Cat Deck the Halls

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  Startled.

  Stood very still, sniffing the air, frightened by the unnatural smell.

  She stood at a bend in the cliff. She could taste the cloying, sweet smell, it nearly made her retch. She stood staring, then she started forward again, hesitantly, her hand over her mouth and nose to block the smell. Above her the cliff rose some thirty feet, sheer and wet, and black as obsidian.

  Just ahead, beyond the stone outcropping, something gleamed. She approached until she glimpsed it, dark and curved, sleek as a beached whale, half hidden beyond the turn in the cliff; whatever it was did not belong there.

  Oh, not a baby whale, she thought, recoiling with pity and dread. Donna Reese loved the eerie songs of the whales; she played her wildlife tapes over and over through earphones at night in her college dorm, to help her sleep.

  But no, this was not a smooth, water-sleek animal. This was metal. Dark, wet metal. At a change of the wind that drove the stink at her, she gagged, the wind’s shifting gust slapping the sick-sweet stink right in her face, making her stomach twist.

  But in a moment she approached, her hand tighter over her nose and mouth.

  She saw the fender first, and then the whole car. Water dripped from the metal, water left when the tide had receded. The vehicle was turned up on its nose, badly dented, wedged beneath a hollow of cliff that was being slowly cut by the sea into a shallow cave.

  How long had the wreck been here? Through how many changes of tide? Ignoring the need to heave, she cupped her hands to the cracked passenger window, peering in.

  She stood a moment looking at the dead man, then looked up at the sheer black cliff and the narrow highway some hundred feet above. Down the side of the cliff she could see fresh scrape marks where the car had gone over.

  At the base of the cliff lay jagged humps of broken black rock protruding from the wet sand. Once, millions of years before, this whole coast had lain on the sea bottom. She didn’t know what that had to do with the dead man, she just thought it. The thought sent a thrill of fear through her that made her glance warily behind her at the endless sea, made her think about the frailty of human life.

  Moving away from the body and the wreck, she threw up.

  When she had emptied her stomach, probably of all her meals for the last week, she thought, her mouth tasting vile both from throwing up and from the permeating stink, she dug into her pack for her cell phone.

  Donna Reese, at twenty-two, might be adventuresome and independent and prefer to hike alone without talkative companions, but she carried water, candy bars, and a cell phone. She was generally levelheaded, but now she stood trying to gather her wits, trying to put out of her mind the swollen, ugly body, the transformation that death had bestowed upon what had once been a living man.

  And then she dialed 911.

  One ring, and a woman dispatcher picked up. Carefully Donna gave her location, told the woman that she’d seen only one person in the car. Yes, he was definitely dead. Swollen. Far beyond need for the paramedics. As she spoke, she longed suddenly to be home, if only back in the dorm, back in her own familiar place in the world, where she’d be safe; and for a moment, she wondered if she had the nerve, now, to drive back toward the village along that narrow and precarious two-lane highway.

  A S MAX HARPER moved out with a dozen other police officers, their silent units seeking the blue van and the tan Suburban, Dallas Garza headed for the hospital on the tail of the EMTs, cursing the medic’s slow, careful driving even with its siren blasting, wanting to jam his foot on the gas. He was going to get his hands on Betty Wicken, on all three of those bastards, and he wasn’t sure what he’d do to them. If violent retribution lost him his job, so be it. Swinging a sharp U into the emergency parking beside the rescue van, he moved beside Ryan’s stretcher as they hurried her in through the emergency entrance. She hadn’t moved. She didn’t move now.

  In the ER, he hovered over her while Dr. Hamry took a look, cleaned up the wound, and then had her moved to a bed where he could watch her. Ray Hamry was young, maybe forty. A tall, thin, athletic man with short brown hair and blue eyes, tanned from tennis and swimming. He was a man Dallas had known a long time, and respected-but even Hamry could not have all the answers to her condition until he’d examined Ryan further, and run the X-rays and scans. Hamry tried to ease Dallas’s fear and rage, knowing that wouldn’t do much good, that Dallas was going to fuss and pace until he had answers.

