Кроха - Dedication

One interesting fact, new to the cats, was that three of the victims had only recently moved to the village from San Francisco; and that one had been vacationing there, taking a week off from his job at San Francisco General Hospital as a physician’s assistant.

“So, San Francisco vectors in,” Dulcie said. She cut a look at Joe, knowing what his take would be. Joe didn’t believe in coincidence. If you dug long enough you could usually claw out a connection. The tabby gazed hungrily at Max’s computer, thinking of the victims’ files. With cool speculation, she reached a paw.

Joe stopped her with a quick swipe of claws. “If Evijean barges in here, finds us alone before the lit screen, you want to guess what would happen?”

Dulcie smiled a crooked smile, but she jumped down. They’d have to wait until Max or one of the detectives was into the program, some moment when they could lie on the desk idly washing their paws as they shared departmental information.

Or wait until one or two officers stopped by Joe’s house after his shift, maybe for a few hands of poker with Max and Clyde. Max would talk freely in the Damen household, as would Ryan’s Uncle Dallas. Dulcie looked at Joe. “How long do we wait for a poker game?”

Joe shrugged, he wasn’t hopeful.

Dulcie said, “Talk to Ryan, she’ll get something going.” This wouldn’t be the first time Ryan would conduct behind-the-scene assistance—she was deceptively casual when she eased Clyde into an unplanned poker night for Joe’s benefit: Joe’s dark-haired, blue-eyed housemate did love a conspiracy.

But now, “I don’t know,” Joe said. “As hard as she’s working, and the cranky mood she’s in, I’m not sure she’s up for a poker night. Tekla Bleak, that woman with the remodel, she’s driving Ryan crazy. New complaints every day, foolish and arbitrary changes. Ryan comes home at night as snarly as a possum in a trap.”

They were quiet as two officers came down the hall. When they’d passed on by, Joe dropped from the desk and peered out toward the lobby. No sign of Evijean—maybe she was sitting at her desk, hidden by the counter. They made a dash for the front door as Officer Brennan came in herding a young man before him, unwashed and smelling of whiskey.

Slipping out the door behind them through the miasma of alcohol, they scrambled up the oak tree. They sat on the tile roof only a moment before they headed across the roofs again, moving south and east in the direction of John Firetti’s veterinary clinic. Despite their preoccupation with the attacks, their strongest urge was to sit with Misto. While we can still be with him, Dulcie thought sadly.

Below them along the narrow streets the traffic was heavier now. The fog was thinning, the shops were open, and a few tourists had left their motels, looking up at the sky hoping for sunshine. The smell of coffee and sweet confections rose from the little bakeries, the smell of late bacon and eggs from the small cafés, from clusters of tables in street-side patios. The cats were passing above a tree-shaded court when they stopped, looking down, watching two strangers below. A woman with a cane was limping through the patio toward one of the shops. Behind her a short, older man had turned into the courtyard, walking without sound following the woman, his eyes intently on her; she seemed unaware of him.

4

Looking down from the roof, engulfed in the smells of café breakfasts, Joe and Dulcie watched the woman in tight black workout clothes limp along toward the back shops of the little courtyard, watched the man following her. Her cane was one of those folding aluminum models. Her face and arms were sun-wrinkled, her calves pale between her cutoffs and black socks. She wore sturdy black walking shoes and a black fanny pack strapped low at her side. She glanced uneasily now at the small, thin man behind her, a grizzle-haired fellow wearing a boy-sized leather jacket and jeans. He moved easily, like a boy. He slowed when the woman slowed and pretended to look in a store window. As she limped along she watched his moving reflections. Turning suddenly, she headed toward a small toy store that was just opening.

The cats could see the owner inside pulling up the shades, a tall, bald man in a pale blue sport shirt. As soon as he unlocked the door the woman stepped inside. The two spoke for a few moments, then she moved deep into the shop. The owner stepped out into the courtyard, stood facing the man with a forbidding look. Everyone in the village, it seemed, was on edge over the assaults. The ragged fellow stared back at him, turned away and headed for the street. Neither had spoken. The cats heard, from somewhere behind the shop, a door open and close as if perhaps the woman had slipped out the back, to the side street or an alley.

Within the store, the shopkeeper had picked up the phone. The cats, watching him, watching his gestures, felt certain he was calling the police, giving the man’s description. He glanced out once to see which way the stalker had gone—as Joe and Dulcie turned to follow the little man from above. A few parking places down, he approached a white Toyota pickup. Slipping in, starting the engine, he pulled out into traffic between a UPS van and a pair of wandering pedestrians. The cats saw, behind him, the shopkeeper run from the patio and step into the street, stopping traffic, watching the pickup pull away with a hard, intent look as if he were committing the license to memory.

