Leaving Joe leering and clowning, she left the dressing table and approached the adjoining room, which she could see through the open door. It was a huge space, and bare, nearly empty. Bare floor, bare walls, hardly any furniture. A room so hollow that her startled mewl bounced back at her in a sharp echo.
At first glance, the vast space looked like the set for a low-budget science-fiction film. Five tall metal tripods stood about like spindly space aliens. The only other furniture was a hospital bed, with its nightstand, alone in the far corner.
The bed was neatly made up with a white blanket, the corners tucked under with rigid precision. Over the metal headboard hung a gray electrical cord fixed with a squeeze button so a nurse could be summoned. There was a clip-on light, too, like the ones used at Casa Capri, and a stand for an IV bottle.
Joe, having abandoned his multiple reflections, trotted in and pressed against her, his warmth and solidity suddenly very comforting. She did not like this room.
He scowled at the bed, his ears back. "Does Renet keep some patient here? One of the missing women?"
She shivered; they stood looking at the bed as if a patient might suddenly materialize beneath the smooth covers, a pale, thin figure softly moaning. Standing on their hind legs, they sniffed the bed warily. They could smell nothing but laundry soap.
Each of Renet's three rooms-bedroom, the peculiar dressing room, and this hollow chamber-had its own detached balcony. Perhaps at one time these had all been separate bedrooms, had been joined together for Renet's convenience. Another solid door led from this room, the smells beneath it were of fresh air and newly cut grass. They sniffed deeply.
"Must be an outside stairway," Joe said. "I think we're above the kitchen." He leaped for the knob and swung. It turned, but the door was locked with a dead bolt. They sniffed beneath it again, a good lungful of fresh air, then returned to the dressing room.
Approaching the door that closed away the sharp chemicals, again Joe leaped, clamping his paws on the knob. Swinging and pushing, he managed to force the door open.
The room was small and windowless, very dark. As their eyes adjusted, they could see another metal table; it occupied most of the space. Along the back wall stretched a counter with drawers below and shelves above. Four red lightbulbs hung over it, and Dulcie could just make out the switch, beside the door.
Three leaps, and the red lights shone like canned fire. The blaze turned her paws pink, stained Joe's white face and white markings to the color of thin blood. The shelves held gallon jugs reeking of developer, their labels clearly visible. Leaping up to the stainless-steel sink, the cats balanced on the edge.
"That's the printer, there on the table," Joe said. "And, I think, an enlarger."
Clawing open cupboards, they found four big cameras, and when they pawed into a long, thin drawer, it contained slick photographic paper. A deeper drawer held hanging files filled with negatives in plastic envelopes, items nearly too slick for paws and claws. They managed to pull out several with their teeth. All were portraits of people, but the reversed images showed faces strange and unnatural. The strong smells in the warm enclosed space were beginning to dizzy the cats.
"So this," Joe said, "is where Renet printed the pictures of Mary Nell Hook. If the pictures were taken here, in that hospital bed, if they're keeping that old woman here, we'd better look for her." He leaped to the cold metal table, stood licking his shoulder. "A darkroom, a hospital bed, that elaborate dressing table…"
"The sod in the graveyard," Dulcie said. "The missing finger… Like parts of a puzzle that all seem to fit, but when you try to put them together, the key piece is missing."
She felt, not enlightened by the varied bits of information, but as if they'd lost their way.
"It takes time," Joe said. "Like playing with a mouse. Let it run free, then catch it again. Maybe you have to play with the facts. Let them run free, catch them from another angle."
"There's a car pulling up the drive."
He heard it and stiffened. They both came to attention as the car stopped beside the house, near the kitchen.
The car door slammed. Footsteps came up the back stair, keys jingling. They leaped together at the light switch as they heard the dead bolt slide back, felt a suck of wind as the door opened.
31
The fog was breaking apart, blowing in tatters. Pulling Buck up, beside a stand of eucalyptus trees, Max Harper watched a black Toyota come up the Prior drive and around the house toward the kitchen. A gray-haired woman got out, probably one of the maids returning from an errand. He could hear no sound now from within the house-the radio and the vacuum cleaner were silent.
He had ridden in a circle around the Prior land along its outer perimeter, crossing the long drive down the hill, then making a second pass closer to the house, looking for any sign where the ground might be disturbed, any sign of digging, just as he had searched every foot of these hills. Though very likely forensics would identify the finger as belonging to Dolores Fernandez.
He wondered how a venerable member of the Spanish aristocracy would view the vandalism and dismemberment of her ancient, frail remains.
Maybe Senora Fernandez wouldn't care, maybe what happened to her earthly self would mean nothing to her now-or maybe would even amuse her.
He pressed Buck in the direction of the cemetery though Buck wanted to shy, began to fuss, didn't want to approach the shadowed grove. When Harper forced him on, the gelding tried to whirl away, snorting rollers. Buck was seldom spooky, and never without cause. He kept ducking and staring into the grove.
Buck's nervous attention was fixed on a spot where three old thick trees stood close together, casting heavy shadows. Harper could see nothing moving there, but Buck was watching something. Max heard, behind him, the car door slam, then footsteps going up the outside stairway at the far end of the house, and in a minute he heard a door open and close. He forced Buck to the edge of the grove, where the gelding tried again to whirl away, snorting and staring like some green colt. Max squinted into the shadows between the heavy oaks, pressed Buck on, amused by their stubborn-willed contest. He seldom had a problem with Buck. But suddenly the breeze changed. Came sharper. And he knew what was wrong with the horse.
He caught the smell himself, the smell of rotting flesh.
Frowning, he let Buck spin around and move away, and at the far end of the grove, upwind from the stink, he swung out of the saddle. Undoing his rope, he made a halter of it and tied the gelding to an oak tree.
He stayed with Buck, talking to him until the gelding calmed, then left him. Walking slowly, he quartered the cemetery around the old graves, looking. Could not pinpoint the source of the putrid scent as it shifted on the wind, could see no sign of digging, but as he neared the three close-growing trees, the smell came so strong it gagged him.
The only thing that looked out of place on that smooth turf was the heap of dry leaves piled against a tree.
Poking around with a branch, he found a small portion of earth disturbed beneath the leaves and, scraping the leaves aside, digging into the dirt, his stick hit something unnaturally soft, something that wasn't earth.
He knelt, gently brushed soil and leaves away with the tip the branch, uncovered a small lump of what looked like rotting flesh, a dark and stinking mess buried in a shallow hole. Covering his nose and mouth with his glove, he knelt to look closer.
It appeared to be hamburger, chopped meat of some kind. And he could smell, besides the rotting meat, the distinctive scent of cyanide.
He had found not a body as he'd expected, but a lump of poison bait.