Cat Spitting Mad (11 page)

D
allas Garza
arrived in Molena Point at 8
A
.
M
., the morning after the three cats spied on Stubby Baker. He was a big, broad-shouldered man dressed in civilian clothes—faded jeans, a tan shirt, charcoal V-necked sweater, and a tan corduroy sport coat, clothes that blended well into the milieu of Molena Point, comfortable layers to be removed as the fog burned off and the day turned warm. Garza's thick black hair was trimmed short, in a well-styled, no-nonsense haircut. His chiseled, square face, brown as oak, seemed carved into lines that were all business—a look that won immediate confidence from law enforcement and nervous reluctance from those who would screw with him.

During his twenty-three-year career he had been put on loan three times to other departments when their internal affairs got into a tangle, carrying out investigations of fellow officers—once in Redding on a drug-related case, and twice in southern California on charges of moral misconduct. This was the first time he
had been called in to investigate a murder.

He had never met Max Harper. Garza didn't socialize on his vacation time; he kept to himself. He didn't like the fact that his case was Molena Point's chief of police, an officer well thought of in the village and among other law enforcement agencies in the state.

But he owed Lionel Gedding. And Garza was rigid about paying his debts.

He was uncomfortable, too, that Hanni was here and had opened the cottage, as if they were down for a family vacation.

He didn't stop at the cottage to drop off his bag, but drove directly to Molena Point PD. In the police lot behind the station, he swung a U and backed into a slot against the back wall. Sitting in his car, he took in the blank, two-story brick wall on his right where the jail was housed, and the single-story police station on his left. The station was connected to the courtrooms and city offices behind him by an enclosed passageway.

Garza had worked in San Francisco for ten years. Before that, he had put in five years on a SWAT team in Oakland. He would be forced to retire at age fifty-seven because his work was considered hazardous duty. He had no idea what he would do after that. He was some years older than Max Harper, old enough to find retirement looming large and not always pleasantly. He had read the file on Harper the night before.

Leaving the police parking lot, he walked two blocks toward Ocean to have breakfast at a favorite small café. Sitting in the patio with his back to the restaurant wall, he ordered three eggs over easy, ham,
biscuits, and coffee. He ate slowly and neatly, watching the village street. A lot of the locals out this time of morning were dog walkers. And the tourists were walking mutts, too. Several hotels in the village catered to pets. Folks liked to bring their dogs along where the little poodles and spaniels—and a few big dogs—could run on the beach, show off up and down Ocean—four-legged conversation pieces—and sit with their masters at the outdoor cafés.

It amazed him that people with money, people who drove expensive foreign cars, had mongrels instead of well-bred animals. Mutts. Absently he counted nineteen dogs; only two of them were purebred, and neither of real good breeding.

If Garza was a snob in any way, it was in the matter of canines. A well-bred pointer or setter, a handsome big Chesapeake or Weimaraner of really good bloodlines was one of the finest accomplishments of mankind.

A far finer accomplishment, in many respects, than man himself.

But that was a cop's view.

Paying the bill, tucking the tip under the sugar bowl, he walked to Molena Point PD, entering by the unlocked front door into the big open squad room. His first look at the department didn't please him.

In the big open room, all functions seemed to be carried out with little thought to privacy or security. And certainly minimal attention to neatness. This surprised him. Harper had a reputation for running an orderly shop, but these officers' desks were piled with papers;
a case of soft drinks had been left by the front door; several officers had hung their jackets over the backs of their chairs; two had laid their guns atop their desks; a pair of field boots stood next to an overflowing wastebasket. They didn't use shredders? Even the dispatcher's area contained stacks of papers that he would never have allowed. He did not, as he began to make the rounds of the room, find much to admire in Max Harper's department.

 

Joe Grey and Dulcie spotted Garza leaving the restaurant as they stepped out of Jolly's alley after a leisurely post-hunting snack. The man's solid build and his military walk and air of authority drew their gaze. Dulcie's green eyes widened; her dark, striped tail twitched with interest. “Who's that?” The broad-shouldered, dark-haired Latino was an imposing figure.

