Joe vanished. Scorched up the cliff into the tall grass, pretending to race away. Max Harper seldom touched him, and never unkindly, only sometimes to scratch his ears if Joe was lounging on his desk. Below him, Max and Emmylou stood talking, Harper making clear to her again that she was expected to come in and be fingerprinted, Emmylou still looking reluctant. As her car headed away up the narrow, rutted road, and Harper and Billy started back to the cave, Joe hightailed it for the ranch, his thoughts on the metal box and the documents it contained. Some were emblazoned with the letterhead of Kraft Realty, but there were half a dozen other real estate firms, as well, names that meant nothing to Joe. All the letters and documents he could see, in that quick glimpse, presented neatly typed accountings of funds ranging up into the high seven digits—ten million, twelve million. A financial smorgasbord that Joe found singularly interesting, considering that, from the burned smell, and the ashes and dirt coating the container, the collection had come from the burned house, had perhaps been buried in the earth, beneath the floor. Many of the dates were recent. Where had Hesmerra gotten these and why? Why would Erik Kraft give his business papers to Hesmerra Young?
Could she somehow have stolen them? But why? What good would his legal papers do her? If Kraft was her friend, why would she steal from him at all? Even if he was only a convenient source of whiskey and cash, why would she jeopardize that? Or had the old woman, when she died, been quietly pursuing some other agenda involving Erik Kraft, driven by some motive of her own?
9
Debbie Kraft arrived two days after the fire; she showed up just after midnight at the Damens’ front door repeatedly ringing the bell, dragging Ryan and Clyde from sleep, sending the big Weimaraner into a fit of barking, ripping Joe Grey straight out of deep and pleasant dreams. Grumbling, he slipped out from his cushions, left his tower, and padded across the roof to the edge to look over.
They were crowded on the little porch around the front door, a young woman, two kids, three threadbare suitcases, a pile of ragtag carryalls and cloth bags with the contents oozing over the tops. The skinny woman, clutching her arms around herself against the night’s chill, was dressed in black tights, a puffy black jacket, high-heeled black boots. The two little girls clung to her, the little one silent and still, the older kid whining and pulling on her. Above them at Ryan’s studio window, Ryan appeared like a ghost in her white gauzy robe, looking down just as Joe was looking at the little group, at the dusty brown station wagon parked in the drive behind the king cab, the back so full of jumbled belongings the windows might as well have been boarded over.
The porch light went on. The front door opened. Clyde stood there bare-chested, in his sweatpants. Debbie’s voice was shrill and animated, a gushing greeting from a woman Clyde had never met and, from the look on his face, didn’t want to meet. There was a short exchange, then Debbie and the two girls swarmed in around him, dragging what baggage they could carry. Clyde, turning away resigned, left the door open so Debbie could haul in the rest.
Joe watched for only a minute, torn between the fear he’d miss something, and his sure knowledge that the rest of the night would be chaos, the woman’s high, emotion-driven voice reaching up even into his tower. He wouldn’t get a wink of sleep. If he had any sense he’d get the hell out of there. Whatever drama the night might hold, as the Damens got Debbie settled, he’d hear about in the morning.
He went. Heading across the rooftops toward the center of the village, beneath the bright full moon, he leaped over rivers of moonlight and over shadows as black as hell itself. If Dulcie was prowling the library, exploring among the books, maybe she’d give him a little sympathy for this midnight eviction that was, after all, the next thing to a full-blown home invasion.
From the roof of a shop behind the handsome Spanish-style library building, with its tan stucco and heavy timbers, he peered down at its back door that opened on the narrow alley. Yes, the faintest light shone out through Wilma’s little office window, the ambient green glow of the computer. He caught Dulcie’s fresh scent, too, on the tile roof and among the leaves of the bougainvillea vine as he descended. Nosing up the flap of Dulcie’s cat door, he pushed on inside.
Wilma Getz’s office was small, crowded, and cozy, her desk placed between two tall file cabinets stacked to the ceiling with books. Dulcie’s housemate worked only part-time now in her position as a reference librarian, but she’d managed to keep her tiny office. Much of her work was done in there, on peripheral projects, including the library’s old-fashioned vertical file. The library saved clips from the local paper and local magazines, historical information about Molena Point. And—because of Dulcie herself—they maintained an extensive collection about cats who lived in libraries across the country. Having a special interest in working cats, they saved, as well, clips about any number of cats in shops and business offices, a tribute to the talents and skills of even your ordinary, everyday feline.
Dulcie sat on the desk, her back to him, silhouetted by the glow of the computer, her peach-tinted ears nearly transparent in the light, her nimble paws playing across the keyboard, so engrossed she didn’t hear him push the door in. Only when the plastic flapped back into place did she spin around, startled.
She stared down at him, her green eyes wide, guilt writ large on her sweet, striped face. What was this? What was she up to? What was so secret that she didn’t want him to see? Leaping up beside her, he nestled close to her warm shoulder. When she lifted a paw to darken the screen, he swiped it away. She hissed, and cut him an irritated look, her striped tail lashing.
The short lines of type on the screen, even to the antiliterate tomcat, were obviously poetry. Was she reading dirty verses, something ugly that humans had put on the Web? He’d never known his lady to go for smut. But then, scanning the lines, his eyes widened.
There was no title, no author’s name, nothing but the nine lines of poetry, and he could feel her shy embarrassment as he read.
What a lovely cat she is
Posed behind the curtain’s gauze
Like a princess robed in gold.
Coy her gaze through laces gleaming,
What dainty vision does she embrace
Behind that dear, exquisite face?
I step to the veil, draw back its folds,
And there it lies, at my feet,
The bloody rat she’s brought to eat.
“You wrote this,” he said, grinning. Her tail went very still, he could feel the uncertain tremor of her heartbeat through the warmth of her tabby fur. He read the lines again, and at the last line, he couldn’t help it, he let out a loud guffaw that echoed through the office and into the empty library. “How long have you been doing this? Is there more? You’re writing from the human viewpoint.”
If a cat could blush, her little striped face would be pink as cotton candy. “It made you laugh,” she said, pleased.
“Does Wilma know?”
“How could she not? It’s her computer. I guess I could have set up an access code, but . . . She thinks . . . She’s pleased,” Dulcie said modestly.
Joe nuzzled her cheek. “I like it. It makes pictures, it does make me laugh. How do you do that? How do you even begin, where does it come from?”
Dulcie’s tail swung more easily. “I don’t know, it’s just . . . there. In my head. I write it down before it gets away.”