Cat Pay the Devil (14 page)

“When have I ever yowled and thrashed around making a scene, as you put it? I want to hear what Davis found. Order me a burger. Rare, with no—”

“I know how you like your burgers. Shut up and get in the carrier.”

J
oe slunk into the cat carrier growling at Clyde,
watched Clyde fasten the latches, and felt the carrier rudely snatched up and swung out of the car; the next moment they were entering Chili's, into a heady miasma of broiled hamburger, French fries, and various rich pastas that hit the tomcat with a jolt. He hadn't realized he was so hungry. Clyde greeted Davis and they settled into a booth, Clyde dropping Joe's carrier on the leather seat, which smelled of uncounted occupants and of spilled mustard.

“Have you eaten?” Clyde asked her.

“No,” Davis said. “Nothing but coffee, I'm awash in it.”

Joe, if he sat tall in the carrier, could see the sturdily built detective across the table, her short black hair smooth and clean, her dark uniform regulation severe. Where most detectives wore civilian clothes, easy and comfortable, Juana Davis preferred a uniform. Joe's theory was, she felt that it made her look slimmer. “I'm starved,” she said, picking up her menu.

When the hostess came, glancing apprehensively into the carrier, Clyde said, “Just got off the plane. Trained cat, very valuable. He does movie work.” The yellow luggage ticket hanging from the handle was an excellent touch, and seemed to impress the thin, swarthy waitress.

“What movies has he made?” she asked with a considerable accent.

“Oh, he's done over a dozen films as a bit player, but only two so far where he starred, where he had top billing.” Clyde mentioned two nonexistent movie titles, hoping she hadn't lived in the U.S. long enough to know the difference.

Davis, sitting across from Clyde, remained straight-faced. When the waitress had taken their order and disappeared, Davis said, “I'm not going to ask why you brought your cat. Or why you took him into Liz Claiborne's.” She looked at Clyde for a long time. He said nothing. “Are you going to explain to me what happened in there? I heard a pretty strange story from the deputy who just came from talking with the manager.”

Clyde looked at her blankly.

“About the tissue,” Davis said patiently. “And about that tomcat running loose in the store.”

Clyde gave her a disingenuous look that to anyone but a cop would reek of honesty. “He got out of his carrier. Guess I didn't fasten it securely. Cat picked up a used tissue somewhere while I was describing Wilma, asking if she'd been there. I thought I had the carrier door fastened.”

Davis did not respond. Joe wished she'd show some expression. As warm and thoughtful as Juana Davis was on occasion, that cop's look could be unnerving.

“Juana,” Clyde said, “Wilma's like my family, you know that. I'm really worried about her, I had to just go in and ask, had to do something. I…with Wilma gone, I didn't have anyone to leave the cat with.

“But then,” he said with excitement, “when I left the store, luck was with me. Incredible…” He reached in his pocket, drew out the wrapped credit card, laid it on the table, and opened the tissue. “Looks like, for once, my stupid civilian nosiness paid off.”

Davis looked at the credit card, at Wilma's name, at the dark stain that appeared to be dried blood. She looked up at Clyde. Still a cop's look, silent and expressionless, a look designed to unnerve the toughest convict.

“It was in the gutter. Among some trash, right where I parked my car.”

Juana's rigid demeanor and her unreadable black Latina eyes made her look more severe than she was.

“I figure,” Clyde said, “either someone robbed her and dropped this—except why was it bent? Or that Wilma was mugged and kidnapped, and had time to drop it herself. To bend it and drop it. A carjacking, maybe? You think that's blood on there? Could she have slashed someone with it, then dropped it hoping it would be found?”

Joe was glad he was concealed inside the carrier so Davis couldn't study his face as severely as she was studying Clyde's.

“My guess is,” Clyde said, “she was shoved in a car outside Liz Claiborne's, had the card in her hand, slashed at her abductor, and dropped it as he slammed the car door and took off.”

“Why would she fold it?”

