Leaning back in her chair, she sipped her cold coffee, thinking about the burglar. He knew the neighborhood, knew it well enough to know exactly what he’d wanted to steal and, apparently, where it was in each house. He-or she-hadn’t rooted in the drawers or torn apart the closets, he’d gone right to his objectives. He had copies of all four garage door openers and access to the house keys. Whether keys had been kept hanging in some of the garages, or he’d had duplicates of them all, was yet to be determined.
Every one of her eight interviewees had said that, as far as they knew, none of the four couples kept extra garage door openers in the house, that there was just the usual button inside each garage, and an opener in each car, some of those programmed directly into the cars’ electronic systems. She thought it likely that the guy had one of those programming gadgets available online to your everyday thief. As she set her coffee cup down, a movement in the bookshelf along the far wall startled her.
She looked up, frowning at Joe Grey. “When did you slip in here? I’m no more observant than our witnesses.” That disturbed her, that she hadn’t seen an intruder cross her office, even if it was only a cat, that she’d been so focused she’d noticed nothing. “At least you’re not armed, you little bum,” she said, grinning companionably.
What she hadn’t seen was Dulcie and Kit melt behind the small easy chair that sat at an angle at the end of her desk. By stretching, standing on their hind legs, their claws in the back of the chair for support, the two lady cats could just see Juana’s computer screen, though at an angle that made it hard to read.
The interview she was typing was with a Raymond Atwater, who lived at the south end of the block. Atwater was a widower and lived alone. Sometime between his supper and his bedtime, he saw the lights of a car pulling into the Becker garage. He thought they might have delayed their vacation, and he didn’t question that. He didn’t recall the time. He said he tried not to mind the neighbors’ business. He’d gone on to bed, to read, and hadn’t seen the car leave. He’d been deep in his book when he heard the scream of a cat, said he’d assumed a couple of neighborhood cats were mating.
Well, he heard us yowling in the closet, Joe thought. Would he eventually have come to rescue us? Maybe, maybe not. We could have died within earshot, and some people wouldn’t care. In order to read the report, to avoid a glare on the screen that wiped out the message, the tomcat had to move along the bookcase and crane his neck. He was waiting for Juana to finish up with Atwater and get on to the next witness when the phone rang.
Juana glanced at it, and picked up. “Yes, Chief.” Juana Davis was old fashioned enough that she didn’t much care for a speakerphone, she was never sure who might be out in the hall listening, an arrestee on his way to an interview, a felon being escorted back to lockup.
Behind the chair, Dulcie was content to listen to the one-sided conversation, but Kit wanted to climb up on the desk where she could press her ear against the receiver. Dulcie’s look drew her back.
After a moment, Juana nodded. “I hope you can get an ID.” She paused, then, “I’m just getting to the last interview. A Mrs. Edmond Turner, four houses down from the Chapmans’…Nancy Turner, yes. She said she stopped by the Chapmans’ Saturday around noon to loan Theresa a book she’d wanted to read on vacation. She said Frances Becker was there, that Frances said she was on her way out for a quick walk, that she and her husband were leaving that afternoon. That before they left, she’d wanted to see the kittens. The two women were in the laundry with the kittens, she said Frances was making a real fuss over them. It surprised her, that Frances was down on the floor playing with them like a kid.”
Another pause, then, “Yes, she did. Said both women were wearing shorts and flip-flops, that only young women could dress like that in this weather. She said Frances walks a lot, usually on weekends.
“She said there was a rolled-up blue towel lying on the floor next to Frances, looked like a beach towel. Said the kittens were all over it, playing and clawing it.” Davis had a satisfied smile on her face. “Yesterday at the swimming pool, the threads I bagged? Some of them were blue. Blue threads stuck to the coping, some of them with blood.”
She listened for a few minutes, answered, “Yes,” then, “No. When Mrs. Turner left Theresa’s, Frances was still there.”
The cats could hardly be still. Dulcie and Kit were fidgeting with interest, and Joe Grey watched Juana intently. Had Frances stopped by Theresa’s on her way not to walk but headed for the abandoned pool? Carrying her beach towel, intending to strip and catch a little sun before leaving? Joe thought about the towels that Clyde had used as cat beds, how they quickly got matted with fur. He imagined Frances beside the empty pool, stripping off her shorts and shirt, lathering on suntan oil and stretching out on the blue towel-where every yellow cat hair would have clung to her oily skin.
