A flowered hat lay on the backseat beside a woman’s blue sweater and a pair of flat shoes. He used the tail of his shirt to open the passenger door and the glove compartment and lift out the registration.
The car was registered to a Darlene Morton of Mill Valley. This was neither the name nor the address registered in Sacramento to this particular California plate.
Turning up his radio, he spoke to the dispatcher, asking for a team to dust the Honda and collect other evidence. When he signed off, he moved out through the arch again, stood idly watching the house, considering the possibilities of who the car might belong to.
He knew of no old, gray-haired woman in the Prior household, except that maid he’d seen.
That would be a gas, one of the maids into burglaries on her day off.
He found it impossible to imagine Adelina rigging herself up as the cat burglar; Adelina wouldn’t waste her time on such foolishness. These burglaries were more like a lark, someone’s idea of a little profitable recreation, B and E for a few laughs. And he didn’t think Adelina would stand for that misbehavior from her sister, not when it might cast a shadow on her own image.
Or would she?
Unless maybe they had some kind of trade-off.
The animal poisonings were another matter, and were easy enough to explain if Adelina didn’t want dogs digging up the old, historical cemetery. She was big on historical landmarks, on civic pride; that stuff impressed other people.
As he stood watching the house he heard shouting and someone running inside on the hard floor. Renet’s voice, shouting again. And a shadow that looked like Renet ran across the living room. At the same moment a streak of darkness fled, low, inches from the floor: out the door and across the terrace, disappearing into the bushes. One of those cats had sneaked in, he thought amused, and Renet hadchased it out.
The next moment, Renet stepped out through the patio door, stood studying the terrace and bushes and the lawn beyond, then looking away toward the oak wood and graveyard.
When she turned at last, she seemed to see him for the first time. She gave him a friendly wave, and moved back inside.
Across the grove, he could see Buck standing easy now, only fussing idly at his rope, trying to get a mouthful of grass. He watched with interest the azalea bushes where the cat had disappeared. But when, after some minutes, nothing moved there, he turned away and headed back through the courtyard toward the back of old stables, where the garbage cans were kept, to make sure that Carlito had done as he’d been told-had put that poisoned meat where nothing could get at it. But, crossing the stable yard, he kept seeing the cat running from Renet, seeing that swift, low shadow.
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Dulcie crouched high among the branches of an oak tree, looking down on the old graves and watching out through the dusky leaves to the Prior house. Watching for Joe. Nervously, she listened to Renet shouting, heard Renet running through the house across the hard floors-surely she was still chasing the tomcat.
Below her, at the base of the tree, the doll sat on the grass. Dulcie had gotten the lady out, had dragged her down the stairs and across the lawn despite the wild chase Renet gave them.
Renet shouted again, and Joe burst out the patio door, streaking across the terrace. As he dived into the bushes, Renet came flying out behind him, her robe flapping half-open over her pants and bra. As she hit the terrace, Dulcie saw Max Harper standing beyond, at the stables, watching her with interest.
Renet didn’t see Harper, stood looking for Joe. Not until she headed for the bushes did she spot Harper. She stopped, waved to him, maddeningly casual, then turned away and went back into the house, her search foiled. Dulcie smiled, and watched Harper to see what he would do.
Earlier, when Renet attacked them on the balcony, driving them apart, she had fled straight for the dressing table. Leaping up, she had snatched the doll in her teeth. She was desperate to take away some evidence, somehow to alert Harper-short of shouting the whole story at him.
For a split second, as she grabbed the doll, her eyes locked with Joe’s, then they fled in opposite directions, Joe leading Renet away, racing into the empty photo studio. The minute they were gone, Dulcie dragged the doll out, down the hall, and down the stairs, jerking it along in a panic of haste, clumping down the steps, terrified she’d break the delicate lady. But she had no choice. She needed the doll-this was the only plan she could think of. As she gained the bottom stair she could hear Renet running, just above her, chasing Joe through Adelina’s room. She prayed he could keep safe.
But if Renet caught that tomcat, she’d be sorry. She’d be hamburger. Unless? unless he made a misstep, unless she threw something heavy and had good aim. She heard Renet double back, shouting, could picture Joe dodging beneath the bed, beneath the white leather chairs, pictured him leaping from one balcony to the next and back again as Renet raced from room to room in hot pursuit. If she hadn’t been so terrified for him, despite his claws and teeth-and so busy dragging the heavy doll down the stairs-she’d have found the humor in this, would have watched the charade, laughing.
Pulling the doll along through the living room, she had reached the terrace and managed to jerk the doll across into the azaleas. It seemed to grow heavier, every step. She hardly paused to catch her breath; she raced away again across the lawn, jerking the doll along and praying no one was watching. When at last she dragged it in among the tombstones, her insides felt as if they were ruptured.
She felt better when she reached the hidden squares of new turf. Working carefully, she had placed the miniature lady between two squares of sod, arranged her so she sat just on the crack, leaning over to touch the grass. The lady’s pale skin and white petticoats and blue silk dress shone brightly against the dark woods. Dulcie had smoothed the doll’s skirts with her paw and carefully pressed the doll’s little hands down into the earth, into the thin seam between the sod squares.
Then she had scorched up into the oak tree.
As she watched the terrace, Joe burst suddenly from the bushes, a gray streak flying across the lawn and into the woods, crouching behind a headstone, staring out toward the house, wild-eyed. Renet must have given him a real chase.
“Here,” she whispered, moving so he could see her.
He raced to the wood and stormed up the tree and onto her branch, his ears flat, his yellow eyes huge. He crouched beside her, panting, his sides heaving.
She licked his ear, but he shook his head irritably and backed away.
“Hot. About done for. That woman’s as full of fight as a bulldog.”
She was quiet until he had rested and caught his breath. At last he moved closer, settling against her.“You’d never think it to look at her. Three times she nearly creamed me, throwing things. She even threw a camera-damn thing could have killed me.” He scowled down at the doll sitting on the turf below them.
“Very pretty bait, Dulcie. But even if Harper finds it?”
“I can hardly wait.”
“He’ll dig up the turf, all right. He’ll find whatever’s hidden underneath. But he won’t connect the doll to Renet.”
“He’llknowit’s one of the stolen dolls. You said the Martinezes gave him a good description.”
“They did. Of course he’ll know the doll is evidence, and Harper told Clyde those dolls are worth plenty. But that doesn’t connect to Renet. And even if he did suspect her, he can’t search the house without a warrant.”
“He cangeta warrant, call the judge. He’s done that before. Judge Sanderson-”
“Harper finds a doll in the cemetery. Sanderson is going to issue a warrant on that?”
“If he dusts the doll for prints, finds Renet’s prints-”
“That takes lab time. Computer time. And even then, there might not be a record. If she’s never been arrested, then those prints from the burglarized houses will match those on the doll, but neither set will link to Renet.”