“Either a full bird colonel or some kind of law enforcement. My guess would be our detective from San Francisco. Garza's due to arrive this morning.”

They followed him, padding along the curb and through sidewalk flower gardens until the broad-shouldered stranger entered Molena Point PD. As Garza stepped in through the glass door, the cats beat it into the courthouse, whose front door was easy enough to claw open, galloped down the hall into the squad room, and took cover under Max Harper's desk.

They couldn't see much but the jungle of desk and chair legs and officers' shoes spreading away across the linoleum, but they could hear Garza working the room, introducing himself to individual officers. They
listened with interest to the casual wariness exhibited by Harper's men and women as they took Garza's measure.

“Talk about a roomful of tomcats,” Joe said, grinning.

“So what would you expect? Garza was sent here to do
their
job and possibly to help prosecute their chief.”

Joe slipped out from under the desk far enough to see Garza sitting at Detective Davis's desk with Davis and Ray. They seemed to be going over field notes, Garza reading his copy and asking questions. Joe felt nearly invisible, with all officers' eyes on the threesome while trying to look busy with their own affairs. When at last Garza headed for Harper's desk, carrying the detectives' thick sheaf of reports and photographs, Joe was deep under the drawer section beside Dulcie.

Sheltered from Garza's feet, they dozed as the detective shuffled papers. Periods of silence indicated that he was reading. He rose occasionally to refill his coffee cup from the large coffeemaker on the credenza behind him. Joe was soon cross-eyed with boredom.

They had meant, coming out of the alley, to head for Dulcie's house and make that call to Marin County—Joe had a feeling about that phone number. The same kind of feeling as when, though he couldn't see or smell a mouse, he knew the little beast was close. He wanted to make that call in an empty house, without any human listening, and Wilma would be at work.

Telephones still amazed him—sending his voice over that unseen cable to manipulate someone invisible at the other end. That joining of humanity's elec
tronic wonders and his own remarkable feline skills gave him a huge sense of power. A real twenty-first-century, state-of-the-art jolt.

And right now, while they marked time on the dusty linoleum under Harper's desk, learning nothing of value, that Marin phone number bugged him.

They listened as Garza arranged to see the stable manager where the Marners had kept their horses, and to see several Marner family members who had arrived soon after the tragedy and were staying in the village. He set a time to see Charlie Getz and to interview the staff at Café Mundo. The problem with all this was that Joe and Dulcie would be privy to nothing, no more inside line to what was happening than if they'd been a thousand miles from Molena Point.

Garza told Lieutenant Brennan that he would talk with the Marners' neighbors in their condo building, and he made an appointment for that evening with Dillon Thurwell's parents. That would be a hard call, for Dillon's mother and father to talk with police again, when there was only that one slim lead to finding Dillon, only the lost barrette.

At least they knew she'd escaped the killer at one point. But nothing after that. Nothing more than that one small piece of jewelry that had been described in the paper just after the murder, the barrette Dillon's mother said the child had been wearing when she left the house Saturday morning. Nothing else to give them hope that Dillon was still alive.

Garza made no appointment with Joe's housemate, though Clyde was Harper's closest friend. Other than this omission, the detective seemed to be starting out
in an efficient and businesslike manner. Maybe he was going to descend on Clyde's place unannounced, hoping to catch Harper off guard.

When Garza finished with the phone, he nodded to Detectives Davis and Ray, and the three of them headed back to the conference rooms, Garza carrying the reports Davis had given him, as if he meant to go over the meat of the case in strict privacy. The cats were crouched for a swift race down the hall to listen, when they heard the conference room door slam closed.

Slipping into the shadows of an adjoining room, they pressed their ears uncomfortably to the wall—cats' ears are not made for wall-pressing; it hurts the delicate cartilage. Even with their superior hearing, they could make out only indistinct murmurs, and the conference rooms had no windows that might be open to the bright morning. Their source within Molena Point PD had dried up faster than canned tuna left in the sun. Sometimes even a cat, the most facile and adept of snoops, gets outshuffled.

