Cat Breaking Free (5 page)

“But those marks weren't made by a cougar; this was something smaller. Anyway, a cougar would have
gone down into the ravine after him, would have finished him.”

“Guy apparently died of a broken neck,” Max said. “Forensics should have their report in a few days.” He looked around the table. “Sheriff's been up there all day, going over the area.”

Dallas said, “Scratches of a domestic cat? No small cat would attack a man, no small animal would be so bold.”

Up on the wall, the cats glanced discreetly at each other. There was one kind of cat that might attack a grown man, if it cared enough about who the cyclist was, or what he had done. If it wanted him dead.

But what had the guy done to enrage his attacker? And where had such a cat come from? There should be no other cat like themselves anywhere near the village.

Joe wondered it the attacker could possibly be Azrael. That evil Panamanian feline had first shown up in the village nearly two years ago, with his thieving human companion, and had returned a couple of times later without the disreputable safe-cracker. When Azrael disappeared the last time, into a seemingly bottomless cavern, carrying an emerald bracelet in his mouth, Joe had hoped they had seen the last of him, that he had ended up too far away ever to return.

Joe was washing his whiskers, listening intently but keeping his eyes half closed as if sleepy, when he saw Chichi Barbi crossing the patio, making her way between the tables following the Latino host, the curvy young blond bimbo swiveling her hips provocatively. She was alone, accompanied by neither of the men who had visited her that morning. Swishing between
the tables she played the room, giving the eye to every male within view. Max and Dallas and Clyde exchanged a glance that the cats couldn't read. Ryan and Charlie and Hanni watched her with quiet amusement. Heading for a small table beneath the farthest oak, Chichi sat down with her back to the wall and immediately raised her menu, pretending not to see Clyde, pretending not to stare across to their table.

Dallas gave her a dismissive look, and turned to his niece. “We haven't talked since you got back from the city, you ladies were out of here the next morning. How did the legal stuff go?”

“Fine,” Ryan said. “It went fine. Beautiful weather in the city, the tide was in, and the coast…”

Dallas scowled impatiently, making Ryan grin. She had gone up to San Francisco to complete the sale of their house and the construction business she'd inherited from her philandering husband when he was murdered. “I wrapped up all the loose ends,” she told Dallas, growing serious. “Sold the last of the furniture, cleared out the safe deposit box. Yes, deposited the checks,” she said, giving him an unreadable look. Joe read her glance as a bit frightened.

Frightened of what? Of having all that money? Well, Joe had to admit, with the completed sale of the San Francisco firm, she would be rolling in cash. Maybe he'd be scared, too.

But it was money she could put into her new Molena Point construction business, and plenty left over to invest. Ryan could handle that. She should be as pleased as a kitten in the cream bowl. Yet he was sharply aware of her unease—as was everyone at the table.

“What?” Dallas said.

“Do you remember a Roman Slayter? A tall, handsome, dark-haired…”

“I remember him,” Dallas said sharply. “I remember you sent him packing more than once while you and Rupert were married.”

“He called me while I was in the city. Got the name of my hotel from a new secretary at the firm, who didn't know any better.”

“Came on to you.”

She nodded. “Wanted me to go out to dinner, then demanded to see me.” Her green eyes blazed. “I blew him off, but…I don't know. He left me uneasy.”

“The smell of money,” Dallas said. “He knows everyone in the company, sure he knew how much you got for the business. Knew when the sale closed escrow. I thought he'd moved to L.A.”

“Guess he's back. Nothing fazes him. I told him I was busy with job contracts, that I was working long hours with a new business, that I was involved with someone,” she said, glancing shyly at Clyde. Clyde grinned.

“Told him I was just leaving the city, that I didn't have
time
for him. He knew I'd moved down here to the village. Finally told him my live-in was a weight lifter and a hot-tempered gun enthusiast.”

That got a laugh. “And that shut him up?” Dallas said.

“Nothing shuts him up. Doesn't matter what you say. Showed up in the office anyway, tried to kiss me right there in the reception room. I nearly punched him. When he grew really stubborn and refused to leave, I called security.

