Shirley Murphy - Cat Spitting Mad

"I see. Yes, of course I understand. I will simply make an inquiry. If Miss Powers wants to furnish us with a copy, I'll send a man over." Garza paused. Joe cocked his head, straining toward that faintest murmur from the other end of the line. Dulcie, at this moment, was most likely stretched out on Wilma's desk blotter, taking her ease beside the handset, and feeling smug. These little tips to the law really brought out the ham in his lady. Maybe she should have her own talk show.

"Tell me," Garza said, "were you responsible for making a delivery to my home this morning?"

Whatever Dulcie's response, Garza grunted as if unconvinced. "Do you know anything about such a delivery? Whatever you say will be strictly confidential.

"I see. But you do know where I live," Garza said. "You did have my phone number."

The premise didn't necessarily follow, but it was a good try. Joe heard a faint click from the other end.

Garza stared at the phone until the canned recording came on, then hung up. Joe settled back into his relaxed sprawl and shut his eyes, waiting for Garza to play the tapes that the detective had found inside his morning Gazette. Garza had unwrapped and examined them and dropped them in his pocket.

And he did not play them now. He rinsed out his coffee cup, slipped on his jacket, and left the house for an appointment.

Joe spent a restless night pacing the cottage. Kate and Hanni were at a play, and Garza had not returned when he grew too impatient to stay inside, and went to hunt, slipping out a loose downstairs window, through the burglar bars. He did not look for Dulcie and the kit; they had promised to stay inside. Keeping to the local gardens, he contented himself with house mice. He ended up at home in time for breakfast.

Slipping in through his cat door, past a tuft of tortoiseshell fur, he stopped in the living room, laughing. The kit had learned very quickly to taunt Clyde.

"Why can't I sit on the table? Joe Grey sits on the table! And I don't want scrambled eggs. We had breakfast. We dined in Jolly's alley," the kit said grandly.

"Hush," said Dulcie. "Let me finish."

"It's a really shabby duplex," Dulcie was saying. "But a lovely location and view. Charlie would love it."

Clyde said. "Would you like a scrambled egg, Dulcie?"

"I would," Dulcie said softly. "The kit ate all the blintzes."

Joe shouldered into the kitchen, to see the kit, looking hurt, jump onto the table. He watched Clyde pick up Dulcie and set her beside the kit, apparently in the interest of fairness. Leaping up beside Dulcie, Joe stretched out across the open newspaper. Clyde, scowling at him, added two more eggs to the skillet.

"It was Wark that the kit saw," Dulcie said. "It had to be. And it was Wark Joe saw snooping around the Garza cottage."

Clyde looked at Joe. "Did Garza catch him?"

Joe flicked a whisker. "None of them saw him; they slept right through, even our big-time detective."

"You sure it was Wark?"

"I'm not sure. Could have been Baker. But the kit saw Wark talking with Crystal."

Clyde sighed. "Did the man at the cottage see you, Joe?"

"Of course he didn't see me."

Clyde dished up the eggs, setting the cats' three plates on the table. Having nowhere to put his own plate, he stood at the stove to eat. "If you were looking out the window, those white markings would shine like neon."

"You think I don't have sense enough to keep away from the glass? That is so insulting."

"You think he was looking for Kate?"

"I have no idea. Maybe looking for Kate. Maybe checking on Garza. If he was involved in the murders-"

"He could have been looking for you and Dulcie. You'd better come home where you're safe."

"Why would I be safe at home? Wark knows where I live. He was all around this house, if you remember, after Beckwhite was murdered. Looking in the windows-right in my face. Scared the spit out of me."

"Then you can move in with Wilma. No, you can't do that. He knows where Dulcie lives."

Joe said, "Dulcie and the kit can stay with Charlie. Not likely Wark knows about her."

"And you can stay there, too. You don't need to be hanging around Garza's."

"Where do you think Garza makes his sensitive phone calls and tapes his notes? Kate set that up for me, and you helped her- I'm not tossing that away."

Clyde just looked at him. That ever-patient, put-upon expression of a defeated human."

"I'll keep of sight," Joe said.

Clyde said, "I'll talk to Charlie about Dulcie and the kit."

Joe dropped to the floor. "Even Charlie's apartment isn't the safest. There's only one way out, just the front door, down the stairs and through that little foyer to the street. Wark breaks in, you're cornered. No back door, no side windows. And that window over the street-you can't reach anything from there, not a rooftop, not so much as a vine. It's only one floor down, but all concrete. Splatter a cat like-"

"Hush," Dulcie said. "It's a perfect setup. Charlie can fix a way for us to slip out to the roofs-through a vent or something. You know how clever she is. Wark would have to bring a ladder to get up on the roofs. And he can't jump from roof to roof, or run across a branch, or leap six feet between buildings."

Joe was unconvinced.

"Anyway, he's after Kate," Dulcie said. "This time, Joe, he's not after us. He followed Kate in San Francisco. It's Kate you should worry about."

"Kate knows he's here," Joe snapped. "Besides, with a warrant out for him, the department will pick him up-haul him back to Quentin."

Clyde poured a fresh cup of coffee. What he appeared to need, Joe thought, was a double Prozac. With his coffee cup so full it sloshed, he sat down at the table, looking deeply at the cats.

"However this turns out, you two have opened a whole can of worms with Garza. The guy comes here to do a legitimate piece of police work and-"

"That's a matter of opinion," Joe said darkly.

"To do a straightforward investigation, and he starts getting anonymous phone tips."

"One phone call," Dulcie said, "from a legitimate employee of Peninsula Escrow."

"And unexplained tapes are left at his door that might be evidence and might not. That might be a plant. Don't you think Garza-"

"So what were we supposed to do?" Dulcie said. "Hold back information?"

Clyde sucked at his coffee. "Crystal Ryder has been in town for maybe six months, living in that duplex. Why, all of a sudden, did she decide to buy it?"

"She had a lease/option," Joe said. "Apparently she decided to move on it. My question is, why just two weeks before the murder? And it would be interesting to know, as well, why Helen owned a place in Molena Point, when she's lived for years in Santa Barbara."

"I can answer that," Clyde said. "She had half a dozen rentals in the village. Max told me that. She had them with a rental agency."

"A pretty shoddy agency," Dulcie said, "or they'd have insisted she paint the place."

Clyde rose to rinse the dishes. "You three have an opinion on everything. You have an inside line to Garza's investigation. You have spied on Stubby Baker. You have tossed Crystal Ryder's apartment and tampered with critical evidence. And you-"

"If you mean the tapes," Joe said, "if we'd left them there, and Crystal hid them, Garza might never know they existed."

"And what about the barrette?" Clyde said.

"We had no contact with the police over that," Joe told him. "Kate reported the barrette to the police, they told her they'd go right up there, photograph where they found it, and book it in as evidence. It's probably, right now, sitting in the lab being dusted for prints and particles caught in the setting. They-"

"Probably they are going to find cat hairs."

"Why must you always drag in cat hairs? Why must you always tell us we're messing up an investigation? Do I really have to remind you, Clyde, of the murders in the past, where with our help Harper has made a case?" He looked at Clyde sadly, hurt written in every line of his gray-and-white face.