Cat Coming Home (13 page)

O
NE LOOK AT
the yellow tomcat and all Kit’s grand dreams slid away, crumbled like the walls of a ruined castle; she was as shocked as if the fairy-tale prince had turned into a toad. This was not the fine young tom she’d dreamed of, this was not the mate she’d waited for, whom she’d thought had finally found her. This cat was incredibly old.

She could see that he had once been powerful, even now his bony shoulders were broad beneath his ragged yellow fur. But his tail was thin in the way of an old cat, his muzzle was extended with age, his skin hung slack. Now he was frail and ancient, more in need of tender kindness than a wild romp over the green hills. Now for the first time, with the sea wind blowing in her face, she caught his scent clearly enough to realize it was the
scent
of an old cat, very different from a strapping young tom. And as Kit’s heart made the painful adjustment, her eager longing turned away from romantic dreams and she was filled
with a shaky sense of desperation at the terrible frailty of old age.

But the tomcat’s yellow eyes were clear and intelligent, and when he turned away, following the black sedan, breaking into a gallop, he was surprisingly fast for someone his age. Not lithe or agile, but he kept up with the car and pickup for several blocks before they left him, vanishing down the hill. His interest in this human drama intrigued her. Why did he care? Who was he? Where he had come from, and what had brought him here?

Now that she was aware of his venerable age, she could imagine no aura of evil about him. He was not like the black tom, Azrael, who had once come on to her, rude and bold and demanding, who had helped his drunken human companion rob the village shops.

She’d wanted to follow him, but somewhere nearby an invasion had occurred, and her urgency to find the house, find the victim, and to know how badly those men had hurt her was stronger.

The house had to be nearby, if those men had just come from there. She had studied the dark yards below, willing herself to hear any faintest cry. She’d heard nothing but the distant surf and the sea wind fingering through the treetops. She’d wandered the roofs looking and listening but had heard nothing until the wind slackened, and then she heard a woman’s faint, thin cry, a plaintive voice that sent Kit bolting across the shingles and across the gaps between roofs to where an olive tree hugged a modest frame house. When the cry came again she dropped down through the branches and slipped along through the yard through the soft crowns of coral bell bushes. Again
the cry, and Kit had looked for a way in, maybe a window open to the cool evening or the front door jimmied. The tomcat had disappeared.

The front door was locked. The high little decorative glass window was broken, but the glass shards stuck up like giant shark’s teeth, ready to cut a little cat in two. At the spot along the wall where the cry came loudest, she caught the scent of blood, a metallic whiff seeping even through the wood siding that sent her leaping up at the nearest closed window. Clinging to the sill, pulling and clawing at the casing with one small armored paw, she fought to slide the glass back. When that failed, she tried the other windows, she’d tried all the way around the house, when she heard sirens. Were they coming here? Had someone seen the invasion and called the dispatcher?

But then she heard their wail fade to silence off in the center of the village. That would be the diversionary burglary to distract the cops. Two crimes, committed within minutes of each other. But, she thought, smiling, this time there would be no long delay before the invasion was discovered—provided she could find a phone and alert the department; and off she went, circling the neighbors’ houses looking for an unlocked window, peering up, leaping up at closed windows until, doubling back to the invaded house, she heard snores softly from above, from the house next door. She peered up to the second floor, then scrambled up a ragged rosebush, sticking her paw with a thorn.

Yes, an open window, and within, a man’s soft snores. Heart thudding, she clawed through the screen with a dry, ripping sound. When the snores faltered, she waited until
they steadied again, then pawed the screen out of the way so it wouldn’t catch in her fur, and quickly slipped inside.

She’d stood picking out the black shapes of dresser, desk, easy chair. She padded past the bed, watching warily the stout young man who sprawled asleep, the covers thrown back, the cool breeze blowing in on his bare skin. Rearing up to look atop the nightstand, she’d found no phone. She leaped atop the desk, then the dresser. Nothing. Maybe he used a cell phone, though none was in sight. Slipping out the open bedroom door and down the hall, she’d found two unoccupied bedrooms, their doors standing open. She prowled within, her breath coming quick with the need to hurry. Neither room had a phone. The door of the next bedroom was closed. When she sniffed at the crack beneath, she could taste the heavy smell of sleeping humans. Hurrying past, to the end of the hall, she found, tucked beside the descending stairs, a small home office.

