Cat Raise the Dead (22 page)

Earlier, on a hill above the Prior estate, the two cats crouched, looking down at the old hacienda, enjoying the warm sunshine after climbing up through fog so thick they thought they were under the sea. Licking hard at their damp fur, energetically they fluffed their coats, licked beads of fog from their whiskers and paws. Directly below, the old hacienda and stable stood faded and dusty-looking, their tile roofs bleached to the color of pale earth, their adobe walls lumpy with the shaping of patient hands long since gone to dust.

Beyond the old buildings, the main house rose sharply defined, its tile roof gleaming bright red, its precision-built walls smooth and white, and its gardens and lawns neatly manicured. The hilltop estate at this moment was an island, the sea of fog lapping at its gardens and curved drive. Far away across the top of the fog, the crowns of other hills emerged: other islands, an archipelago. And the real sea, the Pacific, and the village beside it were gone, drowned in the heavy mists.

Above the estate, on the sun-drenched hill, the warm grass buzzed with busy insects, ticking away beneath the cats' paws. And as Joe and Dulcie rested, washing their ears and faces, from below came the soft cadence of Spanish music, electronically broadcast songs from somewhere within the hacienda, music plucked out of the air in a manner never dreamed possible when this hacienda was built, when the only music
available came from live musicians blowing and jigging and strumming.

Three cars were parked before the old homeplace, all late-model American makes. Evidently the house staff, like the employees of Casa Capri, were well treated.

“If Adelina hires so many Spanish-speaking people,” Dulcie said, “she must speak Spanish herself. How could she control someone if she didn't know what they were saying?”

Joe smiled. “Or if no one knew she spoke Spanish, she'd be ahead of them all. Could really keep them in line.” He batted at a grasshopper, knocked it off its grass stem, but released it. “Whatever's going on at Casa Capri, those nurses with no English might not have a clue.”

He studied the cemetery below them, off to their right, the dark, misshapen headstones set among thick old oaks. They could see the police barrier of yellow ribbon at the far side, strung around a rectangle of raw earth. Dolores Fernandez's open grave. “What makes Harper think no one will bother the grave just because he tied a ribbon around it?”

“Maybe there's a guard.”

“Do you see a guard?”

She shrugged, a brief twitch of her dark tabby shoulder. “Maybe the gardener or handyman?” They could see no one on the grounds, though they could hear someone tinkering, an occasional metallic click above the radio music, coming from the direction of the old stable. Dulcie yawned, stretched, and they trotted on down into the shadowed woods of the cemetery.

The grass beneath their paws was clipped short and smooth, was as well kept as any park. It had been cleared of leaves, and was trimmed neatly around the thick oak trunks and around the old headstones. Some of the graves had sunk, forming shallow depressions. The old granite markers were deeply worn by water and wind, their crumbling edges blackened with dirt, their
ornately written Spanish epitaphs dark with soil, some nearly illegible. Several headstones featured the angel of death, with hands beckoning and wings outspread. Other grave markers were carved with hollow-eyed, bony skulls. They found one happy-looking angel, a cherub-faced child with a broken nose. Farther on, two blackened angels joined hands, dirty-faced and naughty. They did not know the meaning of the epitaphs, but
muere
appeared twice, and Dulcie thought it meant death.

Se muere como se vivi
.

No se puedo creer eso ella es muerto
.

Walking softly, they approached the cordoned-off grave and trotted under the barrier of yellow police tape.

The body had been removed; only a hole remained, neatly excavated. The investigating team had not taken only bone samples, as the newspaper said.

Circling the raw earth mound, they sniffed at the shovel marks and at an occasional shoe print where the police and the forensics examiner had been working. Outside the ribbon barrier, clods of raw earth lay scattered across the grass.

They did not know precisely what they were looking for—but they were looking for anything strange, any small detail the police might have missed, but that a cat would see or smell. The grave did not smell of death; it smelled of moldering earth.

There were marks in the earth where pieces of the casket had lain, and they could see the bristle marks of a small brush, as if the excavation had been as carefully attended as an archaeological dig.

“We could dig deeper,” Dulcie ventured.

“And find what? They have the bones. And don't you think they dug deeper beneath the body?” He prowled beyond the grave, nosing among tree roots, sniffing at the grass.

