Cat Playing Cupid (11 page)

A
T LEAST
C
HARLIE'S
acting sensibly,
Joe thought as he leaped from a pine tree to the tiles of the courthouse roof—
a lot more sensibly than Dulcie.

Dropping down onto the lower roof of Molena Point PD and then into the branches of the ancient oak that sheltered its front door, he stretched out along a branch, thinking about his plan.

“You're a fair poker player,” Charlie had said when he'd told her what he had in mind. “Wilma and I get the book, which is too heavy for you to carry down the hills without tearing the pages, and you see that the department finds the body without involving me or involving you cats.”

“That's it,” Joe had said, smoothing his whiskers with a white-tipped paw. “I can talk with Ryan myself if you'd like, to put things in motion. But I'd have to wait until they get back, I don't think she's up to talking with me on the phone yet—she's still getting used to face-to-face discussion.” Joe and Dulcie had been sitting on Wilma's desk
as, on the blue velvet couch, Charlie and Wilma finished their coffee and cinnamon buns and, in the easy chair, Kit napped, curled up on the comforter with Sage.

“I'll call the honeymooners tonight,” Charlie said. “I'm sure they can't wait for people to disturb them.”

“It's a good deal for Ryan, too,” Joe had pointed out. “She'll love the plan, she'll be happy you called.”

Charlie sighed. “A honeymoon, Joe, by its very nature, is—”

“What kind of honeymoon? Those two are up there scrounging through junk shops and wrecking yards. How romantic is that?”

“I'll call her,” Charlie said, looking helplessly at the tomcat.

Joe gave her a satisfied smile, leaped down from the desk, and headed for the kitchen, pausing only to scowl pointedly at Dulcie. He was nosing through Dulcie's cat door when Dulcie, following him, pushed him aside, cornering him against the washing machine. Her green eyes blazed. “What are you angry at me about? What did I do?”

“You're matchmaking, that's what you're doing.”

“Matchmaking?”

“You needn't smile so fatuously over them, you needn't encourage them.”

“Shhh, keep you voice down. I can't make her
ignore
him, he's her friend. And why would I? He's weak and hurting, the poor cat needs sympathy. Kit grew up with Sage, they were kittens together, she—”

“They're not kittens anymore. She's smitten with him. And you're not doing a thing to discourage her.”

“Why would I discourage her? Why would I want to?”

“You're just like every other female! So damned romantic you lose all perspective. No more common sense than a chicken.”

Dulcie stared at him, her paw lifted to slap him. “You're
jealous
!” she hissed. “You're…You…Oh!” And she spun away, her ears down, her tail tucked under.

“I'm not
jealous
!” he snapped, snatching her back with a hasty paw, his claws locked in her fur, his eyes blazing with amazement. “How could I be
jealous
! I think of her as a kitten! She's like our kitten! I feel like we raised her together.”

She simply stared at him.

“Listen to me,” he said angrily. “Remember how hard it was for Kit to leave the wild? What she went through when she felt pulled both ways, half of her wanting to go feral again, running wild, half of her wanting to be a part of human lives in her very special way? Do you remember how hard that was?

“But she did decide,” he said, “and she was so happy and proud of herself. She's doing more here than in the wild. Think of the crimes she's helped solve. She's so full of life, so clever and inventive…But now, with Sage pulling on her, she'll soon be torn apart again! If they become a couple, when Sage is ready to return to the wild, what do you think Kit will do? You
want
her to follow him? You
want
her to leave the village forever? You want never to see her again?”

“She wouldn't do that. This is her home. Maybe Sage won't return to the clowder. Maybe—”

“What else would he do? He doesn't like the human world. The minute he's healed, he's out of here, headed for
the hills. And Kit with him, just as sure as mice have tails. Is that what you want?” And he shoved out the cat door, scorched up a pine tree and across the roofs, heading fast for Molena Point PD.

Now, dropping from the oak branch down into a bed of cyclamens near the front door of the station, he stalked between the bright red and pink blooms and up the steps, and peered in through the bulletproof glass.

