Dedication - Кроха

They had left Kate’s door, were crossing the neighbors’ roofs when a brown car came along below them and stopped at the curb. A Dumpster stood across the street before a vacant lot where a dozen dead trees had been felled. Two men sat resting from cutting the logs with chain saws. The big metal bin was nearly full of smaller branches.

As the brown sedan slowed, a passenger stepped out, emptied a bag of old shoes in under the twigs and leaves, swung quickly into the car again, and it moved away. The workmen glanced up but paid little attention—they were only dumping old shoes. The cats didn’t recognize the make of the car; they didn’t see either the driver’s or the passenger’s faces. They moved on toward Wilma’s hoping for a hot supper.

Alone in the stone cottage, Wilma had put on a CD of Pete Fountain, a favorite among her collection of early jazz. These days when Dulcie was gone and Wilma worried, the lilting clarinet eased her. But now even as she paced the cottage worrying over the pregnant tabby, she knew she was being foolish. She knew very well where Dulcie was, from the police scanner that sat on the cherry desk and, later, from Ryan’s phone call. She felt ashamed keeping such a close watch on Dulcie, but just now, considering the tabby’s condition, she and Ryan might both be forgiven.

She’d known, early this morning when Dulcie bolted out her cat door, where she’d gone, had known when she turned on the scanner, and then from calling Ryan. Young Ben Stonewell had been shot. The murder sickened her, she was . . . had been fond of Ben; he was kind and caring and nothing cruel about him. Why this death? Was there something about Ben that they hadn’t known? Could his murder be connected to these other crimes?

She had been tempted to drive over to the Bleak renovation this morning, but with the department working the scene she didn’t like to get in the way. Pacing the cottage, across the Persian rug, brushing by the flowered couch, thinking about Ben’s murder, and worrying about Dulcie, she hardly saw the room at all. She jumped when the phone rang, and snatched it from the cradle.

“The cats are fine,” Ryan said, knowing how she worried. “They’re with me, we’re moving the rescues from Ben’s place. Celeste is taking all three. We’ll swing by the department so Billy and I can give our statements—Dulcie and Joe will be right there in our faces, you know that. Dulcie will be just fine. Joe Grey,” Ryan added, “Joe has grown very attentive.”

Wilma laughed. “He’d better be, he’s responsible for this miracle—half responsible.”

There was a smile in Ryan’s voice. “I’ll bring Dulcie home when we’re finished. Please don’t worry about her.”

Hanging up, Wilma put on another CD and stretched out in the easy chair. Listening to the haunting clarinet helped to push away her worry, helped to ease life’s dark side. She dozed off listening to Pete Fountain. The CD was nearly to the end when a different sound stirred her from sleep. The soft flap of the cat door, then a demanding mewl that startled her wide awake.

Having raced over the roofs heading down toward the village, Kit and Pan paused several blocks above where the shops began. Scrambling down a pine they fled through Wilma’s bright garden and in through Dulcie’s cat door—but at the sound of music, they paused. Music filled the house, the clear notes of a clarinet, the dulcet riffs of the one musician in all the world who could speak to a cat’s very soul.

Listening and smiling, but then curious, they padded into the kitchen. Wilma seldom put on a CD unless she or Dulcie were celebrating some special joy, or unless they were very blue and needed that soul-healing music.

Kit and Pan, lonely and hungry and needing loving, did not want to face some sadness. Which was this they were hearing? The lilting clarinet to ease an unwanted sadness, to assuage unexpected bad news? Or was the bright music a celebration of some wonderful event, of which they knew nothing? What were they to find?

Hesitantly they crossed the dining room beneath the big table. Softly they padded toward the living room prepared for either extreme, ready to offer comforting if that was needed, or to add their own joy to some bright and mysterious celebration. The cozy room was so welcoming, the soft oriental rug under their paws, the smell of recent baking, the flowered couch and overflowing bookshelves, sunlight streaming in on the cherry desk. In her easy chair, Wilma had stirred from sleep, an open book in her lap. Kit, watching her, gave a loud and startling mewl. Wilma jerked up, fully alert. She leaped up and knelt before them, grabbing them both in a hug, laughing, nearly smothering them in her joy, in her delight at their return.

12

In the lobby of MPPD two men and a young woman waited in the folding chairs, a chair between each as if they had come in separately. The thin woman, in pale blue workout clothes, had focused on the younger man, grousing to him about the unfairness of the police, how that cop had pulled her over just because she was talking on her cell phone. Both men glanced away, their minds on their own problems. Ryan and Billy stood near the desk, waiting for a detective to come out for them, to escort them back to one of the offices to take their statements.

