Cat Spitting Mad

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  Lee Wark and Jimmie Osborne had both been in residence at San Quentin when Mahl was convicted. Very likely the three men had been drawn together by their mutual connections in Molena Point and their mutual hatred of Max Harper.

  And Mahl's contact on the outside, Crystal Ryder, was a friend of Stubby Baker, who also had no love for Harper.

  Garza came into the study carrying a plate and a cup of coffee. The smell of ham and cheese and pickles filled Joe's nose. Setting his lunch on the desk, Garza opened the morning paper, then turned to look at Joe. Joe kept his eyes closed, didn't flick a whisker, but he felt his heart pounding. He imagined Garza's intense black gaze on him, a penetrating cop look. Couldn't a little cat catch a morning nap?

  Only when Garza sat down at his desk did Joe open the old peepers enough to peer over the detective's shoulder.

  He didn't see the two miniature tapes he'd been hoping for. Were they still in Garza's pocket? Or had he left them at the station, properly checked into the evidence vault? He was wondering if he'd ever get to hear them-how he could manage to hear them-when the phone rang.

  Pressing the speaker button, Garza continued to enjoy his sandwich.

  "Detective Garza, I got your number from the newspaper. I don't understand. Why does the paper keep saying there were no witnesses to where Captain Harper was the afternoon of the murder? Except that man who said he saw Harper on his horse, following the riders?"

  "He is the only witness we have," Garza said, laying down his sandwich.

  "I made a report the day after the murders. You must have a record of that."

  Garza clicked the phone's record button. Joe could see the tape rolling. "Could you give me your name, please?"

  "This is Betty Eastmore. I manage Banton's Jewelry, across the street from where the captain was parked, the afternoon of the murder."

  "And you made a police report to that effect?"

  "Yes, I gave it to Officer Wendell while he was on patrol. He had some blank report forms, I filled it out right there in my shop and signed it. He said he'd take care of it for me. Is it just that the paper didn't want to say there was a witness? In case-"

  "Would you like to meet me at the station? I can be there in five minutes."

  "I'm not at home, I'm in Sacramento. I fly back tonight."

  "How did you know about the article?"

  "My daughter called me. She thought it was strange."

  "When can you come in?"

  Betty Eastmore made an appointment with Garza for the following morning. He offered to meet her at the airport, at the time her plane was scheduled to land, and give her a ride back to the village.

  Was that really very professional, Joe wondered, meeting her away from the station to take her report?

  For the rest of the afternoon, lying on the mantel behind Garza's head, Joe listened to the detective play back interview tapes and record his observations. He did not play Crystal's tape. Just before dinner, Garza played his interview with Max Harper. The detective's questions, and his dictated notes, were upsetting. By the time the tape was finished, Joe didn't want any supper. Garza had really bored into Harper. Oh, he'd started out very friendly, all buddy-buddy cop stuff, but when he couldn't make Harper change his story, he had come down hard, taunting Harper.

  Harper had handled the interview calmly, with no change of voice, and of course no discrepancies in the facts. But later when Garza played back his own recorded memos, he had constructed a scenario where Harper could have galloped up the mountain the short way, meeting the Marners at the crest. Garza had calculated that Harper would have had time to kill them, get home again, change clothes, and get to the station by five. The tape was made before Betty Eastmore called him. The detective made it clear that there was no witness to Harper's whereabouts between four and five, when Harper claimed to be watching Stubby Baker's apartment.

  During Harper's interview, Garza had questioned the captain's relationship with Crystal Ryder and with Ruthie Marner-he had asked a good many questions about Ruthie, and about how her mother viewed their friendship.

  "She viewed it just fine. We were friends, riding companions, Crystal and the Marners and Dillon-I rode with them because of Dillon, because I didn't want to be riding alone with a minor."

  "I can understand that."

  But later, in his notes, Garza discussed in some detail Harper's leave schedule for the past two years. Harper had taken three short vacations down the coast to Cambria, where he could have met either Crystal or Ruthie or Helen, could have spent several days with any one of them.

