Cat Telling Tales (24 page)

Before crawling in for a closer look, she circled the tree and poked her camera in through the leaves, taking shots of the trunk, the roots, the faintly disturbed mat of dry leaves. When at last she entered, looking unconvinced she'd find anything of value, Misto and Pan were on the roof with Dulcie and Kit, only Joe was absent.

From their high vantage, they couldn't see in under the falling branches, the tree was like a little tent; but they could see Kathleen's shadow, kneeling as if she was shooting close-ups of the dark stains on the pale roots.

The detective took her time beneath the tree, lifting blood samples and then digging carefully through the leaves looking for any smallest item of evidence, a human hair, a torn fingernail, a shell casing. She was thus occupied when Kit caught a glimpse of something shiny, just by Kathleen's left boot—a leaf had been turned over as she shifted position, and something bright shone out. They all saw it, they all stifled a mew, and Kit drew back her paw where she'd reached as if to alert Kathleen.

But the next instant something, some unknown sense, made Kathleen turn and look, too.

Carefully she lifted the leaves away.

A cell phone lay buried among the mat of leaves, its bright surface plastered with damp acacia leaves. Carefully Kathleen photographed it in the position she'd found it and then, with her gloved hand, she slipped an evidence bag over it, and dropped it in her pocket. Whatever was there, phone numbers, notes, or perhaps photographs, she would examine back at the department, once she'd finished working the scene. The cats looked at each other, and grinned, and they felt high on the discovery. What
would
she find? Had the killer dropped it? Or had one of the victims buried it there, unseen, hoping to pass on what evidence?

Or had the phone nothing at all to do with the killer, maybe had lain there long before the victims died? The detective continued to search among the moldering leaves, and then she rose to examine the tree itself. She started when her exploring fingers found a tiny dimple within the damaged bark.

Photographing this, and then exploring it with a small dental tool, carefully she bent away a small sliver of bark, to reveal a spent shell.

She cut out a piece of the tree itself, leaving the slug embedded, and carefully she bagged it. She had the bullet. It would be too much coincidence to think this slug hadn't killed one of the victims—though stranger anomalies had happened. The cats were considering this when two of the CSIs came out of the cellar, and fetched a stretcher from their van and a body bag; as the four watched from the roof, Joe Grey slipped out across the yard and quickly up to the roof to join them, pushing beneath the shadowed branches.

The CSI team, having photographed the first body and its surround, had covered the victim's hands for more careful examination at the lab, then had spent several hours lifting trace evidence. Now they wanted Dallas and Kathleen in the cellar before they eased the corpse into the body bag, wanted to see if either of them knew the woman. With the bloating and discoloration that takes place even in a week or two, a victim is not always easy to identify. The cats watched the two detectives slip in through the hole in the wall.

The detectives were in there for some time; when they came out again, the expressions on their faces told the cats clearly that they didn't recognize the victim. Now, in the cellar, the team would be bagging the body. Below the cats, Dallas was on the phone to Mabel Farthy. “I want a BOL on Emmylou Warren, you have the description. We need her to look at a body. If she's picked up within the hour, let me know, before the CSI unit takes off.”

Otherwise, Joe thought, they'd have to haul Emmylou up to San Jose, to the crime lab, to ID the body. If that
was
Sammie Miller buried under her own house. As reclusive as Sammie seemed to be, and with most of her neighbors moved away, Emmylou might be the only one who did know her—besides the killer, and Sammie's vanished brother. As Dallas ended the call, the five cats slipped away, disappearing like ghosts among the snowy rooftops.

27

B
efore Billy fed the Harmanns' horses, he had called MPPD from their stable. By the time he'd pumped his bike back up the hill to the burn, Detective Garza was there, his tan Blazer parked in the yard, and old man Zandler was long gone. Garza wore jeans and a faded down jacket, his dark Latino eyes smiling when he looked at Billy. Billy had done some thinking since he called the station, and he was debating just how much he should keep to himself. If Gran did have money hidden in the cave—and what else could have made her so protective?—what would the cops do with it? Would it belong to Debbie and Esther? They were her daughters, but he was only the grandson. That money would be all he had to take care of himself, except for what he could earn, and at twelve, that still wasn't much. He hadn't helped take care of Gran all these years without learning the value of money, seeing how much she spent on whiskey that could have bought something to eat besides beans and potatoes and cheap sausage, could have bought new tires for his bike, might have paid rent on a house where the wind didn't blow through the walls. If he told the law about the money, would he have to give it to his aunts? He hoped Zandler hadn't found it, but maybe not, the boards and old doors didn't look disturbed. Detective Garza was photographing the burned house all over again, where Zandler had dug into the rubble. When he finished taking pictures, he began to dig around in the rubble, himself, photographing wherever he could see that Zandler had disturbed anything. “You got moved in okay,” Garza said, talking as he worked. “You and the cats?”

“Yes,” Billy said, “just fine.”