“To make a better weapon? That sharp corner?” Clyde took a sip of his coffee. “I don't know, Juana. I only know it's Wilma's, it has her name on it, and it's an act of fate that I found it, that I ever saw it.”

Davis studied the credit card. She picked it up by the edges and, taking an evidence bag from her pocket, dropped the card in, marked it with date, time, and location, and
sealed it. She looked at Clyde again, then looked across the table at Joe's carrier. Joe yawned stupidly, scratched a nonexistent flea, and curled up as if for a nap. Davis and Clyde were silent until their order came. A burger for Clyde, the same for Joe, sans the fixings. A chicken sandwich for Juana, which probably fit into her perpetual diet.

Clyde opened the carrier, shoved the burger inside, and fastened the mesh door again; he tore into his own burger as if he hadn't eaten in days.

Joe inspected his order to be sure there were no pickles or offensive spreads, pulled off the bun, and scarfed down the hot, rare meat.

Clyde said, “What have you found out? Can you tell me? Sheriff have any leads?”

Joe stopped eating to watch Juana. Suddenly her dark eyes revealed a depth of anger that neither Joe nor Clyde often saw in the steady officer, a controlled rage that frightened them both; she didn't like what she'd found. Wilma was not just a missing case, she was Juana's friend, too.

“Sheriff's deputies had already done the rounds when I got here,” Juana said. “Three clerks, in two stores, recognized Wilma from the picture we faxed. One clerk saw her leave, saw her go up the sidewalk with her packages but didn't see where she went. Didn't know if she got in a car. Sheriff has copies of her Visa charge slips. He checked the motels in the area, in case she decided to stay over. Showed them her picture. Nothing.

“No one's found her car, no sign of Jones or Sears. We don't know that Sears is with him, but he's usually in Jones's shadow. Sheriff is checking convenience stores, gas stations. CHP is all over the freeway watching for her car, and for Jones or Sears. APB out for the state. If she's not found soon, that'll be all the western states.”

“What does Sears look like?”

“Slighter built than Jones, thin face. Younger, thirty-two. Longish brown hair, muddy brown eyes. Jones is a hulk, six four and built like a truck. Gorilla face, long lip.” The detective was tense and edgy. Joe waited uneasily, as did Clyde. There was something more, something she wasn't telling Clyde. Rearing up against the carrier's soft top to observe her, Joe shivered. Davis was mad as hell, and about something more. Joe was surprised when Clyde unfastened the carrier, reached in, and began to stroke his back, as if to comfort them both.

“I just got off the phone with the dispatcher,” Juana said.

Clyde's hand stiffened. Joe went very still.

“It's Charlie,” Juana said. “Charlie's disappeared. Charlie Harper's missing, too.”

Clyde gripped Joe's shoulder so hard the tomcat hissed. But then he rubbed his face against Clyde's fingers, which felt suddenly icy.

“Charlie and Ryan had planned to ride,” Davis said. “Ryan was delayed on the job. By the time she got there, Charlie had fed the horses and put them up, and started to make sandwiches. Looked like she went outside again on some errand, or at some disturbance. The door left unlocked, and she hadn't finished in the kitchen. From that point, no one knows. Ryan got there, she was gone. No note, no phone message. Her car there, engine cold.

“Max is there. Karen is making casts, taking the prints. Ryan found the tracks of a small car or maybe an old-style Jeep behind the stable, leading away up the bridle trail, back into the woods.” Juana looked at Clyde gently, her cop's reserve falling away. She was close to Charlie and the chief, the small department was like family.

“Whatever the hell this is,” Juana said, “I hope the bastards burn—that we can make them burn.”

 

Even as evening fell, the cabin and the little cubbyhole kitchen remained intolerably hot, the walls pressing closer, so that Wilma felt there wasn't enough air. Sweating, confined by the tight ropes, panic gripped her, making her feel almost out of control. She wanted to scream and to beat at the walls, to tear at the rope, tear it off, and she couldn't even get a grip on it.

