Кроха - Dedication

“But they’re tied into this,” Juana said. “You want to try for a search warrant? Before they try to skip?”

“With Judge Manderson? You know he wants hard evidence before we do a search.”

Juana sighed. “Wish we had the gun that killed Ben. And what was that about, that fake attack this morning, throwing themselves right in our faces?”

Max shrugged. “No one said criminals were smart.”

Billy said, “Did they think if Sam was mugged, that you’d see them as helpless victims? And I guess,” he said, grinning, “I guess they don’t like me much. But,” he continued, “even when they left the station, they looked nervous.”

Juana turned when her desk phone rang, and flipped on the speaker.

Evijean said, “I just took an anonymous call. A message for Captain Harper. The man wouldn’t give his name.”

“I’m here,” Max said.

“He wouldn’t wait. He said to tell the captain that the convicted rapist, the one in San Francisco? . . . Gardner? That he has a mother somewhere, that they are estranged. The last he’d heard, she was living somewhere on the East Coast. He said you were looking for a connection, for family.”

“Why didn’t you switch him directly to me?”

“He didn’t want me to transfer the call, he said he was in a hurry. He told me to pass it on promptly . . . A very curt man,” she said. “He gave me the information and hung up.”

“No caller ID?”

“No, sir. Maybe an old cell phone with no GPS?”

Dulcie looked at Kit; they both watched Harper. The way Evijean described the call, that didn’t sound much like Joe Grey. Dulcie thought about the conversation in the tearoom. Could Evijean have made up that call, to pass her own information to the captain? And, when she glanced at Kit, she knew the tortoiseshell was thinking the same. So what was Evijean’s interest in this? Besides that it was her niece that Gardner raped and murdered. Maybe just a nosy clerk wanting in on the action, sharing information in her own ego trip?

Yet even as Dulcie puzzled over the phone call she began to feel edgy. Not uneasy about the Bleaks now, or the street prowler, or even about Joe Grey. She had every confidence in Joe, in his instincts to come out on top. Something else was bothering her. Rising, she began to pace the top of the bookshelf.

Is it the kittens? she thought nervously. Is it time? She felt no pain, there were no contractions, though the little mites were, as usual, squirmy and restless. Kit watched her with alarm, her yellow eyes wide.

Below them, Max was on the phone again when the cats heard Charlie’s voice in the hall. They watched Charlie and Ryan squeeze into the room, both dressed in jeans and T-shirts. Watched them move out of the way among the crowded furniture, looking with interest at the evidence, the shoes and photos and Ben’s notes—though most of their attention was on Dulcie. Charlie, taller than Ryan, reached up to pet her.

Dulcie stiffened when Charlie scooped her up; she glared at Charlie indignantly. Charlie lifted her gently down and cuddled her—imprisoned her—in her arms. Securely gripping the nape of Dulcie’s neck so she couldn’t leap away. Holding her captive. Shocked, she hissed at Charlie. When Ryan reached over to gently stroke her, she growled and hissed at Ryan, too. What wasthis? Neither Charlie nor Ryan had ever manhandled her. Captive, incensed, she wanted to snag her claws in Charlie’s red hair and pull hard. She was mad as hell and she couldn’t say a word. Couldn’t swear. Couldn’t scream for help. She could only snarl and growl.

“What the hell?” Max said. “What’s the matter with her? You only picked her up.” Putting his arm around Charlie, he reached out his hand to see if Dulcie would strike at him, too.

She didn’t, she drew back. She could not bloody the chief, that was unthinkable.

But even so, Max’s hand paused in midair. “What . . . ?” He looked hard at Dulcie, and then at Charlie. “This cat’s pregnant, no wonder she’s cranky. Didn’t you know she’s pregnant? Does Wilma know? She shouldn’t be out on the streets like this, look at her.” Max might be a tough cop, but he had a tenderness for Dulcie and Joe and Kit, just as he did for all animals.

But now Charlie and Ryan looked at him with cool female tolerance. “Yes, pregnant,” Charlie said, “waiting for kittens. We came to get her.”

Juana watched the scene with amusement. Davis had cats, too, but neither one was in danger of getting pregnant. Billy, stepping up beside Max, stroked Dulcie’s ears and face. Then, taking liberties Dulcie would allow to only a few, he felt her belly knowingly.

“Pretty soon,” Billy said, looking up at Charlie. “Less than two weeks?” Billy had taken in rescue cats since he was a small boy; in the last few years he had helped birth more kittens than he could count, strays that came to him half starved when he’d lived in the shack down by the riverbed, strays more prevalent before CatFriends got to work saving lost and abandoned cats and ferals.

