"We didn't talk, no." She looked at him questioningly.
"Did Mavity keep a gun?"
"No. She's afraid of guns." She looked at Harper, frowning. "But that-that terrible wound… Mavity couldn't… A gun couldn't cause that?"
"So far as you know, she did not have a gun?"
"Well, she might. She told me once that her husband kept a gun, that after he died she was afraid to touch it. She asked Greeley to lock it away for her in a strongbox at the back of her closet. She said her husband had always kept a strongbox, a little cash laid by at home in case of some emergency."
Beneath the credenza, the cats tried to follow Harper's line of thought. Was he guessing that Jergen's throat could have been torn after a bullet entered and killed him, perhaps to confuse the police?
The cats remained hidden until Harper had sealed Jergen's apartment and Brennan had secured the stairs with crime scene tape. When everyone had gone, Dulcie leaped to the desk.
Though the officers hadn't touched the computer, Captain Harper had called the FBI in San Francisco, arranging for a computer specialist to examine the files. The file on the screen said BARNER TAX-FREE INCOME FUND and was in Winthrop Jergen's name.
"How much will the Bureau agent find," Dulcie said, "if he doesn't have Jergen's code? And, more important, if he doesn't have Pearl Ann's code?" She sat down beside the phone. Lifting a paw, she knocked the receiver off.
"Hold it," Joe said. "Harper's still down there. The police units are still out front-they must be searching the building."
"I'll call him when he gets back to the station." She lifted the receiver by its cord, biting gently, and used her paw to maneuver it back into the cradle. Turning, she sniffed at the computer. "The keyboard smells of Pearl Ann's perfume."
"Could be an old scent-she cleans around the desk."
"Cheap perfume doesn't last very long." She took another sniff and then leaped down, avoiding the bloodstained rug. Leaving the scene, the cats were soon following Max Harper through the lower apartments, padding along in the shadows beyond where lights had been switched on and well behind the photographer as he made bright strobe shots of the various footprints that had been left in the Sheetrock dust.
Too bad the department would have to labor to identify each set of prints, procuring shoes from everyone involved. Enough fuss to make a cat laugh, when Joe or Dulcie could have done the job in a second.
No amount of sweeping could eradicate the fine white Sheetrock dust that impregnated the plywood subfloor, and the cats, living close to the earth, knew intimately each set of prints left there: Charlie's and Clyde's jogging shoes, Pearl Ann's tennis shoes, the boot marks of the two hired carpenters, the prints of various subcontractors. Their quick identification could have been a great help to the police. How unfair it is, Dulcie thought, that canine officers can gather evidence that would stand up in court, but a cat can't.
A drug dog's sniffing out of evidence was accepted even if he didn't find the drug-he need only indicate to his handler that the drug had been there, and that was legitimate testimony. But similar intelligence, given by a feline volunteer, would be laughed at.
Just one more instance, Dulcie thought, of prejudice in the workplace.
Silently they watched the officers bag the workmen's trash, the drink cans and candy wrappers and wadded-up lunch sacks, and scraps of wallboard and lumber. They bagged, as well, Mavity's insulated lunch carrier and thermos, and Pearl Ann's duffle bag containing her dirty work clothes.
Pearl Ann would have changed clothes for her trip, leaving her duffle to take home on Monday. But Mavity's oversight was strange; Mavity never forgot that lunch bag.
Officer Wendell returned to tell Harper that Mavity was not at home, that there was no sign of her car and no answer when he pounded, and that her door was locked.
"I looked through the windows. The house was very neat, the bed made, three cups and saucers in the sink. I took a turn through the village but didn't see her VW."
Watching from behind a stack of crated plumbing fixtures, Dulcie licked her paw nervously. "Was Jergen stealing from Mavity? Could she have found out and been so angry that she killed him? Oh, I don't like to think that."
"Whoever thrust that ice tray divider into Jergen's throat, Dulcie, had to be bigger and stronger than Mavity."
"I don't know. She's pretty wiry."
"She might have shot him first."
"I don't think she shot him. I don't believe she would hurt anyone. And where was Pearl Ann? Had she already left when his killer entered the apartment?" She dropped her ears, frightened. "Was Mavity there alone? Did she see the killer?"
"Come on, they're leaving. Let's check the bathroom."
But the bathroom where Pearl Ann usually showered and changed was spotless. The shower was completely dry, not a drop of water.
Usually when Pearl Ann cleaned up, she left the shower floor wet, with Sheetrock dust or paint or plaster on the bathroom floor where she'd pulled off her work clothes.
"Maybe," Dulcie said, "she didn't want to pick up any dirt on her clean new clothes. Maybe she mopped up with paper towels, before she got dressed."
"But why would she dry the shower, too? And there are no paper towels in the bathroom trash basket." Nor did they remember the police taking any trash from the bathroom.
"And there's something else," Dulcie said. "Can't you smell it?"
"I do now," Joe said, sniffing at the shower and grimacing. Over the scent of soap and of Pearl Ann's jasmine perfume came a sharp, male odor. A man had used the shower, and recently. Even a careful wiping-up hadn't destroyed that aroma.
"So Pearl Ann had a man in the shower," Joe said. "So maybe she didn't go up to the city alone. Is that a crime?"
"Did you ever see her with a date? You've never seen anyone come by here to pick her up."
"She still could be seeing someone, or maybe living with someone-maybe wants to keep it quiet."
"Could one of the subcontractors have been here and used the shower?"
"There was no sub scheduled for today," Joe said. "Have you ever seen one of the subs use the shower?"
She switched her tail impatiently. "We have to call Harper- tell him there was a man in the shower and give him the codes for the computer. This could be the key to the whole puzzle."
"Before we make any calls and upset Harper, let's have a look at the Davidson Building-check out Pearl Ann's room."
"Don't you think Harper went over there to search? There'll be cops all over the place."
"He won't search without someone at home," Joe said. "You know how he is. Even if he gets a warrant, he won't go in until Pearl Ann gets back. Says it protects the evidence, saves a lot of fuss in court." His yellow eyes burned with challenge, his expression keen and predatory. "Come on, Dulcie, let's go toss Pearl Ann's place-we'll never have a better chance."
22
AS A BLUE-CLAD morgue attendant rolled the gurney bearing Winthrop Jergen's corpse into the cooler to await the coroner's knife, as Captain Max Harper sat at his desk in the Molena Point Police Station filling out his report on Jergen's death, and as Joe and Dulcie padded along the top of the fence behind the Davidson Building where Pearl Ann Jamison rented a room, along the lighted village streets Mavity's worried friends searched for her. Charlie, driving slowly past the crowded shops and cottages, stopped frequently to shine her flashlight among bushes and around porches, thinking she might find Mavity wandering confused and frightened. She kept picturing Mavity standing in the shadows of Jergen's hall watching some faceless assailant stab and stab him-then running, terrified.