Cat Pay the Devil (16 page)

Greeley Urzey was not well educated, but McFarland knew he'd lived and worked most of his adult life in Panama. He'd apparently learned quickly what he needed to get along, including a nice repertoire of retorts. As Officer McFarland invited Greeley to quietly leave the premises of the seniors' house or spend the night in jail, Greeley told him half in English and half in Spanish that he wasn't sleeping in their jail and just what they could do with that facility.

McFarland had looked at Greeley steadily, trying not to smile. “You want a lift down the hill? It's a motel or the jail, take your pick.” McFarland wasn't about to leave Greeley hanging around the seniors' place and have to come back for him. No cop likes a domestic dispute, even an apparently nonviolent one—though he didn't much want the old man in his squad car, either; he smelled like a drunk billy goat.

“I have a car!” Greeley had snapped, snatching up his wrinkled leather duffle and heading around the house to the street, to a new, green PT Cruiser that surprised McFarland. McFarland waited for him to start the car and head down the hill, then followed him, wondering if he should run the
plates, see if the car was stolen. He pulled over, making a note of the plates, and watching as Greeley swung into the parking area of the first vacant motel he came to, parked the PT Cruiser, and carried his battered old satchel through the motel's patio and into the lobby.

After ten minutes, when Greeley did not come out, McFarland called the motel desk to make sure he'd checked in.

He had. Breathing easier, McFarland left, thinking about the beginning Spanish lessons he was taking, wondering if the advanced course would provide a more colorful approach, if it might include some of the old man's impressive vocabulary.

McFarland had had a good day. He had, with the two detectives and Karen working the urgent missing cases, been given free reign with the village murders. He had acquired, by means he might not want to relate to the chief, enough evidence to bring in both Tucker and Keating for questioning—for visits that, he hoped, would result in arrests. As for the third murder, he was convinced that it, too, would turn out to be a domestic, though as yet they had nothing solid.

 

As Greeley signed the register and palmed the key to his room, up in the hills his sister, Mavity, was airing out the apartment that he had occupied. Setting down her arsenal of vacuum cleaner and dust mop, scrub mops and chemicals and buckets, she flung open windows as violently as if the wind coming up the canyon could blow away Greeley himself. Her attack of cleaning included new contact paper in all the drawers, which gave her an excuse to go through them to see if he'd forgotten anything of interest. She had already searched Greeley's duffle, two days earlier.

That was part of what had upset her so, and made her
pursue the restraining order. She had been searching his bag for his stash of whiskey, meaning to throw it out. She felt no guilt in poking around. It wasn't her fault her brother was a drunk, but she did feel responsible for the fact that he was disturbing her friends. She hadn't found his bottle, but she'd found something far more interesting.

In the bottom of the bag was a small white paper box, maybe two by three inches, embossed with the logo of a Panamanian jewelry store; the box was old and stained, as if perhaps it had been used for many purposes. Inside, packed carefully between layers of yellowed tissue paper, was a little gold devil. An ugly little figure with an evil leer—devil, or some other idol, one of them pagan idols from Central America. It looked like real solid gold, and it felt warm and rich like gold; it was so heavy it startled her.

But it couldn't be real gold, the real thing would be worth thousands, maybe more. It had to be a museum copy. She remembered Greeley telling about little gold figures, ancient artifacts, he'd said. She couldn't remember the name he called them. Did he say they were pre-Columbian? From the time before Columbus discovered South America? Didn't seem possible anything could last that long, anything so small. Sacred trinkets, Greeley'd said, fashioned by vanished tribes. He'd been only a little drunk at the time, just enough to be in one of them showy moods when he liked to tell what he knew, and embroider on it. He said them little gold figures were in great demand, now, that even one would be worth a fortune.

With Greeley, she never knew what to believe.

She didn't know much about history or archeology, and she didn't remember those long-ago dates. Huacas, she thought suddenly. That was what he'd called them. The real gold huacas, Greeley said, were illegal to own, in Panama,
except by the national museum. He said the museum made copies, though, and sold them to the tourists. Surely this was one of the copies. But why was it so heavy?

Greeley wasn't above stealing, if he could get away with it, or thought he could—but Greeley couldn't steal this kind of state-guarded treasure. If what he said was true, such a theft was far more sophisticated than anything that old man was capable of. Greeley's thefts ran to cracking the safe of a small mom-and-pop store and making off with a few hundred dollars. Not some high-powered international operation; that wasn't Greeley's style, he wouldn't know how to go about such a thing. All his talk that night, that had been whiskey talk, colorful storytelling, more than half from Greeley's sodden imagination.

