Cat Shining Bright
Page 5
At the curb, Manuel and Fernando were stacking the cut lengths of the tree into a truck bed. Joe stood looking at his beaten-up tower, his belly feeling hollow. He’d never realized how much the destruction of his cozy, private aerie would shake him. Staring at what was left of his private digs, his ears were back, his growl was fierce and yet dismally sad.
Below him, Officers McFarland and Crowley were going over the wrecked car, lifting prints. Dallas Garza was working inside the front seat also taking prints and dusting with a small brush for lint, fabric fragments, human hairs. Just up the street a tow car waited to haul the wreck to the department’s impound yard for further inspection. Joe guessed Clyde had gone on to work, concerned about damage to his automotive shop, to the windows and the tile roof. As Joe stood looking at his tower, Ryan tossed an armload of branches down to the lawn below, then came to sit beside him. Her short, dark, windblown hair was full of eucalyptus leaves, her green eyes more angry than sad.
“It’s all right,” she said, smiling down at him, smoothing her hand down his back the way he liked. “It will be all right, we’ll soon have it good as new.”
He couldn’t talk, couldn’t answer her, with the men working so near them. But she could talk to him, holding him, speaking softly without anyone paying attention, women talked to their cats all the time, and even tomcats endured cuddling.
“We’ll order the new windows as soon as we’ve finished clearing out,” she said. “I need to see what else is needed. Meantime, with the plastic and duct tape, you’ll be as snug as your kittens in their quilt.”
Joe wasn’t sure he’d ever feel snug again. Life seemed to have gone totally off center: the destruction of his tower, and Dulcie so moody at home, tied down with the kittens—even if she did love them more than life itself; and now, the threat of that man watching Wilma’s house.
If that guy came after her and there was a dustup in the house itself, even if Wilma was armed, Dulcie and the kittens would be in danger—his family was too vulnerable there, as was Wilma herself. Though she was armed and well trained, still she was alone. Despite the many dangers Joe had known, working behind the scenes snitching for the cops, life seemed now more perilous than he could ever remember—maybe his sudden sense of threat and concern since the kittens arrived had changed the way he viewed the world, maybe he was suddenly not so wild and devil-may-care anymore. From the moment he’d looked down at those tender babies, and had realized his full responsibilities, Joe Grey’s every thought seemed heavier and more serious.
Quietly, he snuggled closer to Ryan.
“It will be all right,” she repeated, scratching his ears. And almost as if she could read his thoughts, “The kittens and Dulcie are fine and safe with Wilma, you know that.”
Yes, Joe thought. But Ryan didn’t know yet, and he couldn’t tell her now, about Wilma’s prowler; not with an audience busy below them.
“And these car break-ins,” she said softly, “are no different from any other village crime—most of which you’ve helped to solve.” Tenderly she scratched under his chin. “You and the cops will get to the bottom of these thefts. Your tower will be fixed before you can sneeze, and everything will be fine. The world, Joe, is just making its bumpy rounds, that’s all.” She kissed him on the forehead, set him down on the shingles, and got back to work.
It was only when Ryan had cleared the last branches from his tower; when Manuel and Fernando had gone to dump the logs and detritus from the cut tree; when Officers McFarland and Crowley had left; when Dallas had finished fingerprinting and photographing the car and had gone in the house to clean up; when the tow truck had hauled the wrecked car off to hold for additional evidence; and Scotty had left in his truck to get shingles and lumber and order Joe’s and Voletta’s windows, only then could Joe say a word. Before Ryan began to sweep up broken glass, they sat side by side on the roof in a comfortable two-way conversation as they looked out at the village. Most of the power was still off. A strip of shop windows was lit where one power line had been repaired. Joe told her about the man watching Wilma’s house.
