But even so, she thought, watching Joe, half annoyed and half amused, even ifshehad let herself be seen,shehadn’t swaggered. His in-your-face behavior around the cops was not in anyone’s best interest.
Yet there he was, tramping across the weedy grass, as bold as the detectives and taking in every detail-the crime-scene tape, the little hand, the coroner at his work. Strolling across the yard, Joe turned and looked up toward the picnic table, looked right at her, then moved on down the garden ignoring her. Well, he hadn’t found the kit, then. If he had, he’d be up there letting her know about it, no matter how miffed he was. Strolling on down across the trampled grass, he looked as if she didn’t exist.
Padding boldly beneath the yellow barrier, he picked his way with disdainful paws along the length of the retaining wall. Every movement, every line of his sleek gray body challenged the officers to chase him away, though he knew very well that if he took one step off that retaining wall, Dr. Bern and every cop within sight was going to shout and throw things, and that someone would snatch him up in swift eviction. Dallas Garza and Juana Davis stared at Joe. Dr. Bern waved his arms and rattled a paper bag at him. Coolly Joe looked back at them, and sat down to study the little hand in its earthy excavation.
Dulcie watched him until he rose at last and moved on down the wall of railroad ties and stretched out along the top. Joe’s questions would be the same as hers, as everyone’s, questions that couldn’t be answered until forensics had done its work. Questions that couldn’t be answered completely until Harper and the detectives had obtained countless old, dead files, until they had examined whatever unresolved cases of missing children lay half forgotten among California’s law-enforcement records.
When the answers did surface, Dulcie thought, she’d like to be lying on the dispatcher’s counter beside Joe, reading the computer printouts or fax dispatches. She wanted to share with Joe, she didn’t like this cold treatment.
He’d been fine last night as they searched for Kit, fine when she left him saying she’d just prowl the library, make sure the kit wasn’t in there, that she’d be out again within the hour and would keep searching-a bold lie she wasn’t proud of as she’d headed down to see Lori. She wanted so badly to tell Joe about Lori. She longed for Joe to gallop up the yard right now, leap on the picnic bench beside her, and give her a whisker kiss, let her know he was sorry for being angry.
But the tabby cat had to laugh at herself.ShewantedJoeto say he was sorry!Shewanted Joe to say he was sorry becauseshehad lied to him? Because she was keeping secrets from him? She knew she was being totally unreasonable.
If she wanted Joe to forgive her, she would have to grovel.
And groveling was not in her nature.
What human said the road to hell was paved with good intentions? She guessed, if humans could make a mess with their good intentions, so could a cat.
But now, knowing that Joe hadn’t found the kit, she grew edgy again worrying about the missing tattercoat. This, and her unease about Lori after the discovery of what could be a child’s grave, made her want to claw the plank table. She began to fidget and scratch nonexistent fleas, drawing a surprised frown from Wilma.
Contrary to popular human belief, all cats do not love, or gravitate to, dark, enclosed places. Not when that confining crawl space smells like an old sewer and is strewn with jagged rubble. Having scrambled back among the pipes and floor joists that formed the underside of the rental cottage, Kit was clawing to get back up through the rotted hole in the bathroom floor when she remembered about search warrants. Remembered Joe Grey’s admonishment regarding the laws surrounding police work.
“The cops can’t remove anything from a house without a search warrant, Kit. And they can’t get a warrant without seeing a judge, the judge has to sign the warrant. But we can, Kit. We can take anything we can carry, anything we can haul out.”
Leaping again at the hole, she dug her claws into the rotted wood, scrabbling and breaking off disintegrating splinters. Praying that Fenner hadn’t returned, to hear her, she hoisted herself up into the bathroom. She was making so much noise, she must sound like a battalion of giant rats clawing at the bathroom floor. But shecouldn’t leave the envelopes under the sink. If the cops couldn’t come into this house without a warrant, she had to move the evidence.
Surely an officer could casually slip into the yard when the house was empty, and happen to see the envelopes lying inside a floor vent-with the envelopes at the right angle, they would be visible; the department could say he’d just been walking by and seen that pale, smooth paper beyond the grid, and had wondered. And surely a cop could get those vent grids off. The use of tools, of screwdrivers and pliers, was a wonderful skill.
Such a story, for the law to use, sounded implausible even to Kit, but it was the best she could think of. They could do it, they could slip up to the vent and reach in for the envelopes. Slipping a paw under the linoleum, she clawed the two big brown envelopes out, her heart racing like a freight train, listening for Fenner to come back, listening for him in the next room.
Clawing the envelopes free, she had to bend each one double to force it down the hole. Silent and alone, she fought the evidence through the little hole, heard it drop onto the rubble below. She was so hungry and so very thirsty. But she wasn’t going to drink out of that toilet, no way. She wished the other cats were there with her, wished longingly for Joe Grey and Dulcie, someone to help her, someone to lean on. Someone to lovingly wash her face and lick her ears.
She wished, most of all, that she had some breakfast. Her stomach was so hollow it ached. Squirming, wriggling, she dropped down beside the envelopes. Between her clawing at them and dragging them over the dirt and rusty nails, they were going to look pretty strange.
Well, she couldn’t help that. Pulling them across to the far vent, one at a time, she listened and listened for his car. She still didn’t know how she was going to get out.
If she didn’t get out, if she didn’t let Captain Harper know where to find the evidence, it would rot under there. And so would she. But she daren’t dwell on that. Maybe when Fenner came back, if she went back up into his room and waited until he came in, maybe she could scorch out behind his heels, slide out through the door before he closed it. It was worth a try. She didn’t have much choice.
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Dulcie couldn�t stand, any longer, the painful chill that separated her from Joe. Dropping from the picnic bench to the ragged grass, she started down the garden. She had never meant to hurt him; she was only keeping a secret she felt bound to keep. Trotting down through the rough grass, she crouched beside the low retaining wall just below where Joe stood brazenly watching the coroner photograph the little hand. Dr. Bern and every cop there was aware of Joe; they were all poised to chase him away.
Was it something about Joe’s bold attitude that kept them from shouting at him again or carrying him, clawing, out of the yard? If someone tried that, she thought, smiling, all hell would break loose. She couldn’t believe Joe was doing this. What was wrong with him? Slipping up onto the wall beside him, she crouched close. Was his nervy defiance the result of his anger with her?
But as much as she loved Joe, she wasn’t going to lay his problems on her own back. She was doing what she had to do about Lori, what she felt was right. When Joe turned to look at her, his yellow eyes fiery with challenge, she gave him a long, steady look in return. His stupid tomcat rage wasn’t going to cowher.
Joe stared, then returned his attention to the coroner. Had she seen a twitch of amusement, a willingness to make up? But she’d have to make the first gesture, Dulcie knew. Below them, John Bern worked with a teaspoon and a tiny, soft paintbrush, removing fragments of earth from the little bones. And then, working with tweezers, he pulled away thin, evasive roots and lifted any tiny fragments of unidentified debris.