Returning to the truck, she let Rock out, snapped on his long line so he could roam the yard, and tied that to the pine tree. He didn’t like being tethered; but she didn’t like his propensity to take off suddenly on some track he considered too urgent to ignore. Already he was sniffing over some scent, his ears and tail up. Maybe a deer that had been in the yard, or a raccoon. Whatever had crossed the dry grass, Rock had that look in his eyes that told her she’d better keep him under control. The Weimaraner’s long generations of breeding for a powerful and single-minded hunter and tracker had produced a strong-willed individual. This, plus his lack of any early training, had produced a dog eager to outstubborn human orders in deference to his lust for the hunt.
Rock was eighteen months old when he and Ryan had found each other; he’d been roaming stray in a wild stretch of country north of Molena Point. Unclaimed and untrained, his habits already indelibly formed, he came to her defiant and headstrong, with a burning power to do as he pleased. She had worked hard to redirect his talents, sometimes with the help of the gray tomcat. It was Joe Grey who had taught Rock to track on command, to heed to his handler and stay irrevocably on the scent when seeking a felon or a lost child. Joe’s method of tracking with nose to the scent himself as he gave his commands, could not have been accomplished by any human trainer. Now when the gray tomcat spoke, the big dog paid attention; though still, Ryan’s own commands were not always heeded.
As she moved on inside again, Debbie was just coming out of the bedroom. Saying nothing, Ryan stepped past her into the little room crowded with its twin beds. The loaded stroller stood against the far wall, five grocery bags lined up on the floor beside it, a loaf of bread sticking out, and boxes of crackers. Behind her, Debbie had returned nervously to the kitchen as if hoping she would follow. Ryan gave the bags a cursory look and followed her back into the kitchen where she turned her attention to the sink. She knew what was in the bags, but right now she was too tired to play games; it had been a long day, after a sleepless night.
She and Clyde, after leaving Lucinda’s house, had dropped Pedric’s duffel off at the hospital. Charlie was still there, waiting with Pedric for the ICU doctor, and she seemed to have everything in hand. Pedric was in better spirits, now that he was back in the village, and soon Ryan and Clyde had gone on, stopping for a bite of lunch in the hospital café before heading home, sitting at a small table beside the café’s big reflecting pond. They’d left Rock in the truck, snoring away in the backseat. The shallow water and plashing fountain shone brightly where the sun struck down through a great, domed skylight. Waiting for their order, they’d watched the red and black koi fish, as strikingly patterned as Japanese kites, dashing mindlessly through the water from one onlooker to the next, hoping for a handout. After lunch she’d dropped Clyde at the shop and headed on for Debbie’s, having promised to look not only at the faucet but at an electrical plug that had stopped working.
She had never been fond of Debbie, she hadn’t seen her since their art school years in San Francisco, then suddenly Debbie had gotten in touch. She wrote that she was moving down from Eugene, was divorced and claimed to be destitute, and was needing a place to stay. Joe Grey said, “Demanding a place to stay,” and that was closer to the truth. It was Joe who discovered Debbie wasn’t broke at all but had a nice wad of cash tucked away in her suitcase. Between Debbie’s patronizing ways, and Vinnie’s rudeness and loud tantrums, her sojourn in the Damens’ guest room had lasted one night. Neither Ryan, Clyde, nor Joe himself wanted her there. Rock, who liked most children, kept his distance from Vinnie, his lip curling in warning, though he let Tessa climb all over him.
Unwilling to put Debbie out on the street, in desperation they had offered her the empty cottage which, later in the year, they intended to remodel. She was to clean up the cottage and the yard, and do as many repairs as she was capable of, under Ryan’s direction. So far, she had pulled a few weeds, which she’d left lying in a limp pile in the driveway, and had made a poor stab at painting the one bedroom, abandoning half-used paint cans in the garage with their lids off, leaving the unused paint to grow dry and rubbery. As for any temporary plumbing repairs, the woman was sullen and evasive. “A busy mother,” she told Ryan, “with two children to support and care for shouldn’t have to be doing a man’s work.” Ryan wasn’t sure what a man’s work consisted of, but Debbie seemed to know, and the prospect of pliers and wrenches didn’t appeal.
