I N THE DIM garage, as Betty Wicken and Leroy Huffman sorted tools at the workbench, packing them into a canvas bag, Joe approached the blue Chevy van. Slipping up onto a stack of cardboard boxes piled between the van and the wall, he balanced with a forepaw against the van’s window, peering into the dim interior, his nostrils filled with the stink of automotive paint, from the amateurish blue paint job.

Pressing against the tinted glass, he saw not the pristine interior of Charlie Harper’s van, no neatly built-in cupboards, no polished worktable running down one side. Only bare metal bracing and raw composition walls. This ancient, neglected interior had never had any care; it was stripped and ragged, only an empty hulk.

Dropping down to the garage floor, he studied the lettering painted on the van’s side-the hasty, unprofessional logo, an amateurish copy of the more finely spaced CHARLIE’S FIX-IT, CLEAN-IT.

Somewhere, the Wickens had found another old Chevy van and had treated it to a home paint job on a par with what any active five-year-old kid could accomplish.

“Not Charlie’s van,” Kit whispered, narrowing her eyes and lashing her tail.

But Dulcie smiled with relief. “Charlie’s safe, and Mavity’s safe. But why would anyone copy Charlie’s van? What do they mean to do?” Her green eyes flashed. “Setting Charlie up,” she hissed. “But for what? For some burglary?” she said softly. “Or…could this be the missing vehicle that hauled away the dead man?” Her eyes widened. “Did you smell death in there?”

Joe slipped under the van, Dulcie and Kit beside him, and they reared up, sniffing among the axles and brakes. Trying, over the stink of grease and hydraulic and brake fluids, to detect the faintest scent of death; but there was nothing else, no foreign smell.

Dropping down again, they fled among the boxes as Leroy opened the side door of the van and tossed in two bags of tools, some cans of paint, and then ladders, drop cloths, everything one would need to renovate a house, or repair it.

“Are they horning in on Charlie’s customers?” Dulcie whispered. “Pretending to work for her?”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Joe said softly. “And there’s no cleaning equipment, just the repair stuff.” The tomcat frowned. “Doesn’t make sense, unless…Unless they’ve staked out Charlie’s wealthy regulars, meaning to rob them-that would set Charlie up, big-time.”

They looked at one another, feeling sick. Law enforcement families were prime marks for any scam to embarrass or compromise them, to put them on the wrong side of the law. The cats remembered too painfully when Captain Harper had been framed for a double murder.

“That won’t happen again,” Joe said.

But Kit shivered, pushing closer to Dulcie.

“Nothing has happened yet,” Dulcie said. “We won’t let that happen!”

H URRYING BY THE station, loaded down with shopping bags, hoping Max was free for lunch, Charlie found him gone. “He had to meet with the judge,” Mabel said. “He went straight there from the Patty Rose School, from talking with Dorothy Street.”

“Another rain check,” Charlie said, laughing. It was well past noon, and she was starved.

“That’s what you get when you marry a cop,” Mabel said good-naturedly. “Lucinda Greenlaw brought in some kind of evidence. They talked for a while, then he headed over to meet Dorothy. Leave your packages here if you want to get a bite.”

Charlie nodded. She didn’t like to leave packages in her SUV, with no locked trunk. Not this time of year, when bright store packages containing free Christmas booty were all too tempting.

Tucking her packages out of the way in Max’s office, she stood a moment wondering what kind of evidence Lucinda discovered. She was headed out of the station, meaning to stop for a quick bowl of soup, when she saw Dorothy Street and Ryan coming out of the courthouse. Ryan was in jeans, work boots, and a red sweatshirt, Dorothy elegant in a soft gray suit, sheer hose, and Italian flats-succeeding very well in her new, businesslike mode. They waved, and Charlie went to join them. Ryan looked mad enough to explode. Meeting them on the steps, Charlie didn’t ask what they’d been doing. This had to be about the permit for the children’s home. “Have you had lunch? I’m starved.”

“I ate with Clyde,” Ryan said. “Scotty called me in the middle of lunch. They’ve denied the permit again. If I die young, of a coronary, you can blame that bunch of bigots!” She glanced at her watch. “I need to get back, meet the landscaper,” and with a wave she headed across the parking lot to her big red Chevy pickup.

Dorothy looked after her, shaking her head with sympathy. Then, “I guess Max stood you up. I rode over with him to pick up some papers. Come on, I’m hungry, too. Want to go back to the inn, have lunch in my office, where we can talk?”

When Charlie nodded, Dorothy flipped open her cell phone, hitting the code for the inn’s kitchen. “The shrimp melt okay?”

Charlie nodded enthusiastically. “And hot tea?”

Dorothy gave her chef the order, and as they strode out together past the courthouse gardens, Dorothy glanced at her. “Those people taking pictures of our children…That really scares me. Max called me last night after the Greenlaws’ break-in, and then, just now, he showed me the pictures-the copies he made-to see if I could add anything.

“I feel better knowing he’s doubled his patrol around the school. But to take pictures of the children…In my book, that means only one thing,” Dorothy said with disgust. “I’m glad they have the woman’s fingerprints-the tenant in that house where the pictures came from. Max said he was hoping to get an immediate hit on them, something about having to get an expert to examine them, and he didn’t know how long it would take.”

Charlie hadn’t known about the prints. Was that what Lucinda had brought in? But how had Lucinda gotten the woman’s prints? Why had she…? Oh, Charlie thought, maybe it wasn’t Lucinda who retrieved that evidence. And the scene in Max’s office, earlier that morning, played back to her: The officers’ mention of the prints. Kit’s sudden excitement, the little cat hardly able to contain herself, she was so wild to race away. This time, Charlie thought, this time, those cats sent Lucinda Greenlaw as their courier.

But to Dorothy she said, “It’s great when AFIS can get back with an immediate reply, but if the prints aren’t clear, someone does have to do a visual exam. And if the prints are close to a lot of others on file, finding a match can take some time.” She studied Dorothy. “Have you talked with the children, about those people?”

“Oh yes. As soon as we knew about the pictures. We don’t like to keep things from the children. We all get together after breakfast in the central hall, before classes, talk over anything that needs discussing.”

She looked seriously at Charlie. “We told them about the pictures, and we described the two men and the woman as well as we could from the photos that the intruder shot. Described the car in their driveway, the old green Dodge. Told them not to play alone, anywhere in the school yard. Not to leave the grounds without one of us, for any reason. It’s hard to get the message across to the little ones, and not give them nightmares. Takes a lot of hugging and reassurance.

“But our kids are pretty wise,” Dorothy said. “They all know what to do if they’re approached. That’s part of the survival course Patty designed-self-protection, managing their money, good health practices, making positive choices in life-and, of course, values.”

Dorothy laughed. “We’ve had several teachers apply for jobs who said they wouldn’t be caught dead teaching values to the children.”

“And? What did you do?”