Once, they thought they caught Teddy's scent, but
they couldn't be sure. They could find no wheel marks from Teddy's rolling chair. Quartering the cemetery, trotting over the smooth turf and protruding roots that bisected the lawn like huge arteries, they moved in a careful grid, working back and forth. Twice more they caught Teddy's scent. But it was old, faded, and mixed with the sharp perfume of grass and leaves and earth.

But then, suddenly, a powerful smell stopped them. The stink made Joe bare his teeth in a grimace of disgust, made Dulcie back away.

The smell of death, of rotting flesh.

Approaching a heap of dry oak leaves, where the smell came strongest, Dulcie froze.

“Cyanide. I smell cyanide, too.” The smell made her gag and grimace. The leaves were piled against a tree, as if they had been missed by the lawn-care equipment, by the vacuum or blower or mulching mower. It was the only pile of leaves in the neatly manicured cemetery. Dulcie lifted a reluctant paw, lightly pulled away leaves, hating the cyanide smell. She had, earlier this year, been shocked to find the same deadly chemical lacing her freshly served salmon.

Now she raked angrily at the tangle, pawing it away.

Revealing, half-hidden beneath the pile of leaves, a lump of dark, raw meat.

She thought at first it was a lump of human flesh, then she saw that it was hamburger, half-rotted, a disgusting mound several days old. The combined stink of rotting meat and the almondlike smell of the cyanide forced bile into her mouth. She turned away quickly, gagged, and threw up on the grass.

Joe regarded the bait with disgust. “We can't leave that mess for a dog to find.” A cat, of course, would have better sense than to go near it; no cat likes rotten meat, no cat would roll in rotten meat the way a dog does.

Holding their breath, they dug a hole deep into the sandy loam, and, by pushing a heap of leaves against the
meat, they managed to paw it in. They had covered the hole with earth and leaves and had moved away where the air was fresher, were scuffing their paws in the grass to clean them, when Dulcie stared at the turf between her paws.

“There's a little crack here. Look at this. A little thin crack in the earth, under the grass.”

The line was as straight as a ruler. She pressed her nose against it. “And the grass blades go in a different direction.”

When they followed the line, they found another, crossing it. Pacing, they made out an even grid of crossing lines. Someone had laid sod here, piecing it so cleverly that one would never see the cracks unless one's nose was practically against them. From a human's view, they thought, the turf would seem undisturbed. Fascinated, Dulcie skinned up a tree for a look from a person's height.

Yes, from six feet up the grass stretched away smooth as velvet, a clean, unbroken turf. “No one would know. They could…” She paused, watching the hills above. “There's a rider coming. Do the Priors keep horses?”

“Harper said they don't. Remember, he sounded disgusted that Adelina would waste such a nice barn.” Joe grinned. “He was really annoyed that she didn't have the place full of horses.”

Horse and rider were too far away to be seen clearly, and on the crest of the hill they stopped; the rider sat his horse, looking down toward the cemetery.

“Can he see us?”

“I doubt it. And what difference?”

She studied the rider's tall, slim form, his easy seat, the tilt of his head. “I think that's Harper. Let's get out of here.” She leaped out of the tree, and they moved away, going deeper among the shadowed headstones. They had just settled down where they knew they wouldn't be seen, when the roar of a motor started up, coming from the stable and heading in their direction.

Rearing up, they could see a big riding mower, the dark-haired driver wheeling it directly toward the graveyard. Irritated, they moved out of his path, into shadows between the trunks of six big oaks.

But the mower turned, making straight for them again, toward the exact spot where they crouched. Unnerved, they ran, quitting the grove, racing flat out toward the main house.

Azalea bushes bordered the back patio. They crouched beneath that shelter, at the edge of the wide brick terrace. “Nice,” Dulcie said, looking out. The sunny expanse was furnished with heavy wrought-iron chairs cast in the patterns of flowers and twining leaves and fitted with soft-looking, flowered pillows. Pots of red geraniums set off this outdoor sitting area, and at its edge, wide glass doors opened into the living room and the dining room, where they could see polished floors, and rich, dark furniture.

From within the house they could hear the roar of a vacuum cleaner, accompanied by the same Spanish radio station that played behind them in the old hacienda, the brassy cadences of a metallic horn and guitar.

The French doors to the sunken living room stood open. They glanced at each other and grinned. There was no need to break and enter—-they could waltz right on in. If cats could do a high five—and did not find such antics beneath their dignity—they would have been slapping paws.

