Cat Playing Cupid (9 page)

The luxurious SUV had creamy leather upholstery, an OnStar GPS system, and, best of all according to Ryan's assessment, it had a good strong trailer hitch—if she found some irresistible architectural pieces that wouldn't fit inside, they could haul them home in a rental trailer. Clyde had scowled at that. This was a borrowed and like-new vehicle, as pristine as the day it came off the floor. Now, in the back of the vehicle, besides the couple's two suitcases, were half a dozen thick blankets, presumably to protect the interior, and two coils of rope.

“Some honeymoon,” Joe said, “hunting for dusty old stained-glass windows and distressed paneling with spiders in the cracks.”

“They're happy,” Dulcie said. “Who knows, maybe they'll come home with some ancient car Clyde can't resist.”

“Just what he needs, another deteriorating Packard or Maxwell. Some pitiful wreck just crying out for loving attention.”

Dulcie laughed. “They're a couple of nutcases. They're not planning a honeymoon, they're off on a treasure hunt.” But, watching the groom lock the front door and head for the car, looking very nice in his new tan suit, white shirt, and the first tie he'd worn in months, the cats smiled with tolerance for their crazy human friends.

W
HAT A JOYOUS
wedding it had been, with all the friends gathered on the Harpers' bright patio, the sun glinting off the far sea, the smell of spring in the air, and the lilting Irish music reflecting the bride and groom's shy excitement. Joe and Dulcie and Kit had crowded among their human friends at the edge of the makeshift aisle, watching Ryan slowly approach the minister, looking radiant in her soft red suit; the joyous ceremony stirred tears among the guests, and then stirred happy laughter. But now the wedding toasts and good-natured ribbing were over, the bride and groom had long ago departed to drive up the coast in their borrowed chariot, and the bright day was slipping toward evening.

Most of the guests had left, many of Harper's officers reporting to the station for second watch. Dulcie had left with Wilma, and Kit with her elderly couple. By eight o'clock, only Ryan's dad and her two uncles remained with Charlie and Max—and of course Joe Grey and Rock, dozing before the fire, waiting for Mike to take them home.

Joe, full of buffet treats, watched Dallas and Scotty shrug on their jackets, both men quiet and reflective, heavy with fatherly nostalgia. As if each wished, for a moment, that they could go back in time, that Ryan was small again, still their feisty little girl learning all over again to ride, to train the hunting dogs, to cook and keep house and to use properly Scotty's carpenter's tools. As the two men swung out the door, Scotty's red beard catching the light, behind them Mike Flannery, muttering that he'd have to buy a car soon, pulled on his coat and fished out the keys to Clyde's antique yellow roadster, in which Ryan had driven to her wedding, Rock sitting tall and dignified beside her.

Charlie picked up Joe, holding him against her shoulder, and she and Max walked out to the car with Mike, where she set Joe on the front seat. As the silver Weimaraner leaped obediently into the backseat, Mike looked at Joe and then at Charlie. “Where's the cat carrier?”

“Doesn't have one. He'll be all right,” Charlie told him.

“A cat can't ride loose like that. This is an open car. I don't—”

“He'll ride just fine,” Charlie said, stroking Joe. “He likes cars. He'll mind you just as well as Rock will. Watch,” she said, turning a sly green-eyed look on Joe.

“Get in the backseat, Joe,” she said, tapping the backseat beside Rock. “Backseat! Now!”

Joe gave her a
Just-you-wait, you'll-get-yours look,
but hopped obediently into the back.

“Lie down, Joe.”

Joe lay down beside Rock's front paws, glaring at Charlie.

“Stay, Joe. Stay until you get home.”

Mike stared at Joe and stared at her. He shook his head and had nothing to say. Both cat and dog turned the same expectant expression on him, as if willing their human chauffeur to get a move on, making the tall, sandy-haired Scots Irishman swallow a laugh. “That,” Mike said, “is a pretty unusual cat.”

