Cat Shout for Joy Read Online Free PDF Page B

mark, and the second to die. Max’s new notation gave the hour, location, and date. Cause of death would wait for the coroner’s report.
    One interesting fact, new to the cats, was that three of the victims had only recently moved to the village from San Francisco; and that one had been vacationing there, taking a week off from his job at San Francisco General Hospital as a physician’s assistant.
    â€œSo, San Francisco vectors in,” Dulcie said. She cut a look at Joe, knowing what his take would be. Joe didn’t believe in coincidence. If you dug long enough you could usually claw out a connection. The tabby gazed hungrily at Max’s computer, thinking of the victims’ files. With cool speculation, she reached a paw.
    Joe stopped her with a quick swipe of claws. “If Evijean barges in here, finds us alone before the lit screen, you want to guess what would happen?”
    Dulcie smiled a crooked smile, but she jumped down. They’d have to wait until Max or one of the detectives was into the program, some moment when they could lie on the desk idly washing their paws as they shared departmental information.
    Or wait until one or two officers stopped by Joe’s house after his shift, maybe for a few hands of poker with Max and Clyde. Max would talk freely in the Damen household, as would Ryan’s Uncle Dallas. Dulcie looked at Joe. “How long do we wait for a poker game?”
    Joe shrugged, he wasn’t hopeful.
    Dulcie said, “Talk to Ryan, she’ll get something going.” This wouldn’t be the first time Ryan would conduct behind-­the-­scene assistance—­she was deceptively casual when she eased Clyde into an unplanned poker night for Joe’s benefit: Joe’s dark-­haired, blue-­eyed housemate did love a conspiracy.
    But now, “I don’t know,” Joe said. “As hard as she’s working, and the cranky mood she’s in, I’m not sure she’s up for a poker night. Tekla Bleak, that woman with the remodel, she’s driving Ryan crazy. New complaints every day, foolish and arbitrary changes. Ryan comes home at night as snarly as a possum in a trap.”
    They were quiet as two officers came down the hall. When they’d passed on by, Joe dropped from the desk and peered out toward the lobby. No sign of Evijean—maybe she was sitting at her desk, hidden by the counter. They made a dash for the front door as Officer Brennan came in herding a young man before him, unwashed and smelling of whiskey.
    Slipping out the door behind them through the miasma of alcohol, they scrambled up the oak tree. They sat on the tile roof only a moment before they headed across the roofs again, moving south and east in the direction of John Firetti’s veterinary clinic. Despite their preoccupation with the attacks, their strongest urge was to sit with Misto. While we can still be with him, Dulcie thought sadly.
    Below them along the narrow streets the traffic was heavier now. The fog was thinning, the shops were open, and a few tourists had left their motels, looking up at the sky hoping for sunshine. The smell of coffee and sweet confections rose from the little bakeries, the smell of late bacon and eggs from the small cafés, from clusters of tables in street-­side patios. The cats were passing above a tree-­shaded court when they stopped, looking down, watching two strangers below. A woman with a cane was limping through the patio toward one of the shops. Behind her a short, older man had turned into the courtyard, walking without sound following the woman, his eyes intently on her; she seemed unaware of him.

 
    4
    L ooking down from the roof, engulfed in the smells of café breakfasts, Joe and Dulcie watched the woman in tight black workout clothes limp along toward the back shops of the little courtyard, watched the man following her. Her cane was one of those folding aluminum models. Her face and arms were