be here in the house taunting Max Harper, making
his
life miserable.”

“We are trying to save his life. And when have I ever taunted Harper?”

But then Joe said, more gently, “How
is
he doing?”

“Not good. Won't talk about the case or about anything else much. He's quit going out with the search parties. Afraid he might taint some piece of evidence.”

“How would he…?”

“If they find her—when they find her—someone might claim he tampered with evidence or slowed the
search, maybe made counterproductive suggestions, that kind of thing. He's getting…”

“Paranoid,” Joe said. “That's not like Harper.”

“He talked last night about quitting the force. Retiring. After he's cleared, of course. Talked about going to Alaska.”

“Alaska!” Joe yowled.

“Max Harper,” Dulcie mewed, “leave Molena Point? I don't believe that.”

“There's more than that to believe.” Clyde looked at the cats deeply. “I think there's something between Max and Charlie.”

The cats widened their eyes, trying to look amazed.

“I wouldn't be surprised to see them, when this thing is over, take off together for Alaska.”

Dulcie stared at Clyde, then turned away, washing furiously.

Clyde said, “Max
had
been talking, the last few months, about reorganizing the department. He has five new officers and a new clerk. They're getting crowded in that one-room setup. But now…”

“He has basement space,” Joe said. “Where they store the old files, where they have the shooting range and emergency operations room.”

Clyde nodded. “He's done some really nice plans to redesign the building, give officers more space and privacy. Add an up-to-date report-writing room, more room for communications, a bigger evidence lockup, more security.

“But since the Marner murder, it's as if he never heard of a redesign. Has no interest. Seems like he doesn't give a damn about the department.”

“When this is over,” Joe said, “he'll launch into it.
Bounce back. Reorganize the space. That would be just the ticket, get his mind off what those buzzards are trying to do to him.”

“If we only knew which buzzards,” Clyde said. “I don't know, I've never seen him like this. Years ago, in Salinas, after a bad bull ride when Max got gored in the shoulder, when he was all broken up and in the hospital—and didn't have a dime—he was still joking. Still on top of it.

“His shoulder got infected, he had a high fever, three ribs broken. I was scared he was going to cash it in. But he hung in there—joking all the way, with that dry humor.

“Even when Millie died, even though he's never gotten over it or stopped missing her, he was never like this.

“You had the feeling, when Millie died, that no matter how destroyed he was, he knew things had to get better. That he knew that's the way life works—that we all take our bumps and keep ridin'. But now…” Clyde shook his head. “Now, he doesn't seem to believe that anymore.”

Joe just looked at him. Sometimes all these human problems were too much; sometimes he thought the household animals were the lucky ones. All they had to do was nap on their soft beds, gobble their three squares, enjoy lots of petting, and no worries over humankind's disasters.

Except he remembered too clearly that other life, before he realized his ability to speak. He wouldn't want to return to that. He'd been bored out of his tomcat mind.

As a young cat, it had been a big deal to invent some simple new entertainment—find some new diversion in one of the several shabby apartments he'd lived in, a new way to tease some human in one of the interchangeable families who'd taken him in. Stupid kitten stuff. He'd never had a real human friend until he met Clyde. Or he'd find some smaller, skinnier kitten abandoned in an alley, someone weaker than he, that he could tease and torment.