Читать книгу The Night Serpent - Anna Leonard - Страница 9

Lily had gone outside to get some fresh air. She was waiting there, watching the cops canvassing the neighborhood, when Patrick and Petrosian finally came out. It was close to 4:00 p.m., and dusk was falling. She loved winter, but getting to it…Autumn just depressed her. She shivered, crossing her arms over her chest, less from the evening chill than the inner one. The spark of attraction that had warmed her earlier was long gone.

She tilted her head, looking for the first evening star. It was an old habit from her childhood, stargazing. But no matter how many times she looked, however much she read about constellations, the sky never seemed quite right to her, the ancient drawings in the sky never familiar. She kept looking, hoping that one night the patterns would suddenly make sense to her. They never did. They didn’t tonight.

“Sorry, took longer than I expected,” Petrosian said, breaking her concentration. “I just need you to give a report, and then you’re done. Okay?”

Normally she did whatever they needed her to do, and went home, or took the cats involved to the shelter for processing. This was different. Everything about this was different. Knowing that there were people who were cruel, who could do things like that; it was different actually seeing it. Experiencing it.

It made her ingrained distrust of the world suddenly seem like a good idea, not a handicap.

“Lily?” Petrosian was watching her, his careworn face filled with regret. “I’m sorry. I needed you to go in without any knowledge beforehand….” He had apologized more to her tonight than in all the time they had known each other.

Aggie and his daughter, Jenny, had adopted three cats from the shelter, two since she had worked there. Max, a red tabby, and Wilma, a calico shorthair. He had been the one to suggest her name when the department first needed a cat expert and had been her contact person ever since then. He knew more about her, simply through observation, than even members of her own family. He knew what he had asked her to do.

“Yeah. Me, too. Sorry, I mean.” Only she wasn’t sorry. She was angry. But without knowing where to direct that anger, it weighed her down and simply made her tired. And cold. The crisp night air seemed to cut into her bones. “It’s okay, Aggie.” No, it wasn’t. It was very much not okay. But it wasn’t Augustus Petrosian’s fault. “Let’s go.”

There were two police stations in Newfield, one uptown and one down. There was a substation, Lily knew, that was closer, but Petrosian took them to the uptown station instead. Agent Patrick excused himself the moment they arrived to make a phone call, and the detective handed her over to a sketch artist, a tall, rounded woman with a ready smile and ink stains on her fingers and a smudge on her freckled snub nose that made her look too young to be working in the police department. She introduced herself as Julia, and brought Lily to a square table in a small room off the main hallway, out of the flow of traffic. There wasn’t a door to the room, but the chatter, slams and creaks of station activity flowed around them, turning into a babble of white noise.

“All right. Detective Petrosian says you’ve got a scene for me?”

“I thought sketch artists did faces?” Lily didn’t really care, she felt too exhausted by what she had seen to worry about anything else, but it made for conversation. Conversation was easier than thinking. Kinder than thinking.

“Mostly, yeah. But we do whatever it takes to close a case, same as everyone else here. So. What’ve you got for me?”

So much for not thinking. Worse, they wanted her to remember.

Lily sat down at the table, in the chair Julia indicated, and closed her eyes. She had thought—had hoped—that once away from the site, the visual would fade. But the moment she shut out the distractions around her, it came back, and she began to describe it, slowly, trying to hit as many details as possible. Something stuck in her throat as she talked, and hurt, like it was hard-edged and heavy, and the more she talked, the worse it became.

“All right. I think I’ve got it.”

Julia’s voice seemed to come from far away, down a long tunnel. Lily opened her eyes, resurfacing into the noise and bustle of the police station. Julia was putting down her pencils and Agent Patrick was standing behind her, looking down at the sketch with a fascinated expression.

“This is what you saw?”

