Cat in the Dark (23 page)

“He starts hinting that he wants answers. But he's too upset to come right out with the real question. And that isn't like Harper. He's the most direct guy I know. But this…Dulcie, this stuff is just too much.”

She stared sweetly into Clyde's face. “Why is helping him solve a crime a
whole damned thing,
as you put it? Why is catching a murderer, to say nothing of boosting the department's statistics and impressing the mayor and the city council with Harper's absolutely perfect, hundred percent record…”

“Can it, Dulcie. I've heard all that. You're beginning to sound just like Joe. Going on and on with this ego-driven…”

“Oh, you can be rude!” She was so angry she raised her armored paw, facing him boldly, waiting for an apology.

She would not, several months ago, have dared such behavior with Clyde. When she first discovered her ability to speak, she had felt so shy she'd even
been embarrassed to speak to Wilma.

Even when she and Joe began to discover the history and mythology of their lost race, to know that they were not alone, that there were others like them—and even though Clyde and Wilma read the research, too—it had taken all her courage to act natural and carry on a normal conversation. It had been months before she would speak to Clyde.

Wilma poured the cocoa and poured Dulcie a bowl of warm milk. Clyde sat trying to calm his temper. “Dulcie, let me explain. Max Harper lives a life totally oriented to hard facts. His world is made up of cold, factual evidence and logically drawn conclusions based on that evidence.”

“I know that.” She did not want to hear a lecture.

“How do you think Harper feels when the evidence implies something that he
knows
is totally impossible? What is he supposed to do when no one in the world would believe what the evidence tells him?”

“But…”

“Tonight, when Harper's phone rang, the minute he heard your voice, he went white. If you'd seen him…”

“But it was only a voice on the phone. He didn't…”

“Your voice—the snitch's voice—has him traumatized. This mysterious female voice that he links with all the past incidents…Oh, hell,” Clyde said. “I don't need to explain this to you. You know what he suspects. You know you make him crazy.”

Dulcie felt incredibly hurt. “The tips Joe and I have given him have solved three murders,” she said quietly.

Wilma sat down at the table, cradling her cup of cocoa.

Clyde said, “Every crime where you and Joe have meddled, Harper has found cat hairs tainting the evi
dence—and sometimes pawprints.
Pawprints, Dulcie!
Your marks are all over the damned evidence. Do you think this doesn't upset him? And now, tonight, you yowl into the damned telephone.”

“I didn't
yowl.
”

“
You
know the way he looks at you and Joe.
Joe
tells you the kind of stuff Harper says to me. How would you like it if Max Harper ended up in the funny farm—because of you two?”

“There is no way Max Harper is going to end up in a mental hospital. Talk about overdramatizing. Half of Harper's comments are just putting you on. And he only talks that way after a few beers.”

Wilma refilled Clyde's cocoa cup and tried to turn the conversation. “You didn't find any trace of Mavity?”

Clyde shook his head.

“We'll start early in the morning,” she said. “We can canvas the shops that were closed last night, see if anyone saw her.”

“The whole department will be doing that. Mavity is a prime suspect.” He reached to stroke Dulcie, wanting to make amends.

Reluctantly Dulcie allowed him to pet her. She couldn't believe that Max Harper would really suspect Mavity of killing Jergen. If he did suspect Mavity, he needed to know about Pearl Ann. She rose and moved away from Clyde, stood looking at him and Wilma until she had their full attention, until Clyde stopped glowering and waited for her to speak.

“Mavity isn't guilty,” she told them. “I was trying to tell Harper that, on the phone.”

“How do you know that?” Wilma said softly.

“Pearl Ann Jamison is the one Harper wants. I was
trying
to
tell
him that.”

They both stared at her.

“Pearl Ann Jamison,” Dulcie said, “is a guy in drag. I believe that he's the killer.”

Clyde burst out laughing. “Come on, Dulcie. Just because Pearl Ann's strong, and a good carpenter, doesn't mean she's a guy. You…”

“Are you saying I don't know what I'm talking about?”

“Of course not. I just think you and Joe…Joe's never mentioned this. What would make you think…”

“I know the difference between male and female,” she said tartly. “Which is more than you and Wilma seem to have figured out. When you get past the Jasmine perfume, Pearl Ann smells like a man. Without the perfume, we'd have known at once.”

“She
smells
different? You're basing this wild accusation on a
smell
?”

“Of course he smells different. Testosterone, Clyde. He smells totally male. It's not my fault that humans are so—challenged when it comes to the olfactory skills.”

Wilma watched the two of them solemnly.

