Cat Raise the Dead

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  But he couldn't speak; he could tell Lila nothing. She wouldn't buy it, anyway. She stared at Charlie and Max Harper as if they were retarded. "You can't really believe that?"

  "Come down to the station," Harper said. "Take a look at the stat sheets, check them with the calendar. Right now, today, full moon. Seven domestic violence, five dog poisonings, and one little old lady brought in a human finger."

  Lila shuddered.

  Joe raised his head, watching Harper.

  Clyde said, "A finger?"

  "Nettie Hales's mother-in-law called the station." Harper sampled the crab salad from the plate Charlie had fixed for him. "The Haleses live up the valley, a little five-acre horse farm up there. Her terrier brought the finger in-just a bare bone, dirt-crusted."

  Harper tilted his beer can, took a long swallow. "The old lady didn't know where her dog had been digging. Said he'd brought the bone in the house and was chewing on it." Harper laughed. "Gumming it. Old dog doesn't have a tooth in his head. Still, though, even gumming it didn't please the lab. Bone was fractured, and covered with dog slobber. Don't know what kind of evidence it might have destroyed."

  Lila's blue eyes had opened wide. "You mean it might be a murder? Al, you didn't tell me there'd been a murder. You didn't tell me anyone was missing."

  Sacks gave his new bride a sour look. "The finger is old, Lila. Old and dark and brittle. And when do I ever talk about that stuff?" He glanced uneasily at Harper.

  Lila grew quiet.

  It was Joe's turn to study the blonde. This woman isn't only a snob, she isn't too bright. He didn't realize he was staring until Clyde began to stroke his back, pressing down with unnecessary insistence. He lay down again and shuttered his eyes, tried to look sleepy.

  Clyde said, "What did the lab come up with?"

  "Nothing yet. That finger'll be sitting under a stack of evidence until Christmas. They're so backed up, the place looks like a rummage sale. The court's putting all criminal investigations on hold, waiting for the lab. Victims' relatives can't even collect insurance until the lab is finished, can't do anything until they get a death certificate. Thirty investigators working the county lab, and still they can't stay on top."

  Harper sipped his beer. "That Spanish cemetery up the hills, it may have come from there-that old graveyard on the Prior place. It's only a mile from the Haleses' house." For Charlie's benefit, because she hadn't lived in Molena Point long, he said, "It was part of the original Trocano Ranch from Spanish land-grant days. Family members were buried at home, tradition to be buried on family land. Even after the land passed down to the children and grandchildren, the family still buried their dead there. The funerals-"

  "Isn't there a law against that?" Lila interrupted.

  Harper looked at her, a hard little pause as expressive as an explosion. He did not like interruptions. "No one would enforce that law, with the Trocanos," he said shortly. "Long after Maria Trocano married Daniel Prior, they buried family at home. Both Daniel's and Maria's graves are there.

  "When Adelina came of age she sold off all but five acres. Kept the original old ranch house and the cemetery, turned the house into servants' quarters," Harper said. "Built that big new house for herself and Renet, and I guess Teddy's there part of the time. Turned that fine stable into garages. Not a horse left on the place.

  "That was quite some stable in its day," Harper said. "Some of the finest thoroughbreds in California came off the Trocano Ranch."

  He drained his beer. "When Mrs. Hales brought in the finger bone, we had a look at the old cemetery. Thought the dog might have dug into one of the old Spanish graves, but not a clod disturbed. The Priors keep the grounds nice, the grass mowed and trimmed around the old headstones.

  "We've got three men out walking that area looking for where the dog was digging, and I've ridden every inch of that land. So far, nothing." Harper lived on an acre up in the hills several miles north of the Prior estate. He kept only one horse now, since his wife died.

  "I told Mrs. Hales to keep her terrier in before he picks up something worse than a finger bone. The dog poisonings were in that area, too. Three dogs this week, dead of arsenic poisoning. We've put two articles in the Gazette telling people to keep their animals confined." He looked at Clyde. "That would go for cats, too. If I recall, that tomcat's a real roamer." He studied Joe intently. Joe gazed back at the police captain. Harper was talking more tonight than Joe had heard in a long time; Harper got like this only occasionally, got talky.