The reception area, with its electronic control center and its one holding cell, was empty except for the cats' favorite dispatcher. Watching blond, middle-aged Mabel Farthy busy at her computer, he reared up to claw at the glass, demanding her attention.

Mabel looked up, saw him, and frowned with exasperation. But she rose, hurried out from behind the counter, and swung the heavy door open.

“Come on, Joe. How do you know when I'm right in the middle of something urgent? And how did you know I have carrot cake? Come on, up on the counter, if you want some. Where are your pals?”

Heavily Joe jumped to the counter, his belly so full of Wilma's cinnamon rolls that even his favorite carrot cake didn't appeal. But he wouldn't hurt Mabel's feelings—couldn't afford to hurt her feelings and sour their relationship, Mabel Farthy was their entrée into the building. And Mabel's electronic realm, her ability to reach every law enforcement agency in the U.S. and beyond, gathering information from them, was the cats' entrée into the department's most sensitive intelligence.

Besides, he liked Mabel. He would never hurt her feelings by rejecting her lovingly made offerings.

Mabel spoiled her own cats, and she loved bringing treats for “her three freeloaders” and petting and talking to them. Now, although Joe thought he'd burst, he ate the carrot cake slowly, choking down each delicious bite and purring extravagantly for Mabel—while praying he wouldn't upchuck on her clean counter. He could hear, down the hall, the chief's voice from his office, in a tense discussion with a woman.

Would that be Lindsey Wolf? But it was still early, not yet eleven—and her appointment wasn't with Max Harper but with Mike and Dallas. Keen with curiosity, he finished the cake, rubbed his face against Mabel's arm by way of thanks, and dropped heavily to the floor, belching delicately as he headed down the hall.

Lights spilled from the office doors he passed, from the conference room that smelled of overcooked coffee, and from the report room where the faint click of computer keys told him several officers were catching up on their reports. Only the interrogation room was dark; Joe was passing that small windowless space with its little table and two straight chairs when, from Harper's office ahead, the woman's voice grew sharp and authoritative.

“This is most important, Captain Harper, or I would not have disturbed you.”

Slipping in through the chief's open door, Joe vanished beneath the credenza.

Max and the woman stood in the center of the room, as if she had just entered, and as if he didn't mean for her to stay long.
This
was Lindsey Wolf? This showy, sleekly made-up woman? This was not what he'd expected. She was some looker, all right, but she sure wasn't the soft,
tastefully clad, restrained beauty he'd pictured from Mike's remarks and from Clyde's description.

She was maybe in her forties, though it was hard to tell with humans, particularly women. Her sleek, brown, shoulder-length hair shone with red highlights as perfectly shaded as the color in a cosmetics commercial. Her makeup was artful, too, but not the subtle glow that Joe had envisioned. Her brown eyes, gazing up at the chief from beneath mascara-thick lashes, were way too friendly for a meeting that should be businesslike; she stood too close to Max, looking up at him in a way that was far too familiar.

Harper stood his ground, watching her with that closed cop look in which Joe read sharp dislike, a look that sometimes alarmed the tomcat but usually amused him. Max was holding a clear plastic bag; inside, Joe could see a small sheet of letter paper, carefully hand-printed with a blue pen.

“Why did you wait until now to bring us this, Ms. Wolf?”

So this glamorous creature
was
Lindsey. Joe tried to put this new view of her into perspective, but this certainly changed his opinion of Mike Flannery's taste in women.

“I didn't bring the letter to you at the time I found it,” she said more equitably, “because I was afraid for my sister.”

“Afraid for her?” Harper said coolly.

Beneath the credenza, Joe frowned.

“Please, Captain, call me Ryder.”

Joe did a double take—but of course he should have
guessed, that this was Ryder Wolf, and the belated revelation left the tomcat highly irritated at his own miscalculation.

“As you can see,” she said, “the letter is dated three days after Carson disappeared, the same week Nina Gibbs vanished. I found it only a couple of years ago, in my sister's dresser, when I was looking for a sweater I'd loaned her. When…when I read it, I was afraid to bring it in.”