Slipping inside, she leaped to the desk, nearly on top of the phone. She hit the speaker button, then scrambled to soften the sound of the dial tone which came in way too loud. When she pawed in 911, June Alpine answered, her young voice high and light, but steady. Kit kept her own voice to a whisper, terrified she’d wake someone in the next room. If the householders heard her and came searching for a prowler, they might be armed. As rigid as the California gun laws were, there was no law against arming oneself at home—with the laughable provision that the gun must be kept unloaded and locked away, separate from the locked-up ammunition. Which, if she heard anyone rise in alarm, would give her plenty of time
to escape down the hall, through the far bedroom past the young sleeper, and out the torn screen before they had time to load a weapon and come searching.

She reported the injured woman to June, and gave her street directions. Molena Point cottages had no house numbers. Hitting the speaker button again to break the connection, she padded soundlessly back through the house and across the roofs to the invaded house, where she hid herself at the base of the chimney in the blackest shadows. As she waited for the patrol cars she’d summoned, the words of the invaders echoed in her head …
can’t untie herself … How bad did you hurt her?
She thought about the smooth-talking man who sounded so familiar and so cold, and she hoped the poor woman would be all right. That man was someone from the past, she thought, her ears back and her tail switching. But she couldn’t think who, she couldn’t give him a name or think when or where she’d seen him, only that he frightened her.

P
ULLED FROM SOUND
sleep, Dulcie sat straight up on the desk and peered out the front window where sirens cut through the night, echoing from the center of the village. She’d been so deeply asleep, waiting for Wilma to get home from playing poker at the Damens’, had fallen asleep after she answered Wilma’s phone call. Another blast ripped the night, whooping then dying, and she imagined squad cars gathered around another violent and destructive store break-in.

If that
was
where the cops were gathered, would another kind of crime have occurred as well, blocks away, and in silence? If the pattern ran true to form, there would be no 911 call for help. That victim, unable to reach a phone or cry out, would suffer alone, perhaps for how many hours before someone found her and an alarm went out. Springing off the desk, she fled for her cat door.

Despite the squad cars converged in the center of the
village, she knew that doubled patrols would be searching the dark streets, watching for another, silent crime, shining their spotlights among the cottages and into dark gardens, looking for a running figure. Darkly clad officers would be walking the streets hoping to locate a victim who was unable to alert them, too injured to cry out and be heard. At times like this, Dulcie thought, the village seemed too big, too impersonal and dark; no way one small cat could hope to find a lone victim—but she could try. Scrambling up to the roofs, she raced for the middle of town first, guided by the burst of exploding lights.

The street was filled with cop cars. Across from the roof where she paused, the plate-glass windows of the Blue Bistro Café had been broken out, and two cops were busy stringing crime tape, a bright yellow ribbon above the sidewalk and back between the buildings. Beyond the broken glass, she could see inside where Dallas Garza was taking pictures, photographing broken tables and chairs, the damaged front counter and smashed wine bottles. The smell of spilled wine was so sharp it made her nose twitch. She could see another convergence of lights several blocks away, reflected against the sky—a second break-in. She watched the action for some time, saw Arnold Pence, the restaurant owner, skid his gray VW in among the police cars, pile out and run to the restaurant, his bedroom slippers crunching on broken glass, his heavy leather jacket flapping open over his striped pajamas. As the thin, gray-haired man argued with a young officer, demanding to be allowed inside, Dulcie reared up, looking away over the rooftops to the dark, residential parts of the village. How could anyone find the other, silent crime that was sure to
have happened somewhere among the dark houses? She was pacing uncertainly when, over the tangle of police radios and men’s voices, came the wail of more sirens, distant sirens somewhere to the south.
Had
a victim called in?

She stood a moment, pinpointing the location, then fled toward Ocean Avenue, coming down only to streak across the two northbound lanes, across the grassy median and then the southbound lanes, and up to the roofs again, guided by her fix on the dying wails. She ran until lights shone ahead reflecting up through the trees, leading her on as surely as an airport beam must summon a lone pilot. Galloping up the last peak, she leaped to the roof of a house stage-lit by the headlamps of squad cars and Harper’s truck and an EMT van. Running along the edge of the roof, staring down at them, she nearly plowed into Kit.

“The sirens woke you?” Kit whispered, amused by Dulcie’s startled squeak.

“I was waiting for Wilma. They hit a restaurant in the village, maybe two. Cops all over, Dallas is at the scene.” She frowned at Kit.
“You
called the dispatcher? How did you know?”

“I was following someone,” Kit said shyly.

