Cat Breaking Free (11 page)

C
lyde liked to fix a big Sunday breakfast for himself
and Joe and the household animals, preparing special, vet-approved treats for Rube and the three cats, who could not eat the exotic foods on which Joe Grey thrived. This morning he cooked, but his heart wasn't in it. Rube was not in his usual place on the throw rug before the kitchen sink, drooling as he waited; he would never be there again.

Sitting on the breakfast table in the middle of the Sunday paper, Joe looked sadly at Rube's empty place on the rug, which the cats had left between them. Despite Clyde's presence at the stove and the good smell of scrambled eggs and bacon and sautéed chicken livers, everything in the kitchen seemed flat and off-key. Joe felt so low that he hadn't even clawed the funnies and front page to enliven Clyde's morning.

He looked at Clyde hopefully. “Will Ryan be coming for breakfast?” Ryan could always cheer them up.

“You can see I only set two plates,” Clyde snapped.
“She's working up at Harper's, getting the barn roof ready to lift.” Joe looked at Clyde and shrugged. He looked at the nicely prepared breakfast plate that Clyde set before him, the bacon artfully arranged between the scrambled eggs and the golden chicken livers. Clyde had even grated cheese on his eggs, a nice morning start with plenty of comforting cholesterol.

But he didn't feel like eating.

Setting his own plate on the table, Clyde put the cats' dishes aside to cool, then set them down on the rug. The cats looked up at him, then the two older cats turned away, headed back into the laundry, and crawled up into Rube's lower bunk. Snowball just sat, hunched and miserable.

“He's out of pain,” Clyde said. “You wouldn't have kept him here when he was so tired out. When he looked at you, he was all but saying he was ready.”

Joe nodded. “I know. I know he's better off. But they don't understand. We all miss him.”

Clyde looked hard at Joe. “You're down about more than Rube, too.” He looked into Joe's eyes. “When you went out early, I thought…What happened? You're ready to claw the world apart.”

Joe didn't usually share with Clyde the early stages of an investigation. Clyde could be so judgmental. And talk about worry, talk about overprotective. But this morning…

“That woman…” Joe began.

“What woman? What woman would you see before daylight, before…Chichi? What?” Clyde set down his coffee cup. “What did she do to you?

“Or what did you do to her? What have you done, now?”

That
was the reason he didn't share crime investigations with his housemate. “Eat your breakfast,” Joe said. “Then we'll talk.”

Clyde reached into his shirt pocket and produced a slip of paper. “Message,” he said. “Almost forgot. You had a message.” He said this with that bemused expression that drove Joe up the wall. Joe waited, trying to be patient.

“Lucinda called. Early, before they picked up Wilma at the hospital and headed for Charlie's.” Clyde glanced at the scrap of paper. “These are Lucinda's exact words, exactly as Dulcie told her. ‘The prints haven't come in yet, on either man. Harper and Garza both think the high school was a diversion.'”

Clyde sat looking at Joe. “You want to fill me in? I heard the sirens last night, I saw the fire, but I…my mind was on Rube.”

“It's part of what I have to tell you,” Joe said. “Eat your breakfast.” He knew he'd have to give Clyde the whole story. The minute Clyde picked up the paper he'd see it—the high school fire and the jewelry store burglary were smeared all over the front page. Pawing at the front section, Joe turned it around and shoved it over in front of Clyde: color pictures of the broken store window and showcases; and spectacular, bright flames licking up from the high school.

“Read it,” Joe said. “Then I'll tell you about Chichi.”

Clyde glanced at the headlines then quickly skimmed the articles, giving Joe an incredulous look. “You're telling me Chichi was part of this? Come on, Joe. The woman might be…”

Joe licked cheese from his whiskers. “She might be what? Only a small-time thief because she only stole
five hundred bucks from you? She wouldn't do anything worse?” He sat looking at Clyde, one paw lifted. “Some people will just steal a little, but not a lot? Is that what you're saying?”

“Well she didn't exactly steal the money from me, she…”

Joe stared, silent and unblinking.

“Well,” Clyde said. “Well…maybe she stole it.” He returned his attention to the front page. Joe returned to his breakfast. Clyde could be annoyingly argumentative and opinionated, but if properly directed he usually managed, after a little time, to face facts and be reasonable.

 

“So,” Dulcie said when Ryan's visitor had gone, spinning out of the yard in his black Alfa Romeo, leaving a cyclone of dust clouding the kitchen windows. “What did he want? Who is he? Why did he come here and force himself on Ryan?”

