Shirley Murphy - Cat Breaking Free

He laughed and shook his head. "We'd really have to stretch, to do that."

"But if there are more burglaries, and she has the list of those places…?"

"When and if that happens, yes. You know that, she'd be an accessory, then." But he was brief, as if holding back. There was something he wasn't saying, that he didn't feel free to tell her. Of course that was sometimes necessary, but it always made her burn with curiosity. She guessed she was as nosy as the cats.

"Meanwhile," she said, "at least the list your informant gave you helps know what shops to watch, doesn't it? Helps you know what places they might rob?"

Max nodded. "Particularly if they're planning one grand snatch-and-grab, all the shops at once. Get out fast, head for some prearranged destination."

Charlie watched him. "Would you have enough men?"

"If they're planning this in conjunction with some kind of diversion, where we're busy with crowd control, for instance, we might not."

"But what kind of diversion? Oh… the jazz festival's next week."

"Or maybe this growing dispute over water control. If there's a full-blown protest, if someone were to bring in a hundred or so protesters to clutter up the streets, slow down traffic…"

She shook her head. She'd hardly paid attention to the battle over the area's water supply, it seemed a part of central coast life, seemed to go on and on.

"It's been done before," Max said. "Bringing in professional protesters for various causes-so far, never in Molena Point."

She eased in the saddle and flicked a hank of Redwing's mane straight. "A diversion? A protest? The jazz festival? Or why not the big classic car gala? Except that's months away. Oh," she said, "and you bring in extra police, then. And CHP"

"Exactly. I don't think this little group is that high-powered. And now, with Luis Rivas's brothers dead, maybe Luis will change his plans. But still there's Tommie McCord and I'd guess a dozen others." He looked intently at her. "How much is Ryan seeing of this Roman Slayter?"

"Slayter is part of this?"

"I don't know, Charlie. Just a hunch."

"The snitch, again?"

Max grinned. "Maybe. How much is Ryan seeing of him?"

"She's not seeing him at all, if she can avoid it. She hates Slayter. She had dinner with him a night or two ago, because he told her he had information about the jewel burglary. She said she stormed out of the restaurant before their dinner was served."

"She told me about that," he said. "In L.A. the Rivas brothers ran with a dozen men. They could all be here, holed up in motels, rented rooms."

She looked bleakly at Max. "That's not a pleasant thought. That house where I saw that truck…"

"That house belongs to an elderly widow, Estrella Nava. She's the Rivas boys' grandmother. Dallas dug that out this afternoon after you found the truck."

"Can't you get a search warrant on that?"

"We'll search at the right time. Dallas and Davis are talking with the jewelry store and shop owners, the ones Chichi's been watching." He shifted in the saddle, looked down at the sea, then back at her. "Store owners are pretty much in agreement." He let it lie and busied himself leaning forward over Bucky's neck to straighten Bucky's mane under his headstall.

"Agreement on what?" she pressed. "What can they do?"

He smoothed Bucky's mane all the way down the withers, exasperating her.

"You're such a tease! What are the store owners planning? What are you planning?"

"The owners like the idea of a sting," he said. "There are eighteen stores on Chichi's list. If it's the jazz festival, some of the streets will be closed off, curb-to-curb crowds. Hard to get a squad car through in a hurry. If the robbers come in on foot, and if they have enough men to hit all the stores at once, they'll grab and vanish in the crowd while we're cruising traffic and keeping order.

"Or they could plan to hit in early morning, just before or during opening time when there's maybe only one person in most shops. Or even the middle of the night, two or three a.m., if they can get a handle on the stores' security systems. We're not sure these guys are sophisticated enough to deactivate many of the alarm systems, but we don't know that."

"So what's the sting? What are you and the shop owners planning?"

He gave her a look that needed no words, that said this was totally off-the-record confidential, and that made her nervous. If she promised not to share what Max told her, she was promising not to tell Joe Grey and Dulcie and Kit-not to tell the three snitches who relayed to Max the very information he was relying on.

There were times, Charlie felt, when promises must be broken, no matter how shabby that made her feel. It could be far shabbier not to tell the cats, to leave them only half informed, and thus perhaps in twice as much danger.

At the same time that Charlie and Max set out on their evening ride across the hills, Kit began to miss Joe and Dulcie. She hadn't seen them since the night before, at Wilma's house, hadn't seen them all day while she was spying on Chichi Barbi and then racing home to Lucinda to call the station. Where were they, all that time? Where were they now? As evening settled onto the Greenlaws' terrace, throwing soft shadows across the rooftops, Kit fidgeted and paced, increasingly uneasy until at last, losing patience, she sped away, hit the roofs, and went to search.

Kit seldom worried about the two older cats; they were usually looking for her. She might wander away or she might get angry and go off in a snit, but that was different, she knew where she was. Now, in the falling dusk, muttering softly to herself, she prowled among the shadows of balconies and peered down into the streets and alleys. Had they gone off to the hills hunting without her? Oh, they wouldn't! She did not choose to remember that she herself had recently vanished for several days, that she had worried not only Joe and Dulcie but all their human friends, that they'd all gone searching for her. Well, she couldn't help that, she'd been locked in. Locked up in that old rental house and she couldn't get out and that wasn't her fault. Locked in, trapped in there and scared out of her kitty mind.

Locked in? Kit thought, and felt her fur ripple with unease. That idea gave her a very bad feeling…

But Joe and Dulcie wouldn't be locked in. Where could they be locked in? Who would lock them in, and why? That couldn't happen to them.

Yet why this terrible, sinking feeling? Now that she'd thought of such a thing, she got so nervous she had shivers in her belly and her paws began to sweat.

She searched every inch of the village rooftops, or tried to; she looked and searched until it was deep dark. There were clouds over the moon, low and heavy. Were they at home by now? Maybe Clyde was cooking something special or maybe Wilma was making chicken pie? The slightest scent of chicken pie on the breeze would always draw Dulcie home. Well, she'd just trot by Clyde's and then by Wilma's and sniff the air. She was all alone anyway; Lucinda and Pedric had gone off with Ryan's sister, Hanni, the gorgeous interior designer, to look at furniture-instructing her to go to Wilma's if they were very late, to stay there with Dulcie- leaving a poor little cat to fend for herself.

Well, Lucinda had left an elegant supper in the apartment for her, laid out on the kitchen table with creamed sardines and kippers set into a double bowl of ice. Kit licked her whiskers. She would look a little more for Joe and Dulcie and then return to the rest of the creamed sardines; and she headed first for Clyde and Joe's house.