Lily frowned, confused by his question. He had been there, why was he so surprised? Julia turned the pad around and slid it across the table so that she could see. It was the cattery, but not abandoned now. Each cage was filled with four or five shadowy bodies: adult cats in some and kittens in others, almost all of them with dappled coats. Dishes overflowed with dried kibble, and water was slopped carelessly onto the counters. There was a figure in the middle of the room, but so roughly drawn that it was impossible to determine if it was male or female. Tall and lean: hunched over slightly as though expecting a blow.

“You saw this?” Agent Patrick asked again, his voice intent on the question. She responded almost unwillingly to the urgency in his voice.

“No. Not really. The room was empty.” He knew that. He had been there, too.

“But you described it. Every detail.” His voice wasn’t exactly doubting, but it was skeptical that she could have managed it without prior knowledge, something she wasn’t telling them.

Lily was too shocked to take offense. She looked at Julia, who nodded. “I don’t add anything the witness doesn’t tell me, not until we go to the next stage. Everything there’s what you told me to put down.”

Lily looked at the sheet again, and a sense of familiarity moved through her. Yes. This was what the room looked like. The cats, restless and calling each other. The figure moving among them, taking them away and—sometimes—bringing them back. The smells of food and urine against the stainless steel of the cages, the hint of antiseptic…

There was no way she could know any of that. But she did. As much as she knew anything that happened today. She could even pick out the shadowed forms of the cats that had been selected for death, there, in the far cage, segregated from the others.

“You psychic?” Agent Patrick’s voice had evened out, not making judgments in a way they had to teach in the academy. “Humor the crazy person, and then disarm them” would have been the motto of that class, no doubt. He probably got an A. It should have rankled, but looking at the sketches, Lily just felt tired. He was only doing his job, and part of that job was to doubt everything.

“No.” She looked at him, then down at the drawing again. “It was just how everything was laid out. This is the only way it could have been.”

That didn’t satisfy him, she could feel it in his gaze, in the way he looked at her, and then at the sketch, and then at her again. He didn’t accuse her of lying, but he didn’t quite believe her, either.

She couldn’t explain it. She couldn’t prove it was true, what she described. But it was.

“All spotted cats,” Julia noted.

“Yes.” She was certain of that, too.

“Tabbies, mostly. The slaughtered animals here had white paws. How common is that?” Patrick was staring intently at the drawing, clearly trying to work something out in his mind. He had put aside the question of her accuracy, and was working with the available evidence, no matter how dubious.

“What, mitting?” Lily said. “It’s pretty common, no matter what the coat’s color. Especially if he’d been breeding them—there weren’t that many queens in the room, so the gene pool was small.”

“Queens?” Julia asked.

“Breeding females,” Patrick said, surprising Lily with his knowledge. “A queen can breed every four months, anywhere from three to seven kittens in a litter.”

For a moment, Lily felt that spark running between the two of them again, a spark that had nothing to do with his dark eyes or undeniably masculine appeal—or his interest in her. A cat person. Or at least, one who had done his homework. That tied in to the feeling she had gotten from him at the scene: that he saw more than statistics and splatter.

Aggie had said the agent focused on animal abuse cases, something about him psychoanalyzing killers the way they did on TV shows. But that made her wonder—why was an FBI agent, a profiler, investigating something like this? What made cats important enough to interest a federal agency?

Suddenly Lily felt herself deflate. Of course he was interested in her, a cat person. It was part of his job. Well, that was what she was here for; to help him, however she could, to catch this guy.

“He—whoever was doing this—didn’t have more than three queens in the room, from the size of the cages. But a lot of kittens. You think he was trying to breed for a particular color?” Lily had never really thought about the genetic side of cats before; all she knew about different colors was what was more popular among adopters.

He shrugged. “I’m not ruling out any theories at this point.”

“And what is that point, exactly?” Why are you here? she meant.

Julia touched the sheet, the motion drawing their attention. “I’m sorry. I need to run this over to the detective. Lily, if you want to wait, I can make sure an officer—”

“I’ll make sure Ms. Malkin gets home safely,” Patrick said, cutting Julia off, and then smiling at her to soften his rudeness. “I’d like to ask her a few more questions first, if we can use this desk?”