“As they dragged him out,” Ryan said, laughing, “he said he'd see me in Molena Point, that he'd just run
down to the village for a few days, get reacquainted. I told him, he showed his face here I'd file charges of harassment.” She was half angry, half amused. She had balled up her napkin and was stabbing it with her fork. Her uncle leaned back in his chair, grinning, but he put his arm around her.

All the while they talked, Chichi watched them from across the patio, glancing over the top of her menu; she never looked straight their way, but her full attention was on them. Surely she couldn't hear them at that distance, with so many diners in between, talking and laughing; but her rapt concentration was unsettling. Then, just after the waiter arrived with their orders, Chichi left her table and came across to theirs, all smiles and swivels. She paused beside Clyde's chair, resting her hand possessively on his shoulder.

“Dear me, I couldn't help it, I had to see what you're having, it smelled so good when your waiter passed my table.” She gave Clyde a four-star smile and beamed around the table. “Hi, I'm Chichi Barbi! I just ran over for a little supper, it gets boring, eating alone. I'm living in the house next to Clyde's. You're Captain Harper! Well, I've heard great things about you! And you must be Detective Garza! It's so nice to meet you—you ladies, too.” She looked down at Clyde's plate. “My goodness, is that on the menu? Green corn tamales?” She looked winsomely around the table. Clyde was scowling.

“Well, I'll surely order the same,” she gushed, waiting for an invitation to join them. When none was forthcoming, she stepped back, her hand lingering on Clyde's shoulder. “It's such an honor to meet you all. It
does get lonely in that little back room, I just thought a nice dinner out, for a change…” Still she stood waiting, trying to look uncertain as she glanced from one to the other, managing the little girl act so well that even Joe began to feel sorry for her—or almost sorry.

The round table was, after all, plenty big enough if everyone slid their chairs around to make room. No one did, no one said a word. Cops in particular don't like pushy. At last Clyde rose, took Chichi by the arm, and headed her back to her table. The curvy blonde moved along close to him, brushing against him.

At her little table she sat down heavily, under what was clearly a forceful pressure. Picking up Chichi's menu, Clyde spent some moments pointing to the page as if picking out the green corn tamales and the other specials.

Beside Clyde's empty chair, Ryan sat with her fist pressed to her mouth, trying not to laugh at his predicament. Above, on the wall, the cats pushed their faces into the vine, swallowing back their own yowls of glee. When Clyde returned to their table, still scowling, Ryan nearly choked with laughter. Clyde glanced up and saw the cats' amusement, gave them a cautionary frown and began hastily to break up a tamale for them, to distract them—and everyone grew silent, giving full attention to their fine dinner.

At her own table, Chichi fidgeted, waiting for her order; when it arrived, she finished her tamales quickly, not looking again in their direction. She left the restaurant long before they did.

The cats watched her from atop the wall, heading home, Joe swallowing back a growl. That woman was
more than brash. Chichi Barbi made the tomcat as jumpy as a mouse on a hot stove.

“So, what did she want?” Dulcie said, when their own party had left the restaurant, Clyde and Ryan heading down the block hand in hand, and Max, Charlie, and Dallas squeezing into Max's king cab. “This Chichi Barbi,” Dulcie hissed, “what is she all about?”

Joe wished he knew what Chichi was all about, what she wanted with Clyde; though half his thoughts were on the dead man and the suspicious scratches. “More important,” he said softly, “what did Charlie see that she couldn't talk about?”

But the kit knew. She looked at them intently. “Cats like us,” she said, her yellow eyes huge. “They're out there, the feral band is out there again, I know they are.” She shivered and pressed close against Dulcie. “Those cats I ran with when I was little, they're out there again.” She looked in the direction of the wild coastal hills where Hellhag Hill rose. “But why? And why did they kill that man?

“Those few, like me,” Kit said, “the gentler cats, they could never stop the mean ones. Some of us only traveled with them for safety. Cruel as they were, they were better than bobcats and coyotes.”

Dulcie licked the kit's ear and glanced up at the sky, where the moon had not yet risen; and soon she and Kit headed off to the kit's own rooftop terrace. Joe watched the two cats' dark, mottled tails disappearing into the moonlit night; and not one of the three had a clue to the excitement that would soon explode across the small village. Not one of the three cats glimpsed the shadowy figures many blocks away, slipping
among the shops and dark streets. Nothing seemed to disrupt the peace of the evening. Nor did Max Harper's officers in their patrol cars glimpse the perps—until it was too late.

