Cat Pay the Devil by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

exchange for handling all repairs andregular maintenance on Beckwhite’s customers’ vehicles. Joe watched, peering through the roadster’s windshield and the big doors as Clyde disappeared into a back garage.
    In a few minutes, a new white Lexus SUV eased out from the back. Clyde pulled it onto the front drive, put the roadster in the shop, scooped Joe up from the front seat, and dropped him in the SUV. Threatening the tomcat with mayhem if he clawed, or even shed upon, its soft black leather, he shut the big shop door behind them, and headed for Gilroy.
    After two blocks, as he turned onto Highway 1, headed for 101, Clyde fished his cell phone from his pocket and dropped it on the leather seat. “Try Charlie. Max couldn’t reach her.”
    â€œShe always carries her cell. Where would she be, that she wouldn’t answer?”
    â€œRiding, Max thought.”
    Frowning, Joe punched in Charlie’s number. When she didn’t answer, he tried the number for the Harper’s small, hillside ranch. In both instances there were four rings, then the voice mail clicked in. Pressing disconnect, he stared at Clyde.
    â€œTry Ryan.”
    Joe went through the same routine: same pattern of four rings, then a message recording.
    â€œRiding,” Clyde said again; but a worried frown darkened his brown eyes.
    Â 
    The old man slipped away after watching the police action around the Getz house, having seen and heard enough to know that Wilma Getz had disappeared. This made him smile. Sure as hell, Cage had her. Served the old bitch right.
    He guessed he’d better get on over to Lilly’s while he stillhad the chance, before Harper sent someone to search the house again, because that cop would be sure to do it. He’d have to make it damn fast, knowing Harper. He hoped to hell Cage wasn’t there.
    Not likely, though, with cops crawling all over. Specially as that car Cage’d been driving when he left here, that old blue Plymouth thick with dirt, that’d be easy enough to spot if there’d been a witness. Someone must’ve seen it, to call the law. Well, Cage wouldn’t go home, Cage was smarter’n that. Maybe he’d stashed Wilma there, and now would take off down the coast. Or head north. Either way, Cage knew how to lose a cop on them back roads. Thinking about that, Greeley headed up the hills on foot, toward Cage’s place, moving fast, thinking how best to approach Lilly Jones, how best to handle her.
    The Jones house stood above the village on the ridge of a canyon that cut down from the Molena Point hills, an old brown house, tall and narrow, an ugly frame structure with straight sides, surrounded by brittle-leafed eucalyptus trees that, in the faint wind, shook and rattled against the siding. Ten small windows in the front, five above, five below.
    Greeley walked for several blocks, circling the house, looking for Cage’s car. Didn’t find it. Back at the house, he studied the drive that sloped down to the garage beneath the two floors; the drive was covered with dust and leaves. Didn’t look like Cage or anyone else had pulled in there for a long time. He was about to approach the five brick steps that led to the front door when a water company truck turned onto the street, parking a block down. A pair of uniformed utility workers got out and knelt by the curb.
    Removing a heavy metal lid, they peered in, making notes, fiddling with the meter or the pipes or whatever; they took their time, then moved on to the next meter box.Pretty late in the day for water company personnel, unless there was an emergency. Was this a stakeout, waiting for Cage? He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but a chill of unease filled Greeley.
    But what difference, if they were cops? They weren’t watching him, they had nothing on him. It was a free country. He had started toward the steps again when a gas company truck pulled up from the other direction,