Whatever the answer, Joe thought, the Bleaks will find out soon enough what the chief already knows. This was a crime Billy couldn’t have committed, Billy was safe at the station when Sam was mugged; a dozen cops had seen him, including Max and all three detectives. The Bleaks, in a moment of misguided inspiration, had backed themselves into a corner, and didn’t that make Joe and Kit smile.
Most likely Tekla had tipped over the wheelchair herself, maybe eased it over gently so Sam wouldn’t in fact break any bones and create a real problem.
But they did manage to scrape his forehead and arm, Joe thought. Maybe they didn’t mean to do that, maybe that part was an accident as they performed their little charade. And that made him smile all the more.
The question is, why would they go to such lengths to get Billy in trouble? Oh, but Tekla would, Joe thought, just out of meanness. Or, he wondered, did they do this as some sort of diversion?
“Did you and Tekla walk down from your apartment?” Max said, glancing back along the street. “From the little guesthouse you’re renting?”
“Yes,” Tekla said coolly. “So that Sam could get some air. It isn’t good to always be riding around in the van.”
Kathleen said, “I can give you a ride to the station, if you like. So you can file your complaint.”
Tekla drew herself up. She said nothing. Sam smiled weakly. Kathleen and the chief stood over them waiting for a response, both officers so stern and severe that the Bleaks might find it hard to refuse. At last Sam allowed Kathleen to help him into the wheelchair, careful of his painful arm, and she wheeled him to her squad car, Tekla walking like an angry guard dog beside him. Kathleen settled them in the backseat and folded Sam’s chair into the trunk.
As they pulled away, leaving Max talking with Officer Crowley, Joe and Kit left the cypress tree praying Billy was still at the station. They didn’t want to miss this confrontation. Joe wished Dulcie were there. He’d give her a blow-by-blow account, just as he would lay it all out later for Misto and for Pan. Misto needed to be kept in the loop; the old cat needed to see and feel as much as he could of these last, waning days, Joe thought sadly.
But as he and Kit galloped away across the roofs toward the station, he looked slyly at her. “You found shoes! Did Dallas get them?”
Kit smiled. “I watched him fish them out from under my porch. He lifted each one with a stick inside so he didn’t smear any prints. I hope I didn’t smear any.”
“Your porch?” He stopped and looked at her, and was getting ready to scold her. But she looked at him so contritely that he swallowed back his words.
What the hell, she’d gotten the shoes, hadn’t she? That could be the key, if they could find a matching shoe, one with a good set of fingerprints. That could be the evidence they needed; and he looked at Kit and didn’t criticize—he wasn’t going to trash her bright-eyed joy in finding them.
As they leaped to the roof of the courthouse and raced its length, Kathleen’s squad car pulled up to the red zone below. Dallas’s Blazer was already there. He was just disappearing through the glass door carrying a cardboard box. It was filled with evidence bags, each the size and the shape of a shoe. Kit stared down at it with triumph, her ears up, the tip of her tail twitching.
Joe just hoped they’d turn out to be the right ones, belonging to the perp, not just someone’s worn-out footwear. Backing down the oak tree, they crouched in the bushes by the front entry watching Kathleen remove Sam’s wheelchair from the trunk and unfold it. As she held the glass door so Tekla could roll him through into the lobby, Joe and Kit slipped behind them into the smelly retreat of the holding cell—their retreat for as long as Evijean remained on duty. He thought of Dulcie resting at home as she’d been told, and wished she were there to enjoy the coming performance.
22
Though it was just mid-morning, a warming fire burned on the Firettis’ hearth, its blaze reflected in the fog-frosted windows. Firelight brightened the flowered couch where Misto lay tucked up in a quilt between Dulcie and Pan. Mary Firetti and Wilma sat on the matching couch sipping coffee. Wilma had brought a gift for Misto, a big tray of custards. The three cats had promptly lapped up three small bowls before they snuggled close.
At home earlier, Dulcie had paced from room to room wanting to be outside, wanting to roam but having promised to stay in, not to run the roofs but to rest. She had paced and glared at Wilma, who sat at her desk paying bills. She’d wanted to be at the station, wanted to find Joe Grey, wanted in on the action. Whenever she’d trotted out into the garden for a few minutes she felt Wilma at the window watching her. It was all very well to be quiet and protect the kittens, but she’d begun to feel like a caged wildcat. But when the custards were ready to take to Misto, getting in the car, Wilma said, “You need only be idle for a little while, the kittens will arrive soon. I don’t need to tell you how important this is, these are the most precious of babies.”
Dulcie knew that! She tried not to snap at Wilma. She tried not to sound sulky. But even a trip in the car was a treat, just to get out. Trotting up the Firetti walk through the last of Mary’s cyclamens as bright as new crayons, she had raced into the cottage to nearly pounce on Misto and Pan, she was so glad to see them—though it had only been a few hours.
Pan said, “Kit slipped away early. Restless, so restless.”
Dulcie snuggled closer and looked tenderly at Pan. “You miss Kit this morning,” she said, licking his ear. Kit might have been restless, she thought, but maybe that was a loving gesture, too, to slip away at dawn, to leave father and son alone together, just the two of them.
Mary had set Wilma’s dozen little bowls in the refrigerator to keep cool. “Misto does so love your custards. I make little stews, I make soups, but your custards are the real treat.” She looked at Misto, then back at Wilma. “We talked about Ben,” she said softly. “I told him about Ben.”
Misto lowered his ears and put out a paw to Wilma. But as she reached to stroke him she saw behind his grieving look that staunch certainty, too, in his golden eyes. “Where Ben is now,” the old cat said, “he is safe, he is beyond human cruelty.” He licked Wilma’s hand. “Ben is loved with a strength the living cannot imagine, he is free in joy now, he flies weightless.”
They talked about Ben and about the attacks, Misto stoic, in his own way removed from the deepest pain. It was nearly noon when Wilma and Dulcie left the Firetti cottage, Misto napping again, and Pan still close beside him. Riding home, Dulcie thought about the street crimes, about new police reports, new intelligence coming in, about Joe at the station, and she looked up forlornly at Wilma.
Wilma sighed. She hadn’t worked in corrections for all her career without knowing how these present crimes drew Dulcie. “You want to be with Joe, putting the pieces together.”
Dulcie sighed.
“I’ll take you to the PD if you’ll promise to wait there. To let me pick you up later, not come galloping home alone over the rooftops. You might not go full term, Dulcie, you might . . .”
“I promise,” Dulcie said.
Reluctantly Wilma dropped her off in front of the courthouse, watched her disappear into the bushes to wait for a chance to slip inside the station. Wilma lingered for a few minutes, and then a few minutes more, but no one came or went through the glass door. She could see action inside, could see Max and Detective Kathleen Ray; she could just see Joe Grey in a corner of the holding cell, and she glimpsed a fluff of tortoiseshell fur; Kit was there with him. She could see that brittle temporary clerk, Evijean, behind the counter. And was that the Bleak couple in there? That was curious, what was that about?
She watched Dulcie peering out, watching intently from the bushes. She watched the tabby move beneath a camellia, closer to the glass door where she could see in better. Wilma waited a few minutes more, got an angry scowl when the tabby reared up to look back at her. Whatever was happening had Dulcie’s full attention. At last Wilma left her. Joe Grey and Kit were there if the tabby needed someone. Dulcie had a loud yowl if she found herself in trouble. As many times as I’ve worried over her, I have learned to trust her. I’m not going to rein her in completely, even now.