Shirley Murphy - Cat Spitting Mad

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 four years younger than Molena Point Police Chief Max Harper. 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 cafe. 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 cafes.

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 causal 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 electronic 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 Cafe 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.