Max looked impressed, too—but as much with Charlie's expertise as with the behavior of the gray tomcat. Ever since Charlie had published her book about the journey of a little lost cat, he had seemed almost to hold in reverence his redheaded wife's uncanny knowledge in matters feline—and now that
Tattercoat
was selling so well, Charlie's e-mail was filled with fan letters saying the same:
How did you learn so much about cats? It's almost like you can speak with them and understand them…I've had cats all my life, but there's so much in your book that I've never known…I'm convinced the cat herself wrote this book…

And that, of course, was the case. This was Charlie and Kit's secret, the tortoiseshell was, indeed, Charlie's collaborator. Kit had told Charlie her own story, from the time she was a small kitten—though Max would never know the truth, Charlie thought, smiling to herself.

Joe, curled down between Rock's front paws, glimpsed Charlie's secret amusement in the flash of her green eyes, a quick sharing that neither Max nor Mike would correctly read; then the tomcat turned away, pretending to doze as Mike started the engine and headed the yellow roadster for home.

 

A
T HOME, IN
the Damen kitchen, Mike fed Rock and the household cats. He fed Joe, too, reluctantly. “How can you eat again? You'll be sick after all the party food.” He stood scowling down at Joe. “Did Clyde mean it when he said you could have anything you want, and as much as you want?”

The tomcat looked back at him, wide eyed and innocent. He loved this, loved when people talked to him not knowing he could have answered them. Such earnest, one-sided conversations were so amusing that he often had to turn away and pretend to wash, so as not to laugh in their faces.

Mike went into the laundry to tuck the other three cats in for the night in their cozy quarters, fluffing their blankets and pillows, and petting and talking to them. Snowball was the needful one; Scrappy and Fluffy were quite content with each other. Mike gave the little white cat a long time of extra attention, moving away only when she dozed off under his stroking hand.

Back in the kitchen, he picked up Rock's leash. As the silver hound pranced and huffed, Mike stood regarding Joe, uncertain whether he should keep the tomcat in for the night, or let him roam as Clyde had instructed.

Clyde said Joe could come and go as he pleased, night or day, that the tomcat was to have free access to both cat doors, 24/7—to the cat door that opened to the front porch, and the one high among the upstairs rafters, which led out to Joe's tower and to the roofs of the village.

Mike didn't approve of cats out at night to wander the streets, unseen by hurrying drivers, but he did as he'd been told. He headed out with Rock, locking the front door and leaving Joe on his own. Telling Rock to heel, he headed through the village and toward the shore.

 

T
HE
W
EIMARANER HEELED
nicely on a loose leash. Mike looked back several times, half expecting to see the tomcat following them or see him racing above them across the rooftops—though with the party food that cat had gulped down, he was probably curled up on the couch belching and sleeping it off. He hoped, when he got home, Joe hadn't upchucked all over the living room. He'd never seen any animal eat that amount of food, all of it rich, without coughing his cookies and blowing his liver. But Clyde swore the cat was in perfect health.

The waxing moon brightened the rolling breakers, silvering the skein of wet sand where he and Rock jogged close to the water. Rock wanted to pull, wanted to race to work off steam. Mike ran with him but wouldn't let Rock loose until he knew the dog better. He wished Lindsey were with them, running on the beach with her golden retriever as they used to do, wished she would appear suddenly out of the dark, running beside him—a fanciful dream. He put it aside, and thought instead about his coming years of retirement.

Starting a new life. Not with Lindsey, as he'd once thought, but that was all right. He was free of heavy demands. His time was his own to do with as he pleased. Free of his long and often vexing commitment to the increasingly frustrating workload of the U.S. court.

The fact that he wasn't chained to a desk anymore, that he didn't have to hit the office Monday morning, should have left him feeling like a kid at the beginning of summer vacation.

