Shirley Murphy - Cat Breaking Free

Davis said, "Did he tell her what shooting?"

"Something that happened during a bank robbery. Said the case is still open."

"If he's legitimate," Davis said, "he'd have come to us, share information."

"She told him that. Slayter told her LAPD was accused of killing the guy. Unnecessary force during a bank holdup. Said there'd been an investigation and two officers had been suspended-that it was those officers who hired him to find out who did kill him."

"Who was the victim?" Max said. "Did Slayter mention a name?"

"A Frank something."

"Frank Cozzino," Dallas said.

Clyde nodded.

Davis spread marmalade on her toast. "Slayter wanted Ryan to pass him departmental information. Wanted her to pump us. Interesting."

"Sleazebag," Dallas said casually.

Clyde was silent, looking from one to another. Above him, Joe Grey belched. Everyone laughed. Clyde looked up at the tomcat, scowling. He couldn't mouth off to Joe-with sufficient prodding, who knew what the tomcat might do. Joe looked back at him, smug as cream.

Max said, "Frank Cozzino was a snitch for LAPD. He worked for several gangs, gathering intelligence for them on some high-powered burglaries. Then he started passing the information on to L.A. Looks like that got him dead.

"He and the DA managed the cases so smoothly that it was a long time before anyone caught on that he'd furnished the information. When one of the gangs made him on it, someone took him out and tried to make it look like the uniforms did it. Of course L.A. got the blame." Harper finished his coffee and set down his cup. "L.A. has the bullet but they've never come up with the gun."

Dallas finished his breakfast and laid half a slice of bacon up on the wall, making Clyde smile. "Maybe those two guys did hire Slayter. But if he's up here for that, why hasn't he come to us? Why try to go through Ryan to find out what we have?"

Davis finished her coffee, wiped her hands on her napkin, and straightened her uniform jacket. Tucking a five and some ones under the ketchup bottle, she rose. "You want to go over that matter you mentioned, Max?"

Harper nodded, reaching for her money to add to his own.

"I'll make a pot of coffee," Juana said. "I made empanadas last night, we can warm them up later."

Dallas rose, too, handed Harper a ten, and he and Juana headed back to the station. From atop the wall, Joe Grey watched them as he dispatched Garza's bacon. He liked and respected Juana Davis; she was a thorough, no-nonsense detective, yet with a frightened victim or with a wrongfully accused arrestee she was warm and understanding. Juana's proper, dark uniform and regulation dark stockings and black Oxfords contrasted sharply with Garza's faded jeans and old tweed sport coat, and Harper's jeans and boots and Western shirt. In this casual village, it was Juana Davis who stood out. Wondering what "matter" Harper and the two detectives meant to discuss, Joe slipped off the wall into the alley and headed for the station.

By the time Clyde and Harper rose, and Clyde turned to speak to the tomcat, Joe was long gone. Not a leaf stirred atop the wall where the gray cat had crouched. He'd vanished like the Cheshire cat. Only the empty plate remained, tucked among the leaves and licked to a fine polish.

Juana Davis’s office was down the central hall, past Harper's and Garza's offices and past the staff room. If Joe had continued on, he could have entered the large report-writing room with its individual cubicles and latest electronic equipment, or the interrogation room. At the end of the hall was the locked, metal-plated door leading to the officers' parking area, and the jail. Having slipped in through the glass doors at the front of the station on the heels of a hurrying rookie, he double-timed back to Davis's office, hoping she wouldn't wonder why he'd shown up there so soon. But he might as well put a bold face on it. Strolling on in, he made himself comfortable atop her coffee table and stretched out, licking bacon grease from a front paw. Coming in behind him, Davis gave him a stunned look.

"You little freeloader. You spend all morning stuffing yourself, and now you think I have something to feed you?" She looked up as Garza entered. "Talk about pigs!"

Garza picked Joe up off the table and laid a stack of papers down in his place. Setting Joe on the couch, the detective made himself comfortable beside the tomcat. This kind of behavior never ceased to amaze Joe. All his life Garza had raised and trained gun dogs, their pictures were all over his office. Garza was not a cat person.

"There was a time," Juana said, "when you wouldn't be caught dead petting a cat."

"He's getting soft," Harper said, coming in. "You behave like this around those two old pointers of yours, they'll pack up and move out."

On the center cushion of the leather couch, Joe Grey washed his shoulder with deep concentration. He had to admit, he'd done a number on Garza. The guy was becoming almost civilized, turning into a regular cat fancier. For this, the tomcat had to congratulate himself. He had, very smoothly, charmed the department's upper echelon, while all the time maintaining a persona of simple-minded feline innocence. And as he lay purring and dozing beside Detective Garza, Joe realized he was smack in the middle of a major departmental planning session.

The confidential discussion he was witnessing was a brainstorming, nuts-and-bolts logistical plan of action, as the three officers laid out departmental strategy for handling a really big jewel heist-maybe the biggest jewel burglary this village had ever witnessed.

If their information was good. This wasn't intelligence that Joe or Dulcie had provided; Joe listened with curiosity and with rising anger. Why was it that the small, lovely village attracted these hoods? Why couldn't they leave Molena Point alone, go somewhere else to make trouble!

Well, but there was money here. Plenty of money. Movie stars; executive types coming down for conferences and for their brainstorming getaways; upscale tourists. And when the Colombian gangs in L.A. had discovered Molena Point and put the village on their thieving roster, every crook in California tried to copycat them. Didn't matter that Molena Point had one of the finest small departments in the country-with a little help undercover, Joe thought modestly-every sleazy no-good thought he could beat the odds.

Davis said, "Doesn't seem possible that L.A. bunch would undertake this kind of operation, after they messed up so badly down there."

Dallas shrugged.

"Maybe not possible they can do it," Harper said. "But given their past attempts, I'd say it's way possible they'll try, that they think they can pull it off."

"Big dreams, short on brains," Davis said.

"I wouldn't bet on it," Max said. "They've pulled a few good ones. And with Dufio out of the way…"

They were quiet a moment. "You think they killed him?" Davis said.

Max refilled his coffee cup from the pot Davis had set on the coffee table. "We should have the ballistics, end of the week. I'd give a month's salary to get my hands on the gun."

"One thing sure," Dallas said. "The oak tree bark, outside his cell window, doesn't pick up prints worth a damn. But we have a nice collection of fibers."

In spite of himself, Joe felt his ears go rigid with interest. It took all his effort to keep his head down and appear to doze. With Garza on his right and Harper on his left and Juana looking straight at him from behind her desk, it was almost impossible not to stare from one speaker to the other like a spectator at a tennis match.

He could see Harper's notes, though. He was only a foot from the clipboard that Max balanced against his crossed leg, from the chief's bold handwriting. And he had a front-row view of the map that Dallas had laid out on the coffee table. Rising to rub against Harper's knee, he took a closer look at the map, getting a strong, pleasant whiff of Harper's horses.