  Nonsense, Joe thought. That is totally reaching for it. But only once did the tape make Joe's fur stand rigid.

  During the time that Garza and Harper walked the Pamillon estate, while Garza taped their conversation, they had seen the cougar's pawprints, and had discussed the possibility that the lion might have found Dillon as she hid from the Marners' killer. The discussion sickened him. He wondered if he should go back there and search again.

  But what good? He and Dulcie had been all over that property, and so had the search teams.

  And what did Garza intend to do with the Eastland woman's statement? The detective's interview of Harper left him feeling decidedly irritable.

  Dropping down from the mantel, he retired to the window seat, all claws and bad temper. He was lying on his belly, sulking, when Kate and Hanni returned. Hanni, setting her camera and purse on the dining table, stopped to stroke him. Angry and out of sorts, he hissed and slashed at her.

  She jerked her hand away, her brown eyes widening.

  He hung his head, ashamed. And Kate descended like a whirlwind, grabbing him by the nape of the neck.

  Hanni stopped her. "Don't, Kate. Maybe he hurts somewhere. Maybe I touched a wound from fighting."

  "I doubt it. Let me feel, Joe. Are you wounded?" Kate glared at him and poked him, pushing and prodding with a familiarity that even Clyde would hesitate to inflict. "You growl at anyone again, Joe Grey, you're dog meat."

  He wanted to claw Kate as well.

  "Can't find anything," she said lightly. "I'll watch him for swelling. Probably he has a hair ball." She gave him another scowl, her amber eyes blazing with such a catlike temper herself that he wanted to yowl with laughter.

  But later at dinner, Kate and Hanni together fixed him a nice plate of lamb chops, cutting the pieces up small. Serving him on the window seat, Hanni reached again to stroke him.

  He gave her a purr.

  "Friends?" she said.

  He rubbed his face against her hand; though, in truth, his mood hadn't brightened much.

  Why hadn't Garza tossed Stubby Baker's apartment? Why hadn't he searched Crystal's duplex? Did he not have sufficient cause? Didn't he think the judge would issue warrants?

  Or did he have no need to do those things?

  Did Garza already know where Dillon was?

  Watching the detective, he told himself he was letting his imagination run crazy, that he was too emotionally involved. But he felt as restless as bees on a skillet.

  Well, maybe Garza didn't have probable cause to do those searches. But not every player in this game needed a warrant.

  Giving Kate a look of urgency, as if he really needed to go out, he headed for the back door.

  20

  THE TIME was 9:30, the night sky clear, the slim moon and stars as bright as polished diamonds. On the village sidewalks, traffic was beginning to thin, late diners emerging from the restaurants, heading home or to their motels. While the tourists dawdled, looking in the shop windows, Joe Grey hurried along, brushing past their ankles, dodging across the narrow streets between slow-moving cars until soon he had left the shops behind and was among the crowding cottages. Passing Wilma's house and moving up the north slope of the village, he paused before Crystal Ryder's duplex.

  Above the two double garages, with their closed, unwelcoming doors, Crystal's windows were ablaze. In the far unit, only a faint light burned. Two different kinds of music c
ame out-modern jazz from Crystal's side, country from her neighbor, the two mixing in nerve-jangling discord.

  Padding up the tall flight of wooden stairs, he leaped to Crystal's window.

  The screen was still loose, but the window itself was locked. He was peering between the curtains when the garage door rumbled open below him. Dropping to the deck, he looked over, watching Crystal's black Mercedes back out, the top down, Crystal's amber hair catching the light from the overhead. Behind her, as she headed down the hill, the door rumbled closed again. He watched until she was out of sight, then tried the front door, leaping up to swing on the knob.

  Locked.

  Galloping down the stairs, he fled around the building and up the grassy hill, to where the back windows might be accessible.

  From the steep slope, he peered across a six-foot space to a lone window, very small, perhaps the bathroom window. The top half was open a few inches.

