Cat Coming Home

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  “And then,” Misto said, “there at the prison when I learned there were other speaking cats nearby? Of course I came to find you.” He smiled, such an open, delighted smile that Joe had to trust the old cat. “When I saw that blue vintage T-Bird pull into the prison yard on visiting day, I guessed that had to be Jared Colletto’s car, and I took a chance. Victor was always bragging about that car, how his brother kept it in factory-new condition, how Jared was okay in most ways but he was real prissy when it came to that T-Bird. When I saw that car, I thought, how many vintage blue T-Birds could there be? And here I am.”

  “Did you live inside the prison?” Dulcie said. “How could …?”

  Misto shook his head. “I lived in the open fields among a band of ferals—or at least people called them feral. Many were dumped cats who’d once had homes. Others were truly feral, born wild and their ancestors wild before them. I was the only speaking cat, though I never spoke to them.” The old cat licked his paw. “One of the guards put out food for us, at a side entrance. He’d pet us and talk to us. I wanted badly to talk to him, but of course I didn’t. He was a kind man, he was my friend.

  “Some of the prisoners were kind, too. Some saved food for us, leftovers from their meals, they’d slip food to us in the prison yard. We could get into the fenced exercise yard, and even into the prison itself if we were quick, but you had to be wary, we weren’t allowed in there.”

  “Weren’t you afraid?” Kit said. “Won’t those men hurt cats?”

  “Most of them liked us, they liked having an animal around, to pet and talk to. We stayed away from the threatening ones, the reaching, hard-eyed, cold or spacey guys. Or the guys who were too gentle and smarmy and tried too hard to lure us close.”

  Below them, Benny and Lori emerged from the cottage carrying a big trash can between them. Misto said, “Lori’s pa was nice, we were friends. As much as you can be friends, when you can’t talk together. He talked about Lori, he described her so well that I knew her at once. Long shiny brown hair, big brown eyes and little tilted nose. He said she worked for a contractor, and he was proud of that.” Misto twitched a whisker. “There’s a lot of regret in that man, the kind of regret and hindsight that traps a human, that can eat on a person and make him miserable.”

  Lori and Benny emptied the trash can, tipping it high into the Dumpster, the carpet scraps and dust cascading out. After they put the can on the back porch, Benny continued to follow Lori, as clingy as a puppy. As if, Joe thought, the kid hadn’t had many young friends in his short life. He thought about the hit-and-run, about the danger to Benny, and about the stabbing of Jack Reed and the possible threat to Lori, and he was glad Rock was there watching the two of them with that keen, proprietary gaze. He just hoped Rock’s attention, and the vigilance of the people around the children, would be enough to protect these two from harm.

  32

  FIVE DAYS BEFORE Christmas, Jack Reed was transferred from Salinas Valley Hospital back to the state prison at Soledad, riding in a prison car accompanied by two guards. He was settled, not in the open infirmary, but by himself in a secure room until Victor Colletto and the other two inmates who’d attacked him had been transferred out. The room was plain, with bland beige walls and a locked, barred door. He welcomed the isolation; it beat the open infirmary, crowded among complaining, bad-tempered men with their own ills and medicines and body functions, and no nicety of canvas curtains between them as in a civilian hospital. He was processed and checked in, and the prison doc looked him over. Dr. Ralph Flaggan was a tall, meaty man with a round, baby-smooth face and a closed, superior attitude that could have put Jack off, until he thought about the men this guy had to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

  “Your wounds are healing well, Jack. You’re out of danger, provided there are no setbacks. Another two weeks, you should be ready to return to the general population. I don’t want you out there until you can hold your own. We’ll transfer you to the ward once Colletto is gone.”

  “Tomorrow’s a visiting day,” Jack said. “If my little girl wants to come, can I see her?”

