Joe nuzzled her and licked her ear, and the three cats looked at one another. What was happening to Dillon? And, more to the point, what were they to do about it?
Joe said, "It's time to tell the captain."
The kit's eyes widened; but she didn't argue. She just looked very sad.
"The closest key maker to Alice's Mirror," Joe said, "is Jarman's, just down the street behind the fire station. Otherwise she'd have to go out on the highway." Thoughtfully he licked his paw. "Mr. Jarman would remember her."
Harry Jarman was an elderly, round-faced, gray-haired, gentle old man who had been making keys for the village ever since he was a young fellow. He knew everyone in Molena Point. Even though Consuela hadn't been in the village long, the old man would know who she was, he didn't miss a thing. If he had made a key for Consuela Benton, he would remember that.
Dulcie licked the kit's ear. "Don't grieve, Kit. You did just right to tell us. This is best for Dillon, she can't go on like this, she'd have no life." Dulcie looked at Joe. "You want to call the captain, or shall I?"
"I'll call him. I can tell him Consuela took the key to be copied. I don't have to mention Dillon."
Dulcie's eyes widened. The kit's ears pricked up, and her tail lifted more cheerfully. But as the three cats headed for Dulcie's house and the phone, Joe himself felt frustrated and sad. Even if he didn't mention Dillon, Garza and Harper would know; they would quickly uncover the younger girl's role in the matter. And, glancing at Dulcie, he knew she was thinking the same.
Before Max Harper had the interior of the building that housed Molena Point PD remodeled, his desk had occupied a six-by-six space at the back of the open squad room. He'd had no walls for privacy, no bookshelves, preferring, then, a work area where he could see and hear everything that went on among his officers: a sacrifice of privacy for control that Harper no longer needed. Now, since the remodeling, the captain enjoyed the luxury of real walls and a solid door, which he had quickly come to appreciate. Charlie said he'd lived a spartan life long enough. She had bought the leather couch as an anniversary present: one month married, time to celebrate. She had added two red leather easy chairs and a bright India rug from their own home. Three of Charlie's drawings hung on the walls where Max could enjoy them, portraits of Max's gelding, Bucky. Harper's work calendar and charts stood in a rack to the right of his desk, at easy glance for the chief but not openly displayed to visitors-though that did not deter Joe Grey.
Joe entered Harper's office this morning on the heels of Mabel Farthy, the blond and portly dispatcher, as she delivered Harper's early lunch, her approach down the hall wafting the scent of garlic and pastrami like a long and diaphanous bridal veil behind her. As Mabel set the takeout bag on the desk, and Harper turned to slip some reports into the file drawer, a swift gray shadow slid behind the couch.
Charlie had carefully arranged the furniture with the cats in mind. The couch stood as near the door as she could manage, and she had chosen a style with legs high enough so Joe and Dulcie didn't have to squeeze down like pancakes. Feline surveillance didn't have to be an exercise in flattened spines and shallow breathing.
Joe, drinking in the heavy aroma of pastrami, watched two sets of shoes enter: Detective Garza's tan leather loafers and Detective Juana Davis's regulation black oxfords over black stockings. Garza settled into one of the red leather chairs, stretching out his long legs. His tan chinos were neatly pressed, his Dockers fashionably scuffed.
Beneath the couch, Joe made sure his paws were out of sight-he didn't want to appear to be spying.
Dallas Garza had a deep fondness for fine hunting dogs, but until recently he had never understood, or given much thought to, cats-until Joe Grey came on the scene. Working judiciously on Garza's attitude, Joe had seen the detective develop, over many months, an almost passable fondness for certain felines, at least for those cats who crossed his professional path.
Having spent a week freeloading in the Garza cottage closely observing the detective, Joe had decided that he could trust this new addition to the department. Of course Garza had no notion of the intimate telephone conversations and interdepartmental reports that he had shared that week with the gray tomcat.
As Joe pulled in his paws, Detective Davis sat down at the end of the couch just above him. As she slipped off her shoes and tucked her feet up under her, her shifting weight forced little squinching noises from the new leather. Protocol was not an issue with these three; you could take your shoes off if you liked. Only honesty and ethics mattered. Juana, Max, and Dallas played poker together, usually in Clyde and Joe's kitchen.
As the three tucked into their deli lunch, Joe couldn't help an occasional drool dampening Harper's new carpet. Listening to paper rattling and the sounds of their satisfied munching amid small talk, he had a long and hungry wait before Harper laid down his sandwich and picked up a file of reports.
Covetously Joe eyed the sandwich, but told himself to forget it. He could see from his position beneath the couch a long reflection in the glass-fronted bookcase that gave him a view of Harper's desk. This thoughtful touch, too, had been Charlie's. She and Joe had tested it early one morning when Harper was downstairs on the indoor pistol range.
Harper looked up at Garza. "You have no indication that Quinn's house had been broken into."
"None," Garza said. "And no other prints besides Quinn's. Only Quinn's prints on the handle of the gas jet, where of course his prints would be."
Harper shuffled the stack of papers. "There seems nothing out of place here, among his real estate transactions. Both Helen and their broker have been over everything, found nothing out of the way, except for the missing notebook. You searched the real estate office?"
"Yes," Davis said. "The broker, James Holland, helped Helen look for the notebook while I waited. They ransacked the entire office. We searched Quinn's car again, took out the seats, everything short of dismantling the vehicle."
"The notebook may be of no value," Harper said, "but the case is open until it's found."
The three were silent, finishing their lunches. Harper asked Davis about two identity thefts that had been reported, both involving scams on local residents. These piqued Joe's interest because this was the first he'd heard about them. Crimes like identity theft made him glad he was a cat without the encumbrance of a charge card, social security number, and other invitations to embezzlement.
"The victims are getting their papers together," Davis said. "Paid bills, canceled checks. Both have retained attorneys. The one woman, Sheila James, is looking at a five-thousand-dollar-a-month mortgage on a house that is, in fact, completely paid for. The other folks, Ron and Sandy Bueller, moved here just a year ago. Six new credit card accounts in their name, some sixty thousand in debts outstanding, so far, plus payments on a two-million-dollar piece of land in the north part of the county that they didn't buy and have never seen."
Davis shifted her position on the couch; the leather creaked again. "All of that within the space of a week. And we have nothing so far. Zilch."
That, Joe knew, was par for the course in these cases. The officers discussed every possible venue at their disposal to get a line on the guy; Davis and Garza were working on them all, and would keep digging; the loopholes, the lack of ways to nail these thieves was, Joe thought, like chasing mice through a metal grating: the chasee escapes, the chaser bangs his nose on the barrier.
"What about the Greenlaw accident?" Davis said. "Still no bodies?"
"Not so much as a scorched bone," Harper told her. "Sheriff thinks, now, that neither of the Greenlaws was in the RV when it crashed. He's searching the area, thinking they might have been murdered and dumped before the wreck.