Cat Shining Bright

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  “They might,” she told the dispatcher, “be headed up toward the ruins, toward Voletta Nestor’s house, the house with that old barn behind, but that’s only a guess.” As the dispatcher put out the call, Kit pressed the disconnect.

  Clyde had left the kitchen, they heard the Jaguar start. Ryan shouted and ran, raced out the front door. They heard the Jaguar idling, heard the car door open, heard them arguing, Clyde’s voice quick and angry. “You can’t leave Wilma alone.”

  “Her stalker’s gone, Clyde. You heard what Kit said. You’re not going off alone after those men!”

  “Shut the door, Ryan. The cops don’t know about the cats. If they catch that car, there’s no one to help the cats. Shut the damn door. Stay with Wilma, she . . . Oh hell . . .”

  Wilma flung the back door open and slid in, Kit and Pan clinging to her. “I locked the front door,” she said as Rock bolted over her to the other side of the seat. She handed Ryan a jacket, and pulled on her own short coat.

  Clyde, looking back at her, swore again briefly before he headed for the freeway. Wilma had been his best friend since he was a small boy when she was his neighbor, a glamorous college student living next door. They’d never abandoned that friendship; she was family—but right now he could have gladly strangled her. He scowled in the rearview mirror. “You carrying?”

  “Of course,” Wilma said coolly, pushing back her gray-white ponytail, frowning back at him as he turned onto the freeway.

  “Ryan?” he said.

  “Yes,” she told him, slipping an automatic and a shoulder holster from her handbag, buckling on the holster then pulling on her jacket.

  Kit crowded onto Wilma’s shoulder, looking out the window, prayed the cops were ahead of them, already cornering the SUV. What if the dark car had turned off and somehow evaded the patrol cars? “Oh hurry, Clyde. Please hurry.”

  “Driving as fast as I dare,” he snapped; he seldom snapped at Kit. The speedometer said eighty-five. “If we get a cop on our tail, it’ll only slow us down, trying to explain.”

  When Kit looked at Pan, he was as nervous as she. She thought of the SUV’s tires that smelled of Voletta’s place. Could they be headed there?

  Did they mean to take the book there to Voletta? Who else would know about a hidden book removed from the Pamillon mansion, who else but a Pamillon? Who else would have sent someone to steal it back? None of the family lived anywhere near nor seemed interested in anything about the old place, even Voletta’s niece, and she hadn’t been there often before her aunt got hurt. And if Voletta had hired those men, what was the relationship between them, that she would trust them to bring her the book?

  Could Kit’s wild guess about the smells be right? Garlic, eucalyptus, and geranium, growing thick around the old barn. She prayed to the great cat god that her hunch was on target, that the crooks were headed there with their unknown captives, prayed as hard as a little cat can that Joe and Dulcie and Courtney would escape safely.

  19

  Something woke Kate. She glanced through the bedroom door to the shelter office and caught her breath. A dark figure stood at the window silhouetted by bright lights. Then she saw it was Scotty.

  The bedside clock said 3 a.m. Pulling on her robe, she went to stand beside him. Below the shelter and the Pamillon ruins, a pool of light shone across Voletta’s yard, a wider circle than the porch light could ever make.

  The wide, weedy yard was full of cars. Three darkly clad figures were pulling cars out of the old barn, lining them up facing the road. Most of them were new or late models, shining in the floodlights.

  Only a few days ago the barn had been empty, she had seen Lena open it to get a length of hose. Just a few bales of hay in there, some farm tools and ladders. A couple of dusty trailers pulled in, at the far corner. Now, watching with disbelief, she looked up at Scotty. “Not the stolen cars! Here in Voletta’s yard! This can’t be part of the car ring!”

  “I’ve already called the department.” Scotty, feeling her shiver, pulled her closer, his arm warm around her. “Where else would those cars come from?”

  “But that gang isn’t working the village now. That night when the wind was so bad was the last night. The paper said they’ve moved on, that they’re somewhere up the coast. Eureka, I think. And Voletta—how could that frail old woman be mixed up in a crime ring? That’s ludicrous.”

