Jimmie shrugged; Charlie knew about these things. The art world wasn’t his thing—counterfeit bills, false driver’s licenses, fake IDs, fingerprints, and electronic images he understood. But ancient hand-set type and engravings were something yet to learn about.
Charlie said no more. She was hoping their thief would know so little about that one particular Bewick book that he would think he had found the real thing, had found the one incriminating volume.
She thought, too, that it wasn’t likely he was alone in his search. Her guess was that several people knew about the book, knew more about the Pamillon history than the stalker might know. Could he have some connection to the Pamillons? Or was that only coincidence? Charlie just prayed that, in the process of planting the book and finding out what this was about, they could keep Wilma safe, and Jimmie, too. It seemed a long time, now, until night would fall and deepen and, hopefully, Wilma’s stalker would return.
16
Jimmie McFarland went through Wilma’s usual evening routine, making sure the lights were on and off at their normal times, the hearth fire burning, the curtains securely drawn. Settling down before the fire to read a batch of reports, he waited for their thief—their possible murder suspect—to make an appearance; and wondering if Wilma’s bait, judiciously hidden, was what the guy was really after. Ordinarily, one rare book alone would not be of such interest to a common thief. An entire library of valuable collector’s books, yes. As he mulled over the thought that the burglar had more complicated motives, the evening darkened and the wind sprang up sending shadows racing across the draperies.
Turning on an old CD of Dean Martin, settling before the fire thinking about making a sandwich, he rose when a car pulled up the drive. Quietly he moved into the shadowed kitchen.
The knock on the back door was light and hasty. A woman’s voice called out, “Wilma?” He smiled at Ryan’s voice, she knew Wilma wasn’t there but didn’t want anyone out in the dark to know it. Hand on his holstered gun he stepped into the laundry.
“It’s Ryan,” she called out. “I brought you a steak. We grilled, and . . .”
He turned on the outside light. Gun cocked in case she was followed, he opened the door, stepping aside nearly behind it.
She was alone. If Wilma were here, and had answered, the music would have covered her voice. “Did you get my call?” she said softly. “I left you a message.” Ryan handed him a plate covered with foil, it smelled like heaven. He set it on the laundry counter and looked at his phone.
He’d left it off; he felt his face color with embarrassment. She grinned at him. “Have a good evening, my steak’s getting cold,” and she was gone, backing out in her king cab.
He locked the door, turned his phone on, uncovered the warm plate with its thick, rare filet, fries, and a salad. He knew there was an apricot pie in the kitchen. This, Jimmie thought, wasn’t a bad gig, for overtime work.
Up the hills evening darkened with the same cloud-shifting wind, but not a gale wind like the night of the car thefts. Kate’s mind was on McFarland at Wilma’s house waiting for the stalker, as was Scotty’s as they sat at the little kitchen table, eating a supper of bean soup and corn bread. Wind fingered at the windows, and across the way at Voletta’s, wind made shadows dance across the dark bedroom glass. The whole front of the house was dark, and there was only a faint light at the back. Had Lena gone out, leaving her aunt alone? She was here to take care of Voletta, not go chasing around. Kate couldn’t see Lena’s car, though if she’d parked up close to the back porch it wouldn’t be visible. Voletta’s old muddy pickup stood farther from the house. As she reached to slice more cornbread, a pair of dimmed car lights came up the back road from the direction of the village and freeway.
The car pulled out of sight close behind the house. They couldn’t see Lena get out but they heard her voice as the driver’s door slammed. Two more doors closed and they heard men’s voices.
“Lena has a boyfriend?” Scotty said. “Or maybe two?”
“She arrived alone, I didn’t see anyone. Voletta didn’t mention anyone.” Soon the living room lights came on, then the lights of all three bedrooms.
“You can see more of the house from the mansion,” Scotty said. “From where we’re working. I saw the shadow of a man down there today, he was careful to keep out of sight.”
“I guess,” Kate said, “we shouldn’t be judgmental, when we’re living . . .”—she flushed—“conjugally.”
