Joe licked a whisker. "Clyde was talking about VIN numbers on the phone just…" he stared at her, his eyes round. "He was talking to someone about stolen cars just before Beckwhite was killed."
Her eyes grew wide. "You mean Clyde's part of this-this car ring?"
Joe shook his whiskers. "Not old Law-and-Order Damen. No way. I think maybe he suspects something-he's been really irritable, coming home from work. And he hasn't seen Jimmie and Kate much lately. And he's been keeping some kind of list in a little notebook."
"Could Jimmie and Wark have killed Beckwhite because he found out? How could he sell cars in his agency, and not know they were stolen?"
"I guess if Wark had false papers, they could make it look legit. They killed Beckwhite for some reason. There's a lot of money down there, I'd guess the Corvette way up in the six figures, and the Lamborghini more than that."
"Maybe that was why Wark hid the wrench. Because they thought Clyde knew something. Maybe Clyde was nosing around." She looked at him thoughtfully.
He tried to remember Clyde's phone conversations over the last weeks, but he'd had no reason to listen carefully. The usual banter with his women friends, a complaint to the cleaners for losing a button on his sport coat, a call to his accountant. Dull stuff. He flicked a whisker and hunched lower, watched with growing interest as the men worked on the Corvette. He hadn't pictured Wark as a careful person, but the man was careful now as he installed the new VIN number. "I expect they got that plate from a wrecking yard, from an old wrecked Corvette, same model, same year."
"How do you know so much?"
"From Clyde. And from the late shows. What do you watch, late at night?"
"Wilma reads to me. Or if we're watching TV, I'm looking at the clothes and the beautiful houses."
As, above them, the sky began to pale, they drew back away from the roof's edge. From down in the yard, if one of those three were to look up, they'd see two cats as stark against the sky as gargoyles on a gothic roof.
They watched Wark rivet a new metal strip to the dashboard, working as carefully as a surgeon, while Jimmie removed a new windshield from the backseat of the BMW.
When the men were ready to install the windshield, Wark squeezed cement from a tube, around the edge of the Corvette's window frame. The smell rose up to the cats, making their noses itch and their eyes blink. As the men set the windshield in place, Joe could see a heavy bulge, like a gun, in Wark's pocket. He didn't mention it to Dulcie. She'd been through enough with Wark's poison and Wark nearly pushing her off the cliff. Even if it was a gun, why make a big deal.
Dawn was pushing into brightness as Wark and Jimmie cleaned up the edges of the glass and cleaned the new windshield. Dulcie crept forward, flattened against the roof, staring over. "What's the woman doing, rooting around inside the yellow car?"
"Sheril. That's Sheril Beckwhite."
The blonde was leaning into the Corvette, feeling under the seat. She had been rummaging through the interiors of all three cars as the two men worked. She seemed to be filling a canvas tote bag. When she backed out of the Corvette, rear first in the tight black jeans, the bag was fat and heavy. She was barely out of the car when Wark snatched the bag from her and headed for the small gate that led to the restaurant.
"Where's he going? What's in there?"
"Come on," Joe said.
"But it's…"
"Shh. Come on." He backed away from the edge and led her across the roof until they were over the repair shop. The sky above them was bright with pale, swift running clouds.
Below them in the yard, Sheril put her arm around Jimmie. "I'm starving, lover. And I'm purely dead for sleep."
"We're almost done," Jimmie said. "You sure you didn't miss any? We'll leave the cars in the yard-Clyde's expecting a delivery."
She laughed.
"A legit delivery. Come on, Wark can stash the bundles, we'll get some breakfast and grab a couple hours' sleep."
"I don't want to go to my place. I can just feel the neighbors staring, and it's broad daylight." She had a whiney voice, as annoying as sand between a cat's claws.
Jimmie mumbled something the cats couldn't hear; and Sheril giggled.
Wark was unlocking the small gate. As he swung it back, he looked up toward the roof. The cats sucked down as flat as frogs mashed on a highway. He seemed to be staring straight at them.
But he hadn't seen them. He moved on away, through the gate into the narrow alley between the stores that faced Highway One. "Where's he going?" Dulcie said, creeping forward. "What's he up to?"
Joe stared down at the tow car parked below them, and leaped. Dulcie followed, they made two soft thumps on the metal top, and hit the concrete running. Wark had disappeared but he had left the gate ajar, maybe for a quick getaway.
"Hurry," Dulcie breathed, glancing toward the two figures beside Corvette, and they slid through the open gate into the alley.
They were facing an open door, a side door into the restaurant; they could smell stale grease and cigarette smoke. The room was dark, but large and chilly. Behind them in the yard they heard the big driveway gate being rolled back, and heard one of the cars start and head out. They slipped inside, to Mom's Burgers.
The restaurant was so black they couldn't see Wark. And they couldn't hear him, not a sound. Moving in away from the square of light provided by the open door, they hunched in the blackness against the wall.
Before them loomed an army of tables, their legs standing at attention on the dirty carpet. Chairs had been piled up on top, a second row of mute soldiers waiting for the carpet to be vacuumed. At the far end of the room near the floor, a faint light shone. It seemed to come from around a corner, and they heard a soft thud, then a door suck closed with a pneumatic wheeze.
They trotted on back between the table legs to a short hall where, halfway down, a strip of light shone beneath a closed door. "Men's room," Joe said. They could hear from inside, metal rubbing against metal. As they pressed against the door they heard a thunk. Then silence. Then, in a few minutes, a metallic click like the turn of a lock.
The light under the door went out. The hall dropped into blackness. They leaped away as the swinging door opened, emitting a suck of air.
Wark passed so close to them that they could have clawed his ankles to shreds. He was carrying the canvas bag, a pale smear against his dark pants; even in the blackness they could see that it hung limp and empty.
He swung out of the hall and across the restaurant. In a moment they heard the outer door close and the lock slide home. They were locked in.
They heard the wire gate slam, the click of the padlock. Dulcie shivered.
"So he locked the door. So let's see what he was doing in there."
They shouldered open the heavy pneumatic door. As they pushed into the dark room, a chill hit them. Their paws hit cold tile. The room echoed with the sound of the door closing behind them.
Joe leaped up the wall, and leaped again. On his third try his groping paw found the light switch and grabbed it, clawing.
Light blazed, shattering against the white tile walls, reflecting back and forth from the slick surfaces, nearly blinding them.
The small, white tiled room had one booth, a sink, and a urinal. It smelled of human bodily functions and of Lysol.
Though the room was cold, an even colder chill emanated from the ceiling, where a black hole gaped.
Above them in the white ceiling, two acoustical tiles had been removed, leaving a rectangular space maybe three feet across, and black as the inside of a locked car trunk. The missing tiles were not anywhere in the small bathroom. Looking up into the hole, they could see in its dark interior only the edge of a wooden beam, and a few taut metal rods, maybe part of the grid that held the ceiling tiles. Joe thought that an attic must run the full length of the store complex. It would be the logical place to hide something.