A
pproaching home across the rooftops, Joe slipped
into his private tower, into the elegant construction that rose atop the new upstairs. Hexagonal in design and glass-sided, the tower afforded him a wide view of the village roofs and the shore beyond. Yawning, his belly full of Mexican dinner, he considered the soft cushions and the joys of a short nap. Glancing down at the drive, he saw that Ryan's truck still stood beside Clyde's car.

Though Ryan had designed and built his tower, it was Clyde who had put the idea to her; and Joe himself was responsible for the overall concept. One could say that the tower was a collaboration between the three of them, though of course Ryan didn't know that. She gave the credit to Clyde, actually believing in Clyde's perceptive understanding of feline psychology and desires.

“I want to see in all directions,” Joe had told Clyde. “Not just the ocean. I want to look down on the entire village. I want windows I can open and close by myself
without spraining a paw. I want a fresh bowl of water every day, a soft blanket, and plenty of soft pillows.”

“You want the pillows hand-embroidered? How about a refrigerator? A TV? A telephone, maybe?”

“A telephone would be nice.”

“And tell me how I explain to Ryan that a tomcat needs a phone line into his private retreat.”

“You're so cheap,” Joe had said, rolling over. “You don't want to pay for a second line.” He had looked upside down at Clyde. “I would be perfectly happy to share the existing house line with you. But I guess you don't want to share. Did you know,” he said, flipping to his feet and fixing Clyde with a steady gaze, “that there is already a manufacturer making cell phones for dogs, to be attached to their collars? So why not cats? I don't see why…”

“Joe, it's lies like that that really set me off.”

“Not a lie at all. The honest truth, I swear. It's a company called PetsCell. I don't know any more about it than that; Dulcie found a mention on the Web, an old newspaper article. If you would just…I'll get you a copy, you can read it for yourself. If you would just stretch your mind a little, Clyde, not let yourself become so hidebound. That really isn't…”

Clyde had only glared at him. And no phone had been forthcoming, house phone
or
cellular. But even so, his tower was an elegant retreat, rising as it did atop the slanted shake roof of the new second floor. His private aerie that could be entered from the rooftops or from Clyde's office below. Ryan, in her innocence, had designed the layout so that Clyde could easily step up on the moveable library ladder in his study, reach through the ceiling cat door, and open or close the
tower windows. She had no notion that Joe could do that himself. Now, as he pawed at his cushions, preparing to nap, the faint sound of a TV sent him back over the roof, to peer down at the house next door.

Chichi must have hurried right home after her pushy performance at Lupe's Playa. The light of the TV danced across the living room shades, picking out her shadow sharp as a lounging cameo. Maybe she'd felt logy from her big supper, headed home to curl up before the tube. He couldn't say much for her taste, he thought, listening to the canned laughter of a sleazy sitcom, a series that he particularly hated.

It all came down to taste. Some humans had it, some didn't. Deciding against a nap, and wondering if Clyde had checked on Rube, he slipped down through his cat door onto the ceiling beam, and dropped to Clyde's desk.

Around him, the house sounded empty; and it felt empty. Maybe Clyde and Ryan were walking the beach, giving Rock a run. Galloping down the stairs, suddenly worried about the aging retriever, he found Rube in bed, lying quietly among his blankets in the laundry, on the bottom mattress of the two-tiered bunk. He could smell Clyde's scent, and Ryan's, on Rube's ears and face, as if they'd given the old dog a good petting before going out again. When Joe spoke, Rube opened a tired eye, sighed, licked Joe's nose, then went back to sleep. Above Rube, on the top bunk, the two older cats were curled together, softly snoring. But the young white cat lay curled against Rube, with her paws around his foreleg. She, in particular, loved Rube, and Joe knew she was hurting for him.

Easing onto the bunk beside the two animals, and speaking softly to the old retriever, Joe tried to reassure him. He was thus occupied, snuggled against Rube, listening to the Lab's rough breathing, when he heard Rock bark, and heard Ryan open the patio gate. Clyde and Ryan came in the back door joking and laughing; they grew quiet as they turned into the laundry, the way a person would enter the hospital room of a very sick patient. Outside the kitchen door, Rock whined and sniffed, but the big dog didn't bark now, he knew better.

