The larger window, which was tucked away around the corner among the rooftops, was heavily draped, too, emitting only the thinnest glow at one side, as if from a nightlight.
"Double locked," Joe said, peering sideways along the glass. "A heavy sliding bolt."
"Listen," Dulcie whispered. They all heard it, a click from somewhere deep within the apartment.
Another click, and a soft thud. No lights came on. They'd heard no door open and close as if Gabrielle had finished work and hurried home. She'd hardly had time to do that; they'd come themselves swift as the wind, blown by the wind straight across the rooftops.
From the kitchen, a stealthy sliding noise, like a drawer being pulled out. Another. And another. Then cupboard doors clicking open. Belatedly, a light went on in the kitchen, throwing a shadow on the opaque curtain; a shadow that rose tall, then dropped low as the searcher moved and knelt, opening cupboard doors.
Unable to see in, and unable to reach any other window or try the front door, whose stairway they knew quite well opened from a locked foyer, the cats waited with tail-lashing frustration. The sounds ceased with a final click, and soft footsteps went away again, then a thud as of the front door closing.
Peering over the edge of the roof above the lobby door, they watched a figure emerge, a tall man in a tan coat, with a floppy hat pulled down low. He hurried to the corner and disappeared around it, a slim man with a long, easy stride.
Racing across the shingles they looked down at the side street where he moved quickly toward a tan Infinity. He pulled his hat off and slid in. He had light brown hair, neatly trimmed. The car was a sleek model with curving lines and a sunroof. As its lights came on, Joe leaned so far from the roof that little more than his rump remained on the shingles. When the car roared off he hung there a moment then backed away from the edge.
"2ZJZ417," Joe said, smiling. "That's the car from the Pumpkin Coach that almost hit us." He looked away where the Infinity had disappeared. "Could be Augor Prey. The guy fits his description. Let's have a closer look." And they took off across the roof and down a pine tree to the street. Who knew what scent the tires may have left on the blacktop? Whatever might be there, Joe wanted to find it before wind and passing cars wiped it away.
22
The street was empty except for two parked cars half a block away. Despite the wind, the smell of exhaust still clung along the concrete. Where the tan Infinity had parked, the pavement was patterned with fragments of crumbled eucalyptus leaves, already stirred by the wind, deposited in the shape of tire grids and decorated with crushed green berries.
"Pyracantha berries," Joe said, sniffing. "Don't get that stuff on your nose, Kit. It's poison." The tomcat sat down on the curb. "If that was Augor Prey, maybe he's renting a room, like Harper thought."
How many places in the village rented rooms, and had eucalyptus and pyracantha by the street or by a parking space? Two dozen? Three dozen? The cats looked at each other and shrugged.
"What else have we got?" Dulcie said.
Most likely the guy hadn't been lucky enough to get a garage. Garages in the village were scarcer than declawed cats in a room full of pit bulls. Even a single garage built for a 1920s flivver was a premium item much in demand. The first place that came to Joe's mind was up the hills on the north side. The other house was a block from the beach; both had a eucalyptus tree, pyracantha bushes, and rooms to rent.
"But before we go chasing after Augor Prey," Joe said, "let's give Casselrod a try. See if we can find a connection between him and Traynor." He was silent a moment, his yellow eyes narrowed, his look turned inward as if listening to some interior wisdom.
"What?" she said softly.
"I keep thinking we're missing something. Something big and obvious, right in front of our noses."
"Such as?"
"I don't know, Dulcie. Are the chests the connection between Susan's break-in and Fern's murder? Are a few old Spanish chests enough to kill for?"
"The chests, and Catalina's letters-at some ten thousand each. How many letters were there? Ten letters is a hundred thousand bucks." The concept of that much cash, to a cat, was surreal. Did you count that kind of money by how many cases of caviar that would buy?
"And there are not only Catalina's letters," Joe said, "but Marcos Romero's answers. According to the research in Traynor's office, those letters were smuggled back and forth for years-by travelers, the servants of travelers, by vaqueros herding cattle. Even by some of the mission Indians."
He rose impatiently. "We're not going to learn anything sitting here in the gutter." He headed up the pine tree again, and away across the roofs, Dulcie and the kit close behind him, fighting the wind, heading for Casselrod's Antiques.
In through the high, loose window they moved swiftly, and through the dusty attic presided over by the motionless sewing dummy. She stood stoic and silent, as if disapproving of their trespass. The kit stared at her, and hissed, then approached her cautiously. Sniffing at her iron stand, she turned away with disgust, and was soon caught up in the attic's jumbled maze, lost among Casselrod's ancient and dusty collections. Dulcie glanced back at her only once before following Joe, galloping down the two flights to the main floor.
The first order of business was to call Harper.
Because the information they'd collected was so fragmented, they had delayed that sensitive call, hoping to put some of the pieces together into a tip that was worth passing on. Joe couldn't remember when a case had been so frustrating.
He wondered sometimes if his phone voice carried some disturbing feline echo that made Max Harper uneasy; some unidentifiable overtone, some exotic nonhuman timbre that unsettled the captain.
Harper was an animal-oriented guy, attuned to the moods and body language of dogs and horses, to their subtle communications. What might such a person detect in the timbre of Joe's phone calls that another human might not sense?
Heading across Casselrod's dark showroom into the office, he leaped to the battered secretarial desk, slipped the phone off its cradle, and punched in the number of Harper's cell phone. Following him up, Dulcie pressed her face close to his to listen, her whiskers tickling his nose.
Harper answered curtly. His voice cut in and out as if he might be moving through traffic. Joe knew he could call the station for a better connection, but he never liked doing that.
"You are looking for Augor Prey, Captain. He may be driving a tan, two-door Infinity. Fairly new model. License 2ZJZ417."
Harper repeated the number, not wasting time on small talk. Long ago he had quit asking the snitch useless questions. Maybe, Joe thought, he was getting Harper trained.
"That man tossed Gabrielle French's apartment this evening," Joe said. "And there's another matter that might interest you."
"Go on."
"Elliott Traynor has sold at least two valuable old letters written by-"
"Hold it," Harper said, "you're cutting out. Wait until I turn the corner."
There was a pause.
"Okay," Harper said, coming in more clearly. "Letters written by who?"
"Catalina Ortega-Diaz, the heroine of his play. Traynor sold those two letters for over twenty thousand bucks to a San Francisco dealer."
"What does that-?"
"The history of Catalina tells not only about her letters but about the carved chests in which she kept them-like the three taken from the Pumpkin Coach window, when Fern Barth was killed. Vivi Traynor seems interested in similar chests, as is Richard Casselrod. The white chest that Casselrod took from Gabrielle Row at the McLeary yard sale could be one of the group of seven. Casselrod took it apart, and there was a secret compartment in the bottom, plenty big enough to hold a few letters."