From the time he had left the Marners and Dillon at the restaurant, until he arrived at the station three and a half hours later, an hour after he was due to go on watch, he had been in contact with no one. As far as Harper knew, no one had seen him.
“I left Cafe Mundo at about one twenty-five, maybe five minutes after Dillon and the Marners. I rode home along Coyote Trail, around the foot of the hills. That’s the shortest way. The Marners and Dillon headed north up that steep bridle trail behind the Blackwell Ranch.”
“And Crystal wasn’t with you?”
“No, the horse she was leasing was to be shod today. I got home about two, unsaddled Bucky and cooled him off, sponged him and rubbed him down. Cleaned his tack and did some stable chores. Fed him, gave the dogs a run, and fed them. I had just come in the house to shower and change when the phonerang.
“It sounded like a woman. I couldn’t be sure. Husky voice, like someone who has a cold. She wouldn’t give her name. Said she thought I’d be interested in Stubby Baker because I was the one responsible for his going to prison. Kathleen, do you remember Baker?”
Officer Ray looked up at him.“Paroled out of San Quentin about three months ago. Mile-long list of scams.”
Harper nodded.“She said Baker had come back to Molena Point to work a land scam involving the old Pamillon place. Said there was a problem with the title, one of those involved family things, and that Baker thought he could manipulate the records. Work through a fake title company, pretend to sell the land, and skip with the money. She said he had fake escrow seals, fake documents. Said he was working with someone from Santa Barbara, that the buyers were a group of older people down there, professionals wanting to start their own retirement complex.
“I’d seen Baker up around the Pamillon place, I’d ridden up there several times because of those cougar reports. And I knew Baker had been nosing around in the Department of Records. That, with her story, made me want to check him out.
“Baker’s staying in a studio apartment over on Santa Fe. The informant said he was scheduled to meet with his partner at four that afternoon, at Baker’s place. That they were getting ready to make the transaction. That the buyers were going to put a lot of money up front, that they had complete faith in Baker.
“The last scam he pulled here in Molena Point was so shoddy I can’t envision anyone trusting him. But I caught a shower, dressed, and went over there. I thought if I could make his partner, get a description and run his plates, we might come up with enough to search the apartment, nip this before those folks got taken. I drove the old Plymouth.”
Some months earlier, Harper had bought a nondescript 1992 Plymouth to use for occasional surveillance. Usually the detectives picked up a Rent-A-Wreck, a different car for every stakeout, so the local no-goods would find them harder to spot.
“I parked at the corner of Santa Fe and First behind some overgrown shrubs, sat with a newspaper in front of my face. Watched the apartment for over an hour. Not a sign of Baker. Only one person went up the outside stairs-the old woman from Two D. Baker’s in Two B. No one came down, no one leftany apartment I could see, and there’s only the one entrance, there in front, except fire escapes. Even the garbage is carried out the front. I could see all of the second-floor balcony, could see Baker’s door and window. Didn’t see any movement inside, no twitch of the curtain, no light burning.
“Maybe Baker made me and had a quick change of plans. I left at ten to five, swung by my place to pick up my unit, got to the station at five.”
Detective Ray pushed back her long, dark hair.“Did anyone see you, anyone you knew?”
“If they did, they didn’t speak to me. I didn’t notice anyone, just a few tourists.”
“Did you know the woman who made the call? Recognize her voice?”
“As best I could tell, she wasn’t anyone I’ve talked with in the past. No, I didn’t recognize her.” Harper frowned. “It wasn’t that woman snitch who bugs me, at least not the way she usually sounds. That woman speaks so softly, with a touch of sarcasm…”
Outside the screened door, the soft-voiced snitch twitched her whiskers and smiled.
“This one-yes, probably disguised,” Harper said. “Sounded older, rough and grainy. If itwasa disguise, I bet it gave her a sore throat.”
And both cats watched Harper with concern. This giving of a formal statement and all that implied had them more than frightened, left them feeling as lost as two abandoned strays in a strange city.
Max Harper was the one human who made their sleuthing worth the trouble, who, when they helped to solve a case, would see the perps successfully prosecuted-the one law enforcement type who made their sneaky feline efforts worth the trip.
And Harper was more than that to Joe Grey. Joe had a deep and caring respect for the police captain-for his hunting abilities, for his dry humor, which was almost as subtle as the humor of a cat, and for his general attitude of quiet power-all traits that the tomcat greatly admired.
But now, crouched in the dark beneath the deck chair, Joe imagined with painful clarity Max Harper facing Judge Wesley not as a witness for the prosecution but as a prisoner about to be prosecuted. The thought made his belly queasy and his paws sweat.
He might torment Max Harper, might be amused by Harper’s irritable response to certain anonymous phone tips-amused by Harper’s unease at never being able to identify the source of certain information. But he would gladly rip apart whoever had set up this scam.
And there was no doubt in either cat’s mind that it was a scam. Some lowlife was out to ruin Harper, with the help of the American justice system.
During Harper’s statement, Charlie had not left the room. When he was finished, she poured fresh coffee for him and Detective Ray, and dished up the breakfast she had kept warm. Harper was wolfing his scrambled eggs when the blacksmith arrived.
The cats followed Harper and Turrey to the stables, again streaking into the feed room. In the rising dawn, it was harder to stay out of sight.
Clyde’s yellow car was gone from the yard. Whether he had left to give Harper privacy or was angry at Charlie for mothering Harper, the cats couldn’t guess. Clyde and Harper had been friends ever since high school, and Clyde was the only non-law-enforcement type Harper hung out with. For Clyde to see his own girlfriend mooning over Harper-if he did see it, if he was even aware of Charlie’s feelings-was enough to make anyone mad.
Well, Clyde had had plenty of girlfriends before Charlie; it wasn’t like they’d been seeing each other forever. These human entanglements were so-human.Filled with subleties and indirect meanings and hurt feelings. Awash in innuendos. Nothing like a good straightforward feline relationship.
From the shadows of the feed room, the cats watched as Turrey pulled Bucky’s shoes, the small, leathered man easy and slow in his movements. As he pulled each shoe, he dropped it into an evidence bag that Detective Davis held open for him. Captain Harper stood aside. Already he had taken an arm’s-length position, directing his people but handling nothing. He had approached Bucky only to bring the gelding from his stall and put him in the cross-ties, then stepped away.
The cats watched the blacksmith clean out the dirt from each hoof, and scrape it, too, into the evidence bags. Watched Turrey fashion a new pair of shoes for Bucky. Dulcie had a hard time not sneezing at the smell of burning hoof as Turrey tested the metal against Bucky’s foot-the seared hoof smoldered as hot as Joe’s anger at Max Harper’s unknown enemy.
Of course Harper had been set up. What else? All Joe could think was, he’d like to get his teeth into whoever had hatched this little plot.
But while Joe wanted to slash the unidentified killer, Dulcie just looked sad, her pointed little face grim, her green eyes filled with misery.