“Wilma doesn’t need this,” she said angrily, her green eyes flashing, her Irish-Latino temper blazing. “We’ll know more once Max has done some checking. Maybe this is the killer’s son, but why go after Wilma after all these years, if he hated his father? It was Wilma who helped put the man away, he ought to thank her. Maybe,” she said, “he’s just curious. Maybe he just wants to learn more about his father?” She sighed. “You don’t always know what’s in people’s heads when they look back at their past.
“Well, I know one thing,” she said, scratching his back, “the night’s events and the storm have left us all feeling ragged and out of sorts.”
“Even that cranky old woman Voletta had to get into the act,” Joe said with very little pity, “had to roust Scotty out, drag him out in the storm.”
Ryan nodded. “Kate is trying to get hold of her niece, Lena. She needs someone with her until her wounds start to heal. Lena comes down every few weeks to see her aunt anyway, she lives somewhere up the coast. I think there’s a husband and son. Remember, Kate contacted Lena when she was trying to buy that five acres from Voletta, and the old woman refused to sell?” Voletta Nestor’s five acres lay just below the mansion and below the land where Ryan had built the new cat shelter. CatFriends had wanted it for parking and for extra space if they needed to expand.
“That was too bad,” Ryan said. “But it’s her property, she can do what she wants with it.”
“She was lucky Scotty was up there in the middle of the night,” Joe said innocently, “to take her to the ER.”
Ryan gave him a look. He didn’t need to get nosy. Kate and Scotty’s sudden, low-key romance was none of his business.
“It’s lucky Scotty was there,” Ryan said. “Kate could have helped her, but there’s no way she would have left the shelter cats alone in that storm, she said they were all nervous.” She tipped up his chin to look at him. “Kate said Scotty was very good with them. They moved all the feral cats that were in the screened runs out of the wind, into the infirmary and offices. She said they spent hours calming individual cats, talking to them and soothing them.”
“I just meant—”
“I know what you meant. Let it be, Joe, and wish them happiness.”
She looked into his yellow eyes. “But it is worrisome. If they do become a serious twosome, if they were to marry, Kate would have the same problem as Charlie Harper. Keeping the secret of you cats from her husband. It’s hard to conceal a lie, even for a good cause, and keep a marriage honest and happy.
“Though Max Harper,” Ryan said, “would be more disbelieving than Scotty would, if he came face-to-face with the truth.”
“You mean if I spoke to Max?”
“Don’t even think it,” she said, laughing. “You are kidding?”
“Why would I spoil a good thing? Why would I give the chief nightmares? And where would that put Charlie? She’d have to admit she’d lied or she’d have to play stupid, and Charlie Harper is anything but stupid.”
She just sat looking at him. “After all these years, the way Max has grown to like you, you wouldn’t speak to him, you wouldn’t give away your secret?”
The tomcat laid a paw on her hand. “I’m not about to do that—my problem is, can we keep the kittens quiet?”
Ryan sighed, and hugged him, and prayed that he and Dulcie could keep those youngsters in line. “I wonder about the clowder cats last night, I wonder how they fared, up at the ruins? Kate told me she’d walk over this morning and try to find them.”
“There’s plenty of solid shelter,” Joe said. “They know every inch of the mansion, they know the cellars, the safe places that won’t crack or fall. But what about Dr. Firetti’s sun dome? That big kennel space is half the hospital.” The solarium had been built to join two small cottages together, to form the large veterinarian complex.
“The dome’s fine,” Ryan said. “I talked wi
th John again, he said not a crack, nothing damaged, and their patients were all settling down.”
But when she stroked Joe, she felt his muscles tense. “You’re still wound tight. Go on down to the station. You’ll feel better when you look at the reports on the car thefts.” She envisioned Joe sitting in Max’s bookcase peering over his shoulder at his computer screen as officers logged in information on the stolen cars and on whatever property was missing from the remaining, damaged vehicles.