In fact, they could enter the house almost anywhere; nearly every window stood open, welcoming the sunny morning. Along the second floor, six sets of French doors stood ajar, giving onto a row of private balconies. And far to their left, facing the patio, the kitchen door was wide-open. Beyond the corner of the house, they could see two cars parked, the door of one open, as if someone were unloading groceries or perhaps ready to leave.

Behind them, the mowing machine grew louder; it had not entered the grove after all, it had gone along the edge, then turned back. Roaring past the terrace, its spinning blade cut swiftly across the short lawn just above them.

They were about to make a dash into the living room when the maid with the vacuum cleaner entered—stepping on stage right on cue, Dulcie thought, annoyed. Her machine roared across the wood floor, then was muffled by the thick oriental carpet.

They headed for the kitchen. Moving swiftly beneath the azalea border, around the edge of the patio, they pressed against the wall of the house beside the kitchen door, then slipped along to peer in.

The kitchen shone bright with sunlight, light poured across the rosy tile floor and across the tiled cooking island. The aroma of something meaty, with cilantro and garlic, forced a moment of involuntarily whisker licking.

A maid stood at the sink washing tomatoes, surrounded by hanging pots of herbs and flowers; her view through the window was of the wide blue sky and of the cars parked beside the kitchen. Dulcie sat very still, admiring the bright room. Joe never ceased to wonder at her love of anything beautiful; as if her little cat spirit had, in some life past, been a reveler among the arts. There was, within his lady, far more knowledge and spirit than any ordinary cat could ever contain.

“Move it,” she said, nudging him.

The maid had turned her back to them. They sped past her and through the kitchen into the dining room. They paused within the shadows beneath a huge, ornately carved, black-lacquered banquet table, a monster of Spanish elegance.

Looking back toward the sunny kitchen to see if they were observed, they watched the maid dancing and jiggling to the brassy trumpet. And they saw, as well, trailing across the kitchen's clay tiles, two lines of fresh, damp pawprints.

“They'll dry,” Dulcie breathed hopefully. But the prints would leave little dirty paw marks; they both knew that too well. The fact had been pointed out to them more than once, by their respective housemates.

Crouching among the forest of carved table legs, Dulcie nosed appreciatively at the Persian carpet, its colors as vibrant as an oil painting. She rolled over, luxuriating in its dense, soft weave. Joe was watching her, amused, when the vacuum cleaner headed their way. Between the mower outside and the vacuum cleaner within, the world seemed inclined toward a science-fiction horror scene of sucking and slicing adversaries. As the machine approached they fled again, racing for the foyer, where they could see the front stairs.

A gold-framed mirror hung beside the carved front door, reflecting the curving stairway; the stairs' soft carpet was woven in patterns as bright and intricate as a bird's feathers. Quickly they raced up, listening for any sound from above. Who knew how many people Adelina Prior employed to keep her house?

Upstairs they followed the central hall, followed a hint of Adelina's perfume. Where the first door stood open, Adelina's scent was strong. They slipped inside, tensed to leap away. The room was huge, done all in white. They crossed the thick white carpet and slid beneath a chair, half-expecting to be yelled at, to have to run again, this time for their lives.

Crouching beneath the chair in Adelina's private chambers, they could hear no sound. Beyond the dazzling white parlor, they could see into her bedroom and mirrored dressing room; the walls of mirrors reflected all three rooms, and reflected the huge, luxurious bath—as if the layout had been planned, not only for ample reflection of Adelina's perfectly groomed image, but to afford complete and instant surveillance of her private quarters.

They could see that the suite was empty, that they were alone. They could hear faintly, from downstairs, the hum of the vacuum cleaner.

The deeply padded white leather couch and chairs looked as soft as feather beds. The rooms smelled of the expensive leather and of Adelina's subtle, smoky perfume, the scents combining into the aroma of wealth, tastefully and egocentrically displayed. But it was the vast expanse of thick, snowy carpet that fascinated Dulcie. She pawed at it and rolled on it, her purrs rising to little singing crescendos. “This is better than rolling on cashmere. Why didn't Wilma put in carpet like this when she redecorated?”

“Because this stuff would cost her life savings; I'd bet several hundred bucks a yard.” He gave her an arch look. “Adelina lives pretty high, considering those old folks at Casa Capri make do with Salvation Army cast-offs for their sitting room.”

