It had been a dream, a figment conjured out of his own warped mind.
For a minute there he’d really bought it. He could still hear the caller’s voice, so familiar, rasping and coolly amused, its harsh tone exactly like Joe Cat’s insulting yowl.
He got up, staring at the phone, then picked up the receiver and dropped it back in its cradle.
But the next instant he snatched it up again and threw it on the rumpled bed. He didn’t want it to ring. He wasn’t answering any more phone calls. The receiver buzzed for a moment, then a taped female voice told him to hang up and dial again.
“I didn’t dial!” he shouted at the taped voice. “And you can go to hell!”
He had to have some coffee. And he’d better get in the shower, get dressed for work.
It took him several minutes to realize that this was Saturday and his day off, that he’d still be asleep if Joe hadn’t called.
If Joe hadn’t?
He’d better get hold of himself.
Cats did not make phone calls.
Cats did not speak human words.
Cats communicated with body language. Cats said things with angry glares, with tail lashings and butt wiggles. They let you know how they felt by squinching their ears down or poking you with a paw. By hissing at you, or flipping their tail and stalking away. That was cat talk. Cats did not speak the English language.
He stood scratching his stubbled chin, knowing in his gut that the phone call hadn’t been a dream. Knowing that the ringing of the phonehadwaked him. Remembering the sunlight slashing beneath the shade into his eyes as he rolled over and grabbed the phone. Hearing that rasping voice.
The morning sun beat relentlessly against the window shades, thrusting its bright fingers more powerfully underneath like some nosy neighbor. His face itched; he hated it when his face itched. Staring at the demanding sunlight, imagining the bright day beyond the blinds, he got an unwanted mental picture of Joe stretched out in the sunshine somewhere, maybe beside someone’s pool, talking over the poolside phone.
He flipped up a window shade, causing the stiff fabric to spin dangerously on its roller. He stood at the window, staring out at the street praying he would see Joe come strolling down the sidewalk.
And knowing he wouldn’t.
Where the hell was the cat?
He needed coffee. He needed to talk to someone. He needed to see if the rest of the animals were different this morning.
What was he going to find in the kitchen? A tangle of chattering dogs and cats complaining about the quality of their breakfast? Bitching because he was late getting up?
He shuffled down the hall in his shorts; as he opened the kitchen door, a barrage of leaping canines hit him. The two warm, whining dogs pummeled and pushed. The cats yowled and wound around his bare ankles, tickling with their twining, furry greeting.
Neither the cats nor the dogs spoke a word. All remained satisfyingly mute. He petted Rube gratefully. The black Lab smiled up at him, then bent to lick his toes. Barney pushed against them both, growling as he competed for attention.
He scratched the dogs until they calmed down, then picked up all three cats, cuddling them in a huge hug, letting them rub their faces against his bristly cheeks.
When the cats began staring down from his arms at the counters, looking for some sign of breakfast, he put them down again on the floor. Stepping over the furry tangle, he filled the coffeepot with water and got the can of coffee from the cupboard. But he was still so upset by the phone call he spilled half the coffee grounds, then lost count of how many scoops. He ended up dumping it all back in the can and starting over.
That call was the perfect end to a rotten week. First the breakin at the shop, when his automotive tools were stolen along with a collection of shop gauges that would be hard to replace. The senseless burglary enraged and puzzled him. The thief could just as easily have entered the main showroom instead of the shop, could have broken the lock on the big showroom overhead doors and driven off with several million dollars’ worth of new, and vintage, foreign cars.
Why, with that fortune sitting in the showroom, had he chosen to burgle the shop?
Then three mornings later, Max Harper had shown up at the agency just before opening time, and that was when the real nightmare began.
The police chief had pulled his patrol car into the covered drive between the showroom and the shop. Harper’s thin, lined face had been more than ordinarily glum.
He’d known Max Harper since they were in high school; they had done some ranch work together, summers, and had rodeoed together, riding the bulls. Harper had joined the police force after four years at San Jose State. He’d married while still in college; his wife, Millie, had been in the criminaljustice program at San Jose, too, and had gone into law enforcement. She died two years ago, of a brain hemorrhage. The pain of her death was still raw for Harper. You could see it hidden behind his natural wariness.
Harper didn’t get out of the squad car, but sat behind the wheel frowning at him. “Beckwhite won’t be in this morning.”
“So? How come you’re relaying the message?” But he’d felt a chill begin. “What happened?”
Harper reached into his uniform pocket for a pack of cigarettes, and shook one out, and gave him a level look.“Beckwhite’s dead. He was killed last night.” Harper watched him carefully, at the same time seeing every movement within the shop where three mechanics were laying out tools preparing for their morning’s work.
His first thought, a trite reaction, was that Beckwhite couldn’t be dead, that he’d seen Beckwhite only yesterday. No, any minute now Beckwhite would come strolling into the shop from the showroom, carrying a paper cup of coffee from the machine, his close-cropped military haircut catching a gleam from the overhead lights, his grin self-satisfied even at this early hour. No, Samuel Beckwhite wasn’t dead.
“George Jolly found his body this morning, in the alley behind the deli. He’d been hit on the head, his skull cracked.” Harper struck a match and cupped his hand around the flame, though there was no wind. He blew smoke out through the opposite window. “No sign of anything that Beckwhite could have hit his head against. And it was too hard a blow for that. The coroner’s looking at it. He’s been dead since eight or nine last night.”
It had taken him a while to respond.“Has-has someone told his wife? Told Sheril?”
Harper nodded.“I went on up there.” He got a funny look on his face, but said nothing more.
The shock of Beckwhite’s death had left the agency staff confused, had thrown the conduct of day-to-day business into chaos. The murder had been all over the papers, local and San Francisco.
And the murder, for various reasons, had left him feeling uneasy. That unease was heightened considerably when, yesterday morning as he was looking for Joe Cat, he discovered that someone had tried to break into the house through the living room window.
When he saw the splintered wood, he had barged outdoors in his shorts and found a larger hole on that side, ragged and broken as if gouged by a tire iron or by a large screwdriver.
He had hurried back inside, staring around the living room. Nothing was gone-TV and VCR were there, CD player, all the electronic equipment. And then, because Joe Cat wasn’t nearby yowling for his breakfast, he grew concerned for all the animals. He headed for the kitchen; but when he flung open the kitchen door, the dogs were rarin’ to go, charging past him straight for the living room. Leaping at the window, roaring and snarling, they had put on an amazing surge of adrenaline for two fat old farts.
The window was so freshly splintered that it still smelled like new lumber. He had found no other damage to the outside of the house, and no sign that anyone had gotten inside. When he checked the study, nothing was amiss. The one item that concerned him was still on the desk, the small notebook lay in plain sight beside his checkbook. He had stuffed it under some papers, intending to hide it later.