Cat Coming Home (15 page)

K
IT FOLLOWED THE
scent of the tomcat across the roofs straight into the wooded hills north of the village. Though he didn’t look back, she knew he was aware of her by the way he moved, by the way his ears would swivel around, by the way he took shelter occasionally where he could see back across the roofs, watching her. Racing uphill atop the oak-sheltered cottages, he was drawing ever nearer to Maudie’s house. But why would he go there?

Or was he headed on past Maudie’s, maybe returning to the Colletto house?
Had
one of the invaders tonight been Kent Colletto? If Kent had a part in this, how did the yellow cat know? And did anyone else in the Colletto family know? That would be interesting, she thought, smiling at straitlaced Carlene’s stubborn defense of Victor.

Between the few lighted windows, the oak-shrouded roofs were so dark that the yellow tom appeared and then disappeared, vanishing into the deepest pools of blackness,
then out again. He had a lot of stamina for an old cat; Kit herself was breathing hard. As he crossed the next roof he stopped suddenly, stood in plain sight in the glow of a lighted window looking back at her. For a long moment he stood looking. He lifted a paw, opened his mouth in a silent meow, and then was gone again, a pale shape racing across the roofs among the dark treetops that sheltered Maudie’s street.

Next door to Maudie’s he paused again. Maudie’s kitchen light was on, and a lamp burned in the upstairs guest room. He was still for a moment, and then leaped to Maudie’s roof. He was such a big cat that even now, in his old age, he was an impressive fellow. When he turned and looked at her, his eyes held a world of knowledge, and of pain. How many years had he lived? How many miles had this cat traveled, and what had he seen of the world?

In the guest room, Maudie was making up the empty twin bed. Benny was sound asleep in the other, the covers pulled up around his ears, his face turned away from the lamp’s soft light. Padding closer to the yellow cat, Kit sat down near him. He glanced at her, but neither spoke. They watched Maudie tuck the sheets in, making square, neat corners military tight. Had David returned, was she making the bed for him? Had he decided, after all, not to leave Benny and his mother alone in a strange neighborhood and a new house? Though she was filled with questions, Kit found it hard not to stare at the tomcat, too. She felt both shy of him and bold; she wanted to talk to him, ask him questions; but for once in her life, she remained quiet.

He seemed intently fixed on the guest room, ignoring
her—until he twitched an ear, in a friendly gesture, inviting her to move closer. She padded right up next to him; they sat in friendly silence watching Maudie shake a pillow into a fresh pillow slip. Kit was so sure David had returned that when she heard a man’s footsteps in the hall, she watched for him to appear.

Jared Colletto moved into the doorway, carrying a bulging gym bag atop two folded blankets. “I could have done that, Aunt Maudie,” he said softly, glancing at the sleeping child. “I had trouble finding the blankets—that garage is loaded. Where will you put it all?”

“Most of it will go in the new studio,” Maudie said. “Except some boxes of Martin’s and Caroline’s things that I couldn’t throw away.”

“Mementos?” he asked softly.

“Photographs, letters. Caroline’s personal papers. Some things I don’t know what to do with. Her sister has her business papers. She and I together dealt with the trust—Martin and Caroline and I had our trusts drawn up by the same attorney at the same time, just after they were married, trusts for Benny and for Caroline’s two children.”

Entering the room, Jared eased the blankets onto the dresser, set his duffel on the floor, then unfolded the blankets and spread them over the sheets on the freshly made bed. “It’s nice to be able to visit. I hope I don’t disturb Benny, moving into his space. I guess I’m not disturbing him now,” he said, grinning. “Does he always sleep so deeply?”

“Like a rock,” Maudie said. “As if this terrible ordeal has produced, instead of sleeplessness, a need to escape
into sleep. At any rate,” she said, smiling, “it’s nice to have you here. Of course no one would have bothered us, but it’s nice to have your company. You’ve grown up a lot since my last trip to the village.”

Jared put his arm around her, giving her a hug. “I don’t want you to wait on me, I can do for myself.” He looked at her almost shyly. “If you don’t mind me in your kitchen, don’t mind me fixing my own breakfast.”

“You’re to make yourself at home, Jared. Help yourself to whatever you want. But what is it? Something’s bothering you.”

“It’s just … you’ll be careful, when I’m out? Now that I’m here, I feel responsible. You won’t answer the door until you know who’s there? You’ll keep your cell phone handy in your pocket?”

“Jared …”

“And you won’t let Benny play outside alone?” Jared sounded, Kit thought, as bossy as his mother. He said, “I’ll play ball with Benny when I get home from work or classes. The car lot isn’t far, just around the edge of the bay, a ten-minute drive. I’ll be glad when we’ve moved your things into the studio, when you can get your car in the garage, can come directly into the house.”

“Jared, this is silly. I promise I’m in no danger.”