She seldom lost it like this. She was trained
not
to panic, but her training had gone to hell; she wanted to scream, and keep screaming until someone somewhere heard her.

Violet had taken the butcher knife, jerking it from Wilma's clenched hand with surprising strength, and was carrying it away with her, toward the stairs. Wilma watched her retreating back; how thin her shoulders were, every bone visible beneath the flimsy shirt.

“You don't think I can hide you,” Wilma said, trying not to beg. “You're wrong. You don't believe the federal authorities can keep you safe. I know they can. Witness protection has hidden thousands of folks with far more dangerous men after them than Sears, and those women are doing fine.”

Violet paused, but didn't turn to look at her.

“You're destroying what may be your only chance for freedom, Violet. I can get you into a safe house far away, out of the state. New identity, new name, all the papers. New driver's license, new social security number. You can start over, free of Eddie's abuse, do as you please with your life.”

As she tried to gain Violet's attention, she prayed that in Gilroy her credit card would be found. But that was a real long shot, you couldn't lay your life on a card lying in the gutter, a card that would probably be swept up by the street sweeper and dumped in some landfill.

“We can hide you in a little house or apartment in the
most unlikely small town, somewhere no one would think to look. We'd alert the sheriff there to watch out for you, he'd be the person you could go to anytime if you were afraid. You could be living where no one would beat you, threaten you, hurt you, Violet.”

“He'd find me,” Violet said in a flat voice. “There's nowhere he wouldn't find me.”

“He won't find you if he's in prison. If you help me get him there, he can't follow you. I have enough on Cage and Eddie to put them both behind bars for a long time.”

Violet turned, a question in her eyes.

“Believe me. A long stretch in the federal pen.”

“What happens when Eddie gets out? He wouldn't be locked up forever. He'd know I helped you, he'd come after me.”

“Not if he can't find you.” She was losing patience with Violet, but she couldn't afford to snap at the girl. Violet, with no sense of self-worth, could easily become useless to her. “What's the alternative?” Wilma said gently. “You're going to sit here like a lump waiting for him to come back and beat on you for the rest of your life? Or kill you? If he's in jail where he can't get at you—”

“I don't believe you can lock him up. He never—”

“He has aided and abetted Cage's escape, the escape of a federal prisoner. He has kidnapped a retired federal officer. Both are offenses with long mandatory sentences. Mandatory, Violet. The judge
has
to send him away.”

Violet looked hard at her.

“If the law can make Eddie for theft, too, if Cage and Eddie have made some big haul—if that's what Cage is looking for, that added to the other offenses could put Eddie in prison for the rest of his life.”

“And Cage, too?” Violet asked warily.

“Of course, Cage, too. That's the law. Both locked up where they can't hurt you.”

Violet was very still; Wilma watched her, trying not to let her hopes rise. No matter how much psychology Wilma had studied, it was still hard for her to relate to the masochistic dependence that made an abused woman love and cling to her tormentor. Wilma was too independent to understand the self-torturing, or guilt-ridden pleasure, an abuse victim took in harsh mental lashings and harder physical blows, even in wounds that could be fatal. Such an attitude disgusted her, went against her deepest beliefs. Disgusted her because these women had abandoned their self-respect, were committing self-abuse by their complicity.

She wanted to shout and swear at Violet, almost wanted to strike the woman. No wonder such women were ill treated. Violet's cowering submission made a person
want
to hit her.

Violet looked at her for a long time.

“I can help you,” Wilma repeated; she was tired of this, tired of everything. “I will do all I can to help you, will use every kind of assistance that the federal system has to offer.” She prayed she wasn't promising more than she could deliver. “But you have to want to be rid of him—and first, you have to help me.”

Violet's blank expression didn't change. She didn't speak; she turned back toward the wall and disappeared behind it. Wilma listened in defeat to her soft footsteps mounting to the upper floor.

But then, swallowing back discouragement, she reached awkwardly behind her again to fight open the next drawer, to scrabble blindly for another tool sharp enough to cut her bonds.