But already he was beginning to see that retirement might have its downside, already he felt himself missing the security of a set routine—with that steady, longtime support suddenly withdrawn, he felt for a moment as if he had no anchor.

How juvenile was that!

He guessed everyone, when they retired, felt that way for a while. But the fact that he did deeply annoyed him, as if he had no more inner resources than a wind-up mannequin.

He knew he'd miss some of his coworkers, but they'd be in touch, the city wasn't that far away. He'd miss his two favorite judges, but he sure wouldn't miss some of the other federal judges. The deterioration of the judicial system, on all levels, was one thing he was not ambivalent about, he was damn glad to be away from that breakdown.

His only regret was that he hadn't been able to do more to hold the line, to maintain the principles on which the federal courts had traditionally been based. The change in the quality of judges and their misuse of the law, both at local and federal levels, were hard to live with. Very hard, when the results of that disintegration were too many felons walking the streets committing more crimes, robbing and raping and killing law-abiding folk.

Bitter
, he thought.
Getting old and bitter.

But he hadn't been old when he'd started that battle, he'd fought it for twenty-five years. He had to admit, he was tired. Tired of locking horns with elected officials who didn't have a clue as to the damage they were doing or didn't give a damn.

Around him the night was very still, the only sounds the
crashing of the breakers and Rock's excited panting. Where the bright waves rose and fell, a seal surfaced suddenly and it was all he could do to hold Rock, to stop the big silver dog from plunging in and swimming after the animal—when the ninety-pound Weimaraner abandoned his manners and set his mind to something, he was a powerhouse.

A hardheaded powerhouse,
Mike thought,
the kind of dog, if he's well trained and well directed, will work his heart out for you.
The obedience simply had to be on Rock's terms, on terms of mutual respect.

To settle Rock down Mike did a two-mile run with him. Turning back at last, winded, they stopped at the foot of Ocean, where Mike brushed the wet sand off Rock's belly and legs before they headed home.

Now Rock walked easily at heel, just tired enough to wag and laugh up at him, his panting expression filled with happiness.

“You don't miss your mistress and your new master?” Mike asked him. “You don't miss Ryan?”

At the mention of Ryan, Rock came to full attention, tensed to leap away again, and looking all around into the night searching for her, sniffing for her scent.

“She isn't here,” Mike said contritely. “I just meant…It's okay, boy,” he said, patting Rock's shoulder with a hard and reassuring hand and then rubbing his ears. “It's okay, she'll be home soon.”

At his steadying voice and at no further mention of Ryan, and when the silver dog could not pick her scent from the wind, he at last settled down, looking up at Mike as if almost trusting him, as if hoping he could trust his new friend.

“You're a fine fellow,” Mike told him as they walked up through the moonlit village and past the open small and charming shops and restaurants, past couples and foursomes leaving the cafés or looking in boutique windows at the elegant wares. Leaving Ocean, turning down Clyde's street and entering through the back gate into the patio, he toweled the big Weimaraner dry, and then in the kitchen gave him fresh water. As he made himself a cup of coffee, the gray tomcat wandered in, yawning, staring up at him.

“You can't be hungry. It's a wonder you're still alive. I hope Clyde doesn't start feeding Rock like that, sneaking him rich snacks.” Strange, he thought, that the tomcat was in such good shape, his sleek silver body muscled and lean. He gave Joe a small snack of cold steak that Clyde had left, watched Joe gobble it, then carried his coffee down the hall to the guest room, the cat and dog crowded at his heels.

Opening his briefcase he flipped through the files and laid the Carson Chappell folder on the night table. As per Clyde's instructions, he told Joe and Rock they could sleep on the bed—a useless gesture, considering that the two were already tucked up together hogging most of the king-size mattress, Joe Grey stretched out across the big dog's front legs. At Mike's voice, the cat looked up at him with bold yellow eyes, keenly assessing him, then closed his eyes and tucked his head under.