He looked at Maudie, frowning. “You were in danger when that truck nearly hit you. And you mentioned to Mother something about boxes being shifted around in the garage? And a silent phone call where the line was open but no one spoke, and no caller ID on the screen?”

“I’m sure that was some glitch in the phone system, maybe one of those electronic political messages that
didn’t go through. I wish I hadn’t told her those things, I should have known better, Carlene can get so excited. I’m sorry Benny mentioned the truck. Well,” she said, “you’re here and it’s nice to have you. I know I must be putting you out, but we’ll make it a good visit.” She smiled. “There’s some lemon pie. Shall I cut us each a slice?”

“Pie would be great, then I’d better get some sleep. My first class is at eight. Go on down, I’ll just hang up a couple of shirts.”

Maudie left the room, heading for the stairs, and in a minute the kitchen lights brightened as if she’d turned up the dimmer. Kit turned to look at the yellow tom. “Why did you follow us?”

His eyes looked deep into hers. “My name is Misto.”

“Are you with them, with those two in the motel who robbed and hurt that woman?”

“Would I tell you if I was?”

“I guess not,” she said, half wary, half amused.

“I came with him,” Misto said, cocking an ear toward the guest room where Jared was hauling underwear and books out of his duffel.

“With Jared? From Maudie’s sister’s house? You live with them?” Kit said, amazed.

Misto dropped his ears. “I wouldn’t live in that house.”

“What do you mean, then, that you came with Jared?”

“I came from the prison at Soledad. I hitched a ride when Jared and Kent visited their brother. I knew they were from this village.”

Kit looked at him, puzzled. “Why did you want to come here? What were
you
doing in the prison?” Soledad
was where Lori went to visit her pa, where her pa was serving time for murder. “Didn’t they see you in their car?”

“It was a hot day. I banked on their putting the top down when they parked, the guards watch the parking lot pretty carefully. They did put it down, and when they returned I was hidden under a blanket behind the seat.”

“But what made you want to come here?” she repeated.

Misto smiled. “I knew about you three, I heard some of the prisoners talking.”

She felt as if her heart had stopped. “No one in prison would know about us.” But then she realized someone would know, there were prisoners in Soledad that she and Dulcie and Joe had helped send there, men they had followed and spied on and snitched on to the cops. Some of those men did know about them, or knew about cats like them.

“You lived there?” she said softly.

“I came there to the prison grounds two years ago. There are fields around Soledad; a lot of cats live there, feral cats, but not like us. There was no other like me, no other cat to talk to.”

“Lonely,” she said.

“I’ve lived a lot of places where I was lonely. Only once in a while have I come on another speaking cat. It was there in the prison yard that I heard two men talking about Molena Point and about the strange unnatural cats they’d found there.”

She didn’t like this, they didn’t need anyone talking about unnatural cats, telling where they were.

“The prison ferals live on the grounds and in the surrounding
fields, but I hung out with the humans,” he said. “I was hungry to hear human talk. I followed the trustees who did the gardening, they talk a lot when they work together. I made friends with some, they liked to bring me food. One morning, two of them started swapping stories about strange cats that were more than cats. The redheaded one said he’d trapped speaking cats near this village. You can bet I hung around to hear more.”

“Tommie McCord,” she said softly. “The redheaded one. They did trap cats, he and his friends did, but we freed them.”

“They laughed about trapping them,” Misto said. “The redhead—McCord?—swore he and his partner had had them in a cage and had heard them talking. When he said, ‘Those cats are loose somewhere in the village,’ I knew I had to come here, I longed to find others like myself. It’s been a long time, so many years since I had other cats to talk to, since I parted from my wife and kits.”

“There
is
a band of speaking cats, wild in the hills. Those are the ones McCord and his friends trapped, they were going to sell them. That frightens me, that he’s telling people about us. But of course he would, wouldn’t he? Scum like that,” Kit said, hissing.

“Not to worry, the other prisoners didn’t believe him, they made jokes about him, called him crazy. Though later,” he said more solemnly, “I saw one of the men watching the feral cats in a puzzled way, watching too intently.

“But in a prison there are a lot of tall stories,” he said quickly. “No one really believes them.” The old cat placed a paw softly on Kit’s paw. “That redheaded one’s still in
prison where he can’t hurt us. No one likes him much. Who knows,” he said hopefully, “maybe he won’t leave Soledad alive.”

They both went silent at a rustle of leaves above them. The next instant, Dulcie looked down at them, her dark stripes blending into the dark foliage, only her green eyes sharply defined. She dropped to the roof beside them, looking worriedly from one to the other, having heard enough to be just as upset as Kit by Misto’s remarks about the prison.

But the next moment she was even more concerned about what she observed of Maudie.