“Yeah, sure.” Julia seemed flustered at being the focus of his attention, which Lily thought was odd, but then the artist gathered herself back into professional mode. “Will you want a copy of the sketch?”

“That would be wonderful, thank you.”

Lily watched Julia’s slender white hands gather up her pencils and the sketch, then disappear into the swirl of noise around them. Somehow, it seemed distant from her, even now. She had known about the queens, the female cats. How? How could she have known anything she had told Julia to draw? Extrapolation from a few cages and a smell could only go so far, but—

But, stop, she told herself, feeling the old, familiar, unwanted distress crawling back. Stop. Breathe, Lily. Breathe in through the mouth, out through the nose. Breathe, and be still. A lifetime of dealing with panic attacks—she might not need the technique on a daily basis anymore, but it still did the job. Her anxiety level dropped until she felt as if she could manage again.

“Why is the FBI investigating this?” she asked, once her breathing was under control.

“We have varied interests,” Patrick said, sliding into Julia’s seat with a grace that belonged to a more slender man. If he noticed her momentary distress, he didn’t mention it. “Why do they call you the cat talker?”

She shook her head, too worn-out to be either angry or amused at his evasion or the appearance of her hated nickname. “Who told you that?”

“One of the uniforms. Said you could talk to anything feline, get it to do what you wanted.”

“Anyone who said that knows nothing about cats.” Lily looked up finally, and in doing so was caught again by Agent Patrick’s gaze. Dark, yes, and intense, yes, and totally focused entirely on her, in a scary-nice sort of way. Oh. So that was what he’d done to the sketch artist. You could get lost in those eyes, just watching them watch you. It made her nervous. Something, hell everything about him was making her nervous. Like he thought she was one of his suspects, someone to be interrogated, bullied and pushed around.

“Oh?” His tone was smooth, inviting; much smoother than the look in his eyes. That voice was another thing the FBI probably issued its agents on their first day on the job, to go with the suits. And the guns, although she hadn’t seen Patrick’s yet. She didn’t doubt he carried one. There was something about him. That intensity, it had a purpose beyond getting answers. Or undressing women visually. She had seen it before; he was a man with a long-term goal, and Lord help the person who got in the way.

All right, maybe that was unfair. But she could practically smell the ambition in him, and it made her wary. Lily didn’t understand ambition. She had needs, desires, of course. Everyone did. But ambitious people carried a tension around inside them that made her tense up in return. She preferred the company of those who were comfortable where they were, who took days one at a time and who didn’t ask too much of life.

“There’s an old joke,” she said, shaking off her reaction and responding to his earlier question. “‘Dogs have owners, cats have staff.’ Or, ‘Dogs come when called. Cats have answering machines and might get back to you.’ All true. A cat will do something you ask of it because it chooses to do so. It won’t obey out of loyalty, or fear, or even love—merely choice.”

Cats couldn’t be used. Not that way. It was one of the reasons why she respected them.

Agent Patrick nodded, not laughing, or even smiling at her words. “And cats choose to listen to you?”

No. Cats chose to talk to her. They always had, even when she was a little girl and terrified of them. They would come to her, twine their lithe bodies around her ankles, look up at her as though she could solve great mysteries, and she would curl into a ball against the nearest wall and cry until her mother came and got her. She never got violent, the way some phobics did, and she never got angry—just sad to the point of overwhelming depression. She had wanted to like cats, in a way she never felt with people.

“My boss at the shelter claims I must smell like catnip, or something.”

The look in his eyes suddenly shifted. Lily wasn’t sure how, or why, but the interest deepened, his face changing slightly. It made her suddenly uneasy in a way even his previous intensity hadn’t, as though she had suddenly been dumped somewhere unfamiliar, without warning. The other man, the FBI agent, she knew how to avoid, and why. This man, the one with the glitter-bright stare, he was…Seductive was the only word that came to mind. Seductive, and dangerous, and appealing. Which were three words, but all meant the same thing. He was looking at her as if he wouldn’t mind taking a roll in some catnip, himself, right then. Like he wasn’t undressing her now, but was already inside her.

