She's young, Joe thought. Too young. Too trusting. Way too curious. Padding behind Harper's beam into the black maw of the air raid shelter, he felt he was stepping into a gaping and hungry mouth.
The shelter had had two rooms. Where the first had caved in, they could see the ruins, above, and the clear night sky.
The door frame of the second, roofed portion still stood. The heavy plank door had been ripped off and lay on its side across the opening, barring the lower half. Behind it, someone had pulled a rusty set of shelves across, to further block the entrance. The shelves still held ancient cans of food, rusted tight to the metal surfaces.
Harper moved the shelf unit aside, glancing questioningly at Dillon.
"I pushed it there. Like a fence-it was all I had."
He swept his light across the small concrete room. "I can't believe these three cats have come down here with us. Sometimes they act more like dogs than cats."
Joe and Dulcie exchanged a look. He wished he could give Harper an answer to that one.
Within the closed, damp room, they could smell the fresh scent of cougar, his trail coming down the earth slide, a track newly laid within the last few days. The kit backed away from the scent, her eyes huge, and patted at a lone pawprint in the loose earth.
Perhaps the young male had come here out of curiosity, had come down into the excavation to look and to mark, the way a cougar would investigate a new house under construction, stopping to spray the open, studded walls, to sniff at a hammer or at bent nails or at an empty beer can left behind by the building crew-leaving his pawprints for the carpenters to wonder and laugh over, and perhaps feel the cold sting of fear.
Joe, imagining the cougar padding down that insubstantial earth slide, didn't know he was growling.
"What?" Charlie said, kneeling before him. "Has someone been here?"
Joe laid back his ears, giving her a toothy snarl.
"Cougar?" Charlie said, her eyes widening. "Has the cougar been here?"
Joe's eyes on Charlie told her all he needed to say.
Charlie rose to face the door and the open pit beyond, her hand resting on the.38.
23
CHUNKS OF CONCRETE had fallen where one wall was crumbling, and rising from the debris stood a rusted, two-bunk bed with mouse-chewed mattresses. On the floor beside its iron legs were stacked more bulging cans of food, their labels presenting stained and faded pictures of tomatoes, beans, and corn-ruined cans ready to poison anyone foolish enough to sample their contents. Or, as Dillon had said, ready to explode in your face. Atop one can was a limp box of disintegrating matches and a grime-covered first-aid kit. The dozen gallon bottles of spring water against the wall ought, by this time, to be growing frogs. In the far corner lay a heap of animal bones and a strip of hide with short brown hair. "Deer," Harper said, picking up a leg bone with hoof attached, and a jawbone that had long ago been licked clean.
"No puma would drag his kill down here. The deer might have been sick, stumbled and fallen, then foxes and racoons were at him."
Joe wanted to tell Harper that a cougar had been there, that his scent was fresh, that he had come prowling long after those bones were abandoned, and that this male might have a lay-up somewhere else among the ruins, maybe even in the standing portion of the house itself. That he might, scenting their fresh trail, return to have a look.
A curious cougar, if alarmed and cornered, could turn deadly.
Dillon yawned, looking longingly at the upper bunk. Tossing her blanket on top, she was about to climb up when Harper put his arm around her.
"Give us a minute. You're so tired-if you lie down you'll be gone. We need to talk. Come sit down, let me ask a few questions, get it on tape. Then you can sleep."
Dillon sat down on the floor between Harper and Charlie, her back to the concrete wall, the three of them watching the cavernous opening that yawned beyond the frail barrier-though Joe would far rather see the cougar approaching than Crystal and her friend. Light from the flashlight bounced against the wall, brightening Charlie's carrot-colored hair and Dillon's darker, auburn bob. The tape recorder that Harper took from his pocket was no bigger than a can of cat food.
"Do you mind the tape?"
"No. We do tapes at school."
"You hid here after the murder?"
"Yes, he was chasing me," she said, yawning.
"Who was?"
"The man who killed Ruthie and Mrs. Marner. The same man who shot at us tonight. Crystal said his name was Stubby Baker."
Harper raised an eyebrow. "Did you know a Stubby Baker?"
"No. I didn't know that man."
"The evening of the murder, did you see the killer's face? Could you identify him if you saw him again?"
"His hat was pulled down and his coat collar turned up, but I got one good look. When his face was close to me. Thin face. Bony. Those eyes-black eyes. The same man as tonight, with the gun. And he was riding Bucky."
"You're sure it was my gelding?"
"Of course I'm sure. I know Bucky. Your horse, your saddle. Bucky's bridle-that nice silver bit. The man's hat and clothes looked like yours, too. When he rode up to us, with the hat pulled down, I thought it was you. I thought how strange you had your hat pulled down because the sun wasn't in your eyes, it was behind you, real low in the sky. Then I saw-saw it wasn't you."
"You saw his face clearly."
"At first, just his eyes. The sun was all dazzle behind him. But he looked right at me. Whispered, 'Help. Help me,' and he went limp over the saddle, limp down over the horn like he'd fainted or something. He grabbed at the horn and slid down, fell on the ground. Mrs… Mrs. Marner got off to help him. He… Do I have to tell more about it now?"
"We can talk about it later. How much did you see of his face? Tell me again, the general shape of his face. Was he clean-shaven?"
"He…" She looked at Harper, frowning. "His face was thin like yours. No beard or mustache. Smooth, no black stubble." She held her hands to her own face, indicating where his hat was pulled down and his collar turned up. "Thin, long face, like yours," Dillon said apologetically. "But no wrinkles. And-real high cheekbones. And black eyes. Not you, Captain Harper. Not your eyes. Cold black eyes. And his mouth-a thin, hard mouth."
Harper glanced at Charlie. "You don't have paper or a pencil?"
"I don't have my purse, only my keys."
"Later, would you try a sketch?"
She nodded, as if etching Dillon's description into memory.
"We'll do a lineup," he told Dillon. "When he grabbed Helen, how did you get away?"
"He hit her and cut-I saw him cut her throat." Her voice shook, but she looked at him steadily. "Ruthie and I were kicking and hitting him, from our horses, trying to get him off Mrs. Marner. He grabbed Ruthie's leg and pulled her off. It was all plunging horses and blood and screaming. I couldn't… I hit and kicked, but when he grabbed for me I kicked Redwing, slapped my reins into his face, and whipped her." Dillon looked at him desolately. "I ran away-I hung on to the saddle. He was pulling at me, I was nearly off. I kicked Redwing and hung on hard, kicked him and hit her, and Ruthie screaming and screaming behind me. I-I left them, Captain Harper. Left them there. I ran away." She hid her face, crying. He put his arms around her, held her tight, letting her cry, looking over her head at Charlie, his face so filled with pain that the cats wanted to hold Harper safe, the way he was holding Dillon. And Charlie reached to touch his cheek.