Cat Shining Bright

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  Three pairs of blue eyes peered out from among the wreckage, two innocent buff faces and Courtney’s calico face serious with guilt. The kittens were too chagrined to even run away.

  Dulcie, her ears back, her striped tail lashing, hauled Buffin out from beneath the curved metal legs, her teeth in the nape of his neck. Holding him down with one paw, she nosed at him, looking him over. “Where are you hurt?”

  Buffin shook his head. “Not hurt.”

  “Get up, then. Walk quietly over to the daybed, get up on it and stay there.” She watched him walk, saw he wasn’t limping. Turning, she bore down on Striker. “Are you hurt? Oh, Striker! Your paw is bleeding through the bandage.”

  Ryan grabbed some scrap paper from the wastebasket, laid it on the floor. Dulcie said, “Come out from under there and sit right here, put your paw on that. Now, Courtney. Are you all right?”

  Courtney nodded, her ears and tail down. She wouldn’t look at her mother.

  “Then you can tell me what happened,” Ryan said as she grabbed a roll of paper towels for Striker.

  “Rocking,” Courtney said guiltily, her eyes still cast down. “We were rocking. We . . . we loosened those bolts just a little . . .” She indicated the handles that held the drafting table at whatever angle Ryan chose. “And we jumped on it and it rocked and rocked and it was such fun that we rocked harder . . .” Now she looked up, her eyes bright. “Rocked harder still, all three of us back and forth, and . . .” She looked down again with shame.

  “And the table fell,” Dulcie said furiously.

  So far Joe Grey had stayed out of it. He was too mad to let loose with what he wanted to say. He watched Ryan wrap the paw in the paper towels, then retrieve rolls of gauze and tape from the master bath; then he turned his fierce scowl on Dulcie. “And where,” he said, “where were you when this happened? I thought you were watching them.”

  Now Dulcie’s own look was guilty. “I was on the roof. I heard a car come down the street real slow, heard it stop then creep on again. I got that funny feeling—you know the feeling . . . I thought it might be the burglar, that he’d seen Ryan pick us up this morning, and I raced up for a quick look. The kittens were quiet, nosing at the cabinet drawers and at the mantel, smelling everything. I thought I could leave them for a minute. They loosened the bolts and started this rocking after I left,” she said quietly.

  “I thought at first it was Wilma’s stalker, I’m still not sure, you can’t see much inside a car from the house roof. I could see the driver’s arm, part of a thin face. He was wearing a cap and I think his passenger was, too, a heavy man. They moved on slowly and then paused, moving and pausing, looking at all the houses. There was someone in the back, someone smaller, maybe a woman or child. I was about to race down to the street for a better look when I heard the crash.” She looked at Ryan and at Joe. “I’m sorry I left them. Your lovely antique drafting table, Ryan. Can it be mended?”

  “It can be mended just fine, Scotty can mend anything,” Ryan said, stroking Dulcie, giving her a little kiss between the ears.

  “And the kittens are sorry, too,” Dulcie said, looking pointedly at Courtney who had seemed to have been the instigator of their game: Rocked and rocked, she’d said, rocked harder still . . . her blue eyes bright with the fun.

  Joe Grey remained quiet, his ears flat, his yellow eyes blazing. The kittens had never seen their father so angry—though, in fact, Joe wasn’t nearly as mad as he looked. Half his mind was further away than broken drafting tables as he put together a plan that he thought might trap Wilma’s stalker.

  He watched Ryan call Clyde at the shop. “Could you come home for a little while? Wilma’s here, and Rock’s here, but . . . I have to run an errand and . . . we think the burglar could be watching the house. I’ll explain later.”

  She picked up Striker, as Dulcie ran for the king cab; Buffin followed, refusing to stay behind. Not so much because he was worried about his brother but because the hospital fascinated him—and because he wanted to be near Dr. Firetti, wanted to watch him work. John was like family, his touch, at their birth, had been Buffin’s first contact with the human world. His presence had honed deeper into Buffin’s emotions even than the love the doctor generated in Striker and Courtney.

  Wilma was saying, “I’m fine, Joe, with you and Rock here. Clyde doesn’t need . . .”