  T HE THREE CATS couldn’t very well hitch a ride in the rescue vehicle with Ryan or in Dallas’s squad car. Beating it to the station across the rooftops, they were on the dispatcher’s counter waiting for word about Ryan when the call came in about the body, Dulcie and Kit curled up beside Mabel’s in-box, Joe Grey sprawled across a stack of outgoing reports. Mabel had the phone speaker on, leaving her hands free for a copying job. The caller was a woman.

  She sounded young, and shaken. “There…there’s a dead man. Below the cliff. In a wrecked car. It went over the side, you can see the marks. He’s been dead for a long time. Swollen.” She sounded like she was trying not to retch.

  “Where?” Mabel said. “Can you tell me exactly where you are?”

  “I…just below the state park. My car’s at the top by the stairs. About two miles south of the village, I think. I was walking the beach, and…the wrecked car’s all sand and mud, and dripping water.”

  “How many people in it, besides the driver? Can you see anyone else inside?”

  The girl didn’t answer.

  “Stay on the line. Please stay on the line,” Mabel shouted, turning to the radio to send two cars on their way. Then, “Are you still there?”

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “What kind of car are you driving?”

  “White, two-door Civic.” The girl gave Mabel the license-plate number.

  “Stay on the line, I’m putting you on hold.” Punching another line, Mabel called the coroner, and then tried to reach the captain and Detective Garza. The cats heard the back door slam as officers headed out to their units. They heard two cars start and race away, and then Dallas came on the line.

  “I’m at the hospital.”

  “How is she?” Mabel said.

  “Concussion, but stable. They don’t know any more, yet.”

  “We have a body in a wrecked car, bottom of the cliff, two miles south of the village. Caller says it’s been dead awhile. Two cars dispatched.” Mabel gave him the location, near the cliffside stairs. “Caller’s car’s parked there, a white Civic.”

  “I’m on my way,” Dallas said. Mabel kept trying to reach the chief, but couldn’t raise him. It wasn’t like Captain Harper not to answer, either on his radio or his cell phone, and Mabel began to fidget. Joe wanted to tell her that Max was chasing the Wickens and maybe was too mad or too involved to pick up the call, but he could only lie there, mute, edgy, and frustrated.

  Ten minutes later, Mabel reached Harper’s cell phone. She was relaying the information about the body when the radio came alive. Four officers were at the scene. Brennan said, “Looks like we might have the Christmas-tree body.”

  Three sets of ears pricked with interest, three small bodies tensed.

  “There’s a teddy bear in the car,” Brennan said, “and a little girl’s sweater about the right size. Pillows and a blanket, like maybe they’d traveled a ways. No kid, no luggage, no other clothes. Car’s a gray 1997 Toyota Camry. No plates. Nothing in the glove compartment. McFarland’s checking for…Hang on.”

  There was a lapse of some minutes. Mabel and the cats could hear background voices and bouts of disturbance that sounded like gusts of wind. Brennan said, “VIN number’s been filed off. No ID on the body. Coroner’s here. See if you can pick up a stolen report on that make of car.”

  As Mabel typed the information into the computer, Joe Grey grew increasingly restive. He wanted to be at the scene; Mabel’s electronic command post was good, but it was second best. Mabel was talking with Dallas again when they heard Detective
Davis coming up the hall.

  Mabel filled her in, and Davis spoke with Garza, and because the victim might have been traveling but no luggage was found, they decided to pull a couple of guys off their beat to check the motels. See if they could find a man registered with a little girl, someone who hadn’t been seen for a couple of days.

  Now that they had a body, there was an outside chance they might get an identification through the DNA. At least they’d have DNA to compare with the blood around the Christmas tree.

  “Lucky,” Mabel said, “that the lab has two new technicians.”

  “Lucky if they stay,” Davis said. “With the cost of living in the area, it isn’t likely.” For over a year the lab had been understaffed, with two desks vacant. And the county was making little effort to raise the salaries for those urgent positions. Cases had been backed up, with resulting complications, and many minor cases let walk or ignored because the arresting officers couldn’t get the latents processed or get the lab work needed to get these cases into court.

