“Here we go,” he said softly, pawing a small file box out from behind the coffee canister.
She leaped up, watching the hall, watching him impatiently as he clawed through the alphabetized tabs. The cards contained patients’ names and their medication information, the dosage, times per day, and for how many days.
They found no Jane Hubble, no Darlene Brown or Mary Nell Hook. They had no time to look for the others. Dulcie hissed, and they leaped down, dived back beneath the shelves as three nurses appeared.
“I’m beginning to feel like a windup toy,” Joe said. “Programmed to jump at the sight of a human. I need a good run, need to clear my head.”
“Shh. They’re coming.”
The nurses moved back and forth. Medicine bottles clinked. Someone sneezed. Coffee was brewed, and the radio station was changed again. They waited nearly half an hour before Size Nine returned to pick up her stack of papers, thumped them on the desk again, and headed for the pneumatic door.
They followed behind her heels and fled into the hall. For an instant, behind her, they were as visible as dog turds on a white sidewalk If she had turned to look back, it would have been all over; they’d have had the whole staff chasing them.
They dodged into a bedroom, and in the dark, Joe paced. He couldn’t settle. When something furry touched his nose, he jumped and raked at it, hissing.
But it was only a furry slipper. He shook it and shoved it aside. Out beyond the glass the moon was setting, its slanting light fading into the blackness of predawn. When the nurse vanished down the hall, they fled for the admitting desk.
In less time than it took for the moon to sink beyond the windows, they had searched not only that tall counter but two nearby file cabinets, clawing open the drawers, pawing through the folders. The procedure gave Joe fits-he’d been creeping and stealthy too long. All this snooping made him feel as if he was going to jump out of his skin. He needed to storm up trees, yowl at the moon. His mood would be considerably improved by a good bloody tomcat brawl.
But Dulcie pressured him on. She was most interested, of course, in the one office that was locked. They could smell Adelina’s scent beneath the door, the same expensive perfume that had accompanied her into the entry the first time they saw her. The same scent which had already settled faintly into the leather upholstery of her new red Bentley the day Clyde took them for that memorable ride. Dulcie tried the door, leaping and fighting the knob, but at last she turned away.
In the two open offices they clawed open the desk drawers and file drawers, pawing through, flipping the file tabs with their claws.
They found the patients’ full-sized record files, each set of documents in its own manila folder, but they found no record of any of the six missing residents. If those people had ever really existed, they weren’t here now. Or at least their records weren’t here.
“Maybe Jane took off for Tahiti, booked a cruise. Maybe right this minute she’s paddling her feet in some balmy tropical bay, eating coconuts.”
“Very funny.” Dulcie leaped down from where she had been balancing on the last file drawer.
“There have to be records, even if those people aren’t here. Dead files.” She shivered.
“Whatever secret this place is hiding. I’m betting it’s in Adelina’s office.” She leaped up onto a desk. “That would be the?”
She paused, looking down between her paws at the glass-covered desk top. Beneath the glass, the desk was overlayed with photographs.
“Movies-they’re movie stills. All the old reruns. Look at this, here’s Clint Eastwood before he had any wrinkles. And Lindsay Wagner-she can’t be more than twenty.”
Joe leaped up. Strolling across the desk, he nosed at the pictures.“Who’s the washed-out blonde? She’s in every shot.”
The thin woman appeared in the background behind Clint Eastwood, and at a restaurant table with a very young Jack Nicholson. Joe twitched a whisker.“She looks familiar, but I?”
Dulcie studied the lank-haired woman, frowning.“That’s Adelina’s sister.”
“Come on. Why would Adelina’s sister have her picture taken with Clint Eastwood?”
“It is her, only younger.” The pale blond appeared as a maid standing stiffly beside a fireplace, appeared in several group scenes, and in the backgrounds behind the stars. “She’s a bit player. Or she was-she’s really young, here.”
Beyond the office windows the wind had quickened, and the sky was beginning to pale, the branches of the oaks twisting black against the running clouds. Joe turned, watching the office door.“What time does the shift change?”
She shrugged, lifting a tabby shoulder.
“I don’t relish getting caught in here. Like flies stuck to the chopped liver.”
“We can have a little nap in the parlor while we wait. We can see the front door from there.”
“While we wait for what?”
“For Adelina to get here. Don’t you want to search her office? As soon as she unlocks her door, we-”
“Sure, we’ll nip right on in, she’ll be so pleased. Dulcie, I want into that woman’s office like I want into the rabies lockup at the city pound.”
She gave him a cool look, leaped down, and trotted away toward the parlor. Bellying beneath the damask sofa, she curled up yawning.
He gave it up and joined her. Far be it from him to back out. If they ended up murdered by Adelina’s stiletto heels, there was always, presumably, another life. Unless, of course, they’d already used all nine.
They were cuddled together dozing beneath the sofa when Joe glimpsed movement beyond the black glass. Waking fully, he watched something shiny flickering through the heavy shadows beneath a lemon tree. Quickly he slid along beneath the couch for a closer look, pulling himself across the Chinese rug. Why did people make couches so low? How many cats in the world had to scrape their backs every day, every time they crawled under the family sofa? Where were people’s minds? Didn’t they think about these things?
Again the movement, glinting and dancing through the dark: the metallic flash of spokes.
Chrome spokes-the spokes of a wheelchair. He watched the chair turn and wheel away into the heavy shadows of the dark, predawn garden. Dulcie was beside him now, peering out. They could see, deep within the blackness, a figure standing, facing the wheelchair, as if the two were talking softly, their voices inaudible through the glass.
The cats looked at each other and slid back deeper under the couch.“I didn’t hear the wheels,” Joe said nervously. “And I didn’t hear footsteps. I don’t like when I can’t hear something that’s moving.”
Dulcie stared out at the patio.“Maybe Teddy doesn’t sleep well at night; maybe he and some other patient like to roam the halls.” Uneasily, she curled up close to Joe, trying to purr, to calm herself. And at last they slept.
Joe woke to the first chirping of birds from the garden. The leaves of the lilies and azalea bushes shivered with activity, forcing Joe’s eyes open wide, his metabolism to swing into high, and he crept out from under the couch.
The branches were full of birds. Flitting wings, hopping little bodies. Rigid, his muscles geared immediately into the kill mode, he crouched, staring out at that fluttering feast, at that brazen display of fresh meat, inches from his waiting claws. These birds, reared in that sheltered garden without a cat in sight, would be as stupid and tame as pet chickens.
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It was early morning when she passed Police Captain Harper; he was just coming out of the drugstore as she went in. He smiled and nodded, and she turned away, hiding a laugh. He’d looked right at her, didn’t guess a thing. Not a clue.
But why should he? If she went clanking by him in her black raincoat loaded and lumpy, he’d be onto her like an ambulance chaser onto a five-car collision. But dressed as she was, she could safely pass any village cop or, for that matter, could likely walk right by any hillside resident who had seen her looking for poor lost “Kitty.” People weren’t that observant. Who would connect?