  Scotty hugged her closer. “Looks like they’re using her place as a storage stop. They might bring cars from anywhere. Or these could be the Molena Point cars, they steal the cars in the village and hide them here. Move them later, during the time the gang has gone on up the coast, drawing more of the highway patrol with them. That means they have more crew than we thought.” He looked down at Kate. “How long has this been going on? Have you seen this before? Seen lights down there?”

  “No. But I haven’t been staying up here long, just since we moved the cats in. And I don’t usually wake at three in the morning—not until the storm hit, and you were knocking on my door,” she said, coloring slightly. “I’m up at midnight to check on the kennel cats, then fall back asleep until about six.”

  He stood thinking, his red hair and beard caught in the light from below. “How often did Lena visit her aunt, before Voletta was hurt and Lena moved in?”

  “Every few weeks, I guess. I didn’t make a point to go down and visit with her,” she said coolly.

  Scotty laughed. “No girly chats over a cup of tea?”

  She made a face at him.

  It was then that Ryan called to tell them about Joe and Dulcie and Courtney. “There may be a car headed to Voletta’s. We . . . Kate, if a dark SUV pulls in, it’s Wilma’s stalker and that heavyset man. We don’t know where they’re going, but Kit says the scent on the tires could lead there, to Voletta’s place. Joe and Dulcie and Courtney are trapped in that car.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “The cats dove in behind the driver’s seat. When it stops, see if you can delay the car, give them a chance to get out . . .”

  Kate said, “Voletta’s yard is full of cars, men we’ve never seen are moving cars out of the old barn. These have to be the stolen cars. Scotty’s already called the department.”

  When they’d hung up, Scotty, moving into the bedroom, pulled on his boots and a jacket over his sweats and hurried outside. “I’m going over to the mansion,” he said, “where I can see better.”

  She watched him cross her freshly mown yard and then the tall grass of the berm that separated the shelter from the mansion. He stood just inside the missing wall of the living room, keeping to the shadows. She dressed quickly in a sweatshirt and jeans, strapped on her shoulder holster feeling slightly foolish, and pulled on a vest to conceal it. Better foolish than unprepared. Max had insisted she be armed when she moved up here alone. “You have your permit, Kate. Use it.” He didn’t know, then, nor had she, that she wouldn’t be alone. She was watching Scotty again when something pale moved beside him. One of the feral cats? Surprised, she watched him crouch and reach out to it.

  The ferals never came that near strangers. Even when they watched Scotty working on that part of the house, they were shy and wary. Scotty wasn’t one of the inner circle, those few who knew the speaking cats’ secret. She stood frowning and puzzled.

  Yesterday morning when she woke at five, Scotty had already eaten and left; the apartment smelled of coffee and fried eggs and bacon. In the tiny kitchen she’d found his dishes neatly washed, resting in the drainer. Looking out at the frost-pale lawn she had seen where his dark footprints had crushed the frost from the mowed grass; had seen the taller, wild grass of the verge falling aside where he had walked through. Maybe, she’d thought, he’d had some new thoughts about the work on the living room, maybe he had gone over to the worksite to consider some change?

  But his footprints did not lead to the front of the house, they went toward the back of the old mansion. Dressing quickly, she had gone into the biggest shelter, down at the end, petting cats as
she went and talking to them. Standing on a log that was part of a tall cat tree, she could see Scotty behind the old house at the edge of the small, sheltered patio that joined a large bedroom—the private little garden where, not long ago, Ryan and Wilma had found the Bewick book buried.

  She had watched him kneel down. She had frozen with surprise when three of the feral cats came out of the bushes and fairly near to him, stood watching him, unafraid: pale Willow and Tansy, and dark tabby Coyote.

  She could swear he was talking to them, trying to entice them closer to be petted, these wild cats who would have nothing to do with most humans.

  Did the feral cats sense something in Scotty that made them trust him? Did they see a quality in him that drew them, maybe sense the old Scots-Irish traits that might be sympathetic to their own heritage? The cats did not move closer, they were still for a few moments, listening to him, studying him with interest—but then they turned away, almost as if something he’d said had startled them. They drifted back into the shadows and were gone—and within Kate something joyful had exploded, a hope that bubbled up fiercely and made her smile.

