"Well, how did they get in there?"
"How the hell do I know? There are vents in an attic. Get the damn bags."
"You don't need to snap at me."
"I'll snap if I want. And look in the garage for a ladder."
Beneath the couch, Dulcie said, "Maybe our uneasy feeling wasn't so silly. Why would Traynor have a gun?"
"I don't know, Dulcie. Maybe he carries it when he's traveling. Clyde carries a gun in the car when-"
"The Traynors flew out. People aren't supposed to carry guns on planes."
"They can, if they check their bag. And lock it. Unload the gun and declare it. Get a special tag-"
The back door banged. Elliott snapped, "Hold the damn bag open!"
"I don't want to do this! Leave that for the cleaning woman- keep it away from me. This makes me sick."
"Shut up and hold the bag!"
They listened to sounds of scraping, laced with plenty of swearing. Pretty soon they heard the back door open again, then the clanging of metal from the backyard as if Elliott had righted the garbage can that the raccoons had earlier turned over. The idea of a dead animal, even a raccoon, stuffed into a garbage can sickened the cats. They heard Traynor secure the lid and pound it down, as if with an angry fist.
"How many did he kill?" Dulcie said. "There were only two shots. Why didn't we hear the others running away across the attic?"
"Maybe two for one," Joe said coldly. "I hope he closed the door tight."
The kit began to wriggle. Joe scowled at her.
"Curl up, Kit. Close your eyes. We can't leave with them fussing around in the kitchen.
"Come here, Kit," Dulcie said, nudging her. She licked the kit's face and ears, washing her gently until the kit stretched out and dozed off. Dulcie didn't mean to sleep, but she woke later with the kit curled against her and Joe Grey gone.
Listening, she heard not the faintest noise in the house. Leaving the sleeping kit, she crept out from behind the couch and followed Joe's scent down the hall.
No light burned beneath the bedroom door. She could hear Vivi and Elliott breathing, in two separate rhythms. Their human sleep-smell was sour. Beyond the bedroom, Elliott's study was dark, the door pulled nearly closed. Pressing it open, she padded in.
Against the pale color of the drawn draperies, where a thin wash of moonlight brightened the window, Joe sat atop Elliott Traynor's desk, his silhouette black, his white markings gleaming, his ears pricked sharply-he was as still as a sphinx, watching her. The illuminated clock on the desk said 1:30. She leaped up beside him.
A heavy brown folder lay at his feet, from which he had pawed out a thick sheaf of papers, scattering them across the blotter. There was barely enough light to read, even for a cat. She looked at the pages, frowning.
"Traynor's research," he said softly. "Take a look at this. A San Francisco museum owns some of Catalina's letters, which they have translated-pretty impassioned letters," he said, grinning. "She was mad as hell when her father made her marry the American. And look at this."
With a deft claw he pulled out several pages revealing a paper tucked between them, an auction house notice offering two letters written by Catalina Ortega-Diaz, the bidding for each to start at ten thousand dollars. A handwritten notation at the bottom indicated that one had sold for twelve thousand, one for fourteen. Clipped to the notice was a printed statement listing the two items, and making payment to Vivi Traynor.
In the gloom, Joe Grey's eyes were as black as obsidian. "Did someone say there's been no crime? Famous author or not, this is most interesting. There's money here, Dulcie-how many letters did she write over her lifetime? How many did she never send?
"Catalina had seven carved chests that Marcos made for her. Was that white cask one of them? And did they all have secret compartments? Even so, how did she keep her husband from finding them?
"The research said they had separate chambers-bedrooms- where the chests were hidden."
Dulcie looked at the date on the auction notice. "Only a few weeks since these letters were sold. Then Susan Brittain's house is broken into, and the burglar is attacked. Did those men think she had one of the chests? And the same morning, Casselrod snatches the white one."
"Add to that," Joe said, "that Elliott carries a gun and that Vivi and Elliott are afraid of the cops and apparently of Garza's niece." He looked intently at Dulcie, his yellow eyes gleaming with a hot predatory flame-with the same resolve that he had reserved, in the past, for thieves and killers.
"He's a famous author," Dulcie said softly. "He's… Well, I don't know. To accuse a man like that…" Looking around the study, looking at the papers that Joe was neatly pawing together, she shivered. "Prying into Elliott Traynor's business makes me nervous."
"Come on," he said, pawing the envelope open and pushing the papers in. "Get the kit, let's get out of here. I need fresh air, away from these people." Quickly he pushed beneath the draperies and slid the window lock. He had the glass open when Dulcie returned with the yawning kit. And they left the Traynor's with far more silence than they had entered, softly sliding the window closed behind them, as they dropped down among the bushes.
But Joe Grey was back inside the cottage again by the time Charlie got to work. He had watched from the oak tree as Vivi and Elliott left the house, had come in through the window, returning to Elliot's study, his curiosity not nearly satisfied.
He had no idea what else he would find-and no idea that he would catch Charlie snooping, exactly as he and Dulcie had done, hiding her prying with energetic bouts of vacuuming and dusting.
12
Whether you're a cop with a search warrant or the weekly cleaning person come to scour the bathrooms and vacuum the rugs, if you peek through someone's private papers you can stir matters you might wish you'd let lie. The more bizarre the results of such prying, the more compelled one may feel to keep searching, to see what else might come to light.
Charlie Getz had no idea, when she let herself into the Traynor cottage at nine on Monday morning, of the bloody mess she'd have to clean up or of what she would find later in Elliott Traynor's study.
The cottage the Traynors had rented was one of the most charming in the village, with its pale stone exterior and winding brick walk through a lush and tastefully planted garden. The high roof, above tall clerestory windows, was sheltered by an ancient oak. The front porch was laid with pale stone. The hand-carved front door opened into a handsome foyer brightened by a skylight and by a floor of cream-toned Mexican tiles. From the high-ceilinged living room to the tile-floored kitchen, the interior was filled with light.
The furnishings were casual and well designed, the copies of antique Persian rugs well made and rich in color, every detail planned for a tasteful but durable upscale rental. The owners had only recently refurnished, storing their antique pieces in the insulated attic among chests of outgrown children's toys and personal mementos.
Unloading her grocery bag, Charlie rinsed the salad greens and the pound of Bing cherries she had bought for Vivi, put the cherries into a flat plastic container, and slipped them in the freezer-frozen cherries for Vivi to suck on during the day, a childish habit that seemed to Charlie to have weird sexual connotations.
Moving into the living room, she watered the plants with a specially prepared plant food that was kept in a gallon plastic bottle under the wet bar. It was when she returned to the bright kitchen to get the vacuum from the cleaning closet next to the pantry, that she smelled something sour and metallic, a vile stink like spoiling meat, seeping out around the pantry door. Had some food gone bad, or a can of something exploded?
That didn't seem likely. She had stocked the shelves herself, only three weeks before, with freshly purchased staples, following instructions from the rental agent. Reaching for the doorknob, she hesitated, filled with a strange apprehension.