Clyde started to speak, then caught himself. Joe could see on his face the clear question: How is he? Clyde blinked at his near blunder, looked embarrassed, and knelt beside Ryan, to stroke Rube. As the two talked to the old dog, the white cat looked up at them, purring. Ryan laid her ear to Rube's chest, her dark hair blending with the Lab's black coat; then she smelled Rube's breath in a very personal manner. Ryan had grown up with Dallas's gun dogs, she had helped to train the pointers, had hunted with them and had tended to more than a few ailing canines. She looked up at Clyde with the same look, Joe was sure, that Dr. Firetti would have given him. The time was coming when Clyde must make the big decision, when he could no longer let Rube suffer but must give him ease and a deserved rest.

No one that Joe knew would keep an animal suffering for their own selfish human reasons. He'd heard of people who did, but neither Ryan nor Clyde, nor any of their friends, thought that death was the end for the animals they loved, any more than it was for humans.
They were sensible enough to give an animal ease when there was no other solution to its distress. Joe nosed at Rube, wishing very much that he could make the old dog better, and knowing he could do nothing. And soon he left the laundry and headed upstairs feeling incredibly sad. He wished he had as powerful a faith in the wonders that came in the next life as did Dulcie.

Leaping to Clyde's desk, disturbing a stack of auto parts orders, he sailed up into the rafters and slipped out through his cat door into the tower, where he curled forlornly among the pillows and closed his eyes.

After a long time of feeling miserable, he slept. At some point he woke smelling coffee brewing and heard the faint clink of cups from down in the kitchen; and when he slept again, his dreams were uneasy. The next time he woke, the house was silent and Ryan's truck was gone—workday tomorrow. He imagined Clyde would be giving Rube his medicine and sitting quietly with the old dog.

Rube seemed to have aged quickly after his golden retriever pal, Barney, died. Joe thought the household cats missed Barney, too. Certainly the cats felt a true tenderness for Rube, they spent a lot of time washing his rough black coat and sleeping close to him or on top of him. Two of the cats were getting old, up in the high teens. Someday there would be only the young white female, the shy, frightened little one, Joe thought sadly.

Such thoughts made him feel pretty low; he didn't like to dwell on that stuff. But, it
happens
, he told himself sternly. That's how life is, life doesn't last forever.

He wondered how much ordinary cats thought about death, or if they thought about it at all. He didn't remember any such thoughts before he discovered his extended talents—but he'd been pretty young. The thoughts of a young tom in his prime were not on death and the hereafter, he was too busy living life with irresponsible abandon.

Joe did not like to think about his own age. He and Dulcie hoped that, along with their humanlike digestive systems capable of handing food that would put down an ordinary cat, and with their more complicated thought processes, maybe their aging would follow a pattern closer to that of humans. This life was such a blast that neither cat wanted to toss in the towel, they were too busy fighting crime, putting down the no-goods. Who knew what came next time around, who knew if they'd like it half as much.

Scowling at this infrequent turn of mind, he dropped into sleep again, and this time he slept deeply and without dreams, floating in a restorative slumber—until sirens brought him straight up, rigid. Their screams jerked him from sleep so suddenly he thought he'd been snatched out of his own skin.

Half awake, he backed away from the ear-bursting commotion, from the ululating harbingers of disaster. The walls of his tower fairly shook with vibrations. He could feel through his paws, through his whole body, the banging ramble of the fire trucks. Then the shriller scream of a rescue unit joined in, then the whoop-whoop of Harper's police units. Sounded to Joe like every emergency vehicle in the village was streaking through the night, rumbling up the narrow streets head
ing toward the hills. Rearing up in his tower, all he could see was the racing red glow of their lights running along the undersides of the trees.

Slipping out of the tower and leaping up onto its hexagonal roof, he reared up like a weather vane, watching the wild race of red-lit vehicles hurtling between the cottages, heading up the hills—and he could hear, from up the hills, faint shouting, men shouting. Rearing taller, he could see an eerie red glow flickering. Fire. Fire, up around the high school. A tongue of flame licked at the sky, and another, and a twisting cloud of red burst into the night. He was poised to leap away across the roofs to follow when, below him on the dark street, three unlighted police cars slipped past him as silent as hunting sharks.

