Cat Shining Bright

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  There stood the blue Ford, its passenger door open. Lena swung in, they took off fast onto a narrow side street to disappear among the crowded cottages. She hadn’t, in her rage, shot Randall as Joe had guessed she would. Maybe she thought, whatever his pain was, it would do him in. And if he didn’t die, she had left the gun to entrap him, certain proof he’d shot Barbara and Langston.

  Was part of her hatred, her disgust for Randall, a mirror reflection of twenty years gone, when her first husband shot her own lover? Frowning over her mixed signals of hatred and maybe regret, Joe sped up a pine to the roofs trying to see which way they were headed, but they were already long gone. Spinning around he raced for home, for a phone, to get the cops on the Ford’s tail. Both passengers were wanted: Lena for helping highjack cars, Rick with at least one warrant out on him, and both of them for helping a killer escape. Fleeing across to his own line of roofs, Joe looked back once to see Max Harper and Detective Garza arrive in a squad car, parking beside the medical van. He didn’t wait to see the medics ease Randall down the attic steps on a stretcher, to see Dallas, wearing gloves, frisk Randall, bag the revolver and hand it to Max—but he could imagine the scene. Racing across the roofs for home, Joe didn’t see Clyde’s truck coming down the street behind him.

  24

  Clyde, heading home to check on the quarantined animals—not that they would get into trouble, he thought wryly—found patrol cars and the medics’ van blocking the street at Barbara Conley’s corner house. Turning, he went around the block and swung onto his own street again—as a flash of movement across the roofs made him slow, a streak of gray racing for home, white paws flashing, and a hot anger struck Clyde. This was Joe’s idea of quarantine? Not only his tower but a whole block of rooftops and how much farther? What happened to the tomcat’s solemn promise? Whatever was going on at Barbara’s house, that’s where he’d been. Damn cat heard a siren, he took off across the village like a fire horse to a three-alarm blaze. Had he been inside that house, as well, watching, hiding from the cops? What was going on?

  Joe had never before broken a promise, that Clyde knew of. He wanted to honk the horn and shout at the racing little liar. Instead, as Joe swerved into his tower, Clyde pulled quietly into the drive. Getting out, he didn’t click the car door shut, he made no sound. Quick and silent, he unlocked the front door, slipped in, pulled off his shoes, and in stocking feet, headed for the stairs. He paused at the bottom, listening. There was silence for a moment, then—who was he talking to? Had he dialed the dispatcher? But why? The cops were already there.

  “. . . Yes,” Joe was saying, “in the attic with him. She called you from there, then she ran out the back.” . . . Silence, then, “Blue Ford hatchback, Rick Alderson driving. Yes, Rick Alderson. Don’t you have Egan in the lockup? You do have a warrant for Rick?” Another silence, Joe gave the license number, then he must have hung up, Clyde heard him drop to the floor.

  By the time Clyde reached the top of the stairs the gray tomcat was curled up on the love seat with Rock, lying against Rock’s chest appearing to be sound asleep, the gray dog’s paws wrapped around him. Clyde stood looking down at them. Rock was asleep, snoring slightly, maybe worn out with playing, because the living room was a shambles. The Weimaraner probably hadn’t stirred when Joe Grey slipped in between his big paws.

  Clyde pulled the desk chair around, sat down facing the two animals, fixing his gaze on Joe, staring at him intently.

  Joe, feigning sleep, could feel Clyde’s gaze sharp as a laser beam. He daren’t even slit an eye open; the minute he stirred a whisker he’d get a dressing-down that would be the grandfather of all lectures.

  But what had he done wrong? His promise was that he’d stay in the house, not go through Rock’s door in the patio; they’d agreed that he could go into his tower. So he had pushed a little in his own mind, for purposes of clarification, reasoning that the roof was part of the house. So what was the big deal? And, where had Clyde seen him? Not racing across the neighbors’ roofs, he hoped. Or worse, coming out of Barbara’s house.

  Could he help it if, when one thing led to another, he found himself past his own block and into the extended crime scene? Joe ignored the word “deception.” This was simply good detecting.

  When Clyde, admiring the faking ability of the gray tomcat, could stand it no longer he picked Joe up from Rock’s protecting forearms and held him dangling, scowling angrily into Joe’s startled yellow eyes.

