"So when did Kate come down?"
"Last night, I guess. He made a date for breakfast-was off like a flash this morning, all polished and scrubbed, nearly forget to make my breakfast. And he's meeting her tonight for dinner. Didn't give a thought to Charlie. Apparently didn't wonder if Charlie would be jealous."
"It would do Charlie good to be jealous," Dulcie said darkly.
"Clyde called Charlie this morning before he left the house; I think Kate asked him to. Sounded like Kate wants to see Charlie's drawings. I didn't want to shove my ear in the phone; Clyde can be so bad-tempered in the morning."
Below them, the white-haired woman had fished a camera from her leather tote and was taking pictures of the ruined gardens and house. Kate sat idly on a broken wall in a patch of sunshine, her short blond hair as bright as silk. She was dressed in pale faded jeans and a creamy sweater; Kate always wore cream tones or off white. Hanni's sweatshirt was bright red, her earrings long and dangling.
"The walks could be repaired," Hanni said. "This is a lovely patio, the way the old walls rise around it." She kicked away some rubble to look at the brick paving. "This part looks good. And maybe even some of the old building could be kept and reinforced. And if these plants were pruned and cleaned up-a gardener could do wonders."
"Hanni, I'm having trouble keeping my mind on this, with the murder and the missing child."
"It's terrifying, I know. But there's nothing we can do, Kate. At least at the moment. The department will work overtime- every department in the country has the information, every search team is looking for the child. And Dallas will be down in the morning."
"I keep thinking of Max Harper, suspected of murder. Keep thinking of Dallas investigating Harper as if he were a criminal. It makes me feel sick. Makes me want to rip and claw whoever did this." Kate looked surprised at her turn of speech, looked embarrassed. "I… To think that someone has done this terrible thing, has killed and kidnapped people, in order to hurt Harper…" She looked hard at Hanni. "There can be no other explanation. Don't people know that!"
"I'm sure they do. But the department has to do it by the book, Kate.
"This kind of tragedy goes with the territory. For every cop who does a good job, there are a hundred guys out there wanting to destroy him, and not caring who else they hurt."
Kate sighed. "And Lee Wark's out there somewhere. He hates Harper."
Hanni shook her head. "The whole state's looking for Wark. He'll have left the country by now."
"I hope. Harper was very kind to me when Jimmie hired Wark to kill me, when I was trying to get away from them. This new city attorney-what's he like? How will he treat Harper?"
"I don't know anything about him. I haven't been down to the village for over a year." Hanni removed a roll of film from the camera and inserted another. "Not to worry, Dallas will get to the truth. He won't let anyone railroad Harper."
Kate rose, looking around her into the tangled bushes. The cats watched her with interest. Usually she was so calm, so in control. Now she moved with a lithe, almost animal wariness, nervous and watchful.
"Is there something about this place?" Dulcie said. "About the Pamillon mansion-some strangeness, the way the kit imagines?"
"I don't know, Dulcie. I don't feel anything strange. You and the kit-"
A small voice behind them said, "There is something. Something shivery."
The cats turned to look at the kit where she sat atop a vine-covered dresser, her forepaws neatly together, her long fluffy tail wrapped around herself, her round yellow eyes intense. "Something elder, here in this place."
But Joe and Dulcie's attention was on the dresser top. They leaped up to see better.
Beside the kit's paw, half hidden among the green leaves, lay a piece of shiny metal. Joe pushed away the leaves.
"What is this, Kit? Where did you get this?"
A silver hair clip gleamed among the leaves, its turquoise settings blue as a summer sky. Joe sniffed at it and fixed his gaze on the kit. And Dulcie's green eyes widened. "Dillon's clip," Dulcie said softly. "The barrette that Wilma gave Dillon."
Joe pushed close to the kit. "Where did you find this?"
The kit looked across the jungly nursery to the pale stone fireplace that loomed against the afternoon sky.
"In the fireplace? Show me."
The kit leaped away among the vine-covered furniture and vanished behind the fireplace beneath a heap of fallen timbers beside the chimney. Joe was there in a flash, a gray streak pawing and pushing in where she had disappeared. Shouldering under the timbers, he pushed his head beneath the partly open lid of a long wooden box the size of a coffin-the lid would open only a few inches. The kit crouched within, on the rusted floor. The interior was metal lined; had perhaps, at one time, held firewood.
"Here," the kit said. "It was right in here." Even the inside of the box reeked of wet ashes. They could not smell Dillon. There was nothing inside but the kit. Joe backed out again, where Dulcie pressed close behind him.
"We have to get the barrette to Harper," she said softly. "Or tell him where it is. I suppose whatever prints were on it are smeared with paw marks and cat spit."
Joe Grey flattened his ears. "Harper mustn't have anything to do with finding this."
Her green eyes widened. "But-"
"Prosecution could say he planted it." He looked keenly at Dulcie. "The detectives need to find it here. The department detectives-or Garza."
"Then we'll have to phone the station."
"We're not phoning the station. An anonymous phone tip would make Harper look like dog doo."
"Well what, then?" Dulcie hissed.
"Someone uninvolved could find it," he said with speculation. "Find it and call the station." He looked down into the garden.
"Kate," she whispered.
"Kate," he said and leaped down the broken stairs toward the garden.
Joe didn't know he was being watched, just as Kate and Hanni were being watched.
From higher up the hill above the ruined mansion, the three cats had been observed for some time, with keen and unwavering attention-as had two human creatures.
The movements and noises of the humans puzzled and interested the young lion. The mouth noises of his small feline cousins puzzled him far more.
The cougar was uncertain about whether two-legged beasts should be considered food, but the three little felines were certainly edible. They were nice and fat, and were out in plain view waiting to be taken-except that these small cat creatures made noises like the two-legs, and he did not know what to make of that.
And as Joe Grey descended to the garden, to lure Kate away from Hanni and lead her to the hair clip, above them on the hill the cougar slipped closer, padding among dense cover and silently down the slope. Intensely curious, the lion stalked toward the patio, moving as smooth and silently as a drifting cloud-shadow, his big pads pressing without sound among the vines and stones, his broad head cocked, listening, his golden eyes seeking to separate possible lunch from possible threat-his teeth parted to taste cat scent and human scent, trying to sort out another strangeness, in a world filled with dangers from the unknown.
11
CHARLIE GETZ was on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor of her one-room apartment when Kate arrived, an hour earlier than they'd planned. Charlie answered the door with the knees of her jeans sopping, her red hair in a mess, and a ketchup stain down her T-shirt. Opened the door to a gorgeously turned-out blond, sleek golden hair, clear green eyes, her creamy merino sweater immaculate and expensive. Charlie felt like she'd crawled out of a Dumpster. She'd meant to shower and change, make tea, put the bakery cookies on a plate, try to act civilized. She had never met Kate, only talked with her on the phone last night. If Clyde had told her what a stunner this woman was, she'd have spent the morning fretting over her clothes and trying to do something with her hair.