Max wrapped it up quickly. When Joe heard feet shuffling and chairs pushed back, he beat it down the hall and into Max’s office. Leaping to the desk, he didn’t see two pale shadows race soundlessly in behind him and under the credenza where Joe had often hidden, long ago, when he was still wary of being seen.
Under the credenza, Buffin and Striker smiled. So far, so good.
They hadn’t been able to hear much from the conference room. Leaving the holding cell, they had crouched below Mable’s counter where she wouldn’t see them without leaning over and looking straight down. They had waited nervously until Joe Grey pulled back from the crack beneath the door and fled down the hall. Like shadows they had followed him.
All in the timing, Striker thought boldly as they slid through Max’s door behind Joe and into the shadows. All with the grace of the great cat god, thought Buffin with more humility as he crowded close to his brother.
They knew the office layout from listening to Joe’s tales; they had only prayed that Joe wouldn’t slip under the credenza with them. But he wouldn’t; they knew their pa made himself at home in Max’s office. Peering out, they watched Joe leap to the bookcase and settle in among stacks of files and manuals behind the chief’s desk. When Max Harper and Dallas came in, the kittens pressed deeper still into the shadows.
In the bookcase Joe Grey, licking icing from one white paw, watched the officers casually. He hadn’t a clue that the kittens were in the room, all he could smell was cinnamon, and the clean, horsey scent of Harper’s boots. Detective Davis came in behind Dallas; she was, as usual, the only one in uniform. She and Dallas sat at either end of the couch, their papers, laptops, and two clipboards spread out between them.
Davis looked at Max. “Who was the friend that Robert Teague sold the china for, when he made that run up to the city?”
“Barbara, the hairstylist he was dating,” Max said. “Why, what do you have?”
“Nothing. Just curious. She gets around, doesn’t she?”
Max smiled. “Teague said this was china Barbara’s mother had left her, said the pieces were rare and expensive, two hundred years old. Said she’d never liked them. He said the market was good now, and she’d rather have the money.”
They had pretty well covered, in roll call, the locations and number of cars broken into and robbed, or stolen. That information would now, thanks to Officer Bonner, be on all the officers’ computers. They were discussing the gang’s mode of operation and waiting for more reports from men still on the street, new reports on other cars vandalized or missing, property damage from the storm itself, and reports on anyone injured. They had Scotty’s report on Voletta Nestor, the old woman living below the Pamillon estate.
“He took her to the hospital,” Max said, “brought her home and got her settled. He was … up at Kate’s. When the wind got bad he went up to check on the cat shelter, he knew she was alone up there.”
Dallas smiled. “About time he found someone. Ryan should be pleased.” Ryan was always matchmaking for her uncle, but so far no one had come up to Scotty’s standards. If more officers had been present, they wouldn’t have discussed private matters.
“Voletta Nestor shouldn’t be living alone up there, either,” Davis said. “She can hardly get around. She’s a Pamillon, part of that big family. Even if they are all at odds, have all moved away, you’d think someone would help her.”
“None of the Pamillons want anything to do with her,” Max said. “You hear a lot of rumors. I don’t know what the real story is.”
For years the Pamillon estate had stood partially in ruins while heirs squabbled over selling it. None of them, nor even their attorneys, could sort out the tangle of various trusts and wills to a point where the property could legally be sold. It was Kate Osborne’s attorney who finally made sense of the bequests, distributions, land descriptions, and overlapping amendments to make a sale possible.
Kate had the money, the Pamillon family was tired of bickering, and she bought at once. The day she signed the final papers, she signed a trust donating ten acres to CatFriends for their new shelter—to care for starving cats, cats that had been abandoned when the economy took a sharp downturn, when so many folks lost their homes and, too often, simply left their pets behind. Joe Grey couldn’t understand people who would abandon a pet. The tomcat might not be much for religion but he knew there was a hell, all fire and brimstone. And that there was a special place in it for people who threw away a member of their family. He was licking the last fleck of cinnamon from his paw when, over that sweet scent, he caught the faintest aroma of cats. Young, male cats. At the same moment, Max’s private line rang.
Max picked up, listened, then, “You’re sure they’re dead? Get out of there, Charlie. Get out now!” At this point, he switched on the phone’s speaker. “Are you carrying?”
“I’m out, I’m nearly to my car. Yes, I’m carrying.”
“Get in the car, lock yourself in. If you see anyone, take off fast.”
She didn’t need to be told those things. But she wasn’t going to go anywhere and miss seeing the killer; she didn’t tell Max that. She said, “I’m parked three blocks north,” and she clicked off.
Immediately Max put out the alarm and barked out half a dozen names. Joe heard officers racing down the hall for their squad cars, heard the shriek of the ambulance from the fire department only blocks away; Joe was headed for the door behind Max and the two officers when he skidded to a halt.
The shadows beneath the credenza smelled of young tomcats, his young tomcats. Four blue eyes peered out at him, frightened but defiant. Joe sat down. He looked at the kittens.
They crept partway out from under the credenza, their heads down, ears and tails down, looking more browbeaten than he’d ever hoped to see.
He had fully intended to scold them, to give them all kinds of hell. But what good would it do? And after that, what? What was he going to do with them? Take them home, and miss the first part of what appeared to be a murder investigation? He wanted to know if Charlie was all right. He wanted to see the victims before the coroner got busy on them.
He could send the kittens home. He doubted they’d ever get there, he knew they’d follow him. Neither Buffin nor Striker said a word. Neither kitten would look at him.
“Come on out of there.”
The kittens crept out and sat guiltily before their father, their ears still down, their tails tucked under, waiting for their scolding. Joe’s heart pounded with anger—while at the same time he tried hard not to laugh.
How could he be mad? Maybe he had fathered a couple of bold little cop cats; he’d been wondering how soon they’d take matters into their own paws.
“You will follow me,” he said sternly. “You will stick to me like syrup to whiskers.” He had to get them out of the station without being seen passing the front desk, prompting Mabel to make a fuss over them. He wanted to get to the crime scene, and these two would sure slow him down.
“Oh, what the hell!” Joe said. “Come on.”
Peering out into the hall, he found it empty. He cocked an ear and the kittens drew close to him. He sped out and to the counter, both kittens crowding him, the three hugging the wall of the counter. They could hear Mabel on the phone. “No, sir, Captain Harper is not available. Would you like his voice mail?” They could see, through the glass entry, a civilian woman approaching, wheeling a baby in a stroller. The instant she entered, backing against the door to push the stroller through, the three cats fled past them. Joe still wanted to scold the kittens, but he couldn’t, they were already suffering from their own guilty consciences. And he had to admit he was proud of them. They had gone off on their first adventure, they’d had the chutzpah to come right on into the station. He knew he’d regret this, but what else could he do? Buffin and Striker had wanted adventure. Well, they were going to get their first taste.