[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

gleaning a little from the plot. One of the main characters lived in an expensive condo on the Upper West Side. Now that fit nicely with the missing
file card bearing the address of Betty Hyde s condo. The fictional man was a married cheat. Better and better. The cat would not shut up.
Mallory looked back to the window and tried to convey, by narrowing eyes, that the cat must stop, and right now, or she would dispatch it to kitty
heaven. The animal misunderstood, its own eyes narrowing to the slits of I love you, too. Then the cat was on its hind legs, pawing at the glass with
mewls of, Let me in, now, now, now.
Mallory raised the sash. But, before she could terrorize the small animal, it slipped under her arm and into the room, depositing cat hair on the
sleeve of her blazer in passing. It ran through the galley kitchen and into the front room.
She shrugged. What the hell. Bosch was dead, the apartment was tossed, let the cat steal what it could. It was nothing to her.
It began the mewling again. Mallory looked at the cat with a new idea for making it shut up. A rare change of heart caused her to abandon that
solution. The cat would have enough problems out on the street without a fresh injury.
She watched it hook a paw in the closet door and open it. After a brief search, it was out again and sniffing the floor. It came back to the bedroom
to rub up against her leg. The plaintive meowing ceased, and the soft roar of purring began. Mallory repressed the urge to kick it. She pushed it off
with her leg. And now the cat went to the bookshelf and knocked out the bottom cartons of computer ribbon to pull out the catnip toy.
Not a stray.
Mallory got up and walked into the galley kitchen. She looked in the cupboard. All the dishes were neatly stacked, but one seemed out of place, a
bowl sitting on the dinner plates. Over the blue ceramic glaze, the word Nose was printed in gold letters. The cat was staring up at her, and now she
noticed the long gray marking around the muzzle, a shading she had taken for dirt. It had the comic illusion of making the cat s nose seem long and
bulbous. Nose was well named.
It was mewling again. Mallory put one hand on her hip, drawing back the blazer to expose the bolstered gun, forgetting momentarily that this gesture
would have no effect on a cat.
The cat stood up on its hind legs and twirled in a circle, dancing with delicate, practiced steps. Done with dancing, it sat quietly staring at the bowl
in Mallory s hand. And now the small animal had been further reduced in her eyes. The only thing a cat had going for it was the refusal to do stupid
pet tricks. This one had copped out.
She opened a can of tuna, guessing food would keep it quiet. The cat ate as though it had been starved.
She went back into the bedroom and set the printer to spit out the cued-up files. And now she checked the closet and looked down at the cradle on
the floor.
A cradle for an abortion!
She walked into the bathroom. In the closet under the sink was a long plastic box, the kind used for Kitty Litter. It was dusted with black powder, but
there were no prints. The killer had cleaned the litter box.
This apartment was not the crime site; she knew that after a careful inspection of the other closets. She sniffed the insides of the closet doors for
the familiar odor of the recent cleaning. He wasn t cleaning up after a break-and-enter. This was a place where he had spent a lot of time. He was
the one Amanda Bosch had locked out of her subfiles, her novel. She might have done that if he figured prominently in the book.
But he had left the card file behind. How convoluted was he?
Of course.
He had to leave the addresses of the clients for the police, so they wouldn t have to go looking on their own, maybe asking for public assistance on
the evening news. It fit. The park site where the body was found was only a few minutes walk from Hyde s condo. It was the address he was hiding.
Now she went over the rooms of the apartment with greater care.
Details, said Markowitz from the room inside her brain which she had outfitted with his favorite chair, a rack of pipes and a pouch of cherry-blend
tobacco. Details.
She went through the canned goods in the kitchen pantry. Two cans of fish, but no pet food. Well, some people were a little strange about animals.
Now she found the vacuum in the living room closet and pulled it open. The bag was gone. Heller would have taken it. Around the insides of the
vacuum cleaner she found cat hair.
The cat was rubbing up against her leg again, depositing more hair. It stood up on hind legs, soft paws on her jeans. Mallory bent down and picked
up the cat s paws.
No claws. Not an outside cat. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]