Cat Under Fire (17 page)

The cars that were parked along the curb hulked black in the predawn dark. Their bodies were beaded with dew, breathing out an icy breath radiating the night's chill. Beneath the cats' paws, the sidewalk was damp and cold. Only an occasional house shone with light. Most of the hillside residents still slept. A thin breeze nipped along the sidewalk, teasing the cats as they hurried upward toward the highest houses. Staying close to the curb, to the parked cars, they were tensed to dodge under if a marauding dog appeared out of the dark. The chill of the vehicles they passed made them shiver, but then, coming alongside a Chevy sedan, they were treated to warmth, sudden and welcome. They looked at each other and grinned. They sniffed at the rear wheel.

The metal was dry, the tire dry, the wheel so warm that when Joe touched his nose to the hubcap he drew back. The car smelled of exhaust and fresh coffee. They reared up, trying to look in.

The dark interior appeared empty, but they caught the faint scent of shaving lotion, too. Moving away into the bushes beside a stucco cottage, looking back, they could observe the Chevy's windows at a better angle.

Two figures sat within, unmoving silhouettes poised in blackness. Stakeout car. Dulcie smiled and began to purr. Captain Harper had believed her. Harper had acted on her phone call. Just a few feet from them, two
of Harper's officers sat in their unmarked vehicle waiting for Varnie and Stamps to go into action.

They thought the time must be about five-fifty. The first mark would leave his house at six-fifteen. Trotting up across the dew-sodden lawns, soon they could see above them the steeply peaked roof of the first mark, the last house on Cypress, number 3920, a handsome white frame dwelling. Lights were on in what looked like a bedroom and bath, and as they hurried upward lights came on in the kitchen. They could hear a radio playing, an announcer's voice; it sounded like the morning weather report. The human need for weather reports always amused them. A cat could smell the rain coming, could feel the change of wind. A cat knows immediately when the barometric pressure changes, by the state of his nerves. High pressure, zowie. Low pressure, nap time. The human paucity of senses was really too bad.

Drawing nearer to 3920, they could hear the faint rumble of water pipes as if someone were taking a shower. And they could smell coffee now, then could smell eggs frying and cigarette smoke.

According to Stamps's list, Tim Hamry would leave the house in about ten minutes, in a white Toyota. His wife, June, should depart five to ten minutes later in an old black Ford sedan. The Hamry's had no children. They had no dogs, and no electronic alarm system.

The cats entered the yard next door, trotting through a bed of dew-laden chrysanthemums, and skinned up a rose trellis to the roof, where they could observe the impending drama. Lying up along the peak, they commanded an unbroken view of 3920 and the surrounding streets. The narrow lanes were lit faintly by residential streetlights, a soft glow at each corner.

The Hamry's bathroom light went out, soon they could hear cutlery on plates.

And as Tim and June Hamry enjoyed breakfast, four blocks down the hill a lone figure leading a large dog
appeared, walking up toward the Hamry house. Stamps and the monster.

“Why would he bring the dog?” Dulcie said.

“I don't know. Maybe they use him as a lookout? He barks loud enough.” Joe sat taller on the steep shingles, watching Stamps. “They're headed right for the stakeout car. That dog will pitch a fit.”

“Oh, no. That will finish it.”

They held their breath.

The dog paused at the stakeout car jerking his lead, sniffing at the Chevy. Stamps swore and pulled him along, but the dog, sniffing at the car, let out a roar loud enough to wake the hillside.

Dulcie moaned. It was over. Stamps would see the cops and take off out of there.

But no, the dog stuck his nose to the sidewalk. He huffed and barked, and took off uphill, jerking Stamps along—following not Harper's men but their own trail. He was headed straight for the house on which they sat.

Joe almost fell off the roof laughing, clawing at the shingles. They watched the beast jerk Stamps along for half a block before Stamps got him stopped. Then Stamps slapped him and whipped him with the end of the lead. The beast cowered and snapped at him, but he came to heel on a short lead, and Stamps led him across the street, not approaching 3920, but heading for Varnie's.

