Did he hear someone running and shouting? Nosing in panic among the stinking mess, he pawed aside items he didn’t care to identify-he’d taste these smells for hours-spoiled food, bleach, and…
Paint! There! Pawing aside wadded paper, he snatched up a little, damp paintbrush stuck to the lid of a tomato can.
Taking the brush carefully in his mouth, he looked for a tube of patching compound or caulking. Behind him, the running had ceased. He was still looking when softer footsteps approached behind him, making him spin around.
A small boy stood staring at him, a kid of about seven. Short black hair, a red-and-blue baseball jacket. He looked up at the house behind them. “If Mrs. Hallman sees what you did, cat, you’ll be cat skin.” He stared at the paintbrush. “What’ve you got?” Lunging, the kid tried to snatch it…But Joe Grey was gone, scorching into the bushes and behind the houses, into a thorny thicket of blackberries. That should stop the little brat.
He waited maybe twenty minutes while the kid tramped around outside the thicket pawing at the vines. Joe smiled when the kid got hung up and scratched himself good, and then at last wandered away.
Slipping out again and along through the backyards, Joe headed once more for the Blean cottage. But this time, before he went over the fence, he slipped beneath a holly bush, lay the paintbrush against the holly’s trunk where it wouldn’t get any dirtier, then stood there debating.
He’d been seen doing something very uncatlike. Even a seven-year-old had to wonder why a cat would steal a dirty paintbrush. Who would that boy decide to tell about the weird gray cat? If this kid turned up while Garza was talking with some neighbor, and if the kid opened his busy little mouth…Joe shivered.
But it couldn’t be helped. Anyway, who would take the word of a seven-year-old boy? Why would anyone believe that a cat would want a dirty paintbrush? He looked out to the street and, when he didn’t see the kid, Joe irritably dismissed him.
He had to find a phone, he didn’t want to leave the brush there very long. Maybe he could get into the Blean cottage through the inner garage door and use that phone.
But why would there be a phone in there? Why would anyone bother to pay a monthly phone bill when they weren’t there very much, when they could just use their cell phones? Even for rich folks coming down once a year on vacation or the occasional weekend, to pay for a landline seemed foolish. He looked next door to the Milner house, wondering if he could get in there, instead.
Rearing up, slipping the paintbrush higher among the prickly branches of the holly bush, he had crouched to make a dash for the Milner house, thinking first to check the windows and then the roof vents, when a patrol car pulled into the Milner drive.
Talk about serendipity. Talk about happy accident and smiling fate! Dallas Garza stepped from the car and headed directly for the Blean cottage, moving carefully through the deceased’s flower garden, clutching a key in his hand.
At about the time Joe watched Dallas cross the garden, apparently to have another look at the Blean garage, up in the hills in the Cage Jones house Lilly Jones sat at her little writing desk methodically paying the monthly bills and making her phone calls; she was relieved that that Greeley person had left, but not at all happy that her sister, Violet, had moved in on her. And without even a phone call. Well, but the poor thing had nowhere else, the helpless creature never had had any gumption. Lilly supposed she could put up with Violet for the short term. In the long run, what difference?
Nor was she unduly upset that Cage was in the hospital in intensive care; she was not wringing her hands for her brother. If Cage’s wounds to the throat and face and chest were critical enough to seriously restrict his respiratory functions, that was his fault and his problem. Fate would do with Cage what fate would do.
She had spent the hour since her breakfast dusting and vacuuming. If that woke Violet, that was too bad. She hadn’t asked Violet to move back home, into her old room. She might feel sorry for Violet, but the girl’s presence compounded Lilly’s own problems.
Still, in some respects, Violet’s proximity might make life easier for her. Thinking about Violet, back again and living there, and then about Cage in the hospital, perhaps dying, Lilly Jones smiled with a dawning contentment, and returned to paying her bills.
Watching Dallas approach the garage, Joe snatched the paintbrush from where he’d shoved it up into the bush and, trying not to drool on it, fled beneath the lavender and Mexican sage to the gate of the dog yard that Dallas would have to open to reach the garage side door.
Dropping the brush where Garza couldn’t miss it, he fled again, unseen through the bushes and, behind Garza’s back, up a pepper tree.
He watched Garza pause before the gate, looking down at the paintbrush. Frowning, Dallas took a tissue from his pocket and carefully picked it up. Then he scanned the yard all around, looking up and down the street. At last he crossed the dog yard, unlocked the garage door, and disappeared inside. Joe’s nerves were doing flip-flops.
He knew he should get out of there, but he was unwilling to miss the crucial moment. Skinning over the fence, he crouched beside the doggy door and, lifting a paw, cautiously pushed the flap in a quarter inch and peered through.
Dallas had placed the paintbrush in an evidence bag, which he still held. He stood looking carefully around, then knelt to examine the lower shelf of the workbench and the gallon cans of paint, much as Joe had done. He ran a finger around the lip of the can that had been opened, then held the paintbrush to the can.
Apparently, from the look on the detective’s face, the paint matched. Dropping it back in the evidence bag, he circled the garage studying the walls and rafters-and sniffing the air as intently as had Joe himself, and that made the tomcat smile.
It didn’t take the detective long to find the source of the scent, to locate the patched and repainted portion of the oversize baseboard. Running a finger lightly over the floor, he examined a tiny spill of white dust on the concrete that Joe himself had missed. When Dallas rose quickly to leave, Joe backed out into the dog yard, squeezing beneath a dog-scented bush as Dallas raced past him-after this caper, he was going to stink of dog pee.
He heard the car door open and slam and thought Dallas would take off, but almost at once the detective was back, carrying a camera. The minute he was inside the garage again, Joe peered in, watching as he photographed the repaired wall and the white dust on the floor. He watched as Dallas, wearing thin gloves and using a penknife, carefully lifted the minute particles of dust and dropped them in a small plastic sandwich bag, which he sealed in an evidence bag. Then with his knife, Dallas pried away a six-by-six-inch section of drywall board. It came out easily, the new caulking sticking to the edges. Shining the light into the end of the small utility tunnel, presumably picking out cable and electrical and phone wires, Dallas smiled.
Again he photographed, this time directly into the hole. Half a dozen shots, then he reached in, nearly to the elbow. He drew out two leather gloves, handling them by the corners of the cuffs, and dropped each into an evidence bag. He retrieved a small, folding hatchet of the kind that a hiker might take camping.
With the hatchet secured in an evidence bag, he examined the hole again and, finding nothing more, he rose. He bagged the paint can and, with a last look around, he headed for the door. This time Joe was quicker. As Dallas locked the door behind him, Joe Grey was on the roof above him. But when Joe glanced up the street, he saw the nosy kid poking around in the spilled garbage.