  All that day she had found it nearly impossible not to wonder if Scotty had guessed the cats’ secret or was on the verge of guessing. Might he have thought he heard them talking and, though he really couldn’t believe that, he was curious?

  Or was it the cats alone who were making the advances? But why? Even if they were drawn to him, why would they want him to know their secret, these cats who were so shy and careful? The secret that no one who knew, could ever tell?

  This solemn confidence was the reason she wouldn’t marry him. How could they be one when she was bridled with deception, with a lie by omission that she must forever hide?

  All yesterday she had thought of little else. She was so excited that he might know the truth, it was hard to act normal. But now, tonight, with the serious activity below, she put aside her own questions.

  Scotty still stood unmoving against the open living room wall, the pale cat companionably beside him, both of them watching the men busy below, moving cars—and was that Lena down there, helping them? Lena dressed in dark sweats, dark boots, dark cap pulled over her hair, stepping out of a pale convertible that she had just pulled into the line of cars? Kate studied the three men, and didn’t recognize them. And where was the dark SUV that Ryan had called about? The car carrying the three terrified cats?

  It was hard to think of Joe Grey frightened, but this time he had to be—terrified for little Courtney and for Dulcie, the three of them trapped in a strange car, traveling through the night with men who might be killers. Kate pressed against the office window. Where was the SUV? Was it coming here or headed somewhere else? Where were Ryan and Clyde, where were the cops?

  In Clyde’s Jaguar, Kit stood on Wilma’s lap, her front paws on the back of the front seat, looking up the dark freeway, watching the SUV they followed. There was not much traffic at this hour—until they heard sirens behind them and saw flashing lights and Clyde pulled over into the right lane, out of the way. Two police cars passed them fast, rounding a curve where, ahead, emergency lights flashed from a fire engine and from rescue units. Two trucks were turned over, blocking both lanes. An officer was putting up barriers and red lanterns as a cop with a flashlight flagged Clyde down; he parked on the shoulder.

  A bright yellow pickup was rolled over, a blue and white bakery van half on top of it, one wheel still spinning. On the side of the road just ahead, the dark brown SUV stood parked, with a long dent down the left side. The left front door had been pried open or maybe sprung open at what appeared to be a sideswipe. The black-haired, muscled driver was leaning halfway out, trying to pull himself free. A CHP officer stood with a gun on the man. At last the big man, grabbing the roof, hoisted himself up and out. As he tried to stand erect, leaning on the door, the three cats exploded out behind him—they fled under the car away from the freeway, across the dirt shoulder and up the grassy hill to vanish among the oaks.

  While two sheriff’s deputies shackled Randall, Ryan was out of the Jaguar chasing Joe and Dulcie and Courtney, Kit beside her, Rock and Pan racing ahead. Climbing the rough ground in the dark, trying to avoid protruding roots, Ryan called to the cats, “It’s all right, you can come down! Come down, kitties. Come down, Joe! Come here to me!” She knelt, waiting for them.

  Slowly the three cats came out from among the trees. Even Joe Grey looked haggard, staying close to little Courtney, who was still shivering. Clyde and Wilma climbed up to kneel in the tall grass beside Ryan. Wilma picked up Dulcie and Courtney and held them close in her arms. Clyde hid his frown as Joe Grey clung to his shoulder, the tomcat’s face pressed against Clyde’s morning stubble, Joe’s sudden need for him bringing tears to Clyde’s eyes. Kit leaped to Wilma’s lap and began to wash Courtney. Rock, rearing up, licked the three escapees and sniffed them all over, picking up the scents of their journey in a strange car. No one scolded them for their wild expedition and for getting themselves trapped—but Wilma looked accusingly into Joe Grey’s yellow eyes.

  Joe had gotten Dulcie and Courtney into this mess. She was thankful that at least the boy kittens were away at the Firettis’ and safe. But Joe, she thought, smiling just a little, he was only being his macho self; he was only trying to catch a killer. “Did they get the Bewick book?” she asked him.

