Dulcie sprang up beside him. Pawing through Fulman’s dirty clothes, they smelled human blood.
“Here,” Joe said, fishing out a plaid flannel shirt.
The front and sleeve smelled of blood and, hardly visible in the red-and-brown squares, were tiny splashes of dried blood.
With a clever paw, Dulcie began to fold the shirt into a packet small enough to carry in her mouth.“Better leave it,” Joe said. “For Harper to find, where the killer left it.” He leaped down, among a tangle of shoes.
“What if Fulman comes back? What if he has second thoughts, decides to get rid of it?”
“Leave it for the moment, Dulcie. Look at this.”
She dropped down beside him.
At the side of the closet, a bottom panel was loose, the screw holes in the plywood enlarged so they were bigger than the screws; the panel appeared secure until you looked closely.
Sliding and lifting the plywood between them, the cats pulled it off, easing it down onto the carpet.
Its dusty surface recorded pawprints as Joe slipped into the dark recess.
There was a long silence. Soon he peered out at Dulcie, flicking his whiskers in a broad grin.
He backed out dragging a cardboard folder, one of those rust-colored accordion numbers meant for the organization, by the neatniks of the world, of their paid bills and canceled checks. Behind Joe, in the gloom, loomed four white shoe boxes.
The cats dragged the boxes out into the little hall where faint starglow seeped down through the trailer windows. They opened the folder to find bank receipts that were, at the moment, of little interest to them. The first box they clawed open held letters that did not seem pertinent. But under these lay a small black ledger, each page headed by a proper name, above columns of dates and numbers-Fulman had kept careful financial records. But of what?
“Records of his scams?” Dulcie said. Pawing through the box, they were aware of increasing sounds beyond the trailer, of women’s voices. Clawing open the last bundle of letters, their eyes widened.
The return addresses were all the same: Shamas Greenlaw, at a Seattle Post Office box. The letters were addressed to Sam Fulman, and had been written over a period of approximately ten years.
Sharing out the envelopes between them, they read each letter, looking for clandestine financial deals or for any hint of a scam-leaving, unavoidably, a few innocent tooth and claw marks.
The missives contained nothing more exciting than discussions of family affairs-though it did seem out of character for Shamas to be so concerned about the health and welfare of his great-aunt Sarah. In each communication to Fulman he had apparently enclosed a sizable check, each letter mentioning the amount of the check that was to be deposited to his aunt’s account at her nursing home. At the bottom of each letter Fulman had noted the amount received and the date deposited.
All very efficient.
All displaying a degree of unselfishness that did not seem natural to Shamas Greenlaw.
“And,” Dulcie said, “if he was supporting his aunt, why didn’t he send the money directly to the nursing home?”
The cats looked at each other, and smiled.
“Nice,” Joe said. “Very nice.”
“It’s only conjecture,” she said.
“Yes,” he said, pawing through another box. “And here are the receipts. Valencia Home for the Elderly. Greenville, North Carolina.” He compared the first few receipts with the letters, and with the ledger. The dates and amounts matched. He looked at Dulcie, his yellow eyes as keenly predatory as if the two cats had a giant rat cornered. “Any bets that no such home exists?”
Dulcie grinned; then stiffened as they heard a car pull away and a trailer door slam.
Then silence.
In the next box was a stack of purchase orders from Bernside Tool and Die Works in Spokane, Washington, to a variety of customers. Payments to this company had been made directly by the purchasers. No name appeared more than once. These payments, too, were entered in Fulman’s ledger. Each date coincided, within a few days, with the gifts to Aunt Sarah.
“So,” Joe said, “it was Shamas’s company, and he was donating his income to Aunt Sarah.”
“Sure. Right.” Dulcie fished a letter from the stack, a statement and the matching purchase order. Setting these aside, they pawed the rest of the papers back into their boxes. The cats were inside the closet, maneuvering a shoe box back into the cubbyhole, when the trailer was jolted as if someone had burst through the front door. Glancing around the door as a second jolt hit, they saw the dining chairs flying on their casters, banging into the walls. The closet door slammed closed. Something crashed against it. They heard dishes fall and breaking glass.
When the earth was still again, they felt as if all air had been expelled from the trailer, leaving a gigantic vacuum. As Joe fought the doorknob, they heard, from the far end of the park, scattered cries of distress and amazement.
They worked at the door until they were hissing at each other, but couldn’t open it. When they heard the front door bang open, they thought it was another quake-then wished it had been a quake.
“Fine,” Fulman snarled, stomping in. “Go on back to your suppers. A little jolt never hurt nothing.” The door slammed and a light flared through the crack beneath the closet door-and Fulman’s papers lay scattered, in plain view, up and down the hall.
21 [????????: pic_22.jpg]
“WHAT THE hell!” Fulman shouted. The cats heard him heaving broken glass or china, as if into a metal container. “Damned quake! Damn California quakes. I’ll take a North Carolina tornado any day.”
Cara Ray giggled, a high, brittle laugh.
Crouched on the closet shelf beneath Fulman’s dirty clothes, Joe and Dulcie listened to his heavy step coming down the hall.
“And what the hell’s that!”
He stood just outside; they imagined him looking down at the scattered letters and invoices, then they heard him snatching up papers. He stopped once, perhaps reading some particular letter.“Damn it to hell. The quake didn’t do this. Someone’s been in here.”
“Who, lover? What is it? What’s happened?”
He was quiet again, shuffling papers. Outside among the trailers the excited voices had quieted, as if those residents alarmed at the quake had taken Fulman’s advice and returned to their suppers.
“Don’t look like they took nothing,” Fulman said. “Maybe the quake scared ‘em off. Check the windows, Cara Ray. See if one’s open or unlocked. Get a move on.” He jerked the closet door open; light from the kitchen blazed in through the rumpled shirts and shorts, beneath which the two cats crouched, as still as two frozen cadavers.
From beneath a fold of laundry, they could see Fulman kneeling below them, pushing papers and boxes back into the hole, his brown hair rumpled, his thin shoulders stringy beneath a thin white T-shirt. Sliding the plywood panel onto its screws, he turned away from the closet but did not close the door. They heard, from the kitchen, a drawer open, and in a moment he returned, carrying a hammer, his thin lips pursed around a mouthful of nails.
Kneeling again, he nailed the panel in place tighter than the surrounding wallboard had ever been secured.
When he had gone, the cats burst forth, panting for fresh air, and peered out where he’d left the door cracked open.
A sickly yellow light burned over the kitchen sink. They could see one of the shoe boxes and the small black ledger on the kitchen table; they watched as he fished a white-plastic grocery bag from a kitchen drawer and shoved the ledger and papers inside.
Dropping the bag on the table beside the empty box, Fulman fetched a bottle of vodka from the cupboard, with two glasses and a can of orange juice.
The cats remained in the closet for the better part of an hour. If the great cat god had been smiling down on them tonight, he’d have provided them with a tape recorder-or an electronic bug hooked directly into Molena Point PD. If ever a murder confession was thrown in their furry faces, this was the moment.