  “What happened to the quarantine promise?”

  “We agreed that the tower was part of our house, so I figured the roof was, too. I said I’d keep away from other cats.”

  “How did our roof, Joe, turn into three full blocks of rooftops? You want to explain how that could happen?”

  “You are so picky. They’re all laced together with tree branches. Where do you draw the line? And that rat . . . You know there’s little chance that rat had rabies. A rabid rat would have been nervous and probably would have attacked us all, it wouldn’t have been busy tearing up boxes. It was only a female rat making a nest.”

  He looked intently at Clyde. “This was urgent. This was . . . if I hadn’t called the department they wouldn’t know what kind of car they were driving. Those two are wanted . . . Rick Alderson for grand theft auto, and Lena . . . I don’t know what that charge will be.”

  Clyde was silent a long moment. “Rick Alderson?”

  “Would you mind not dangling me?”

  Clyde, despite his anger, gathered Joe over his shoulder, cradling him in a more comfortable position. “So you sneaked into the crime scene. But where did Rick come from? And who called the medics? Who was hurt? What happened in there?”

  “Randall Borden. He was in the attic. He apparently escaped from jail. He’s sick, I don’t know what’s wrong. Lena found him, called the meds then she got the hell out. Rick was waiting, in a blue Ford. Bear in mind, Clyde, the police have warrants for both Rick and Lena.”

  “You said that. But where did Rick come from?”

  “I haven’t a clue. He was just there. Lena called him Rick. When I looked closely I could see a little difference between him and Egan, a tiny difference to the shape of their noses and ears. I think they’re headed for Voletta’s place. We need to get Courtney and Dulcie, and Kit and Pan away from there. At least the boys are safe with the Firettis. We need to get Wilma and Kate out, I don’t feel good about this. Those people are . . . I thought Lena was going to shoot Randall, going to shoot her own husband.”

  The tomcat scratched his ear. “I don’t know why they’d bother the cats, but . . . their interest in the Bewick book with pages about speaking cats . . . and Voletta’s interest in the feral cats . . . I want my family away from there. I want them home, and Kit and Pan, too.”

  Clyde picked up the phone and called Ryan. Briefly he gave her the picture. “You have time to bring the cats down, or shall I come up?”

  “I’ll bring them now—as soon as we round them up, as soon as we find Courtney.” Joe imagined Ryan on the jobsite, pulling off her cap from her dark, mussed hair, hastily putting her tools away. How long would it take to round up the cats? They’d all come to her . . . all but Courtney, who, at times, had surprisingly selective hearing.

  But the cats were all together, crouched on a bed of boulders high above the ruins. Courtney sat straight and wide-eyed among the circle of ferals, joined by Dulcie and Kit and Pan. A little breeze stirred their whiskers and stirred the tall grass. They sat fascinated as the ferals took turns telling tales. The ancient Celtic and Irish and Scottish myths, the Welsh legends. Kit had told Courtney a few of these but they both liked hearing them again, they liked best the way pale-calico Willow told them. Nine ferals were there, some of them having returned only recently from the underearth lands of the Netherworld.

  It was the tales of the Netherworld that Dulcie really didn’t want Courtney to hear just yet, but that was hard to prevent. Already Kit had told the kitten enough about that land where Kit and Pan
had ventured, that realm of mythical beasts, and of powers that had destroyed many parts of its kingdoms. One could hardly stop Kit from telling the stories around the fire at Kit’s own house, or at Wilma’s house, with Courtney ever demanding to hear more. (Striker and Buffin preferred sagas of the Irish wars.) Dulcie didn’t want Courtney’s head filled, yet, with the Netherworld, to which the strong-minded calico might decide to slip away alone and wander down into its deep tunnels, to see its marvels for herself.

  But before the tales began, Dulcie had asked Willow about the lights at Voletta’s and the gathered cars.

  “It’s the first time we’ve seen them,” Willow said, “we watched them pull out, but we didn’t see them come in. That must have been the night of the terrible wind, we were deep in a cellar, out of the blow, sleeping warm and cozy. We couldn’t have seen the cars drive in, and in that storm we couldn’t have heard them.”