“You have any idea what Zandler was looking for? He wouldn't have been looking for the cause of the fire, he knows it was a grease fire.” Max Harper had told Billy that, that it looked like Gran had started making her breakfast, put potatoes on to fry and then went back to bed, forgetting the burner was on. She'd done that more than once, their skillet was blackened and crusty where she'd burned it. That was mostly at supper, though. She'd put something on to cook, then forget it, but Billy had been there to smother the flame before it got going.

That morning, he wasn't there.

Garza poked around for a while longer, then rose, looking across at Billy. “The week or two before the fire, was Zandler up here?”

Billy shook his head. “I doubt it, Gran didn't say anything, and it wasn't rent time. That's the only time he ever came. Maybe he came up to be sure Emmylou was gone, though, after he evicted her, make sure she hadn't come back.”

“Hesmerra was working regularly?”

Billy nodded.

“Did she have a bank account?”

“She didn't like banks, she kept the money somewhere around the place. She never even told me, she'd never get into her stash when I was home. She said once, if I knew where her money was, I'd take it so she couldn't buy what she wanted. She meant, so she couldn't buy whiskey.”

Billy knew what the next question would be: Could the money be in the cave? He was surprised when Dallas didn't ask it. The detective said, “We'll compare these shots with the photographs we have, maybe they'll show us if he took anything.”

Billy waited until Garza left, made sure he'd turned onto the highway, then he pulled some boards away from the cave's entrance, and moved the old door just enough to slip inside, into the smell of sour earth and rotting timbers. Maybe the money
was
here, maybe she'd saved back more than he'd thought, between what she'd earned and what Mr. Kraft gave her.

He never knew how much Kraft gave her, Gran was so closemouthed, he only knew that
that
money made him feel strange, he never understood why Kraft gave her money. Kraft said it was because Debbie, Gran's own daughter, wouldn't help her out, he said it was Debbie's duty to help her mother and if she wouldn't, he would. To Billy, that didn't make sense; his other aunt didn't help Gran, or hardly speak to her. The idea of family helping each other wasn't something he was used to.

If Gran's money
was
in the cave, he wanted it before someone else got it. He might be only twelve, but he knew that money laid by meant freedom. You could eat, you didn't have to work
all
the time, you could keep your bike running so you could get around. Gran had hidden her whiskey here, so why not the money?

Or, he wondered, had there been more to hide than money?

He'd wondered sometimes when Gran's car pulled in at midnight but she was so long coming in the house, wondered what she was doing. Sometimes he'd rise and look out to see a faint light shining out between the old door and the boards. He thought she'd gone to get a bottle, thought she'd forgotten there was a nearly full bottle under her bed. But maybe she was hiding something else there.

In the cave, he found the flashlight she'd kept by her whiskey case, and flicked it on, shining the beam along the rough dirt walls. Besides the sour smell of damp earth, the cave stank of mice or rats, and of rotted potatoes from a bag Gran had stored months before. Even the smallest rotted potato smelled like something dead. Billy explored the earthen floor where the whiskey case had stood, which Detective Garza had taken away, then he pushed on back into the darkness.

The dirt between the supporting timbers was packed hard, the dirt walls and ceiling seemed as solid as concrete behind the grid of rough planks. He hadn't been back in here for a long time. After his mother died, he'd spent weeks in here alone, way at the back, hoping Gran wouldn't come in and try to cheer him up, which only made him cry. Moving slowly toward the back, he looked along the walls and above him where beams held the earth up, shining the light into earthen crevices behind the timbers.

At the very back there was rubble, loose rocks, three old empty baskets made of half-rotted wooden slats. He searched among these and searched overhead. He was halfway back to the opening when he heard a sound outside, the scrunching of a foot on the rough ground. He switched off the flashlight, stood quiet and still.

The opening darkened as a figure knelt, looking in. “Billy?”

He breathed again, switched on the flashlight. Heard a horse snort, then one of the dogs pushed in past Charlie, nearly knocking him over. “I'm here,” he said, “I'll be right out.” He was trying to settle the dog, who was rearing up as tall as Billy, licking his face. He was trying to wrestle him away, the flashlight still in his hand when its beam shone low against a four-by-four support.

Where the floor met the rough earthen wall, light reflected off a sliver of something white, shining white.

It was only a speck, which he'd missed from the other side of the rough timber. Kneeling, he dug the earth away, and pulled it free.

It was a plastic sandwich bag stretched thick over a packet of folded white paper. He could see a stamp, could see awkward hand printing, clumsier than his own handwriting that Gran had been stubborn about teaching him: Debbie's printing. Pushing the dog away more forcefully, he shoved the packet deep in his jeans pocket, hiding it from Charlie. He felt his face heat. He didn't know why he did that; and he moved on out to join her.

“You okay?”

Billy nodded.

“Dallas stopped by, when he left here. I'd just saddled Redwing, I said I'd ride down this way.” Her green eyes searched his. “That Mr. Zandler was here earlier? I don't like him much.”

Again Billy nodded. “I won't tangle with him, if that's what you're thinking.”

Charlie grinned, and glanced at her watch. “I thought I'd take a little ride and then, if you want to, we could go shopping.” He thought she meant he could help her carry groceries. “Clothes for Gran's funeral,” she said. “Maybe chinos and a new polo shirt?”