The white carpet stretched away to pure white walls unsullied by any ornament or artwork, and to a white marble fireplace so clean that surely no smallest stick of wood had ever burned there. That pristine edifice was flanked by tall French doors standing open to the balcony, where three large pots of bird-of-paradise stood guard. Adelina's view would be down over the front drive to the dropping hills and the village and the sea beyond.

The large, carved desk was the only piece of dark furniture. Dull and nearly black with age, it stood alone on one long white wall, its four drawers fitted with black, cast-iron handles. As they approached this impressive vault they heard, from the garden below, the mower rounding the corner, making its way toward the front lawn. Its vibrating rumble, louder than the vacuum cleaner, would mask any sound of a maid approaching, or of Adelina herself entering her chambers.

Together they fought open the bottom drawer and pawed through desk supplies: unused checkbooks, notepads, labels, pens, all neatly arranged, nothing that seemed of great interest. The next drawer up contained packets of canceled checks tied with red string, a stack of used check registers, bundles of paid bills. Dulcie wanted to take the checks, but the packets were too bulky. At the bottom of the drawer, beneath these neatly tied records, lay a small black notebook. Joe took it in his teeth, lifted it out, and on the carpet they pawed it open.

Each page was marked with a Spanish name accompanied by a short personal history that included arrest records; convictions, mostly for such offenses as failure to file income tax, failure to report as a noncitizen, failure to file social security papers, or, in some cases, passing NSF checks. All the names appeared to be female, but who could be sure, unless one knew Spanish.

Joe's yellow eyes gleamed, he pawed at the pages, smiling. “Personal dossiers.”

“Blackmail material.”

“I'd bet on it.”

The next drawer held stationery and printed envelopes, but tucked beneath the thick creamy paper they found a list of numbers, each with a date entered beside it, and some with two dates. These extended over a fifteen-year period. The list made no sense—yet. They slipped it into the notebook and slid this beneath the desk, far to the back.

Before they left the sitting room, Dulcie licked away cat hairs from the white rug, where they clung prominent as a road sign.

Moving into Adelina's bedroom, they avoided the white velvet bedspread, which cascaded onto the carpet; probably it would pluck hairs from them like sticky paper. The bed and dresser were of black wood, light-scaled, and slender, maybe of Danish design. They rifled the dresser drawers but found no papers or photographs among the expensive silk lingerie; the silk and handmade lace were more than Dulcie could resist. She rubbed her face against the neatly folded garments, rolled on them, slid her nose beneath a satin teddy.

“Come on, Dulcie, leave the undies in the drawer. You go trotting out of here dragging that black lace, and we're dog meat.”

She smiled sweetly.

“And don't curl up in there; you're leaving cat hairs.”

Reluctantly she leaped out. “How often do I get to look at lingerie from Saks or Lord & Taylor? Don't be so grouchy.” She cut him a green-eyed smile and licked up a few cat hairs that she had left on the lace.

In Adelina's mirrored dressing room they were surrounded by roaming cat reflections; the sudden feline entourage, the crowd of mimicking cats unnerved them both. Soon their paws felt bruised from fighting open drawers, and their efforts netted nothing more than a half hour survey of fashion that numbed Joe's brain and caused Dulcie to speak in little hushed mewls. Adelina's
designer outfits offered a degree of luxury that left the little cat giddy and light-headed.

Outside the bedroom, below the open glass doors, the mower chugged back and forth, guttural and loud, the air perfumed with the clean scent of cut grass. Leaving the suite, they listened at the hall door, then slipped out, tensed to run.

The hall was empty; and the next door opened on a room so plain it must belong to Adelina's maid.

The tan bedspread was of the variety seen in the boy's rooms section of an old Sears catalog, and the desk and two chests could have come from the same page. The room was strewn with skirts and sweaters dropped and tossed across the floor and across every available surface. Maybe the occupant had made many costume changes, this morning, before settling on an outfit for the day. Or maybe she liked to have everything handy, within quick reach, not stuck away in the closet. The skirts were long and gathered, some in flowered patterns, some plain. The sweaters were baggy, and snagged.

Dulcie said “Renet. This is Renet's room.”

“That figures. It looks like Renet. What it is about that woman, she's such a nothing.”