All their lives, her brother had stolen, ever since they were kids. She was forever surprised he didn't spend more time in jail; it was just short sentences and then out again. Well, she had to admit, in spite of his thieving ways, he'd held down a good job for forty years—but only because he loved the diving. She never ceased to wonder that he could be so responsible at his work and so worthless in the rest of his life.

That day she'd found the huaca she'd stood there in the basement apartment looking down at that evil gold devil, wondering. It
was
an evil little thing; its stare had given her the creeps, made her think of voodoo curses, the pagan magic that Greeley liked to tell about.

Wilma said those countries weren't all pagan, that they were Christian, too. Catholic. But Mavity had seen pictures of those South American churches, their voodoo idols all mixed in with the saints and the virgin. That, in her book, wasn't any kind of Christian.

Quickly she had wrapped the gold devil up again, closed
it away in its box, and put the box back in the duffle. Hurrying, she'd latched the worn leather bag and left the room, her hands icy, the image of that devil face too clear in her mind.

Now, she cleaned the room vehemently until she'd eradicated the sour smells. She carried the sheets and towels into the little laundry at the end of the hall, put them in the washer with plenty of Clorox. When she gathered up her cleaning equipment and locked the door to the apartment, she left the windows open, to air the place. She felt no guilt at possibly sending Greeley to jail. If he didn't obey the restraining order, a cell was what he deserved.

C
harlie's whole body was sore from the battering
Cage gave her, and from bumping along in the Jeep; her face felt bruised and raw where he'd struck her, hit her three times for trying to roll out of the vehicle. And then when it blew a tire and skidded on the narrow trail, jamming hard between two trees, she'd prayed it was stuck. She'd thought at first the sharp report was a gunshot, it had sent her ducking down, filled with hope—but it was only the tire exploding when the wheel hit a deadfall. The men's rage would, under other circumstances, have been amusing. They were near hysteria by the time they got the wheel off, then found that the spare had no air, that it, too, had a hole in it. The situation was entertaining, but turned heart-stopping when they grew so enraged that she didn't know what they might do to her.

But they hadn't taken it out on her. They had sworn and argued, then at last had set about patching the spare, irritably bickering. Now, bumping along again, she was terribly
hot and thirsty, her sweaty T-shirt plastered to her, the too-tight ropes burning into her. The worst discomfort was the gnats; millions of gnats had found her, and were feasting. Their bites made her wild with itching, and she couldn't scratch. Her last thread of composure was almost gone. And she was ashamed, so ashamed that her disappearance would have Max frantic, would cause all kinds of trouble. Ashamed that she hadn't been watchful, that she'd let her guard down, had come out of the house completely unprepared for a prowler. She knew better. After several previous threats to Max, she knew better than to become complacent. She had stepped out thinking the dogs were barking at nothing or at some small wild animal; and now Max would have to deal with the trouble her foolishness had caused. Worst of all, she knew he'd come after her, that she'd put him in unnecessary danger.

No matter how she twisted and worked at the knots, she'd not been able to loosen one. With her feet tied, and her hands tied behind her, even if she'd been able to roll off the Jeep, she couldn't have run, couldn't get away, could only hop stupidly, like a trussed-up chicken.

When the men had finally gotten the spare tire patched and on the wheel, and had taken turns pumping up the tire with an ancient hand pump, they'd shouldered and fought the Jeep out of the trees and moved on again up into the pine forest. The woods were black as midnight, the headlights dim. She lay helplessly bumping along again on the dirty metal floor trying to understand what this was about.

She knew Cage's name, the other man had called him that, receiving a vicious blow across the mouth, a strike that had made him spit blood. Cage Jones—the man Wilma had gone up to the city to testify against. In some way, this whole thing was about Wilma; that knowledge riveted her
with fear. Was this retribution against Wilma, for her damning testimony? What else could it be?

Early in the evening, when she brought the dogs and horses in from pasture and fed them, she'd been imagining Wilma on her way home down 101 in the heavy afternoon traffic, her car loaded with boxes and bags of new clothes and early Christmas presents. She'd thought that when she and Ryan got back from their ride, if there was no “getting home” message from Wilma, she'd give her aunt time to unpack and have a cool shower, a drink, and some supper, then she'd call her and they could talk about Wilma's weekend.

