Cat Raise the Dead (19 page)

“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.

But 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
.

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.

“Mary Nell? Are you awake? It's Roberta and Gustel.”

“Mary Nell? Can you hear us? It's Cousin Roberta and Cousin Gustel.”

When the patient didn't open her eyes, Ms. Prior took the ladies' arms and guided them to a pair of upholstered chairs that had been drawn up at the side of the bed, the backs to the wall and facing, across the bed, the glass doors. The black-clad women sat woodenly. The shorter lady leaned forward. “Mary Nell, it's Roberta. Are you awake?” As she leaned, she deposited her flowered handbag on the floor. The tall lady remained silent, clutching her bowl in her lap.

Joe, dropping down from Dillon's arms, slipped behind the orange tree, then leaped up into its branches. The sky had grown darker, and the clouds were moving fast. A damp wind scudded through the branches, shivering the leaves. He settled in a fork where he could see out between the moving leaves, directly down upon the bed, upon Mary Nell Hook and her two sturdy cousins. He could see, as well, beneath the bed, Dulcie's two hind paws and the tip of her twitching tail.

 

Dulcie's view was restricted to the floor, the bed legs, a corner of the blanket hanging down, and the high-topped black shoes of the visitors. Each woman, when seated, kept her feet flat on the floor as if to assure adequate balance. Above their ankle-high shoes, two inches of leg were encased in thick, black corrective stockings—a sharp contrast to Adelina's silk-clad ankles and creamy
pumps, her sleek narrow foot tapping softly beside the bed. The two ladies smelled of mothballs, a strange mix when combined with Adelina's perfume and the sweet aroma of vanilla from the bowl that Gustel held. These, with the strong air freshener that had been sprayed earlier, left her nose nearly numb. But she did catch a whiff from the bed above, of nail polish remover. This seemed a puzzling aroma to be associated with a frail, bedridden lady. But maybe she liked nice nails—though one couldn't see them beneath the white cotton gloves.

She could see Dillon standing beyond the glass door and draperies, a shadow among shadows in the darkening patio, a subtlety probably not detectable by human eyes. She had seen Joe streak for the tree—he was hidden, now, high among the leaves—but she caught a glimpse of his yellow eyes, watching.

A chair creaked as if the short lady had leaned forward. “Mary Nell? Mary Nell, it's Roberta. Open your eyes, Mary Nell. It's Roberta and Gustel.”

There was a rustle of the covers as if Mary Nell had turned to look at her visitors.

“Mary Nell, Cousin Grace sends her love,” Gustel said. “I've brought you a vanilla pudding.”

Mary Nell murmured, faint and weak.

“Her husband Allen's son is graduating from Stanford, and we came out to the coast for the ceremony, and, of course, we wanted to see you; it's been years, Mary Nell.”

Mary Nell grunted delicately.

“Do they treat you well? We talked with your trust officer, and she said they are very kind here.”

Another soft murmur, a bit more cheerful.

The conversation progressed in this vein until Dulcie had to shake her head to stay awake. From Mary Nell's responses, the patient, too, was about to drift off. The cousins took turns talking, as if they had been programmed by some strict familial custom which allowed exactly equal time to all participants. Mary Nell's
answers remained of the one-syllable variety. Not until Gustel began to talk about the old school where Mary Nell had taught did the patient stir with some semblance of vigor.

Gustel, holding her pudding gently on her lap, told about the grandchild of one of Mary Nell's students, who was now vice principal of that very same school. When she described for Mary Nell the new modern gymnasium with a skylight in the dome, this elicited from Mary Nell her first decipherable comment. “A light in the roof. Oh my. And little Nancy Demming, just imagine, she was no bigger than me.”

“We have all your old history books and cookbooks, Mary Nell; we're keeping them for the great grandchildren.”

“A regular window,” Mary Nell said. “A regular window in the roof.” The springs grumbled as if she had shifted or perhaps leaned up for a better look at her cousins. It was at this moment that Dulcie saw Mae Rose.

Mae Rose had abandoned her wheelchair and was creeping along the hall. Walking unsteadily, clutching at the wall, she was headed for the open door.

Dulcie had left Mae Rose near the front door, in the parlor. When Mae Rose stopped to wait for Eula, Dulcie had lost patience, leaped down, and streaked in through this door behind the nurses' feet. She thought that not even Dillon peering in through the glass had seen her as she slid beneath Mary Nell's bed.

She didn't know why Mae Rose had left her wheelchair; it frightened her to see the little woman walking so precariously. She did not see Eula, though she could see a good slice of hall from where she crouched; it was only close up that her view was limited to chair legs and feet. Mae Rose crept along to the door, clutching her little doll Lucinda and hanging on to the wall. Moving inside, she approached the bed, drew so close that Dulcie could see only her pale, bare legs and her bright pink slippers. The smell of air
freshener was so strong she couldn't even catch Mae Rose's sweet, powdery scent. Just the chemical smell of fake pine.

Wanting to see more, she reared up behind the bed, shielded by Mary Nell's plumped pillows, and peered out through a tiny space beside Mary Nell's left ear. She watched Mae Rose lean over the bed, smiling eagerly at Mary Nell, holding out the doll. Mary Nell grunted, perhaps startled at the proximity of the doll. When she leaned up a few inches from the bed, Mae Rose pressed the doll toward her, as if by way of a loving gift.

The cousins, sitting beside the bed like two black crows, watched this exchange with blank stares. And Dulcie drew back imperceptibly, deeper into the shadows behind the bed.

She felt that if either cousin spotted her, escape would be imperative. And now suddenly Eula appeared in the hall, stumping along in her walker. Behind Eula came a scowling nurse, pushing Mae Rose's empty wheelchair.

Soon the nurse had forced Mae Rose away from the bed, back into her rolling chair, and started away with her, pushing determinedly. But then the nurse seemed to take pity. She turned back again, rolled the chair back into Mary Nell's room, and up to the bed.

Again Mae Rose held out the doll. “Mary Nell, do you remember Lucinda?”

“I remember her,” Mary Nell said weakly.

“She's for you, to keep you company. She's your doll now.” Mae Rose thrust the doll at Mary Nell. The bed creaked as Mary Nell reached. Dulcie watched intently through the tiny space between the two pillows. Mae Rose and Mary Nell looked silently at each other. Mae Rose said, “I've missed you, Mary Nell. And I miss Jane. Do you see Jane over in Nursing?”