"Are you still going on the theory the burglar's getting hold of the store keys?" Wilma asked.
Harper shrugged. "We're checking the locksmiths. Or he could simply be skilled with locks." He started to say something more, then hesitated, seemed to change his mind.
In the tree above him, the cats stared up at the sky, following the antics of the diving bats that wheeled among the treetops, but taking in Harper's every word.
Wilma, glancing up at them, exchanged a look with Clyde and turned away torn between a scowl and a laugh. The cats aggravated them both-but they were so wonderful and amazing that Wilma wished, sometimes, that she could follow them unseen and miss nothing.
It was not until the company had left, around midnight, that Clyde vented his own reaction. As Joe settled down, pawing at the bed covers, Clyde pulled off his shirt and emptied his pockets onto the dresser. "So what gives?"
"What gives about what?"
"You're very closemouthed about these burglaries." He turned to look at Joe. "Why the silence? There is no crime in Molena that you and Dulcie don't get involved with."
Joe looked up at him dully.
"Come on, Joe."
Joe yawned.
"What? Suddenly I'm the enemy? You think I can't be trusted?"
"We're not interested in these petty thefts."
"Of course you're interested. And isn't it nice, once in a while, to share your thoughts, to have some human feedback?"
"We're not investigating anything. Three amateurish little burglaries-Harper can handle that stuff."
"You have, in the past, not only confided in me, but picked up some rather useful information, thanks to yours truly."
Joe only looked at him.
"Clues you would surely have missed if Max and I didn't play poker, if you didn't scrounge around on the poker table, eavesdropping. But now you're too good to talk to me?"
Joe yawned again. "I am eternally grateful for your help on previous occasions. But at the moment I am not in need of information. We're not interested." Turning over on the pillow, with his back to Clyde, he began to work on his claws, pulling off the old sheaths.
He and Dulcie already knew who the perp was. As soon as they checked out Mavity's brother, Greeley, and found where he'd stashed the money, they'd tip Harper. And that would wrap it up. If the prints on the stolen bills matched the print from the leather shop, Harper would have Greeley cold.
Biting at his claws to release the sharp new lances and listening to Clyde noisily brushing his teeth in the bathroom, he quickly laid his plan.
Dulcie wasn't going to like the drill.
But she'd asked for it. If she wanted to play cute with the black tomcat, wanted to cut her eyes at Azrael, then she could make herself useful.
12
MAVITY FLOWERS'S cottage stood on pilings across a narrow road from the bay and marsh, crowded among similar dwellings, their walls cardboard-thin, their roofs flat and low, their stilted supports stained with mud from years of soaking during the highest tides. Mavity's VW Bug was parked on the cracked cement drive that skirted close to the house. Beyond the car, at the back, the open carport was crowded with pasteboard boxes, an old table, a wooden sawhorse, two worn tires, and a broken grocery cart. Joe, approaching the yard from across the road through the tall marsh grass, skirted pools of black mud that smelled fishy and sour; then as he crossed the narrow road, Azrael's scent came strong to him, clinging to the scruffy lawn.
Following the tomcat's aroma up onto Mavity's porch, he sniffed at the house wall, below an open window. Above him, the window screen had been removed and the window propped open, and black cat hairs clung to the sill. Mavity might complain about the tomcat, but she treated him cordially enough. From within the cottage, the smell of fried eggs and coffee wrapped around Joe, and he could hear silverware clatter against a plate.
"Eat up, Greeley, or I'll be late."
"Eating as fast as I can," a man replied. "You hadn't ought to rush a man in the morning."
"If you're coming with me, you'll get a move on."
Below the window, Joe Grey smiled. He'd hit pay dirt. That raspy, hoarse croak was unmistakable; he could hear again the wizened old man arguing with Azrael over their takeout fish and chips. Greeley was their man. No doubt about it. Mavity's own brother was their light-fingered, cat-consorting thief.
Luck, Joe thought. Or the great cat god's smiling. And, sitting down beneath the window, he prepared to wait.
Once Mavity left for work, taking Greeley with her, he'd have only Dora and Ralph to worry about-if, indeed, they were out of bed yet. Mavity said the portly couple liked to sleep late, and if the great cat god hung around, he might not even have to dodge the Sleuders; maybe they'd sleep through his search.
As for Azrael, at the moment that tomcat was otherwise occupied.
But to make sure, Joe dropped from the porch to the yard and prowled among the pilings, sniffing for Dulcie's scent.
Yes, he found where she had marked a path, her provocative female aroma leading away toward the village, a trail that no tomcat would ignore. He imagined her, even now, trotting across the rooftops close beside Azrael, her tail waving, her green eyes cutting shyly at the torn, distracting him just as they'd planned.
He sat down beside a blackened piling, trying to calm his frayed nerves, wondering if this idea had been so smart.
But Dulcie wouldn't betray him. And as far as her safety, his lady could whip a room full of German shepherds with one paw tied behind. He imagined her dodging Azrael's unwanted advances, subtly leading him on a wild chase far from Mavity's cottage, handling the situation with such guile that she would not need to smack the foreign beast.
"Get your jacket, Greeley, or I'll be late." Inside, a chair scraped and dishes were being stacked, then water ran in the sink. He caught the sharp smell of dish soap, imagined Mavity standing just a few feet from him washing up the breakfast plates. Then the water was turned off. Soon the door opened, and from beneath the deck he watched their hurrying feet descend the steps, Mavity's white jogging shoes and Greeley's dark loafers.
He got a look at him as they headed for her VW. This was their man, all right.
Greeley wasn't much taller than Mavity. He wore the wrinkled leather jacket with the cuffs turned up and the collar pushing at his shaggy gray hair. Joe could see him again rifling Mrs. Medder's cash register.
The car doors slammed and Mavity backed out, turning up Shoreline toward the village. Joe did not enter the house at once but listened for Dora and Ralph. When, after some minutes, he had heard nothing but the sea wind hushing through the marsh grass behind him, he leaped to the sill and slipped in through the open window.
Pausing above the sink, his nose was filled with the smell of greasy eggs and soapsuds. The kitchen was open to the small living room, with barely space between for the tiny breakfast table pushed against the back of the couch. A faded, overstuffed chair faced the couch, along with a small desk and a narrow cot covered with a plaid blanket. A TV jammed between the desk and a bookcase completed the decor. The ceiling was low, the walls pale tan. To his right, from the darkened bedroom, he heard slow, even breathing.
There was only the one bedroom, and through the open door he studied the piled suitcases, the closed blinds, the two big mounds sprawled beneath the blankets. When neither Dora nor Ralph stirred, he padded along the kitchen counter and across the breakfast table to the back of the couch.
At one end of the couch was a stack of folded sheets and blankets and a bed pillow. Dropping down to the rug, he inspected first beneath the furniture and found, under the cot, a battered leather suitcase.