  “You’ll go to the secure visiting room in a wheelchair,” Flaggan said. “The warden has notified her guardian that you’re back in the prison.” This would not be the family visiting room, but a secure cubicle, again with a glass between them, where they could speak only by phone, every word subject to prison monitoring. Now, within the confining metal bars of his narrow bed he had nothing to do but think. He didn’t feel like reading any of the dog-eared magazines the prison supplied; instead he lay worrying about Lori, increasingly afraid someone would try to hurt her as Vic Colletto had hurt him. Colletto was mean, his angry attack just a small indication of his vindictiveness. Jack thought Vic hadn’t been put with more violent men because he was young, wasn’t a gang member, and this was his first time in prison. Colletto’s hatred of Jack stemmed from two years ago, when Jack had fired him.

  When, that morning crossing the prison yard on his way to breakfast, Jack overheard Colletto and his two pals talking about Molena Point and Max Harper, he’d caught the name Dorriss and paused. When Colletto glanced around and saw Jack listening, he’d come at Jack. Colletto had been thick with Marlin Dorriss in prison, before Dorriss was released. Dorriss, too, was a vindictive man, and he had no love for Harper, who’d ruined his smooth thieving operation.

  Jack didn’t know what Dorriss and Colletto might be planning, but the conversation ate at him. Dorriss, on the outside and with moneyed friends, could set up any number of ugly operations to get back at Harper.

  And if Colletto was in some way part of it, Lori might become a victim just to entertain him. Colletto, already hating Jack and blaming Jack because he was now in trouble with prison authorities, would sure as hell encourage Dorriss to rough her up, or worse.

  He knew Molena Point PD would watch out for Lori, he had to count on that. But with Harper, Dorriss’s agenda could be anything. The man was a cool, manipulative liar, liked to think of himself as a high roller, a charming fellow who knew how to pull strings, how to get things done and be well paid for it. He’d hire someone to do any dirty work involved, though he might enjoy roughing up a few people, too. Seemed strange he was close with the Collettos; they had no high-toned connections, no power. He was probably paying them to do the grunt work; Victor’s younger brother, Kent, would be good for that. If Dorriss did plan some retribution against Max Harper, that bothered him. Max had been a good friend, he was a good man, Jack didn’t want to see some scum try to take him down.

  And they’d better leave Lori alone. She’d had enough ugliness in her life. She was fearful and worried about him in prison, and before that, before he was sent up, even then he’d caused her pain, he hadn’t really been there for her. Then, he’d been the one who was afraid, afraid for Lori, terrified for her. What kind of example was that? Her mother dead, and only a weak, fearful father. No one strong enough to understand and support her. That was hard on a young girl, he understood that now. And here, in prison, he was less than useless.

  The night Jack found his brother, Hal, standing over those children’s graves, holding a dead child carelessly under his arm like a bag of flour, and a shovel in his other hand, the rage that hit him hadn’t abated until he’d killed Hal. Until long after he’d buried him beside those pitiful little graves and shoved weeds and overgrown geraniums back over the raw earth. Nothing in the world could shake him as he’d been shaken the night he killed his brother.

  That was when the battles at home began, when he and Natalie began to argue over Lori’s safety. Natalie thought he was being overprotective. He never had told her the truth of it, hadn’t wanted to make her a party to Hal’s murder.

  Then when he realized his brother’s partner, Irving Fenner, was still out there killing other children, he was wild with fear again. That was when he began to lock Lori in the house, wouldn’t let her go out even in the daytime, not even to school. He wouldn’t tell Natalie why, he didn’t want to terr
ify her, too, and that was his biggest mistake; their fighting grew worse until Natalie took Lori and left him, managed to get away to the East Coast where he could never find them. Since he didn’t have the money for a private detective nor was he sure he could trust one, he decided it was best for Lori if he didn’t know where she was, if he made no contact that could be traced. Lori was six when Natalie ran off with her, and Jack didn’t see her again for five years. After Natalie died, Lori was flown back from North Carolina in the care of a social worker. And the nightmare started all over again; Jack, filled with fear for her because the killer was still out there, hid her away, boarded up the windows, locked her in the house. He’d known no other way, he couldn’t go to the law. As much as he respected Max Harper, Harper would have to bring Children’s Services into it, and that was all Fenner would need. He’d find Lori before the cops had enough on him to arrest him and take him off the streets, and Fenner would kill her.