Tending to the horses, then going in the house to fix sandwiches for herself and Ryan, she'd amused herself imagining what Wilma had bought. New jeans, of course. New sweatshirts. But she hoped something frivolous, too. When the dogs began to bark, she'd stepped out on the porch, stood in the falling evening listening. Deciding maybe there were raccoons in the barn again, or the fox who often came to sneak dog food and that enraged the mutts, she had just slipped into the barn to see—

It happened so fast. She was grabbed from behind, the dogs going crazy, the horses plunging in their stalls. She was swung around hard, losing her balance, to face a huge man.

He had clamped his meaty hand over her mouth so she couldn't yell, had dragged her out behind the barn and tied her up and gagged her, and then thrown her in the Jeep. There was a second man, thinner. Neither spoke until they'd driven for some time and were well away from the stables, up the narrow trail. She'd leaned up to look over the back, trying to see behind them, hoping uselessly that someone had seen them and followed. But every time she tried to
look back, Cage reached around from the driver's seat and knocked her down.

And who would have seen? She'd been alone at the ranch. There was no one to know she was missing, or to know what had happened. She'd bounced along miserably on the hard metal floor, through the darkening woods, with Cage watching her so closely, against any attempt at escape, that she just about lost hope. Until the tire blew and her hope rose again.

But that hadn't lasted long and they were off again, she still steaming at her helplessness, at her inability to help herself.

But now…Did she hear something behind them? The faintest noise? Stealthily she slid up again along the side of the Jeep to sneak a look. The sky straight above them was still silver, but the dense woods through which they rumbled were so dark that surely Cage, looking back from the driver's seat, could no longer see her clearly. Far back down the trail, she thought she glimpsed a flash of light. She saw it for just an instant, saw it again, flicking, then it vanished. Had she heard, above the Jeep's rattling and grinding, another sound? A distant door close, an engine start?

She tried to judge how far they had come. They'd been climbing constantly, the Jeep's engine straining, climbing very steeply in some places. When she could see through a gap in the trees, beneath the lighter evening sky, the black hills fell away, but then they were gone again, hidden by the pine forest.

There wasn't much up this trail but forest, and patches of open hills. Some scattered old houses far up, a fallen fence line. And, nearly straight ahead, this trail would pass close to the Pamillon ruins.

Was Cage headed there? Did he mean to dump her there?
Kill me and leave me under the fallen walls or in some caved-in cellar
,
where no one will find me? Leave me there to get back at Wilma?
Certainly Cage hadn't kidnapped her for a ransom. He wouldn't get much, she thought ruefully, she wasn't some heiress worth millions.

Oh, but Max would pay. He'd pay with the ranch, the horses, the cars, and every smallest thing he owned, go into debt for the rest of his life, if that was the only way to save her—except that Max was too clever for that, Max would never be so foolish, he was far sharper than these two cheap crooks, he would never let them twist him around.

Wouldn't he? To save my life?

And she knew he would.

Was
this revenge against Wilma? Did Cage think he could make Wilma suffer far more if he killed her niece? Or, she thought, could Cage want something from Wilma, something besides revenge?
Am I a hostage? Is this some kind of trade? But trade for what? Certainly he can't buy his freedom from the law with a hostage. The U.S. courts don't make that kind of bargain.

This was all too unlikely, too bizarre. It had been such a peaceful afternoon, she'd so been looking forward to a quiet ride, to spending some time with Ryan. And then…everything had gone to hell.

The sky was going dark now. Cage, still grousing over the flat tire, which was all Eddie's fault because it was Eddie's Jeep, hadn't glimpsed her peering over the back. She caught her breath when she saw another light, a flash as brief as a firefly, one pinprick, then gone. But then another, farther down the hills, where she thought their ranch lay. Then the trail behind them was hidden by a thick stand of pine. The Jeep came up over a rise and dropped down again, and Cage swung around in the seat, turning his light on her; he caught
her looking, and before she could duck, he smacked her in the face so hard he sent her sprawling. She lay unmoving, hurting, detesting Cage Jones. And thinking about the lights.

Someone was at the ranch or was approaching it. Or did those lights belong to someone following the Jeep? Ryan must have arrived by this time and found her gone. Found the door unlocked, the tire tracks, the animals upset. If she had, there'd be cops all over, and Max would be following their tracks.

They topped the rise and turned, bumping over rocks. She glimpsed broken stone walls, they
were
in the ruins, the old Pamillon estate.
Did
Cage mean to kill her here? She
had
to get away, get back down the trail to Max—If Max couldn't get a vehicle up that trail, he'd follow her on horseback.
Not alone on horseback
,
Max
,
please. They're both armed. Please
…There was a shotgun between the front seats, she'd seen it when they threw her in the Jeep, and Cage had a handgun.