Lily knew herself pretty well. She was attractive, if you liked brunettes, too short, and had a reasonably curvy, if not stacked, body. Great hair, nice face. A solid B-grade on all fronts. Nice, but nothing that qualified for that kind of fascination. He was interrogating her again, only with a different question in mind.

“Look, I don’t know what Detective Petrosian thought I’d be able to tell him, or what you think I can do. I’m good with cats, yes. But—”

“Have dinner with me.”

“Excuse me?” She should have been expecting that, yet it still caught her off guard.

His thin lips curved in a smile now. The hint of white teeth showed between the pale red flesh, but the intensity of his eyes was, if anything, even more focused on her. Not undressing her, but getting inside her brain. Inside her soul.

She recoiled, and then scolded herself for recoiling.

All right, Lily, stop that, she told herself. You’re tired, stressed and overreacting. He’s just a guy. A cute guy. Why not have dinner with him?

“I’m a federal agent, miss. You can trust me.” She must have laughed at that. “Seriously,” he went on. “I have a few questions I want to ask you, but I just hit town and I’m starving. And we hijacked you out of your job—the least I can offer is dinner, as a thank-you for your help.”

Lily was oddly flattered, but shook her head. She wasn’t much for dating, and even if she were, a guy who was in town for two, three days tops? She needed more time than that to make up her mind about a guy. Even if he was as exotic as a Burmese, and friendly as a Maine coon. And on the hunt sure as any big cat she’d ever seen. “Thank you, but no. I’m just going to grab a ride back to the shelter, pick up my car and go home. It’s been a really long day and I’m not feeling particularly social. Detective Petrosian has my phone number and e-mail address, if you need to ask me anything more, but I’m sure there’s nothing I can add.”

She stood up, and then looked down at the agent, remembering that moment of sympathy she had experienced on the scene, over the bodies of the kittens. “Whoever did this, you’ll find him.”

It wasn’t a question, and Agent Patrick didn’t pretend otherwise.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Petrosian found him half an hour later still sitting at the table, a notepad flat in front of him, the unlined paper covered with circles with words scribbled inside them.

“So what’s the story?” he asked the cop, pushing the notepad away from him in disgust.

“The store was for rent. Last owner moved out four months ago, but market’s been slow, hasn’t even had anyone in to look at the space since then. It was the Realtor who found the bodies, called us in.”

“Four months.” Patrick reached for the pad and jotted that down as well. “We’ll need a list of anyone who might have known about the space, had access to the keys, that sort of thing.”

“Already have someone on it. Anything else you want us to dig into?”

Jon T. Patrick was smart. More, he was savvy. And he knew blue sarcasm when he heard it. So he dragged himself out of his thoughts and gave the detective his full attention. “You guys have it under control. I’m just working a side investigation, is all. A little project.”

“Uh-huh.” Petrosian maybe wasn’t as smart, but he was plenty savvy too, so he let Patrick’s comment go without challenge.

“Although…” Patrick knew it was stupid, but he couldn’t resist. “Tell me about your specialist, Ms. Malkin.”

Ms. Malkin. Lily. It wasn’t a name that suited her: a lily was a delicate, overscented flower. Malkin’s hazel eyes were tough, her body toned and muscled under the curves, her stride strong, and her scent…unscented. Powder and soap.

He usually liked perfume on a woman, liked placing his face against her neck and smelling the aroma rising off her skin. But perfume would be wrong on Malkin. It would be overkill.

