“Finish questioning your bunch, maybe they’ll fry you anegg”
Listening to Garza and Davis, the cats grew increasingly uneasy about Kit. It wasn’t like her not to be on the scene. Prowling the balcony, they picked up no scent of the tortoiseshell. Lucinda was still calling her. They looked at each other and forgot their differences.
“You want to catch the interviews?” Joe said, knowing she would not. They could read the interview reports on the dispatcher’s desk at the station or in one of the detectives’ offices. A cat lolling on a cop’s desk was not unusual at Molena Point PD, Joe and Dulcie had long ago seen to that.
The urgency of the moment was to find the kit, and neither cat could pick up her scent. Joe was so concerned that he’d almost forgotten his anger with Dulcie; he glanced at her now with speculation.
Well, he wasn’t asking questions. And he wasn’t sneaking around following her, he wasn’t lowering himself to that. If she wanted privacy, that was her affair-but she couldn’t keep a secret forever.
It was the possibility of another tomcat that worried him. Hehadchecked for the scent of a strange tom around the village, and had found none, nor had he detected the scent of another cat on Dulcie. But what was so sacrosanct that she couldn’t share it?
Uncomfortable beneath Joe’s stare, Dulcie put her nose to the concrete again. She hated keeping secrets from him, she considered that the same as lying, and she wanted to share every aspect of life with Joe. But she couldn’t tell him this. Leaping down from the concrete walk to the steps below, she landed on a spot far beyond the chalk marks where Patty’s body had lain. Moving on down, scenting for the kit, she couldn’t smell much over the sharp stink of death. She was shaky with shock and grief. Now that the harsh strobe lights had been removed, the shadows leading down to the parking garage were thick and black, even to her eyes. She sensed Joe behind her, felt him brush against her, and in darkness they moved down together toward the bottom of the stairs.
Had Kit come down here before the police arrived? All alone, trying to sort through the smells of blood, shoe polish, and scorched dust from the harsh spotlights, through the smell of camera equipment and gunpowder. There was black fingerprinting powder on every surface. They didn’t want that stuff on them. Not only did it taste bad, but their respective housemates would pitch a royal fit. Joe could just hear Clyde. “Stuff’s hell to get off, Joe. Can’t you think about these things? And do you have to have your nose into every damn crime scene?”
As the cats slipped into the black garage, they would have been nearly invisible except for the snowy gleam of Joe’s white nose and his white chest and paws. His disembodied white markings moved beside Dulcie like tiny white ghosts. The garage stank of cigar smoke, of hair cream, of various scents that could belong to anyone. They could find no trail of the kit. Padding between the cold wheels of cars that had been parked there all night, they kept their noses to the concrete like a pair of tracking hounds.
Back and forth they quartered the garage, under and around the cars. They caught whiffs of cops they knew, little air trails of human scent-shoe polish, aftershave, tobacco-swirled with the automotive stinks until, mixed by the sucking wind that swept through the garage, all became mucked together like an overdone stew, and nothing of value remained. When, after an hour they had found no trace of the kit, they left the garage feeling decidedly cranky. Trotting up the short drive, they slowly circled the block-long building, then padded in beneath the yellow crime-scene tape, where the wrought-iron gate stood open. The gate did not smell of the kit, nothing smelled of the kit, all was a mishmash of too many human scents. Stopping among the patio flowers, they stared up at the Greenlaws’ windows.
The kit was not looking out; they saw no figure, no movement within. The one light was burning, as before. The patio was silent except for the faintest murmer of voices from the tearoom and dining room, and the soft crackle of a police radio turned low. And then, from across the gardens, they heard Lucinda calling again. Softly calling and calling the kit. Calling for a cat who might, by this time, be very far away and deep into trouble.
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The harsh lights that had illuminated the patio had been extinguished; only the fainter garden lights remained, sending their soft glow low among the flowers. The tearoom lights were turned up brighter, and the cats could see Dallas Garza inside, beyond the flowered curtains, seated at a little table, talking with one of the waiters. The windows of the dining room, too, were bright where other employees or guests waited their turn. In the garden, two police guards moved back and forth along the walks, one of them yawning, their radios hoarse in the silence. Beneath the maple tree, Lucinda stood beside a wooden bench calling the kit. The thin old woman sounded more angry than pleading. When she saw Joe and Dulcie, she sat down on the bench and put out a hand to them.
Leaping to the bench beside her, Joe Grey crowded close. Dulcie climbed into Lucinda’s lap, staring up into the old woman’s long, thin face. Dulcie’s voice was only a whisper, not audible to the guards above the mumble of their radios. “You’ve been out searching, out on the streets.” It was not a question.
“Where is she?” Lucinda said. “You’ve been looking, too?”
Dulcie twitched an ear.
Lucinda frowned. “She slashed through the screen. I woke hearing gunshots, very close, three shots. By the time I threw on a robe and went to find Kit, she was gone, the screen torn, her fur caught in the wire.” Lucinda went silent, cuddling Dulcie close as an officer wandered past them. Then she looked down at Dulcie and Joe. “We’ve tramped the village for over an hour, looking for her. Clyde is out there somewhere. Pedric’s still looking. I’m worried for him, he’s been gone a long time. Did you know that Kit’s been watching a stranger? Some tourist, I thought.”
The cats’ eyes widened.
“She’s so secretive. All week, she’s been peering out the window at him, watching, and sometimes she would slip out and follow him-though she’s never gone long. As if maybe he takes off in a car. A thin man, small. Maybe five feet tall. I don’t-”
At Joe’s expression, Lucinda stopped. “What, Joe?”
“Black hair,” Joe said. “Small hands like a child?”
Lucinda nodded. “No taller than a twelve-year-old.” The old woman stared at him, just as Dulcie was staring. “Do you know him? Who is he? I’m terrified of what might have happened to her.”
Joe kneaded his claws nervously on the redwood bench. “I only saw him once, don’t know who he is. Guy made me edgy as hell.” Just thinking about that little man made Joe’s fur stiffen with apprehension.
Three nights ago when he saw the small, strange man, he had backed away for no reason and hidden from him, not even ashamed of his cowardice. Maybe it was some subliminal scent, or maybe something in the guy’s movements. Whatever, he’d kept his distance.
That was Monday night; it had been raining all night but had finally eased off. Entering Jolly’s alley, he had enjoyed a leisurely and solitary midnight feast, finishing up the fresh leftovers George Jolly had set out. Crouching beneath the little roof of the feeding station that Mr. Jolly put out in bad weather, a little decorative structure like a hand-decorated doghouse, Joe had taken his time enjoying his meal, hoping wherever Dulcie was, with her stupid secrets, she was hungry and cold. Jolly’s alley was one of Dulcie’s favorite places, and Joe had taken perverse delight in going there alone and pigging out on the fine deli offerings, including one of Dulcie’s favorites, creamy salmon salad.
He had been sitting beneath the jasmine vine washing salmon off his whiskers when a strange little man passed by, out on the sidewalk. He watched the guy pause and turn back to stand at the mouth of the alley, looking in. Being that the man was silhouetted against the streetlights, Joe could see only that he was short and frail, couldn’t see his face. But even his silhouette made Joe’s fur stand up, gave him a jolt that he didn’t understand but that sent him backing deeper among the shadows.