Max said, “Wilma can’t want her running the village when her time is so close. Why did she let her out? If the kittens come early on some rooftop, in some out-of-the-way place . . .”

“Dulcie’s supposed to be locked up,” Charlie said innocently. “Wilma called, she’s frantic and is out looking for her. Somehow Dulcie managed to slip out through her cat door. I’ll take her home,” she said, keeping a strong grip on the nape of Dulcie’s neck.

Beside them, Ryan put her arm around Billy. “And you and I need to get back to work, finish cleaning up until we know what the Bleaks intend to do. Keep on building, or scrap the job?” she said with irritation. “Charlie can drive us over. I left my truck there.”

“Don’t leave Billy there alone,” Max said, “until we have this sorted out. Are you carrying?”

“In my truck,” Ryan said.

“Wear it,” Max said.

Charlie’s eyes widened. She nodded, gave Max a kiss, careful not to squash Dulcie between them, and they left.

In the SUV Dulcie didn’t need to be held captive. She snuggled on Charlie’s lap obedient and silent—worrying again about Joe Grey. Had he followed the Bleaks when they left the station, was he watching their apartment? Was he in the apartment? Was that why she felt so nervous? If he had followed them, he’d be sure to find a way inside. She didn’t want to think of him shut in alone, with those two. Maybe she and Charlie should swing by the Bleaks’ rental, after they’d dropped off Ryan and Billy.

And maybe not. Maybe that would make things worse, would really alarm the Bleaks, would make them run or would put Joe in jeopardy.

She didn’t know what to do; she was in a quandary and that wasn’t like her. She wanted to race over there herself, but when she felt the kittens squirming she knew she wouldn’t.

Charlie pulled up in front of the remodel beside Ryan’s truck, and Ryan and Billy got out. As Charlie headed away again, she gently stroked Dulcie. “I’m sorry I manhandled you. You looked determined to take off. Tell me about the photos and shoes, and what happened with Billy? Those Bleaks didn’t really accuse him!”

“They did,” Dulcie said. “Kit told me, blow by blow.” She passed on to Charlie everything she knew, from Sam’s fake attack and the Bleaks’ accusation of Billy, to the conversation in the tearoom, to Evijean’s strange phone message. Charlie was silent as she pulled up in front of the stone cottage, putting the details together. Wilma came hurrying out, scowling at Dulcie and ready to scold her. But instead Wilma gathered her up in a hug of relief, and Dulcie relaxed against her. Purring, she patted a soft paw against Wilma’s cheek—and she could smell a pot roast cooking. Yawning against Wilma, suddenly drained of all her cat energy, she wanted only to eat and then sleep warm in Wilma’s arms.

25

When Joe had left the station, he’d had every intention of tossing the Bleaks’ apartment for evidence; surveillance was not enough. Racing the length of the courthouse roof, he hit the peaks above Jane’s Knitting, Matelle Bakery, and three upscale clothing stores. On the roof of a small motel he galloped past second-floor windows, surprising a little child looking out. From a patio café across the street, the smell of frying onions followed him as he headed a block north to the tall, two-story frame on the corner, the butter-yellow house named Daffodil Walk. There were no daffodils in the scruffy fenced yard.

The small rental cottage at the back might once have been brown. It was not fenced, as was the big house. A narrow, cracked drive led from the side street to the cottage’s attached one-car garage that jutted out in front. The Bleaks’ white van stood to the right of the drive on a patch of grass, handy to the front steps. Oak trees shaded both yards.

Dropping into a tangle of twisted branches, Joe made his way to the back. In the yard of the big house a heavy-shouldered Rottweiler stopped chewing on a fallen branch and stared up at him, his yellow eyes small and mean, his growl a low rumble. He glared unblinking as Joe slipped over the hip of the cottage roof out of sight. The beast knew he was still there, could surely smell him; but, not seeing the invading feline, he might be less likely to bark and draw attention.

Stepping stones led from the street along the drive to the front door of the cottage. Over in the fenced yard the dog rumbled once more, leaped at the closed gate, then returned to maul his oak branch. Joe could see a kennel at the back near the big house.

Padding on across the cottage’s ragged shingles, he backed down the last gnarled tree into the sweet smell of mock orange bushes shedding their wilted flowers. A temporary wooden ramp led up beside the three steps to the small porch. The front door stood open.