  “But had you seen them before?” Dulcie said. “Maybe weeks ago?”

  “No. We’d see a car or two pull into the woods behind the barn, but never a whole fleet of them. Not going into the barn or coming out. Those few we saw parked back in the woods were lovers, the way young people do.”

  “They could have put a lot of cars back in the trees,” Sage said. “That night maybe they put them in the barn to keep them from being dented and scratched with falling branches, there were trees down all over.”

  Kate found them there, the cats so immersed in the stories they had ignored her searching calls, ignored Ryan’s calls farther up the hills. They were gathered among the boulders, and for a few moments she crouched nearby, enjoying the stories, too. But there was another event tangled in that moment, a glimpse that shocked and thrilled Kate. Watching Courtney, Kate started suddenly when she saw movement in the deep shadows of a crumbled doorway, a tall shape that disappeared at once beyond the door’s darkness, a tall figure, as she had seen that night standing at the office window looking out.

  Had Scotty been standing there listening to the cats’ stories? Listening to them speak, and had slipped away when she saw him? A thrill of amazement filled Kate, a joy that brought tears—or had she not seen him at all, was it only the breeze stirring the vines that grew up the side of the house?

  If Scotty knew about the cats, why hadn’t he told her? She almost ran to find him. But no, it couldn’t have been Scotty. Why would he not tell her? Shivering, she remained crouched in the grass not looking in that direction, pretending to have seen nothing.

  It was here that Ryan found Kate and the cats. She waited for a tale to end, then told the Molena Point cats that Clyde wanted them at home, that he felt Rick Alderson might be a danger to them—and that the ferals should stay away from him, too. She bundled up Kit and Pan, Pan shining golden against her dark hair. Kate settled Dulcie and Courtney on her shoulders, and they returned to the shelter to find Wilma.

  When Wilma and the four cats had headed home in Ryan’s king cab, Kate turned back to the rocky meadow. She approached the back of the mansion where she thought Scotty had stood.

  She paused and stepped back.

  Scotty sat on a boulder, his back to her but in plain sight, talking with Willow, the faded calico comfortable on the smooth rock next to him, one paw on Scotty’s knee. Willow was saying, “Kate has known for ever so long, for many years. But how could she agree to marry you, when she thought you didn’t know? When she would, for all your lives, have to keep the secret?”

  “But—” Scotty began.

  “But what?” said Willow. “You only found out by accident, when you were moving those boards. When we weren’t careful, and you heard us talking.” The matronly cat looked hard at him. She had the look of the leader she was, queen of the feral band, a cat who had reprimanded and coddled generations of kittens and perhaps a human or two. “I think,” Willow said, “it’s time you two had a talk.” She patted Scotty’s knee with a soft paw, sprang from the boulder lithe and quick, and bounded away, losing herself among the walls of the old house, leaving Scotty and Kate alone.

  Scotty looked at her, and took her hand, and for some time, neither spoke. A little breeze blew the tall, wild grass against the rocks. Scotty took her in his arms. If a feral cat or two watched from among the fallen walls, neither Kate nor Scotty minded.

  “So now,” Scotty said, “so now that you know my secret—was this your secret, all along?”

  “It was,” she said shakily.

  “And now,” he said, “now that all is clear between us, will you marry me?”

  She couldn’t answer, she could only nod against him, and try to wipe away her tears.

  25

  The four cats rode crowded on Wilma’s lap, spilling across the front seat as Ryan’s king cab headed for the highway. Dulcie and Kit dreaming of the old tales, Courtney with lingering visions of the Netherworld. Pan stretched out between the girl cats and Ryan, and who knew what he was dreaming?

  “You can take us to my house,” Wilma said. “Egan’s in jail, and Randall’s in the hospital, there’s no one to bother us.” She smiled. “No reason to toss my place again, anyway. They got the book, or think they did. They know the police have it.”

  “Rick and Lena aren’t in jail,” Ryan said.

  Wilma was silent.

  “Lena isn’t stable,” Ryan said, “but she’s clever. She might guess there was another volume, might wonder if that one was a substitute, if you still have the valuable copy. Who knows, at auction, what the original would have been worth? And if she knows the whole story, she might come after . . .” She glanced down at the tangle of cats. Dulcie and Kit stared up at her, wary and silent.

