All were old cases, five years, ten, fifteen years. Unsolved cases that might have been brought out now and then, at infrequent intervals, when an officer had some new line on child abductions, some new hint at a solution. But cases that were filed away again, unsolved. One case in Portland was over twenty years old.
Picking up the stack, Mabel thumped it on the counter to align the edges, put the stack in the copier, and ran two more sets. So many children lost, no closure to their disappearance, no answers for their families. What was the background on these kids? Did they have something in common? Joe burned for a long look, undisturbed. What kind of kids were they, what kind of families? Did these kids come from stable households, or live with drunks or in broken homes? Where did they go to school? Were they problem students? Runaways who’d been picked up by some lowlife-disaster waiting to happen?
Which child was this, buried in the seniors’ garden? Was his or her background included among these cases? And would the forensics team, tonight or tomorrow, find more bodies? There was only one word for the murder of innocent children. Evil. Complete evil.
Licking his paw, he watched Mabel set up a cross-referencing chart on her computer, listing the cases by date and location, and by age of child. None seemed to have occurred any closer to Molena Point than Seattle to the north, and Orange County to the south. Dr. Hyden had said it would take some time to determine the age of the corpse but that, given the Molena Point climate, and if the body had been buried soon after death, it might date from four to ten years ago. When Mabel finished sorting, and no more faxes had come through, Joe curled up in her out box to await further electronically generated intelligence.
Yawning, he felt his eyes droop. It had been a long night. A long day and previous night; he had not had his cat’s share of sleep. Tucking his nose under his paw, shielding his eyes from the harsh overhead lights, he felt himself drop into a doze. Just a few minutes, he thought, to renew his energy, to prepare for future action. Yawning again, Joe slept.
15 [��������: pic_16.jpg]
Stretched across the dispatcher’s out box, his hind legs sticking out, Joe woke blearily. Beyond the glass doors, the big front parking lot was alive with headlights. Cars were pulling in, officers coming on for last watch. Private vehicles, and half a dozen police units, as well, returning from late watch. He yawned heavily. He could hear, out behind the building, several units leaving the smaller, fenced-in parking area that was reserved for official cars. Cold blasts of air ruffled his fur as officers trooped in by twos and threes. Retracting his hind paws and licking one pad, he sat up in the box yawning. But when Max Harper swung in, Joe leaped down to a shelf beneath Mabel’s counter. Mabel glanced at him sharply. Looking up, he yawned in her face and curled up for another nap as if the commotion had disturbed him.
But, listening to officers joking with Harper as they moved down the hall, Joe dropped to the floor and followed, pausing outside the squad room. Harper was saying, “� Brown and Wrigley will be posted. You have a be-on-the-lookout for a man Lucinda Greenlaw saw hanging around the inn.” Harper described the small man, the same description that would appear in the be-on-the-lookout notice. He gave them some particulars on the murder, and on the bullets that hadkilled Patty. “Likely a small caliber,” he said. “Could be a twenty-two.” He filled the officers in on the child’s grave. “Hyden and Anderson are down from Sacramento, may still be working. About an hour ago, they uncovered a second body�” In the hall, Joe’s ears pricked up sharply and he edged nearer the door. “� child about the same age,” Harper said.
A young rookie asked about the gender of the children, and how they’d died.
“Hard to tell what sex,” Harper said. “May never know. First child died, apparently, from a blow to the head. Second body, they’ve only uncovered a leg and part of the torso so far.”
There were a couple more questions, the chief discussed half a dozen more situations, and the officers filed out, heading for their units. Joe imagined them settling into the cold, black leather seats of their squad cars, their holstered guns and handcuffs and all the equipment they must wear pressing into their butts and backs, imagined them moving about into just the right worn position to get comfortable, some of them balancing coffee mugs. Imagined the late watch revving their adrenaline along with their engines, heading out on patrol not knowing whether they might have to use their handguns, might get shot tonight or have to shoot-or spend the shift bored out of their skulls.
They would be watching for Patty’s killer, though. Smiling, Joe trotted on down the hall and into Max Harper’s dark office, just beating Harper and Garza there. When they came in, he was curled up in the bookcase between two volumes of the California civil code. He watched Garza dump water in Harper’s coffeepot and drop in a prepacked filter. He liked the scent of coffee, it spoke to him of camaraderie, easy friendship-and of ready information.
Harper, tossing the three stacks of faxes and printouts on his desk, eased into his leather chair. The chief looked tired. Garza poured their coffee and picked up a set of the printouts. From the shelf, Joe had a fine view of Harper’s desk. On top the stack was the chart that Mabel had prepared.
Garza didn’t glance up into the bookshelves, but the detective knew he was there. A change in Garza’s body language and movement connected him to Joe almost as if he had looked straight up at the tomcat. Setting his coffee mug on the low table, he settled into the leather easy chair. And Joe settled down more comfortably among the books, thinking about the second body.
The officers were not surprised by the second grave. Nor was Joe. Nothing surprised a cop, and Joe had acquired much the same view of the world. That first grave had never really seemed like the cover-up for, say, a single accidental death. His natural tomcat cynicism, honed by close association with law enforcement, had left him expecting more bodies.
Now, with so many old, unsolved cases concentrated all in one area of the Northwest, his imagination had already jumped ahead to what he imagined Hyden and Anderson might yet find, and he shivered.
Though that preconception was not always wise police work, it was the way the tomcat operated; so far, it had worked for him. He looked around the office, waiting for Harper to flip through a stack of unrelated papers that had been left on his desk, checking for anything urgent, before he got down to the subject at hand. Joe liked Harper’s new office, he liked seeing the chief in a more comfortable environment. With the building’s renovation, the old, open squad room with its tangle of desks and noise and constant hustle was no more. The chief had had only a scarred old desk at the back of the busy, forty-by-forty-foot space, a habitat as spartan as that of a prison guard’s.
Now Harper and his two detectives had private offices, and all the officers had much-improved facilities. A more efficient report-writing room, an updated firing range in the basement, a larger and better-appointed coffee room. And thanks to Charlie, Harper’s own office was a welcome retreat, with its brown leather couch and matching chair and an oriental rug, all of which had been wedding presents from Charlie, items not considered essential by those city officials who spent the taxpayers’ money-though some of them hadn’t stinted on their own offices.
But the city had sprung for a new walnut desk for Max, and walnut bookcases, as well, unwittingly providing a convenient though unofficial satellite office, as it were, for certain feline operatives.
Charlie’s framed drawings of Max’s buckskin gelding hung on the pale walls, lending a handsome finishing touch to the room. Joe was sure that, if not for Charlie’s influence, Max would have moved into his new digs with the old battered desk that looked like some World War II government reject, the government-issue, service-grade vinyl-tile floor, and his dented and mismatched file cabinets. Max would likely have brought in a couple of hard chairs for visitors, and been perfectly happy with bare walls to look at-if the chief ever had time to simply look at the walls.