Клэр Донелли - Catch As Cat Can

“So, do I pass inspection?” Sunny whispered to him.

Shadow responded by making a leap into her lap. Sunny gently stroked his fur until he lay boneless, purring up at her.

“I’d love to keep doing this, but I have to get up—” She looked at the clock radio and winced. “All too soon.”

She wiggled around to lay on the bed and tuck herself in. Shadow burrowed through the covers and into her arms, a warm and comforting presence as Sunny quickly drifted off.

*

As soon asSunny started to breathe deeply in sleep, Shadow carefully disentangled himself. He dropped quietly down to the floor, crept out the door, and headed down the stairs. The house was dark and quiet. It was time to patrol.

I should have done more to let Sunny know she did a bad thing, going off and making me wait like that, he thought. But what? This wasn’t something to scratch and bite over, even play-biting. I should have stayed away from her. The way she smelled, that would have been easy.

But then, when she was in her room, slightly damp with all the bad smells washed away . . . Shadow remembered her hands gently petting him and gave a little quiver. No, that was too nice to pass up.

I’ll think of something to make her feel sorry, he decided, padding along the darkened hallway. Next time.

*

Sunny dragged herselfout of bed the next morning, winced at her tangled hair, washed her face and brushed her teeth, dressed, and headed down the stairs. Mike had breakfast ready. “I heard you go out with Will. Late night, huh?”

“We may finally have gotten some things straightened out with the case,” she said.

Mike nodded. “That’s his job, though. What about yours?”

“Just the usual Friday rush for weekend bookings,” Sunny said. “I should be able to keep my eyes open.”

She finished eating, went to get her parka, and stopped, shaking her head. The coat still stunk of cigarette smoke from last night’s visit to O’Dowd’s. Sunny picked it up and brought it back to the kitchen. “Guess I’ll have to hang this outside and let it air out.”

Mike waved at the air in front of his face. “Yeah. And maybe knock off smoking all those cheap cigars.”

Shadow appeared in the doorway. But, instead of making his usual beeline to his bowls, he ostentatiously circled around Sunny and the offending coat.

“I guess that makes it unanimous.” Sunny sighed and took the parka outside, hanging it on a wrought-iron curlicue that came down from the light beside the kitchen door.

“I’ll keep an eye on it,” Mike promised, “and occasionally use my nose to see if the fumes have dissipated.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Sunny got another coat and headed out to her Wrangler. She drove carefully in to work, arrived at the office with no problems, and settled into the daily routine.

But she found she couldn’t keep still. She’d be working on e-mails, when suddenly she’d get a vision of Will walking up to an apartment door and a gun battle erupting. Sometimes there’d be uniformed cops with him, and she’d see someone she knew like Ben Semple fall to the ground bleeding. Other times it would be Val Overton. Worst of all, though, her mind’s eye would see Will getting hit by a flying bullet, falling, and then lying motionless. She’d shake her head to bump that image away, but it kept coming back.

Sunny bent over her keyboard, trying to keep her thoughts on work alone, when the door abruptly swung open, making her jump. Will strode in.

“Is it over? Do you have him? Kilbane?” The words fairly burst from her lips.

But Will shook his head. “Ingersoll stuck his oar in, and he wants to dot every I and cross every T before we try to do anything.”

Captain Dan Ingersoll was the second in command in the Elmet County Sheriff’s Department. As a newly elected sheriff, Lenore Nesbit depended heavily on him for proper police procedure—maybe a little too much in this case, Sunny suspected.

Ingersoll wasn’t happy with the way Will tied up the last murder case, she thought. He’s got Will pegged as some sort of glory hound, after a high-profile arrest, whether it’s justified or not.

Will must have been tuned into her mind, because he said, “The captain thinks we’re reaching too far, that we don’t really know who this Bear is.”

“We suspect we know who he is,” Sunny tried to argue, but she knew that wouldn’t move an editor, much less a police captain.

“So I’ve tried to find out more,” Will said. “Your friend Jasmine has had a visitor in her apartment for the last couple of weeks, a guy with a motorcycle. He hasn’t been seen since the ice storm, when he apparently had an accident. The Harley has been under wraps, and Jasmine has hit several pharmacies for medical supplies.”

Sunny frowned, trying to call up a memory. “Jasmine said something last night about Bear being banged up.”

“At least he wouldn’t have road rash.” Will broke off when he saw the look of incomprehension on Sunny’s face. “Usually when a motorcycle goes down while it’s moving, the biker keeps on going and can scrape away a lot of skin on the pavement. On ice, the cyclist is usually more padded, and the ground is more slippery—that’s why the bike goes down in the first place.”

Sunny waved that image aside. “So we know Bear was out the night that Charlie Vane died.”

“So were a lot of people who wound up in hospitals—and a couple in morgues.” Will pulled out a sheaf of papers from inside his coat and put them on Sunny’s desk. “I managed to get copies of Kilbane’s file from a friend in the state police.”

She laid them flat, examining the mug shot appearing on the first page. The markings in the background showed that Yancey Kilbane stood several inches over six feet, and his shoulders were wide and husky. He had a surprisingly snub nose with shaggy brows and a shiny shaved scalp above and a big, bushy Fu Manchu mustache below.

“He doesn’t look very bearlike to me,” Sunny said. “Except for his build.”

“From what I’ve been able to find out, he let his hair grow back and sprouted a full set of whiskers now,” Will explained. “Don’t know if he did it for this job, but it certainly changed his look entirely.”

Sunny turned a page. “At least you have his fingerprints.”

“Yeah, but they won’t help until we’ve got him in custody.” He blew out an exasperated breath. “The problem is that Ingersoll wants to hedge his bets. If Bear doesn’t turn out to be Kilbane, we’re only asking him to assist in our investigation. If he is Kilbane, we might be stepping into World War Three, and the captain wants more than a few patrol officers trying to bring him in.”

Sunny blinked. “So where does he figure on getting this extra help? From Val and the federal marshals?”

“Ingersoll wants the state police tactical team. Which means additional hoops to jump through.” Will shook his head. “And more delay. Now I’m hoping we can get this operation underway before the kids start coming home from school.” He reassembled the papers on Sunny’s desk. “Wish me luck.”

“All of it in the world. And be careful, Will.”

He nodded and left.

Sunny couldn’t eat lunch. She got on the state police web site and saw pictures of the tactical team, feeding new and unpleasant daydreams. They looked professional as all get-out, in helmets and camouflage uniforms, assault rifles at the ready. One photo showed a guy poised with some sort of one-man battering ram beside a door. In Sunny’s mind, however, things kept going wrong. The Yancey Kilbane whose blurry mug shot she’d seen kept appearing in the doorway, wearing what would have been a ridiculous wig and fake beard except for the big handgun he was aiming, making even bigger holes in any things or people who got in his way.