Thinking of the PD, of the homey atmosphere in Max Harper’s office, Joe gave her cheek a nudge, and trotted off. Leaping across the neighbors’ roofs, he paused a moment to watch the cordoned-off street below where Dallas and Officers Crowley and McFarland were at work. The owners of three cars had appeared. Two were quietly answering questions as the officers filled in their reports. The one woman, standing beside her black Audi, was making clear to Dallas how disgusting it was that the department had allowed this shocking spree of vandalism and thefts to happen yet again in their quiet village—and to her nice new Audi. “Just look at the damage they’ve done, the side window broken out, glass everywhere, my expensive camera and leather jacket gone.” Joe Grey smiled, watching Dallas’s blank expression as the detective controlled his temper. Joe could imagine what the Latino detective would like to say. There was always one critic among the victims, vitriolic and rude—it didn’t matter that the cops had been up most of the night, or that she shouldn’t have left her valuables in plain sight in the car. Heading for Molena Point PD, he wondered if the desk clerk, soft, blond Mabel Farthy, might have brought some homemade cookies to work this morning or maybe a snack of fried chicken. Galloping over the rooftops toward the station, Joe Grey had no notion he would be followed or, more accurately, that his point of destination had already been invaded by unwanted company.
7
Wilma Getz’s cottage was cold, the power still off, the morning light through the windows a depressing gray. Buffin and Striker were curled in an afghan near the fire, warm and half asleep. Dulcie and Courtney lay on Wilma’s lap as she read to them but soon Wilma was yawning. The boy kittens watched her. When her book slid to the carpet, when she fell asleep reading, Striker woke fully. He looked all around. There was no roar of wind now, no sound but the crackle of the fire, and the drip of water from the eaves—he watched Dulcie and Courtney drift into sleep. He lay thinking about the car thefts, what little their pa had told about them, then with a soft paw he nudged Buffin.
The two kittens watched their mother, watched their sister and Wilma. When no one stirred or looked up at them the two young cats smiled, slipped out from the folds of the afghan, and padded silently from the living room, through the dining room and kitchen, and into the laundry to the cat door.
Striker tried to slide the bolt, though he had tried many times before. This time, more determined, he made only tiny sounds as he worked metal against metal until at last the shiny lock gave way and the forbidden door swung free.
Slipping out, they stopped the plastic flap with careful paws, easing it quietly down, and they shot out into the garden. Around the house they sped, out of sight of the front windows. Scrambling up a bougainvillea vine to the neighbor’s roof, their pale coats blending with the tan shingles, they reared tall, looking down at the village, gray in the cloud-smothered morning. They had never been in the village, the crowd of cottages tangled among tall trees fascinated them.
“There,” Buffin said.
“The courthouse tower,” said Striker. “That’s where MPPD is, that’s where Pa goes when there’s been a crime.”
“If he catches us, he’ll kill us,” Buffin said.
“Maybe only bat us a little,” said Striker.
“And scold. I don’t like scolding.”
Intently they looked at each other. They could go to MPPD, stay hidden from their father—they hoped. Or they could go to where the crime scene had been, but they weren’t sure where that was among the tangle of village streets. The courthouse tower stood tall and clear and was easy to follow. Another conflicted look between them, their blue eyes wide, a twitch of ears, a lashing of tails, and they were off over the roofs heading for the cop shop.
They had no notion, when they arrived, what they would do, how they would get inside, and how they would avoid their dad. They just wanted to know more about what went on last night, to know more about the crimes and what secret clues their pa had found—even if they were heading for trouble.
Joe Grey approached MPPD from the south, from the direction of his own house, galloping atop a row of shops, not over the taller courthouse that rose on the north side. One of the new shops smelled of chocolate. He peered over at the fancy little tearoom that Ryan said had good desserts and salads but that, with its flowery décor and frilly curtains, no cop would ever be caught there. There were no lights on, on this street, though lights shone farther away in the village. Only a dim glow here at the back, from the kitchen, as if the chef were cooking on a gas stove, working by lantern light.
