“Then you are looking for a fixer-upper,” Charlie said. She daren’t look at Joe, the tomcat shared fully her amusement at Clyde ’s pitiful carpentry skills. She knew that Ryan was convinced Clyde could convert his magic touch with cars into an equally impressive skill with houses. Ryan had said they’d make a great team, but Charlie wondered if that was just the dream of a new bride.
“We’ve looked at five open houses already today,” Ryan said, “and we have a late appointment with Helen Thurwell to show us some others. Right now, we’re on our way up to look at the Baldwin Ranch. It’s been vacant nearly a year, and it is listed. And I want to swing by the remodel, see how the men are coming on the drain.”
“They’re working on Sunday?”
Ryan nodded. “It’s like a circus on the weekend. The neighbors keep coming around asking what we’re doing. Digging a bomb shelter? Putting a swimming pool in the garage? We lock the garage at night to keep kids and animals from getting down in there.”
The four-bedroom house Ryan was renovating was charming, but the client, who had owned it less than a year, had discovered during last winter’s rains that the finished downstairs rooms had, in fact, turned into a swimming pool, the house having major water problems left undisclosed in the “as is” sales contract.
Checking the drainage system, Ryan had found heavy leaks under the garage and into the basement, generated by a hidden spring uphill from the house, a flow that she didn’t think even the usual French drains could fully handle. She’d decided to put in a bold new drainage system under the garage. As they couldn’t get a backhoe under the roof, her men were digging by hand, working on Sunday by special permission of the building department.
Ryan said, “Did you check on the kittens? Who let the mama out?”
“Not a clue,” Charlie said. “Joe and Dulcie…” She paused, watching the tomcat. “What? What is it?”
In the backseat, Joe Grey had reared up, his paws on the open window sill as he stared down the hill into the neighbors’ wooded yards. Glancing quickly at Charlie, he shook his head almost imperceptibly, his voice silenced, the look in his yellow eyes wary. They all looked where Joe was looking but saw nothing unusual.
Dropping down onto the seat again, the tomcat spoke softly. “Someone was standing halfway down the hill under that big cypress tree, looking up at us. He’s gone now but I’ll just have a look…” Before Clyde could reach over and grab him he’d leaped out, was across the yard and up the nearest pine. Scrambling toward the top, he appeared and disappeared among the dark branches, then vanished into the highest, thickest foliage.
JOE PEERED DOWN from the top of the tree, clinging to a frail and precarious branch, his paws sticky with pine sap, the prickly limbs tickling his ears. Scanning the yards below, he could see no one now standing among the bushes, and not the faintest movement of shadows. Off beyond the village, a stretch of sea danced with reflections of light like tiny signal fires.
The lower street was empty, too, and when he looked back along their own street, scanning the two blocks to the Parker house, he could see no car there; Detectives Davis and Garza must have left. He felt gratified that Davis had put enough credence in his anonymous call to not only work the scene herself but to bring Dallas Garza back for an even more thorough look. Along the sidewalk and around the ragged bushes ran a line of bright yellow crime scene tape. It circled the house and pool in an enticing invitation to nosy neighbors and small children. Just below him, all three were scanning the lower yards. Ryan had taken a pair of binoculars from the glove compartment. Joe thought she’d search with those, but instead she looked straight up the pine tree, fixing her sights on him.
TO RYAN, EVEN with the binoculars the gray tomcat was just a shadow among the concealing branches. Only the white smears of his belly and nose and paws were clear, where he hung over a branch peering down to the lower street. When she turned the glasses downward to look where he was looking, she still could see no one. She glanced at Charlie, but Charlie shrugged and shook her head. Beside her, Clyde started the car. She reached over, turned off the engine. “You weren’t going to wait for him?”
Clyde sighed, and settled down to wait for the tomcat, watching the wooded yards below. Nothing stirred below, no movement but the shiver of breeze through the trees and bushes. No car was visible on either street. High above them the tomcat shifted position. What had he seen? Had there been someone watching, or only a passing neighbor?
“He saw something he didn’t like,” Charlie said. “I’ve never known him to be wrong.”
“You don’t live with him twenty-four seven,” Clyde told her.
“He isn’t stuck up there?” Ryan said. “You sure he can get down?”
Clyde laughed. “Wouldn’t that be a trip, if Joe panicked, forgot how to back down a tree and started yowling like a scared kitten. If we don’t get a move on, we’ll miss our appointment. Helen Thurwell doesn’t-”
“Wait,” Ryan said. “Listen.”
A car had started on the lower street, a quiet engine. In a moment they saw a flash of white go by. Clyde reached to turn the key, but Ryan was quicker. “You won’t get far, tailing a guy in a bright yellow car!” She was out of the car before he could stop her, running downhill, racing away, cutting through the woods as the white car was slowed by the sharp curves. As Charlie ran for her Blazer, Clyde started the roadster’s smooth-purring engine and moved uphill to the next cross street where he could turn back onto the lower road. Charlie watched him, then peered up at Joe Grey, some forty feet above. She didn’t intend to leave him. It was Joe who’d spotted the eavesdropper; it was Joe who’d uncovered what could be a murder scene. It would be cruel to leave him behind-to say nothing of the tongue-lashing they’d receive later. “Come on,” she hissed, digging her keys from her pocket. “Hurry up!”
11
A SLAB OF BARK flipped off the tree as Joe backed down. He nearly lost his grip and went slithering down as clumsy as a drunken squirrel. He hit the ground running, leaped into Charlie’s SUV through the open driver’s door, jumped across her, and landed on the seat. He looked up at her smugly, as if he’d planned that acrobatic descent. She hid a grin, gunned the engine, and took off.
From the top of the tree he had watched Ryan running down the lower road, chasing the white car, had glimpsed flashes of white among the foliage as it slipped away to disappear beyond the pines. Ryan was making good time. Straining to see, he’d glimpsed the car turning left at Ocean, up toward Highway 1. By then, he could no longer see Ryan but he could hear the faint echo of her racing footsteps. A startled crow screamed, a harsh and affronted cry as she passed beneath him. Behind her, Clyde ’s yellow roadster flashed into view, racing to catch up with her and stay on the guy’s tail.
Now, Charlie made the same U-turn, heading down the hill. “Did you see him turn? Did you see which way?”
“Left, toward the freeway,” Joe said. “I hope it was the same white car.” He looked over at her, frowning. “What good is this? A red SUV and a bright yellow roadster. About as subtle a tail as a dozen black-and-whites with their sirens blasting.” He tried to recall what he’d seen of the man, to bring back the hastily glimpsed details of that dark-clad figure standing in the bushes halfway down the hill. He’d seen him for only an instant before the guy turned suddenly and moved away, to vanish like a shadow among the lower houses. A thin man in a dark green windbreaker and dark jeans. And a hat? Yes, a brown slouch hat pulled low over his face, hiding it from Joe’s high vantage point among the branches.