Charlie shrugged. “Roman Slayter. Ryan and her husband knew him in San Francisco before their marriage broke up; their construction firm did some work for him. Remember what she said at Lupe's that night? She thinks he'd like to get his hands on her money from the sale of the firm.”

Dulcie rolled over among the cushions, her peach-tinted paws waving idly in the air, her dark, ringed tail lashing. “Or maybe he wants something even more than money?”

“Like what?” Charlie said, coming to sit on the window seat beside the two cats.

“I don't know,” Dulcie said uneasily. Beyond them, out the window, all that was left of the Alfa Romeo was a long snake of dust hanging over the yard like a murky jet trail. “That man's up to no good,” the tabby said. “He gives me the twitches. I can't believe Rock would make up to him like that! Rock's only a simple dog, but…”

Charlie wanted to tell Dulcie that sometimes she imagined too much, let her imagination run wild; but Dulcie's speculations, and those of Joe and Kit, were too often on target, their perceptions about humans as keen as the instincts of a seasoned detective.

“She told me this morning,” Charlie said, “that he called her last night, she'd hardly gotten in the door after dinner. Insisted she go out for a drink, was really pushy.” Charlie grinned. “She hung up on him.

“When Ryan was in the city, when Slayter showed up at the construction office…Well, she says Slayter can smell money like a bloodhound.” She glanced at the phone pad where she'd written his license number; and they watched Ryan storm back up the ladder, scowling.

“Ryan says he worked in real estate for a while, but she thinks he was into a lot of things, most of them shady, including some questionable stints as a private investigator of sorts, probably unlicensed.

“I guess, though, the men he represented in the real estate ventures paid their bills, if the firm kept building for them.” Charlie shrugged. “If I know Ryan, he'd play hell getting any of her money.” She looked at Wilma. “Are you getting tired, ready to tuck up in bed for a while?”

Wilma laughed. “I don't need to be in bed, I won't heal lying in bed, I need to walk.” Refusing more coffee, she rose, her long silver hair bright beneath the glow of the soft overhead lights. Charlie and her aunt looked a lot alike, with their lean, angled faces and tall, lean figures. Only their coloring was different: Charlie's red hair vivid against Wilma's pale silver mane. Wilma had wrinkles instead of freckles, and her eyes were dark where Charlie's were green; but their comfortable, reassuring smiles were the same.

Though Wilma's career had been in federal probation, her master's was in library science. She had, just out of college and before she went with the federal courts, worked two years in state probation. During that time she'd gotten her master's degree, taking courses at night. Her plan, which she had made early in her life, had been to fall back on her library degree when she was forced to retire from probation work, a retirement that then had been mandatory at fifty-five. “Way too young,” Wilma had told Clyde, “too young to stop working.”

Ever since Dulcie came to live with Wilma as a kitten, Wilma had worked in the library, and Dulcie was glad of that; the little cat had had wonderful adventures among that wealth of books, to which she would otherwise never have had such easy access.

Wilma and Clyde had been friends since he was eight, when she was his neighbor; she had been his first love, Dulcie knew. A beautiful blond graduate student. Now, Wilma was the only family Clyde had left, Dulcie thought sadly.

Wilma had her niece, Charlie. But of course Wilma and Charlie and Max, Clyde, and Dallas and Ryan and
Hanni, had one another, so close that they were like family.

Dulcie glanced out to the back patio where Wilma, walking briskly in her robe, knew she would not be seen from the front drive. At the moment Dulcie was more interested in the yard by the stable, where Roman Slayter had stood harassing Ryan.

Slipping out, the two cats wandered the yard where Slayter had walked, picking up a distinctive medley of shoe polish and musky aftershave that masked subtler scents. But then both cats caught a whiff that made them laugh.

Somewhere, on his shoes, Roman Slayter had picked up the scent of female dog, female in heat.

That was what Rock had been making up to! Dulcie looked at Kit and smirked. What a timely accident…

Or was it an accident?

Dulcie sat down, staring at the dirt beneath her paws.

Had Slayter acquired that scent on his shoes on purpose? Though the aroma was partially destroyed by shoe polish, it had certainly been strong enough to charm the young Weimaraner.

But now Rock, having found no lady dog to go with the distinctive message, lay in the sun, watching Ryan tear off shingles. Approaching him, Dulcie sniffed noses with him in a friendly way and lay down beside him. She so wished he could tell them what had gone through his thoughts when he'd snarled at Roman Slayter. As Kit uselessly chased a bird, Dulcie lay considering the accumulated puzzles of the last twenty-four hours: The jewelry store robbery, the high school fires, the dead cyclist, the return of the feral cats and their capture.

