Officer Brennan came outside with Alfreda, where she sat down on the little low wall that flanked the porch. Three more squad cars arrived, their radios spewing canned voices, their spotlights washing across the neighbors’ yards and even up across the rooftops, forcing the cats to flatten themselves in order to stay out of sight. Leaving the black-and-whites, four officers ran for the greenbelt, their torch lights cutting through the bushes. The blare of a bullhorn thundered, telling the escapees to stop. It was pitch-dark back there, the swinging lights blinding as they swept into the tangled woods cutting pale swaths across the tree trunks.
In the Tudor house a light came on in Maudie’s bedroom, the cats could see her silhouette at the window, looking out. The guest room windows remained dark. Were Benny and Jared still sound asleep, unaware of the crashing and running, of breaking bushes and even of the bullhorn?
“Maybe the cops can make Risso talk,” Kit said. “Maybe he’ll ID the others.”
“Would he? Risso—Marlin Dorriss—he’s a cold one.”
“To save his own skin, he might.” She turned to look at Misto. “I never thought of Dorriss doing strong-arm stuff, like hitting a woman. Thought of him as the gentleman thief, the con artist, the slick crook who gets others to do his dirty work.”
“Maybe so, but they were afraid of him in prison. All the men were. And why do you care so much?” he said with interest.
Her yellow eyes widened. “I hate that man. These invasions are for one purpose. To discredit Max Harper, discredit the department, to hurt our friends. The cops are our friends. I hope Risso rots in jail for the rest of his life, that those men burn in hell forever.”
“I’ve never had a human friend I cared so much about.” Misto licked his paw. “What must that be like, to love a human friend?”
“That’s why you came here,” Kit said, “to find friends, cat and human. We’re your friends now,” she said softly. She went silent as a big pickup came up the hill and pulled to the curb. Max Harper got out, looking pleased that Crowley had nailed Dorriss. He wasn’t wearing his usual Western boots tonight, but soft black running shoes, more than ready for a chase. Up the street, Maudie had disappeared from her upstairs window, and in a moment she came out the front door. Standing quietly on the porch, she watched the scene below. Behind her, Jared came out of the front door, yawning, his hair tousled from sleep. He had pulled on a striped robe over the sweatpants he must have slept in, had pulled on his running shoes, the laces still untied. He yawned again, stood on the porch staring down the street toward the police cars.
“What’s happened? Not another invasion? Not here!”
“Where’s Benny?” Maudie asked with alarm.
“Sound asleep, he didn’t stir.” He didn’t take his eyes from the street. “It’s a robbery of some kind, the way they’re searching the yards. The lights and bullhorn woke me, their torches shining up.” He started down the steps toward the dark yards as if he meant to help search, but Maudie caught his arm. “Don’t, Jared. Don’t go out there, let the police handle it.”
He looked at her, and pulled away.
“Stay here,” she said boldly, almost angrily. “If you get into the tangle, they could mistake you for one of the burglars. In the dark they might shoot you.”
He hesitated. “I suppose you’re right, but … I’ll just go look in the backyard,” he said edgily, “while they’re searching down there. Maybe—”
“No,” Maudie began, “you—”
“Stay where you are,” Max Harper said, stepping out of the shadows beside the house. As Jared spun around, Harper grabbed him, threw him against the doorjamb, and jerked his arms behind him. Maudie caught her breath as Harper snapped handcuffs on him.
“What is this? Jared didn’t … He isn’t …” Then Maudie looked down, where Max Harper was looking.
The two cats, peering over the edge of the roof, could see it, too. A faint trail of grass clippings led across the porch from within the house. When Maudie turned on the inside light, two trails of clippings led up the stairs for as far as the cats could see, one on each side of the steps. In the entry, one trail turned away toward the kitchen, one followed Jared out onto the porch where he now stood. And when the cats looked back at Jared, they saw bits of grass clinging to the elastic cuffs of his sweatpants, to his damp running shoes and to his dangling shoestrings.
An officer came up from Alfreda’s house, and together he and Harper loaded Jared into a squad car. Same drill with the leg irons, same ducking of Jared’s head to clear the door. Maudie stood very still in the doorway, simply watching. As the two squad cars took off with their prisoners, heading for the station followed by another black-and-white, Detective Ray’s old rental Ford pulled up in front of Maudie’s house. Kathleen, dressed in jeans and sweatshirt, was carrying an evidence bag. She spoke with Maudie and Max Harper briefly and then began taking photographs of the two trails of grass, one coming down the stairs and out to the porch, the other leading away to the studio. On the roof, Kit gave Misto a quizzical look.
“That’s one we were wrong about,” she said. “Jared Colletto. Well, he was quick on his feet, you have to give him that. Slipped out of the house after Maudie went to bed? Was down there, closing in on Alfreda’s house, when the cops grabbed Risso?”
“He had to be one of the three the cops chased,” Misto said. “He veered away behind Maudie’s house, where we couldn’t see him, into the studio and upstairs again.”
“Threw on his robe,” Kit said, “and came down yawning, with not a thought to the grass clippings. Jared Colletto,” she repeated, and she felt sad that someone she’d almost trusted had turned out to be all deception and lies.
38
FROM MAUDIE’S ROOF, Kit and Misto continued to watch Alfreda’s house, where Detective Garza was lifting prints from the front door and surround. It was nearly an hour since Marlin Dorriss and Jared had been taken away in a patrol car, Jared wearing his robe and sweatpants and a pair of bedroom slippers, his grass-covered jogging shoes having been bagged as evidence. They’d watched Dallas collect and bag fibers caught on the Meier house’s door molding, and photograph and make casts of five footprints incised in the garden earth along the edge of the lawn. They’d watched Maudie go down the hill and disappear within Alfreda’s house, apparently to commiserate with the frightened woman.
Most of the officers had departed, leaving behind a barrier of yellow crime-scene tape surrounding the house and yard. Detective Ray had finished photographing the grassy trails that entered Maudie’s house and out again, and had gone upstairs to the guest room. They could see her through the window, examining Jared’s clothes and duffel and photographing with sharp flashes of strobe light. Kit didn’t know what Kathleen could take into possession without a court order, but she guessed Maudie’s house was part of the scene now, too, and she could confiscate any evidence. Ever curious, Kit padded along the narrow lip of roof beneath the window to look in, squeezing her eyes closed when the light flashed. Benny was sound asleep, as deep under as a kitten tucked against its mama. The little boy had burrowed beneath the covers, head and all, cutting out the noise and the painful flashes; all one could really see was a lump of quilt and blanket. Had he slept like this all through the chase, even through the bellow of the bullhorn? He didn’t stir at Kathleen’s intrusion, though Kit herself squeezed her eyes closed at each lift of the camera to avoid the fierce blazes of the strobe light. Kit returned to the garage roof squinting and shaking her head.
Out on the street, before Alfreda’s house, Officer Brennan had settled down in his patrol car as if to stay and keep watch; Kit could smell the coffee from his thermos and the faint scent of cinnamon as he unwrapped what was probably a sweet roll. Dallas was packing up to leave, putting his equipment in the trunk, when his cell phone buzzed. When he flipped on the speaker, Max’s voice crackled with a tinny sound. “Arlie’s all tucked away—one more alias to add to Dorriss’s file. That tip made all the difference, put us right on the scene.”