At least MPPD was brightly lit, from their emergency generator. Gaining its roof, Joe watched the glass door swing busily back and forth below him as officers entered. This was change of shift, men coming on duty heading for the conference room, for morning count. Each time the door opened it emitted a strong waft of cinnamon to mix with the chocolate scent from down the street. Licking his whiskers, waiting until the foot traffic had all but ceased, he backed down the oak tree and slid inside behind the heels of Detective Juana Davis. He didn’t duck into the holding cell that stood to the right of the door, a small barred room meant for a few minutes’ confinement before an arrestee was taken back to the jail and booked. There was no one in the lobby but Davis, heading back for her office, black uniform, black stockings, black regulation shoes. And, at the front counter, clerk Mabel Farthy, grandmotherly blond, soft and round and always with a smile. When Mabel saw Joe her face lit up. She turned to her desk for a familiar baking dish that she often brought from home. Joe leaped to the counter. Mabel gave him a big hug, then broke a warm cinnamon roll into pieces, onto a paper plate. Joe devoured it as if he hadn’t eaten in days.
Purring for Mabel, he enjoyed a nice ear scratch as she went on about the kittens. “New babies, Joe Grey. Well, not so new anymore. Four months old already, and Charlie says they’re beautiful.” Charlie was often in and out of the station, her freckled, red-haired beauty always turning heads. Though Mabel had no notion the cats could answer her, she talked to them in a long and loving ramble as she fed them whatever treat she’d brought for the officers, and for the cats themselves.
“Two boy kittens as sleek as you,” Mabel said, “but pale as sand. And the girl kitten . . . a little calico. Charlie says she’s a beauty. So, Joe Grey, when do we get to see them? When will you bring your family to the station?”
Not any time soon, Joe thought, feeling a shiver of dismay. He lived in mortal fear of the kittens finding their way to MPPD, slipping in to prowl, all wild energy and curiosity and forgetting they were never to speak to a human or in front of a human, one of them blurting out a question before they realized the blunder they’d made. They can’t come here, Joe thought nervously. The department is used to Dulcie and me, and that’s fine. We keep our mouths shut. But wild, scatterbrained, half-grown kittens wanting to know everything? They don’t need to be anywhere near the station.
At that very moment two of the kittens peered out at their father and Mabel from deep beneath the bunk that occupied the holding cell, their buff coats blending well into the shadows. They were as motionless and silent as stuffed toys. They were thankful for the strong smell of cinnamon and chocolate and the stink of the holding cell itself that they hoped had hidden their own scent from their father as he’d passed by.
They had not come through the front door as Joe had, padding in behind the skirts of the woman detective.
Up on the department’s roof, they had found the open, barred window that looked down into the cell.
All the officers had vanished into the conference room where, even with the door pushed closed, the kittens could smell coffee and hear the mumble of voices. They watched Joe drop from Mabel’s counter, approach the door, and casually lie down beside it with his ear to the crack.
Max Harper didn’t waste much time at roll call. He went over the details of the stolen Jeep that was wrecked in front of the Damens’ house; that bit of news drew angry comments, both because it was the Damens’ house and because the perp had gotten away. Joe didn’t need to see into the room to know that the officers sat at the big table, papers and electronic notebooks scattered around them, and most with freshly poured coffee. The chief was quickly into the rest of the car thefts, but soon turned the meeting over to Detective Garza, for the numbers, models, and makes of the cars, which young Officer Bonner recorded on his laptop. They went over which cars belonged to tourists, how many were local vehicles. The square-faced Hispanic detective read off a list of what had been stolen from each car that wasn’t driven away, how each car was broken into, and the few that were able to be hot-wired and so actually stolen. Dallas hadn’t had much sleep, working the street during the predawn hours. He had cleaned up at Joe’s house, he was clean shaven, thanks to Clyde’s razor. He no longer looked as if he’d just rolled out of bed, as he had when Ryan served him a quick breakfast. Joe had to smile because he was wearing Clyde’s newest T-shirt.