Max nodded. “That house Cage and Lilly’s parents left them. Couple of hours ago, the minute we knew Jones had walked, Dallas and Davis picked up a warrant, searched the house. His sister Lilly says she hasn’t seen Cage, didn’t know he’d escaped.” Max shrugged. “Said she doesn’t listen to the news much-now, we’ll double back, have another look. Though it’s not likely Cage would hide her in his own house-if he was fool enough to kidnap a retired federal officer.”
Max turned to Wilma’s desk, stood looking out the front window. “Sure like to talk with the woman who tipped us.” He looked at Clyde, scowling. “Could be our phantom snitch, but I can’t figure how that adds up,” he said irritably. “How the hell can she or her partner always be in the right place at the right time!”
Clyde felt Dulcie’s claws kneading nervously on his arm. Harper’s frustration at the unidentified but accurate tips he’d been receiving for several years was both stressful and comical. Clyde shook his head. “Doesn’t make sense, does it?” he said innocently. “I don’t know, Max. If they weren’t always right, if they hadn’t been a help in so many cases…”
“I’m not sorry to have those two,” Max said. “Even if their seeming clairvoyance does drive me up the wall!”
“Is that what you think? Some kind of…?”
“I don’t know what the hell I think,” Max snapped. He continued to watch Clyde, then shook his head. “Made up my mind not to think about it. Take the information and run with it, not ask questions.” The chief reached to his pocket for a cigarette, something he hadn’t done for a long time. “Sometimes, it’s damned hard not to run those two snitches to ground, or try to. I wish to hell…
“But what’s the good, wishing,” Max said. “I just hope Wilma knows that Jones conned his way out of jail. What kind of shop are they running, releasing a guy on false ID!”
“Not the first time that’s happened,” Clyde said. “And Jones won’t know that Wilma was going to shop in Gilroy. Anyway, the minute he got out, wouldn’t he run? Head for another state?”
“Guess you haven’t heard the rest.”
In Clyde’s arms, Dulcie had gone as rigid as a stone, pressing her head into the crook of his arm.
“Bennett was shot two hours ago,” Max said. “As he left the office.”
Clyde squeezed Dulcie so hard she had to swallow back a mewl. “How bad?” He loosened his grip on Dulcie and contritely stroked her.
“He’s in intensive care. They got him in the shoulder and chest. San Francisco General. There’s a statewide bulletin out, I just talked with the sheriff up there, he’s got deputies all over Gilroy, all over the outlet mall. Mabel e-mailed them a picture of Wilma, that one in Wilma’s bedroom of her and Charlie at our wedding.”
“And her car’s here?”
“In the garage.” Max shook his head. “So far, nothing. Couple of tiny spots of blood on the side of the backseat, down next to the door. No more than a scratch would produce. Sample’s gone to the lab. Haven’t dusted the car for prints yet…” Max’s phone buzzed. He clicked on, listened and scowled.
Clicking off, he looked at Clyde. “Dispatcher has a description of the two men, the call just came in. From the same woman. Description matches Cage Jones, and I think I know the other guy.” He sat down at Wilma’s desk, looking tired. “The same snitch,” he said again. “Mabel had her hands full dispatching on a drunk call.” He looked up at Clyde. “Why didn’t that woman give Mabel those descriptions the first time she called?”
“Maybe she was in plain sight when they ran out, maybe she was too busy hiding from them.” He felt Dulcie’s ragged little attempt at a purr as she eased closer against him. “What’s the game plan? If Jones has Wilma, what can you do and not put her in danger?”
But Max was on the phone again, moving men into position, then motioning to Dallas; Clyde looked around at the trashed living room. He felt sick inside. And scared. Max was saying, “…use the gas and electric company uniforms, get one of their emergency trucks. And a water company truck, three men. I want to watch the house for as long as it takes. We’re not rushing in.”
Clyde listened, thinking how unstable Jones was. If Wilma was in there…He stroked Dulcie, trying to calm her. Trying to calm himself. He didn’t like the way she felt under his hand, her tabby body hard and rigid, the way a sick cat feels to the touch. He stroked her gently, worrying over Wilma and worrying over the little tabby. Why the hell had this happened! Why the hell hadn’t Cage just skipped, gotten out of California!
Max looked around the room. “Davis is on her way up to Gilroy. Everything about this break-in looks like a distraction. Could be, she was never in the house at all. Possible they brought her car and her bag back to confuse and delay us.”
“I’m heading for Gilroy,” Clyde said, and he felt Dulcie’s paws tighten on his arm.
“The hell you are,” Max said. “You’d be in the way, make the sheriff mad. Let them do their work.”
“I’ll stay out of the way. I won’t hassle Davis, either. I just want to be there.” He expected Max to give him a stronger argument. When he didn’t, Clyde headed for the door, wondering how to keep Dulcie from demanding that she go, because clearly, as she brightened up and cocked her ears, that was what she was thinking.
“You taking that cat?” Max called after him, raising an eyebrow.
“Thought I’d drop the cat off with Lucinda,” he said over his shoulder. “With all the commotion, the house torn up, she seems really stressed. She’ll be safer there.”
In fact, Clyde meant to do just that. Clutching Dulcie, he beat it to his car as Max turned away to answer an officer’s question. Crossing the garden, beneath the oaks, he glanced up into the branches where Kit stared down, her yellow eyes huge. With the living room windows wide open, she’d heard every word. But she wasn’t coming down to him. She backed away when he reached up. Changing his mind about taking Dulcie to the Greenlaws’, he shoved her up into the branches beside Kit. “You’re staying here,” he said softly. “Try to stay out of trouble,” he said, knowing it was a useless suggestion.
“Wait,” Dulcie whispered. “Wait, Clyde.”
“Hush. We can’t talk here.”
“They can’t hear us, with your back to the house. They can’t see us, in here among the leaves.” Dulcie looked into Clyde’s face, her green eyes questioning. “Please, Clyde…I don’t know what to do.” He had never seen the little tabby unsure of herself; Dulcie was just as decisive and hardheaded as Joe Grey.
She looked at him deeply, her green eyes huge and afraid. “I want to go with you. And I…I want to look in Jones’s house. If he took Wilma there after Harper searched, a second search will be dangerous for her. If Kit and I can get in first, before Harper’s men…If she’s there, we can find a phone in there, we can call, tell them what room and if she’s tied up, tell them if she’s hurt, and who’s in the house…” She looked at him intently. Clyde shook his head.
“It’s that,” she said, “or I go with you to Gilroy to help look for her.”
11
C lyde looked up into the shadowed leaves of the oak tree at Dulcie’s stubborn green gaze. These three cats sure complicated life.
“Wilma’s in danger!” the tabby snapped. “You think I’m going to sit here polishing my claws? Jones has already tried to kill Bennett!” She hissed angrily at him, then spun away through the branches. “Come on, Kit.” And before Clyde could argue, the two cats were gone, leaping from that oak into the next and up a pine tree, and away across the rooftops. Clyde stood staring after them, then headed for his car. Damned cats never listened. He tried to remind himself that Cage Jones would have no reason to hurt a neighborhood cat if he saw them sneaking around his house. They were cats, cats were no threat to an escaped con. Praying for their safety, and thinking that before he headed for the freeway he’d better gas up, he was nearly bowled over when something hit him from behind. Swinging around to punch his assailant, he felt claws digging into his shoulder, as if Joe had leaped down on him from the roof. “Keep your claws in! I suppose you heard everything.”