Pulling away from Clyde's stroking hand, turning his back, he pictured several interesting moves he might pursue to put Clyde Damen in his place.
Harper said, "I can't believe she'd take cats up there. A dog, sure. You can train a dog, make him mind. But a cat? Those cats will be all over; you can't control a cat.
"But hey, maybe a few cats careening around will give those old folks a little excitement, anything to break the boredom." Harper frowned. "When old people get bored, they can turn strange. We've had some real nut calls from up there."
"Oh?" Clyde said with interest. "What kind of nut calls?"
Harper shifted his lean body. "Imagining things. One old doll calls every few months to tell us that some of the patients are missing, that her friends have disappeared."
Clyde settled back, listening.
"When someone gets sick, Casa Capri moves them from the regular Care Unit over to Nursing. More staff over there, nurses who can keep them on IVs or whatever's needed. They don't encourage people from Care to visit the patients in Nursing, don't want folks whipping in and out. I can understand that.
"So this old woman keeps calling to say they won't let her see her friends, that her friends have disappeared. She got on my case so bad that finally I sent Brennan up to have a look around, ease her mind."
Harper grinned. "The missing people were all there, their names on the doors, the patients in their beds. Brennan knew a couple of them from years ago. Said they were pretty shriveled up with age."
He shook his head. "I guess that place takes as good care of them as you'd find. But poor Mrs. Rose, she can't understand. Every time she calls, she's bawling."
"Damned hard to get old," Clyde said.
Harper nodded. "Hope I go quick when the time comes." He ducked a little, for a better look at the interior of the Bentley, at the soft white leather, at the tasteful and gleaming accessories and the sleekly inlaid dash. "How much did this baby set Adelina back?"
"Three and a half big ones," Clyde said. "Poker this week?"
"Sure, if we don't have a triple murder." Harper glanced at the cats lying sedately on Clyde's lab coat, shook his head, and swung away to his police unit. Stepping in, he raised a hand and backed out. Within thirty minutes of Max Harper's departure, Joe and Dulcie were taking their first, and probably only, ride in Adelina Prior's pearl red, $340,000 Bentley Azure convertible. Heading up into the hills, sitting in the front seat like celebrities, Dulcie sniffed delicately at the inlaid wood dashboard, but she didn't let her pink nose touch that maple-and-walnut work of art. Carried along in that soft, humming, powerful palace of luxury, she felt as smug as if she were dining at the finest hotel, on a silver bowl of canaries prepared in cream.
Heading high up the hills toward the Prior estate, Clyde slowed as he passed Casa Capri. Following him at some distance was his own antique Packard, driven by his head mechanic. That quiet man had made no comment about Clyde giving two cats a joyride. Clyde was, his employees knew too well, touchy about the tomcat.
As they passed Casa Capri, Joe asked, "Did Harper mention anything more about the cat burglar?"
"Matter of fact, he did. He thinks she's moving on up the coast. She's started working Half Moon Bay."
"Really," Joe said, and shrugged. "Well she ripped off another Molena Point house just this morning."
Clyde turned to stare at him, swerving the Bentley. But at his touch the car responded like a thoroughbred, righting herself with superb balance. "How do you know she ripped off another house? What did you do, follow her?"
Joe looked innocent.
"Can't you two stay out of anything?"
Joe said, "She lifted a gold lame dress and some jewelry from that new two-story Mediterranean house up above Cypress."
"Harper'll be thrilled that his favorite snitch is on the case again. I suppose you got a make on her car."
"Not a thing," Dulcie said quickly. "Didn't see the car. But the gold lame dress was lovely."
Joe gave her a narrow look. He didn't like this; Dulcie had turned completely sentimental about the old woman. He didn't like this soft, sentimental side of his lady. What had happened to his ruthless hunting partner?
Clyde turned into a wide, oak-shaded drive. No house was visible; the curving lane led up over the crest of the hill. They drove for some time through the deep, cool shade beneath the overhanging branches of a double line of ancient oaks, then the drive made a last turn, and the house appeared suddenly, just on the crest of the hill. The two-story Mediterranean mansion was sheltered by oaks so huge they must have been here long before the house was built. The cats could see, far back behind the house, what appeared to be a much older structure.
The Prior house was two-storied, its thick white walls shadowed beneath deep eaves and beneath a roof of heavy, red clay tiles laid in curved rows. The front door was deeply carved, the main floor windows had beautifully wrought burglar bars, and each upstairs bedroom had French doors standing open to a private balcony.
"Five acres," Clyde said. "All that land back behind belongs to Adelina, and this is just the tiny remainder of the old land grant. Worth several million per acre now, plus the house and the original farmhouse and stables.
"This house was built in the thirties, but the estate goes back to the early eighteen hundreds. It belonged to the Trocano family, was a Spanish land grant. All the hills, every bit of land you can see, was Trocano land, thousands of acres. The buildings behind the house date from then."
Dulcie tried to imagine the distance in years, back to the early part of the last century. Tried to imagine Molena Point without houses, just miles of rolling hills and a few scattered ranches, imagine longhorns roaming, wolves and grizzly bears, where now she and Joe hunted the tiniest game. The terrible distance in time and the incredible changes made her head reel.
The grounds of the Prior estate were well tended, the lawn thick and very green. To the left of the old original house lay a wood, and they could see dark old tombstones between the trees.
"Family burial plot," Clyde said, "from when families were laid to rest on their own land." He parked the Bentley just opposite the front door. The cats could smell jasmine flowers, and the rich aroma of meat and chilies from somewhere deep within the house. Clyde picked up the two of them unceremoniously, carried them to the Packard, and deposited them in the backseat.
But on that brief journey as she was carried, Dulcie took in every possible detail she could see through the broad front windows of the house, a glimpse of library with walls of leather-bound books; pale, heavy draperies; the gleam of antique furniture; oriental rugs on polished floors. Dulcie's green eyes shone with interest, her pink tongue tipped out, her dark, striped tail twitched.
The mechanic, slipping over into the passenger seat, turned to look back, watching the little cat, puzzled. As if he'd never seen a cat so interested in fine houses. And quickly she began to wash, trying to look uninterested and dull.
She had no idea that her interest in the Prior home, her desire to see inside those elegant rooms, would soon be more than satisfied-and in a way she would not have imagined.
9
Susan Dorriss regarded her lunch tray, which had been fixed across the arms of her wheelchair, with disgust. At least she'd wangled a meal alone in her room, though to gain that privacy she'd had to pretend a pounding headache. Solitary meals were against policy at Casa Capri unless you were fevered or throwing up. The home's owner-manager considered anyone who liked to be alone as mentally crippled or suspect. "We put a high value on everyone making friends; we're one big family here." The longer she was in Casa Capri-and Thursday would mark her second month-the less she could abide this enforced closeness. The whole structure of Casa Capri seemed to her rigid and heavy, reflecting exactly Adelina Prior's overbearing manner.