Ready for sleep, Mike thought, watching the tomcat. And he pulled off his shoes and shirt, preparing for bed, looking forward to a cozy evening tucked up by the fire accompanied by the sleeping dog and cat as he went over the Carson Chappell file.

T
HE MOMENT
M
IKE
went into the bathroom to brush his teeth, Joe Grey's eyes were wide open again, his attention fixed on the Chappell cold file as keenly as if he'd spotted a rat lumbering across the white sheets. Hungering to get at the information, he debated whether to try for a look while Mike was out of the room.

Right. Mike comes out and catches him pawing through the file, and then what? Could he pretend to be sniffing the scent of mouse in the department's archived papers? Well, sure, that would explain a cat's interest.

He waited impatiently until Mike returned, wearing navy pajama bottoms and a short robe; he watched the tall, lanky Scots Irishman light the gas logs in the stone fireplace, set the glass screen in place, and then slide into bed, propping the pillows behind him. Then Joe, making a show of stretching and yawning, sauntered up the bed to Mike's pillow. Yawning again, he curled up beside Mike
purring with such sudden affection that Flannery did a double take, frowning down at him.

“What's with you? You miss Clyde already? Is that why you're not out roaming the streets? You're lonesome? Well, dogs get lonely, so I guess cats do, too.” And Mike spent a few moments scratching Joe's ears.

But soon, still absently stroking Joe, he was scanning the Chappell file—and Joe, sprawled among the pillows near Mike's left ear, was just as eagerly soaking up additional details of Carson Chappell's disappearance and of Lindsey's search for him.

But as Joe read, he watched Mike, too, and was slyly amused.

Where the original report discussed Lindsey and Carson's relationship, Mike's expression changed from interest to what surely resembled jealousy. In the ten-year-old report, Lindsey had assured the interviewing detective that she and Chappell were very much in love and that he would never have left her. They had planned a honeymoon in the Bahamas, they'd had their plane tickets and hotel reservations and had intended to go directly from the church to the airport. They had planned, on their return, to move into a cottage in the village, on which Carson had made a sizable down payment—they had intended to move their furniture and other belongings in two days before the wedding, the day that Chappell was due home from camping. Lindsey said they had wanted, when they arrived back, to be already comfortably settled in their new home.

In the short quotations that had been included among
the dry sentences of the case file, it wasn't hard to read Lindsey's shock when Carson didn't return; Joe could detect nothing contrived or uneasy in her recorded answers, though without the sound of her voice, the intonations, and the facial expressions, it was difficult to make such an assessment. It wasn't hard, though, to imagine a bride-to-be's growing despair when there was no word from the intended bridegroom.

At that time, neither Lindsey nor the police had found the plane tickets, not in Chappell's apartment nor in his office, these had disappeared as surely as had his passport.

Halfway through, Mike set aside the file and sat quietly staring into the fire, a deep and preoccupied look, almost a dreaming look, that Joe studied with interest. Was Flannery keener on finding Chappell? Or on rekindling his relationship with Lindsey?

But that was unfair. Maybe Mike wasn't sure, himself, where his conflicted emotions wanted to lead him.

Only when Rock stirred in his sleep and turned over did Mike come back to the present, reach for the steno pad, and begin making notes. Joe, easing higher up on the pillow, positioned himself where he could read them clearly. Mike glanced at him, frowning, but didn't push him away.

Most of Mike's notations were questions, or lines of investigation that he meant to pursue, and many were the same questions Joe had. When at last he put down the pen and sat staring at the fire again, Joe wished he could read this guy's mind, wished he could follow Mike's thoughts and not just the words on the paper.

But soon the tomcat's own thoughts turned back to
that one perplexing connection, to the unlikely coincidence of the two bodies coming to light in the same week. Why did he keep imagining a relationship between them? There was nothing to hint at that, except the timing of the two discoveries.

