"That little thing? How could it?"
"Just like string, Kit. You know about string. The barbs of your tongue hold it back, you can't spit it out, it gets wrapped around the base of your tongue, you swallow the rest and you're in trouble."
She spit out the rubber band. She'd been told more than once about string, that if she should ever swallow a string not to pull it out with her paw, that she could cut her insides doing that. Joe studied the stack of bills. Who knew which were of value? No one would know until they were compared with the dates of the burglaries. Even then, there would be a lot of play in the machinery. The Tyler family in Ventura, for instance, had opened their safe in January and not again until October when they found the antique diamond necklace missing; the burglary could have happened anytime in those nine months. The Von Cleavers, in Montecito, were in Europe for five weeks. Got back to find a glass cabinet broken into and a silver pitcher missing, a museum piece signed by a famous craftsman from the 1600s, but nothing else was gone. Each burglary was the same, the rarest and most expensive item lifted, nothing else touched. Marlin Dorriss himself had been at his Florida condo when his favorite Diebenkorn painting vanished from his Molena Point house-if it vanished, if that was not a red herring.
But what kind of thief took only one piece and left a houseful of treasures?
Joe Grey smiled. Someone out for the thrills, for the rarity or historical value of the items stolen, someone who didn't need the money. Who got all the money he wanted in other ways?
Impatient with the lack of solid answers to what he suspected, impatient for darkness so he could deliver the evidence to the law, Joe restlessly prowled the study.
But the kit had curled up in a corner of the love seat with her nose tucked under her paw, so sad and withdrawn that Joe paused, watching her. He stood worrying over her when a click from above made him stiffen.
The rooftop cat door made a slap, and Dulcie popped out of the hole in the ceiling, dropping daintily to the rafter beneath. Perched on the high, dark beam, she peered down at him-and her green eyes widened.
"You got the bills!" She dropped to the desk beside him with a delicate thud. "Tell me! Tell me how you did it. Dorriss didn't see you? Why are you frowning?"
He glanced across to the love seat. She turned to look at the kit.
"So sad, Dulcie. She keeps falling back into sadness."
Leaping to the love seat Dulcie nosed at the kit and washed her tortoiseshell face, washed her ears, nudged and loved her until at last the kit looked up and tried to smile. When the tattercoat had snuggled against Dulcie, Joe said, "Kit saved me from a bad trip, she warned me just in time." He gave her a brief replay that made Dulcie shiver and laugh, then he asked, "What did you find at Consuela's?"
"The cottage was locked. I tried everything. Finally balanced on the branch of an oak tree and clawed through a roof vent, in through a filthy attic and down through the crawl space. Had to claw away the plywood cover like we did when those raccoons chased us." She sneezed. "All dust and cobwebs. I got the plywood aside and slipped down on the closet shelf.
"Closet was empty, just some empty hangers. But the door was open. I looked out into the room, ready to hit the attic again and vanish. That cottage is just one big room, like a studio apartment. No one was there, nada. I searched the whole place. Found exactly nothing. Checked the dinky bath and kitchen, fought open every cupboard and drawer. Not one stolen garment. Not much of anything else except mouse droppings. It's just a crummy rental, no better than where a homeless would crash.
"I was so mad that I'd wasted my time. I could have been hunting, or could have been tossing Dorriss's place with you- could have been prowling the village with Kit," she said gently, glancing down at the tattercoat. "I was about to storm out when someone opened the garage door. Shook the whole house, rumbling up. I crouched, ready to leap back to the attic. The garage door closed again, and something metal clanged in there. When the door between the garage and the house opened, I whipped around and dove under the couch.
"I could hear them giggling before I got a look, Dillon and her two schoolmates. Consuela wasn't with them. They got some soft drinks from the fridge, some chips from the cupboard that the mice hadn't been at, and they began to drag in clothes-from their car, I thought then. New clothes, Joe. Beautiful clothes. Leather. Cashmere. Silk. Piling them on the couch and daybed and chairs.
"They pushed the closet door wide open-it has a mirror on the inside-and they began trying on clothes and giggling, vamping, hamming it up. All the clothes had tags, tags hanging down from the couch in my face, every one from Alice's Mirror.
"The blond girl, Candy, said they shouldn't take anything, the cops would recognize whatever they wore. Leah, the tall one, said that was stupid, how would the cops be able to tell. It ended up, Leah and Candy each took a couple of leather jackets and some sweaters. Dillon didn't take anything. She tried on clothes but put them down again. They talked about another job tonight, only to do it really early, just after the stores close. A different MO, Candy said, to throw the cops off. What a dim brain. She thinks the law won't expect another job so soon, won't be watching."
"Did they say what store?"
Dulcie sighed. "The Sport Shop. But… I really don't want to…"
"Dulcie, it doesn't do Dillon any good to get away with this stuff. She's going to be in trouble sooner or later. Better she gets it over with, before it's something worse."
"I suppose. But there's more. I saw more." She rose and began to pace. From the love seat, the kit watched her quietly.
"I followed them into the garage and slipped under a workbench, watched them hang the clothes in metal lockers. That's the clanging I heard. They snapped a padlock on the locker and left. Five were already locked, Joe. They filled and locked four more. I didn't see if they had a car out front. Leah used the garage opener to get out, I saw her drop it in her pocket as the door came down behind them.
"When they'd left, I bumped against the lockers. Leaped and thumped at them. None sounded hollow, they all sounded dull, crammed full."
Joe was quiet. Then, "Do you want to call the station? Or shall I?"
She sneezed. "The whole scene makes me sick." Resignedly she moved to the phone, hit the speaker button, and pawed in the number of the station. And reluctantly she did the deed. When she had finished telling the dispatcher what she knew, she stretched out on the desk blotter next to the torn papers and ragged brown envelope, looking very sad.
"It's best," Joe said, his ears down, the white strip on his nose creased into a frown.
Dulcie studied the pile of bills and the torn pages. "It's all right for you to talk. You didn't betray a friend."
19
The shadows of night seemed reluctant indeed to tuck themselves down around the village. In Joe Grey's private tower the cats waited impatiently for darkness. Beneath Joe's paws lay a new brown envelope containing a gallon plastic freezer bag. They had stuffed Marlin Dorriss's bills and the torn notebook pages inside the clear container so that, when they delivered the evidence to the station, it would not cause a departmental panic. Would not trigger hasty emergency procedures to deal with a package that, at first touch, might blow the place sky high. Sealed with careful paws, and the excess air pressed out, the bag awaited only darkness to be hauled across the rooftops. Fidgeting, the messengers washed and groomed, willing night to hurry.
On the street below the Damen roof, a few tourists wandered in twos and threes and fours, and local residents hurried past heading home to hearth and supper. As the cats watched familiar cars turn up the side streets and disappear into carports or garages, Joe's thoughts were on Marlin Dorriss, on what might happen when Dorriss opened his file drawer and found the bills missing, found the outdated substitutes in their place.