“Do you have cat-hair samples with roots?” Dr. Halverson asked.
“Detective Grace says a grooming brush filled with hair was found in the dead woman’s penthouse.”
“That’s a good source. There should be root material,” Dr. Halverson said. “What about the hairs found on the woman’s body?”
“I don’t know,” Helen said. “Is it important?”
“Yes. There are two kinds of DNA testing in forensics. STR, short tandem repeats, is the most accurate test, but it needs nuclear DNA. You get that from blood samples, saliva, or hair with roots. A shed hair does not have a lot of root material. You might get lucky, though. One of the hairs found on the body may have a root. You need to check.”
“What if it doesn’t?” Helen said.
“Then the probabilities change drastically. If you get a match when you use STR testing, there is only one chance in a billion the test is wrong. That’s fairly convincing evidence. If you use the non-root material, the chances drop to maybe one in three hundred.”
The whole case was riding on a hair. A cat hair.
“If I go ahead with the test, what will it cost?” Helen said.
“It’s for you, not the police, right?”
“The local police department can’t afford a DNA test for a house cat,” Helen said. Neither can I, she thought.
“If a private person did it, the test would run about a thousand dollars,” Dr. Halverson said. “If I did the test, it would take two to three weeks. The price goes up to two thousand or more if I have to testify in court.”
The DNA test would take a huge bite out of Helen’s suitcase stash. It’s an investment, Helen decided. If I get the reward, I’ll still have twenty-three thousand dollars. But I can’t get anything without it.
“How much hair will I have to pull off the cat for comparison?” Helen said. She was not looking forward to this part.
“None,” the doctor said. “I need a cheek sample. You can use a fine brush, like a baby tooth brush, or a cotton swab. Just brush it on the inside of the cat’s cheek, and that will get the DNA sample.”
Great. Helen had to steal cat slobber instead of cat hair. How was she going to stick a Q-tip in a strange cat’s mouth?
“Do you have a court order for the cat?” Dr. Halverson said.
“No,” Helen said. “I can get what I need by other means.”
“Like climbing the fence?” the doctor said shrewdly.
“I’m hoping the cat will come out to the sidewalk,” Helen said. She knew how hopeless that sounded.
Next, Helen checked with Detective Grace. “We have to be the only people in America who want cat hair,” Grace said.
“Not just any cat hair,” Helen said. “It has to have roots.”
“I’ll get back with you,” she said.
Detective Grace called Helen back two hours later. “We’re in luck. There’s a root on one hair.”
“Then I’m about to become a cat burglar,” Helen said.
Chapter 34
“We better scout Brittney’s place. I want to see what it looks like at night,” Margery said.
“The same as in the day, only darker,” Helen said.
“Not true. Every place looks different at night. Acts different, too. Trust me on this. I’m an old night owl.”
Helen wondered what Margery saw at the Coronado after dark. Her landlady was providing the wheels for the cat caper. “Brittney goes to a different South Beach club almost every night,” Helen said. “Wednesday nights she goes to the Delano. Usually leaves sometime after nine.”
“Fine,” said Margery. “We got a date tonight at ten. It’s Tuesday, so we’ll nail the cat tomorrow.”
At ten o’clock, they pulled out of the Coronado and headed for the Seventeenth Street Bridge. Margery drove an old white Cadillac half a block long. Helen wondered if it was a state law that when you reached age seventy, you had to drive a big white car.
On the other side of the bridge, Margery made a left onto Bridge Harbour Parkway, and they were suddenly in the hushed, winding streets of the wealthy. Her landlady was right. Bridge Harbour was different after dark.
The huge houses looked more like hotels, with their two-story entryways. Huge, enormous, and giant described everything about these houses, except their lots, which were barely big enough for a modest ranch house.
“How come major mansions are built on such little lots?” Helen said.
“You can get land in Omaha,” Margery said. “They want water. The fewer drawbridges your yacht goes through before you get to the ocean, the better. Bridge Harbor is only one drawbridge away.
“Now, can we skip the house tour and get to work? Did you see all these ‘No Parking’ signs? What are we going to do with this car? I can’t park it. And look at these security patrols.”
Bridge Harbour houses were built along a system of canals. The security service had white patrol cars stationed at every little canal bridge.
“I counted six rent-a-cops on wheels,” Margery said. “This is not going to be easy. Show me the house. And tell me it doesn’t have a seven-foot wall, like every other place we’ve passed.”
“Oh, no,” Helen said. “It has a tall hedge, but a nice open driveway. The cab pulled right in.”
But no car could get in at night. The driveway was closed by an electric gate.“That wasn’t here during the day,” Helen said.
“At least it’s fancy wrought iron,” Margery said. “The cat can slide through the curlicues. I don’t like those security lights. Place is lit up like Times Square.”
Helen thought she saw something white flitting through the bushes. Was the cat on his nightly prowl? It was hard to tell in the glaring lights.
“Let’s get out of here before they notice my license plate,” Margery said. “We’ve got planning to do.”
They stopped at a Pollo Tropical and picked up dinner to go. Even the fast food in Florida was exotic. Where else in America could you get fried plantains at a franchise? They ate their chicken tropi-chops (three dollars and seventeen cents, with rice and beans) in Margery’s kitchen.
“With all that security, we’re going to need an excuse for wandering around,” she said.
“I could be a jogger,” Helen said.
“Security won’t fall for that,” Margery said, stabbing at her chicken. “Did you see any joggers on those streets at ten o’clock?”
“No,” Helen said. “Wait. What if I was looking for my lost cat?”
“I like that,” Margery said. “It’s almost true. It would explain why I was driving around, and why you were trying to catch a cat.
“Now we have to figure out how to get the cat. Are you sure it goes out at night?”
“There’s a cat flap in the door. I thought I saw something white in the bushes. But I don’t know how to get it to come to me. I’ve never had a cat.”
“We need catnip and peacock feathers,” Margery declared. “My friend Rita Scott grows her own catnip and makes these toys stuffed with catnip. Her cats go nuts over them. I’ll get some, and a peacock feather, and meet you at my car at ten o’clock tomorrow night.”
Helen spent all day Wednesday wondering if she’d get caught and spend the night at the Broward County Jail. She was glad it was a dark night with no moon. The two cat burglars met at Margery’s car. Margery was wearing a