Was it Frances Becker who died? And not Theresa?
Across the room, Dulcie’s heart was pounding. Kit could hardly keep from lashing her tail. That was Frances with cat hairs stuck to her suntan lotion! Theresa isn’t dead? That was Frances Becker who’d died in the pool, not Theresa?
Juana said, “No, she didn’t. Yes, let me read it.” She looked at the screen to quote Nancy Turner. “‘She likes to take long midday walks alone. Sometimes she wears a Walkman, listens to classical music. Frances does a lot of her work at night. I can hear the CDs she plays. She’s very dedicated in her accounting jobs, I see her office light on very late.’
“That’s most of it,” Davis said. “She couldn’t tell me which way Frances went when she left the Chapmans’, she said she’d gone right home, that she didn’t know where Frances usually walked once she left the block.”
Resting his chin on his paws, Joe thought about Frances Becker, so sensible and low-key. Was she the kind of person to sunbathe naked? How much did they not know about her? He thought about her charming husband-her philandering husband-and how much they didn’t know about him, either.
Was Ed Becker capable of murder? If he was a womanizer, Joe thought, then why wouldn’t he be just as capable of stealing? Had Ed Becker planned those thefts, Frances found out and tried to stop him, and he’d killed her?
Joe thought about Ed following her to the abandoned pool, killing her, getting rid of the body, and then moving on as he’d planned, to steal from his neighbors. Proceeding just as glibly as when, behind Frances ’s back, he stole the attentions of his neighbors’ wives.
This scenario made sense. And yet as relieved as he was to hope that Theresa was alive, still a dozen questions rattled in his head and wouldn’t let him rest.
“Yes,” Davis said. “You’re headed there now? If she’s from the neighborhood, Charlie will know her. Yes, I’ll be at the autopsy first thing in the morning.”
As much as the tomcat liked to be in on every aspect of a murder, when he imagined Davis photographing the autopsy, he was willing to bypass this part of the investigation. Dissecting a human body was not the same as eviscerating a mouse.
Well, it shouldn’t take but a few minutes for Charlie to identify the victim, and for Max to call Davis. He watched Dulcie and Kit curl up behind the chair to wait, and he stretched out along the bookshelf, closing his eyes. Praying, as coldhearted as it might seem, that that was Frances Becker up there at the morgue, and not Theresa.
37
LEAVING THE COUNTY morgue beside Max, Charlie slipped into the passenger seat of her Blazer, happy to let him drive. As soon as he turned the key she rolled down her window, turning her face to the wind, hoping to blow away the smell of formaldehyde and death that clung to her. The stink seemed to have seeped into her every pore, and every fiber of her clothes. Were they depositing the smell in her Blazer, too, so it would never again be the same? Would her nice SUV, which had been a gift from Max on her last birthday, forevermore smell like a grave?
How did John Bern stand it? She’d wondered more than once what made a person like Bern embrace that particular profession. He
was young, strong and intelligent, and nice looking, his premature baldness seeming only to add to his attractiveness. He’d told her once that it was the challenge, that he was fascinated by the precise procedure, of unraveling the mystery of how someone died. He said that if it was a murder, he got completely caught up in helping to discover the killer.
She looked back at the cream-colored, four-story stucco building, its roof fluted with red tile, thinking about the chill and antiseptic morgue in its basement, about the physically cold, visually cold viewing room with its unadorned walls, chill gray terrazzo floor that could be easily scrubbed, and its hard metal chairs. A room that hadn’t offered much in the way of emotional comfort as Bern rolled out the cold metal gurney bearing Frances ’s covered body.
“We’ve done preliminary testing for drugs,” he’d told them. “My guess is she died from an intracerebral bleed. I don’t want to make a final judgment yet as to whether she was struck, or if this occurred naturally, from a fall. Looks like she fell at least several feet, from the contusion and the specks of grit and cement embedded in the skin.”
