Helen Thurwell's perfume? But what kind of affair was this, if she occupied a guest room? Sniffing again at the expensive scent, he thought it was too heavy to be Helen's. Whose, then? Another of Dorriss's lovers, taking her turn when Helen wasn't available? He could hear Dorriss coming softly up the carpeted stairs. He hoped to hell the window above the bed was open. He could feel no movement of air, no breeze slipping in fingering under the bed.
This room would look down to the front entry, over the angles and juttings that faced the street, over descending roofs and ledges that should give him a quick passage to freedom-if he could get out. Listening to the approaching footsteps, he caught, over the numbing perfume, a whiff of Marlin Dorriss's distinctive aftershave, an aroma he had never smelled on any other human, that he had never encountered on the village streets; only those few times when he had happened on Dorriss in a patio or shop. Maybe Dorriss had it blended just for himself. The lawyer's soft footsteps on the thick carpet turned into the master bedroom.
Joe was about to slip out and check the window above him, when the sounds from the bedroom gave him pause. Stone sliding across stone? Wood scraping stone and wood? Dorriss coughed once, then Joe heard the heavy clunk of thick metal.
A safe? Was that why the desk wasn't locked? Whatever Dorriss wanted to keep private was locked away behind a wall of metal? Joe listened to papers being shuffled, then the scrape, again, of stone on wood. Then Dorriss moved into the dressing room; Joe heard the unmistakable snap of a briefcase or suitcase, then the slide of a zipper.
Leaving the brown envelope under the bed, he slipped out and padded down the hall into the master bedroom, watching the partially open door to the dressing room where papers still rattled. He could see, on a luggage stand, a black leather suitcase lying open. Dorriss stood over it, putting in folded clothes. On the stand beside the suitcase lay a sheaf of papers, and atop the papers a black automatic. A clip and a box of bullets lay beside it, the sight of which sent ripples of alarm through the tomcat.
He'd had enough of guns. His hearing hadn't been the same since he and Dulcie played moving target in the attic above Clyde's shop, chased and shot at by counterfeiting car thieves, and Clyde tried to rescue them. That was three years ago, part of that little caper during which he and Dulcie discovered their powers of speech, and their lives had so dramatically changed. The shock of seeing one human murder another had brought out latent talents in them that they had never suspected. One of those thieves had been Kate Osborne's husband, Jimmie, who subsequently took up residence at San Quentin.
Now, looking at the gun, he considered leaving the Dorriss house at once, even without the evidence.
Oh, right. Marlin Dorriss was going to shoot an innocent cat that happened to wander in? Dorriss must like animals, if he'd left the glass door open for some household kitty.
The more specific implication of that open door Joe did not want to think about.
Worrying only briefly about his own gray hide, wondering only briefly which of his nine lives he was living at the moment, Joe waited until Dorriss turned away, then slipped past the dressing room door deeper into the bedroom.
Creamy, hand-rubbed walls greeted him; a pastel Persian rug over blackish stained hardwood floors; a seating alcove arranged with a charcoal leather love seat and chair before a dark marble coffee table.
At the other end of the room stood a king-size bed with a pale brocade spread and a dull, carved headboard and matching nightstands. On the wall opposite the fireplace, next to the double dresser, stood a huge armoire inlaid with ivory, an antique cupboard that would be large enough to hold both a small bar and a thirty-inch TV But it was the fireplace that held Joe's attention.
A portion of its ornate paneling stood open and a steel safe loomed within, its steel door also wide open.
Rearing up, Joe could see nothing inside. Before he could leap up for a better look he heard Dorriss coming. Diving under the bed he watched Dorriss's black oxfords cross the room, heard him slam the safe closed, heard the little clicks as he turned the dial to lock it.
Joe watched Dorriss return to the dressing room, then came out from under the bed again and began to check out the room.
The tops of the carved night tables were empty. These roughly made chests with their dull unpolished wood looked handmade and expensive, perhaps pieces that Dorriss had imported from South America.
Rearing up, he could see two dark, flat items on the dresser. Leaping up and miscalculating, he hit the small plastic folder, sliding so hard he nearly went over the edge. He froze, listening, sure that Dorriss had heard him.
When the sounds of packing continued, he guessed not. Examining the folder, he found it was a little loose-leaf booklet designed to hold a dozen or so photos of one's dog or cat or baby, depending on the holder's preference, each photo protected within a clear little pocket.
These pockets held credit cards.
Laying a silent paw on the slick plastic, Joe felt far more elated than if he'd discovered a warren of fat rabbits. Studying the cards, he found examples from half a dozen credit card companies, each card issued in a different name. Behind each card in the same little pocket was a white file card containing an address and phone number, social security number, birth dates, and a woman's name. A mother's maiden name, that universal code for certain identification? And, best of all, a driver's license issued to the cardholder, each one bearing Marlin Dorriss's photograph. Joe was so pumped he wanted to shout and yowl.
But even this prodigious find was not the most interesting.
Next to the credit card folder lay what might be the real kicker, the veritable gold mine. For a moment he just stared. Then he started to grin; he could feel his whiskers tickling his ears. Right here beneath his paw was the ringer. The first-prize trophy. He heard again Dulcie's description: a small notebook with a mottled reddish-brown cover and a black cloth binding.
The notebook still smelled faintly of gas, of whatever substance PG &E put into their natural gas supplies so users would know if there was a leak in the line. Joe was reaching a paw to flip through the pages when he heard Dorriss coming back again, the scuff of his shoes on the dark hardwood. Joe had only time to leap from the dresser to the top of the armoire, where he crouched as flat as a pancake hoping he was out of sight. But then when Doris approached the dresser, he couldn't resist, he slipped to the edge to watch.
Picking up the notebook, Dorriss flipped through it as if reading random passages; the expression on his face was one of deep rage. Glowering at the open notebook, he ripped it in half. Ripped it again, then tore each half straight through the offending pages.
Scooping up the stack of torn pages, he moved to the fireplace. From the top of the armoire Joe stared down at Dorriss, his heart doing flips. As sure as queens have kittens, he's going to burn those pages.
Dropping to the bed behind Dorriss and slipping silently to the rug, Joe began to stalk the man. He wanted that notebook, he wanted those little mysterious pages that could be, that his cop-sense told him were, hard and valuable evidence to the death of James Quinn.
18
The five freshly cut oak logs in the fireplace were artfully crisscrossed over the gas jet. Marlin Dorriss, dropping the torn pieces of the notebook on the raised hearth, turned to find a match or, more likely, Joe thought, some sort of mechanical starter. As he reached into a small carved chest that stood at the other end of the hearth, Joe slipped silently behind him.
Closing his teeth on the wadded remains of the notebook he was gone, a gray streak disappearing under the leather love seat. It wasn't the best place to hide but it was the closest. If Dorriss came poking, Joe hoped to slip out at the far end. Once concealed, he carefully spit out the pages so as not to drool on the evidence, and crept to the edge of the love seat where he could see his adversary. He hoped he had all the bits of paper. The notebook cover still lay on the hearth, the slick brown cardboard bent and twisted, victim of Dorriss's rage.