They got a laugh, as well, when Joe marched into Max Harper’s office beside her. “You two working the streets together?” Max said; then, “How was San Francisco?”
“Foggy,” Juana said. “The three days did me good, nice hotel, breakfast in bed, shopping.” She sat down at the other end of the leather couch from Detective Garza. As Joe strolled in, Dallas gave him that look that always made the tomcat uneasy. That what are you up to? gaze that Joe could never quite decipher, that he didn’t want to decipher. The detective was dressed in a tweed sport coat and jeans. His half of the couch was scattered with files and an electronic notebook.
Ignoring the softer furniture, Joe leaped to the chief’s desk and past him into the bookcase, purring at Max’s familiar scent of fresh hay and clean horses, at his comfortable jeans and frontier shirt. Only a police chief with Harper’s reputation, and maybe in a small town like Molena Point, could get away with the casual clothes and western boots that he preferred.
Making himself comfortable between two piles of reports, Joe scanned the papers on the chief’s desk and the notes on his clipboard. A list of the stolen cars, check marks as to whether they had been recovered (including the two that had been left behind in the old barn). There were check marks indicating whether each car had yet been gone over for prints and other evidence and whether it had been returned to its owners.
Max was saying, “Barbara Conley dated Robert Teague, too. My guess is, Randall saw them together. When, maybe weeks ago, they left Teague’s BMW parked on the street, Randall had the equipment to hack into the electronic security, including the garage door opener. Then, the night that Teague got back from the city, the night of the heists, Randall opened the garage door, cranked the car, and drove off neat as you please.”
“With that box of porcelain in the back,” Davis said. “You think Randall even knew it was there? Think he knew what was in it? Didn’t Teague say the porcelain was worth over thirty thousand?” She was quiet a moment, then, “You’re not looking at Teague in connection with Barbara’s murder?”
Max shook his head. “We’ve got the gun that killed her and Prince, got the report from ballistics. It was in Randall’s pocket when they brought him out of the attic. Question is, between the time he was arrested, then escaped to Barbara’s house and crawled up in the attic, where did he have the gun stashed? It wasn’t on him or on Egan when we hauled them out of Randall’s car and locked them up.”
Dallas said, “Possible he hid it in the attic after the murder, before we knew that house was connected to the car heists. The fingerprints were smeared like there’d been a cloth wrapped around it, but we got some clear ones. What makes me mad is losing the young girl who called that the BMW was there. She wasn’t one of our snitches, I know their voices too well.”
She was my daughter, Joe Grey thought smugly, hiding his smile.
“But the guy who called later, after Randall escaped from jail,” Max said, “we know him all right. Randall didn’t have a phone but he contacted Lena somehow. She’s there to pick him up, then finds he’s too sick to move, even with a partner to help her—sure as hell Rick was in the car, waiting. She calls the medics.
“Then we get our snitch’s call about the Ford, driver, and a passenger. Less than three minutes we have five cars on the street and freeway, plus a couple of sheriff’s units, but not a sign of them.”
Dallas said, “How does the snitch do that? He had to be there in the house with them. Did he follow Lena there? Or follow Randall?” The detective shook his head. “Pretty quick moves. This stuff gives me the creeps. And,” he said, “he knew who Rick Alderson was, he knew both Rick and Egan.”
Dallas was silent, looking at the chief and Juana, knowing they didn’t have any more answers than he did. No one glanced at the tomcat snoring on the shelf behind Max, no one had a notion that their snitch was listening right there beside them.
“Then,” Dallas said, “we get that call from the woman who works over at the drama center.”
“I haven’t heard this part,” Juana said. “Only what McFarland told me on the phone, then my phone cut out. Borden escaped, to the embarrassment of Officer Bonner,” she said, grinning. “You got a call on Randall, the medics haul him out of the attic, and he’s in surgery for appendicitis. Very nice. He goes to emergency and the state pays for it. But what’s with the woman from the drama center?”
“She was parked in that big lot behind the classrooms,” Dallas said. “Came back to get a sweater from her car, saw this guy crouched down between two parked cars removing a license plate. She drew back, watched him replace it with another. Removed California plates, bolted on plates from Washington State, the front plate dented.”
“So,” Max said, “our men are already out on the highway while they’re still in the village changing plates. The traffic was heavy, a lot of trucks—somehow the Ford slipped in between the big rigs. Even our patrol unit parked by the high school missed them, and that sure as hell made me feel lame.
“But then,” Max said, “you’ll like this part. Two CHP units are still patrolling up Highway One along near the Pamillon land, near Voletta Nestor’s place. They knew, from Randall, that he and Lena had been staying there. They turn on up the narrow road, pull around behind that dense eucalyptus stand—and there’s the Ford jammed in among the trees, almost invisible. Dented Washington plates. Lena and the driver were gone.
“Well, our guys ease around behind the barn; the barn doors are open and here comes barreling out a gray Lincoln Town Car. They radio ahead for the units on the freeway and they take off after it. That road, dirt and gravel, is rough as hell. Lincoln is scorching toward the freeway as two more of our units pull in, damn near hit the Lincoln. Our guys swerve into the dirt embankment—at the same moment, the Lincoln coughs a couple of times, bucks to a stop, and just sits there. Stalled on that narrow dirt road. Brennan said the driver looked like Egan Borden. He’s cranking and grinding, but can’t get a rumble out of the Lincoln. Lena’s crouched down in the front seat, and now they’re surrounded by cops. Officers pull them out, secure him in a squad car, lock Lena in another unit, leg irons, the works. Called a tow truck to haul the two cars in.”
“How could it be Egan?” Juana said. “He’s already locked … Oh! Rick Alderson!”
Max nodded. “Both Egan Borden and Rick Alderson are in the jail. No release, no bail. Lena’s in the women’s cell. She can go on home if she can make bail, so she can take care of her aunt—but only with the condition of home confinement for both her and Voletta.”
Juana rose to make fresh coffee. “So what made the car stop?”
“The box of porcelain you were wondering about? Thieves had put it in the barn with the missing Lincoln and Mini Cooper, just dumped it on the floor like they thought it was worth nothing.”
Max leaned back, smiling. “While it was in the barn a mouse or rat got into it, pulled out the stuffing and dragged that under the Lincoln. It was building a nest under the hood. I’d say a rat, the way it had chewed the car’s electrical wires. So bad that, coming down that rough road, the last bit of wire broke and that’s all it took, the car stopped cold and we had them.”
Juana doubled over laughing. Dallas and the chief sat smiling. As the coffee started to gurgle, Joe Grey curled up tighter to hide his own grin. That rat, he thought, even if she is dead now, even if she did get me and Rock locked up, she ought to get some of the credit for rounding up the last of those no-goods.
27
Kate and Scotty’s small, casual wedding was held at the Damens’ house late Sunday afternoon. But hours before the ceremony, the happy couple was honored with a secret gathering behind the Pamillon mansion. The time was early dawn, the sun’s first orange glow edging the eastern hills, shining into the ancient courtyard where Courtney had first met the feral band. Where Kate had discovered Scotty watching the speaking cats, listening to their tales and in that moment the restraint between the two lovers vanished.