She glanced in again at the loaded grocery bags. If they had held only groceries, one would have to wonder where Debbie had gotten the money for such a large purchase. Debbie’d said she was looking for work, and sometimes Ryan did see her go out dressed as if for an interview. But so far no job had materialized, not even the most menial employment—though Debbie didn’t think much of cleaning houses or bagging groceries, those pursuits didn’t fit her idea of a suitable lifestyle.
It was Joe Grey who had first told her about the shoplifting. “How long,” he’d said, “before someone peeks under that pink blanket, baby-talking, and finds themselves prattling on to a pile of soup cans and designer jeans?” But neither Ryan nor Joe wanted to blow the whistle on Debbie. There seemed no way to nail her and yet leave Tessa unscathed. Examining the faucet, she saw it would be better to replace it. The thing was shot, several parts loose, its joints rusting beneath the chrome. Knowing how particular her men were, she thought maybe she’d do this job herself, just a temporary fix. She and Clyde had bought the house to remodel, they expected to replace the ancient plumbing at some point.
The building was old but solid, its frame was good and the ceilings were nice and high. It was hard to lose money on a spec house in Molena Point, particularly in a hillside location with a view down over the village—hard to lose, she thought, once the economy turned around. She hoped that would happen soon. Stepping outside, she fetched her tool belt from the backseat of the truck. Moving into the garage, to the junction box, she turned off the master breaker so she could look at the malfunctioning wiring. As she stepped out again, Debbie came down the steps headed for her car. Leaning in over the open tailgate, she dragged a rumpled blanket heavily toward her. Ryan saw Tessa stir within, knuckling at her eyes as if she’d been asleep, heard her grumble as Debbie lifted the child out.
“She was in the car all the time you . . . shopped?” Ryan asked.
“I parked in the shade, she slept the whole time,” Debbie said innocently.
“How long?”
“How long, what?”
“How long was she in the car? She looks flushed.”
“She has a little cold,” Debbie said. Saying no more, she headed for the house carrying the child, the blanket dragging behind her along the drive. Ryan followed her into the bedroom, watched her tuck Tessa under the covers, and then move to the kitchen where she poured canned orange juice into a glass. Moving to the bed, Ryan put a hand on the child’s forehead. She was warm from the car but didn’t seem fevered. Behind her, Debbie had set the juice on the dresser and was rooting in the closet. Turning, she threw a blanket over the stroller as if that were a handy place to put it down, letting it trail across the grocery bags.
“Shall I give her the juice?” Ryan asked.
“I’ll do it.” Debbie grabbed the glass, pulled Tessa up, propped her against the pillow. The child drank sulkily, but she drank it all. Looking past her mother, up at Ryan, her resignation was far beyond her years. When Debbie spoke to her she didn’t respond. When Debbie turned away, Ryan smoothed the child’s pale, damp hair. Tessa gave her the tiniest smile and reached to touch her hand.
But then she turned over again and burrowed down beneath the cotton spread. As Ryan stood watching her, Pan appeared at the window, looking in and glancing warily toward the kitchen where Debbie had disappeared. Deciding the coast was clear, he remained there watching the sleeping child, disappearing only when Debbie’s footsteps approached again, vibrating on the hard linoleum. Stand
ing by the dirty window Ryan could see him below her on the brown lawn, but instead of racing away he stood frozen, looking up along the side yard to the street in front, his ears twitching uneasily.
When she looked along the side of the house, all she could see was a slice of empty street and part of a ragged cottage on the other side, crowded by overgrown cypress trees. Below her Pan turned and looked up into her eyes with a smug little cat smile, and when she looked at the street again, the nose of a squad car was slipping into view, the black-and-white moving slowly along, the young officer at the wheel scanning the driveways and cottages. Beside him she could see Officer Brennan’s heavy profile.
