Joe snarled.
Brennan drew his hand back.
"Okay, don't come out. How did you two get in here-you don't belong here. Sicily doesn't have cats." He rose. "We'll let them be, maybe they'll come out on their own." He started away, then looked back. "You better not have left a mess."
The two officers checked the padlock on the loading door, opened each of the other doors, then moved into the storeroom. Switching on the lights, they covered each other as they searched the three narrow aisles. Only when they had cleared the premises, had found no human intruder and nothing else that seemed disturbed except for the open desk drawer, did they return to rout the cats. And, of course, the cats were gone.
Crouched in a dark angle of wall near the front, Joe and Dulcie waited, hoping to escape, hoping one of the officers would open the door. But before they could streak away to freedom Brennan's roving light found them again. Joe snarled into the dazzle. Dulcie gave Brennan an innocent smile, her eyes wide and loving, and raised a soft paw, all sleepy-eyed sweetness. As Brennan knelt to pet her, only Joe saw, only another cat would detect deep within her green gaze, a wicked feline guile.
Behind Brennan, Wendell frowned. "Could those be the two cats from Beckwhite's? The cats that were hanging around when we found the counterfeit bills?"
"Looks like the same two. That gray one, that looks like Clyde Damen's cat."
Wendell nodded. "Maybe they wandered in before Ms. Aronson locked up-or when someone else came in, or left. That stripy one, I've seen a cat like that over around the dress shops on Dolores."
Brennan shrugged. "Go call Sicily Aronson, use the phone on the desk. See if she'll come down and check the place out before we lock up. Use your handkerchief, don't smear any prints." He knelt again and reached for Joe.
Joe raised a bladed paw, but didn't strike; he studied the officer, considering.
Stupid move, really stupid. Bloody the hand of the law, Bucko, and you're in big trouble.
He drew back his claws.
Brennan touched Joe's ear with a gentle, unthreatening finger. He was reaching to stroke Joe's back when a shout from the street sent the officer spinning around, his hand on his revolver.
The glass door rattled, shook under pounding fists. "What are you doing. That's my cat!" Clyde beat harder, and Joe thought he'd shatter the glass. "That's my cat, Brennan! Let me in."
Brennan rose, unlocked the door, and switched on the gallery lights, illuminating Clyde and Charlie.
"What the hell is this? Put down the damned gun, Brennan. How did my cat-our cats-get in here?"
Joe sat very straight, his ears erect. He was mighty relieved to see Clyde. But he wasn't going to let him know it. As Clyde moved into the gallery, Charlie stood in the doorway regarding the scene, looking from the officers to the cats with a puzzled, crooked little grin. Caught in a deliberate breaking and entering, Dulcie gave her a wide stare, then began to wash, as if all this fuss was unspeakably boring.
Clyde scooped Joe up. "How the hell did you get in here?"
Joe regarded him coldly. Clyde clutched him with unnecessary firmness, gave him a deep, penetrating stare, then glared down at Dulcie. "What the hell were you two doing?" But he looked as if he didn't want to know.
"They set off the alarm," Brennan said, "there below the glass. Must have got ten shut in by mistake-no harm done."
Charlie knelt and gathered up Dulcie, cuddling her. Dulcie lay softly against Charlie's shoulder, cutting her eyes at Joe, highly amused.
Brennan had bolstered his pistol. "Sicily's on her way down to check the place out" He nodded toward the open desk drawer. "Maybe someone was in here and left-but they must have had a key, no sign of forced entry."
Clyde stared at the open drawer. He looked at Joe. He said nothing. His eyes said plenty. He took a firmer grip on the nape of Joe's neck, his fist almost pulsing with anger.
"Sorry they made trouble, Brennan," he said pleasantly. "Damn cats, always into something."
But out on the street again, scowling into Joe's face, he said, "What the hell were you two doing in there? Can't you stay out of anything. Now what am I going to do with you? Turn you loose, you'll be right back in there.
"And I didn't plan to spend the evening baby-sitting a couple of snooping cats. I don't know why you two can't stay out of trouble. I don't see why you can't behave with some sense."
Charlie studied Clyde, puzzled. "Aren't you overreacting, maybe?"
Clyde glared.
She looked at Clyde and Joe, frowning, as if she were missing something. "We can take them over to Wilma's, shut them in the house, then we can have dinner. I'm starved."
Shifting Dulcie to a more comfortable position, she set off up the street, glancing back at Clyde. "You can't expect a cat to think what might happen if he wanders into a shop. How were they to know they couldn't get out?"
Clyde did not reply. Joe could imagine what he was thinking. Joe had a few things he'd like to say in return. He hated when he had to remain mute. It was grossly unfair for Clyde to read him off when he couldn't answer back. He dug his claws into Clyde's shoulder until Clyde drew in his breath.
As Clyde forced his finger under Joe's pads to release the offending needles, a pale blue Mercedes turned onto the street and the driver waved. Clyde lifted his hand in greeting; just one of his customers. Then he pressed Joe's pads, rotating the claws inward, releasing Joe's lethal grip, and shifted Joe away from his shoulder. The tomcat was getting out of hand. It was going to be interesting to hear Joe's explanation for this little escapade. Of course it had to do with the murder trial, he knew the single-minded compulsion of these two.
Whatever they were doing in the gallery, their adventure hadn't helped his own evening. Half an hour ago he and Charlie had been walking along holding hands like kids, joking, laughing, discussing where to have dinner. He hadn't intended to finish off the night playing free taxi to a couple of disaster-prone felines.
Having left his car at Wilma's, he and Charlie had walked up through the village into the hills as the sun set, had climbed above the last scattered houses toward the eastern mountains gleaming gold in the falling light. High up the face of a steep hill among an outcropping of boulders they sat looking down on the village spread below them, watching the sky slowly darken, watching the cottage lights blink on in sudden bursts of illumination, the village quickly coming alive, preparing for evening. They could smell wood fires; the breeze was cool, their mood peaceful and compliant. Their mellow warmth, which had lasted all the way down the hills again and into the village, was shattered suddenly by sirens. They quickened their pace, curious, heading up the street to where the squad cars had careened by…
They saw the squad car parked in front of the Aronson, spotlights sweeping the dim gallery as they approached. Then they saw the harsh beams of light fix suddenly on the two cats, catching their eyes in a blaze of fire-and Joe and Dulcie looking as guilty as any two human thieves.
He supposed, overreacting, he'd roused Charlie's curiosity, but it didn't matter. Charlie was as ignorant of the cats' true nature as the two officers.
Joe crept up Clyde's shoulder to a more comfortable position, watched Dulcie cuddling in Charlie's arms happy as a nesting bird. He kept his claws sheathed, and tentatively he rubbed his face against Clyde's ear. Clyde ignored him. Clyde sometimes had an unreasonably sour disposition.
Charlie said, "We'll drop these two off, then grab a quick hamburger. Five o'clock comes early, and tomorrow will be twelve hours or more, without Stamps. When he gets back from his little jaunt, he gets the ax; he's out of here."
Dulcie's head had come up, and, her ears up, she turned on Charlie's shoulder to stare across at Joe, her eyes wide with interest.