  “With pillows and a blanket in the car,” Mabel said, “does that sound like the dead man kidnapped her?” She looked around. “Where is your young charge?”

  “She’s with Sand. Eleanor took her up to the seniors’ for a while. No, I don’t buy kidnapping. Informant said she was huddled up to the guy. If you can believe her. Why would…”

  Mabel nodded. “Why would she lie? That informant has never led us wrong. I know her voice, I’ve taken her calls enough times.”

  “And this call from down the coast? That wasn’t the same?”

  “Not at all,” Mabel said. “But the call when Ryan was hurt…No doubt about that one. I’d know his voice anywhere.”

  The two women were quiet, looking at each other. The cats were quiet, and seemed to be dozing. “How do they do that?” Mabel said softly. “How can those snitches always be at the scene?” She stroked Dulcie nervously. “I think about that too much, Juana. Sometimes it gives me the shivers.” Under Mabel’s stroking hand, Dulcie was getting shivers. On the counter beside her, Joe Grey felt his skin twitch, his nerves so jumpy his whiskers quivered. Kit was very still, as if wishing she could vanish-like a rabbit gone to ground hoping to disappear in the tall grass.

  Dallas came back on. “If the motels don’t turn up their luggage, maybe the killer dumped it so we couldn’t ID the victim.”

  Davis said, “What about I pull the two rookies, let them do some Dumpster diving?”

  Dallas chuckled. “And what about the charity shops?”

  “I’ll do that, and take the kid,” Davis said. “She seems to like pretty clothes, as much as you can tell what the silent little thing likes. She might recognize something of her own, a favorite little dress, and go for it.”

  “Good idea,” Dallas said. “Gotta go, I’ve got Max on…”

  As Davis turned back toward her office, Joe Grey yawned and rose. Davis’s idea, to try to pick up the little girl’s clothes, hoping to find trace material from the victim, was fine. The kid might go for her own clothes. But to find the dead man’s clothes, mixed with all the others on the rack, would be harder. Davis would have to find out when recently donated clothes of the right size had been brought in, if the volunteer on duty even knew. And once she’d narrowed the search to the right size and time frame, she’d still be working in the dark.

  While all a cat had to do was walk along the rack, sniffing.

  Joe looked at Kit. She was the only one who had been near the dead man, who would know his scent. He twitched an ear. Dulcie and Kit came fully alert, and the three cats leaped down mewling at Mabel until she opened the heavy glass door.

  “You cats come to visit, just get settled, and you’re gone again-fickle as all cats, no sense of loyalty to old friends,” she said, smiling.

  But even as Mabel turned back to her phones and radio, up on the roof above her head, the tortoiseshell kit looked at Joe, wide-eyed and uncertain. “What?” she said. “Why are you…What did I do?”

  “You’re going to find the dead man’s clothes. If we hit the charity shops before Davis…”

  “But…” Dulcie said.

  “I…The only scent I caught from the roof,” Kit said, “was death. Nothing else, Joe. How could I smell anything else, over that stink?”

  “He’d only just died,” Joe said stubbornly. “Try to remember, Kit. Or maybe the scent of the killer is on those clothes, too.”

  “The dead man will be hard enough. But I was trying to track the little girl among the geranium smells and all the cops’ scents. I didn’t have time to sort out the killer’s scent. I wouldn’t know the smell of the killer if I stumbled over him.”

  Kit smoothed her long fur with a rough tongue. “The child’s scent, yes. I could pick out her clothes from the racks of castoffs, but…Oh!” she said, lashing her tail with excitement. “Of course I can find the victim’s clothes! His scent will be on the little girl’s clothes-and her scent will be on his. She was in his arms, she was hugging him.” And Kit’s yellow eyes blazed with challenge. “I can do that, Joe. I can find both scents!”