Billy looked down at his worn jeans with the frayed bottoms, at his run-over boots. He didn't want her to buy him things, he had his own wages, but he didn't want to spend them on clothes.

She said, “We could go to J.C. Penney's.”

Well, he guessed he could do that.

“It isn't a gift,” she said, “you'll earn it back soon enough, taking care of our spoiled animals.”

He hadn't thought of working for clothes. Well, that was all right, he did want to look nice for Gran. He watched her ride away easing the mare into a canter, the two dogs racing ahead. When she'd gone, he opened the plastic bag, took out the letters.

He read them twice, but didn't understand much. He didn't want to think about what the earliest ones might mean, the ones dated twelve years ago just after he was born. The surprise was that Debbie had written to Gran at all, when Gran always complained she never heard from her. Why would Gran lie about that? There were twelve letters, the envelopes roughly printed. In the two bulkier envelopes, the letters had been torn into tiny pieces, wadded up, stuffed back inside, and the flap loosely stuck closed again. Besides these, the letter with the earliest postmark was only a few lines:

“No, I don't want to come there. How can you even ask that. Why would I want to see her and why would I want anything to do with that child? I certainly don't want to see you again, after you let this happen, what you did was way worse than simple lying. Well, you've always lied to us. I thought, in my stupidity, that it was only about your drinking, not about something like this.”

Then came the two torn-up letters, the envelopes postmarked just a few months later. Then nothing for eight years. The next letter was very short.

“How do you know that's what happened? Go to the cops, if that's what you think, he deserves whatever he gets. But remember, I won't help you. And you don't have an ounce of proof. You go to the cops, they'll just laugh. As to the other, I'll have to think about that.”

Whatever this was about, Debbie was sure vague. Was she afraid someone else would read it? What
was
this about, what was she afraid of?

There was another long space, nearly two years. The letters after that were different and there were more of them, as if she and Gran had talked on the phone maybe, and maybe made up a little. There was no phone in the cabin, but maybe Gran had called her from work. Now, it seemed like they were into something secret, something they didn't want to write much about. In one, Debbie said,
“I have nine sets of papers,”
and she had enclosed a list of names and dates, with one single address at the end. That street was up near the Damens' and Hanni Coon's remodels. In the next letter she asked,
“Did you copy the statements? Call me on my cell but do it soon, it might not be working after next week, not sure I can pay the bill.”
Later there was mention of some kind of contracts, and terms Billy didn't understand. Further on, she complained about a woman.
“I hope she double-crosses him, that's what he deserves.”

The last letter was dated a month ago:
“Copy all the discs you can find. Just follow the instructions I gave you. Don't be afraid of the damn machine. Maybe I should come down there. I wish you knew more about computers.”
Whatever they were into sounded illegal. What he wondered was, did this have anything to do with why Gran died?

E
mmylou couldn't lock the bedroom slider once she'd pried it open and stepped inside Alain Bent's house. She pushed it shut and closed the draperies over it, making sure there was no crack for light to shine out. There was no one back there in the woods, surely no one to hear her prying metal against metal as she'd jimmied the door, but still she was nervous. She had parked on a little side street down the hill where her car might not be noticed. The house was stuffy inside, and cold. Moving up the hall, she found the thermostat, she felt a thrill of satisfaction as she turned it up to nearly eighty and heard the furnace click on. She wondered if the water heater had been turned down, too. She made a quick tour of the house to be sure she was alone, then returned to the master bath, with its peach-tinted tiles and peach-colored marble, and ran the hot tap in the basin.

When the water ran hot she smiled, shed her clothes, dropping them on the floor, turned the shower on full blast and got in, luxuriating in the hot water and steam. She stayed in a long time, scrubbed real good and washed her hair. When at last she came out she found a thick towel in one of the drawers, and dried off beneath the heat blowing from the furnace vent. Moving into the bedroom, she pulled a blanket off the bed, draped it around herself and tucked it in. Carrying her clothes into the alcove by the kitchen, she found the laundry soap and threw them in the washer, jeans, shirt, socks, panties, everything. While the wash ran she ransacked the kitchen cupboards. Finding canned soups and fruit, she pulled a saucepan from a lower cupboard, warmed a can of black bean soup, and opened a can of apricots. She had found the bowls and was gulping her breakfast when she heard the bedroom slider open—she was so startled she burned her mouth on a big spoonful of soup. She half rose, pulling her blanket tighter, looking to the front door for escape.

She was too late. One second's hesitation, and here came a woman down the hall, silent and quick, a tall woman dressed in jeans and sweatshirt, long dark hair down around her shoulders, and she was wearing a holstered gun. Emmylou had seen her around town, but only in uniform. Cop. Woman cop. She stepped to the table.

“Having breakfast?”

Emmylou stared at her.

“Smells good. I guess you're doing a load of laundry, too?”

Emmylou said, “You were down at Sammie Miller's house. What's happened down there? How did you know I was in here?”

“Someone saw smoke, they thought it was from the chimney. I came up to see if Alain had returned.” She glanced down over the rail at the cold fireplace. “I guess what they saw was hot air from the furnace vent.”