Joe Grey and Dulcie, having slipped into the holding cell, crouched under the bunk, trying not to breathe the mixed fumes of sweat and Lysol that so sharply stung their noses. They watched Detective Davis come out to get Ryan, watched the two disappear down the hall, leaving Billy at the mercy of Evijean Simpson; but Evijean had all she could do to deal with an enraged wife who had come to bail out her husband. “Of course he drinks,” she snapped at Evijean. “What do you think I can do about it? Why should I be hassled and embarrassed because of the trouble he gets into!”

“You don’t have to bail him out,” Evijean told her as Dallas came up the hall, motioning Billy back to his office. At the same moment the front door flew open and Tekla Bleak stormed in demanding to see Captain Harper. Evijean, already overwhelmed, took one look at Tekla’s scowl, backed away, and buzzed through to Harper.

The minute Max appeared, Tekla lit into him. “I want that woman off my property at once. I’m surprised you haven’t already done that. I told you, with this murder . . .”

Max listened in silence, with only the hint of a smile.

“That Flannery woman has no business there after what happened. Why didn’t your people make her leave? She’s responsible for this and she’s made no effort to evacuate the premises, to move her equipment, get her workers out of there. I want her out now. She refuses to honor the contract and of course it’s in the contract, about damages caused. What worse damage could there be than this disgraceful murder, and I told her as much.”

Max waited, letting her vent. In the holding cell, beneath the bunk, Joe Grey and Dulcie looked at each other with the same amused disbelief as the chief.

“This is police business, Captain Harper. It’s your business to get her out of there now.”

Max looked at Tekla for a long moment. “The property is a crime scene. Nothing can be moved or removed. And how is your contract with Flannery Construction any of our affair?”

“She’s turned our house into a crime scene! That is your affair. She’s the one responsible for hiring that Ben person—he was obviously involved in something shady or he wouldn’t have been murdered, but she refused to admit that. It’s up to you to make her leave, or I will see my lawyer.”

“Right now,” Max said, “we’ll want your statement, what you actually witnessed at the scene. Come back to my office, we can take care of that at once. Then you can call your lawyer.”

Across the room, the two men and the young woman seemed to have forgotten their own troubles as they enjoyed the entertainment. Under the bunk, Joe and Dulcie were more frustrated than entertained. They wanted to follow Max and Tekla and listen, and they didn’t dare cross the room. They watched them vanish down the hall. They heard Harper’s door close, hard and decisively. Then silence. Their line of communication had gone as dead as an unplugged phone.

Cut off from eavesdropping, they curled up beneath the bunk into that drowsy seminap that serves a cat in times of annoyance, when things don’t go as planned.

Maybe Max would record Tekla’s statement at the same time that he made written notes; maybe they could listen later. But to what end? What would they learn? The woman was all vitriol and hot air. They were dozing and waking, listening for Max’s door to open, when Ryan came up the hall with Davis, and Dallas and Billy behind them. Ryan stopped at the desk.

“Evijean, we’re going to do some errands. Will you tell Captain Harper we’ll be back, so Billy can ride home with him?”

Evijean scowled and nodded. Ryan, turning away, was just beside the holding cell when she dropped her car keys.

Leaning down to retrieve them, she glanced in at Joe and Dulcie—she knew just where they’d be, with the lobby full of strangers. Her look said, Are you coming?

Both cats looked back at her blankly, their ears down in a no, we’re not, get out of our faces stare that made Ryan hide a laugh. Rising again, she went on out, following Billy. Joe knew she’d meant to drive Dulcie home to Wilma, not leave her running the roofs; but Dulcie backed away stubbornly.

There were only two civilians waiting now, the young woman having been seen and sent on her way. Joe was wishing they could make a dash for Max’s office when they heard his door open, heard Tekla whine, “ . . . but you’re the police. It’s your—”

“As I explained, Mrs. Bleak, this is not police business. This is between you and Ms. Flannery. If you want to file charges of misconduct, which I think would be hard to substantiate . . .” He was walking behind Tekla; she halted when she saw Ryan and Billy disappear out the glass door to the parking lot.

“What are they doing here?”

Max just looked at her.

“You will file charges against her!” she said shrilly.

As Evijean called the remaining two civilians to the counter, and Max walked Tekla to the door, behind their backs Joe and Dulcie made a dash past the counter and down the hall to the chief’s office.