Dulcie pricked her ears, but said no more. Crouching shoulder to shoulder, they watched two medics emerge from the house carrying a stretcher. The woman beneath the blanket was so frail she hardly made a lump. Her face was bruised and swollen, and caked with blood; even from the roof, they could smell its metallic bitterness. The two white-coated medics eased her into the ambulance, got in behind her and pulled the doors closed. The third
member of the team slipped behind the wheel and the van pulled away. As it headed for Molena Point Hospital, another squad car pulled to the curb, and Detective Kathleen Ray got out.

The tall, slim young woman was dressed in navy sweats, her long dark hair rumpled as if she’d just rolled out of bed, pulled on her clothes, and taken off. Stepping to the trunk of the black-and-white, she fetched a brown leather satchel that the cats knew contained evidence bags, some small tools, cameras, and fingerprint equipment. She turned as Max came out the front door, they spoke in low voices, then Max stepped into his truck. As he pulled away, a gray shadow slipped out of the house behind Kathleen and disappeared into the bushes. Not until Kathleen went inside did the leaves of a pittosporum rattle and part. Joe looked up at them and clawed his way up a spindly pine tree to the roof, giving Dulcie a warm nudge.

“The woman lives alone,” he said. “Nannette Garver. They beat her up pretty bad. She doesn’t know who called it in, her phone is dead, they cut the cord.” He looked at Kit. “Did you call the station? From where? How did you know?”

“From the house next door,” Kit said. “I found a window open, but before that, I saw them, I saw the men, and maybe a woman, I’m not sure. I heard them talking, I think I recognized one man’s voice, and one was driving the same pickup that nearly hit Maudie. There were three darkly dressed men, a black car like a limo. It was the driver who sounded familiar and …”

“Slow down, Kit!” they both said.

She tried to go slower. But only at the very last did
she tell them about the yellow tomcat and how he had led her there. “As if he knew there’d be an invasion,” she said.
“How
did he know? Oh my, he’s like us, but he’s very old, so old he’s white around the muzzle but when those men left he followed them, chased the black car and all three were wearing stockings over their faces and—”

“Kit!” Dulcie mewed.

“Slow down,” Joe snapped.

Kit stopped for breath, staring at the two of them. “Could the thin one have been Kent Colletto? The one who drove the truck? Kent looked so superior at dinner when they talked about the invasions. Could he have left the house after we did, after we looked in the garage? It was so dark I couldn’t see his face.”

“Kent has a juvenile record,” Joe said. “He …” He stopped speaking, lifted his head, sniffing the shifting breeze and then scanning the rooftops. Catching the tomcat’s lingering scent, he rose and trotted across the shingles, pausing where the scent clung heavily among overhanging leaves, where the tom must have lingered, watching them and listening.

For a moment, Joe paused at the edge of the roof looking down at the officers below, but then he moved on. He supposed they had about all the information they’d get until Kathleen’s report lay on Max’s desk tomorrow morning and he could read it at his leisure. And off he went, following the tomcat, wanting to know how this newcomer fit into the action. Was he a friend, or was he part of the problem?

He followed the scent to the next roof and the next,
Dulcie and Kit running beside him through the rising sea breeze. Where the trail descended to cross Ocean, they came down, too. For an old cat, he was making good time—heading straight for the center of the village where the sky glowed with the red reflections of police activity. Only as they approached the scene, their noses tickling at the smell of spilled wine, did they lose his trail.

Kit circled the roofs for a while but couldn’t pick it up again. Joe and Dulcie crouched at the roof’s edge watching the action around the Blue Bistro, the sidewalk beneath them glittering with shards of broken glass. This restaurant had been a fixture in the village long before the cats were born; favored by village residents, it featured locally grown produce, local wines, locally raised lamb. The dining room’s oversize fireplace, and the many photographs of famous village residents, offered a cozy aura in which one might happen on a movie star, a famous musician or sports figure. Now, not only had the big front windows been shattered, the portraits had been jerked from the walls and lay smashed on the floor, the frames bent, the glass broken, the pictures ground into the debris. Dallas Garza was lifting fingerprints from the shattered front counter where a smiling hostess should have been welcoming diners. Even the swinging kitchen doors had been ripped off their hinges, and the kitchen beyond torn apart, huge cook pots littering the floor, the counters pulled from the wall and smashed. It was hard to imagine three or four men doing this amount of damage in a short time, but maybe there were more than that. Joe guessed if a person put his mind to it, he could accomplish a lot
of destruction pretty fast. Was all this, indeed, simply to divert patrols from the invasion and make the cops look bad? That, coupled with the pleasure of violence just for the hell of it? He’d be willing to bet the officers would find very little missing, maybe the cash box gone and the safe breached—all this to destroy confidence in the police and in Max Harper.