Dulcie moved toward an inner door. The room smelled faintly of Renet, and of some sharp chemical, a scent pungent and sneeze-making. “It smells like those photographs. The ones Renet gave Adelina.”

“Photographer's chemicals?” Joe said. “Maybe she has a darkroom.”

“Why would she go to the trouble of a darkroom, when she can take her film to the drugstore?” Pressing her nose to the crack, she sneezed. “Yes, it comes from here.” She switched her tail, and leaped, twisting the doorknob and kicking at the door.

“Maybe she's a professional photographer,” Joe said. “They don't use the drugstore. To a professional, that's like taking your Rolls Royce to a Ford mechanic.”

“How do you know so much?”

“Clyde used to date a photographer.”

Dulcie crossed her eyes. “Is there any kind of woman he hasn't dated?” She leaped again, kicking harder, but the door didn't budge. And there was no little knob to turn the dead bolt. Only a key would open it. She dropped down, ears flat, tail switching.

The dresser drawers were no more enlightening, yielding nothing more exciting than Renet's white cotton underwear and flannel nighties and more baggy sweaters. Besides the closet, which was nearly empty, Renet's clothes being kept handily on the floor, there was a built-in wall cupboard with drawers beneath.

The drawers were locked, but the cupboard itself, when they pawed the doors open, revealed shelves filled with assorted small cardboard boxes, a few children's toys, some cheap china knickknacks, and several cameras. Crammed among the clutter was a doll; they could see just a wisp of blond hair and a flick of white lace. Dulcie reared up, looking. “Is that the doll Mae Rose gave to Mary Nell Hook?”

“Why would Renet take the doll away from Mary Nell? The old woman seemed really happy to have it. Why would Renet want…Well hell, she is a mean-hearted broad.”

Dulcie crouched to leap up onto the shelf, tail lashing for balance, but she dropped back again as, from the hall, the sound of the vacuum cleaner approached, sucking and roaring, its bellow suddenly louder as it slid from the hall runner onto the bare hardwood, heading for Renet's door. They froze, staring, then streaked away through the open French doors to Renet's balcony.

Crouching behind a clay pot planted with ferns, they watched the machine, guzzling and seeking, come roaring into the room; and they shivered.

They were not inexperienced kittens to cower at a vacuum cleaner, but that kind of machine stirred a deep, primal fear, a gut terror about which neither Joe nor Dulcie could be reasonable.

Besides, any machine that could suck up crew sox and sweater sleeves was to be respected.

The maid guided the blue upright around the discarded clothes, moving nothing, circling each cast-off item, scowling as if this business of a messy room might be some private vendetta between herself and Renet. She'd be damned if she'd move one item. She was a middle-sized, middle-aged, dumpy, and unremarkable woman, her black uniform and ruffled little cap reminiscent of an English comedy on TV. A few strands of gray hair protruded from beneath the edge of the frilly cap. Moving toward the cupboard, she paused as if to close its two doors, but instead she lifted out the doll, seemed very familiar with it, as if perhaps she had done this before.

Her back was to them, but they glimpsed the movement of the doll's pale hair and could see a flash of white and a long slim leg. The maid's arm moved as if she were stroking it or smoothing its hair. Clutching the doll, she seemed about to carry it away with her, but then she sighed and returned it to the cupboard, tucking it back among the boxes.

Shutting the cupboard doors, she moved on into the adjoining bath—they could hear the water running as she scrubbed the sink and tub—and began to sing. Her words were in Spanish, the melody sad and slow and enhanced by the heavy echoes of the tiled walls.

Even a cat's singing resounds better in the bathroom; the reverberations from the surrounding hard surfaces tending to make one's voice seem full-bodied and professional. They remained on the balcony listening, a captive audience, until she returned at last, drying her hands on a paper towel. Before she left Renet's room, she tried the inner, locked door.

She twisted the knob and pushed, and when the door wouldn't open, she pressed her ear against the panel. But at last she turned away, with a closed, dissatisfied expression.

Pausing again at the cupboard, she reached as if to open it, then seemed to change her mind, headed for the hall.

“Why was she so interested in the door, interested in the next room?” Dulcie said softly.

Joe didn't answer; he stood rigid, looking intently in, at the locked door.

“Maybe,” Dulcie began…

But he was gone; the balcony beside her was empty. She whirled around, caught a flash of gray as he vanished over the rail into empty space.