“What about the car?” he said. “Just for a little while, baby.”
“I don’t think so, I need it for the children, I need to pick Vinnie up at school.”
“School’s four blocks away. Vinnie can walk.” Vic hugged her close, his voice teasing. “Come on, baby. You got to have more stuff for the fence by now, with your clever ways. What’s in them grocery bags over there, under the bread and cookies? You want me to handle that lot? I will if you loan me the car.”
He argued and wheedled until at last she gave in. “On one condition,” she said, and now there was a smile in her voice. She turned, indicating the bulging grocery bags. “Load those in the back under the blankets, get them out of here until that contractor’s done nosing around.”
“And them cops,” he said. “You wouldn’t want them cops to see all this, the ones that were cruising up here.”
Debbie shrugged. As if she wasn’t worried about cops.
“Will you be going back up to the city again, when you get your truck?”
“Might.”
“When will that be?”
“Two, three days for the truck to be ready.”
“Take that lot with you, sell it for me like you said, and you can borrow the car for two hours. No more.”
In the bed, the cover stirred and Tessa peered sleepily out, watching Vic and her mother. The little girl, Joe thought, observed more than people imagined. Vic said, “When I get the truck, what if I head for the city with your stuff but don’t come back this way for a while?”
“Send me a money order,” Debbie said smartly.
“You trust me with the money, baby?”
“You brought me this much,” she said softly, picking up her car keys, looking toward the stroller.
Panicked, the cats slid into the closet. From among the tangle of shoes and dropped clothes, they watched Debbie hand Vic the bags, loading four into his arms, piling the last atop the others in the stroller, watched her wheel the stroller out, escorting him to her car.
Slipping out of the closet, Joe Grey followed. But Pan leaped up onto the bed beside Tessa, worrying over the child, sniffing at her to determine just how sick she was.
Outside, skinning up into the branches of the pine, Joe watched Vic load up the grocery bags and cover them as Debbie had instructed, watched him back the station wagon out, turning downhill in a direction that would put him on Highway One, and watched Debbie turn back to the house with a smug and self-satisfied smile. No stolen goods on the premises now, no evidence to any crime.
Was this the last of her shoplifting, had she paid attention to what Ryan had told her? Or was she thinking Ryan would get busy with other matters and forget her threat? Was it possible that Debbie, now that she’d been caught red-handed, would stop stealing and look for a job?
Not likely, Joe thought. Not bloody likely. Clawing farther up the pine tree to the roof, he watched Debbie head for the garage with the empty stroller. Maybe she meant to fold it up and stick it in the corner behind her trash and boxes, get it out of the way, too. Behind her, Pan slipped out the door and scrambled to the roof beside him.
“Why does he need her car?” the red tom said. “Has he already sold the Lincoln? Sold it with Kate’s treasure inside, with millions of dollars hidden in there just inches from his greedy fingers and he doesn’t have a clue, no idea he’s dumped a fortune for a few hundred bucks, to some scuzzy dealer?”
“You find that amusing? You think that’s funny, if he let Kate’s hoard get away where no one will ever find it, where not even the law might get a line on it?”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Pan said contritely. “MPPD will find it. If he has sold it, it’ll just take them longer.”
“Or maybe,” Joe said, “maybe he found the jewels before he sold it, took the door panels off himself to hide his stolen money, and found everything. Maybe right now he has Kate’s treasure stashed somewhere else. Or,” he said, “is the Lincoln still here somewhere with Kate’s treasure still in it?” He looked up the hill to the woods, where the narrow dirt drive led down to the stone shack. “Could he have gotten the Town Car down through the trees? Would it have fit in that narrow shed?”
“Like a rat stuck in a jam jar,” Pan said. “None of us were here to see him hide it, we were all up at the wreck. Except my dad,” he said. “Except Misto.”
“Vic’s hardly had time to sell a car,” Joe said. “Maybe everything is in the shed, and he’s afraid to drive the Lincoln, afraid Harper’s men will spot it, maybe that’s why he wants Debbie’s car. Let’s have a look before he and his pal take off for good.”
