Joe was unconvinced.
“Anyway, he’s after Kate,” Dulcie said. “This time, Joe, he’s not after us. He followed Kate in San Francisco. It’s Kate you should worry about.”
“Kate knows he’s here,” Joe snapped. “Besides, with a warrant out for him, the department will pick him up-haul him back to Quentin.”
Clyde poured a fresh cup of coffee. What he appeared to need, Joe thought, was a double Prozac. With his coffee cup so full it sloshed, he sat down at the table, looking deeply at the cats.
“However this turns out, you two have opened a whole can of worms with Garza. The guy comes here to do a legitimate piece of police work and-”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” Joe said darkly.
“To do a straightforward investigation, and he starts getting anonymous phone tips.”
“One phone call,” Dulcie said, “from a legitimate employee of Peninsula Escrow.”
“And unexplained tapes are left at his door that might be evidence and might not. That might be a plant. Don’t you think Garza-”
“So what were we supposed to do?” Dulcie said. “Hold back information?”
Clyde sucked at his coffee.“Crystal Ryder has been in town for maybe six months, living in that duplex. Why, all of a sudden, did she decide to buy it?”
“She had a lease/option,” Joe said. “Apparently she decided to move on it. My question is, why just two weeks before the murder? And it would be interesting to know, as well, why Helen owned a place in Molena Point, when she’s lived for years in Santa Barbara.”
“I can answer that,” Clyde said. “She had half a dozen rentals in the village. Max told me that. She had them with a rental agency.”
“A pretty shoddy agency,” Dulcie said, “or they’d have insisted she paint the place.”
Clyde rose to rinse the dishes.“You three have an opinion on everything. You have an inside line to Garza’s investigation. You have spied on Stubby Baker. You have tossed Crystal Ryder’s apartment and tampered with critical evidence. And you-”
“If you mean the tapes,” Joe said, “if we’d left them there, and Crystal hid them, Garza might never know they existed.”
“And what about the barrette?” Clyde said.
“We had no contact with the police over that,” Joe told him. “Kate reported the barrette to the police, they told her they’d go right up there, photograph where they found it, and book it in as evidence. It’s probably, right now, sitting in the lab being dusted for prints and particles caught in the setting. They-”
“Probably they are going to find cat hairs.”
“Why must you always drag in cat hairs? Why must you always tell us we’re messing up an investigation? Do I really have to remind you, Clyde, of the murders in the past, where with our help Harper has made a case?” He looked at Clyde sadly, hurt written in every line of his gray-and-white face.
“The three of you are going to Charlie’s. You’re going now. And you’re going to stay hidden.”
“Dulcie and the kit are going. I’m settled in with Detective Garza and I intend to stay there.”
Clyde slammed down the plate he was drying, nearly breaking it.“At least you won’t be here in the house taunting Max Harper, makinghislife miserable.”
“We are trying to save his life. And when have I ever taunted Harper?”
But then Joe said, more gently,“Howishe doing?”
“Not good. Won’t talk about the case or about anything else much. He’s quit going out with the search parties. Afraid he might taint some piece of evidence.”
“How would he…?”
“If they find her-when they find her-someone might claim he tampered with evidence or slowed the search, maybe made counterproductive suggestions, that kind of thing. He’s getting…”
“Paranoid,” Joe said. “That’s not like Harper.”
“He talked last night about quitting the force. Retiring. After he’s cleared, of course. Talked about going to Alaska.”
“Alaska!” Joe yowled.
“Max Harper,” Dulcie mewed, “leave Molena Point? I don’t believe that.”
“There’s more than that to believe.” Clyde looked at the cats deeply. “I think there’s something between Max and Charlie.”
The cats widened their eyes, trying to look amazed.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to see them, when this thing is over, take off together for Alaska.”
Dulcie stared at Clyde, then turned away, washing furiously.
Clyde said,“Maxhadbeen talking, the last few months, about reorganizing the department. He has five new officers and a new clerk. They’re getting crowded in that one-room setup. But now…”
“He has basement space,” Joe said. “Where they store the old files, where they have the shooting range and emergency operations room.”
Clyde nodded.“He’s done some really nice plans to redesign the building, give officers more space and privacy. Add an up-to-date report-writing room, more room for communications, a bigger evidence lockup, more security.
“But since the Marner murder, it’s as if he never heard of a redesign. Has no interest. Seems like he doesn’t give a damn about the department.”
“When this is over,” Joe said, “he’ll launch into it. Bounce back. Reorganize the space. That would be just the ticket, get his mind off what those buzzards are trying to do to him.”
“If we only knew which buzzards,” Clyde said. “I don’t know, I’ve never seen him like this. Years ago, in Salinas, after a bad bull ride when Max got gored in the shoulder, when he was all broken up and in the hospital-and didn’t have a dime-he was still joking. Still on top of it.
“His shoulder got infected, he had a high fever, three ribs broken. I was scared he was going to cash it in. But he hung in there-joking all the way, with that dry humor.
“Even when Millie died, even though he’s never gotten over it or stopped missing her, he was never like this.
“You had the feeling, when Millie died, that no matter how destroyed he was, he knew things had to get better. That he knew that’s the way life works-that we all take our bumps and keep ridin’. But now…” Clyde shook his head. “Now, he doesn’t seem to believe that anymore.”
Joe just looked at him. Sometimes all these human problems were too much; sometimes he thought the household animals were the lucky ones. All they had to do was nap on their soft beds, gobble their three squares, enjoy lots of petting, and no worries over humankind’s disasters.
Except he remembered too clearly that other life, before he realized his ability to speak. He wouldn’t want to return to that. He’d been bored out of his tomcat mind.
As a young cat, it had been a big deal to invent some simple new entertainment-find some new diversion in one of the several shabby apartments he’d lived in, a new way to tease some human in one of the interchangeable families who’d taken him in. Stupid kitten stuff. He’d never had a real human friend until he met Clyde. Or he’d find some smaller, skinnier kitten abandoned in an alley, someone weaker than he, that he could tease andtorment.
When he moved in with Clyde, he’d graduated to intimidating Clyde’s lady friends. How amusing, to terrorize those lovely young women, faking lethal claws, treating them to loud snarls and flashing teeth-all because life could get so yawningly, nerve-deadeningly, mind-numblingly dull.
But now, with his newly discovered skills, there was no time to be bored. He hardly had time for a nap or a good rabbit hunt-the sleuthing life took every claw-clinging ounce of creativity he could muster.
And now, as a pattern of clues was forming in the Marner murders, a morass as intriguing as a crisscross of fresh rabbit tracks, he had no time for discontented thoughts-except in terms of the final retribution for this killer.
This case was more than a fascinating puzzle. This time, he wanted not only justice, he wanted revenge. Sweet, sharp-clawed revenge. This time, he was out for blood.