  No light burned in the bathroom, but light seeped through from the studio. Springing across to the sill, he leaped for the top of the double-hung. Under his sudden weight, it crashed down so hard it nearly sent him flying. Scrambling over, he dropped down inside, narrowly missing a cold bath in the commode. He was just congratulating himself on his graceful entrance when the garage door rumbled up again and he heard the Mercedes pull in.

  Had she forgotten something? If he only waited a few moments, would she drive away again?

  Since he and Dulcie had followed the kit and found the tapes and escrow papers, he hadn't been able to shake his uneasy feeling about this apartment. Call it overactive curiosity, call it senseless fear. Joe thought of it as the kind of feeling a cop got-he'd heard plenty of stories over the poker table as he lolled across the cards, getting in the way. Sometimes an officer just knew something was amiss. Knew that the perp had a gun stashed in the seat behind him. That the innocent-looking high school girl batting her eyes at him from the driver's seat had a trunkful of drugs. No rhyme or reason. Just a feeling. He had it now, about this apartment.

  Crouched in the bathroom where he'd landed, he heard a door open in the garage, then close again, and a lock snap or slide home. Heard Crystal come upstairs within the house, heard the door at the top open, heard her cross to the kitchen.

  He peered out. The door to the stair stood ajar. The smell of garlic and tomato sauce filled the stairwell. He beat it down to the garage before she came back.

  He heard her cross the room, heard the door close above him, heard her crossing back and forth, heard the water running, then in the kitchen heard her pull out a chair, then silence.

  The garage was empty and neat, not like many village garages, filled with cast-off furniture, moldering storage boxes, and greasy yard equipment.

  This two-car space had been swept clean. It contained only Crystal's black Mercedes, a broom standing in the corner, a square metal furnace, a washer and dryer, and some empty metal shelves fastened to the wall. Beneath the stair was a small wooden door. He could hear, from within, a soft shuffling noise, then a tiny thump as if rats were at work on whatever was stored there.

  The aroma of spaghetti clung around the door.

  Sniffing beneath the door, he caught a scent that made him rear up, pawing at the bolt, then leaping and fighting, trying to slide it back.

  The sounds from within ceased.

  Above him, footsteps crossed the room. The door opened, spilling light. Crystal came down, opened the little door, slipped inside, and closed it behind her.

  In the small space, the two female voices echoed sharply, one young and angry, the other haughty.

  "I want to call my mother. I want to tell her I'm all right. If you really mean to help me, I don't see why-"

  "How many times do I have to go over this? He's bound to have a tap on their phone. One call, and he'll find you. And if he finds you, Dillon, he'll kill you. You're the only witness."

  "I'm tired of being shut in this stinking place. I'm cold. I'm tired of the dark! I'm tired of using a bucket for a bathroom."

  "It's better than being dead."

  "Not much. Why can't I come upstairs with you! I hear you moving around, I hear the TV and radio. I hear the water running-the shower! I want a shower! And last night I smelled steak cooking."

  "I brought you spaghetti. And here's some Hershey bars. Eat them and shut up. You should be thankful that I got you out before he found you. Thankful I'm taking the trouble to protect you. If I hadn't found you, you'd be rotting dead up there on that mountain."

  "You could've taken me to the cops. Why didn't you take me to the cops?"

  "What would they do? Question you and take you home. And the minute you're home, he'd have you. Your parents couldn't protect you. You told me they don't keep a gun. He breaks in, kills you all. Kills you first, Dillon. In front of them. Then kills your mother and father."

  "I don't want to stay here! I want out!"

  The sounds of a scuffle. Dillon yelped as if Crystal had hit her. "Leave me alone! And what do you get out of this? What do you get for saving me?"

  No answer.

  "I want to call my mother. I'll make her promise not to tell anyone."

  "The worst thing you could do. No mother would keep a promise like that; she'd hightail it right to the cops. And he'd find you. Now shut up. It won't be much longer."

  "Much longer until what}"

  "Until I can set you free. Until the coast is clear and I can let you go."

  But in the shadows, Joe Grey had a different interpretation, one that made his skin crawl.