“Come on,” Joe said, and he headed down the hall, through the courthouse, dodging behind the heels of a pair of attorneys—you could always tell attorneys, they had briefcases growing out of their hands—and down the street to Dulcie's house, hot to get at the phone.

J
oe and
Dulcie spied the kit in Jolly's alley as they were headed for Dulcie's house and the phone. The kit sat smugly beneath the jasmine vine beside an empty paper plate.

Dulcie nudged her. “Come on, kit. Is that your second breakfast?”

The kit smiled. Her face smelled of caviar and roast lamb.

The two cats hurried her along out of the alley and down the street—like herding fireflies. She was everywhere, up the bougainvillea vines that climbed the shop walls, up into the oaks and across the roofs and down onto balconies and awnings. When they nosed her through Dulcie's cat door, she charged at a plate of scrambled eggs that Wilma had left on the floor and inhaled yet another meal.

“I saw Wilma walking to work,” she said between bites. “She looked elegant. Those beautiful pale jeans and that new black blazer and cashmere sweater.”

“Just jeans,” Dulcie said. “Not so
very
fancy, kit.”

“Elegant,” the kit repeated. And Dulcie had a sharp sense of the kit's fascination with beautiful clothes—a hunger perhaps as keen as Dulcie's own covetous craving. She wondered if the kit had ever stolen a silky garment from some house when she traveled with that rebel band of homeless cats. Wondered if the kit, just as she herself, had ever innocently lifted a silk nightie from someone's clothesline or nipped in through an open window to snatch a lacy teddy or a pair of sheer stockings.

Well,
Dulcie thought,
I don't do that anymore.

At least, hardly ever.

She missed having those lovely garments to snuggle on. Oh, Wilma gave her pretty things. But the stolen ones were nicer.

She was ashamed of her failing, and secretly reveled in it. She didn't consider herself a thief. She always gave back the stolen items, in a way—leaving them in the box on the back porch that Wilma had provided, where the amused neighbors knew to retrieve their “misplaced” clothes.
Not
stealing, she thought, following Joe through the dining room and onto Wilma's desk.

Joe pushed the phone from its cradle, squinched his paw small, and punched in the San Rafael number. He was unusually nervous. The kit bounced up beside them to watch, round-eyed. And the three cats bent their heads, listening to the measured ringing.

A man's gravelly voice. “Year. Alby? That you, Alby? You're two minutes early.”

Joe said, “Is this Davis Drugs?”

“What the hell? Who's this? Who you calling?”

“Davis Drugs.” Joe repeated the number he'd dialed.

“You got the wrong number, buster. Get off the friggin' line.”

Joe pressed the disconnect, scowling. “That didn't net much.”

“Didn't it?” said Dulcie. “Wait a few minutes, and try again.”

He waited, then punched the redial, checking the little screen to be sure he'd dialed the right number the first time. The kit watched every move.

A different voice answered. Smooth but equally abrupt. “Yeah? Who you want?”

“Hello?” Joe said inanely.

“Who you want to talk to?”

“I was calling Davis Drugs. Can you tell me what place I've reached?”

“Davis
Drugs
! That's a good one! We ain't got that brand, buddy. Who you calling?”

“Can you tell me what place this is? Maybe I have the…”

A clanging, metallic voice sounded in the background, its vibrating rumble so loud they couldn't make sense of the words. Sounded like “Wall uh—uh—ers heave ta ecc—ecc-ecc-ed wall at once.” A man shouted, “Come on, Joobie. Get off the damn phone! I got a call coming.” Then a click and the line went dead. In a moment the recording came on telling Joe to hang up and dial again.

He slapped his paw to silence the offensive mes
sage. “What was that all about?”

Dulcie sat scowling, trying to make out the words. She lifted her paw. “Let me try.”

She punched the redial and the speaker button so they could all hear. She sat washing her paws, listening with all the sophistication of a debutante buffing her nails while monitoring the call of a dull-witted suitor. The gravelly voice answered. “Start talking. It's your nickel.”

“Hi, honey. This is May.”