When she turned, Debbie stood behind her, occupying herself with the child. “It’s just a cold,” Debbie said, “she’ll be better tomorrow.” She leaned to straighten Tessa’s covers, and when Ryan looked back out the window, Pan had gone and the squad car had moved on, she could see it moving away up the hill toward Emmylou’s. She spotted Pan and Joe two roofs over, keeping pace with it as it cruised slowly along.
Turning to Debbie, she said, “I guess nursery school doesn’t want Tessa there, with a cold.”
Debbie nodded. “So much sickness.”
“She’ll be going back, when she’s well?”
Debbie looked up at her, her expression flat. “The nursery school’s too expensive, I took her out. Why doesn’t the village have a free preschool? Not everyone can afford . . .”
“So, you take her with you when you . . . shop,” Ryan said, “and leave her in the car?” Moving toward the stroller, she lifted the loaf of white bread and a box of Sugar Pops from the nearest grocery bag. Beneath, neatly folded, lay an assortment of cashmere sweaters, cherry red, turquoise, lime green, all still bearing their sales tags.
“Why would you buy so many sweaters, when you don’t have a job, Debbie? When you can’t pay for nursery school, or pay rent?”
“They were on sale, they were really a great bargain.”
“Debbie, you have a choice here. Do you think that squad car was cruising this street by accident?”
Debbie just looked at her.
“You can clean up your act, take these things back to the store, and stop any further stealing. Or you can move out, find somewhere else to live. We can’t let you stay here,” she said, trying to be gentle, “when we know you’re shoplifting, when Clyde and I are connected to MPPD. Our friendship with Chief Harper and Charlie, and the fact that my uncle Dallas is one of Harper’s detectives, doesn’t leave any choice. You will quit stealing and return every item you stole to the store it came from. You can beg them not to report you, not to press charges. If you don’t do that—and I’ll know whether you did—you will be out of here by the end of three days.
“If you do neither, I’ll report you. You’ll be arrested and most likely held, unless you can make bail. Your two girls will be taken to Children’s Services.” It broke Ryan’s heart to say that, to think of the children being taken away. She didn’t tell Debbie she meant to talk with the store owners. She knew several of them and was hoping, if Debbie followed through, they wouldn’t press charges. Turning back to the grocery bags, she went through them all, writing down in the back of her purse calendar every stolen item, its brand, and the name of the store as it was printed on the price tag. Maybe those two officers already had that information, maybe they had already made Debbie when they’d followed her, or maybe not. Maybe they were just cruising, keeping an eye on this problem neighborhood with its empty cottages and foreclosures.
She said nothing more to Debbie. She left the house disturbed equally by Debbie’s thieving and by her neglect of Tessa—and with no idea at all how to resolve Tessa’s plight, how to prevent Debbie’s foolishness from coming down hard on the forlorn little girl.
24
FROM HIGH ABOVE the stone cottage among the cypress trees Vic watched that woman contractor, that Ryan Flannery, back her red pickup out of Debbie’s drive and take off. He’d stashed the sleeping bags deep in the bushes, their dirty clothes rolled up inside, had pushed the bundle under the tangled branches of a deadfall. Now, the minute the pickup left, he moved on down through the woods, watching for that cop car that had pulled by Debbie’s place, half expecting it to come back.
But maybe they weren’t looking for him, were just cruising the area, a mindless routine while they sucked down their doughnuts and coffee. They hadn’t stopped at Emmylou’s, and hadn’t looked up toward the stone house—but after Emmylou called that ambulance, you could bet your bippy MPPD would show up sooner or later, nosing around.
Moving on down onto the empty streets of the small neighborhood, he turned up Debbie’s driveway, pausing beside her station wagon to look it over. Old Suzuki was ready to fall apart. He looked in to see if she’d left the keys but she hadn’t. The car was a mess inside, even to him, and he wasn’t real picky how he kept a car. He was wondering if the old heap would hold together for the few hours he needed it when movement above on the garage roof startled him and he swung around to look.
Couple of cats up there pawing at something in the metal gutter, maybe a dead bird. Nasty beasts. Turning away toward the front door, the only door, he saw a light on in the kitchen but, approaching the window, he couldn’t see Debbie inside. He didn’t knock or call out, he moved on up the three steps, tried the knob, found the door unlocked, and pushed on through.
