"If they were alive," Harper said, "someone would have heard from them. Wilma, certainly. She's not only Lucinda's friend, but her executor. She's ready to drive up there, car gassed up, suitcase packed. She'd like to help the sheriff's teams search but right now there's nothing she can do that they're not on top of. Sheriff has dogs out, the works."
"They're eighty years old," Garza said. "There are some desolate stretches in those forests."
"Eighty years old and tough as boots," Harper replied. "Certainly Pedric is. And Lucinda, since they married, has become just about as strong mentally and emotionally. When Shamas was alive, Lucinda was little more than a wilting violet, acted like she was scared of her own shadow."
Harper studied his two detectives. "I had a call this morning, about the burglary at Alice's Mirror.
"Our favorite snitch," Harper said, "suggested we ask Harry Jarman about a key he might have duplicated for Consuela Benton." The captain smiled. "I picked up a key from Alice's Mirror this morning, stopped by Jarman's with it. He remembered Consuela coming in a couple of weeks ago. I laid seven keys on the counter, six from my own pocket.
"He picked it out right away. Remembered he'd used the last blank like that, and had to order more."
Davis gave a little pleased "All right!" Dallas laughed softly.
"I have a Be-on-the-lookout for Consuela," Harper said. "Soon as we can print her, if we get a match, maybe we can make a case and get a warrant for the cottage she's renting up on Carpenter. I understand the garage is part of the rental deal."
Beneath the couch, Joe Grey grinned. Right on, Kit, he thought, both saddened and relieved. You nailed her. And if the department can make Consuela for masterminding the burglary, maybe it will go easier for Dillon. And, Joe thought, the cops might need a warrant to toss Consuela's rental. But a cat didn't.
The three officers moved on to the rash of coastal burglaries, and for over an hour they discussed the various reports from up and down the California coast, comparing MOs. The information from some two dozen fences was all negative. None of the stolen items had been traced to any of the known fences. The burglaries covered the geographic area from Malibu in the south to Point Reyes in the north, and inland as far as Oakland and Berkeley and Thousand Oaks. Garza had prepared a chart on the computer, listing the dates of the burglaries, the time of day they were discovered, the length of time since the items had last been seen. In the case of jewelry kept in a home safe, the lapse of time might amount to several months, the piece in question might have disappeared at any time during that period. There had been no report at all on Clyde's antique Packard.
Peering out from beneath the couch, Joe could barely see the chart without being seen himself, without his gray-and-white nose and whiskers protruding. As the three officers talked, Davis swung one stockinged foot over, twiddling her toes just inches from Joe's nose. Her feet smelled of talcum powder. Dallas's chart showed all social gatherings at each address within the last three years, with size and description of events, from dinner parties to charity functions. An addendum provided guest lists, and lists of household help and maintenance people for each event.
None of the houses had been for sale, none had been shown to buyers. Joe was awed at Garza's thoroughness, and at the details possible when law enforcement from different cities shared information. Seven names surfaced as guests in more than two of the burgled residences. Joe grew so interested, pushing out farther and farther, that his whiskers brushed Juana's ankle. She jerked her foot away and leaned over, peering under the couch to see what was there.
Joe Grey was gone, curled into a ball among the shadows of the far corner, hiding the white markings on his face and chest and paws, and squinching his eyes closed.
When Juana decided there was nothing under there and settled back, Joe crept out again where he could see. It was interesting that, of the list of guests, three had themselves been victims of that rash of bizarre thefts. The statistics were broken down further into a morass of facts, which, without the written information before him, left the tomcat's head spinning.
He watched enviously as Garza printed it all out and stepped down the hall to the dispatcher's desk to make copies. He would dearly love to have that printout. But even without a copy, two names on the list held Joe's attention.
A woman up the coast in Marin County had attended four of the listed affairs, all charity events. And Molena Point's own Marlin Dorriss had been a guest at five of those houses, at private dinner parties.
In no case had the two been guests at the same function.
"Dorriss knows everyone," Detective Davis said. "He's all over the state, on the board of a dozen museums and as many charities." She laughed. "Until this business with Helen Thurwell, Dorriss appeared to be without flaw in his personal life. And that," she said coolly, "is all the more reason to check him out."
Dallas said, "Max, you talked with Susan Dorriss-Susan Brittain? Her husband was Marlin Dorriss's brother? Why did she suddenly change back to her maiden name, all these years after her husband died?"
"She's never been close to her brother-in-law," Harper said. "Something to do with Dorriss's two sons, her husband's nephews. Bad apples, Susan says. She didn't see much of Dorriss when they all lived in San Francisco. Said that not until after she moved down to the village to be with her daughter, did she know that Marlin had a place here.
"Then she had that accident and was in the nursing home, and she didn't think much about him. But after she recovered and was back in her own place she ran into Marlin. That distressed her, that he was living here. That's when she decided to drop the name, exhibit no more connection with him than necessary."
"All because of his sons?" Juana asked.
"She said they were impossible as young boys and she'd heard they were no better now. She was very critical of the way Marlin raised them. I got the impression that if she'd known he had a home in the village part-time, she might not have moved to Molena Point at all."
"Interesting," Garza said. "Didn't her daughter tell her?"
"No, she didn't," Max said. "Susan thinks that's because her daughter wanted her to move down, to get out of the city. I'd give a month's pay to see his phone and Visa bills, his gas station receipts. See if we could put him in those locations during the burglaries."
"That's stretching a bit," Dallas said. "No way the judge would issue a search warrant on that kind of conjecture. And if we went directly to the phone company and to his credit card people, if we got into that gray area…"
"I don't like to beat a dead horse," Davis said, "but life was simpler twenty years ago."
Garza grunted in agreement, then the three were silent. And beneath the couch, Joe Grey smiled. Marlin Dorriss might be as innocent and clean as driven snow, but the guy was worth checking out.
17
On a rocky point just at the south edge of the village, Marlin Dorriss's villa rose among giant boulders that had been tumbled there eons before by the earth's angry upheaval. Its montage of angles and converging planes reflected moving light from the sea's crashing waves. The pale structure seemed, to some, harsh and ungiving. Others, including Dorriss himself, admired the play of light across its pristine surfaces, the shifting shadows always changing beneath swiftly blowing skies.
Few windows faced the street. Those slim openings, like gun slits, glinted now in the morning sun as Joe Grey slunk among the boulders. Studying the house, he prayed that he hadn't left Dulcie in danger as she went to investigate Consuela's rented house. He had made her promise that if she heard any noise from within, any small hint of a human presence, she'd get the hell out of there fast.