“May who?”

“Maybe I could give you a good time, baby.”

He guffawed, his laugh so loud that Dulcie backed away. But her voice was sweet and smooth as cream. “Honey, are you the handsome one?”

“You bet I am, baby. That's me.” The guy bellowed a rasping laugh. “Handsome as a hound pup. Who is this? Where you calling from, honey?”

“My name's Chantelle. What's yours?”

“Baby, this is Big Buck Brewer. You calling from near here? Why don't you come on up? Have us a little conjugal visit.”

Dulcie rolled her eyes at Joe. “I'm just a few blocks away, honey. Maybe if I come up there, we could party?”

“Baby, if you can figure out how to get in here, I guarantee you'll have a party.”

The loudspeaker went again. “Waaalll pr—boom—boom—boom—out of the…yar—yar—yard…” And the phone clicked and went dead. Dulcie looked at Joe, her green eyes huge.

“A prison,” Joe said softly.

Dulcie nodded. “Prison loudspeaker. ‘All prisoners out…out of the exercise yard'?” Her eyes were wide and gleaming, her ears sharp forward. “A prison, Joe? How could we call inside a prison? What prison?”

“There's only one prison in that area code.” And Joe Grey thanked the great cat god—or the great phone god—that Pacific Bell was so explicit in its billing, listing each city along with its long-distance number. “San Rafael, Dulcie. San Quentin State Prison.” He showed his teeth in a wicked feline grin. “San Quentin, temporary home of every serious felon and convicted murderer in the state of California.”

“But…
how
could we phone into a prison? Were those inmates—how could inmates answer the phone? What am I missing here? They're locked up, they're supposed to…They wouldn't have
telephones.
”

“Right. And I don't have claws and whiskers.”

She only looked at him, her green eyes wide with shock—and with growing excitement.

The kit gaped at them both. She was beyond her depth.

And Joe Grey looked like he'd swallowed a whole nest of mice. “This is from the horse's mouth, Dulcie. Straight from Harper's men, at the poker table. There are pay phones all over San Quentin. Maximum security prison, but the inmates can make a call to anyone, any time they please.”

“You're putting me on.”

“Not a bit. They can call out, and can receive incoming calls if they stand around and wait for them. Like, say, their outside contact calls at a prearranged
time.”

Dulcie shook her whiskers, her green eyes narrowed with disgust. “What's the point of putting them in prison? I thought it was to get them out of circulation. What good, if they have all that contact with the outside?”

“Exactly. But the phones are only part of it. Those prisoners have computers, e-mail, the Web, you name it.”

Dulcie sighed.

“The Justice Department wants to crack down on the phones, though. Justice thinks the prisoners are making too many drug deals and orchestrating too many murders from behind bars.”

“Now you're kidding.”

“Dead serious.”

“
Too many
drug deals? And just how many is too many?
Too many
murders?” Her tail lashed with rage. “What's happening to the world?”

“You have to make allowances. You're dealing here with humans.”

“Oh, right.”

“Bottom line—the state earns a lot of money from those pay phones. Harper said the take in California alone last year was something like twenty-three million bucks from prison pay phones.”

“Come on, Joe.”

“Knight Ridder Newspapers—the wire service,” Joe said authoritatively. “Harper was so angry about it, he clipped the article to show Clyde. It gave statistics for Illinois and Florida, too. Said in Illinois, in one year, inmates placed over three million long-distance
calls—and the deal with the phone company is, the state gets half the take.”

Dulcie's ears went back; her eyes darkened with anger. “Why do we even bother to try to catch a killer, if that's all it means? He gets free room and board, free computers, free phones so he can do his dirty drug deals—and the state of California rakes in twenty-three million dollars.” She was so worked up she growled at Joe and the kit both. “Those cons sit inside like some Mafia family in its Manhattan penthouse arranging drug sales and murdering people by remote control.”

“That's about it,” Joe said. “Used to be, prisoners were allowed maybe one call every three months—and those were likely monitored. Now they can use the phone all day. That's who you talked to, Dulcie, some inmate waiting for a call.”