W
hen Cage Jones grabbed Charlie Harper, the only
witness was the white cat—the only witness who could speak of what he had seen in the alleyway and behind the Harper stables. The other animals could not.

It had taken more courage than Cotton thought he possessed to go to that ranch seeking out the tall redheaded woman and ask her for help for the captive human. He had never in his life approached humans except to steal their food in the back alleys where his clowder had sometimes traveled.

But he had once seen Kit speak with the redheaded woman, and that lady had seemed gentle and respectful of his kind, so he'd thought maybe it would be all right. He had heard her promise that if ever his small, wild band should need help, she would come. Cotton remembered.

But now the redheaded lady needed help, perhaps to save her life.

Approaching the ranch, three times he had nearly turned
back. But at last, shivering and ducking away from nothing, he had come down through the woods, avoiding the bridle trail, not wanting even to leave paw prints.

When he slipped into the stable, the horses had stared over their stalls at him with only mild interest, but the two big dogs in their closed stall had huffed and sniffed under the door, then had barked and kept barking, and in a moment he heard the door of the house open. When he looked out of the stable, redheaded Charlie Harper was coming across the yard to see what they were barking at. He'd tried to steel himself to speak to her, but he was so frightened he had ducked into the stall that held saddles, shivering, not daring even to peer out—and the next moment he was filled with guilt because his presence had brought her there.

He'd heard a vehicle approach from behind the barn where there was no road, only a horse trail. Little rocks crunching under its wheels. The dogs were barking too loudly for Charlie Harper to hear it stop quietly beyond the closed back door. But Cotton had slipped out of the saddle room's open window and around to the back, along the side of the barn, concealing himself among the bushes as best he could considering that he was blindingly white and seldom able to hide very well.

Peering around the corner of the barn, he'd watched two men step out of an old rusty vehicle. It was the same strange, rusty car that had been near the house up in the woods beyond the ruins, where the silver-haired woman was tied up.

And these were the same two men he'd seen there, the one bulky as a bull, the other, thin with long brown hair. The two men stank the same, too. Sour sweat, and the whiskey humans drank; Cotton drew back in the bushes as they slipped around the building to the front, where the big doors stood open. Cotton followed.

The minute they saw Charlie in the stable they raced in and grabbed her, scuffling and swearing and fighting, and Charlie Harper was shouting and the dogs were barking and leaping against the stall door and the horses plunging in their stalls; the big man laughed at Charlie's rage—then Cotton found his nerve and leaped into the thinner man's face, clawing and biting. But the big man was gone with her, dragging her out the back door to the old car. And the thin man grabbed Cotton off his face and threw him; he landed twisting and screaming in a pile of straw.

Leaping up, he raced out the back again, to see them shove her into the back of the old car they called the Jeep, and tie her hands and feet together. They muttered and argued between themselves, then the thin man snapped, “That rotting trailer won't hold her, you could jam your fist through those walls. Damn woman'll kick them apart, kicks like a mule.”

“Not if we tie her up good, she won't. Get a move on, I don't wanna be stumbling around in the dark up there in that mess.”

“Ain't near dark yet. And we can't get the Jeep in there, not anywhere near enough. Have to drag her—”

“So we drag her,” the big man said. “What's your problem?”

“She's that cop's wife, is what! The damn chief. You think of that, Cage! It's a federal—”

“It ain't no federal offense to mess with the
wife
of a cop, for Chrissake. That ain't the same as—”

“How the hell do you know? You don't know what you're talking about!”

But Cotton heard no more. He couldn't stop them; they could easily kill him, and then maybe no one would know what had happened to redheaded Charlie Harper, or to the gray-haired human. And Cotton knew only one thing to
do. Despite his terror of the human world, he spun away out of the stable, across the yard and away through the pasture, running full out, hitting only the high spots across the open fields, heading for the village. Not only fear drove him now, but rage. Running and panting and his heart pounding too hard, the feral tom was a dazzling white streak exploding down across the brown hills, as incandescent as a small meteor. Something in Cotton, recalling his own captive misery last winter, couldn't bear that those two women who were not like other humans were now captive and helpless. He could only pray that he could find Kit, who would know how to bring help, could only pray that he could find his way to her through the village among the confusion of houses and shops and so many moving cars and hurrying people—among all the millions of smells that would hide the scent he remembered, of the kit's home.

