Clyde said, “You’ve read it?”
She nodded.
“Has Max seen it?”
Again, a nod. “At least the reporter didn’t have access to the holdbacks.”
“What holdbacks?” Clyde asked.
Joe said, “There were two cars parked near the scene. A black Cadillac and an old, junky pickup.”
All three looked at Joe. Clyde said, “Did you see the drivers?”
“I didn’t, Kit did. She called it in. A black-haired, middle-aged man was driving the Cadillac. Black shirt, short black beard neatly clipped. The other two were tall, darkly dressed. We think one was a woman; she showed up later at the Kestrel Inn, a blonde.” He told them what they’d seen at the motel, the couple switching the cars under the tarp. He left out the part about the yellow tomcat. “By the time I called the department and got back to the motel, Dallas was there and both cars were gone. He got a nice plaster cast of a partial tread mark; we’ll see where that leads.”
“A cast complete with gray cat hairs,” Charlie said dryly.
Joe felt his breakfast turn sour.
“Not to worry,” Charlie said, stroking him. “I told Max I’ve seen a gray and white cat around that motel, that I thought she lived there, or nearby.” Motel cats were common in the village. Often guests inquired, when making reservations, if there was an in-house cat, and then upon arrival they would seek out the little four-legged PR executive for a pet and a cuddle. Some guests liked to share supper in their rooms with the resident cat. If the manager knew them from past visits, this was often allowed, and a special meal was served for the feline host or hostess.
“So what else do they have?” Clyde said. “One tire cast, with cat hairs. Fingerprints? Footprints?”
“They have footprints,” Charlie said. “Max didn’t go into a lot of detail, he only got a couple of hours’ sleep. He was so preoccupied with his own thoughts that I have to think this is coming together. He mentioned something about a connection to someone in Soledad, someone with ties to the village or to some parolee.”
“If there’s a parolee mixed in,” Clyde said, “maybe his parole officer will come up with some information.”
Ryan shrugged. “Probation and parole is stretched pretty thin. State parole is running caseloads of three to four hundred.” Ryan’s dad had recently retired as chief of the federal probation office in San Francisco, and she’d followed with interest the increasing strains on the various state and federal departments.
Clyde glanced again at the front page. “What about the two restaurant break-ins? Anything there?”
“Same as the others,” Charlie said with disgust. “Lots of damage, not much taken. Obviously diversionary, but a terrible thing for the owners.”
Ryan finished her pancakes and reached for the front page. She glanced at the first few lines, about the invasion, scowled at the tone of the article, folded the paper, and laid it facedown on the table. “Street patrol should have been right there on the spot. Oh, right. Should have been sitting right there waiting for someone to come along and break the door in.” She looked at Joe. “I’m with you, I don’t want to even see what Nancyanne Prewitt has to say. One good thing,” she said, “the thicker these new people at the Gazette lay it on, the less likely people are to buy their garbage.”
“I hope,” Charlie said. She reached to scratch Joe’s ears. “The information you cats picked up last night—the descriptions, the tire track, the motel … that’s a huge help. Between you cats and the department,” she said, stroking his back, “you’ll get these SOBs sorted out.”
Joe seldom heard Charlie swear. But then, it wasn’t every day someone came after Max like this—and Joe had no doubt that was the scenario. He just hoped she was right, and that the case would be resolved before anything worse happened.
Joe wasn’t sure why he hadn’t mentioned the yellow tomcat, why he hadn’t shared with them this strange cat’s part in last night’s surveillance. Maybe, he thought ashamedly, he wanted all the glory for himself, and for Dulcie and Kit? Or maybe it was because he knew no more about the yellow cat than he did about the invaders, didn’t have a clue what the cat really wanted or why he was here in the village. Until he had a handle on that, maybe he didn’t want to get into a long and pointless discussion.
Ryan said, “This Arlie Risso? This newcomer in the village who’s been complaining about the invasions?”
Charlie nodded. “I’ve heard the name.”
“He moved here about a month ago,” Ryan said. “I think he bought a house; he was in Haller’s Building Supply a couple of days ago when I picked up a lumber order, he was buying some replacement hardware. He’s been here less than a month, he said. He was complaining loudly about the invasions, going on to George Haller. When I heard him bitching, I moved away among the aisles where I could listen. He said he meant to be at the city council meeting, see what excuse the police have for ‘this rash of crimes,’ as he calls it.” She looked at Joe. “Black hair, neat little black beard. Well built, maybe in his sixties. Sounds like he’s going to raise hell at the meeting.”
“We’ll be there,” Clyde said with interest.
Charlie said, “Not me, I don’t want it to look as if the chief needs his wife for backup. But I’d sure like to be a fly on the wall.”
“The meeting is when?” Joe said in an offhand manner.
They all looked at him. Clyde said, “No way,” and helped himself to the last pancake.
“Why shouldn’t he go?” Ryan said. “He goes everywhere else.”
Clyde scowled at her. “Have you ever been to a council meeting?”
Ryan shook her head.
“The room’s too open, there’s nowhere for a cat to hide. Space under the pews is open, and only a bare wall at the back. I can just see the mayor dragging Joe out by his furry neck.”
“You don’t have to be so graphic,” Joe snapped. Though he knew the room didn’t lend itself well to feline surveillance. He thought about the windowsills, but those skinny strips were way too narrow even for a cat to cling to. He could perch on a branch outside with his ear to the glass, except that the meetings started at four-thirty, and it would still be light out. He’d be seen from within like one of those paper cutout cats decorating grade-school windows for Halloween. He was wondering how to bring this off when Ryan caught his eye as she reached for the bacon, gave him a quick look of complicity.
Joe licked a last smear of kippers from his whiskers, hiding a smile, and before the discussion could go further he dropped to the floor and headed for the living room and his well-clawed easy chair. Ryan would smuggle him in, and not by his furry neck. Yawning, Joe curled up on the ragged chair, thankful once again that Clyde had married a woman of such keen imagination and sly complicity, a woman more than willing to bend the rules for a deserving accomplice.
31
IT WAS LATER that morning that Joe dropped to the roof of Ryan and Clyde’s little cottage amid the drumbeat of hammering from the yard below—and landed facing the yellow tomcat. They hissed at each other and bristled, but without much ferocity, only with the usual rush of tomcat one-upmanship, that sudden and heady surge of adrenaline that made the yellow cat lash his tail and give Joe a ritual snarl. Below them, Ryan and Clyde were building wooden forms, getting ready to pour the foundation for the new sunroom. When Joe padded around onto the small wing that extended behind the cottage, he could see that they had the big header in for the glass sliders. A roll of heavy plastic lay nearby, ready to cover the new opening against unexpected gusts of passing rain. He didn’t see the two Latino laborers; he thought they were working another job, preparing for yet another remodel. Ryan was right, this would be a busy month for her, the joys of the holidays sandwiched in between bouts of heavy labor; and that was the way she liked it. She never complained, so Joe guessed the construction work must be for Ryan as heady as restoring rusty old cars was for Clyde or, for Joe, offering up to MPPD a nice piece of evidence to fit into their investigation.