Had she been here last night, when he’d searched the basement? Might she have watched him? Woman looked like she could slip around silent as a ghost and you’d never know she was there. He looked at her for a long time. She pointed to the coffeepot.
“There’s plenty,” she said softly. “I thought Lilly might be up.”
“I didn’t know you were living here.”
“I’m not. Well, maybe I am now. From this morning. Is Lilly still asleep?” She didn’t seem interested in who he was. Maybe she knew, though, maybe she remembered him from years back. But she sure didn’t seem interested in what he was doing there, now.
“I expect she’s still asleep,” he said. “She let me have a room last night; the motels was all full.” He rose and poured a cup of coffee. Perching on the edge of his chair, he blew on it and drank it quickly. He wanted to ask what she was doing there; she made him real uneasy. But then, later, when he found out Eddie was in jail, and Cage in the hospital, he guessed she’d had nowhere else to go.
Nervously finishing his coffee, he rose again. “Have to be getting on. Tell Lilly thank you.” He went to get his jacket, and within minutes was relieved to be out the front door and away.
Checking into the Seaview Bed and Breakfast, he couldn’t get the rate down even on a Monday morning. Whole damn village was the same, take all a man’s money and ask for more. Now, with Cage in the hospital, he didn’t want to leave Molena Point. He didn’t give a damn if Cage cashed it in, but no one except Cage could tell him where the stash had been, and who else might have taken it, if Wilma hadn’t. Only thing he could do was wait till Cage got out of the hospital and away from that police guard-if he didn’t die-and then follow him when he went looking.
One thing sure, Cage’d come out of that hospital mean as snakes with his face all shot up, the kind of mean that he’d kill you if you sneezed wrong. And, Greeley thought, smiling, that Charlie Harper who’d shot him, she’d be smart to get out of town before Cage found her.
33
T he house next door to where Peggy Milner was murdered was a charmingly remodeled cottage that had only recently been a shack with an uncertain future. In this village where folks would pay a million for a teardown, the expense of such a renovation was not unusual. The disturbance of the remodeling had sent droves of mice out into the neighborhood, and Joe and Dulcie and Kit had had their share.
The resulting small, cream-toned retreat was now far more appealing than the two-story gray box that loomed beside it, where Peggy Milner had drawn her last breath. The garden had been redesigned to feature low-maintenance lavender and Mexican sage. A narrow side yard was enclosed by a woven-wire fence four feet high topped with a two-by-four crosspiece, meant to confine the Bleans’ small terrier when they were in residence. The yard within stunk sharply of dog. Joe, coming up the block, had already endured the sour stink of the neighbors’ garbage cans clustered on the street along with plastic recycling boxes of newspapers and cans and bottles, a miasma of rotten food, wet baby diapers, cleaning liquids, and wet paint.
He had circled the Milner house, making sure there wasn’t a uniform or two standing guard, had strolled casually beneath the yellow crime tape, looking up at the windows. When he saw no movement within, he moved on to the Blean house. He circled it, too, though he wasn’t interested in getting inside. It was the garage Joe wanted, where Peggy Milner and her husband had had key access.
Leaping to the top of the low fence pondering possible methods of entry, Joe gave a whiskery grin. Right there in the dog yard was just what the tomcat wanted: a small doggy door installed next to the narrow, pedestrian door. Smiling, he had dropped down into the dog yard when he realized that the little door would likely be blocked from inside by one of those sliding panels that people installed when they planned to be away, to prevent the entry of raccoons or skunks-or inquisitive tomcats.
He nosed at the plastic flap, expecting it to stop against a hard surface. Wondering if he could claw that sliding panel to the top of its metal tracks and push in under it, he nearly fell through when the flap gave freely. Quick as a flash, he slipped inside.
The Bleans’ garage was nearly empty. It was light and pristine, the white walls finished as nicely as the inside of a house. He caught the scent of fresh paint, from the can that Peggy Milner had recently opened. The space was lit by a long row of high windows looking out on the dog yard. Beneath these stood a small white workbench. No tools hung on the wall behind it. No gardening tools adorned the other walls, and there were none of those tall storage cabinets that people installed to hide clutter. He found, when he leaped atop the workbench, a neat row of small garden implements laid out beside a rolled-up hose that was still in its package. He dropped down again to consider the shelf underneath.
The paint smell came from there, from one of a row of gallon cans, each featuring its own handwritten label indicating living room, kitchen, master bath, and so on. Talk about neatniks. Clyde could take a lesson here. He could see where one can had been opened, a tiny line of paint still glistening at its edge, from where Peggy had touched up her own wall. Dropping off the low shelf, he circled the garage, not sure what he expected to find. The fact that Peggy Milner’s husband had had access to this private and uninhabited space, out of sight of the neighbors, interested Joe just as it had interested Harper and Garza.
Dallas had found nothing, but Dallas didn’t have a cat’s keen sense of smell. And as Joe circled, the scent of paint followed him, as if it was not all coming from the can beneath the workbench.
The smell grew stronger near the door that would open into the house. And stronger, still, when he padded toward the corner, following a foot-high, four-inch-wide, oversize baseboard that ran the length of that one wall. He remembered, from slipping in here after mice while the builders were working, that this space had been open, then, with telephone, electrical, and cable lines running through it-an electronic life-support system from the meter and cable boxes into the dwelling.
In the corner, the smell of water-based paint came strongest, and he found a freshly painted area, dry, but still fresh. The smell was faint enough that, he supposed, a human could easily miss it.
Studying the surface at an angle, he could see where the protruding baseboard had been cut and then resealed; and beneath the smell of paint, he caught a faint scent of caulking or patching.
Dragging a paw softly over the barely dry surface, he felt a subtle, raised line beneath the fresh paint. When he looked closely, he saw not only the patch line but brush marks.
He found no paintbrush in the garage, used or otherwise.
Maybe the cable man had been here. Or the phone guy, making some change that necessitated cutting into the baseboard. Maybe they had used their own brush, and had taken it with them?
Or maybe not.
The Milners had had the garage key. If a serviceman were to be admitted, Peggy would likely have come over to let him in, and she would have told her husband. Under the circumstances, wouldn’t he have made sure to tell the cops?
Well, Peggy Milner wasn’t talking. He stood a moment, considering, his heart pounding hard. If it was just painted, where’s the paintbrush? Why would someone…? Where…?
Muttering to himself, he headed out through the doggy door, leaped to the top of the fence and over, and fled up the street to the nearest neighbor’s garbage cans, where, among multiple offensive stinks, he’d caught a whiff of paint.
He found no paint can in the recycling box. Leaping atop the closed garbage can, pawing at the handles that fastened the lid in place, he flipped them up as easily as any raccoon could have. But it was impossible to get a purchase on the lid itself and push it off while standing on it. He gave up at last, dropped down, and with a flying tackle threw his weight against the side of the can, praying no one was watching. Over it went, the lid flying, the contents spilling into the street.