JOE AND PAN watched the man enter. On the little fitful breeze they couldn’t catch his scent, but they looked at each other, puzzled. He was familiar, but different. He was well dressed and his clothes were familiar, too. Even from the roof they could hear the scuff of his loafers across the linoleum of the cottage. They heard him pause at the kitchen and then head for the bedroom, his rubber soles grating across something gritty. Quickly they scrambled down the pine tree to the ground, and only then did they find his scent. “The guy from the stone shack,” Joe said, “the one with all the hair.” And, as they sniffed around the door, a mix of familiar smells hit them that made their fur stand up: the ripe male smell from the stone house overlaid, now, with the smell of lime shaving lotion and, making them hiss in consternation, the personal scent of Pedric Greenlaw, distinctive and familiar. From within, they heard Debbie yip, the beginning of a startled scream.
The man’s voice was low and flat. “It’s just me.”
Debbie’s voice was cranky. “You could have knocked,” she snapped. “What do you want? You scared me half to death.”
The cats, pushing the door in, slipped on inside, past the kitchen and into the shadows outside the bedroom door. The two stood in the middle of the bedroom, the man’s back to them. Debbie had turned from Tessa’s bed, scowling up at him. She didn’t seem frightened, just annoyed. “You have my money?”
“I got it.”
Joe studied the guy. He was wearing Pedric’s tan slacks with the spot on one cuff, Pedric’s tweed sport coat. The guy’s brown hair was newly trimmed, the skin at the back of his neck as white as a baby’s bottom. His cheeks and chin were pale, too, and he’d used too much of Pedric’s Royall Lyme shaving lotion.
“You got yourself cleaned up fancy,” she said. “What’s the occasion?”
“You like it?” he said, leaning close to her.
Debbie laughed, a squeaky little giggle. “I hope you didn’t spend my money on that fancy sport coat!”
“No way, baby. The money’s all here.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, crowding the sleeping child as if she were only another pillow. The cats, crouched beside the door, watched him remove a wad of greenbacks from his jacket pocket. Using the bed as a table, he began to count out hundred-dollar bills, fanning the stack like a deck of cards and then dealing them out across the covers. Debbie moved closer, watching greedily. Behind them, the cats slipped through the room into the shadows of the baby stroller, beside the five grocery bags—a swift flash of gray and red, their paws silent o
n the grainy floor. Behind the cats, the closet door stood just ajar. With a silent paw Pan eased it open, preparing for escape, watching Vic warily.
Dealing out the bills, Vic said, “Like to borrow your car.”
“Why would you need my car? Where’s your truck?”
“Just for a little while, an hour or so. Had some trouble with the truck.”
“Where is it? What kind of trouble? You wreck it?”
“It’s in the shop.”
“So why do you need my car?”
Laying down the last hundred-dollar bill and smoothing it out, he drew her close to the bed and put his arm around her. “Just for an hour or two, baby. Some errands I need to run.” He picked up the stack of bills, tapped it against his palm to align the edges, and handed it to her. “Twenty-four hundred bucks. I did pretty good. Agreed?”
“I’d hoped to get more than this,” Debbie said crossly. “Those Gucci bags . . .”
“Those Gucci bags were last year’s models. I did a hell of a lot better than you’d have done, trying to peddle that lot to someone here in the village or trying to sell it through some consignment shop. Or on eBay. That’d bring the cops down on you.”
Behind the stroller, Joe and Pan smiled at each other. The actual sale of the stolen luxury items put a nice footnote to Debbie’s thieving ways.
But what the cats didn’t understand was the connection. How did Vic and Debbie know each other? He and his friend couldn’t have moved here to the village just to act as her go-between, where was the profit in that?
Had they just happened on her, down in this adjoining neighborhood, and got acquainted? Maybe Vic liked her looks, started coming on to her. One thing led to another, and first thing you know, he’s easing in on her profits. They listened to Debbie argue about the amount of money he’d offered, but then rudely she snatched it up, pulled up her sweater, and stuffed it in her bra.
Cat Bearing Gifts Page 17