No light burned in the brown house. The Blankenship dwelling was dark, but as Stamps approached, the garage door swung open. He moved quickly inside. They heard him speak to the dog, saw it leap into the truck bed. Stamps moved deeper in, toward the front of the truck, out of their sight.

They heard the truck door open and close. A movement in the darkened garage, beside the window, indicated that Varnie was looking up the hill, watching the Hamry house.

The darkened truck waited. The two men would be
marking time until the Hamrys left for work. Dulcie yawned and settled more comfortably on the sloping roof. The predawn sky was beginning to gray, black tree branches to appear out of the night. Up beyond the black hills, the taller mountains of the coastal range stood dark against the steely sky.

The garage door of 3920 opened. Tim Hamry appeared, wearing a tan suit and black shoes. He turned away within the lit interior and slid into the white Toyota. They heard the engine start.

He backed out, leaving the garage door open, and headed down the hill, his lights picking out parked cars, flashing across the windows of the stakeout car. Its glass shone blank and empty, as if the officers had ducked down.

Joe studied the faintly lit streets, wondering if there might be a second police unit. Every dark, silent vehicle seemed totally abandoned; he could detect no movement within, no red glow of a cigarette—though no cop would smoke on stakeout. They'd chew, maybe, and spit into a paper cup. The officers would be sipping coffee, hunkered down against the chill, yawning as they watched 3920—and watched Varnie's dark, open garage. Stakeout must be like any hunt. Wait for the prey to make a move, be sure you had him cornered, then nail him.

From within the Hamry's lit garage they heard a door close. A woman in a dark suit appeared, slid into the black Ford, and started the engine. She let it idle for a moment, then backed out.

In the drive she left the car running while she went to turn off the light and close the overhead door. Interesting that they didn't have an electric door. Maybe they had cats—automatic doors were death on cats.

The moment June Hamry drove away, her taillights disappearing down the hill, over at the Blankenships' Varnie started his engine. He didn't turn on his headlights. The motor rumbled unevenly, belching white exhaust. He backed out without lights, the truck's slat
sides rattling; its open rear end gaped. In the center of the truck bed, the dog balanced himself heavily, lurching as the truck turned uphill.

Beside the dog reclined four plastic garbage bags, heavily filled, and tied shut. “What's with the bags?” Dulcie hunched lower against the rough shingles, looking.

The truck moved up the hill. Pausing before 3920, it backed into the Hamry's drive as bold as if it belonged there, sat idling as, presumably, the two men watched the windows, making certain the house was indeed empty. Varnie had attached a hand-lettered sign to the side of the truck:
Save our earth. Help recycle
.

Who would suspect a couple of guys donating their time to collect recyclables? Maybe the bags contained beer cans for a touch of authenticity. The quickening morning breeze picked up a breath of old fish. Scanning the street, Joe saw a second stakeout car.

“There, across the street and down three doors. That old station wagon.”

Dulcie looked, wriggling lower against the shingles. “How can you tell? I don't see a soul.”

“I saw a little movement behind the glass, just a shifting in the shadows.”

Stamps got out of the truck to open the Hamry garage door, and Varnie backed on in. Leaving the garage door open, the two men disappeared inside. The dog remained in the truck bed.

“I'm surprised he'd stay there,” Dulcie said. “Stamps didn't tie him.”

“Maybe he's not as useless as we thought.”

They heard a faint click from within the garage, then the sound of a door softly closing. In a moment a faint light swung across the kitchen windows, jiggling and darting, then disappeared.

“Come on,” Dulcie said. “Those windowsills are wide. We can see right in.”

“Hold on a minute. I saw car lights way down the hill, then they went out.”

The sky was paling toward dawn, the houses beginning to take on dimension, the bushes silhouetted stark and black. Down the street within the stakeout car a shadow moved again, then was still. The cats' paws and ears were freezing. Their early-morning meal of fresh-killed rabbit, which had warmed them nicely for a while, had lost its battle with the chill. And then, glancing down the street below Janet's house, they saw a third car moving without lights. It parked below her house, beneath a row of eucalyptus trees, under the low-hanging leaves.