“Only until you agree to marry me,” he said softly. “What is it, Kate? What’s the secret? You divorced your husband years ago. You told me there’s been no one else. Why can’t you tell me what’s wrong? Am I not the right man, am I a one-night stand?” He looked at her deeply. “I don’t think so. And Kate, nothing can be so bad that I couldn’t overlook it. I’m a very forgiving guy.”
Leaning over, he lightly kissed her forehead. The wind rustled harder against the windows. Their supper was getting cold. Across the little hill, the lights soon went off in all three bedrooms and the living room. The kitchen lights had been turned up brightly, lighting the trees beyond; and as the clouds moved on, freeing the moonlight, Scotty looked up at the mansion. In the open-walled upstairs nursery, a movement drew their attention.
“The ferals,” Kate said softly. Three pale shapes were crouched at the edge of the floor where the wall had fallen away. Willow, Sage, and Tansy? They, too, were looking down watching Voletta Nestor’s house.
“I’ve seen them watching before,” Kate said. “At night when the moon’s bright it’s not hard to see their pale coloring. Since you’ve started work, they don’t come down here much, only early in the evening or maybe late at night. I don’t think they hunt down below Voletta’s, her goats and that donkey chase them.”
“Why do the cats watch her?” Scotty said. “What are they curious about?”
“Maybe the kitchen lights, watching the movement behind the curtains. Cats are fascinated by movement.”
“They’re strange little cats,” Scotty said lightly. “Sometimes they watch us at work. Always shy, half hidden, but not as if they’re afraid.” He put his arm around her. “What will happen tonight, at Wilma’s? Will the stalker try again, and take her bait? Or go after Wilma herself, thinking that she’s there? What is the connection between them? I hope McFarland nails him and hauls him off to jail.” Beyond the windows, the clouds scattered southwest, opening up the moonstruck night over the village, over the Damens’ house.
In the Damen patio, warm in sweaters and jackets, their table pulled up close to the hot barbecue, Wilma, Ryan, and Clyde, and slim, elderly Lucinda and Pedric Greenlaw, were wondering the same. Would McFarland trap Rick Alderson or whoever the prowler was, land him in jail and keep Wilma safe? Was this young man connected to the murder scene, and maybe to the car thefts? Joe Grey and Dulcie, Kit and Pan and young Courtney crowded on one end of the table enjoying their share of steak and fries. Only Dulcie ate a little salad. Courtney, having never had filet mignon, gobbled the sliced steak with greedy delight. Never could she remember, in her dreams of other lives, a meal like this, the meat crisp on the outside, rare within, and more flavorful and tender than any scraps of boiled pork or Irish mutton. She knew she had enjoyed grand feasts as well as leavings, somewhere and sometime; but she had enjoyed nothing like this steak dinner right here and right now. She caught Kit laughing at her, the tortoiseshell’s yellow eyes teasing her for her greed. She didn’t care, she hissed smartly back, and returned to her supper.
Clyde was saying, “Last time they hit Sonoma, five cars stolen, twenty more left on the streets robbed or trashed or both.” He looked at Joe Grey. “Max said the Sonoma sheriff has found the five cars, and has two drivers locked up.”
“So?” Joe said. “Sonoma is working car heists. MPPD is also working two murders and now a break and enter. Give our guys a little credit.”
Ryan said, “What about the Styrofoam? How can something as innocuous as scraps of Styrofoam offer a l
ink the police can prove? Seems to me that’s circumstantial.”
“It’s a good start,” Clyde said. “If those flecks did come from a stolen car, and then were in Wilma’s house, and in Barbara Conley’s house . . . If Max can find that car . . .” He looked at Kit and Pan. “The car you saw in the garage that night.”
Kit said, “The wind blew away the dust on the drive so clean it blew away the tire marks. But there were tiny pieces of packing, wind blew those so hard into the bushes it was like someone pressed them there, stuck tight.”
Joe said, “Pretty strong coincidence.”
“And you don’t even believe in coincidence,” Wilma said, scratching Joe’s ears. “I hope,” she said, “if the thieves come back to work this area, I hope Scotty will stay on at the shelter. I don’t like to think of Kate up there alone.”