“He’ll call that in, too,” Dulcie said, smiling, flicking her whiskers.

But the cats had memorized the number as well. “If that was the same person as at the courthouse,” Dulcie said doubtfully, “that we thought was a boy, then somewhere he changed jackets, maybe left the black hoodie in the Toyota.”

“Why not?” Joe said. “Or maybe not the same guy. Maybe he thought to take advantage of the attacks. Snatch a few bucks and lay the crime on the real bully.”

“So even if the real thug’s never caught,” she said, “the crime’s laid on him, and this fellow goes free.”

“He’ll be caught,” Joe said calmly. “A matter of time. Time and stealth.” The tomcat never doubted that between cat-power and the cops, they’d catch the right man. “We’ll call the department from Misto’s house,” he said, hurrying along.

“But the shopkeeper got the number, he’ll be calling right now.”

“Maybe. Or maybe he got it wrong, couldn’t see it all.” Joe didn’t like to depend on chance when it came to humans. “We’ll tell Harper about that kid, too, there in front of the PD following the woman in the wheelchair. If I hadn’t shouted . . .”

Dulcie stopped, gave him a long, steady look. “This time, Joe, let’s leave it. We don’t know that either one was going to attack. We didn’t see an assault.”

His yellow eyes narrowed, his ears went flat. “We saw two stalkers . . . We—”

“Wait, Joe. Wait until we have something certain. We don’t want—we can’t afford to make niggling little tips that could turn out to be nothing.”

His scowl deepened; his claws dug into the shingles.

“We can’t shake their confidence in us, we don’t want them wondering, every time we call, if thistip is worth pursuing.” She nosed at him gently. “Leave the calls for the big stuff. The important information that we know they can run with. Don’t throw it away on conjectures.”

Joe turned and trotted away from her, over a low, shingled peak, toward Ocean Avenue. He badly wanted to get to a phone. He didn’t like to admit that maybe, just maybe, Dulcie might be right.

She caught up with him quickly, nosing at him so he wouldn’t be cross. But she stopped abruptly, peering over the edge of the roof at a plump couple in matching red sweatshirts: the couple from in front of the PD, the woman’s unruly hair tangled around her jowly face. Joe had a sharp recall of the red-sweatered couple turning to stare at the would-be victim, then moving quickly away as if they didn’t want to be seen.

When the portly couple turned into the low-walled patio of the Ocean Café, Dulcie followed them. Joe wanted to move on to a phone.

“Just for a minute,” she said. “I want . . . there’s something about those two.” With Dulcie so keenly intent, suddenly so focused, Joe put aside the thought of the phone, his own curiosity tweaked, too, and he followed her.

The brick terrace was crowded with small round tables draped in red, blue, or green cloths. As soon as the couple in red was seated, the cats backed down a stone pine, dropped down inside the wall and behind a row of potted geraniums.

“From the looks of them,” Dulcie whispered, “they could skip a few breakfasts,” But glancing down at her own tummy bulge, she thought she shouldn’t criticize.

No one was looking as the cats slipped under the table’s blue cloth, avoiding the couple’s canvas-clad feet; avoiding the woman’s floppy carryall that she’d set on the floor, one of those flowered, quilted numbers that tourists couldn’t resist. Crouched in the shadows, they listened to the rustle of their menus and to their discussion of what sounded good—blintzes, omelet, hash browns. The cats licked their whiskers. Dulcie’s appetite lately had been way too demanding, another aspect of her secret that was hard to conceal from Joe Grey.

The click of footsteps and the deep voice of the waiter brought his black shoes gleaming just inches from their noses. The tinkle of ice as he poured water. He offered coffee and poured it, and the couple gave their matching orders: pancakes, eggs, ham, and apple pie. The sound of the server’s shoes clicked away again. The restaurant and patio were crowded, so the staff didn’t linger.

The woman’s voice was grainy and low. “That was her, all right, Howard. She’s colored her hair different, it was blond before, but the same big brown eyes with those little creases, same long face. Same tennis tan,” she said with sarcasm. “She wasn’t in a cast and wheelchair then, but that’s the same woman. Bonnie something, don’t you remember? Even the same gold hair clip and gold earrings, I remember those.”

“So?” Howard said. “How would I remember? I wasn’t there every day, like you. And she has as much right to come down here as we do. Half of San Francisco vacations in Molena Point—even if we do come down partly to see your sister. But that woman—Bonnie, you said?—and that Betty Porter, they have nothing to do with us.”