The van’s passenger door was wide open, too, revealing Tekla’s black-clad backside where she leaned in. Her posterior and thighs looked narrow as a boy’s. She backed out, carrying a crookedly folded blanket, a six-pack of bottled water, and a handful of road maps. Before she could turn toward the house Joe was inside and under the first shelter he came to: a padded bench against a short wall that faced the front door. Diving under, he glimpsed the small, crowded living room beyond.

To the left of the front door in a narrow alcove hung two Windbreakers and a yellow raincoat on wooden hooks. The front door itself was flanked by tall panes on either side, swirly glass so you could see only a person’s shape and what color he was wearing. The glass panes were the perfect arrangement for a thief. Only a moment to break the window, reach through and turn the key; unless, of course, one had had the foresight to remove the key.

To the right of the front door a narrower, closed door probably led to the garage, Joe could smell the oil-rubber-tire-mildew scent common to most village garages. To the right of that door was the kitchen alcove with a small breakfast table. The cramped living room behind him held a faded couch, a fake leather easy chair, a TV on a rolling stand, a depressing tableau for the desperate renter.

Two hard-sided suitcases stood beneath the hanging coats beside the front door. From the shadows beneath the bench, he watched Tekla lay the blanket on the larger one, set the maps and the bottled water on the blanket. As she shut the front door the hinge gave a little squeak. Her black jogging shoes were inches from his nose as she headed down a short hall to his left past a tiny bedroom to a larger one at the back. He followed her, praying she wouldn’t glance around. At the sound of Sam’s muffled voice from the back room, Joe froze. “You want all these clothes?” He didn’t sound happy.

“Just the front ones,” Tekla snapped. She moved on to the larger bedroom, Joe following; even this room was minuscule. Just space for a double bed partly blocking a glass door with the draperies drawn, a dresser, a small armoire that would hold a TV. Tekla entered the small walk-in closet, its door standing wide, Sam’s wheelchair parked beside it. Joe waited in the shadows, watching.

Inside the closet Sam was standing up, supporting himself by gripping the overhead rod. As Tekla lifted off the first few hangers, Joe slipped across behind them to the unmade bed and underneath to the far side.

Rearing up between bed and draperies, he considered the suitcase that lay open atop the tangled sheets and blankets. He was poised to disappear again if they turned. The suitcase was packed with Spandex pants and shirts, most of them black. On top of a folded black tank top lay a handgun, a dark automatic. The clip was in, and he assumed that was loaded. Another clip lay beside it, and two boxes of ammunition marked .32 caliber brass jacketed hollow point, a hundred rounds each. The same caliber bullets as the one that killed Ben.

If he could get out of here with the gun, that would be all ballistics needed—compare these riflings to the bullet that murdered Ben.

Why had he been so sure he’d find a gun? The right gun? And, what am I doing shut in this house within grabbing distance of these people? They’d seen him at the remodel; they knew him, if they’d paid any attention. Whatever, they’d have to wonder what a cat was doing in here.

So they wonder. So, what are they going to think? That I’m tossing the place?

But even so, Sam and Tekla gave him the creeps. In the closet, Sam was saying, “ . . . was a stupid thing to do, a cockamamie idea. You only set the cops onto us.”

“They were already onto us, poking around like they were.”

“That’s your imagination.”

“That boy was right there in the house that morning, he could have seen everything.”

“Then why didn’t he tell the cops?”

“I don’t know, Sam. But I don’t trust him. And it was too good an opportunity to miss, you falling like that on the edge of the walk, wrenching your arm and crying out. There was no one around to say you weren’t pushed and that it wasn’t the boy did it. I thought he was alone this morning, we saw the contractor and that red-bearded carpenter in the village, I thought he’d be alone in the remodel and no one to say where he really was . . . Put him in as bad a light as possible in case he did tell what he saw that morning. Maybe he saw nothing, maybe he heard the shot, but make a liar of him right off, before he started talking. It was just too good not to say it was him. How was I to know he was with the damn cops?”

“You blew it, Tekla. And you made me lie for you. Again,” he said darkly.

“I never made you lie for me. You could have—”

Sam laughed, a bitter, small sound. “What was I supposed to do? Call you a liar, in front of the cops?

“As it is,” he said, easing out of the closet and into his wheelchair, “they’re suspicious now, all right. Hurry it up, let’s get moving. They might have already put a watch on this place.”

He was silent a moment, getting settled properly in the wheelchair. “I want out, Tekla. I want out of this now, I want done with this even if Herbert was—is—my son.”

As Sam turned the chair to wheel toward the bed, Joe slid to the floor and behind the draperies. Looking out through the small space where the two drapes met, he watched Tekla turn to the suitcase carrying a plastic grocery bag. “And what about the house?” Sam was saying. “All that work—and money.”