But he didn’t need a woman in his life, not any more than he needed cats under his feet during an investigation.
Across from him, Wilma said,“How did the three Priors respond when you took them in for questioning?”
Max smiled.“Renet was upset, angry. And she was scared.
“Young Teddy went ballistic, threw a real tantrum-though he wasn’t sufficiently out of control to abandon his wheelchair. Adelina was cool as ice, totally in charge of herself. And, of course, she already has her attorneys at work on her defense.
Mae Rose said,“Were thereother murders besides Jane and Mary Nell? Or did the others die naturally?”
“Forensics is still examining the remains; there’s indication that James Luther may have been a victim. With bodies that old, a murder can easily go undetected.” He had to marvel at these old people. Some old folks would turn queasy at this much detail. These folks did not seem morbid in their interest, except maybe Eula Weems. They simply wanted information.
But Eula’s hands fidgeted and plucked at each other. “How-how did they kill Mary Nell?”
“The way her skull was broken,” Harper said, “she probably died relatively quickly. The murder weapon was a smooth, thin object, swung with force.
“One theory is that someone may have tried to smother her, and when she fought back she was hit a hard blow, possibly with the edge of a dinner plate. Such a blow would break the skull in just that way.”
He would not ordinarily have discussed a case so openly, particularly when it was not yet in court, but the newspaper had got hold of most of the details; and these old folks did have a vested interest. Two of their close friends had been murdered, maybe more than two. These folks had a right to some answers when the very people who were entrusted with their well-being had betrayed them.
Dillon said,“Jane was desperate, to sew that letter in the doll praying someone would find it. And no one did, not in time.”
“But we have her killers,” Harper said. “And no one might ever have known, their little scheme might never have been discovered, if not for you and Mae Rose.”
He thought he saw the tabby cat’s expression change, a twitching of whiskers almost like a smile. But of course he was imagining that.
“The court won’t let the Priors go free?” Eula said.
“No matter what happens in court, and I don’t see them going free, Adelina Prior will not be back at Casa Capri, nor will Renet or Teddy. Judge Sanderson has promised that.”
The home, left without management, had been placed under jurisdiction of the court and was being managed temporarily by a court-appointed chain of retirement homes. In the interest of public relations, the new manager had organized not only this little gathering today, but had announced several new policies, trying hard to counter the bad publicity and bad feelings.
He had opened the Nursing wing to patients’ families and to all residents each afternoon, so they could visit those patients who felt well enough to have company. The Pet-a-Pet program would continue as a permanent part of the home’s therapy, along with several other new programs, including a weekly reading of best-selling fiction by one of the local library staff and several evening classes to be presented as part of the continuing education offerings of the local college.
“Them college classes,” Eula said. “Teddy talked about getting some kind of fancy schooling here, but it never happened.” Eula sighed. “Teddy was all hot air.” The old woman snorted. “He never did need that wheelchair. All the time, he could walk.”
She half rose at the table, addressing her audience.“I bet it was Teddy dug those graves. Maybe took those poor old folks out of here, himself, in his van.”
Minute particles of flesh and hair had been found in the van, identified as belonging to the dead patients. Clothing fibers were found matching threads from the graves. And similar particles had turned up behind the stable where, for years, an old truck had been parked. Harper’s theory was that the bodies were transferred from the van to the truck late at night, and driven out into the cemetery.
And, even more interesting, the fragments of tire marks found behind the stable had matched the casts of tire marks taken from the scene of Susan Dorriss’s accident. Same tread, same small L-shaped nick at one edge. The truck had been recovered three days ago in the small town of Mendocino, north of San Francisco.
At one time the truck had been legally registered to Adelina Priorits original plates had been found in the old stable along with a dozen other plates hidden in a niche beneath the wooden bottom of an old feed bin in one of the stalls used for storage.
His theory was that either Renet or Teddy was driving the truck when it hit Susan, and that Renet had taken the truck to be painted. He hoped with time the department could establish that it was Renet who appeared at the paint shop dressed as a little frumpy Latino housewife, black hair, Spanish accent. He was hoping they could find hard evidence that it was Renet who later bought the truck from the used-car dealer, dressed in a short leather skirt, her hair a blaze of red curls, her legs shapely in black hose. The redhead who bought the truck had put a FOR SALE sign in the window, and two hours later had sold it cheap to a Mexican family moving to Seattle. When the truck blew a head gasket in Mendocino, they sold it for bus fare.
Mae Rose looked at Harper.“Strange that Renet would hit on the idea of calling herself The Cat Burglar. I had a friend once who used to joke that if she ever became a professional burglar, that was what she would do. Pretend to be looking for her lost cat.”
She stroked Dulcie, watching Harper.“You said Renet worked in wardrobe, in Hollywood? So did Wenona. I wonder?” The little lady frowned. “It would seem strange, wouldn’t it, if they knew each other? But Wenona lived in Molena Point when she was younger. She was forty when she moved to L.A.
Renet would have been about twenty then, doing those early films.”
The little woman cocked her head, thinking.“Wenona used to go down to the wharf to feed the stray cats. She liked to feed them, but she was afraid of them, too.”
Harper tried to keep a bland face, but Mae Rose’s words hit home. When they locked Renet up, she kept shouting,It was the cats. It was those damn cats that put me here.No one had asked what she meant, she was in a violent temper. He hadn’t asked, and he hadn’t wanted to know.
Harper shivered. He didn’t look up, but he felt, from the tree above, the yellow stare of the tomcat. And on the pink afghan, Wilma’s cat didn’t wiggle an ear, didn’t open an eye, yet he could sense her interest as sharply as if she watched him.
And later, as Harper drove Clyde back to the village, he couldn’t help glancing down at the gray tomcat. The animal lay stretched insolently between them, across the front seat of his squad car. Clyde said taking a cat in the car was no different than taking a dog, and Clyde was so argumentative on the subject, you couldn’t reason with him.
Everyone knew that dogs were fine in cars, dogs stuck their heads out in the wind, hung their tongues out and enjoyed. But cats-a cat was under the gas pedal one minute, then trying to jump out any open window. Cats weren’t meant to ride in cars; cats were more attuned to creeping around in the shadows.
Besides, he wasn’t keen about cat hairs in his squad car.
Though certainly Clyde’s cat was obedient enough, it didn’t make a hiss, didn’t leap around clawing the upholstery, didn’t go crazy trying to get out the window. It napped on the seat, purring contentedly. It looked up at him only once, a blank, sleep-drugged gaze, dull, ordinary, unremarkable, making him wonderwhat he thought was so strange about the animal.