“Pearl Ann smells like a man,” Dulcie repeated. “Half the clothes in her closet belong to a man. The IDs hidden in her room—driver's licenses and credit cards, are for several different men.”

Clyde sighed.

“One ID is in the name of Troy Hoke. He was…”

That brought Clyde up short. “Where did you hear that name?”

“I just told you. Pearl Ann has an ID for Troy Hoke. If you don't believe me or Joe, then ask Greeley—Greeley knows all about Pearl Ann.
He
let us into her room in the Davidson Building.
He
showed us the driver's licenses and credit cards hidden in the light fixture. He told us where Hoke parks the car he drives, that none of
you have seen. An eight-year-old gray Chrysler.”

They were both gawking at her, two looks of amazement that quite pleased her.

“That's where Greeley's been all this time,” she said patiently. “Camping in a storeroom at the Davidson Building.”

“Why didn't you tell us this before?” Wilma said. “It's not like you to keep something…”

This was really too much. “I just did tell you,” she hissed angrily. Clyde's skeptical questions were one thing, she was used to Clyde's argumentative attitude. But for Wilma to question her—that hurt. “We just found out tonight,” she said shortly and turned her back on Wilma, leaped off the table, and trotted away to the living room. If they didn't want to believe her, that was their problem. She'd call Harper back at once and tell him about Troy Hoke.

Leaping to the desk, she had just taken the phone cord in her teeth when the instrument shrilled, sending her careening off again.

The phone rang three times before Wilma ran in and snatched it from the cradle. She listened, didn't speak. She patted the desk for Dulcie to jump up, but Dulcie turned away.

“What hospital?” Wilma said.

On the floor, Dulcie stopped washing.

“How bad is she?” Wilma said softly. “Can we see her?” And in a moment she hung up the phone and hurried away to dress and find her keys.

M
AVITY'S
hospital room at Salinas Medical was guarded by a thin, young deputy who had been on duty most of the night. His chin was stubbled with pale whiskers, and his uniform was wrinkled. Sitting on a straight-backed chair just outside Mavity's half-open door, he was enjoying an order of waffles and bacon served in a plastic carton. A Styrofoam cup of coffee sat on the floor beside his chair. He was present not only to assure that the suspect did not escape—a most unlikely event, considering Mavity's condition—but to bar intruders and protect the old woman in case she was not Jergen's killer but was a witness to his death.

Mavity's room was not much larger than a closet. The steel furniture was old and scarred, but the white sheets and blanket were snowy fresh. She slept fitfully, her breathing labored, her left hand affixed to an IV tube, her right hand clutching the blanket. A white bandage covered most of her head, as if she were wearing the pristine headgear of some exotic eastern cult. She had been in the hospital since one
A.M.
, when she was
transferred there by ambulance from an alley in Salinas where she had been found lying unconscious near her wrecked VW. She had not been able to tell the police or the nurses her name or where she lived. The Salinas police got that information from the registration of her wrecked car. They had notified the Molena Point PD only after an alert was faxed to them that a woman of Mavity's description was missing and was wanted for questioning in last evening's murder.

Salinas Medical was an hour's drive from Molena Point, lying inland where the weather was drier and warmer. The hospital complex consisted of half a dozen Spanish-style buildings surrounded by a circular drive. It was a training facility for medical staff and a bulwark of specialized medical services for the area, including an excellent cardiac unit and a long-term-care wing for patients in need of intensive nursing. Wilma, Clyde, and Charlie arrived at Salinas Medical at five-thirty
A.M.

When Wilma had received Max Harper's phone call at four that morning, she and Clyde left her house in her car, making two stops, the first to drop Dulcie off at Clyde's place, an arrangement about which Dulcie was not happy. The last Wilma saw of the little cat, Dulcie was sulking alone on Clyde's steps, her ears down, her head hanging, looking as abandoned as she could possibly manage.

Wilma knew that the instant she drove away Dulcie would bolt inside to Joe, pacing and lashing her tail, complaining about the indignities a cat was subjected to by uncaring humans.

“They won't let you into the hospital,” Wilma had told her. “And I don't want you alone here with Bernine.”

“I could go in a shopping bag. They'd think I was extra clothes or homemade cookies. Don't you think
I
care about Mavity? Don't you think
I
care that that man might have killed her?”

“Or that
she
might have killed Jergen?”

“Nonsense.
You
know she didn't. I would fit in that canvas book tote. You could just…”

“Hospital security checks all parcels. They won't let you in. They'd throw you out in the street.”