Stop it
, she thought.
Max is no fool. If he comes on horseback, they'll never see him
,
never know he's there.
Twisting her hands in ways she hadn't thought they'd bend, she again tried desperately to free herself; she felt blood flowing, making her hands slick as she tried uselessly to undo the knots. Cage pulled the Jeep deeper in among the fallen walls, stopped, and killed the engine.

 

The Jones house had been dark when Greeley arrived back there, though it was only an hour since he'd left, since he'd seen them cats tossing the place. What the hell were they doing? What were the little sneaks looking for? They couldn't know what this was all about. Approaching the
Jones's front windows, he could see no light now. Had Lilly gone to bed? Not until he stepped around the side of the house did he see that one lamp was burning low, just about where Lilly had been sitting earlier. Was she
still
in that same chair, mindlessly knitting away? Moving around to the front porch again, he rang the bell, hoping she might be in a better mood this time around. Hoping to hell them cats was gone, dirty, nosy varmints.

Well, he was damn glad to be shut of that cop, rousting him out of Mavity's place like that. As if a cop had that kind of rights. Like some Gestapo bully. Stateside cops were as bad as them Panamanian La Guardia, didn't give a damn for people's rights. Unless you lined their pockets. In Panama, if you didn't buy your freedom, the Guardia'd just as soon shoot you. Cheaper than feeding you, in jail. Well, hell, it made no difference. You get thrown in a Panama jail, only way out is in a pine box—if they bother to put you in a box, if they don't just throw you to the sharks.

He'd stayed in that motel patio, after that cop followed him from Mavity's, until he was sure the rookie was gone. Watched him drive away, talking on the radio like he was heading on another call. Watched him as far as he could see the cop car, then he'd retrieved his own car and headed up the few blocks to Lilly's place. Oh, he'd checked in to the motel, all right. Waited till that cop called them, then said he'd changed his mind.

He didn't know how he was going to convince Lilly to let him stay, but he'd figure it out. Once he got settled in one of them upstairs bedrooms, he could search the house at his leisure, do it while she slept. Do it before Cage got back. Sure as hell this would be his last chance before Cage barged in here to get the stash.

If Cage got it first, he'd turn right around and head back
to the city, to the same fence. And once that fence started moving Greeley's own share to collectors, the feds would hear about it and them bastards'd have the dogs out.

He rang the bell again, fidgeting. What the hell was Lilly doing? At last he heard her padding to the door and he had to think how best to con her. She wasn't an easy woman. So far, she sure hadn't been what you'd call cordial.

He'd thought of phoning her first, asking real nice if he could stay there a day or two, that his sister had a problem with the apartment he was in. Maybe tell her the water pipes broke? But Lilly'd of hung up on him, sure as pigs had curly tails. He'd thought of pretending to be Cage, telling her to give Greeley a room, but their voices were too different, no way he could pull that off. He heard the knob turn, and she opened the door with the burglar chain on, peered out through the little crack at him. One good lunge with his shoulder and he could break that puny chain, send the door flying. Instead he gave her a big smile. “It's me, Lilly. I come back. I…I have a kind of a problem. You think I could come in? Come in and maybe tell you about it and maybe get warm for a minute?”

“It's still ninety degrees, Greeley.”

“Well, it's a lot hotter in Panama,” Greeley said pitifully. “My blood's thin. And I sure do need some help. For old times' sake?”

“What old times?”

“It's Mavity,” Greeley said. “Something happened to her apartment where I was staying. She'd rented it and those folks showed up early to move in, and I had to leave. She didn't have no more room; I just need me a place to stay for the night. Until I can get a motel, until the tourists go home. Motels are all full, I got me no place to sleep.” He hoped to hell she didn't check. “I'd be gone again first thing in the morning…”

She stood scowling down at him for a long time. They were the same height, but with him standing a step down on the porch, she was some taller. She looked real sour at being disturbed, sour and stubborn. He could have been starving or sick, she would have looked just as mean. When she shut the door, he thought that was the end of it, that he'd lost the first round.

But she'd only closed it to slip the chain. She opened it again, still scowling. She stared at him for another long minute, then stepped back, opening it wider. He gave her a pitiful, grateful look and moved inside, doing his best not to grin. He thought of going back to the car to get his duffle but was afraid she'd change her mind and lock the door. There wasn't nothing in it he really needed.