But these cars were not headed for the high school, they made straight for the center of the village, moving fast and quietly. He glimpsed them once, crossing Ocean, then lost them among the roofs and night shadows. He stood studying the silent village looking for some disturbance, but saw nothing, no one running, no swift escaping movement. He heard no shouts, no sound at all. Saw no sudden cops' spotlights reflecting against the sky. What the hell was happening? He was crouched to race across the roofs for a look when, from below in the study, Clyde began shouting. Joe stared down toward the study and bedroom, and dropped down to the shingles again and through the tower and cat door, peering down from the rafter.

Clyde's shouts came from the bottom of the stairs. “He's worse, Joe. His breathing's bad—we're off to the vet. Call him, Joe. Punch code two. Call him now, tell him you're a houseguest, that I'm on my way.” And
Clyde was gone, Joe heard the front door slam, then the car doors, and the roadster roared to a start and skidded out of the drive, took off burning rubber.

Leaping down to the desk, Joe hit the speaker button and the digit for Dr. Firetti; he felt dizzy and sick inside.

“Firetti.” The doctor answered sleepily, on the first ring. Joe imagined him jerking awake in his little stucco cottage next to the clinic, pulling himself from sleep. “Yes? What?” Firetti said.

“This…I'm a friend of Clyde Damen, Clyde's on his way. Rube's worse, really sick. He should be…”

“Just pulled in,” Firetti shouted from a distance as if he'd laid down the phone to pull on his pants. Joe heard a door click open, heard faintly Firetti shouting to Clyde; then the silence of an open line.

Seeing in his mind the familiar clinic with its cold metal tables, but with friendly pictures of cats and dogs on the walls, seeing old Rube lying prone on a metal table gasping for breath, Joe clicked off the phone. And he sat among the papers he'd scattered, thinking about Rube. Seeing Dr. Firetti's caring face peering down the way he did, leaning over you while you shivered on the table. Seeing Clyde's worried face, beside Firetti. And Joe prayed hard for Rube.

Then there was nothing else he could do. He hated idle waiting. He was crouched to leap back to the roof, when the white cat came up the stairs announcing her distress with tiny, forlorn mewls. She padded into the study and stood shakily below the desk staring up at him, crying.

Dropping to the floor, Joe licked Snowball's face, trying to ease her. She knew Rube was in trouble, this
little cat knew very well what was happening. Snowball was, of all three household cats, by far the most intelligent and sensitive.

“It's all right, Snowball. He has good care. He'll be…he'll be the best he can be,” Joe said gently.

Snowball looked up at him trustingly, the way she always trusted him, this innocent, delicate little cat. “It's all right,” he said. “You have to trust Clyde, you have to trust the doctor.”

Joe nudged her up into the big leather chair, where she obediently curled down into a little ball. He was tucking the woolen throw around her with careful paws when a muffled report, sharp as gunfire, exploded from the center of the village: a shot echoing between the shops. Distant tires chirped and squealed, racing away, then silence. But Joe, as hungry for action as any cop, couldn't bring himself to leave Snowball.

Licking her ears, he snuggled close, purring to her until at last she dropped off into sleep. The poor little cat was worn out, done in from stress and worry, from her pain over Rube. I guess, Joe thought, that ordinary cats—the kind of cat I was long ago—I guess there's a lot more understanding there than I remember having. I guess that even a regular cat is far more than he appears to be.

And that was the end of the night's philosophizing. He licked Snowball's ear again, though she was deep under, relaxed at last. “Stay here,” Joe told her uselessly. “Stay right here, Clyde'll be back soon. And Rube will be…Rube will be the best he can be.” As a second shot rang out, he leaped to the desk and was out of there, desk to rafter to tower and to the shingles, where he stood listening.

But all was silence now. He could see no lights moving beneath the trees. Only up at the high school was there increasing commotion as the fire licked higher across the night sky, heralded by the faint echoes of shouting men and by car lights appearing and disappearing as if moving back and forth behind the buildings.