  But by then, Lori was older and she soon figured a way to get out of the house. She ran, found a cavelike hiding place that no one knew about. Even so, Fenner at last spotted her on the street, when the child ventured out for a few moments like a little animal coming up for food and air. Fenner followed her, Jack discovered him stalking her, and in a rictor of renewed fear he hadn’t waited for the cops, he’d killed Fenner just as he’d killed Hal. Only this time, he didn’t hide the body. He was too tired, he had ended the nightmare that threatened Lori, it was over, he was willing to take the lumps. When Max Harper found him with Fenner’s body and arrested him, no other cop could have been more fair, could have treated him straighter than Max did. It was Max who helped him through the legalities of placing Lori with Cora Lee French and the senior ladies, and in selecting an attorney to draw up a trust for Lori that included the income from the sale of their house and of his half of the electrical company that he and his partner had established before Lori was born.

  Now, Harper himself could be facing trouble, and Jack would like to give him a heads-up. In the hospital, with the guard right there in his face, he hadn’t been able to say anything to Cora Lee or Lori. But now that he was back in prison, all he needed was a few seconds in the visiting room, with the guards’ attention diverted. If a guard overheard him talking about criminal plans on the outside, and told the warden, Warden Deaver would be required to pass that on to Molena Point PD. That was too many people knowing. As much as Jack respected the warden, he didn’t trust all the guards or every cop, not even among Harper’s own officers.

  How was he going to give Lori or Cora Lee any message for Harper, in a secure visiting cubicle, able to speak only through a monitored phone? He lay there worrying until he wore himself out. And then, drifting off, he got to thinking for some reason about that stray cat. Prison cat. Wondering if, when he got out of this bed and back among the prison population, back to his gardening job, he’d see that cat again. Strange he’d think about that.

  He hadn’t had a pet since he was a kid, hadn’t had time when he was grown. And he’d never paid much attention to the cats that hung around outside the prison. Living on mice and gophers, he guessed, and on handouts from the inmates and some of the guards. He’d paid little attention except for the big yellow tomcat that had followed him and made up with him. Came trotting over every time it saw him working outside, hung around the whole time he was digging weeds and trimming bushes. He’d liked stroking it and scratching its ears. Tomcat could purr like a buzz saw. There was something about the simple honesty of an animal, unlike the deceptive layers of most humans, that eased him. When he imagined a world without animals in it, without Lori’s beloved horses, without the birds that scavenged the prison yard, the friendly dogs all over Molena Point, the rabbits around the prison he saw leaping across the fields, the shy cats slipping away, he thought that such a world would be cold, and one-dimensional, that a world made up only of humans would be far more discouraging, even, than the prison that was now his home.

  LORI COULDN’T STAY awake as she and Cora Lee drove through the dark midnight hours. Tired from a long morning’s work at the cottage, then school, and then riding Smokey with Charlie Harper, she fell asleep before they were out of the village onto the highway. She slept all the way to Soledad, woke when Cora Lee pulled off the freeway to park in a long line of cars beside the six-lane. She imagined, inside the cars in front of them, unseen people dozing cramped and uncomfortable, waiting for morning to enter the prison, each with his own sad story. The night was still except for an occasional bump or click from within another car. She knew the noises were only sleepers shifting position, but they sounded stealthy, made her uneasy. The dark emptiness of the night, among so many strangers who could be convicts themselves, made her glad the doors were locked and that Cora Lee had her phone and her pepper spray. The night had turned cold, the wind from the freeway forcing icy fingers in around the closed windows, the glass cold against her hand. She yawned, pulled her coat collar up, and despite her fear she curled up against the door, dropping once more into sleep.

