“This Leroy Huffman,” Pedric said, “did she tell you anything else about him?”

“She said he’d lived all his life in their little town, and had always been in trouble, but his family had always been tight with those who ran the town, that the present sheriff and Leroy’s father were second cousins, and that Leroy and his two brothers could get away with anything.”

“But how do the pictures fit in?” Kit said. “The ones of the Home and the children?”

“In the house in Eugene, she had found one old, yellowed clipping about the brother, Ralph, and a child abduction. She tried to check on him, to see if he was a registered sex offender, thinking the information might help in some way, but molesters living in Oregon aren’t required to register.” She said no more, but they were all thinking of the dead man and the little child in the plaza. Could Ralph Wicken have tried to kidnap her, and the man fought him off, and Wicken killed him?

“Did she see if he was registered here?” Pedric asked.

“She tried on that Web list,” Lucinda said. “For California, and then the national one, but he wasn’t listed in either.”

The kit began to fidget, thinking about Betty Wicken’s fingerprints on the broken pot shards, and what those prints might show. Did Betty Wicken have a record? And was Wicken their real name, or an alias? Was that why Ralph didn’t show as a registered sex offender?

But now, with Betty’s fingerprints, could the department identify her? And if she had a record, would it show information about her brother? So much to learn, Kit thought nervously, all based on the fingerprints lying unguarded among the bushes, hidden only by a few rotting leaves. She looked intently at Lucinda.

“What?” Lucinda said uneasily.

“We have Betty Wicken’s fingerprints,” Kit said with a twinge of guilt.

Lucinda was very still. “You promised me, Kit, not to go down there.”

Kit looked at Lucinda, as wide-eyed and innocent as a kitten.

“Where are the fingerprints?” the thin older woman said patiently.

Silence.

Lucinda sighed. “Down in that house?”

“Not exactly.”

“You are not to go down there again, for any reason. Particularly now that we know more about those three. Is that clear, Kit?” It was. Kit dropped her gaze in consternation.

But Pedric looked at Kit slyly and rose from his chair, and hiding the first smile the cats had seen all morning, the old man put on his outdoor shoes and his jacket, questioned Kit further, and then went down the hill himself.

Despite his somewhat shady past, Pedric Greenlaw was a tall, erect, white-haired man as dignified-looking as a federal judge. No one who saw him wandering the oak woods would suspect him of prying into the lives of others-even when he knelt to dig among the wet leaves and lift out the white plastic bag, slipping it swiftly under his coat. Pedric had been raised from childhood to the skills of a pickpocket and shoplifter, talents of which he was no longer proud but that could sometimes be put to good use.

F ELINE PROMISES ARE not, from a cat’s viewpoint, really meant to be kept. Except, of course, when the cat is closely watched and can do little else. Five minutes after Pedric returned up the hill with the evidence hidden in his coat, while he was busy in the kitchen and Lucinda was on the phone to Max Harper, the cats slipped out and headed for the rental house, reassured that the pot shards were on their way to the police.

Even as they raced down through the wet woods, they heard the Greenlaws’ garage door open, heard the car start. They ducked when they glimpsed Lucinda backing out. Then, in a moment, her car came around and down the hill on the street below, heading for the village with the plastic bag, delivering, hopefully, a vital key to the identity of the strange neighbors-certainly Lucinda might notice her neighbor drop a flowerpot and, already curious and entangled in the mystery of who these people were, would of course hike on down at the first opportunity, and fetch the possible evidence.

Perfectly logical, Pedric said. No need for the snitch to be hanging around the kit’s house, to “accidentally” see that evidence, no need to invite unnecessary connections regarding the cats. They had already been in the cops’ faces this week, during the murder investigation at the plaza, and during the search for the little girl, why encourage unnecessary speculation and awkward questions?

But now, with neither Lucinda nor Pedric watching, the cats approached the rental house studying the blind-covered windows above them. Didn’t anyone in there ever want to look out at the daylight, or ever long for a breath of fresh air?

The driveway was still empty, the car still gone, and so, presumably, was Betty Wicken. There was no sound from within the house, the morning was quiet except for the scratching of a fat gray dove, in the bushes. Were the two men gone? If they, too, had left the house, the empty rooms were prime for a quick break-and-enter. If Evina’s niece might be held prisoner in there, this was the moment to find her.

Or were Leroy Huffman and Betty’s brother, Ralph, still sleeping? Crouching beside the front door, the cats listened. The house seemed taller than it was wide, just the garage at the front, the entry, and one small window. The kitchen and living room were at the back, with a view downhill to the village. Upstairs there seemed to be three bedrooms and a bath-a classic circa-1940s house that hadn’t received much attention since it was built, some seventy years ago. Circling, they paused below the kitchen, where the dinette window jutted out-the kind of shallow bay window that one would decorate with potted plants. The Wickens’ decor ran to newspapers and tattered paperback books stacked on the wide sill, ragged garish books such as one might pick up for a quarter in a used bookstore. They could hear the footsteps of two men, and could hear them talking, then the rattle of a cup against a saucer and the rustle of papers. The coffee smelled like it had been cooking for hours.

“If they stay in the kitchen,” Kit said, “we can be in and out, and they’ll never know.”

They thought the windows, with their dry, cracked frames, would be a snap for the three of them together to jimmy, but by the time they’d leaped up, trying half a dozen double-hung panes, working at the old locks with impatient claws, they decided these round, brass closures were stronger than they looked. All the windows were locked tight or perhaps stuck tight with the ancient paint. Sealed for eternity, as far as they were concerned.

The garage might have proven easier, except that its three small high windows were covered, inside, with plywood. They sniffed beneath the electric garage door and smelled a miasma of grease, mildew, new paint, and gas vapors.

At the far side of the garage, a small door opened to the backyard. Leaping up, Joe swung on the knob. It turned freely, but kick as he might against the molding, the door wouldn’t open. “Feels like it’s bolted from inside.”

Beside the little door stood an overflowing garbage can amid a half-dozen sodden cardboard boxes filled with empty bottles and wet, wadded newspapers. Very high above were three small, mesh-covered ceiling vents. Maybe big enough for a cat, maybe not. Leaping from the top of the garbage can, Joe managed to snag the mesh of one-and got his claws hung in it. He couldn’t get loose. Panicked, fighting the screen, he tore it enough to free himself. He dropped down, his ears back, swearing angry hisses.

“Mesh is nailed or stapled on, and sealed with old paint.”

“Come on,” Dulcie said. “We-”

“The car’s coming,” Kit said. Ducking into the bushes, they watched the old green Dodge turn in to the drive, parking before the front door. Betty Wicken stepped out, her long, dry-dull black hair tangled on the collar of her black peacoat. Moving quickly up the steps, she was just stepping in through the front door when the cats, with swift timing, shot in behind her. They made not a sound, did not once brush her ankles as they passed her and ducked under the hall table. The whole house shook when Betty slammed the front door.