  31

  T HE WOODS BEHIND the high school were dense, not much used except by students skipping class or crowding in at night to party. The narrow road that wound between the scraggly pines was littered with empty drink cans and debris of a less appealing nature. The old tramp wouldn’t ordinarily camp up here, but now, wanting to avoid the village, and never liking the homeless camps down by the river where things could get dicey, he found the woods inviting. After the cops picked him up yesterday, he’d slept in here last night, moving deep in behind a bushy stand of poison ivy where no one would see him, and high school kids weren’t likely to invade. Poison ivy didn’t bother him, he could roll in the stuff and never itch. He was sipping coffee, thinking to open a can of beans for his supper, and congratulating himself on not having encountered a living soul, when he heard a car coming. Breaking branches and crunching rocks.

  Beyond the bushes, he watched a van pull in, heading toward him along the narrow dirt road, brushing overhanging limbs and side branches, a blue Chevy van. And a big tan SUV right behind it. Well, hell. Person didn’t have no privacy, nowhere.

  Real fast, he scraped dirt over his little fire and rolled up his blanket, did up his kit preparing to move out. But then he hunkered down again, watching the Suburban as it backed around on the narrow road with a lot of hustle and fuss, until it was heading out. He knew he ought to get out of there, but he was too interested.

  The Suburban parked with its tail just a few feet from the rear of the van. A tall woman swung out of the van and moved around to open the rear doors at the same time as a muscular guy stepped out of the Suburban and opened the tailgate. Then a smaller man slid down out of the Suburban and, at the woman’s direction, walked back a ways up the dirt road and stood as she told him, watching the street beyond the high school for cop cars.

  When the big man and the woman began to transfer the van’s load into the SUV, pulling out panels that stood upright in the van but, going into the Suburban, had to lay flat, the old man was way too curious to leave, too interested in what they had there.

  The big panels were pictures-blue, green, glimpses of a stormy sky. The woman was cranky and bad-tempered, the exact same scowling kind of female he’d never cared for. Like the women in his own family when he was a kid, loud and bossy and you couldn’t never trust ’em. She snapped at her partner the whole time as they lifted the panels. She’d pause between loading each, though, to stuff blankets between. Like they was real valuable.

  When they closed the doors of both vehicles, real quiet, and got in and headed back the way they’d come, he decided he wouldn’t have to move along after all. It sure didn’t look like they meant to come back. The woman handled the van real nifty among the dense trees. She stopped by their lookout, the little guy. She stepped out, got in the SUV, left the little guy to drive the van.

  Smiling, the old man unrolled his blanket ag
ain, and sat down. He listened as the two vehicles moved away to Highway One, sounded like they turned right, up the coast. Scraping the dirt off the hot ashes, he fed in a few twigs, hoping to get a blaze going again. The wind was up; he shivered, and sat thinking.

  This was the kind of switch, back out of sight, that the cops sure would like to know about. If a fella liked cops well enough to tell ’em.

  Them cops here in the village were okay. He’d rather deal with cops, sometimes, than some of the scum he met up with. Them cops yesterday, they’d taken him right on into the chief’s office, give him a cup of coffee. Keeping his shoes for evidence of some kind, they’d hustled up a fine pair to replace them. Fit him real good. And afterward that blond cop that picked him up, she’d bought him a real nice deli lunch before she sent him on his way. A real looker, that one. He wondered why she’d wanted to be a cop.

  Getting the little fire going and wrapping his blanket around him, he thought about that body that was supposed to have been in the plaza, the stiff they’d lost and wanted the evidence for, wanted his shoes for-and wondered if this switch he’d just seen could have something to do with that.

  He didn’t see how. But who knew? He wasn’t no cop.

  Wondering, he covered the little fire again that he’d just got started, but didn’t shoulder his pack. He buried it among the poison ivy. Then, thinking about the cold supper he’d have when he got back, he left the woods. The sky above him was gray and dull, the winter evening cold. Shrugging down into his jacket, he headed for the center of the village wondering if that tall blond cop was still on duty. Wondering, if she was there at the station, she might buy him something hot from the deli, for his supper.