Shirley Murphy - Cat Under Fire

He had told Clyde earlier in the day about finding Janet's paintings in the storage locker up near Highway One. Now he studied Clyde, trying to sort out several nagging thoughts. "I didn't tell you how we knew the paintings were in the locker."

Clyde settled back, sipping his beer. "Isn't there a watchman? Did he find them?"

"Watchman made the first call, asking for a patrol car. He'd heard a noise in one of the lockers, like something heavy fell.

"But it was after the two units arrived, that the second call came in, about the paintings. That call was made from a unit radio."

Clyde looked puzzled, sipped his beer.

Harper watched him with interest. "Caller told the dispatcher that there were some paintings I ought to see, that they had to do with Janet's murder. Said I might like to go on over there, take a look for myself. Said the evidence was crucial, that the locker had been rented by Kendrick Mahl."

He stubbed out his cigarette. "An anonymous call, from a unit radio. There is no way to identify which car the call was made from, dispatcher has no way to tell. I've been over this with every man on duty that night."

He fiddled with his half-empty cigarette pack, tearing off the cellophane. "No one in the department will admit to making the call, and no one left his unit unattended except my men up at the locker, and they were right there, not ten feet away, with the big locker door wide-open. Anyone moved out in the alley, they would have seen him."

"Sounds like one of your men is lying, that one of your own had to have made the call. Unless there's some sophisticated electronic tap on the police line?"

"Not likely, in a case like this. What would be the purpose?"

"Could the caretaker have slipped out to the squad cars, and lied about it? But why?"

"The caretaker didn't make the call. Only time he left my officers was when he went to get a ladder, and I told you, they were watching their cars." He crumpled the cellophane, dropped it in the ashtray. "After we impounded the paintings we searched the locker complex. Found no one, nothing disturbed."

He shook his head. "I trust my people; I don't believe there's one of them would lie to me. Except Marritt, and he's accounted for. And those paintings have blown Marritt's investigation, so why would he make the call?"

"Well," Clyde said, "whoever made the call did the department a good turn. And the paintings are safe in the locker?"

"We put new padlocks on the two doors and the gate, cordoned off that part of the complex, and left an officer on duty. It will leave us short, but we'll keep a guard there until the guard Sicily hired comes on duty, and until the canvases can be moved. Forty-six of Janet's paintings, worth…"

"Well over a million," Clyde said. "But weren't painting fragments found in the fire?"

"Lots of fragments-all with thumbtacks in the stretcher bars. We know, now, that Janet used staples. That's the kind of investigation we got out of Marritt. He had no clue that Mahl substituted some other artist's work. Sicily suggested Mahl might have used students' paintings, bought them cheap at art school sales."

"But wouldn't Mahl have known about the thumbtacks? He knew Janet's work too well to… "

Harper smiled. "When Janet and Mahl were married, Janet stretched her canvases with thumbtacks. It wasn't until after she left him, when her thumbs began to bother her from pressing in the tacks, that she started stapling her canvases." He fingered his menu, then laid it down. "But there's something else."

Clyde waited, trying to look relaxed, not to telegraph a twinge of unease.

"I told you we found Mahl's watch, and that it could be conclusive evidence," Harper said.

"That was when you said we needed to talk. I thought… What about the watch?"

Harper turned his O'Doul's bottle, making rings on the table. "The prosecuting attorney examined the new evidence this morning. Took a look at the paintings and talked to Sicily about them. Mahl's prints aren't on them, surely he used gloves. We sent his watch to the lab, and we've had two men searching out photographs of Mahl that show the watch."

Harper peeled the wet label from his beer bottle. "Late this afternoon, Judge Wesley dismissed charges against Lake." He spread the label on the table, smoothing it. "And it looks like we might get a confession from Mahl. He's lost some of his arrogance; he doesn't like being behind bars, and he's nervous. Shaky. If he does confess," Max said, "it'll be thanks to our informant."

Clyde kept his hands still, tried to keep his face bland.

"It's the informant that troubles me," Harper said. "We don't get many informants calling in cold, without previous contact. You know it takes time to develop a good snitch, and this woman-I don't know what to make of her."

Clyde eased himself deeper into the soft leather of the booth, wishing he were somewhere else.

"She has a quiet voice, but with a strange little tinge of sarcasm." Harper sipped his beer. "A peculiarly soft way of speaking, and yet that little nudging edge to it.

"Her first calls seemed to have nothing to do with the Lake trial. She called to tell me she'd slipped a list under the station door, and to explain about it. I had the list on my desk when she called." With his thumbnail he began to press on the wet beer label he'd stuck to the table, pressing at its edges. "It was her list that led us to that burglary up on Cypress.

"We made two arrests, caught them red-handed, impounded a truck full of stolen TVs, videos, some antiques and jewelry, ski equipment, a mink coat.

"The list of residences to be hit was very detailed, showed the times each householder left for work, kind of car, times the kids left for school, time the school bus stops. Right down to if the family kept a dog.

"But no indication of what day the burglaries would come down. She said she didn't know, suggested I set up a stakeout, was almost bossy about it. She put me off, and I almost tossed the list." Harper looked uncomfortable, as if the room was too hot.

"But then she called back, later that same night. Gave me the hit date, said she'd just found out." Harper abandoned the label, lit a cigarette. He had shaped the O'Doul's label into a long oval with a lump at one end. "That second call came maybe an hour after that fuss up at Sicily's gallery, the night those cats got locked inside."

Clyde grinned. "The night my stupid cat got shut in. You saying this woman made the call from the gallery? That the cats got in when she entered?"

"No, I'm not saying that," Harper snapped. He stubbed out his cigarette and fingered the half-empty pack, then laid it aside, started in on the label again, working at it absently with his thumbnail. "I'm not saying that at all. Simply stating the sequence of events.

"And it was that same day," he said, "midafternoon, when the new witness turned up. The one who saw the white van in Janet's drive."

Clyde watched the beer label taking shape, Harper's thumb forming a crude, lumpy head.

Harper finished his beer, draining the glass. "You know I don't believe in coincidence. But the strange thing is-that witness who saw the white van, she turned out to be the mother of one of the burglars."

Clyde frowned, shook his head as if trying to sort that out. He had to swallow back a belly laugh. Despite Harper's obvious distress, this was the biggest joke of all time on his good friend. And he couldn't say a word.

Harper still hadn't told him about the watch. It was the watch that was really bugging Harper.

"Yesterday the informant called, asked if we'd found Janet's paintings. She seemed pleased that we had.

"She told me that when we found Kendrick Mahl's watch, that could wrap up the case. She said it was in a drainpipe up in the hills, that we'd have to dig down and cut through the pipe. She thought if we cut straight down into the pipe, we wouldn't disturb the evidence, could still photograph it before we moved it. She gave me the location of the marker where we were to dig, a little pile of rocks, up the hill from the mouth of the drain."