“Maybe the other guy’s too hurt to travel. Kit said the man in the wrecked truck never stopped moaning, as if he were injured real bad.”
Approaching the shed, looking up at its solid door, Joe leaped up at the padlock, striking and pawing at it. The big lock swung heavily but was closed tight. Pan tried, but with no better luck. Together they clawed at the door itself, trying to pull it away enough to see under or see through a crack at the side, but the heavy construction of bolted planks wouldn’t budge. But then when they sniffed along the molding they caught Vic’s fresh scent, and when they pressed their noses to the thinnest crack between door and molding they could smell a faint breath from within that made them smile: a distinct new-car smell, the smell of fine leather seats, the same comforting aroma as when they’d ridden in there with Kit, the smell of the Greenlaws’ Town Car.
And when they examined the dirt apron of the drive itself, the faintest tire tracks led up to the shed door, the sharp tread of new tires just visible on the hard earth. Another set led away again to vanish where the narrow drive was covered with rotted leaves, where only vague indentations compressed the damp mulch. And only now, sniffing along the ground, did they catch Misto’s scent where the old yellow cat had indeed padded along following the track of the Lincoln.
“Did they bring the Lincoln directly here from the wreck?” Pan said. “While we were headed up the mountain with the Damens, did my pa see those two men hide it in here?” He lifted his nose from the old cat’s scent. “While you and Dulcie and I, and Rock and the Damens, were setting off to find Kit, did Misto know all along where those two men had holed up? He couldn’t know who they were or what they’d done, and he couldn’t know the Lincoln was stolen, but he knew where it was,” he said, smiling.
“He knew they’d put a car in there,” Joe said. “But would he recognize the Greenlaws’ nice Town Car if it has heavy damage, dents and crumpled fenders, dirt and gravel from the landslide? And now,” he said, “is it still parked in there behind those plank doors, or is only the smell there, and the Town Car gone again?”
“Secrets within secrets,” Pan said as they moved away, wondering where else to look for the stolen vehicle. “This old place reeks of secrets. Only a few months ago, you and Dulcie find Sammie’s body buried right down there under her own house. Then Emmylou inherits the house and starts finding money hidden in the walls. Those two tramps come here looking for it, too. And then those same two men wreck the Greenlaws’ car or are involved in the wreck, one of them attacks Pedric and Lucinda and could as well have killed them both.”
“And,” Joe said thoughtfully, “even Sammie’s death itself might be tied in. It was her money.”
“Tied in how?
“The department’s file on Sammie says she was killed because she saw Debbie’s husband, Erik Kraft, kill Debbie’s younger sister after he got her pregnant. Killed his own wife’s little sister. But did Erik kill Sammie because of the money, too? Could he have known Sammie had hidden money? If he found out somehow, could he have tried to find it himself, tried to force her to tell him where it was? When she wouldn’t, he killed her?”
“Maybe,” Pan said thoughtfully. “I guess we’ll never know. Whatever happened, Erik Kraft is scum, I always hated him. With a father
like that and a mother like Debbie, it’s no wonder Tessa has problems. Do you think,” he said, “Vic hid the Lincoln nearby, where he can get at it in a hurry?”
Both cats glanced down the hill where the little cottages stood crowded close together beneath their overgrown cypress trees. “Come on,” Joe said, “it’s worth a look, half those places are empty.” And off they went, past Debbie’s house, down among the FOR RENT signs and the neglected foreclosures, to peer into garage windows and under doors, searching for a car worth maybe twenty thousand but loaded with treasure worth many times more.
25
RYAN DROVE HOME from Debbie’s feeling dead for sleep and out of sorts, wishing Debbie Kraft had never returned to the village, and cursing her stupidity that she’d allowed Debbie to entrench herself rent-free in the little spec cottage. She had no idea whether her ultimatum to Debbie would have any effect on the woman. If it didn’t she’d give the department a heads-up—if they weren’t already watching Debbie. She hated that this would jeopardize Tessa. Even rude little Vinnie didn’t deserve to be swept into the maw of Children’s Services. Looking at her watch, she saw it was only mid-afternoon, just after two, but she’d love to crawl under a quilt for a few hours. Last night’s desperate phone call from Kit seemed like weeks ago, a whole lifetime seemed to have passed since Kit’s lonely cry for help.