  “Let him come,” Joe said. “He needs to keep his mechanics busy.” Wilma sat down on Clyde’s love seat, holding Courtney, who was still quiet and ashamed. Rock soon joined them, herding Snowball up the stairs, the little white cat calm once more, under the Weimaraner’s care. Joe sat on Clyde’s desk secretly smiling, thinking about his project, then joining the dog and Courtney and Snowball stretched out across Wilma’s lap.

  “What?” Wilma said, watching Joe. “What are you hatching?” She knew that devious look.

  “Just thinking,” he said, hoping to con her into his plan. Wilma might not believe the would-be thief knew about the Bewick book, but Joe wasn’t so sure. Why would he search her desk but not take her checkbook or even the little stack of petty cash she kept there with a rubber band around it? If he was looking for that particular volume, he knew it was worth a fortune. If this man—who might be connected to the man who shot Barbara Conley and Langston Prince, connected to the suspect in a bloody double murder—if this man knew what was printed in the added chapter, all their clan of speaking cats was in danger.

  But, Joe thought again, even though the book was gone, it might still trap the prowler. He looked at Wilma, considering. “You do still get upset over having burned the Bewick book. Even a few weeks ago when Dulcie mentioned it, you looked sad, still full of regret.”

  “It was a lovely book. The work that went into it, the wood engravings, the hand-set type. I only wish I had one of the other copies, one from the regular edition.”

  “You’ve already tried to find one,” Joe said. “But when you did, it was too expensive, enough to keep Dulcie and me and the kittens in caviar for years.” And, taking the direct approach, his pitch went on from there. Wilma listened, stern and silent, as the tomcat laid out his plan.

  15

  Ryan, with Dulcie on her shoulder and Buffin rearing up beside her, watched John Firetti tuck Striker into a cat kennel on a soft blanket. Immediately Buffin leaped in, too, refusing to leave his brother. John had resewn the wound where Striker had ripped out two stitches. Same routine, but this time the cats were silent as a technician assisted him. Only when she’d left did John speak to Striker, petting him, but stern, too. “You are to rest. You are to stay off the bandaged foot and behave yourself. No running, no jumping. In fact, to keep you quiet, to let the healing begin, I think I’ll keep you for a day or two.”

  Striker looked chastised and obedient. Buffin looked delighted, hoping he could stay, too. He looked around for his little dog friend.

  “Lolly’s so much better,” John said, “thanks to you, that I’ve tried sending her home.” They looked up as Mary Firetti slipped into the hospital room. She gave Ryan and Dulcie a hug and stood with them beside the cage door. She wore pale tan jeans and a cream sweater that flattered her sleek brown hair. Neither woman liked to see the kittens in a kennel. “They’ll sleep with us tonight,” Mary said, “if Striker will promise to be good.”

  “No jumping off the bed,” tabby Dulcie said, “or off anything else. You think that paw will heal with you pounding on it and knocking over furniture?”

  Ryan, pushing back her dark hair, reached in to stroke and love the two kittens; and Dulcie padded inside to lick their faces; but soon they left the hospital, Dulcie draped over Ryan’s shoulder. Crossing the garden, walking Ryan to the truck, Mary said, “It will be nice to have those two beautiful boys for a few days. John does love them. And Pan can go home to Kit for a while; he’s refused to leave us since his father died. I’ve told him he should be with Kit, that Misto would want him there, but talk about stubborn.” She looked at Ryan, her eyes tearing. “Pan’s b
een so dear. It’s been hard, learning to live without Misto. If Pan hadn’t stayed with us, the emptiness in this house would have been intolerable. Even when, sometimes, we sense Misto’s spirit nearby, we can’t touch him or hold him, we can’t snuggle him the way we snuggle Pan—and now will snuggle the kittens.”

  “He’ll never leave you for good,” Ryan said. “His spirit will never leave any of us. He might be gone for a while, but he told us all, more than once, that time is different where he is. Misto has families through the centuries to be with when he’s needed, other people he loves, but never more than he loves you and John.”

