At home he unhitched the car and backed it deep in the shed, tucked the envelope of copied statements in his pocket. Parked the truck just outside where he always did. He checked his watch again. This was Saturday, the best night to try, but he had plenty of time. He knew that little area, it was closer than the village, he knew most of the shopkeepers. The bank stayed open until six on Saturdays so people could deposit their pay, and the restaurant owners could make big deposits to nearly empty their safes before the busiest night of the week when robberies would be lucrative. Restaurant safes were weaker than a bank vault.
Throwing a saddle on his bay gelding he headed at a jog then an easy canter for the Harper place. It was Charlie who had taught Mindy to guide a horse with body movement, easy and nice, a little pressure, a little shift of weight.
He could see Charlie in the kitchen pouring a cup of coffee. She waved him in, and reached for another cup. She had cut her curly red hair short, a bright cap where it used to be a long flaming tangle tied back out of the wind.
Throwing his reins over the hitching rack near the pasture fence, he entered through the all-purpose front door into a big, tile-floored mud room, hooks for jackets, shelves for boots, long sink for scrubbing up hands and arms, pots of flowers on the windowsill. One door stood open to the kitchen, another to the big, high-raftered living room that looked out across the pastures to the sea. When he entered the kitchen, Charlie looked at his expression for a long minute, gave him a hello hug and led him to the table. He didn’t visit often without phoning, didn’t visit for no reason. She looked at the brown envelope he laid on the table, her bright, freckled face puzzled and then uneasy. She reached to the kitchen counter, fetched a plate of gingerbread; looked back at the envelope then at Zebulon, waiting.
“Would you hide it for me where no one else will find it? Well, if Max finds it, that’s okay. At my house, nothing’s very secure. Hide it from Max and not tell him unless he does find it. Or until the time is right. Is that putting too much on a cop’s wife?”
Charlie laughed. “Can you tell me what it is, or is that a secret, too?”
“It’s copies of Nevin’s bank statements, a bank up the coast. I don’t know if they mean anything. I think they do, and that Max will want them. The originals are in Nevin’s dresser. Are you okay with them here, or do they put you in trouble?”
Charlie touched the shoulder holster under her light vest, and grinned at him. The statements would be safe here. She took the envelope, stepped into the living room and behind the fireplace. He heard a stone slide, then a lock click and turn several times. Heard a metal door open.
She returned without the envelope, her stardust of freckles bright with interest, her green eyes wide with questions she wouldn’t ask. Whatever this was about, she knew he had his reasons. That he was doing the right thing, or getting ready to do it. She knew Zeb wouldn’t make trouble for Max.
As for Zeb, he trusted Charlie as he trusted the chief himself. He finished his coffee and gingerbread. He rose, gave her a hug, left quietly out the mud entry. He untied his gelding and headed home, the back way again, they were hardly seen as the bay moved quietly through the woods. At home Zeb unsaddled him, rubbed him down, and went inside to his room.
He had a little nap, drifting off wondering how all this would turn out, wondering if he was making too much of nothing.
He was up and left the house around five, drove in to the shopping center across Highway One from the village: newer grocery, drugstore, lots of casual restaurants and shops, fire station across the side road. He’d liked Molena Point when it was smaller, when this here land was all dairy barns and pastures, before the village started to outgrow itself.
He pulled into a small alley behind the drugstore where he could see the backs of a row of restaurants; and just across the blacktop, cars parked before the bank, its fluorescent lights reflected in their windows. He killed the engine and sat in his car watching for a possible shopkeeper on his way to make a deposit.
Yes, he didn’t wait long and here came Jon Jaarel driving into the lot in his new, white Lexus hatchback. Older, blond man, his once athletic trim still thin but going soft. Jon pulled in carefully between a bread delivery truck and a tall, rented camper, a narrow space where he wouldn’t readily be seen by some pickpocket; the way Jaarel acted, Zeb knew he had money on him. As Jaarel opened the door and started to step out, his trench coat pooched in front as if he were pregnant. In the shadows of the tall vehicles, a car drew up nosing into the narrow space between Jaarel’s door and the truck; the driver swung out, bundled up in the chill dusk, heavy jacket, hood pulled up. As Jaarel stepped out, the driver hauled back and slammed the door against Jaarel, knocking him hard into his own steering wheel and slamming the door against him. Jaarel struggled as the robber leaned in, ripped open Jaarel’s trench coat, snatched out the money bag, and slammed the door in Jon Jaarel’s face, a terrible blow. And the man was gone, barely a flash of his green car as he spun and sped away.
Jaarel lay still in his white hatchback, bleeding, as Thelma’s car disappeared among the shops and small streets.
Nevin. The robber was Nevin.
Shamed and shocked, Zebulon wanted to run across and help Jaarel but he didn’t have the nerve to be seen there. He was certain Jon was dead, the way the blood was gushing. And what if Nevin saw him? Grabbing his old phone, he hit the emergency button and alerted the local branch of the fire department, which was right across the highway. He backed out of the alley looking for Nevin but didn’t see him. Didn’t see any cops. He drove sedately up a side street as an ambulance screamed out of the station and across the main road.
Joe Grey waited, pacing with hunger, for their friends to arrive with their potluck supper offerings. At last here came Wilma, sliding out of her car carrying a wrapped casserole, Dulcie and Courtney leaping out behind her, noses to the air sniffing the good smell of her tamale pie. As Wilma headed for the kitchen, the Greenlaws double-parked in the drive. Kit and Pan jumped out of the black Lincoln Town Car and raced in the house, Pedric behind them carrying a tray covered with clear wrap that smelled like a field of ripe strawberries. Joe was rearing up sniffing the good scents of supper when they heard, from across the street, a car start. Curious, Joe raced to the front window to look, the other cats crowding behind him. Thelma’s car, the green Volvo, was just turning the corner up toward Highway One, Nevin driving. Thelma stood in the yard looking sour, then turned back in the house scowling and dragging Mindy behind her. Maybe Nevin was going to the store, they always fought over that. Nevin said it was Thelma’s place to do the shopping. She said she’d shop if he’d cook, but he never did. Maybe he’d said her car needed running so the battery wouldn’t die.
Abandoning the sleazy couple, the cats returned to the kitchen; the big room was full of talk and laughter, the sounds of plates and silverware, and the aroma of supper and of the garlic bread that Charlie had just brought in. She didn’t have to say, Max is working. He usually was. Clyde was saying, “It’s Dulcie and Courtney and Kit that I worry about—it’s the sweet cuddly ones that a cat dealer would steal and sell.”