But even as she pressed the disconnect button, she saw the first squad car pull quietly to the curb. Bless Harper’s men for being so fast! They must have been nearby, even closer than the station, men already in their squad cars, their engines running. Two more units sped past the house, racing to spot the fleeing car.

“You didn’t describe the men,” Kit hissed. “Tell her-”

Moments later, a second squad car halted at the curb, and Max Harper swung out as four uniforms took off running, to surround the house. A key clicked in the front door; the door banged open so fast, the cats only had time to back against the shutters. Chief Harper and two uniforms moved fast, toward the bedroom. The instant they were past, the cats streaked through to the laundry and bolted out Dulcie’s cat door; they just missed being trampled as the two other cops moved quickly up the steps, their hands on their weapons. Dulcie and Kit dropped from the porch into a flower bed, Kit’s eyes wide. This was not the usual procedure for a break-and-enter-but the law didn’t fool around when it came to an escaped convict. And Max Harper didn’t play gentle when a close friend, and his wife’s own aunt, might be in danger.

W hen Dulcie frantically phoned the station, Joe Grey was asleep in the chief’s empty office, sprawled across Max Harper’s desk; he snored softly, less than thirty feet from the dispatcher’s cubicle, so deep under that he didn’t hear a thing until Mabel shouted. He heard Harper double-time up the hall from the coffee room, then, as if she had turned on her speaker, heard the voice on Mabel’s phone. Joe woke up, alarmed, leaped from the desk, and peered around the door, up the hall.

Mabel Farthy never lost her cool, the amply built older blonde was totally in control in any emergency as she juggled radio, phones, fax, computers, and officers milling around her counter. But not so now. Her voice shook and she was swearing. She stood gripping the chief’s arm, upset indeed, as, from the shadows of the hall, Joe listened to Dulcie’s frightened voice on the phone and tried to play catch-up, his every muscle tense with alarm.

An hour earlier he had been lounging on the desk in Detective Dallas Garza’s office as Dallas and the chief discussed a second break-in killing, another woman murdered in her bed. Joe had come into the station, on the heels of Detective Garza, to see what new information might be forthcoming on the first death, and now they’d been discussing a second one. What was coming down here? Some de-ranged burglar who wasn’t satisfied simply to steal and get out, but who got his thrills in other ways? The coroner had already told them that the first victim hadn’t been sexually molested-just sadistically blown away. And as the officers began to put this second killing together, they waited for autopsy and fingerprint reports on the first one, for which they had two sets of prints besides those of the dead woman and her husband. But there had been workmen in the house, a carpenter and a plumber repairing a bathroom, and the officers expected the prints would turn out to be theirs. Now, with a second, similar case, questions had multiplied like jackrabbits. Joe had lain curled up in Dallas’s in-box, sharply alert beneath shuttered eyes, watching Dallas lean back in his desk chair, put his feet up on the blotter, and flip open a file.

The square-faced Latino detective’s usual sunny smile had vanished. “Marital trouble in both cases. Five domestics at the Tucker address since the first of the year, four at the Keatings’. Linda Tucker was a shy little thing, real quiet and reclusive. But Elaine Keating…”

“Right,” Harper had said. “She was bad news.”

“Three of those call-outs, Linda pressed charges for battery, and was told how to get help and find shelter. Didn’t do much good. She took him right back.”

The detective had sipped his coffee, reaching to stroke Joe Grey, giving Joe a look of amazement-whether amazement that the cat hung around the department, or surprise at his own friendly feelings toward a feline, Joe wasn’t sure. For a dog man, Dallas Garza was coming right along, and that made the tomcat smile. Dallas had, when Joe first met him, considered cats about as appealing as gutter rats.

“We could have a kinky burglar,” Harper had said, “or a copycat murderer. Common knowledge Tucker was sleeping around. Maybe his wife threatened to walk.”

In that case, Joe thought, she didn’t handle the problem very well. Even a cat could have told her that a battered woman should keep her plans to herself, get her own affairs in order, put her money where the man couldn’t reach it, and then quietly get out. Follow her escape plan and lay low, not telegraph her intentions. No different from a sensible cat quietly stealing away from a pack of coyotes, no disturbance, no movement through the grass to give himself away, just gone. And this sure would be true if a woman had children to get out safely-or pets. It hurt Joe deep down when a fleeing wife, in her haste and terror, left a dog or a cat behind. The poor creature was nearly always abused; most abusers would do that to get back at a woman.

“Elaine Keating had some money of her own,” Max said. “A small inheritance she kept in a separate account. Trouble was, she put his name on the account.”

Dallas shook his head. “If this is a copycat murder, I hope to hell it doesn’t start a rash of wife killings.” The detective studied the gray tomcat sprawled across his papers. “What does he find so fascinating? We don’t have mice in here.”

Harper shrugged. “This is one of the coolest buildings in the village, with these thick adobe walls.”

“And in the winter?”

“One of the warmest.” Max stared at Joe. “His visits couldn’t be because Mabel feeds him, hides away little snacks for the cats?”

“Then why isn’t he on Mabel’s desk instead of mine?”

“Likes your company,” Harper said. “If we get an article or two in the paper, to head these guys off…Help them remember we keep a list of wife abusers from past reports…” Harper rose to refill his coffee cup from the pot on the credenza.

“And maybe enlighten the abused wives,” Dallas said. He scratched Joe Grey’s ear. “Put those women on alert-without inviting a lawsuit. I’ll call Jim Barker, he’s a good reporter.”

“Who would sue us? We won’t be printing their names.” But Harper grinned. These days, some people would try to sue the cops over a traffic ticket.

The chief rose and moved away down the hall on some errand, and in a minute Joe heard him going downstairs, where the emergency center and shooting ranges were located. Dallas had picked up the phone and was making a date with Barker for a private lunch; but when the detective turned on his computer and started filling in tedious travel sheets, Joe leaped down and trotted along to Harper’s empty office, which was darker and quieter; he never had liked the click of computer keys.

Now, an hour later, having been awakened by Mabel’s shout from the dispatcher’s cubicle, he listened, alarmed, to the canned female voice from Mabel’s speakerphone-Dulcie’s voice, talking to both Mabel and then to Harper when she knew the speaker was on.

“…isn’t in the house, I’m sure. But the house has been ransacked…”

“How do you know this?”

“I…The door was unlocked. I thought I’d glimpsed her car go in the garage, so I knocked. When she didn’t answer, I tried the garage door. It was locked, but I smelled a whiff of exhaust, like she had just gotten home. I thought it strange that she didn’t answer, and knocked again. When she still didn’t come, I got worried. That’s when I tried the back door.

“It was unlocked, and I stepped into the kitchen. I was about to call out when I saw the house was all messed up, furniture overturned; then I heard men’s voices from the back. But I didn’t hear Wilma. I ran out, called you on my cell. I saw two men run out…One was-”