Catch as Cat Can Read Online Free

very minute stole the hubcaps off her Ford Falcon. Coop's here at the scene of the crime, if you will, and she told me to call you. You wouldn't have any Ford Falcon hubcaps, would you?”
    â€œYeah,” Sean's voice lowered. “I just bought them from the dude who must have stolen them. Dammit.”
    â€œWe'll be right over.” Harry clicked the end button on the phone. “Hey, Coop. He's got them.”
    â€œMy hubcaps?” Miranda's hand fluttered to her throat.
    â€œHe said he just bought them off someone. If they aren't yours it's an odd coincidence. I said we'd be right over.”
    â€œMrs. Hogendobber, do you feel settled enough to drive your car over there? I'll follow in the squad car.”
    â€œOf course I feel settled enough.” Miranda couldn't believe the deputy thought she was that ruffled by the theft.
    â€œI'll tag along, too, if you don't mind.” Harry picked up Pewter, who was wandering in the direction of the supermarket. “I was going that way anyway.”
    â€œFine.” Cynthia opened the door to the squad car.
    Mrs. Murphy sat in Harry's lap as she backed out of the parking space.
“First the woodpecker, now the hubcaps. What next?”
    â€œExtinction by death ray.”
Pewter giggled.

4
    Like ants at a picnic.” Mrs. Murphy marveled at the humans, about twenty, walking through lots of elaborate broken columns, pediments, sarcophagi all neatly divided according to function.
    The short drive to the building was dotted with large terra-cotta, stone, and ceramic pots. Next to the stone lot was a marble lot with large sheets of roseate marble that must have come from an old hotel lobby, smaller pieces of veined green marble, a bar top perhaps, which rested next to jet-black marble, again all neatly stacked. The largest outdoor lot was filled with rubble from stone walls, building foundations, some blocks hewn square and others natural.
    The indoor rooms of the main building contained wooden cornices, fireplace mantels, pilasters, handblown glass, hand-hammered nails, a cornucopia of treasures.
    A railroad siding ran parallel to the main building. A flatcar filled with heavy stone cornices, lintels, and copings was near the building. Flatbeds delivered materials and perhaps an old car once a week. Behind that was an old red caboose which stayed as yet unrestored.
    Sequestered in the rear of the four acres was Roger's garage shop. Fast-growing pines shielded it from view. Dotted around the various outdoor lots were small neat buildings. They looked like garden sheds and contained tools, old tractor parts, and other items needing protection from the elements.
    The animals found the debris less fascinating than the humans but occasionally a whiff of a former occupant, another dog or cat, lingered. Such olfactory information was recent, of course. No such signature wafted from shards saved from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
    Harry was amazed at the salvage yard's transformation into a kind of architectural dumping ground. The last time she had visited, Sean's father, Tiny Tim, who was tight as a tick with his money, jovially presided over the place, one big yard filled with rusting cars. Tim collected old gravestones as he was interested in the stonemasons' carvings. He'd talk about the tombstones, then move to the broader subject of death. Tiny Tim vehemently opposed autopsies. When he died his wife and sons did not request one so no one knew exactly what he died from, but a lifetime of smoking, drinking, and eating anything that didn't eat him first probably did him in.
    Sean, long and lean, wore a faded orange canvas shirt tucked into carpenter's pants. Grease was not ground into his hands, no smears of oil or dirt besmirched his shirt. He could have been a greengrocer except for the carpenter's pants.
    One wall displayed specialized tools used in restoration: elegant chisels, small hammers, larger ones, tiny butane torches