When Max returned, Dulcie was curled up on the leather couch. She looked up purring at Max’s indulgent glance. From the bookcase, Joe got a gentle scratch on the head as Max sat down, picked up the form where he’d recorded Tekla’s statement. He scanned it into the computer, then slipped the sheets into a file in his desk drawer. Turning back to the computer, he pulled up the first section of Kathleen’s report, which she had sent from the coroner’s office. It included details of the condition of the clothing and of the body as clothing was removed. Joe skipped down to her list of Ben’s personal belongings: pocketknife, small grouting spatula, car and house keys, oversize bandanna, wallet, and a neatly folded packet of receipts from various building supply houses. No cell phone, no notebook.

Had these two items disappeared after the shooting, lifted from Ben’s pocket by the killer? Or had Ben somehow been able to hide them before he died? Standing on the ladder working on the roof, had he heard an uneasy noise behind him? Had he glimpsed someone standing below in the shadows of the surrounding trees? Had he seen the gun? In that split second, had he, in desperation, quickly stashed the items he didn’t want someone to find? But hidden them where?

Dallas had searched that whole area, had taken Ben’s toolbox as evidence, had climbed the ladder and searched the roof for debris and trace elements.

Did Ben have those items when he fell, and the killer snatched them? Or, Joe thought, am I chasing shadows? Is the notebook of no interest? Was there nothing in the back but a few personal thoughts, like a diary? Nothing among the phone’s pictures but building details? Am I fretting over nothing more than a collection of building specifications and material lists?

Juana had searched Ben’s apartment and searched Ben’s car for evidence, and Dallas had worked the rooms of the remodel. The detectives knew Ben had a phone and a notebook, so they should be as interested as Joe to know what they might contain—but they had found neither. Now he watched Max remove another file from the drawer and pull out a yellow pad, the kind on which he made random notes. Hanging half off the bookshelf, Joe scanned the chief’s brief notations about those who had been attacked. The full reports would be on the computer. Max made no move to bring that up on the screen—even for Joe’s convenience. The yellow pad was a place to contemplate, to perhaps jot down random thoughts about the victims.

Betty Porter, leaving work, M.P. Drugstore, streets stormy, nearly dark, hit from behind as she approached her car. Nothing stolen. Still had her purse, her billfold with credit cards and cash. Sent to ER, her spleen removed, recuperating at home, twenty-four-hour nurse.

Hazel Curt, walking home carrying groceries, again nearly dark. Hit from behind, knocked down, not badly hurt. Again, no robbery. She walked on home, called the department. No sign of attempted break-in. No further occurrence reported.

Luella Simms. Late afternoon. Attacked in parking lot of Village Grocery, loading shopping bags into backseat, knocked down but saw no one, nothing stolen. She was helped by a passerby, refused transportation to ER. Reported bruises, no injuries.

Elsie Rice, walking from her cottage at Pineview seniors’ residence to the dining room for breakfast, 9 a.m. Hit from behind, fell into bushes. Saw no one, heard no running. Davis took the call, photographed footprints in the damp lawn. Victim was cared for at the facility. No enemies in the facility that she knew of.

A notation in the margin: “Have received so far two dozen frightened phone calls, citizens sure they were being followed. Conducted interviews. No useful information.”

The last four names were the murder victims, Max had marked three with a penciled note: “San Francisco connection?”

Ogden Welder. 84-year-old retired banker. Walking home from the beach, 6:40 p.m., attacked from behind, critically injured, died, MP Hospital. Lived alone, Jasper Senior Apartments. Listed by the facility as having no family.

James Allen. Attacked 6:30 a.m. in driveway of his house, in his walker as he wiped windshield of his car. Had an order in his pocket for routine blood work, was headed for the lab. Heard nothing. Knocked to the ground, heard someone running, light footsteps like rubber soles. Saw no one. Statement was short, in severe pain. Died in ER 1:03 a.m. of a ruptured aorta. Attending doctor: Robert Ingleton. Officers Brennan and McFarland canvassed neighborhood. No witnesses, no newspaper delivery yet. Allen moved to MP from San Francisco with wife two years ago, bought small cottage on First Street.

Merle Rodin. Hit from behind, patio garden outside McKee Jewelry approx. 9 a.m. Found by passerby, transported to ER. Cause of death: blow to head with brick, severe contusion, blood but no prints on brick. See coroner’s report: Kathleen Ray.

Ben Stonewell. Shot in back of head while standing on ladder at construction job. Approx. 7:15 a.m. Dead when he hit the ground. See coroner’s report: Kathleen Ray. Moved from San Francisco eleven months ago. Unmarried. Went to work the same week for Flannery Construction. Basement apartment on Hayes.