  But it wasn't until Lila left to use the bathroom that Harper told Clyde, "One good thing turned up this week, we got a line on that old truck that hit Bonnie Dorriss's mother."

  "That's good news. Wilma will be glad to hear it, too, she's fond of both Susan and Bonnie. How'd you get the lead? Another anonymous phone tip?"

  "No, not another anonymous phone tip," Harper snapped. Those phone calls were a sore subject for Harper. He hadn't a clue that his anonymous snitch was sitting on the table not a paw's length from him.

  "That auto paint shop out on 101," Harper said. "They fired one of their painters, Sam Hart." He grinned. "Getting fired made Hart real mad. The guy plays baseball with Brennan, and he told Brennan about this pickup he'd painted. It was a job his boss wanted done in a hurry, and the truck's owner had acted nervous. Hart thought maybe the vehicle was hot.

  "A week after he was fired, Hart spotted the truck up in Santa Cruz in a used lot. He was up there looking for a fender for a '69 Plymouth he was rebuilding. He saw this Chevy truck with fresh brown paint. Same model, same year. He could still smell the new paint, and when he checked the front bumper there was the same little dent. Looked like someone had scrubbed at it with maybe a Brillo pad.

  "Brennan had filled him in on the green truck we were looking for, so Hart called Brennan, and Brennan hiked on up there."

  Harper shook his head. "By the time Brennan got there, just a couple of hours, the dealer had sold it. Described the woman who bought it as a looker, tight leather skirt, long auburn hair.

  "We ran the new registration but it came up zilch. False ID. And the previous plate was stolen, registered to an L.A. resident, guy with an '82 Pinto. Plate had been stolen three months before."

  Lila had returned. Clyde rose, and set the sandwich makings on the table with a stack of fresh paper plates.

  "We're trying to get a fix on the woman," Harper said. "Samson did a sketch from the dealer's description, but the guy didn't remember much about her face, he was looking at her legs."

  Charlie grinned.

  Lila looked annoyed. This woman, Joe decided, wasn't going to be a cop's wife very long.

  There was a long silence while sandwiches were constructed. Rube went out his dog door, barked halfheartedly, and came back in again. Charlie fixed Rube a corned beef sandwich. It was near midnight when the poker game broke up and the officers and ladies left. Charlie's parting remarks had to do with an early repair to a rusted-out plumbing system; she seemed actually eager to tackle the challenge.

  Clyde opened the back door and the window to air the kitchen, shoved the remains of the feast in the refrigerator, and emptied the ashtrays in deference to the animals who had to sleep there. Joe left him stuffing beer cans and used paper plates into a plastic garbage bag, and lit for the bedroom.

  Pawing the bedspread away so not to be disturbed later, he stretched out on his back, occupying as much of the double bed as he dared without being brutally accosted. He was half-asleep when Clyde came in, pulling off his shirt. "So how was Pet-a-Pet day?"

  "What can I say? Paralyzing."

  "You are such a snob."

  "My feline heritage. And why are you so interested?"

  Clyde shrugged. "When you weren't home last night, I figured maybe you liked those folks so much you moved in with them, took up residence at Casa Capri."

  "Slept in a tree," Joe said shortly. He did not like references to his nocturnal absences. He didn't ask Clyde about his late hours.

  Bu
t then, he didn't have to. It was usually apparent where Clyde had been, the clues too elemental even to mention, a certain lady's scent on his collar, his phone book left open to a certain name, hints that did not even add up to kindergarten training for an observant feline.

  He did not mention that he and Dulcie had searched the Nursing unit at Casa Capri, and had run surveillance on Adelina Prior in her private office. No need to worry him.

  "Harper said, before you came slinking in tonight, they think the cat burglar is getting ready to move on up north."

  "What made him say that?"

  "This morning's police report had an identical operation in Watsonville, and another at Santa Cruz. Harper thinks she's testing the waters up there. That's what happened down the coast, a couple of isolated incidents weeks apart before she moved in for the action."