They had discussed the autopsy for the following morning, which Detective Davis would attend, and before they’d left, Max had called Mabel to put out an APB on Frances Becker’s white Honda Accord, which was the car missing from the Becker garage. Now, pulling out of the parking lot, Max said, “You okay? You’re pale as hell.”
“Fine,” Charlie lied. “I’m fine.”
“The smell will go away,” he said, wondering if she was going to be sick. “If it was her husband who killed her, then is there no one to notify? She had no family?”
“Not that she ever mentioned.”
“ Davis will go over the house again, maybe she’ll find an address in her files, some relative.”
“One thing about Frances,” she said, “she was a neat- nick, everything in order. It shouldn’t take Davis long to find an address, if there were any relatives.”
As Max turned onto the freeway, Charlie said, “John Bern says Frances has been dead at least thirty-six hours. When Ryan talked with Ed Becker this morning, he told her that her call woke Frances.”
“What is he going to do, tell her Frances can’t come to the phone right now because she’s dead?” He flicked on his emergency flashers to get a car off their tail, watched the guy pass on their left. The driver wouldn’t take such a liberty if they were in a patrol car. “If Becker turns out to be the burglar as well, then he apparently changed cars, switched to the dark RV. He could have put the jewelry and paintings in Frances ’s Accord, but not the furniture and boxes of books.” He looked over at Charlie. “Switched cars, hid the Accord somewhere, maybe in a storage unit or rented garage.”
Charlie tried to remember if Frances had ever mentioned a locker or a rented garage. But if Ed was stealing, surely she didn’t know about it. Did they own a rental house somewhere, and he’d stashed the car there? That didn’t seem likely when they’d lived in Molena Point only about two years. “Maybe there was a storage unit, maybe they still have unpacked boxes, maybe part of Frances ’s furniture collection. But if Ed was the burglar…” She looked at him, frowning. “He loaded up all that furniture from his own house to throw you off the track?”
Max shrugged. “Again, what else could he do?” They were turning off the freeway toward home when her phone buzzed. It was Ryan.
“We’re just getting back from the morgue,” Charlie told her. “I won’t turn the speaker on, there’s too much traffic noise. The dead woman is Frances Becker. You want to tell… Clyde?” Meaning, Will you tell Joe Grey? She knew the cats would be grieving for Theresa.
Ryan said, “They just walked in, all three of them, grinning like Cheshire cats.” And, more softly, “They were there when Max called the station.”
Charlie hid her smile.
Ryan said, “You want to run down here for supper? Beans and corn bread, and we’ll show you pictures of the house we’ve decided on.”
Charlie covered the phone, looking at Max. “Go down for a quick supper?” In truth, she didn’t feel like eating, she wasn’t sure she’d ever eat again, not sure her mouth would ever stop tasting like something dead.
But maybe a comforting meal of beans and corn bread would stay down. When Max nodded, she said, “We’ll just run by home and take care of the horses, we won’t be long.” Part of her would like to stay home, but she wanted, even more, to reassure the cats that indeed Theresa was just fine. Approaching the village, Max turned up the hills toward the ranch; the minute they turned into their long private road, the two big dogs saw them from the pasture and came barking, racing along inside the fence. The four horses galloped beside them, all of them wanting supper.
While Max fed the livestock, Charlie hurried to brush her teeth and lay out clean clothes. She took a quick shower and washed her hair, pinning it back wet. Max showered and changed, they threw their clothes in the washer and were out again in half an hour, headed for the village in the truck, leaving the Blazer in the stable yard with all the windows rolled down, hoping the sea wind would sweeten that clinging smell.
The village streets at dinnertime were busy with tourists crossing back and forth looking in shop windows or pausing before the small restaurants, reading the posted menus. Turning down the Damens’ street and parking, they caught the comforting scent of Clyde ’s favorite bean recipe. Wilma’s car was parked in the drive beside the Greenlaws’ gray sedan. “What’s this?” Max said. “I thought we were just running down for a quick bite.”