  “Early that morning,” Mary said, “when he passed—the glow rising above us, the echo of his voice as he moved into that next life. We know he isn’t gone.”

  Ryan hugged Mary, nearly squashing Dulcie between them. She swung Dulcie into her king cab, and they headed home, Dulcie curled on the seat beside her, already missing her kittens, her chin and paw draped across Ryan’s leg. “They’re growing up fast,” she said sadly, looking up at Ryan. “They’ll want their own lives one day, and they’ll choose their own work,” she said thinking of Buffin there in the hospital and how happy he had seemed.

  When they pulled into the drive, Clyde’s vintage Jaguar was there, leaving room for Ryan’s pickup. Rock, still nervous from the crashed drafting table, greeted them at the front door as if he had been standing guard. Ryan, heading for the kitchen, glanced up the stairs where Clyde sat at his desk. “Home,” she called up to him. In the kitchen, Wilma sat at the table with fresh coffee, reading the morning paper; it was so neatly folded that Wilma wondered if Joe Grey had even touched it; she was amused that she didn’t have to read around syrupy pawprints.

  Clyde left his desk and came down. “Striker’s all right? And where’s Buffin?”

  “Striker’s fine, and Buffin wanted to stay with him,” Ryan said, releasing Dulcie to hop down to the table. “The Firettis were pleased, they love those kittens,” she said softly.

  Dulcie lay down on the table close beside Wilma. Joe Grey leaped up beside her, fixing his yellow gaze on Wilma, giving her an urgent, let’s get on with it look.

  Dulcie watched him, suddenly wary and alert. From the kitchen counter Courtney watched with bright intensity. While she had napped with Snowball, her father and Wilma had had a long, whispering conversation. What wondrous thing they were planning.

  But Clyde glared hard at Joe. Not for a minute did he trust that look, nor did he trust the excited amusement in Wilma’s eyes. “What?” he said. “What’s with you two?”

  Wilma shrugged, and looked at Joe. Joe had started to lay out his plan when they heard the front cat door flap open, and Kit and Pan came galloping into the kitchen; smelling cranberry bread, they leaped to the table. As Ryan cut a slice for them, Clyde remained staring at Joe and Wilma, waiting for the bomb to drop. Whatever they were hatching, this was going to mean trouble.

  Quietly Joe, under the gaze of his two human housemates and surrounded by the questioning cats, shared his plan.

  “Charlie’s the best prospect,” he said. “The stalker might not even know her.” He looked at Ryan and Clyde. “The prowler, if he’s been watching this house, too, he knows both of you. He might have seen Charlie here, but maybe not. And she fits right in, she’s in and out of the art shop all the time, and in and out of the PD.”

  “I don’t like this,” Clyde said. “It could get someone hurt, probably Officer McFarland.”

  “But McFarland will be there anyway.” Joe reached a paw for another slice of cranberry bread.

  “And,” Clyde added, “Charlie isn’t a good choice, she’s Wilma’s niece. He could have seen her there any time—no one could forget that bright red hair.”

  “She can wear a cap,” Ryan said. “Tuck her hair under.” There was a long silence, then Wilma rose, heading for the guest room. Clyde and Ryan followed, the cats dashing past their feet.

  Within minutes they were all gathered on or beside the desk as Wilma, comfortable in the wicker desk chair, called Tay’s Rare Bookstore, in the village. Yes, they still had the copy she had inquired about several weeks ago, one of the original editions of Bewick’s memoir. Despite the cost she put it on her credit card and asked them to wrap it in plain brown paper. When she’d hung up, she called Charlie.

  An hour later, Charlie had cut her long red hair nearly a foot shorter. Feeling naked and regretful she left the house, cranked up the old green pickup they used around the ranch. Heading for the village, she parked in front of the art supply as a minivan moved out. She entered the store wearing a cap, not one curl of red hair showing, her dark glasses propped across the crown.

  She spent perhaps fifteen minutes choosing her purchases. Leaving them there to be wrapped, she slipped out through the storeroom’s back door to the narrow alley that ran through from the art store past the backs of a deli and an upscale camera shop, to the rear of Russell Tay’s bookstore; passing trash cans lined along one wall, she slipped in through the unlocked back door.