  There was only one window in the garage, a small dirty glass high in the back wall, just below the ceiling. He had noticed it from the hill, but it did not lead into the house. He thought Dillon might squeeze through, if he could get her out. But she would need a ladder. He could see no ladder, nothing to stand on but the Mercedes, and it was too far from the window. Maybe Dillon could push the dryer across. All she'd have to do was unplug it, and the dryer would be lighter than the washer.

  Right. And it would be noisy as hell-and first he had to open the locked door.

  Crystal came out, ducking through the low door and sliding the bolt home with a hard clunk. Hurrying up the stairs, she slammed that door and slid the bolt across. The dissonant jazz music had ended long ago. From next door, the cowboy lament was filled with misery.

  Leaping at the bolt, he found it immovable, hard and ungiving. He tried for some time; then, crossing the garage, he tried the lock on the pedestrian door, thinking he could go for help.

  It, too, was beyond his strength. And he realized he was as much a captive as Dillon.

  Looking up at the ceiling, he studied the automatic opener, then prowled the garage until he found the button to operate it, to the left of the washing machine. That would be easy enough to spring.

  Right. And bring Crystal on the double.

  He fought the bolt on Dillon's door until his paws throbbed. His thudding battle must have terrified her. "Who is it? Who's there?" Dillon's voice was both frightened and hopeful. "Please," she whispered, "who's there?"

  He was sorely tempted to speak to her.

  Oh, right. And blow his cover forever, him and Dulcie both. Enough people knew about them. And a kid-even a kid as great as Dillon-was too likely to spill. In one trusting moment, tell someone.

  He had started to search for a vent, to see if he could tear off its grid or screen and slip through, when the upstairs door opened yet again, the light spilling down around Crystal as she descended. Swinging into the Mercedes, she raised the garage door, and backed out, the big door rolling down again like a giant guillotine.

  He could have streaked out beneath it, except his passage would have made it halt. He guessed he could have leaped over the electric beam, left it unbroken. But he didn't want to leave Dillon, he was afraid for her, he had a gut feeling he shouldn't leave her.

  He was pacing the garage trying to think what to do when he heard a police radio. Light flared under the garage door a
s the unit pulled up the drive.

  All right! Help was on the way.

  But what had alerted the patrol? Was this only a routine neighborhood check?

  He had to get their attention.

  The car door opened, he heard hard shoes on the concrete, heard the officer walking along the front of the duplex, then hushing through the bushes.

  Joe followed the sound as the officer walked around the building, all sound lost at the far end, then came back behind the building through the tall grass of the hill. Heard him try the pedestrian door, then cross the drive again, and double-time up the front steps.

  The bell rang three times, then a key turned in the lock-or maybe some kind of pick; Joe could hear the metal against metal. He followed the hard-soled footsteps above him as the officer prowled the house.

  That was the way it sounded. Like prowling, not just walking around. Joe heard him open the closet door, then the shower door. What-or who-was he looking for? Did he have a warrant? Not usual, even with a warrant, to come into an empty house. When he stopped beside the door leading down to the garage, Joe slid behind the washer, his heart pounding. Who was this, which officer, prowling Crystal's apartment?

  The bolt turned. The door at the top of the stair was opening when, out in the drive, a siren began to whoop and the light beneath the garage door turned pulsing red. Whoop, whoop, whoop. Flash, flash, flash.

  The officer pounded across the room and down the front stairs, jerked open the car door. The siren stopped. Joe heard him walking the front yard as if looking for whoever had entered his vehicle. He left at last, slamming the door, burning rubber as he backed down the drive.

  Collapsing against the washer, Joe felt as limp as a slaughtered rabbit. He was staring at Dillon's door, trying to figure out how to get it open, when up the stairs the door swung wide and light spilled down-silhoutting a small tabby-striped figure, her tail lashing.

  He reared up, watching her. "How did you know I was here? How did you get in?"

  "Through the bathroom window," she said, galloping down. "Same as you." She smiled and nuzzled him. "You're not the only one who can break and enter-or follow a trail of scent." She sniffed at the door beneath the stair. "Dillon! Oh, Joe! Is she really there?" she whispered.