They glimpsed something shiny through a back window, then the window went blank, reflecting the tree's sword-sharp leaves. They could see, within the leafy reflections, only a hint of the driver's profile. The car had parked just above the second mark, where the officers could look down into the backyard. “Harper's doing it up fancy,” Joe said. “Three stakeout cars.”

“I can hardly believe he's done this just on the list and phone call. Maybe it's because Stamps is on parole.”

“Who knows? Maybe Varnie has a record, too.”

“Wouldn't surprise me.” She licked a whisker, studying the arrangement of the three cars. “They can see every house on Stamps's list.”

The burglars would have to move up and down the hill as they followed the homeowners' individual schedules of departure. By the time they had finished, if the cops let them finish, they would be working in full daylight, in full view of the neighborhood. But what neighbor, seeing Varnie's signs and perceiving the old truck's altruistic mission to collect cans and newspapers for recycling, would question its presence?

Now, on the street below Janet's, the car doors opened without sound. Two officers emerged and started down the hill into the backyard of the second mark. “They're going to make the arrest down there,” Dulcie said. “After the second burglary.”

“Maybe.”

“Let's beat it down there. I want to see them nail those two.”

“If they make the arrest here, we'll miss it. Once they have the evidence here, why would they let Varnie and Stamps trash another house?” Joe said.

“To make a better case? You go down. If we split up, one of us will get to see how it ends.”

He looked at her warily. “Will you stay on the roof, not go nosing around the windows?”

She smiled.

“Come on, Dulcie. It's stupid to go over there.”

“Promise,” she said sullenly.

He studied her.

“I promise.” She lashed her tail and hissed at him.

He growled, cuffed her lightly, and left the roof, backing down the rose trellis. But she worried him. If she did go over there, and if the police moved in fast, she could get creamed.

But he couldn't baby-sit her. He sped down the hill across the brightening yards, down past Janet's. As he neared the second mark he glanced back to where Dulcie crouched. Yes, she had stayed put. He breathed easier. On the peak of the roof she was a small dark lump, a little gargoyle against the paling sky. He moved on, toward the stakeout.

 

The minute Joe disappeared down past Janet's, into the yard of the second house, Dulcie crept to the edge of the roof. Crouching with her paws on the gutter, intently she watched the Hamry house, following the swinging glow of the burglars' flashlight behind the dark windows. The men were taking their time. But why not? They had half an hour before the next house would be empty. Their flitting light was as erratic as a drunken moth. She could imagine them in there pulling open drawers and cupboards, collecting small, valuable items, maybe jewelry or guns or cash.

The shadowed bushes in the Hamry yard would
make excellent cover. She was about to swarm down the trellis when she saw, in the bushes at the far side of the Hamry drive, a dark figure crouching. A man knelt there. She hunched lower over the gutter, watching.

His clothes were dark, but when he turned she saw the flash of something shiny. A gun? She watched intently until the gleam came again.

The object was round, very bright. Maybe it was a camera lens, reflecting light from the paling sky. The man half rose, moving forward in a crouch. He must not have made a sound, the dog didn't turn—the mutt stood in the truck watching the house as if listening to the sounds of his master diligently at work.

From the bushes, the officer would have a perfect camera shot of the truck, and of the inside of the garage as the burglars emerged.

She wondered if this might not be considered entrapment. But Judge Wesley and Judge Sanderson were both old-fashioned jurists, strong-willed and not easily coerced into dismissing for such legal niceties. If a man was guilty, he was guilty.

Watching the photographer, she backed down the trellis, fled across a stretch of open lawn to the Hamry lawn and into the bushes, pausing only a few feet from the crouching officer. She hadn't made a sound.

From this vantage, she could see deeper inside the garage, could see the door into the house, could hear from within, intermittent soft thuds, as if heavy objects were being moved. She heard Varnie swear softly, then the inner door opened.

The two men came out, Stamps carrying a television set, Varnie clutching a CD player and two speakers. Across the drive, the hidden officer raised his camera.

The photographer followed every move with his lens as the men loaded the truck The soft click of the shutter was hardly audible above the men's whispers and above the creaks of the truck springs. They returned to the house for a second TV, a microwave, and for several cardboard
boxes and two plastic bags sagging heavy with unidentifiable objects. Watching, she crept out of the bushes.