“Why were you afraid?” Harper looked increasingly uncomfortable with her standing so close, but he refused to back off and give ground.

“If anything terrible had happened to Carson, I was afraid this letter would make Lindsey appear to be a suspect.”

“Why is that?” Harper was having trouble keeping his temper. A nerve had started to twitch at the side of his face, matching the spark of impatience deep in his brown eyes.

“When you read the whole letter, you'll see. Nina told Lindsey she feared that her husband meant to kill her and Carson, that Ray would come after them, and that Ray had a gun. She begged Lindsey's forgiveness for going away with Carson, and asked Lindsey to take the letter to the police, said there was no one else she could trust to do it.

“Apparently, Lindsey didn't do that,” Ryder said. “She must have received this right after they left. If she had brought it to you then, you might have extended the search for Carson. And I don't think I'd have found the letter. Wouldn't you have kept it as evidence?

“After Lindsey reported Carson missing, I was inter
viewed by one of your detectives. I didn't know about the letter then, of course. The detective mentioned nothing about Nina, didn't question me about her. Wouldn't he have, if he'd seen this?”

Harper remained silent.

“Then, when I found the letter, I was certain she'd never shown it to you. That upset me because if she'd brought it to you right away, you might have stopped whatever happened. I thought that because she didn't, that would make her look guilty, like some kind of accessory.”

“So you thought all along,” Harper said, “that something had happened to Carson?”

“I thought it might have. And then yesterday when I saw that newspaper article, the hiker's body up in Oregon…You said you had a copy of that?”

Harper nodded.

“I thought…I wondered if that could be Carson. That's why I came now, because of that hiker, because maybe this letter is right, maybe Ray did follow him and kill him.”

“Why come to me at all if you're afraid Lindsey will be implicated?”

“I…I guess my conscience,” she said demurely. “Though certainly Lindsey would never kill anyone, certainly
she
wouldn't follow Carson, no matter what he'd done. That's not in her nature.

“I'm sure she never owned a gun,” Ryder said. “Like me, she's afraid of guns.”

“Do you have the envelope this came in?”

“I didn't find it. Just the letter, tucked among her sweaters.”

Harper was silent, his thin, leathered face as expressionless as stone.

“I know Lindsey would never deliberately withhold information. I think she was so upset, she just didn't think about what she
should
do. But…” She stepped so close to Max that Joe expected her to reach up and touch his face with those long, well-manicured fingers. Ryder Wolf's cherry nail polish exactly matched her red lipstick; when she looked up at Max, all Joe could see was lipstick and mascara—and all he could think was that he wanted a look at the letter.

Max tucked the plastic-wrapped letter into a file on his desk and moved toward the door, effectively herding Ryder Wolf out; she was moving reluctantly when Joe heard Mike Flannery's voice up at the dispatcher's counter, and a softer female voice—and immediately Ryder stepped back into the office, slipping around Max, putting herself out of sight of the hall.

But at this little maneuver, Max took Ryder's elbow and moved her firmly into the hall—where she came face-to-face with her sister.

Joe, slipping out from under the credenza, crouched behind Max in the doorway, watching.

Yes, this was the way he'd imagined Lindsey Wolf. Peaches and cream subtle, a treasure of cleanliness and soft tones that contrasted with her sister's bright, attention-demanding packaging.

Lindsey Wolf was a woman to turn heads, a woman any man would want to follow. Soft brown shoulder-length hair that changed color with the light. Hazel eyes lighter than Ryder's, with no harsh makeup, kind eyes touched
with a smile. Her oval face was creamy smooth, and she wore only pale lipstick.

There was a strong resemblance in height and build, in the shape of their faces, and in their fine bone structure, but there the likeness ended in the two sisters. They looked at each other for a long moment, Lindsey's expression puzzled and questioning, Ryder's look stony. She drew herself up stubbornly, as if expecting Lindsey to scold or attack her.

“Why are you here?” Lindsey asked her.