“But we are connected, Howard. That’s just the point. That Bonnie woman and that Betty Porter. We are connected, that’s what’s scary—scary, when Betty Porter was hurt so bad, Howard.”

“Coincidence,” Howard said gruffly. “An accident. What else could it be?”

They both had harsh, whiskey voices. Maybe the result of advancing age and thickening vocal cords, or maybe they liked their booze as well as a big breakfast.

But it was breakfast that quieted the two. The minute their orders came, all discussion ended; there was silence except for the clatter of knives and forks on plates. The sounds of greedy humans gulping their food made Dulcie feel queasy. Whoever said a cat didn’t get morning sickness, even this late in the game, didn’t know much about felines.

Ignoring her unsteadiness, too curious to be still, the tabby reached out a paw, and with careful claws she drew the floppy purse away from the woman’s foot. With teeth and claws she loosened the drawstring, then gently pulled the bag open.

She peered in, then half crawled in, her head and shoulders down inside the bag. Joe watched the woman in case she reached down for the floppy purse, wondering what he’d do if she did reach.Hurry up, he thought, half annoyed at Dulcie, half amused.

Dulcie backed out from the depths of the carryall, her teeth clamped gently around a fat red billfold, trying not to leave tooth marks. Laying it on the brick paving, she worked the snap loose and pawed it open.

The two cats, ears and whiskers touching, studied the driver’s license: Effie Hoop, clearly incised beside her wide-faced picture. Quickly they memorized the San Francisco address, both wishing they had Kit’s keen, photographic memory.

Dropping the billfold back in the bag, and still with only the sounds of eating from above and no useful conversation, Dulcie and Joe slipped out from under the table, slid behind the geraniums again, and leaped up the patio wall. Landing lightly on the narrow edge, they were about to spring up the stone pine to the roof when they saw Ryan’s truck coming down the street.

The big red king cab swerved in to the curb where a minivan was pulling away. With parking spots at a premium, Ryan was lucky. On the far side, the driver’s door opened. The cats were about to drop off the wall, trot across the sidewalk, and join her when they saw that it wasn’t Ryan. The driver was her new carpenter, Ben Stonewell, apparently running an errand. Yes, the bed of the long pickup was loaded with new kitchen cabinets, all carefully shrouded in plastic and cardboard, the logo of the cabinetmaker stamped on the wrappings. Ben entered the restaurant patio at the far end.

Ben Stonewell was a shy young man, quiet, reclusive, not much of a talker. He’d been in the village less than a year, working for Ryan. He had left a large construction company up the coast because they moved him around so often from job to job, from one city to another. He’d told Ryan he wanted to settle in one place, in a small, friendly town. He liked to hike and run on the beach. He was heading for the takeout counter at the back of the patio when he glanced across to where the red-shirted couple was seated. He paused, startled. He was still for only an instant and then, his face turned away, he moved on quickly.

Probably he was picking up lunch for himself and Ryan’s red-bearded foreman, her uncle Scott Flannery. Usually the men brought their lunches, but once in a while they splurged on burgers and fries. At the counter he paid for a bulging paper bag, pulled his cap low, turned away again from the portly couple. Double-timing back through the patio to the street, he never showed his face to them. He slid into the truck fast, started the engine, and pulled away, heading back to the job.

From atop the wall, Dulcie looked after him, her tail twitching. “What was that about? Why would Ben hide from those two, they’re tourists. How does he know them?” Leaping up the stone pine lashing her tail, she looked back at Joe, her ears flat in a puzzled frown. “This Hoop couple. The woman in the wheelchair. Betty Porter. And now . . . Is Ben Stonewell part of the puzzle? What are we seeing?”

“We’re seeing bit and pieces. Too few pieces.” The tomcat rankled at, but relished, this process of scattered hints slowly coming together, of clues falling one by one into place in ways he hadn’t anticipated. Like cornering a mouse that darted in a hundred directions before it came to ground.

“It will all fit together,” he said confidently. “All of a sudden. So simple we’ll wonder that we didn’t see it right at first.”

He glanced down again at the couple in the patio, then leaped from the wall to the roof and they galloped away across the shingles toward Ocean Avenue, heading for Misto’s cottage.

In order to cross that wide, divided street, they backed down a bougainvillea vine and entered the crosswalk close on the heels of three tourists, young Asian girls leading a fluffy brown dog. The little mutt looked around at the cats, put his nose in the air, and hurried along in disdain. The traffic halted obediently for human pedestrians, whereas drivers might not see a cat or a small dog. On the far curb Joe and Dulcie fled past the little group and up a honeysuckle vine to the roof of a furniture boutique. Only then did the dog start to bark, at the nervy cats.