  Clyde wandered around in his shorts, belatedly drawing the shades. No wonder the elderly matrons in the neighborhood turned pink-faced and flustered when they met him on the street. "The Gazette is going to do an article on the cat-lady angle. Max never did like keeping that confidential, but he didn't want to scare her away. Once that paper hits the street, she'll be gone." He picked up the remote from beside the TV and turned on the late news.

  "Pity," Joe said, "that a police force the size of ours didn't have the skill to nail her. Do you think they'd like the make on her car?"

  Clyde turned off the volume, turned to stare at him.

  "Your mouth's open," Joe said, yawning. He burrowed deeper against the pillow.

  "So what's the make? I won't ask the details of how you got it."

  "Blue Honda hatchback. Late model, not sure what year. California plate 3GHK499 with mud smeared on it."

  Clyde sighed and picked up the phone.

  But he set it back in its cradle. "I can't call him now. Where would I have gotten that information, just a few minutes after he left?"

  Joe gave him a toothy cat grin. "Where else?"

  Scowling, Clyde settled back against his own pillow and turned up the volume, immersing himself in a barrage of world calamities, avoiding the subject he found far more upsetting.

  Joe rolled over away from him, curled up, and went to sleep. But he did not sleep well, and in the small hours before the first morning rays touched the windows he rose and padded into the kitchen to the extension phone.

  The time was 3:49 A.M. as he punched in the number of the Molena Point PD and gave the duty officer the make on the blue Honda: the color, style, and license number. The officer assured him that Harper would get the information the minute he walked into headquarters.

  And that, Joe figured, would be the end of the cat burglar's long and lucrative spree. Harper would have her cold. And if a twinge of sympathy for the old girl touched him, it wouldn't last. Dulcie's the easy mark, not me. She's the sucker for thieving old women, not Joe Grey.

  23

  Eula rose hastily from the couch, spilling Joe to the cushions. Scowling, clutching the back of the couch to support herself, she stood looking out the glass doors across the patio toward the empty corner room. "There's someone over there; the curtains are open. There's a light on-there, in Jane's old room." This was Joe's second visit. Again, he'd been paired with Eula.

  Mae Rose came alert, wheeled her chair around, almost upsetting it, staring out. On her lap, Dulcie rose up tall, looking, her tail twitching with excitement, her green gaze fixed across the patio on the corner room, where figures moved with sudden activity.

  Joe leaped to the back of the couch, looking out, nipping at his shoulder, pretending to bite a flea, as he gave the distant view his full attention. Across the patio, through the loosely woven draperies, a bedside lamp shone brightly, picking out three busy nurses. The room seemed to brighten further as the sky above Casa Capri darkened with blowing clouds.

  Along the length of the patio garden, each room was lit like a bright stage. In some, the occupant was reading or watching TV; other rooms were empty, though residents had left lights burning while they came to the social hall. Dillon came to stand beside Joe, leaning against the back of the couch, stroking him, but her attention was on the far room.

  He hadn't expected to see Dillon again after finding her bawling in the woods, after the nurse booted her out. He'd figured she was done with Casa Capri, that she'd give up looking for Jane Hubble, but here she was, fascinated by that far bedroom, her brown eyes fixed intently on the action behind the curtain.

  Suddenly, everyone moved at once. Dillon fled past him out the sliding door, leaving it open to the wind. Mae Rose took off in her wheelchair toward the front entry and the hall beyond, moving faster than he thought that chair could move, Dulcie balanced in her lap, stretching up to see. Eula followed behind Mae Rose's wheelchair, hobbling along in her walker as fast as she could manage.

  Joe delayed only a moment, then nipped out the glass doors behind Dillon.

  The kid stood across the patio beneath an orange tree, pressed against the glass, shielded by the partially open draperies, looking in, her hands cupped around her eyes. Joe, slipping along beneath the bushes, rubbed against her leg. She looked down and absently scratched his ear with the toe of her jogging shoe. She must think, with the patio darkening and the room so brightly lit, and the flimsy drapery to shield her, that she wouldn't be noticed. He sat beside her in the shadows, watching the three white-uniformed nurses within. One was setting out some books on the dresser, another was filling the dresser drawers with folded garments: neat stacks of lacy pink nighties, quilted satin bed jackets, and what appeared to be long woolly bed socks. The closet door stood open, but the space within did not contain hanging clothes.

