Pressing against the window, he shook and rattled the moveable section as hard as he could.
And at last, slowly, the little lock slid down the metal frame and dropped to the bottom. Now, with sufficient body pressure, he was able to slide the window back as far as the little peg, which was still in place. And in a nanosecond he was in, searching her room, his ears cocked for her approach through the overgrown yard.
Carefully, he went through every dresser drawer again, searching for the little black bag, flinching at every faintest sound. He didn’t want to be caught in the closed room with her again. He told himself he was magnifying the danger, but there was something totally focused about Chichi Barbi, a singular determination that unnerved him.
He searched the closet among her few clothes and shoes, searched the top closet shelf, leaping up stubbornly forcing open three suitcases and badly bruising his paws. All were empty. The latches weren’t as bad, though, as zippers, which were hell on the claws. He searched under the bed and in between the mattresses as far as his paw would reach, then as far as he could crawl without smothering. He’d hate like hell for her to catch him in that position. He searched the under-sink bathroom cabinet, the night-table drawer, peered into the two empty wastebaskets, checked the carpet for a loose corner under which she might have loosened a board.
He found nothing, nada. He was nosing with curiosity at the back of the little television set when he heard her coming, brushing past the overgrown bushes.
Leaping to the dresser he crouched, ready to bolt. He watched her pass the window, heading for the door. As the door handle turned, he slid out through the window and shouldered the glass closed behind him.
He hardly had time to paw the tape back over the torn screen when the inside light went on. Praying she wouldn’t notice that the tape was wrinkled, not smooth the way she’d left it, he dropped down to the scruffy grass.
He was crouched in the dark bushes beside the foundation of the house, poised to scorch for home, when he thought about those two empty wastebaskets. And a sure feline instinct, or maybe acquired cop sense, stopped him in his tracks.
Waiting in the bushes until he heard her cross the room to the bathroom, he beat it past her door and past the kitchen door, to the tall plastic garbage can that stood at the rear of the house.
The lid was on tight. He tried leaping atop Clyde’s plastered wall and reaching down with one paw to dislodge it, but the distance was too far, he could get no purchase without falling on his head. Stretching farther, he lost his balance and dropped to the top of the lid-embarrassing himself, though there was no one to see him.
Dropping to the ground, he hung one paw in the can’s plastic handle and pressed up on the lid with the other. He should have done that in the first place. The lid popped right off and felt silently to the grass.
Leaping up to perch across the mouth of the can, his hind paws on one side, his left front paw bracing him on the other, he hung down into the dim stinking world of Chichi’s rotting garbage: sour grass cuttings, moldy food cans, and a sour milk carton, and he sorted through Chichi Barbi’s trash like a common alley cat.
Well, hell, FBI agents did this stuff. So did DEA. If those guys could stomach the stink and indignity, so could he.
Surprisingly, the moldering grass was the worst. It stuck to him all over, clung to his sleek fur, got into his ears and in his nose and eyes. Part of Chichi’s job as house sitter was to mow the tiny scrap of weedy lawn. She used a hand mower that was kept in the narrow one-car garage, which occupied the south side, between her living room and Joe’s house. As he balanced, pawing and searching, he was painfully aware that he was in plain sight of Clyde’s guest room window, not six feet away.
If Clyde saw his gray posterior protruding from Chichi Barbi’s garbage can, he’d never hear the last of it. He sorted through food cans and wrappers, wadded tissues, run panty hose, used emery boards, empty spray bottles of various smelly cosmetics, and a dozen other items too gross to think about. Pawing through a layer of discarded papers, he retrieved a dozen store bills and cash register receipts, stuffing them into an empty peanut can. They’d absorb some oily stains but they should still be legible. He did not find the black bag itself, and could catch no scent of metal jewelry. But in this melange of garbage, who could smell anything? The most talented bloodhound would be challenged.
At least there wasn’t too much sticky stuff, thanks to garbage disposals; not like San Francisco garbage when he was a homeless kitten. Rooting in those overflowing bins for something to eat, that had been a real mess.
Taking the peanut can in his teeth, he backed out, pausing for an instant balanced on the edge of the garbage can. He was tensed to drop down when a faint noise made him glance up, at the window of his own house.
Clyde stood at the glass, his expression a mix of amazed amusement and harsh disapproval. The next minute he burst into a belly laugh that made Joe leap away nearly dropping the can.
He heard Clyde come out the back door heading for the patio wall, as if to look over at him. Racing away around Chichi’s house, gripping the metal can in his teeth, he headed for his cat door. He would never hear the end of this one.
But then as he was approaching his cat door, his nose twitched with the smell of burning bacon wafting out from the kitchen, and he smiled. Clyde’s unwelcome curiosity had created a small and satisfying disaster.
Spinning in under the plastic flap, he dodged behind his clawed and be-furred easy chair, set the can down, and crouched, silent and still. While Clyde dealt with the bacon, he would just dump the receipts out on the rug and have a look.
But even as he reached a paw in, Clyde rushed into the room, flinging open the windows, turning the house into a wind tunnel that would scatter those papers clear to hell.
Taking the can in his mouth again, he raced away behind Clyde’s back through the living room and up the stairs to the master suite. The smell of burned bacon followed him up along the steps. Bolting into Clyde’s study and behind the leather love seat, he dumped the papers on the carpet and began to paw through them-until Clyde went racing into the master bedroom, opening those windows, too, then headed for the study.
“Don’t open the windows in here!” Joe shouted, leaping to the back of the love seat. “Stop! Don’t do that!”
Clyde stared at him. He took two steps toward the love seat. Joe dropped down again behind it. Clyde knelt on the love seat, peering over the back. “What have you got? What did you take out of her garbage? What the hell did you steal this time?”
“You don’t steal trash. Things that have already been thrown away are�”
“What do you have, Joe?” Clyde frowned at the wadded papers. “Bills? Cash register receipts?” Despite his attempt at anger, Clyde eyed the little collection with interest.
Resignedly, Joe spread out the little bits of paper. Together, they studied a drugstore receipt that included two disposable cameras and a spiral notebook. He pulled out a Kinko’s receipt for twenty machine copies. He put aside the wrinkled phone bills. It was the receipt from Kinko’s that held him. “What did she make copies of?”
“Well I don’t know, Joe. Business papers? How would I know? Just because you saw her slip into her house the night of the jewel burglary, just because�” A knock downstairs at the front door stopped Clyde. “That’ll be Ryan with the faucets.” And he headed for the stairs.
Pawing the papers back into the peanut can, Joe pushed it safely into the corner between the love seat and chair. And he followed Clyde. Twenty copies of what? It wasn’t as if Chichi ran a business. And this was February, no one wrote Christmas letters in February. He could hear Clyde’s voice, but not Ryan’s. Hurrying down the stairs, hitting the last step, he froze.
That wasn’t Ryan. It was Chichi.