“I don’t know,” she said innocently. Because Dulcie and Kit were here, it would have been only natural for the Damens to invite the cats’ housemates. Rock barked at the door to greet them, and Clyde handed them each a beer. Everyone was gathered around the fire, the three cats sprawled on the mantel, warming themselves safely above the cozy blaze. Charlie paused to stroke them. They smiled up at her, their eyes filled with delight that Theresa was alive. They might feel sad for Frances, but not as sad as if they were grieving over their real friend. In front of Max, Charlie could say nothing, she stood petting them, trapped in one of those maddening moments when she and the cats longed to talk, but could say not a word. Of everyone present, it was only Max-the most keenly attuned to the subtleties of body language and behavior-who didn’t know the truth.
38
EIGHTY MILES NORTH of Molena Point, traveling the narrow two-lane along the edge of the cliff high above the Pacific, there was hardly any traffic. Above him the sky was clear, not a cloud, just the way he liked it-except that the sea was too bright, its flat surface metallic with reflected sun, that shot through the windshield at an angle that he couldn’t block with the visor.
The road was so narrow that when an occasional car did approach him, he had to press the RV precariously close to the rocky cliff that rose jaggedly on his right. His face hurt like hell and he kept thinking about infection. Cats were dirty creatures, and he was sure there was still glass embedded in the wounds, so deep he might never get it out. Every few miles he checked himself in the mirror to see if he was bleeding again. He’d put flesh-colored Band-Aids on only the worst wounds, otherwise his whole face would be covered. He felt better, though, with some breakfast in him.
In the steamy, boxlike restaurant with its dark-stained plywood walls smelling of the fishing wharf, he’d ordered ham, three eggs over easy, potatoes, and three biscuits, washing it all down with a big carafe of coffee. His bandages and bloody scratches had gotten wary looks from the half dozen tourists sitting in the plywood booths. One skinny woman in a purple sweater had looked so shocked that she half rose to leave, then glowered at her husband when he pulled her back into the booth. Two locals at the counter-wizened old men dressed in leathers that stunk of fish, their faces wrinkled and dark from sea and sun, had given him darkly amused stares. Both of them were drinking beer that was colored pink by the red wine they’d poured into it. Four empty wineglasses were lined up precisely beside their beer bottles. The w
aitress, an overweight redhead with a checkered apron pulled tight over her belly, took one look at him and asked, smartly, if he’d been in a catfight. He’d eaten quickly, didn’t tip her, paid his bill, and left.
Now, moving north up the precarious coastal two-lane, he glanced at his watch. One thirty. Not too bad considering how late he’d slept. He’d be in the city by three, unload the goods with the fence. Be out of there with the money and on the road again with plenty of time to dump the RV, leaving it on some back street where the homeless would strip it to sell for parts. Plenty of time to catch a bus to the nearest out-of-the-way car lot, some small operation where the salesman wouldn’t get fidgety if he paid in cash. Pick up a nondescript vehicle and head on north.
If he was ever questioned about the car that was now in the rented garage outside Molena Point, he’d say she took it when she ran off and left him. That he didn’t know why she’d taken it back there. He could get rid of it later, slip back into the village, drive it off to some chop shop.
As he plied the narrow highway north of Half Moon Bay, most of the sparse traffic was moving south, hugging the road above the sheer drop, detained from some fatal misjudgment only by occasional short lengths of guardrail. He kept the windows open, letting the cool, damp air soothe his burning face. The echo of the sea far below crashing against the rocks pleased him, he liked its wildness, he liked the thrill of danger. It was the same as the thrill of their thefts, they skirted the edge but always moved on unharmed. She’d loved that, loved the excitement that they could get caught but never did. She’d loved selecting their targets beforehand from within an intimate group, she’d loved their duplicity. She was the one who insisted they slip away with only the items she’d chosen and take nothing else. They’d had a good thing going. Live in a neighborhood a few years, get cozy with the neighbors, join the local organizations, go to the concerts and amateur plays, even the school functions when the neighbors’ kids were involved-that was key, getting involved. During that time while they were settling in, listening to their neighbors’ problems and sometimes trying to help, babysitting their kids, they could often pull a few jobs in some previous neighborhood if it was close enough. Pick a time when there was a funeral or a wedding that would involve most of the residents. Then afterward allow enough time to lapse so everyone grew complacent again, thinking the thieves had moved on. They had done this on the East Coast, too, before they’d come out to California. To rip off their adopted neighborhood, that was the thrill, and they’d planned their moves carefully.
Cat Striking Back Page 23