He tried to remember which way, from the night Kit had led their escape away from the vicious cage, to her tree house and then out of the village to safety on the open hills. Kit's tree house could be anywhere among the hundreds of village houses. No clear direction came to him; he had been too terrified to pay proper attention. The evening was still light, the sun low and orange ahead of him as it dropped toward the orange-tinted sea. On and on down the hills the white tom raced, rigid with fear that he would never find the tattercoat kit, that his terrified search among humans would come to nothing, and that those two special ladies would be lost.

 

It was dark when Max sped home, driving too fast, his siren and emergency light blasting a furor of alarm in the still evening. Half a mile before his turnoff he extinguished both,
quelling the loud, bright announcement of his approach. Skidding a turn onto his own dirt lane that led in from the highway to the house, he slowed. The time was nine thirty.

Ryan had called him ten minutes earlier, ten minutes that had seemed like a lifetime. He had no clear idea how long Charlie had been missing. Swerving his car onto the grass shoulder between the lane and pasture so as not to obliterate other tire marks, he parked near Ryan's truck and Charlie's SUV, and for a moment he imagined that Charlie was there, that she would step out of the kitchen or the barn waving to him.

He saw only Ryan, standing alone in the lighted door to the stable. He heard three more units swing into the lane behind him, the crunch of tires on gravel.

Getting out, he walked on the rough grass, motioning for his men to park on the shoulder; he stood looking around the yard, scanning it for fresh tire marks and footprints, still imagining that Charlie would appear, stepping sassily out of the barn. He was empty inside, all his cop's professional detachment vanished; empty, and shaky, and lost.

 

An hour before the Greenlaws knew that Wilma was missing, Mavity Flowers learned the news when, her mind set on evicting her brother, she headed for Molena Point PD.

Greeley had been dead drunk at dinner, slopping food on himself and laughing raucously, and he'd stunk to high heaven of booze and unwashed clothes, was so disgusting that Cora Lee had sent twelve-year-old Lori upstairs with her supper. The child had eagerly picked up her plate and vanished; she'd seen enough drinking in her own family; Greeley's behavior brought back too much pain.

Days ago Mavity's housemates, Susan and Gabrielle and
Cora Lee, had ceased being polite to Greeley. Gray-haired no-nonsense Susan Britain was ready to sic her two big dogs on Greeley. It wouldn't take much; neither the Lab nor the dalmatian liked the old man. Blond Gabrielle had stayed as far away from Greeley as she could manage, and had talked about moving out. Cora Lee had simply looked at Mavity, her lovely, café-au-lait beauty and dark eyes very sad, and Mavity could do nothing less than get Greeley out of there. Disregarding the sinking feeling in her middle at the thought of abandoning her own brother, she had called the department to ask how to get rid of him.

Mabel Farthy had answered; Mabel was the only dispatcher Mavity knew very well, and with whom she was comfortable. Angry as she was, it still took a lot of courage to boot her own brother out on the street, but she didn't know what else to do.

Greeley had told her that, as her brother, he had every right to move in. The downstairs apartment was vacant, wasn't it? So what was the problem? When he'd first arrived, showing up one evening without calling, without letting her know he was even in the States after she'd heard nothing from him for six months, she'd told him to go to a motel. That had shocked her housemates—but that was two weeks ago.

Arriving unannounced, just at supper, he had marched boldly into the house sniffing at the good smells of roast beef and gravy and all the other fixings; then they were all at the table, Greeley tucking his napkin into his collar and belching. Susan and Cora Lee and Gabrielle made a fuss over him at first, as they would any guest; Susan said he must be tired, and gray-haired Susan Britain had served him generously of the good roast. Cora Lee had poured wine for him, over Mavity's disapproving scowl. That was the first
night; later, for a while, the ladies were too well mannered to be rude, but at last they lost their patience.

