Cat Cross Their Graves Read Online Free Page B

drill. They had attended more murder scenes than some of the rookies present. But that didn’t make this death easier.
    Certainly Captain Harper looked sick, so stricken that Joe wanted to put out a paw to him. The tall, thin chief watched the procedures in silence, his lined face pale and grim. Watched Garza finish photographing the body and surroundings and wind back the film of the old, reliable Rolleiflex camera, then shoot a few minutes of video, moving up and down the stairs. When he started toward the walkway above, the cats melted into the deepest shadows, Joe hiding his face and chest and paws by curling into a furry ball.
    When Garza seemed sure he’d missed no shot, he tucked the cameras into his black leather bag, then knelt and began lifting samples, picking up small bits of debris with tweezers, and using a small soft brush to sweep the tiniest flecks into evidence bags. Garza had been with Molena Point for just a year, since Max Harper hired him away from San Francisco PD, a change that Garza had been more than happy to make. Leaving behind him too many years of big-city crime, he had moved into his family’s vacation cottage at the north side of the village, a small old hillside cottage they jokingly called the Garza/Flannery estate. At about the same time Dallas left San Francisco, his niece, Ryan, after a painful divorce had also relocated from the city, to start her new construction company in Molena Point.
    As the cats crouched among the flowers watching Garza, they heard a woman start across the patio behind them, coming from the front gate, her hard-soled walk quick and decisive. They didn’t need to look, they knew Detective Davis’s step. Juana Davis crossed and stood at the top of the stairs beside Dr. Bern, studying the body, watching Detective Garza collect evidence on the steps below. The case seemed to be Garza’s call, but maybe both detectives would work this one, as they sometimes did. The cats could imagine the hours of interrogation as Harper and his two detectives questioned all the many hotel employees and guests. At last a stretcher was carried down the steps, Dr. Bern supervising the lifting and securing of the body, and Patty Rose was taken away.
    Garza studied the crime scene and photographed the area beneath where she had lain, then lifted some samples. When at long last he turned off the strobe lights, when the stairwell was once more in darkness, the cats dropped down onto the concrete steps, well below where the two detectives stood talking.
    â€œWas she alone?” Davis asked, puzzled. “Alone on the back stairs in the middle of the night? In her nightie?”
    Garza shrugged. “You know she was famous for that, getting a snack in the middle of the night, raiding the tearoom pantry.”
    Davis nodded. “Never could understand how she kept her figure. Patty’s…she’s slim as a girl.” Davis had a problem with weight; she was squarely built and, despite lengthy workout routines, the burgers and fries all went to fat.
    â€œHarper’s photographing and printing the pantry. The door was open, the light on.”
    Davis glanced toward the tearoom. “He need help?”
    â€œHe took a rookie to lift prints. Cameron, she’s good with that.” Jane Cameron had been on the force just a month, having come straight from San Jose PD, where she’d worked for a year after graduating from San Jose State.
    â€œWhere’s Dorothy?” Davis said, looking back to where a small group of employees had gathered, kept in check by Officer Brennan. Dorothy Street was Patty’s personal secretary. Davis glanced up to the narrow balcony that ran above the stairs. The dim, chill walkway, even in the daytime, gave no hint of the sunny apartments to which it led. At intervals beneath the concrete roof, the five doors were closed. No one had come out or gone in while the cats were there. Yellow crime-scene tape closed the