  “No one knows if she’ll break in,” Ryan said “no one knows what she’ll do—she knows she could never catch the feral cats. And Rick, he has a long, ugly record—while they’re both still free, you’re coming home with us.”

  “But what about your quarantine?” Kit said.

  “Joe and Rock can stay in my studio, it’s nice and light and there’s a soft couch to share. The isolation will be over by tomorrow night, the two of them will be free. Striker and Buffin can come home, Joe and Dulcie can cuddle their kittens. Maybe, by that time, Lena and Rick will be locked up, instead of our poor animals.”

  With Wilma and the cats settled in, Ryan didn’t go back up the hills to work. She thawed a pot of bean soup for dinner and made corn bread—while the four cats galloped upstairs to rub against the glass door of her study. And Joe Grey, inside, did the same, his nose and whiskers pressed against the cold door, as close as he could get to Dulcie and Courtney, to his calico child and his lady. Rock paced the length of the studio restlessly, more interested in getting out than in the cats’ familial concerns. When Clyde got home Rock barked up a storm until Clyde put a leash and muzzle on the Weimaraner and took him for a long run.

  When Lucinda and Pedric Greenlaw came down to get Kit and Pan, of course they stayed for supper, for Ryan’s good comfort food and to catch up on the tangle of events. They were sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea as Clyde and Rock came storming in the back gate to the patio. Clyde brushed sand from the silver dog and wiped the sand from his feet. He fed Rock in the patio then took him upstairs to his prison. He sent the four cats down to the kitchen, knowing very well the two inmates didn’t have rabies, but obedient to John’s instructions. Pan, leaping to the table with the lady cats, had started to tell about Kate’s visit to Voletta when Kit jumped in with her usual monologue. “. . . and that wasn’t Egan, it was Rick Alderson with the long record and Voletta pretended she never heard them moving all those cars that night and didn’t see lights but how could she not, she’s a mean woman, I don’t like her even if she was hurt when the window broke, I don’t even like the way she smells and—”

  “Slow down!” Dulcie and Pan hissed.

  “And then Lena’s husband Randall called Rick and said he broke out of jail and we couldn’t hear all the conversation because Lena came in and we had to hang up the phone and
hide and when they drove off to get him I wanted to jump in the car but they were too fast and Pan grabbed me and bit me hard and they were gone before I could leap off the roof and then we couldn’t call the cops because we didn’t know where they were going and . . .”

  “Kit . . .” Ryan said, scooping up the tortoiseshell, snuggling Kit against her. Kit looked up at Ryan innocently, yellow eyes wide.

  “They’re gone now,” Ryan said, holding Kit tight. “Long gone. Joe found them and he did call 911. Maybe the cops have them by now. Oh, Kit, do settle down.”

  Clyde was silent, taking it all in, putting the pieces together from Joe’s story and Kit’s. Only when Ryan put supper on the table, steaming bowls of bean soup, cooler bowls for the cats, big slices of corn bread all around, was Kit wordless, settling greedily in to her feast.

  It was after supper, when they’d gathered around a warm fire, that Ryan thought again about Kate and Scotty up at the mansion—about Scotty standing in the shadows listening to the cats’ ancient tales. She wondered what had happened after she left. Surely all the cats had seen him, but no one said a word, not even talkative Kit. Ryan started to say, “I wonder if —” when Kit interrupted.

  “Now Scotty knows about us,” she said as if she had read Ryan’s thoughts, “and Kate knows that he knows and there won’t be any secrets between them now and I think they’ll get married.”

  They all looked at her. She had to tell that tale, too, about sitting among the boulders with the ferals hearing the old stories—she ran on until Dulcie hushed her. Courtney wished her daddy were there with them so he could hear all Kit had to tell—but then, maybe it was better that he didn’t hear. She didn’t look at her mother, she knew Dulcie didn’t like her listening to tales of the Netherworld that so thrilled her. Dulcie didn’t like hearing that Courtney’s own pictures were there in that underground world, as Willow had told, antique paintings of a long-ago cat who looked exactly like Courtney—those visions too sharply stirred Courtney’s dreams of that magical land.