Ryan pushed back her short, dark hair, her green eyes watching Wilma. “With Scotty restoring the mansion, working there all day, it’s easy enough for him to stay.” She smiled. “Kate says he’s grown really interested that the ferals sneak down sometimes to hide and watch them work.”
“The wild, speaking cats?” Courtney said. “But Wilma, you said they’re afraid of humans.”
Ryan said, “They like Kate and Wilma. And Charlie and I used to ride up there a lot. But still they’re shy of most humans, and that’s a good thing.”
Courtney drew herself up tall, lifting her front paw with the three black bracelets, the orange and black markings on her back bright even in the soft patio lights. “I want to go there. I want to talk with the ferals, I want to see the ruins, I want . . .”
Joe Grey looked hard at her. “If you go there, Courtney, Dulcie and I will take you. Or Kit and Pan will. You are not to go alone.”
“Why not? Kit goes alone.”
“It’s too far. Kit is not a half-grown kitten. You can’t run and dodge and disappear as fast, yet, as she can. You can’t climb as high and fast, yet. Do you remember Kit’s story of the mountain lion?”
“I remember.”
“Sometimes there are mountain lions there in the ruins. And bobcats, and always coyotes. You will not go alone, Courtney, until you are a grown-up fighter. And even then, alone isn’t safe.”
“But if you go with me . . . ?”
“We’ll think about it,” Joe and Dulcie said together.
“At least there’s no gang of thieves up there,” Pedric said. “What’s to steal at the ruins? Not a car in sight except Kate’s. And Lena’s car, down at her aunt’s. Those crooks want a crowded neighborhood, lots of cars to hit all at once.” The older man, tall and regal looking, took Lucinda’s hand. “I’m glad I got my gun permit.”
“I feel safer, too,” Lucinda said. “And I feel easier with Kit home safe at night, and now Pan, too. We missed you,” she said, stroking the red tabby’s back.
Pan said, “I do love John and Mary, but . . .”
“But,” Lucinda said, “you didn’t plan to stay forever. Now the kittens have taken over for a few days, and that’s good for all of them.”
Dulcie and Joe looked at each other, thinking about their boys going off into the world. Only a few days seemed to them like the prologue to forever. Did all parents feel this way?
But Courtney’s look was . . . What kind of look was that? Regret that her brothers might move away? Or a sly smugness at having Wilma and Dulcie to herself, having their house to herself? And at having their daddy all her own, at least some of the time.
When, even in the walled patio, the wind quickened and the clouds drew down, the party picked up their plates and leftovers, Clyde put out the fire in the grill, and they moved inside; the conversation turning again to Jimmie McFarland, tucked up in Wilma’s house, waiting for a window to break, a door to wrench open. But soon the Greenlaws headed home, Kit and Pan trotting close beside them as they unlocked their Lincoln, the car that had once nearly been the scene of Lucinda’s and Pedric’s own murders.
Well, that adventure came out all right, Kit thought, shivering, that night on the narrow mountain road when we nearly went over and I ran from the wrecked Lincoln and called for help for Pedric and Lucinda and the coyotes nearly had me.
When Clyde and Ryan came racing up the highway together with Rock and the cats, they saved me, Ryan shot the coyote and saved me. Life, Kit thought, life is good when you have strong and loving friends to help you. That night, she thought, trembling, they sure saved my little cat skin.
17
The Damen house was dark except for ghosts of moonlight shifting beyond the shades. Joe Grey woke feeling off center. What had woken him? He was not in his tower, nor was he in Clyde and Ryan’s bed. He was downstairs in the guest room stretched out on the quilt between Dulcie and Courtney, the three of them crowded against Wilma. He could just see Rock over by the door, lying on the throw rug, Snowball snuggled warm between his front legs. But where were Striker and Buffin, where were the boys?
When he remembered they were cuddled up with the Firettis, Joe scowled with jealousy. Their kittens were cozy in another household, with new friends. And again Joe felt abandoned.
But the two boy kittens were getting big, their blue eyes showing the first glints of yellow and gold in their pale buff faces. At their age, Joe had been on his own, making his own living—such as it was—evading bigger, vicious alley cats, hiding from stray dogs among the street rubble, rummaging for his supper in San Francisco’s garbage cans. Now, it was nearing the time when his own growing kittens would venture into the world for good, choosing the paths of their separate lives—choosing better than the homeless world where he’d first landed.