  “In the back,” Joe said, looking down the hill toward the SUV, where an MPPD officer was handcuffing Egan. “Maybe I can slip in and get it . . . It’s heavy as hell. If you . . .”

  “Leave it there,” Wilma said. “It could be evidence, proof that Egan stole, as well as broke in.”

  “But you paid a lot for that book.”

  “It’s more secure at the PD. If he knows where it is, and if he’s released, he’d have a hard time trying to break into the department’s evidence room.”

  Two MPPD vehicles were pulled up behind the brown Toyota. The cats went silent as McFarland and Crowley left the other officers, came across the road, and started up the hill to them. The humans rose, holding cats, wondering how they were going to explain having the five cats out here in the small hours of the morning during a car chase.

  Rock, delighted to see his cop friends, trotted up to lick their hands, distracting Jimmie long enough for Clyde to say, “We’re headed for the shelter. Kate called, she’s been staying up there until she gets a live-in caretaker. She sounded scared, and that’s not like Kate. Sounded like she desperately wanted some backup, she said something was going on down at the Nestor place—men she’d never seen before, moving expensive cars out of that old barn. What would Voletta Nestor be doing with a bunch of fancy cars?” Clyde knew he was talking too much. “Kate said she called you?”

  “She did,” Jimmie said. “We’re headed up there, backup behind us and roadblocks ahead. But what are you doing with your cats out here in the middle of the night? That is Joe Grey? Why . . . ?”

  “The damn-fool tomcat,” Clyde said. “They leaped out of the SUV. I don’t know what happened, the driver must have left the window down, somewhere in town; maybe there’s food in there.”

  McFarland just looked at him.

  “I don’t know where they are half the time—but to see them jump out of that car . . . One of these is Joe’s kitten. Wilma was worried sick.” Clyde started down the hill. The cats watched young Jimmie McFarland, wishing he weren’t so nosy. And, walking down the hill, McFarland watched Clyde. He was silent for a long while, keeping pace with Clyde. “I guess,” he said at last, “unless something more turns up, we don’t need to bother the chief with the cat story. I don’t see how it affects the case.”

  Down on the road, Officer Crowley was helping Randall, in leg irons and handcuffs, into the back of an MPPD squad car, pressing his head down so he wouldn’t crack his skull. Crowley’s big, bony hands handled Randall like a rag doll. On the other side of the seat, Egan was already confined. He looked across at Wilma so sadly that she approached the car. He said, th
rough the cracked-open window, “I wanted to talk to you. When I was watching you? It was because I wanted to ask you something.”

  She looked at him and said nothing.

  “About my father,” he said. “You knew my father.”

  “What’s your name—your real name?”

  “Egan. Egan Borden. Randall, here, he’s my stepfather. I took his name, Borden.” He looked over at Randall. “You hurtin’ pretty bad?”

  “Nah,” Randall growled. “Hitch in my side is all.”

  Wilma looked at Egan. “What was your family name, who was your father?”

  “My father was Calvin Alderson. He got the chair for murder, you helped send him there. I know he was executed for murder but that’s about all I know. A social worker told me that much, when I was older. They think he killed my mother, too.”

  “What was your mother’s name?”

  “Um . . . Marie. Marie Alderson.” Wilma watched him, knowing he was lying, and, again, she was silent. If this young man was Rick Alderson, he was seven years old when his father went to prison, he’d remember quite a bit about Calvin. And why lie about his mother’s name? But how could he be Rick when the fingerprints didn’t match? She was filled with questions—questions she couldn’t ask here, with officers listening. She wanted a proper interview with this man, maybe a recording—and so would Max.

  She was convinced Randall was Barbara’s and Langston’s killer, but was his stepson—Rick or whoever this was—a part of that murder? “You’ll be in Molena Point jail,” she said. “We can talk there.” She turned away, walked over to the Jaguar, slid into the back between the cats and Rock. In the front seat, Ryan and Clyde were quietly talking.