He wanted to take her out to dinner. Nothing fancy: pasta maybe, and a bottle of decent wine. He wondered if she drank red wine. He thought maybe she did. Or maybe he was projecting. Patrick was amused at himself, despite the seriousness of the case. Profiler, profile thyself? Why was he so attracted to her? She was a hot little thing, yeah, but he’d seen better. But there was something about her that spoke to him, beyond the physical, and well beyond any use she might have to the case.

That attraction was bad. He couldn’t afford to be distracted. He had a steady rule: no female distractions on a case. After, yes. But he would be on his way home by then.

Petrosian looked at him carefully, and then answered. “Lily’s good people. She works as a teller down at West Central, that’s a local bank. Volunteers at the shelter. Lived here, oh, three, four years? About that. Went to school on the West Coast, doesn’t seem to have any family that she’s mentioned. Straight up, all straight up.”

“And she talks to cats.” She also had skin the color of a sun-ripened peach. He wondered if all of her skin was that exact tone.

Petrosian snorted. “She does something, that’s for sure. Years ago, I was a rookie, we had a cougar wander into town, get panicked. The local zoo sent over one of their people to try to get it back into a cage. Took us all night, half a dozen tranqs, and earned me a couple of nasty gashes before we got the damn thing cornered and caged. Last year? Lily damn near purred a big cat into walking on its own paws into the cage. Took maybe an hour, all told.”

Patrick wasn’t sure he entirely believed that, but they’d probably both seen stranger things in their years. “How does she do it?”

The cop shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care, and she won’t thank you for poking around.”

Patrick sat back in his chair. It wasn’t a warning-off. Quite. But he wasn’t on the prowl; he wasn’t going to do anything that would hurt her. His interest in her was about the case; he really did have questions he wanted to ask her. A traditional expert would be by the book. This case didn’t feel by the book. The cats had been clean and well cared for, and killed with what could almost have been reverence. Maybe talking to the cat talker would give him the point of view he needed to understand how and why.

Petrosian looked at the schoolhouse-style clock on the wall. “I’m still on shift. I’ve got other cases to deal with before they let me out of here. A patrolman will take you to your hotel. If we catch any new info, I’ll give you a call.”

That was a clear dismissal. Slaughtered animals were a crime, but they weren’t a high-priority one, not even in a relatively sleepy New England city. FBI man could do whatever he wanted, but the cops weren’t going to hold his hand while he did it. That suited him fine, actually.

Still, Petrosian lingered. “You going to need anything else for your ‘little project’ before I sign off on the paperwork?”

“No, I think I have everything I need for now.” Clearly, he was supposed to skedaddle, as his mother used to say. Patrick closed his notebook and stood, feeling the joints in his knees and hips creak distressingly. He wasn’t getting old, just road-worn. He’d been on another assignment when the call came about this find. He’d barely had time to hand over his notes to another agent and throw some clean clothing into a case before catching his flight to Newfield. “I think I’ll grab some dinner and do some more research.”

“You do that.”

Petrosian watched him walk out; Patrick could feel the man’s gaze between his shoulder blades, like an infrared targeting mechanism. But he had been in cities where the cops were actively hostile, not just cautious, and he had learned not to take offense where none was intended.

The hotel he’d been booked into was pretty standard: a decent enough bed, small bathroom, inexpensive toiletries. But it had hot water, a desk he could work at and a twenty-four-hour restaurant next door. All the comforts of home. But somehow, showered and dressed, his notes spread out in front of him and covered with his scribbles and yellow Post-its, he wasn’t in the mood to work, or to go downstairs and eat alone.

You’re on the job, he told himself. Don’t be an idiot. The lady said no, and you shouldn’t have asked in the first place anyway.

Not letting himself think about it, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed the phone number he had jotted on the edge of his notebook before handing back the original file to the police clerk.

“Lily Malkin? It’s J.T. Patrick. Agent Pa—yes, that’s right. Hi. Look, I know you said that you weren’t interested in dinner, but I really want to bounce some ideas off you, and…well, I hate eating alone. Especially when I’m away from home. In a new town. Save me?”