"Lori. She went up there to find out about her pa. Find out why he was so mean to her, why he locked her in."
"You're saying her pa killed those children?"
"No. Let me finish."
"And what could an old woman-"
"Genelle Yardley worked for him, Joe. For years and years. She was his office manager. She didn't know why he'd turned so strange. But she and Lori hit it off right away."
Impatiently, Joe chewed at his left-front claws, pulling off the loose sheaths, leaving the claws bright and knife-sharp.
"Joe, they were so… Genelle said Lori's pa turned peculiar after his brother went away." She looked at him smugly. "Hal Reed went away suddenly, six years ago. Never came back. Story was, Hal moved to Seattle, to spend his time fishing."
"You're saying Lori's uncle killed those children, then left? Come on, Dulcie. Why-"
She hissed at him, her ears back, her tail lashing. "Just listen, Joe. Lori found his billfold, Hal's billfold with his driver's license and credit cards. And with it, his favorite belt and a gold ring that Lori says he always wore. Found them in her pa's garage, in a box of old clothes. She has them," Dulcie said, "in the library basement, in her backpack. Why would he go away and leave his billfold and driver's license and credit cards?"
"Why, indeed," Joe said, licking her ear. "Very nice, Dulcie. You had an interesting morning. And what else might be found hidden in Jack Reed's house?"
"Exactly," she said softly, and gave him a sly smile. And the cats rose together and slipped out of the bushes. They were galloping up the cracked drive, their minds on tossing Jack Reed's house, when a startled "Whoa!" from down inside the tent stopped them as if they'd been snatched back by their tails. Alan Hyden's voice was so excited, the cats nearly fell over each other racing back to the tent.
"Hand me the camera," Hyden said. "Get Harper or Garza on the phone."
Dulcie, because she had no white on her face, slid under first to look. She was there for only an instant, just her striped haunches visible, her striped tail twitching. She backed out suddenly from under the canvas, whirled around wild eyed, and fled for the bushes. Alarmed, Joe raced close beside her.
Peering out, they didn't breathe. Joe wanted to scorch away, but Dulcie remained frozen, watching as Hyden stepped out the tent door and began to circle the big canvas shelter, studying the ground and the surrounding bushes. As Hyden approached their hiding place, his footsteps squished though the wet leaves, his trouser legs rattling the branches as he knelt to examine Joe's paw print in the mud. Leave it to a forensics detective. At his approach, they backed deeper in, pressing hard against the heavy branches. Crouched to run, both cats told themselves, So what? What if he sees us? We're cats! Cats creep around under bushes all the time. What's the big deal? We're hunting. So we looked under the tent, so we're nosy. So cats are nosy!
But Hyden did not like cats, did not want cats anywhere near to contaminate his work. Who knew what he would do? They kept their eyes squeezed shut, and their pale parts hidden, Joe knotted so tightly into a gray ball that he felt like a hedgehog. They listened for some time to Hyden poking around and under the bushes. At last he turned away, parting the shrubs farther on, making Dulcie smile. Had the great cat god once again given them a little help? Or was Alan Hyden, despite his superior professional reputation, beginning to need glasses?
Hyden stood for a moment in the garden looking down into the ravine before he returned to the tent. Watching him, Dulcie wondered if he was more concerned about paw prints among the evidence, or about some cat making off with the bones. Some feral cat, or a neighbor's cat leaving chew marks on the bones, marks the anthropologist would have to sort out and account for. In a few minutes, both men came out and began pounding additional stakes around the edges of the canvas. The cats listened to Hyden call the station, leaving a message for either Harper or Garza, an urgent message that gave no information, just said to be in touch ASAP; a message that made the cats glance at each other, wondering if they should risk another look under the flap.
"What did you see?" Joe asked.
"Nothing! He was in the way. But they sure were excited."
"Come on, let's try again for a look."
"It's too risky," Dulcie said. "These guys' minds are way too inquisitive. You can find out later, at the station." And, their own inquisitive minds totally frustrated, they slipped away at last to Jack Reed's house for a quiet break-and-enter.
26
Looking out at the bright morning, Charlie switched on the coffeepot. Standing beside her at the counter, Ryan cut a coffee cake she'd brought for their morning break, from Jolly's Deli, a confection of dates, pecans, and honey. "That'll put on the pounds," Charlie said. "Not at all. Work it off by the end of the day." "Maybe you will." Charlie took an experimental bite, and closed her eyes with pleasure. "That is purely sinful. I have to save some for Max, he didn't eat breakfast. He got a call before we were up; I guess we slept in, a little. He left right away, didn't say what it was." She glanced at Ryan uneasily. "Just-another message where the informer won't give a name." She reached to pour the coffee. "Guess I shouldn't knock it, that pair is good. It was the fe-the woman's voice this time."
Ryan took four plates from the cupboard, doling out generous slices of coffee cake. She looked Charlie over, laughing. "You used to be a redhead. There's so much Sheetrock dust in your hair, you've gone prematurely gray." Charlie's green T-shirt, too, was white with dust. Reaching up, she felt the grit on her face. "Are my freckles gone?"
"Almost. I like you better with."
Turning on the tap, Charlie ducked her face under and scrubbed. She was glad she'd covered the kitchen floor with a tarp to keep from tracking the white dust; it got into everything. She'd been sanding the taped and mudded Sheetrock intently for two hours, needing to keep working, to do something after Max left. She'd skipped her own breakfast and gotten right to work, her mind filled with the kit.
Had that been the kit who called this morning, after she was safely home? Or had it been Dulcie? Max said it was a woman, that was all. "Gotta go. Damned snitch-claims to have a lead. Some kind of evidence." Hanging up, he'd called Dallas on his cell, given him directions to some cottage in the heart of the village, then taken off. He'd been cross, the snitch always made him cross, Charlie thought, smiling. But he'd been wired, too, with a satisfied excitement.
She hated lying to Max, keeping secrets from him that, in her mind, amounted to the same thing as lying. Though it did amuse her that he hadn't a clue who his informants were. And it surely amused the cats. But now she stood seeing again Patty Rose lying dead, imagining the blaze of the firing gun as Patty must have seen it in the last seconds of her life. And then seeing the little graves, too, and wondering if there was any place in the world where ugliness no longer happened. Since yesterday when Cora Lee uncovered that little hand she kept imagining the faces of those children, and of their frantic parents.
Setting down her coffee cup so hard she nearly broke it, she watched Ryan carry coffee cake in to Scotty and Dillon. It was Saturday, and young Dillon Thurwell worked every weekend. Though the child had arrived for work this morning so silent and pale that Charlie had thought she was sick. Dillon had gotten right to work, though. No one said anything about the graves, but maybe Dillon had seen the morning paper, maybe the death of those children had upset her.
Charlie had wanted to speak to her about the tea party for Genelle Yardley, to make sure Dillon would join them. It seemed barbaric, to go ahead with such a celebration. But when Dorothy Street called last night, she'd assured them Patty would want them to, that the tea party was Patty's final gesture of friendship for Genelle. That if Patty was anything, she was hardheaded, that Dorothy wouldn't be surprised to see Patty's ghost striding across the inn's patio giving orders for the tea, telling the staff exactly what to serve and where everyone was to be seated. Charlie looked up at Ryan. "I've never been to a proper tea."