"That doesn't make him a welder. And Mahl was questioned and released."
"Besides," Joe said, "everyone knows he hated Janet." It was common knowledge in the village that Mahl had never forgiven Janet for leaving him. "And what about sister Beverly? From the way people-including you- describe her, she sounds like a real piece of work. She didn't waste any love on Janet." Joe twitched an ear, flicked a whisker. "No, I wouldn't rule out Beverly."
"That doesn't make sense. If sister Beverly killed her, she wouldn't burn Janet's paintings. Beverly inherited Janet's work. Would have been over a million bucks' worth. Why would she set fire to a fortune?
"And why," Clyde continued, "would Sicily Aronson kill her? She made a bundle of money as Janet's agent. Now, with Janet dead, that's dried up. She'll sell the last few paintings, probably for huge prices, but that will finish it."
He looked at Joe bleakly. "Not only Janet, but most of her work is gone. Everything she hoped-that she cared about, gone.
"She said-told me once, if she never had children, at least her work would live after her. That generations down the line, maybe something of what she saw and loved might still have meaning for someone."
Joe said nothing. He'd seen villagers slip into the Aronson Gallery to spend a few minutes looking at Janet's paintings as if that pleasure turned a simple shopping trip into a special morning. He had seen villagers wave to Janet on the street and turn away smiling deeply, as if they were warmed just by the sight of her. Janet's death had generated such intense anger in the village that for a while the county had considered moving the trial to a more neutral town.
Before Lake was indicted, Detective Marritt and the Molena Point police and the county investigators had spent weeks sifting the ashes and debris of her burned studio, sorting and photographing bits of burned cloth, sorting through pieces of blackened metal and wood, bagging the charred debris for the county lab.
And the police had gone over Janet's apartment just as carefully. Sheltered beneath the concrete slab floor of the studio, the apartment had been left untouched by the fire. The police had fingerprinted, photographed, taken lint samples from every inch of Janet's home.
Clyde added more cereal to his bowl, and more milk. "Just suppose for a minute that Lake didn't kill her."
"So, suppose."
"So the killer's still free, Joe." Clyde gave him a long look. "So, is he going to take kindly to Dulcie snooping around looking for new evidence?"
Joe smirked. "I'm not sure I understand you. You're saying Janet's killer is going to be afraid of a kitty cat?"
Clyde didn't say a word. They both knew what he was thinking. At last Joe cut the bravado, his expression sobered. "You think someone besides you and Wilma knows about Dulcie and me-the way Lee Wark knew?"
"Wark was after you and Dulcie like a butcher after a side of beef. So why not someone else?"
"But Wark was a fluke. A Welshman who grew up knowing some pretty strange history. That won't happen again. How many Welshmen can there be in Molena Point."
Clyde rose and refilled his coffee mug. "I'm only saying, you and Dulcie keep nosing around, and there's going to be trouble."
My sentiments exactly, Joe thought. But he wasn't taking sides against Dulcie. Shrugging, he began to clean his claws, stretching them wide and licking between, scattering dirt on the table.
"Do you always have to wash when you don't want to listen! Face it, Joe. Ever since you two got involved in Samuel Beckwhite's murder, you think you're some kind of detectives-feline Sam Spades." He sat down, digging fiercely at his cereal. "Don't you understand that cats don't solve murders, that cats…"
Joe leaped from the table to the kitchen sink, turning his back, staring sullenly out the window. "Who solved Beckwhite's murder? Who led the police to the auto agency, to where the money was hidden?"
"The police came because gunshots were reported."
"Sure gunshots were reported." He spun around staring at Clyde. "That nut nearly killed me and Dulcie before the cops got there. And who do you think saw Wark and Osborne change the VIN plates on the stolen cars? Who do you think saw them take the money out of the cars and stash it? Who made sure the cops found it?"
"All I'm saying is, you and Dulcie are…"
Joe flexed his claws, fixing Clyde with a narrow yellow gaze, his ears flat to his head.
Clyde sucked up coffee. "I know you two broke the Beckwhite murder, but that doesn't mean you need to spend the rest of your lives trying to solve murders that are already-that are… Why can't you just be happy? Why can't you two just enjoy life and leave this alone?" He got up and rinsed out his cereal bowl, brushing against Joe. "I understand why you and Dulcie were interested in Beckwhite-you saw Wark kill him. But this… Neither you nor Dulcie has any direct interest in Janet's murder."
Joe had said exactly the same thing to Dulcie, but he didn't like Clyde saying it. "Dulcie knew her just as well as I did. Dulcie was fond of Janet, and she loved Janet's work. That painting Janet traded to Wilma-Dulcie lies on the couch for hours, sprawled on her back, staring up at that painting."
Clyde set his bowl to drain on the counter. "The point is, if Lake didn't kill her, and if you two keep prodding at this, the real killer is going to find you just the way Wark did."
Joe examined his back claws.
"Oh hell. It's no good talking to you. Wait until Dulcie gets caught sneaking into the courtroom, and then see…"
"She doesn't sneak into the courtroom. She listens from the ledge-that ledge that runs along under the clerestory windows. It's October, Clyde. Balmy. All the windows are open. All she has to do is skin up one of the oak trees behind the courthouse and there she is, exclusive box seat." He grinned. "Box seat she has to share with about a hundred pigeons. The first day, it took her two hours to clean the pigeon crap off her paws and her behind. She said it tasted gross."
"Didn't you help her?"
Joe stared at him coldly. "I'm not licking pigeon crap off her. Now she carries a hand towel up with her, to sit on."
"That's cute. And when someone sees her going back there into the alley carrying a hand towel, what then? Sees her climb up the tree carrying the towel in her teeth, or sitting on the ledge on the damned towel. Don't you think they might wonder?"
"Cats do strange things. Everyone knows cats are weird. Read the cat magazines, they're full of stuff like that. Anyway, Dulcie says the trial is a farce. If she believed before that Lake was innocent, the shaky testimony has really convinced her." He lay down on the cool white tile of the countertop and patted at the tiny, intermittent drops of water falling from the leaky tap.
Clyde scowled at him and reached across him to turn off the tap. The dripping stopped. "What shaky evidence?"
"Lake's fingerprints in Janet's bedroom, for one thing." He lifted his head, staring at Clyde. "The guy lived with her for six months. Of course his prints were all over. Don't you suppose the prints of every woman you ever dated are plastered all over your bedroom?"
"I don't go to bed with them all."
"Name one."
"I didn't go to bed with Janet. I dated her but we never…"
"Only because she wouldn't."
Clyde sighed. "You're off the subject. When Dulcie didn't even know Lake, until after the murder, why is she so hot to help him?"
Female passions-feline passions-dreams of white cats- who knows what runs Dulcie? "You ever hear of justice? Of wanting to see justice done?"
"Come off it."
Joe smoothed the fur on his chest with a rough tongue. "She thinks Lake was set up. She thinks the evidence was planted, that Lake's car was driven to the scene by someone else."