She thought how deeply afraid Kit was of that wild band, and how cruel they had been to her. Kit still had scars under her fur from their teeth and claws. In the car this morning, while Lucinda and Pedric went into the hospital to get Wilma, Kit had sat silent and worrying. “They haven't come back looking for me,” she had said. “They wouldn't want me, Dulcie! Why would they?”

“They wouldn't want you, Kit. They didn't want you before, when you ran with them!” But Dulcie wondered.

Would the leader want to prevent any speaking cat from being out in the world, a cat that might give them away, might let someone know their secret?

She didn't want to consider such matters. Why would they wait until now? Kit had been in Molena Point for nearly two years. Dulcie tried to force her thoughts back to the fire at the high school, and the broken store windows. But it was hard not to worry and not to be frightened for the kit.

She made herself think about what they had learned at the PD, trying to tie the scattered facts together. Except that nothing wanted to go together. Too many pieces were still missing, so nothing made much sense. And it was not until that evening when the chief got home that they learned any more about the investigation—or, for that matter, about the feral cats.

T
he wind off the sea had calmed. Beneath the dropping
sun, the water gleamed with an iridescent sheen; the Harpers' stone terrace and the green pastures beyond were stained with golden light. The cool air smelled of burning hickory chips and spicy sauce. Charlie stood at the barbecue, turning racks of ribs on the grill, their sweet-vinegar aroma prompting the two cats' noses to twitch and their pink tongues to tip out.

On the chaise Wilma sat tucked under a blanket, sipping a weak bourbon and water, possibly against doctor's orders. She could see Ryan through the kitchen window, tossing a salad and gathering silverware and plates onto a tray, and assembling Wilma's own supper. She'd be glad when she could eat more solid food. Well, it wouldn't be long. In Wilma's lap, Dulcie reared up as Max's truck turned onto the drive. Behind it Clyde's yellow roadster appeared, coming over the crest, its top down. Joe was standing up on the passenger seat of the Model A, his white paws on the dash, the
white strip down his nose bright in the evening glow.

As Clyde parked by the house, Dallas's car turned in behind them. The scent of exhaust from the vehicles battled with the good barbecue aroma. As the cars killed their engines, the kit woke blearily, tangled in the blanket at Wilma's feet. She looked around her, fighting her way out of the folds, and her first thought was of disappointment that Lucinda and Pedric had not stayed for supper.

The older couple meant to look at four houses the next day. Lucinda said, at eighty-some, one tired more easily. Kit did not like to think about them tiring, could not bear to think about them growing older. She wanted to be with them all the time, but she just couldn't stand the house hunting. All those strange unfamiliar spaces with unfamiliar smells, where other people and animals lived. House after house after house, with the Realtor going on about the new roof and the hot-water heater. Who cared? Realtors had no notion of the important things—a nice tangled garden with sprawling oak trees to climb, plenty of deep windows with wide sills to lie on, a clean thick carpet to roll on and maybe a few hardwood floors for sliding. A nice warm fireplace and tall bookcases to sleep on, and a comfortable rooftop with a wide view down onto the village. Was that too much for a little cat to ask?

Lucinda and Pedric knew what kind of house she liked. And of course it should not be too far from Joe's and Dulcie's houses. Lucky they wanted much the same—except for the climbing part. Kit longed for them to find the perfect home and for the three of them to be settled in. Though Kit's true home
was
Lucinda
and Pedric themselves; life with the old couple was the only real home she'd ever known.

Kit watched Max Harper and Clyde come across the patio, talking about hunting dogs. They both bent down and hugged Wilma, and drew chairs close to her chaise. Max said, “About time you got out of the hospital.”

“Two days.” Wilma laughed. “I'm a tough old bird. Is Jane Cameron out yet? I went to see her twice while I was there, she wasn't far down the hall. She wasn't sure when they'd release her.”

“She should be out tomorrow,” Max said. “She'll be tied to a desk for a couple of months, before she can go back on the street. Right now, I could use every officer. She'll be able to drive, though. And she can fire a weapon just fine.”

Wilma looked a question at him, but said nothing. Across the patio, Dallas turned away into the kitchen to join Ryan and Charlie. Through the glass doors, the cats could see him hugging his niece, then petting and talking to Rock. He said something that made the two women laugh, and in a few moments he came out onto the terrace with Rock trotting beside him, the big Weimaraner pressing close to the squarely built detective. At the sight of Joe Grey, Rock barked and bowed and gave the tomcat a lick on the face. Joe grimaced and hissed, but Dulcie knew he liked it. The tomcat, stubbornly extricating himself from the big silver dog, leaped to the arm of Wilma's chaise and settled near Dulcie, giving them both an inquiring look.

