"Or someone removed the dead cat's body," Su suggested. "maybe to disguise the time of death. Er, Miss Orth's, not the cat's"
"Or the cat wasn't dead and walked out on its own," Molina added. "Hair and Fibers ought to have a high old time on this one. I hope nobody on that detail is allergic to cats."
"Then you want us to treat the house like a crime scene? Even if the only victim, maybe, was a cat?"
"I want H & F to go over it like it was the last crime scene of Jack the Ripper. And tell them l don't want one hair--and especially one cat hair--over-looked. If we can do DNA on human hair, we can do it on feline hair."
"DNA!" Su was alarmed. "You wouldn't, Lieutenant. We'd be laughingstocks."
"I will if l have to, so l suggest you figure out what went on there, and to what species, from the physical evidence alone. Got it?!'
Su nodded and escaped into the hall.
Alch leaned his hands on Molina's desk and spoke confidentially. "What is it with you and cats? First the Oasis; now here."
Molina answered as confidentially, with a grim smile. "You ever think maybe I'm a witch, huh, Alch? I bet I've been called that around here before now. You know, upwardly mobile via broomstick?"
He backed off, and beat a hasty retreat with Su.
Molina took a deep breath. Stupid as it would seem, those cats had been up to something.
She had a feeling that if they, feeble humans, figured out what, they would be a little closer to when and where Monica Orth had been killed. Maybe even why.
Sure, the conviction was nuts, but a cop went on instinct, and these particular cats had given her plenty of reason to have instincts about their often-bizarre behavior.
So Su her.
Chapter 47
Stakeout
Night has fallen before I see hide or hair of Midnight Louise again, and I would not have done that, except that the canine version of a night light, Mr. Nose E. Byrd, is trotting alongside her.
I have the sensitivity not to ask what trash compacter they hitched a ride in, and greet them in the Circle Ritz parking lot after a wearing day of checking on the whereabouts of Mr. Matt Devine every hour or so.
"Where have you two been? Reno?"
Nose E.'s tongue is hanging down to his droopy ear-ends. "Where is the national emergency, dude? This spitfire has herded me here like a sheep to the slaughterhouse."
I can see that Nose E's coat is sadly bedraggled. His long, usually silky white locks twist and kink as if he has been rode hard---through the Caesars Palace fountains, for instance-and put up wet.
I nod at Louise. She looks like something you try not to see flattened by the side of the road.
"Do not ask and we will not bore you by telling," Midnight Louise snaps.
The normally amiable Nose E. adds his own snap and growl for emphasis. "Our only choice of transportation was a bottled- water service van. Not only did we stop at every other house, but an irresponsible left turn broke a water container. I nearly drowned."
I tsk-tsk my sympathy, but the fact is that an overturned teacup would almost be enough to drown Nose E.
"If I had not nipped him by the scruff of the neck," Miss Louise says, "and clawed my way atop a carton, he would have drowned. Unfortunately, he weighs a lot more sopping wet than he does dry!"
"l fear that my coat is permanently crimped at the nape." Nose E. turns to present his rear.
"Is that true, Louie?"
"A trifle . . . bent. Nothing that a good mother's lick would not cure."
"That is the trouble! I do not have a mother any more, and Earl E. is too nearsighted to notice. I do not suppose that you--?"
I jerk my head at Louise. This is woman's work. She scowls, but leans over to lick Nose E.'s neck hairs into a wet, slicked-down condition that should dry straight.
"Here is the deal," I tell the game little professional sniffer. "I know that Mr. Matt Devine has been near the same scent that we all detected at the scene of Wilfrid's death. Mr. Matt Devine obviously does not know he has been rubbing pant tags with a murderer."
"What is wrong with these human noses?" Nose E. bursts out. "Are they blocks of salt?
Stone? Granite? I do not get how they can rule the planet with such deficient senses."
"It is deficient sense that is their greatest lack," Midnight Louise sniffs, lying down to slick back her toe hairs.
I cannot disagree, but have no time to debate human failings.
"I cannot tell you why humans have such poor excuses for snouts, Just as I cannot tell you why dogs have noses a thousand times more sensitive than a human's, and cats have the edge in the brains and personality department. It is a fluke of natural selection, so I have naturally selected you, Nose E., as the key figure in our desperate attempt to right wrongs and save lives human and feline, and maybe canine."
While Miss Louise continues administering her best tongue- lashing, I inquire, "You do sport the usual dog collar under all that hair, right, Nose E.?"
"Arf course," he admits, then growls, "Damn red tape."
"Looks blue to me," I note as I glimpse the phantom collar through a blizzard of white hair.
"With the usual rabies tag listing the date of injection?" Nose E. whimpers in humiliation. "The ace drug-and-bomb sniffer in the country, and I must be certified sane and disease-free! You would think I had a social disease, just for being a dog." Well, if the stereotype fits . . . but I say nothing. Sometimes a dog can be useful.
"And do you also wear a bright blue aluminum metal tag on which your name and your, er, affiliate's phone number are emblazoned?"
"I would be picked up and subjected to unmentionable indignities if I did not. Besides, because of my sensitive work clearance, all my papers must be in perfect order."
"Stop badgering the poor little rug-rat sniffer!" Midnight Louise bursts out. "Of course he is collared and labeled. He is a dog. He cannot help it!"
I nod. "He cannot help it. And therefore he will be of inestimable value in this case."
Nose E. starts panting hopefully. "Really?"
"Really." I almost give him a cat smile. Almost. Cat smiles are extremely rare, and best noticed in passing, like mirages. Like the Purr of Power, cat smiles are potent beyond imagining, and I rarely employ them. Only in matters of life and death.
I nod, one last question to be asked. "And I also suppose that Earl E. is careful enough to have you wear a tag that lists your name, address, and phone number, if it does not reveal your undercover status?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" Nose E. is panting with impatience now and bouncing up and down on the pads of his feet. "Now that I am here, what is my job?"
I glance up at the blank windows of the Circle Ritz. Behind one of them lurks our target.
"The timing is awkward," I say. "Perhaps it would be better to wait until morning."
"Wait until morning!" the pair chorus in pipsqueak indignation.
"After all we went through to get here?" Louise demands all by herself."
"In the meantime," I tell Nose E., "you can put your schnozzola to work and see if you pick up the scent I do, and if it leads where I think it does."
"Hmmf," he yaps, bending head and nose to the ground. After a few circles in the parking lot he snuffles along like a pig after truffles to the small shed at the rear of the lot.
"Sweet smell. Sickly smell," he declares.
"A dead smell?" Miss Louise wonders.
"Tut-tut. Nothing of the kind. It is one of those smells that some humans adore, and that other humans loathe. Odd lot, humans. Dividing smells into likes and dislikes, when they are ail of equal use. Of course, their nasal abilities are nil. I do not know why they even bothered to grow noses. They might as well not have them, for all the olfactory skill they exhibit."
"Yes," Louise says. "We know how superior your nose is. If it were any more superior it would be so high in the air you would trip on your ears and never get anywhere at all."