Or was there some clue in the file, or in something he'd overheard, that he didn't know he was aware of? Some minute detail, caught in his memory, that kept him returning to that improbable conjecture?

No one knew, yet, even if that
was
Chappell up there in Oregon. Only Lindsey Wolf seemed convinced. And, the tomcat thought, why was she so sure? Did Lindsey know something that was not in the report, and that she might not have told the law?

But why would she hold back information, when she seemed so committed to finding Chappell?

Was she, in some way, covering up her own guilt? Certain that Oregon would identify Chappell, and trying to establish her own innocence?

Dulcie would tell him he was chasing smoke, batting at shadows, that he was way off, on this one—but he couldn't leave it alone. His gut feeling was that there
was
a relationship between the bodies, and that maybe Lindsey knew that.

Or was he as batty as if he'd been bingeing on catnip?

He watched Mike open the file again and flip to several handwritten pages tucked at the back: three pages of notes on plain white paper, and a yellow, lined sheet with different handwriting. Having to shift against Mike's shoulder again to see around his arm, Joe pretended to scratch his ear.

“You better not have fleas,” Mike said absently, knowing that Clyde had the animals on medication against such small, unwanted passengers. The white pages were dated six years ago, the yellow one three years later. That one was signed by Officer Kathleen Ray. That would be about the time Kathleen had come to work at Molena Point PD, Joe thought, not long after he, himself, started hanging around the department when he'd first discovered he could talk and could read and, most alarming, that he was thinking like a human—and, more alarming still, was thinking like a cop.

Mike shifted position again. And again Joe craned to see the file, wondering what Lindsey might have told Kathleen, who was a kind, sympathetic person, that she wouldn't share with a male officer. But as he read Kathleen's notes, he had to remind himself that Lindsey wasn't under suspicion here, that she was the one who had filed the missing-person report.

Lindsey had repeated to Kathleen the gossip about Carson having had several women on the side while Lindsey and he were engaged, including Lindsey's sister, Ryder. Kathleen's interviews with Lindsey's friends had produced the same comments. When Kathleen asked Lindsey about the wife of Carson's partner having left her husband, Lindsey said she doubted there was any connection.

Partner Ray Gibbs, when he had originally been questioned about Carson's disappearance, had seemed open and cooperative. He had been straightforward about Nina leaving him, and had produced a letter from her saying that she would not be back. She did not mention divorce, and Gibbs had speculated that she might not want a di
vorce, hoping one day to inherit his share of the firm. He said she didn't know that wasn't possible, he was sure she didn't know the terms of the incorporation agreement. A photocopy of her letter was in the file, and the original had been booked in as evidence.

The plane tickets for Lindsey and Carson's honeymoon turned up several months after Carson disappeared; they had been used for a reservation in the name of Mr. and Mrs. Carson Chappell. Neither the flight attendants or airport personnel had been able to describe the boarding couple. Officers had, a week after Chappell disappeared, found Nina Gibbs's car in short-term parking at the San Jose airport, but had turned up no flight ticket issued in her name.

Joe thought the simple solution, that Chappell and Nina Gibbs had run off together, should have resolved the case for Lindsey. But not so. She had kept after the department to search for him, and then later had continued the search on her own. It was during this time that Lindsey and Mike began to date.

Joe thought she must not have involved Mike in trying to find Carson or he would have gone into the department and read the file then. Maybe because Mike worked for the federal courts, his reading of the file might have presented a conflict of interest somewhere down the line? So Mike had deliberately kept his distance from the ongoing investigation? He watched Mike turn back to Kathleen's notes.

Lindsey told Kathleen that she'd known Nina Gibbs only casually, that because of Gibbs's and Chappell's partnership, they had attended the same functions, that Nina
had been friendly on some occasions but withdrawn on others; in short, that they'd not been close. Joe was so intent on the notes about the Chappell & Gibbs partnership agreement that he didn't notice he was digging his claws into Mike's shoulder until Mike swore and pushed him away.