  The closet was fitted with shelves, and the shelves were stacked with cardboard boxes, wooden boxes, plastic bags, small suitcases, several small flowered overnight bags, and two old-fashioned hatboxes. Dillon seemed fascinated with the jumble; she peered in as if memorizing every item. She looked away only when a fourth nurse entered the room, wheeling a patient on a gurney, a thin old lady tucked up beneath a white blanket, her face pale against the white pillow, her body hardly a puff beneath the cover. The nurse positioned the gurney beside the hospital bed and set its wheel brakes.

  Two nurses lifted the patient. Working together they settled her onto the taut, clean sheets of the hospital bed and tucked the top sheet and blanket around her. She squinted and murmured at the light from the bedside lamp, and closed her eyes. A nurse turned the three-way bulb all the way up, forcing a moment of bright glare, switching on through to the lowest, gentle setting. For an instant, in that brief flash of harsh light, something startled Joe, some wrong detail. Something he could not bring clear.

  He had no notion what had bothered him, whether some detail of the room, or something about the patient, but soon the feeling was gone. If something was off here, he didn't have a clue. Probably imagination. Annoyed at himself, he lay down across Dillon's feet, watching the room as the nurse pushed the gurney out into the hall.

  Another nurse attached an IV tube to the patient's wrist where a needle had already been inserted, and hung a bottle on the IV stand. The old lady was dressed in a lacy white nightie with a high, ruffled collar, and on her hands she wore little white cotton gloves.

  "The gloves," Dillon whispered, looking down at him, "are so she won't scratch herself. Wilma says their skin is like tissue paper when they get old. Mae Rose's skin is thin, but I don't remember Jane's being like that."

  He wondered if a cat's skin got thin and fragile in old age. Old cats got bony. Old cats looked all loose-hinged, their eyes got bleary, and their chins stuck out. Old cats had a lot of little pains, too. Maybe arthritis, maybe worse.

  He didn't think he wanted to hang around after he got frail and useless; he'd rather go out fast. End it quick in a blaze of teeth and claws, raking the stuffings out of some worthy opponent.

  Slowly Dillon backed away from the glass. "It's not Jane," she said sadly. She picked him up, buried her face against him. But
soon she moved closer to the glass again, peering in as if the sight of that poor old soul fascinated her. He still couldn't figure out what was off about the scene-the old woman looked comfortable and well cared for; the room seemed adequately appointed.

  The old lady was very pale, but so were a lot of old people. Her white hair fanned out in a halo onto the white pillow, hair so thin he could see her pale pink scalp beneath. Her wrinkled cheeks and mouth were drawn in, her pale blue eyes were rimed with milky circles. Her lids were reddened, too, and at the corners of her eyes liquid had collected. Dampness shone at one side of her mouth in a small line of drool.

  A nurse bent to wipe her face, taking such gentle strokes she seemed hardly to touch the old woman. Behind the nurses in the hall, two visitors appeared, figures robed in black, stepping heavily into the room, two square and hefty old women dressed all in black like two Salvation Army bell ringers.

  Their gray hair, frizzed close to their heads, formed little caps as kinky as steel wool. Their shoes were black and sturdy, their black skirts reached nearly to the floor. They seemed as ancient as the bed's occupant, but of a different breed. These two ladies looked indestructible, as if they had been tempered perhaps by some demanding religious sect. Or maybe the vicissitudes of life, alone, had toughened them, just as old leather becomes tough.

  The shorter of the two carried a brightly flowered handbag of quilted chintz, its yellow and pink blooms screaming with color against her sepulchral attire. The taller lady bore in her outstretched hands a small bowl covered with a white napkin. Adelina Prior moved behind them, shepherding them inside. She wore beige today, a tailored suede dress that showed less leg, and she wore less makeup, her eyes almost naked, her lips a flesh-colored tone.

  The women paused uncertainly by the foot of the bed, watching the patient. She lay with her eyes closed, whether in sleep or out of shyness or bad temper was impossible to tell. The two black-robed ladies leaned forward, peering.