It hurt, deep down, to think of Buffin and Striker leaving the nest, it hurt Dulcie, and it upset Wilma. Wilma’s house was their nest, Dulcie had birthed the kittens there, had nursed and trained them, had watched them claw the furniture and climb the draperies and duck their heads in shame when they were scolded. Dulcie and Wilma had told the little ones myths, and Joe had told them stories about the real human world that amazed them. He recalled their heart-pounding delirium when each kitten spoke its first words, proved indeed that he or she was a speaking cat, was as rare and talented as everyone had hoped they would be.
Yawning, knowing that Striker and Buffin were safe, he wondered again what had awakened him—then he was sharply alert thinking of the stakeout, of Wilma’s house empty but not empty, police moving unseen through the shadows of Wilma’s neighborhood, Jimmie McFarland dozing fully dressed atop Wilma’s bed with the light on as if Wilma were reading. Jimmie in dark sweats, soft shoes, gun, holster, radio . . .
Carefully Joe eased out from beside Dulcie and slid to the floor. When Rock raised his head, bumping against the closed door, Joe gave him that be quiet look. But Rock didn’t need it, he was as silent and alert as if he, too, were off to track a felon.
Joe shook his head. “You need to stay here.” He nudged Rock gently until the Weimaraner slid over a few inches, easing Snowball with him. Joe pulled the door open with his claws, gave Rock another look that told him to stay, and slipped through.
He trotted softly up the stairs, hopped up quietly on Clyde’s desk, leaped noiselessly to the rafter and out his cat door. Nudging open a window he hit the roof and took off running. He didn’t hear a sound behind him, heard no stir of soft paws in the fitful breeze as Courtney followed her daddy—and as Dulcie, angry at them both, raced to catch up, both females staying to the shadows, silent as velvet.
Jimmie McFarland woke as disoriented as Joe Grey—but only for a second. He sat up wide awake, swinging his feet noiselessly to the floor, hand on his holstered gun, listening.
He could hear a thief rummaging the house, moving the couch out from the wall, the hush of books being shuffled back and forth in the bookshelves, of the desk drawers opening. He listened to the prowler search the dining room, the buffet and china cabinet. The kitchen and refrigerator took a long time as he tried not to rattle the dishes and pots and pans. He went through the laund
ry, Jimmie heard him open the freezer, after a few minutes closing it again. Heard him move the washer and dryer as if to look behind them. Heard him come down the hall, check out the guest bath, then open the linen closet, listened to the soft hush as he shuffled towels and sheets. Then the thief was in the guest room.
The faint sounds of drawers opening, of bedding being tossed aside, of the bed being moved, perhaps so he could look at the back of the headboard. When Jimmie heard the closet door slide open he silently turned the lock on his own door, the heavy bolt that had been installed and oiled the night before.
Moving soundlessly down the hall, he heard the boxes on the shelves being shoved aside—then, a second too late, heard the guest room window slide open, heard the guy hit the ground running. Jimmie was down the hall, through the window after him, racing between the line of neighbors’ garages and the rising hill, moving south, half his thoughts on the two officers working the street, wondering where they were. Tall, big-handed Crowley, six feet four, could pick the thief up like a rag doll if he caught him. Portly Brennan was slower, but tough, and reliable with a gun.
He hadn’t stopped to see if the book was missing, he knew it would be. The guy running between the hill and the garages stopped sometimes as if to listen. Yes, as he fled again, a gleam of moonlight caught the corner of the package. Same size, same pale color like brown wrapping paper. Strange he didn’t climb the hill—except he’d make a perfect target against the moon-pale grass. The moon hung low in the west, hitting the hill, leaving the yards dark. Beyond Wilma’s, the houses were close together. The runner paused at each narrow, dark side yard then went on, dodging bushes and trees. Suddenly he vanished. No sound, no movement in the shadows.
Jimmie used his flashlight, shining it into the narrow yards, into the crowded shrubbery. He was about to double back when he heard someone running again, and then two men . . .
Cat Shining Bright Page 13