It took him a few minutes to get positioned on the pillow again, drawing a stern look from Flannery. According to the partnership agreement, if either partner became incapacitated, could not or would not participate as a working member of the firm, the court was to dissolve the company after a year, and the assets were to be sold. When Chappell didn't show in the allotted time, the firm was sold, Ray Gibbs received half the proceeds, and Chappell's mother the other half. Chappell & Gibbs had had a sound business, showing healthy annual profits, and there seemed to be no reason for either partner to have wanted out.

A recent notation at the bottom of the yellow sheet, written by Max Harper just a few months ago, said that Ray Gibbs had divorced Nina, who, as far as the department knew, had not reappeared, and that Gibbs and Ryder Wolf were living together, dividing their time between a San Francisco condo and an apartment on Dolores, in the village.

Finished with reading the memos, Mike set the file aside and leaned back among the pillows, lost in thought. From the look on his thin face, Joe guessed he was thinking not about Carson Chappell but about Lindsey; he sat stroking Joe so sensuously that Joe twitched and stared at him and backed away, his retreat jerking Mike from his reverie.

But it was some time before Mike rose to extinguish the fire. Joe, yawning, padded down to curl up against Rock, receiving a long, wet lick across his ears and nose. He'd grown almost used to dog spit, but soon his wet fur began to feel chilly. As he burrowed deeper against Rock to get warm, he wondered how long it would be before they had an ID on the Oregon body, wondered whether the Oregon investigators were thorough enough to come up with a sample of the DNA.

But DNA to match
what
?

Was there, among the evidence the department had retained on Chappell, any item belonging to the killer that would produce the needed match to DNA found in Oregon? And, he wondered, when forensics began work on the body from the Pamillon ruins, could they get a match on that DNA? Would the lab find anything that might link that body to the Oregon corpse?

But why was he chasing after phantoms? Why was he so fixated on some relationship between two bodies that had lain, for so many years, some five hundred miles apart?

Well, he'd have his first look at the Pamillon grave in the morning, Joe thought, drifting off to sleep. And who knew what he and Dulcie and Kit would find?

He'd barely closed his eyes when he blinked suddenly awake, staring into the first light of dawn filtering in through the accordion shades. Rolling over, he looked at the clock—and came wide awake. Six bells. Dulcie would pitch a fit. He'd said he'd meet her and Kit before daylight—it was a long run up the hills to the Pamillon estate. Padding lightly across the bed, trying not to wake
Mike, and only momentarily waking Rock, who sighed and rolled over, Joe fled down the hall, up the stairs to Clyde's study, and onto the desk. Leaping to a rafter, he was through his cat door and into his tower—and smack into the stern faces of two scowling lady cats.

There they sat, chill and austere, coolly assessing him, their paws together, their ears at half-mast, regarding him as they would a rude and misbehaving kitten.

“Overslept?” Dulcie said. Her sleek, brown-striped tabby coat was immaculately groomed, every hair in place, her green eyes piercing him. Beside her, Kit's long tortoiseshell fur was every which way, as if she'd had no time to groom. Kit looked at him just as impatiently as Dulcie had, lashing her fluffy tail.

He thought of all kinds of excuses: that he'd overslept because he wasn't used to sleeping in the guest room, wasn't used to sleeping with a stranger whose snores were different from Clyde's. But neither lady looked patient enough to listen to the shortest explanation, their twin stares said,
We've been waiting an hour. The sun's nearly up! Come on, Joe. Move it!

Sheepishly he slipped past them and out through the tower window to the shingled roof and took off fast across the rooftops, Dulcie and Kit running beside him.

At Ocean Avenue they scrambled down a honeysuckle vine, crossed the empty eastbound lane, and turned to race up Ocean's wide, grassy median beneath the dark shelter of its eucalyptus and cypress trees, heading for the open hills, heading for the unidentified grave.