  She moved from the storeroom into the shop, into the smell of old books. She found Russell at the counter, slim, white haired, the lines in his face solemn and patient. He had set the book aside, concealed in brown paper as Wilma had requested. She tucked it into her oversized purse; they talked for only a few minutes, about the weather, the windstorm, and El Niño, then she hurried out the back again.

  She knew she was being watched.

  Coming down the alley she had glimpsed Dulcie peering over directly above her; and on the roof across the narrow side street she could barely see Joe Grey in a mass of overhanging pine branches, could see only the narrow white strip down his nose, his white chest and paws—and the gleam of his yellow eyes as he watched the street below him.

  At the far end of the group of shops, Pan and Courtney crouched at separate corners, Pan above the alley, Courtney above the street looking very full of herself because of this important mission. The calico was as much the drama queen as Kit, giddily proud to be performing a glamorous job while her two brothers lounged in a cage in John Firetti’s hospital, even if they were being spoiled.

  Charlie caught sight of Kit last of all, up in the pine tree that hung out over the street where, from its branches, she could see both ways down the sidewalk, could see every passing shopper.

  Hurrying back down the alley, her package in her carryall, Charlie was startled when a heavily muscled man turned the corner, coming straight toward her—he fit too closely Kit and Pan’s rough description of the man they’d seen at Barbara Conley’s house on that windy night.

  But no, this was not the same man. This fellow was lame, limping along. He passed her paying no attention as she slipped back into the artist’s supply.

  Above her, the cats, having watched her progress, crouched together now on the roof of the art supply watching her load her packages in the passenger seat of the old pickup and set her big carryall on the floor. That’s where the book would be, a book like the one Wilma had burned—or almost like it, Courtney thought. How strange and complicated was human life. As Charlie drove away, Courtney snuggled up to her daddy, and knew that his anger about the drafting table was gone. She thought about Charlie going on with Joe’s plans and hoped . . . No, she knew his scheme would work just fine—as sure as hiding cheese to lure a mouse.

  From the art shop Charlie drove to the bank. Taking off her cap, shaking out her red hair, she found a clerk free and went straight to Wilma’s safe-deposit box. She signed their card, used her own key, removed the metal drawer and carried it into a small, locked cubicle.

  Removing the book-sized package from the metal box she unwrapped the age-stained white paper, then the disintegrating piece of ancient leather wrap, revealing a small and empty, carved chest. Opening this, smelling the lingering scent of the old book that was no longer there, she unwrapped the brown paper from the book she had just picked up. Same title, same binding, same dated first edition. Placing this in the chest she wr
apped it up again in the frail leather and then the brown paper.

  This she put in her carryall. She took the metal drawer back where the clerk followed her into the vault, slid the safe-deposit box into its slot, saw that it was properly locked then headed for MPPD. There was nothing unusual about her going into the station, the chief’s wife was in and out frequently, to have lunch with Max, sometimes to pick up their young ward, Billy, after school was out. This morning she skipped Max’s office, found Jimmie McFarland in the conference room typing a report. She gave him the box, and gave him instructions.

  “This,” Jimmie said, his brown eyes amused, “you know this is entrapment, Charlie.”

  They looked at each other for a long moment. “It really isn’t entrapment,” Charlie said, “that’s more complicated. And it sure isn’t if you don’t arrest him for stealing. If all you cite him for is break and enter, that’s only a misdemeanor.”

  McFarland grinned at her. She said, “All Wilma wants is to know if the book is what he’s after. If he finds it and heads out with it, that will be her answer.”

  Jimmie still had that stern, cop look that he tried so hard to maintain. The young officer’s natural expression was friendly and warm, and didn’t always suit his profession. Charlie said, “You’re there to protect Wilma’s house. She reported a break-in, she’s afraid he’ll come back and trash the whole place. You’re there not only as a cop, but as a friend.”

  “But the book,” he said doubtfully. “How can a book be worth . . .?”

  “It’s old, Jimmie. Nearly two centuries. Handmade, hand printed on leather parchment. The type is all hand set, every picture is an original engraving done by the author.”