Mavity had put a folding cot in one of the two small basement apartments they were renovating as rentals, apartments that they meant, later on down the years, to accommodate live-in help. She'd made him promise to stay just the one night and then go on about his business. She didn't know what business that was and she didn't want to know. Now he'd been there two weeks, dug in like a mule refusing to leave its stall. She'd left the other apartment locked up tight, the one they'd already cleaned up and painted and furnished real nice, and had told him it was rented.

Now, after Mabel Farthy suggested she come on down to the station and sign a complaint, Mavity and Mabel stood on either side of the dispatcher's counter sipping the coffee Mabel had just brewed. Mabel was in her late fifties, pudgy, but with a bright blond wash on her short hair, and an honest way of dealing with folks.

“Captain Harper and both the detectives are out on cases,” she said. She sounded unnaturally distressed, and it took a lot to upset Mabel. “The chief is…” She paused, watching Mavity. “You don't know?”

“Know what?” Mavity said nervously.

“You're not to repeat this—I'm sure it'll turn out all right,” Mabel said gently.

Alarm filled Mavity.

“You haven't heard about Wilma.”

“That wasn't Wilma, the break-in and—”

“No! Oh, no. She's…Nothing like that.” Mabel had taken her hand. “She's only…Mavity, Wilma is missing.”

“Missing! She can't be missing, she went up to the city. Didn't…?”

“She checked out of her hotel this morning. Her things
are at her house, suitcase, packages. Her car. But…Captain Harper isn't sure Wilma ever got home.”

“I don't understand. If her things are there…Where would she go?” Mavity felt cold all over. “I don't understand what you're saying.” Wilma had just gone up to the city for a court hearing, that was old stuff to Wilma. “She was going to stop in Gilroy. You'd better tell—”

“He knows that. Davis has gone up there. This afternoon, someone was in Wilma's house, searched it, left it a mess. Captain has an APB out for her, all the law-enforcement agencies across the state. I think the captain and Detective Garza are still at the house. You didn't talk with her today, haven't heard from her? Any messages, anything that could help?”

“I haven't seen or talked with her since…since last Thursday,” Mavity said, thinking back. She was so distraught that, when at last she'd left Mabel, she'd found it hard to drive home, had to concentrate hard on what she was doing. And at home, after she'd told Susan and Cora Lee and Gabrielle, and despite the fact that she'd filed the complaint against Greeley, she'd gone down to ask if he might have seen Wilma. Not that he'd care if Wilma was in trouble, not after she'd booted him out of her own house last year, Greeley dead drunk and dragging that horrible black tomcat in there to torment Mavity, herself. Greeley barging in and embarrassing her when she'd just come out of the hospital and Wilma was taking care of her. And then Wilma telling him to leave, Mavity thought, smiling. No, Greeley had no love for Wilma Getz. But still, he might have taken a phone message and not bothered to pass it on, or might have glimpsed her on the street. She knew she'd have to ask him.

She'd heard him on the back deck of the downstairs apartment, had found him sitting in the chaise swilling beer, the
radio on, singing along with it, out of tune and loud enough so everyone in the neighborhood could hear him. Coming onto the deck, she saw him toss his empty beer can down into the canyon—with how many others?

Strange thing was, when she'd told him Wilma was missing, the news upset him more than she'd imagined. The old man stopped guzzling and came alert, and right away started asking questions about what she'd been doing in San Francisco. But Mavity got the feeling he already knew the answers. And when she told him about Cage Jones escaping from jail, Greeley had got real nervous. But again, as if he already knew and wanted to see what she knew.

Well, the escape had been in the afternoon paper. Mabel had shown her the clipping before she left the station. She wondered why Greeley
had
asked her those questions. And what was he so fidgety about? Nothing made sense, Greeley didn't make sense—but then, with the amount of booze he drank, what did she expect?