“Where did she get a key?” Joe said. “From Hesmerra? Did Hesmerra have it copied when she was with the cleaning crew? Maybe on her lunch hour, then turned the keys in as usual at the end of the day?”
“Why not?” Dulcie said. “Maybe Emmylou found the key in the burn, maybe knew where she kept it?”
“So, why did she?” Joe wondered. “What did she do when she couldn’t get in?”
“She sat down on the patio wall,” Dulcie said, “sat there looking at the house as if deciding what to do next.”
“But then Ryan’s pickup came up the hill,” Kit said, “and Debbie’s car behind it, and when Emmylou saw them she slipped away through the backyard and that’s the last we saw of her, she vanished like when a rabbit smells a coyote, and there’s something else, too. Debbie’s been inside, you can smell her and the little kids all around the door on the threshold and then inside the house.”
Joe said, “I’m guessing they stayed there, maybe one night, maybe more, before they ever showed up at our place.” He told them about Vinnie saying there were beds to sleep in, up there in that house, and then racing away up the hill.
“What’s Debbie up to?” Dulcie said, looking down the hill to where Debbie was hauling in a last load from her car. “What would she want in Alain Bent’s house? How did . . . ?” She looked at Joe. “It has to do with Erik. He and Alain were partners—or were they more than partners?”
Joe smiled. “If they were, maybe Erik had a key. Say Debbie found out they were lovers,” he said, “found a key she suspected was Alain’s . . . How tempting to copy it and then do a bit of snooping, get the goods on him.”
“But why?” Dulcie said. “She wouldn’t need to know he was sleeping around, to get a divorce in California.”
“Maybe for child custody,” Joe said. “Except,” he said, “who’d fight to keep Vinnie? Maybe some other reason. Looks like Alain was into some real estate scams or maybe, who knows, Erik and Alain together. Debbie wants to know more, to make some mischief for them. She decides to get into Alain’s desk, into her personal papers. Who knows what she’d find, what trouble she could make? She could have come down here from Eugene any time she chose. Catch a commuter flight, round trip just for a day while the kids were in school and nursery school? But as it worked out, she drove down, left Eugene for good.”
“With Alain’s key in her pocket,” Dulcie said. “Alain is beautiful, so slim, and her dark sleek hair done up in that fancy chignon, and her elegant suits. You’ve seen her pictures, of course Debbie would be jealous.”
“Beautiful,” Joe said, “and as cold as a mannequin in Saks’s window.” He looked down into the wide front patio with its angles and nooks and lush plantings, its different level walls and neatly tended flower beds. “Alain might have been fired and moved away, Perry Fowler might not be in touch with her any longer, but she isn’t neglecting her property. Maybe she does have it listed, with another firm, and they’re seeing that someone’s watering.”
“And pruning,” Dulcie said. There wasn’t a dead bloom or fallen leaf anywhere, and they could see fresh cuts where the red geraniums had been clipped back. “Or could Emmylou be taking care of the yard? When Alain moved away, could she have hired her? Was that why she was here? Maybe . . . maybe when she was pruning she found a key hidden under a flowerpot, the way people do? Found it just today, and thought she had a way in? She is homeless, she does need a place to stay. She finds the key and thinks she’s found a place to crash. Only, Alain has changed the locks.”
“Maybe,” Joe said. But something about the scenario was off. As little as he’d observed of Emmylou, he wasn’t sure she’d be bold enough to move into someone’s house, when workmen might be scheduled to come in, or maybe other Realtors, to have a look, if the house was going on the market. The garage roof was in shadow now, around them, the clouds low and heavy above them. Moving closer together with their backs to the chill wind, the three cats tried to sort out what they knew about Alain Bent: She was Erik Kraft’s sales partner, and maybe his lover. She’d not only been fired, but moved away, maybe before her other scams caught up with her. How much did Debbie know about Alain? What had she been after, when she broke in?
“And what’s Emmylou Warren’s connection?” Dulcie said. “Will that lead back to Hesmerra and maybe to Hesmerra’s murder?”
Joe looked down into the patio of the silent, locked house. He rose, nudged Dulcie, and the three cats skinned down a bougainvillea trellis to the warm paving and headed for the basement window.
Pushing the little window open, they peered down into the dark cellar. Its cold breath chilled their noses; it smelled of damp cement, sour earth, and mouse droppings. “How deep?” Joe said, frowning down into the blackness. “Looks like about seven feet. How did you get out? The boxes?”
“Yes,” Dulcie said. “I pushed that stack of boxes over,” she said, glancing down at the dark cartons piled against the wall directly beneath them. “I could just see them there in the corner where more daylight comes in; my shoulder’s still sore from shoving them. The labels say ‘dishes’ but who knows what’s packed in them. They smell sour, like old clothes.” Slipping in through the window, she dropped down onto the stack, and to the floor. Kit followed, and then Joe, each one careful not to tip over their means of escape.
The cellar was L-shaped, following the lines of the house above. The dark corners and the spaces behind the furnace and water heater were thick with cobwebs, and garlands of cobwebs hung down from the floor joists. Three folded aluminum chairs leaned against one wall, their plastic seats frayed, and gray with mildew. There was no scent of Debbie or the little girls down here, and they padded up the dusty wooden stairs. Leaping at the knob, Dulcie curved her paws around it, swinging and kicking until the door flew open.
The house was dim, the rooms lit coldly as the coming storm gathered. They had come up into the front entry, the basement door at right angles to the more impressive front door with its deep carvings, and that did indeed smell of Debbie and the children. A smear of chocolate candy had been smashed into the grout between the floor tiles.
Across the tile entry, six steps led down to a sunken living room, which was only half furnished. The clay tile floor was bare, but Dulcie could imagine richly colored throw rugs. There was a creamy leather couch but no end tables or coffee table or lamps. White walls, vast windows looking out on the lowering gray sky and the trees and roofs below, white ceiling crossed by burnished oak rafters. The house was silent, no hush of footsteps, no thump or rustle of someone hurrying their way, summoned by the sound of the cellar door. Already, Kit had left them, racing down into the sunken room to look at the fireplace wall.
The entire wall was painted in an intricate mural, a floor-to-ceiling scene in rich colors, though Joe and Dulcie couldn’t see the subject clearly from the angle where they stood, up on the dining balcony. Moving out from beneath the carved table and chairs, Dulcie leaned out through the rail, to look.
“Medieval,” she said softly. “Oh, my. It’s beautiful.” Below her, Kit sat in the center of the room looking up at the mural, her fluffy tail wrapped around her, twitching with excitement, her front paws kneading at the tiles in nervous concentration as she absorbed each detail of the ancient scene. From the look on her face, Dulcie knew the tortoiseshell was already transported back into time, how many centuries ago?
“It’s a beautiful home,” Dulcie said. “Even if Alain was fired, it’s strange she’d leave this, and leave the village, when Molena Point’s doing better than much of the country. Couldn’t she get a job somewhere else, another real estate firm? You’ve seen the ads. The high-end houses are still selling, some of the really wealthy people are doing just fine. Where else could a Realtor make better money?”