Racing up to Santa Cruz, searching the dark cliffs and then that business with the coyote, their relief at finding Kit unhurt and then hurrying to the hospital and their long vigil there, had left her limp with fatigue. Their trek home this morning behind the ambulance, getting Lucinda settled, and finding that lowlife had been in there pawing through their personal things, stealing Pedric’s clothes, that was enough without Debbie’s sour defiance to top off the long and exhausting drama. Was she getting old? she thought crossly. But no long day on the job, no amount of hard physical work on a construction project, exhausted her as these stressful hours had done. Now, pulling into her own drive and killing the engine, she glanced in her side mirror to see Clyde turning in behind her, in one of the shop’s loaner cars.
He had put in less than an hour, since she’d dropped him at work to clear up some irksome detail about Jaguar parts lost in shipping. She watched him step out of the silver Mercedes, yawning. Despite his aggravation at a delay in the repair schedule and, consequently, an annoyed client, it was nice to own your own business, to feel comfortable taking some time off when you needed to. The minute she opened the truck door, Rock bolted out and straight for the house, nearly upsetting Clyde as he unlocked the front door. When he pushed it open, swinging it wide, Rock bolted through heading for the kitchen.
Grinning, Clyde put his arm around her and they followed Rock in, found the big silver dog checking the kitchen floor for stray food. They stood watching him lick Snowball’s empty bowl clean then sniff along the countertop—whatever enticing trail he found led him out of the kitchen again and up the stairs to the master suite. They moved up behind him, Clyde carrying their duffel and backpacks, to find Rock had followed the scent of the old yellow cat.
On the love seat in Clyde’s study, Misto and Snowball woke only a little, curled together sleepily. On the desk the message light was flashing, but neither Ryan nor Clyde wanted to listen to messages. They watched Rock nose at the two cats, licking them all over. The little white cat was used to the big dog’s attention, his wet caresses made her smile. Misto batted at Rock with velvet paws, hissing halfheartedly—but then the yellow tom caught a whiff of the backpacks where Clyde had set them on the floor. He rose to investigate. He smelled the canvas with a puzzled look, then looked up at Ryan, questioning. He sniffed the ocean smells the canvas had collected, the scent of fresh pine needles, the scents of Kit and Joe Grey and Pan. He dropped his ears and backed away.
“Coyote,” he said, scowling up at them. “And blood,” he added, drawing his lips back at the metallic scent.
“The Greenlaws had a wreck,” Ryan said. “They’re in the hospital. Kit ran off and was lost and called us, and we went after her. We found her, she’s fine, but . . .”
Behind her, Clyde had flicked the replay on the answering machine; she paused until it had played its messages. The first two were about problems with the house she was just finishing, but nothing serious. The third call was from Dr. John Firetti; his recorded voice brought Misto to full attention. Leaping onto the desk, he nosed at the machine.
“We’re home!” Firetti said.
“We’re home,” Mary chimed in, “shall we come get Misto? We so missed him, could we—”
But Misto was already on his way, leaping up to the rafters like a young cat and through Joe’s cat door, his yellow tail vanishing as he bolted out through Joe’s tower. They heard him thudding across the roof at a dead run, his gallop soon fading and then gone; they imagined him flying across the peaks above Ocean, making for the veterinary clinic and the cottage that stood beside it, making for home.
He’d left the Damens’ without knowing much at all about the wreck or about Kit’s fearful adventure, and with no idea the Greenlaws’ car had been stolen, that the black car he’d seen pulling into the stone shed did, indeed, belong to Lucinda and Pedric. He left Ryan and Clyde equally ignorant, as well, of where the Town Car might now be hidden.