And Joe Grey smiled. “Lee Wark escaped from San Quentin, but his accomplice in the Beckwhite murder is still there—and Osborne is not on death row. Osborne's serving life. He'd have unlimited phone privileges. And he isn't the only no-good that Harper helped put in Quentin. Kendrick Mahl's there, too.”

Max Harper had helped see Mahl convicted for the murder of Janet Jeannot.

Joe and Dulcie had also helped—though only two people in the world knew that.

Joe sat down on the blotter. “This could be not one felon setting up Harper, but a partnership. A whole squirming nest of rats.”

“Fine,” Dulcie said. “Our source of department information dried up. Harper knows no more than we do.
And when we can't pass on the tiniest little tip without implicating Harper.”

Joe said nothing. Pacing back and forth across the desk, his ears and whiskers were back, his scowl deep, pulling the white splotch down his face into washboard lines.

The fascinated kit lay belly-down on a stack of bills, looking from one to the other as if watching them bat a mouse back and forth.

“So how are we going to play it?” Dulcie asked. “How are we going to lay this on the new detective? Clyde's right about the phone tips. We try an anonymous tip with Garza, he thinks Harper's trying to manipulate him.

“Still,” she said, “when the tip proves to be true…”

Joe rubbed his whiskers against hers. “We don't want to blow this, Dulcie. I want to think about this.”

He gave her a broad grin. “I could move in with Garza.”

“Oh, right. Play lost kitty, as well fed as you look?”

Joe dropped his ears, sucked in his gut, and crouched as if terrified, creeping across the desk as though someone had beaten him.

“Not bad.”

“Add a little roll in the dirt, scruff up my fur, and I'm as pitiful as any homeless. You're not the only one who can play abandoned kitty.”

“But you
can't
play stray kitty for Garza. His niece, Hanni, knows us from when she gave us a ride to Charlie's apartment. Hanni knows you're not a stray.”

Joe looked sheepish. He didn't often forget such important matters.

He had to get hold of himself. This worry over Harper was fogging his tomcat brain.

“So I stroll in the front door, look Garza in the eye. Don't offer up an excuse. Make myself at home. Demand food, lodging, and respect. I think Garza could relate to that.”

“I think Garza would boot you out on your furry behind.”

“Or Kate can grease the wheels. She can say Clyde asked her to keep me for a few days, until the demolition is finished. Say I'm a bundle of nerves from all the noise. That I've gone off my feed. Twitching in my sleep.”

Dulcie smiled.

“Once I get inside, I make friends with Garza, and I have free access. I can figure out how to let him in on the Quentin connection, if he doesn't already know.”

“And what if he does know? What if he's part of it?”

He only looked at her.

“Joe, this is beginning to scare me.”

“Hey, we're only cats. Who's to know any different?”

“Lee Wark would know different.”

“Lee Wark isn't here. Wark wouldn't dare show his face in this village.”

“So when are you moving in with this high-powered San Francisco detective?”

“Soon as I can set it up with Kate—and with Clyde,” Joe said, thinking how unreasonable Clyde could be.

“Clyde's going to pitch a fit. You know how he—”

“I don't need Clyde's permission. I'm a cat, Dulcie. A free spirit. A four-legged unencumbered citizen. I don't need to answer to Clyde Damen. I'll tell him what I'm going to do, and
do
it. If I want to freeload on Garza, that's my business. It's none of Clyde's affair.”

“You're getting very defensive, when you haven't even talked to Clyde yet.”

Joe only looked at her. Then he dropped off the desk, beat it through the house and out the cat door.

And Dulcie sat listening to the plastic flap swinging back and forth in its little metal frame. Pretty touchy, she thought, feeling bad for Joe.

It wasn't easy to have his best line of communication dried up—and the source of that information, the man he admired so deeply, the brunt of a plot that would destroy that man. Couldn't the city attorney see this? Couldn't the movers and shakers of the city make a few allowances?

But she guessed that was part of being human—humans ideally had to stay within the law. Once they'd made the rules, the point was to follow them.