  She dreamed that Benny was trapped underneath a whole stack of Maudie’s quilts. Maudie kept frantically pulling off quilts, trying to free him—but then the quilts were pale hands, thin, white hands reaching for him, Maudie throwing quilts over the hands to try to smother them.

  She woke at first light, cold and cramped, and startled that she was in the parked car. Some time during the night she had crawled over into the backseat and lay twisted up in the blanket Cora Lee had thrown over her. Rising up, she looked into the front.

  Cora Lee was asleep behind the wheel, her head resting against the side window. Her dark curly hair was so short it was never out of place. She had pulled her creamy down jacket over her legs. Her hand lay inches from her cell phone, and from the can of pepper spray half concealed beneath the edge of her jacket. Looking out across the freeway, Lori studied the huge, pale box that was the prison, a cold, impersonal building. She hated this place, it made her feel as small and helpless as a bug. Pa shouldn’t be here, he should have gotten a medal for killing those two men, not be locked up. She hated the powers in the world that you couldn’t reason with, powers that sucked the life out of a person.

  Cora Lee didn’t wake until the cars around them began to start up, their engines grumbling in the cold morning. At once Cora Lee was awake, starting their own car, nosing along in the slow line to the 101 freeway and crossing over, above it, then into the prison yard. Through the gate and into the parking lot, where everyone piled out of their cars and made a dash to get in line, or for the Porta Pottis. They got in line, and in a little while Cora Lee turned to the lady behind them, a short, square, black-haired woman, and asked her to hold their place. They couldn’t take turns standing in line to use the Porta Pottis, if a guard saw a child standing there alone he’d come to investigate, tell them that was against the rules. It was so cold they were both shivering. Coming back, they washed their hands with the wipes Cora Lee had brought; then Cora Lee unwrapped their sandwiches, to eat standing in line. Cream cheese and ham, from their paper bag. Milk for Lori, which they’d kept cold in an ice chest in the car. Orange juice for Cora Lee. Around them, the lawn was neatly cut, the bushes trimmed so perfectly they looked artificial. As if the trustees who cared for them had all the time in the world, and she guessed they did.

  It seemed hours until they reached the gate, dumped their trash in a receptacle, and went inside. People ahead of them had to empty their pockets, hand over their purses, go through a body scan. Like at the airport. At least they weren’t patted down, she’d hate that, a stranger’s hands all over her. Cora Lee had locked her purse in the trunk. She dropped her car keys on the table. A guard pulled Pa’s file, their picture IDs were checked, and they signed in. They moved on through the narrow entrance building, a few people at a time, and through a barred gate into a prison yard, then into the prison itself. Down a hall, this time not to the visitors’ big, open room with its long table and vending machines, but to a smal
l room where they sat down at a little square table, in hard chairs, but again facing a clear glass barrier, with a phone on either side of the glass. “Why is it different?”

  “Security,” Cora Lee said.

  “Why? Pa didn’t do anything.”

  “The other guy did. They’re protecting your pa.” Cora Lee looked down at her, her brown eyes concerned for her. They watched the prisoners march in, glimpses of them between the pillars as they moved down the table to take their seats facing their visitors. Pa arrived in a wheelchair pushed by a nurse. It shocked her to see a woman in the men’s prison, though she knew women worked there. Pa’s legs were covered by a brown blanket. He looked so frail. But as he was wheeled up to the table, he grinned at her through the glass. She hated that glass, she hated the phone that filtered their every word, their whole visit wasted on meaningless questions and canned answers: “How are you feeling?” “Much better, it doesn’t hurt so much. How’re you doing in school?” “Fine.” “How’s your pony?” “He’s fine. I’ve been riding with Charlie Harper.” So stiff and unreal, eating up their precious time. She could see Pa wanted to tell them something, something he couldn’t say with the phone monitored. Was this another message for Max Harper? She wanted to crawl through the glass so they could talk—like Alice stepping through the looking glass—so she could hug him and tell him she loved him. She wanted to tell him Harper had gotten his first message all right, Cora Lee had seen to that.