DEBBIE’S CLUTTERED AND smelly station wagon was a big change for Vic, from driving the pristine new Lincoln. He’d quickly grown used to the heavier, smoother ride, and even with the Town Car’s dents and coat of mud its interior had been better suited to his new, cleaned-up persona. Though in truth the Suzuki, stinking and littered, was more what he was used to, more like the comfortable old truck with trash on the floor, discarded socks, the smell of accumulated dust, stale crackers, and empty drink cans.
Heading for the hospital, he meant to use patient Michael Emory’s name to enter the ER through the locked doors, to be admitted without a hassle. He planned to head for Emory’s cubicle as if to visit, but then move right on by to Birely’s room. It wouldn’t take a minute to do Birely, inject the air the way the book said, bending the IV tube to keep air from going up into the bottle—just stick the syringe in below the bend, and push the air in. As simple as that, the air goes down through the IV, through the vein and up into Birely’s heart. Half a second and he’s dead, his life snuffed like a match in a blast of wind.
Vic knew he’d have to move fast, get out in that split second before the alarms went off and the place exploded into action, nurses and doctors running in with their expertise and their machines to bring Birely back to life; that part worried him, hoping he could escape before anyone saw him or realized he’d been in Birely’s room at all.
And who knew how long it would take before he could even be alone with Birely without them nurses going in and out? The hour he’d spent in there before dawn, when he’d followed Birely’s ambulance and pushed on in, the place had been pretty quiet. But now later in the day he imagined it might be real busy, people in scrubs hurrying every which way, phones ringing, maybe gurneys pushing by him coming or going from X-ray, white-coated doctors moving with deliberation from one cubicle to the next. If it was like that, he’d be lucky to get half a minute alone. He could hardly hang out there for hours waiting for the right moment without someone asking questions.
Pulling into the underground, he found a parking slot near the glass doors into the ER. He figured no one would take a second look at the old Suzuki, would think, just one more patient with no money and no insurance, going into the ER with the flu or a backache, going for help where the doctors wouldn’t refuse to treat you even if you couldn’t pay. The wide glass doors opened automatically. At the admitting desk, he gave his name as James Emory, told the nurse he’d come to see his cousin Michael.
“Mr. Emory has two visitors, that’s all we allow at one time. If you’ll have a seat here in the waiting room, we’ll call you when you can go in.”
“No problem,�
�� Vic said. “You got a Coke machine handy?”
“There’s nothing on this floor. You can go up to the cafeteria, they have Cokes, coffee, and sandwiches.” She pointed down the short hall, where he could see the lower steps of a stairway leading up. “That’s the shortest way. At the top just keep going to the big central atrium.”
He didn’t know what an atrium was but he guessed he’d know when he saw it. He went up the steps into a wide, bright corridor, glass walls on his left looking out to manicured trees and gardens. Passing well-dressed people who looked like they belonged there, he felt out of place until he remembered he looked just like them now, no more shabby clothes, he was so cleaned up it took him a minute to recognize his own reflection in the tall windows. Hell, he looked pretty damn good, for a hobo.
The atrium was high ceilinged, with a towering round skylight at the top, and a big indoor fishpond with a small tree growing in the middle. He bought a Coke in the cafeteria, sat down at a table beside the pond. All kinds of space led away into bright halls and more open spaces, and he could see two more sets of stairs leading down. All so damn clean it made him uncomfortable. What kind of money did it take to build a fancy place like this? Molena Point was even richer than he’d thought.
He drank his Coke watching some kind of large, brightly colored fish swim back and forth, then got himself a sticky cinnamon bun and a cup of coffee. How long would it take for those people down in the ER, visiting Michael Emory, to get tired and leave? He felt edgy to get back down there and get this over with, and nervous, too, not wanting to go back. What time did the nurses change shift? Maybe better to wait until then, when they were hurrying to go home, others hurrying in to work, looking at records, playing catch-up to which patients had checked in or checked out or died—best to get down there when they were all distracted, do the deed, slip out to the parking garage again and vanish.
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