Dulcie looked back at him wide-eyed. So frustrating, that they couldn't talk in front of Max and Dallas and with Ryan there in the kitchen.

But really, she had nothing to tell him. She and Kit had learned nothing new at the station after Joe left. Now, all three cats waited impatiently for some news. The subject of hunting dogs could get old fast. But it was not until everyone was seated for dinner around the big patio table that Max and Dallas returned to the burglary and the school fires—sharing information unknowingly with their snitches. It was Wilma, glancing at the fidgeting cats, who nudged the conversation.

Setting down her drink, she straightened her robe, looking a bit embarrassed that she had not dressed properly. “Do you have anything yet on the prints from the jewelry store? Or an ID on the men you arrested?”

Max's leathery face creased into lines of amusement. “One is Dufio Rivas. Does that ring a bell? We have nothing on the other.”

Wilma frowned, pushed back a pale strand of hair. “Does he have brothers? A Luis Rivas? Short, square, heavyset?”

Max nodded.

She said, “There were three brothers. Luis, Dufio, and I didn't know the third one.”

“Hernando,” Harper said. “Information came in about an hour ago. All three have long rap sheets, mostly around L.A. Petty burglary—small stores, home break-ins. Hernando is our John Doe, the body from up the hills.”

“Well,” Wilma said softly. “The murder and the burglary are connected.”

“Dufio, our arrestee, he's a strange little man. Apparently a total screwup. The bad penny. Amazing, his brothers let him run with them. Apparently, every now
and then, they try to dump him. Never seems to last, I guess they feel sorry for him.”

Charlie brought more ribs to the table and sat down again.

“In Indio,” Max said, “Dufio robs a 7-Eleven at gunpoint, red bandana over his face, knit hat and gloves, the whole rig. Gets the cash, runs into the backyard of a nearby house and hides the money in the bushes. So he won't get caught with it on him, means to come back for it. He hides everything incriminating—bandana, gloves, hat, .357 Magnum, and his jacket, and takes off.

“Cops arrive with a dog, find the stash. Find, in the jacket pocket, Dufio's property identification card from county jail. Name, photograph, fingerprints, date of birth, jail booking number.”

Everyone smiled. Max took a sip of beer, ate a few bites of his dinner. “Dufio does his time, gets out. Two weeks later he's waiting in the car with his cell phone while Hernando, a block away, is robbing a small bank. Dufio is supposed to swing around at Hernando's call, pick him up and take off. He sees this guy come out of a luggage shop, out the back door with one of those canvas cash bags, heading away toward the bank. Dufio decides while Hernando's grabbing the bank money, he'll make a second hit.”

Harper took another slice of garlic bread. “This is noon, rainy midweek day. There's not much foot traffic. In the process of knocking out the luggage-store guy, Dufio drops his phone, messes it up so it doesn't ring, and misses Hernando's call.

“Hernando comes careening around the corner with
the bank money, mad as hell. The alarm is going in the bank—and Dufio, when he got out of the car…He'd locked their only set of keys inside.”

Chuckles exploded all around; and on the chaise the cats turned their faces away, hiding their own amusement. There was something deeply satisfying about the bad guys screwing up, even the clumsy ones.

Dallas said, “Dufio might be inept, but he has survived. You have to give him that.”

Max nodded. “Just as Luis has. Luis seems always the first to slip away, leave the others on the hot seat. The other two dozen hoods who have run with them at various times are either serving time, or dead.”

Charlie rose to pour the coffee. Wilma said, “I remember two jobs with maybe eight or nine guys, some kind of car insurance scam.”

“They ran that for over a year,” Max said. “Again, around L.A. Did pretty well until they hit on an unmarked car carrying four drug agents. When they tried to maneuver the car in between them, to rear-end it, all hell broke loose. The agents were armed and knew what was coming down and were mad as hornets.

“Now,” Max said, “Luis has likely added new blood. Last job they pulled, in Thousand Oaks, they had five new recruits, and they got away clean. Next job, four of them pose as DEA agents. Two o'clock in the morning, burst into a private residence carrying handguns, a shotgun and a rifle. Said they were searching for drugs, on a tip. Tied up six people, hit one in the face with the shotgun, and broke a woman's arm. Swept the house, got off with eight thousand dollars in jewelry, couple thousand cash. Used handheld
radios to communicate with those outside the house. That's the most sophisticated job they pulled, that we know of.”

