"Augor Prey is getting ready to split, packing clothes and shaving gear in his jacket. He just called a cab."

"Will you repeat your message?"

"Prey's ready to skip. Tell Detective Garza, now! I don't know where the tail is. There's a guy watching him, but I don't think it's your man." Joe watched Prey lift the mattress, shouldering it up high enough to reach clear to the middle, deeper than Joe had been able to search without smothering himself. "Well, I'll be damned," Joe said. "I think-tell Garza that I think Prey has the letters."

He watched Prey carefully stuff a little packet wrapped in clear plastic, into his inside pocket. It looked like letters; he thought he could see a ribbon wrapped around the small bundle.

Garza came on the line. He was as matter-of-fact as Harper had been lately. As if maybe Harper had talked to him about this snitch, had told him this informant was eccentric but reliable. "Is Prey's car still there?"

"It's there," Joe said. "He's called a cab. Guess he means to leave the car, and leave his bag in the room, just walk away as if he's coming back. He's armed. If that is your man right outside Prey's window, he's too close for you to risk your calling him."

"There is no officer on duty."

"You've had a tail on him all day."

Garza hesitated as if not sure how much to trust this stranger.

"That officer is back at the station," he said at last. "We have not sent a replacement. You say someone is watching Prey?" Garza's voice was sharp.

Joe leaned over the gutter, peering down. The guy was still there. "You have no tail on him now?"

"No tail. If you'd give me your name…"

Joe watched the squarely built, darkly dressed figure, caught a glimpse of a pock-marked cheek.

"That's Richard Casselrod," he hissed suddenly. "Casselrod's tailing him-black sweatshirt, black cap and shoes."

Prey left his room and in a moment came out the back door of the house, looked around him, and quickly crossed the side yard.

"He's making for the back street," Joe said softly. "He's standing in the shadows of a cypress tree. I can hardly see him under the low branches. Casselrod's following him, moving in behind him."

Casselrod made not a sound. Nor did Garza. The phone sounded like it had gone dead.

"Are you there?" Joe whispered.

No one answered; Garza was gone. Joe watched a cab turn into the street, its lights reflecting across darkened house windows. As Prey started toward the taxi, Casselrod lurched out of the night and grabbed him, swinging Prey around and shoving a gun in his face.

Jerking Prey's jacket back over his shoulders to confine his arms, Casselrod took Prey's own gun. Joe watched him pat Prey down and remove the plastic-wrapped packet from Prey's shirt pocket.

Holding his gun on Prey, Casselrod backed toward the cab. At the same moment, police cars moved in from both corners, parking diagonally to block the narrow street. Detective Garza swung out, followed by three uniforms. They grabbed Prey, and Garza was on Casselrod. Kicking him toward the cab so he went off-balance, Garza swung him around, taking his gun and forcing him against the vehicle.

Within seconds, Prey and Casselrod had been searched and cuffed and secured in the backseat of a squad car. Garza had their guns, and he had the plastic-wrapped package. Joe Grey sat on the roof smiling with satisfaction as the black-and-whites pulled away, taking the two to their new accommodations. He hoped MPPD could offer them a long, extended visit.

27

The setting moon painted a line of brilliant light along the clouds' ragged edges, a display so spectacular that up on the hills the two cats paused from devouring their freshly killed rabbit and sat looking toward the heavens, held by that burning stitchery.

It was only a few hours since Augor Prey and Richard Casselrod had been arrested, a positive event in an ongoing scenario that seemed, to Joe Grey and Dulcie, far more nebulous than the clouds shifting above them. The department had Prey's.38 revolver. By tonight or tomorrow the ballistics report should be in. With that thought to cheer them, the cats fell to again, sharing their warm, bloody kill.

They ate in silence, making a leisurely meal, then washed up, licking gore from their whiskers. Around them the tall grass shivered in the predawn wind. What concerned the cats at the moment was that Vivi and Elliott had been released.

They had no idea on what grounds Garza had picked up the Traynors and brought them in for questioning; but the thought that they were free again was not encouraging. They had no notion, either, what Adele McElroy might have learned from NYPD about the Traynors.

"If this comes down the way I think," Joe said, "Vivi and Elliott could split any minute-get edgy and pack a bag the way Prey did, and they're gone. Well, Harper and Garza will be expecting that." But still, he began to pace, looking restlessly down the hills toward the Traynor cottage.

"Relax," she said complacently. "You know Harper has an officer in place. And they weren't packing earlier. I watched until they went to bed."

"A tail won't know until they get in the car and take off."

"So, the law will pick them up." She licked blood from her paw. But then she rose, with a little half-smile. "You're not going to rest until we have a look." And she took off down the hills. Galloping through the forest of tall grass, the two cats could not be seen-only the thrashing line of their flight wildly tossing the grass heads.

Dropping down off the hill, they raced beneath a rail fence and through a garden that had been decimated by grazing deer, its roses nibbled away until only ragged fragments of petals remained, scattered like potato chips. Down through the village gardens they sped, as the courthouse clock struck five, then swiftly across empty side streets. Approaching the Traynor cottage, they passed the department's surveillance car, an old blue Plymouth Rent-A-Wreck parked four doors away, its engine and tires still warm, the smell of coffee perfuming the air around it, though no driver was visible.

The Traynors' black Lincoln was gone. The house was dark. Scorching up the oak tree to the high living-room windows, they looked down through the glass.

"They haven't moved out," Dulcie said. "Vivi wouldn't leave that tangerine satin robe, it's too gorgeous. She wears it every morning." The room was its usual mess, the robe tumbled across a chair under Vivi's red sweater, a pair of sandals tossed on the coffee table next to an empty cup and a torrid-looking paperback romance, the heroine with enough cleavage to hide a sheep dog.

Dropping to a lower branch, they looked into the study.

The computer still reigned on the desk like a small electronic god. The stack of research was still on the shelf. Only the new chapter was missing; there were no freshly printed white pages aligned neatly beside the blotter. The cats waited for what seemed hours, and no sign of the Traynors. The sun was pushing above the hills when Charlie's old Chevy van pulled into the drive, its bright blue paint glistening, its rebuilt engine purring. Last year Clyde had completely rebuilt the engine and fixed the rusting body, pounding out dents, applying filler and primer, then expertly sanding before it was painted-a labor not of love but in return for Charlie's carpentry work on the neglected apartment building that Clyde had purchased. Their exchange of work had been a fair trade all around.

They watched Charlie swing out of the van, hauling her caddy of cleaning supplies to the back door, to disappear inside. Soon they heard her loading the dishwasher, then opening cupboards.