“But…”

“Stay with Joe,” Wilma had snapped, and had unceremoniously tossed Dulcie into the car where she hunched miserably on the front seat.

The second stop had been to pick up Charlie, who was waiting in front of her building before the antique shop, sucking on a mug of coffee and snuggled in a fleece-lined denim jacket. She slid into the front seat between Clyde and Wilma, frowning with worry over Mavity.

“Has she remembered her name? Does she know what happened to her?”

“We haven't talked to the hospital,” Wilma said. “All I know is what Harper told me when he called, that she was confused and groggy.”

“Was she alone in the car?”

Clyde put his arm around her. “As far as we know, she was. They found the VW smashed against a lamppost, outside a pawnshop in the old part of town. Not a likely place for her to be in the middle of the night.”

As they sped east on the nearly empty freeway, the dawn air was damp and cool through the open windows, helping to wake them. On either side of the road, the thickly wooded hills rose dark and solid against the dawn sky. Soon they were inland between flat fields, the crops laid out in long green rows, the dawn air smelling of onions. When they arrived at Salinas Medical, Mavity was asleep, an IV tube snaking up her arm to a slowly
seeping bottle. In the corner of the room on a hard wooden chair, Max Harper dozed, his long legs splayed out before him. He came fully awake as they entered.

“I've been here about an hour,” he replied to Wilma's questioning look. “Haven't gotten much out of her—she's pretty confused.”

Clyde went out to the nursing station to get some chairs, and Charlie went to find the coffee machine, returning with four large cups of steaming brew that tasted like rusted metal.

“She has a cerebral contusion,” Harper said. “A lot of swelling. They had a shunt in for a while, to relieve the pressure, to drain off some of the fluid. And she's had trouble breathing. They thought she'd have to have a tracheotomy, but the breathing has eased off. She's irritable and her memory's dicy, but that's to be expected. Not much luck trying to recall yesterday afternoon. And when she can't put it together, she gets angry. They're waking her every two hours.” He sipped his coffee. He looked like he could use a smoke.

Wilma smoothed Mavity's blanket. “Were there any witnesses to the wreck?”

Harper shook his head. “None that we've found. We don't know yet whether another car was involved or if she simply ran off the street into the lamppost.”

Mavity woke just after six and lay scowling at them, confused and bleary. Her wrinkled little face seemed very small surrounded by the thick white bandage and snowy bedding. When Wilma spoke to her, she did not respond. She frowned at Charlie's wild red hair and glared angrily at Harper. But soon something began to clear. She grew restless, and she reached up her hand to Wilma, trying to change position, kicking out of the blanket with one white, thin leg.

Wilma looked a question at Harper, and he nod
ded. She sat down on the edge of the bed, helping Mavity to get settled, holding her hand. “You had a little accident. You're in Salinas Medical. We came over to be with you.”

Mavity scowled. Wilma smiled back. “Do you remember cleaning for Mr. Jergen yesterday afternoon?”

Mavity looked at her blankly.

“Mavity?”

“If it was his day, I cleaned for him,” she snapped. “Why wouldn't I?” She looked around the room, puzzled. “I was fixing supper for Greeley—sauerkraut and hot dogs.” She reached to touch her bandage and the IV tube swung, startling her. She tried to snatch it, but Wilma held her hand. “Leave it, Mavity. It will make you feel better.”

Mavity sighed. “We had a terrible argument, Dora and Ralph and me. And the hardware store—I was in the hardware store just a minute ago. I don't understand. How did I get in a hospital?”

“You hit your head,” Wilma told her.

Mavity went quiet. “Someone said I wrecked my car.” She gave Wilma an angry glare. “I've never in my life had a wreck. I would remember if I wrecked my little car.”

“When did you make sauerkraut for Greeley?”

“I—I don't know,” she said crossly, as if Wilma was being very rude with her questions.

“When did you and Dora and Ralph argue?” Wilma persisted.

But Mavity turned over, jerking the blankets higher and nearly dislodging the IV, and soon she dropped into sleep. They sat in a tight little group waiting for her to wake.

When she did wake, she jerked up suddenly, trying
to sit up. “Caulking,” she told Wilma. “Caulking for the shower. Did I buy the caulking? Pearl Ann is waiting for it.”

Wilma straightened the bedding and smoothed the sheet. “Pearl Ann sent you to buy caulking? When was this?”

But already she had forgotten. Again she scowled at Wilma, puzzled and disoriented, not remembering anything in its proper order. Perhaps not remembering, at all, Winthrop Jergen's ugly death?