“What do they look like?” Clyde said, glancing only for a split second toward the chaise where Joe lay washing his paws, apparently half asleep after his big supper.

“Luis Rivas is thirty-five,” Max said. “Maybe five-foot-five, hundred and eighty pounds. Broad and heavy-boned. Coarse features, broad nose, fairly dark skin. Hernando was taller, thinner. Dufio is slight, lighter complexion, pale brown eyes. Long hair, bleached blond at the moment.

“Tommie McCord runs with them. Five-ten, hundred and sixty. Red hair—even brighter red than Charlie's hair,” Max said, grinning. “Wall-to-wall freckles, blue eyes. No idea yet who else might be with them. They have a sister, sometimes travels with them. Maria Rivas. About seventeen. Apparently does their cooking and laundry. She's never been in trouble, never been arrested even as an accessory. Couple of the reports imply that she thinks she has nowhere else to go, no choice but to run with them, as their maid.”

Immediately after supper, the three cats broke into a wild chase out across the pasture, where they could talk, heading for the tallest spring grass, where only the grazing horses could hear them. Rock didn't follow them, he'd been scolded too many times for chasing the cats, both by Ryan and by the cats themselves. Rock meant only to play, but a big dog's playful enthusiasm could get out of hand.

Crouched in a forest of grass, Dulcie and Kit told Joe about the caged cat up in the hills that Charlie had
freed. “Charlie thinks Hernando was trapping cats. The cat wouldn't speak, but clearly he understood her.”

Kit said, “He is the leader of the clowder that I ran with. Stone Eye. He's mean as snakes. Charlie should have left him to rot.”

Joe looked at her, surprised. Dulcie said, “Question is, did Hernando know what
kind
of cats? Charlie thinks he did, and that he's trapped others.”

“And he died for it,” Kit said darkly.

“If he did trap others,” Joe said, “where are they?” His yellow eyes narrowed. “And does his brother Luis know? Could Luis have them, hidden somewhere?” The tomcat sat considering. “I think I've seen Luis and that Tommie McCord, next door in Chichi's room.”

“Chichi?” Dulcie said.

Joe smiled. “Little Chichi Barbi, sitting in her room with those two hoods, going over a map of the village.”

Dulcie's and Kit's eyes widened; they were considering the ramifications of this when Clyde started calling them.

“He's getting ready to leave,” Dulcie said, rearing up to look over the tops of the tall grass. “Hurry up, Joe. You know how impatient he gets.” Joe was reluctant to head home, but the cats took off for the house. Dulcie and Kit would stay with the Harpers, settling in with Wilma in Charlie's studio. The minute they hit the patio, Clyde scooped Joe up and headed for his car.

Ryan walked beside them for a moment. “I'll be by, then, first thing in the morning.”

Clyde nodded, and tossed Joe onto the leather seat. He was silent starting the car, silent heading away up the drive. Then, “The water faucets were delivered. Ryan's going to install one, to see how it works.”

“To see if
I
can work it.”

Clyde glanced at him, and shrugged. When Ryan was working on Clyde's extensive remodel, adding the second-story study and master bedroom, Clyde had asked if she could get faucets that a cat could turn on, but that would turn off by themselves. He'd spent a lot of time explaining how he planned to train Joe and the other three cats to turn the faucets on for a drink of fresh water. “I can train them to turn the water on,” Clyde had explained. “But you can't expect a cat to turn the water off. A cat doesn't pay the water bill. He would see no reason to do that.”

“I think you're crazy,” Ryan said. But she'd searched until she found the proper faucet, in the catalog of a North Carolina specialty shop. She had ordered five.

Joe said, “She coming for breakfast? She does like your ham and cheese scramble.”

Clyde shook his head. “She said she'd have a quick bite somewhere before she picks up Dillon and Lori so they can ride. Lori's taken really well to that pony.” He glanced at Joe. “It's a teacher's day or something, kids'll be out of school. No wonder kids don't get an education.”

Joe had his own thoughts about childhood education. But at the moment, his mind was on the Rivas brothers and Tommie McCord, and on that band of feral cats. Had some of those cats been captured? Were there speaking cats somewhere, shut miserably in a cage? And that night, he lay awake worrying about the feral cats. About cats like himself and Dulcie and Kit locked up in cages. Why? What did Luis mean to do with them? Sell them? Force them into some kind of animal act? He didn't want to consider clearly what those
crooks might attempt. The thought of animal prisoners and how they might be treated made him shaky.

But one thing sure. If Luis knew those cats could speak, he wouldn't hurt them; they were too valuable to be harmed.