The morning after the Christmas-tree incident, Max had looked distressed and angry when he told her about the three cats snuggled up with the little girl, and she could do nothing but brush it off. “ Clyde lives right behind the plaza, Max. I imagine his cat does roam in those gardens, that’s safer for a cat than the street.”
“And the other cats? Wilma’s cat? Greenlaws’ cat? Why would…?”
“They hang out together,” she’d said with a shrug. “You know how cats are.”
“No, Charlie, I don’t know how cats are. I know dogs hang out together. I know horses hang out together. I’ve always believed that cats were loners.”
“No.” She’d laughed. “Cats are just as social. They’re simply quieter about it. You’ve never been around cats very much. Look how Clyde ’s cat hangs around the station. That’s about as social as a cat can get.”
“That’s because Mabel feeds him.”
She shook her head. “Joe is a very sociable cat. I’ve watched him, and I think he likes you and Dallas. Cats are fascinating, Max. They’re all so different from one another.”
Max had to take her word for it. Charlie, having studied cats for her drawings and for her new book, had gained a reputation with him as an unchallengeable authority on the subject. And that, Charlie thought, is just the way I want it. As long as Max considered her an authority, she might be able to sidetrack his doubts.
But maybe I am an authority, she thought, hiding a laugh, considering what I know about the talents of certain felines.
19
T HE CHILL, SUNNY morning had warmed considerably as Charlie left her car, walking between the pale stucco courthouse, the broad parking area, and the courthouse gardens that were bright with red and pink camellias and cyclamen. Moving into the station through the heavy glass door, she stopped at the dispatcher’s desk to chat with blond, middle-aged Mabel Farthy. She admired Mabel’s countertop Christmas tree, and handed Mabel the bakery box that she’d bought from Jolly’s Deli, picking it up on her way from the gallery.
“Not homemade,” she told Mabel. “The spirit’s willing, but I can’t seem to find the time. They’re good, though,” she said, opening the box of Christmas cookies. “I sampled a couple, at the deli, just to make sure.”
They gossiped idly until Mabel’s radios demanded attention, then Charlie moved on down the hall to Max’s office. There she paused, swallowing back a laugh.
Max sat at his desk, deep into a stack of paperwork. When he looked up and saw her, his lean face broke into a grin. Across the room, Dallas sat on the leather couch behind a messy stack of files spread out before him on the coffee table. But it was the other three occupants who made her smile: from beneath the credenza, Dulcie’s green eyes and Kit’s yellow gaze met hers, as wide and innocent as kittens’. And from the book shelves behind Max, between volumes of the California Penal Code, Joe Grey looked boldly back at her.
Max’s closed, cop’s look had vanished at the sight of her, his brown eyes lighting with pleasure. “Come join us. Get yourself some coffee, we were just going over the Greenlaws’ break-in, you can help us brainstorm.”
Flattered, Charlie poured a mug of coffee and sat down in the leather chair from where she could catch glimpses of Dulcie and Kit. Max’s office was welcoming and comfortable, nothing like the old, noisy corner of the open squad room, before he’d bullied the city into remodeling the department-nice oak desk, leather chair and couch just nicely worn, the deep-colored Persian rug that Charlie had contributed, and three walls hung with her drawings of Max’s other love, his buckskin gelding.
Settling down into the leather chair, balancing her coffee, she thought how handsome Max looked, leathery and lean-and all hers, she thought, suppressing a grin. “What did you get on the prints?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing on the woman who broke into Greenlaws’. Nothing on the prints from the Christmas-tree scene.”
“You mean they haven’t come back yet? They must be backed up.”
“No, I mean both sets came back negative. National, and regional.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“It happens. Guy doesn’t have a record, never been in the military, has never applied for a government or sensitive job.”
Behind Max, Joe Grey looked royally annoyed. But at Garza’s glance, he busied himself washing his paws. Max and Dallas were used to Joe prowling their offices, but this intense scrutiny wasn’t needed. Charlie knew both men enjoyed the tomcat’s company, though they wouldn’t admit it. Maybe a friendly, visiting animal is as therapeutic for a cop as it is for a hospital patient. A little purr to break the tension. Therapy cats for cops, the latest medical break-through-soothing feline intervention for overstressed law enforcement. If she didn’t stop, she was going to giggle.
But as Max laid out what they did have on the Greenlaws’ burglar, the cats were not in a nurturing mood. Watching the three little beasts, Charlie could see clearly their sharp annoyance at the lack of information.
There was nothing the three cats valued so highly as the nationwide electronic data available within the department-that intelligence, plus their access to the officers’ private discussions, all provided needed answers and filled in empty spaces. Without these visits, their clandestine assistance to Molena Point PD would be much less helpful; every investigation in which the cats took part was, unknown to the officers, a cooperative effort between feline and cop, reinforced by nationwide electronic resources.
“Possibly we have the make on the woman’s car,” Max said. “Car’s been parked for several days on different streets near the Greenlaws’. Four neighborhood complaints. Brennan was about to have it hauled off. It’s registered to Evina Woods. Eugene, Oregon, address that turned out to be a vacant lot. Cameron is lifting prints-but there’s not much else we can do, unless the Greenlaws file charges.”
“I thought,” Charlie said, “that by this morning Lucinda might have changed her mind.”
Max shook his head. “I’ve never known Lucinda to be so indecisive. Or hardheaded. She knows a break-and-enter can turn ugly. Says she wants a couple of days to watch the woman, see what she does.”
“That just isn’t like Lucinda,” Charlie said. “What if this is connected to the break-ins at the school? Or to the murder or whatever happened in the plaza?”
“We don’t know that,” Max said.
“You said yourself you don’t believe in coincidences.”
“I don’t believe in jumping to conclusions, either. But,” he said, his voice softening, “we do know that the little girl wasn’t molested, and that’s good news.”
“Has she told Davis anything?”
“She still hasn’t spoken. Maybe she can’t speak, though the doctors could find no physical cause.”
Dallas said, “The bloodstains on her clothes and around the Christmas tree were human, all type O positive, that’s pretty common. Looks like the body was dragged into the car that was backed up into the plaza.”
“And still no witnesses?” Charlie said. “No one came forward after the newspaper article?”
“Not yet,” Max said. “If we had a make on the vehicle, something besides the tire casts…”
“They don’t match the car around the Greenlaws’ house?”
Max shook his head. “We’ve found no connection.”
“But what if there were? What if that woman turned out to be the killer, hiding at the Greenlaws’? Is Lucinda thinking of that?”