Crouched in the shadows, they listened to the two women in the kitchen. “� Must be tired, Maria,” Chichi was saying. “Abuela to take care of, Luis and Tommie to cook for, and those cats to tend, cleaning their cages� Would you like to get out for a while?” There was a jingle of keys. “Go on, take some time for yourself. Bring home some groceries, you can say you were doing the shopping. Go have a sundae, a look in the store windows. I’ll take care of Abuela, see that she’s comfortable, make her a nice cup of tea.”
Slipping through the living room and into the dining room, the cats peered through a second door into the kitchen. Maria stood by the table, pulling on a red jacket over her blue sweat suit. “You sure you don’t mind?”
“Go while you have the chance.” Chichi hugged Maria. “Before Luis comes out of the shower. I’ll tell them you had to go to the store.”
“That we were out of beans and milk,” Maria said quickly. “Chorizo. Onions. And sand, that cat sand.”
“Why does he keep them? What’s he mean to do with them, now that Hernando’s�” pausing, Chichi glanced toward Abuela’s bedroom.
Maria’s expression went solemn. “He� Hernando said they were worth money. Luis believed him. He’s too stubborn to turn them loose, he’s sure he can sell them, make a bundle. I guess that’s all,” she said uncertainly.
“Stray cats! Not worth shooting. And the poor things stuffed in that cage. I’ll clean the cage before I go, so it won’t smell so bad.”
“You can’t clean it, Luis has the key. Can’t clean it properly. You can reach the scoop in between the bars, though.”
Chichi sighed. “How can a grown man be so stupid?” She gave Maria a little shove. “Go on, before he comes out.” The two women looked at each other with a bond of friendship, and Maria slipped away, out the front door. The cats heard her start the car and back down the drive.
In the kitchen, Chichi immediately resumed her search, going through the pockets of Luis’s windbreaker that he’d left hanging over a chair. When she pulled out a small, empty, black silk bag, Joe swallowed back a hiss of surprise that almost gave them away.
“So,” the tomcat said when they were behind the couch again, “she did give the bag to Luis. And Luis came in this morning counting money.” Luis had gone back to bed, they could hear his snores chorusing off-key with Tommie’s.“Isshe looking for the money? Or something else, too? Go on, Dulcie. Follow her. I’ll go in Abuela’s room; if she’s asleep I’ll open the lock.”
Dulcie looked at him uncertainly. She didn’t like to split up. And she was afraid of Chichi.
But what was the woman going to do if she saw her? She was a cat, totally innocent; and she was faster and more agile than Chichi. Not liking to act the coward in front of Joe, she slipped quickly away following Chichi, padding down the shadowed hall toward the stairs with only a small shiver, only a few beads of sweat on her paws.
27 [��������: pic_28.jpg]
Dallas Garza was preparing to release Dufio Rivas. The detective had sent three men up the hills to watch the old house where Charlie had spotted the brown pickup. Two officers were wearing gray fatigues marked with Molena Point Gas Service logos, and were driving a gas company truck. The third officer, stationed just down the block, was dressed in greasy jeans and was changing the tire on an old car he had pulled to the curb. Dallas had a fourth man waiting near the jail to follow Dufio when he left.
He had checked the ownership of the hillside house, and knew it belonged to an Estrella Nava, an eighty-two-year-old village resident who had lived there alone since her husband died twenty years before. The detective had run the Washington state plates of the truck Charlie spotted, and had run the Nevada plates of the car they picked up the night of the burglary. That night, the truck’s plate had not been visible. Both plates came up stolen. Neither belonged to the vehicle to which it was affixed. Dallas had some concern that when they released Dufio, he would spot the tails they had on him. Max didn’t think so. “We could probably send him home with a chaperone, he wouldn’t catch on.”
“He’s stayed out of jail better than his brothers,” Dallas said. “Just hope he hightails it for the Nava house, gives us reason to get a search warrant. Charlie’s pretty sure that was the truck?”
“I’ve never known Charlie to be wrong about what she’s seen. She’s an artist, she looks and she remembers.”
“Let’s get Dufio moving, maybe we’ll see some action.”
Harper rose, grinning at Garza’s unrest, and they headed down the hall and out the back door. Crossing the officers’ parking lot within its chain-link fence, they entered the small village jail.
Molena Point jail was a holding facility for short-term detainees and for prisoners awaiting trial or being tried. Once a sentence was imposed, those sentenced were moved to the county jail or to a state facility. There were four small cells, two on either side of the concrete hall. Four bunks to each cell. Down at the end were two large tanks, one on either side, each built to accommodate ten prisoners. The right-hand tank was empty except for Dufio. Its other three occupants had been released an hour earlier, when they had sobered up sufficiently and been bailed out by their wives. Dufio Rivas lay stretched out on his back on a top bunk under a rough prison blanket, his face turned slightly to the wall. Maybe the drunks had kept him awake all night, maybe now in the welcome silence he was trying to catch up on his sleep. Dallas unlocked the door.
“Come on, Dufio. You’re free to go home.”
Dufio didn’t stir.
“Wake up Dufio,” Garza said. “Get the hell out of here.” When Dufio didn’t move, Dallas drew his weapon and stepped over to shake the prisoner’s shoulder. Before reaching him, he swung around.
“Call the medics!” He rolled Dufio over fast, generating a last few spurts of blood. The man’s face and neck were torn, a mass of blood. Dallas reached uselessly for the carotid artery; he couldn’t be breathing.
There was a bullet hole through Dufio’s neck, and two in his head. Small holes, as if from a.22-but big enough for the purpose. Max, having called for medical assistance, glanced up at the cell window studying the bars.
The bars were all in place. He looked at the branches of the oak tree outside, but nothing seemed different. Activating his radio again, he put out an arrest order for the three sobered-up drunks who had, an hour earlier, been released to their wives. In seconds, they heard the back door open, heard officers running out to their units and taking off. The same action would be occurring at the front of the building. The emergency van came screaming through the chain-link gate, and two medics ran in with their emergency packs.
Climbing up to stand on the lower bunk, they began to work on Dufio, stanching the last trickle of blood and checking for a heartbeat. But soon they turned away, shaking their heads. “You call the coroner, Captain?”
Max nodded, looking up as the coroner arrived, stepping into the long hall and heading for the back cell. John Bern was a slight, balding man with glasses. He glanced at Max and Dallas, stepped up on the bottom bunk as the medics had, and began to examine Dufio.
“Shot from the back,” he said, turning to look down at Max. He glanced around the cell, then up at the window as the other officers had done. He asked about the position of the body before the officers moved it, then he readied his camera and began to take pictures.
He ended with several close-ups of the hole in the mattress and, once the body was removed, he employed forceps to carefully pick out the one bullet he could locate, from the thick cotton padding.