From the roof of the garage wing, the cats could see not only into the guest room, but also into the kitchen below. As Kit and Misto had talked softly, Maudie had gone downstairs. Now alone in the kitchen, her expression had changed. She was no longer smiling as if with pleasure at having company. Glancing above her toward the guest room, she was scowling as if filled with dismay, as if she did not want Jared there.

“What’s that about?” Dulcie said softly, sitting down beside Kit. “She’s mad as a caged raccoon.”

But Kit’s attention, and Misto’s, were on Jared, where, within the softly lit guest room, he stood looking down at the little boy who slept so innocently. He looked for a long time; they couldn’t read his expression, and then at last he turned away, leaving Benny to his dreams. Reaching into the closet, into the inside pocket of the jacket he had hung there, he removed a lumpy, zippered black folder. Patting it as if to make sure the contents were all in place, he slipped it into the duffel beneath his folded jeans. Zipping
the duffel, he snapped a little padlock to secure it and set it in the closet. Whether the folder contained innocent, private business or something more interesting, the cats had no way to know; maybe it was just something he didn’t want Benny to play with.

H
AVING CALLED THE
night dispatcher about the canvas-covered car, Joe left Wilma’s house and hurried back to the motel through a haze of fog, a mist drifting in from the sea to dampen his fur and blur the rooftops around him. Below him, already parked in front of the motel, was a gratifying response to his phone tip: a squad car stood at the curb, along with Dallas’s tan Blazer. From below, from the front office, he heard Officer Crowley and a strange voice, maybe the desk clerk. When he didn’t hear Dallas, he trotted across the roof to the small parking lot. Where the hedge met the wall, where he’d reported the black Cadillac covered by the tarp, Dallas stood surveying the scene.

The Cadillac was gone. The corner was empty. No black Caddy, no car at all, no tarp, nothing but blacktop, the area a shade lighter than the surrounding, fog-damp macadam. Well, didn’t that tear it. He’d been gone maybe twenty minutes, but enough time, apparently, for the two
perps to double back and take the car. Or had they sent one of their pals to retrieve it?

But why? What had alerted them? Had someone seen the cats watching them, and knew what they were, knew they’d alert the cops? But that couldn’t happen, that was too far out. Or had the yellow tomcat alerted the man and woman?
Was
he traveling with those no-goods, and not the innocent old fellow that he seemed? Joe watched Dallas kneeling at the edge of the dry parking space, his leather bag by his side, using the department’s new, handheld laser beam to illuminate a tire mark that was, apparently, so faint Joe had missed it. The thin edge of a second, clearer mark was incised into the earth strip that ran along the hedge. Joe looked up when he heard a far door close.

Padding across the roof, he watched Officer Crowley leave the motel office and head across the patio to the parking lot. Joe kept pace with him. Even in uniform, Crowley looked awkward, his thin, stringy six-foot-four body moving as if he were walking behind a plow, his big hands seeming better suited to the plow, too, than to the 9-millimeter he wore at his belt. Approaching Dallas, Crowley stood shifting from foot to foot waiting for the detective to photograph a second tire print that shone as faint as a breath on the dry macadam.

Dallas set his camera aside. “What did you get from the desk clerk?”

“The woman checked out. Name of Karen Birkler. A single, registered for the whole month, special rate. The clerk didn’t like that she had two different men in and
out at different times; that made him nervous. Maybe he thought they’d run into each other, and there’d be trouble. He was curious enough about her to follow her once, watched her carry a small plastic bag a dozen blocks and drop it in a builder’s Dumpster. Said she could just as well have dumped it at the motel. She registered with a Sacramento address.” Crowley handed Dallas a piece of paper. “Probably bogus.”

Dallas nodded, tucked the paper in a small spiral-bound notebook that he returned to his pocket. Crowley said, “I told him to make sure the lock code is changed, that the room remains locked, not to let the maids or maintenance or anyone else go in. Told him we’d cordon off the two entrances.”

Dallas removed a clean paintbrush from the satchel and began dusting bits of debris into an evidence bag, maybe loose fibers from the canvas tarp. “Did you put out a BOL on the brown pickup and the Toyota?” Crowley nodded. “Do the same for the Cadillac, do it before you string your tape. When we’re finished here, I’m headed back to the Galleon. I hope to hell we don’t have another dustup tonight, with three scenes to work. Being this shorthanded makes me edgy.”

Crowley grinned. As Joe listened to him call in the Cadillac, he worried over why the couple had bailed out so fast. He followed above Dallas as the detective headed for the motel office, watched him disappear inside. This wing of the building was an old-fashioned brick box, the swinging glass door with a glass transom above it; the other wings were newer. Edging over the roof gutter as
far as gravity would allow, he peered in through the open transom.

He couldn’t see the clerk, but he could hear his reedy voice, a pale contrast to Dallas Garza’s deeper tone. Dallas wanted a look at the motel room, but when he mentioned a warrant the clerk waived that aside. Clerk said if
he
asked the law to have a look, then no warrant was needed. When their voices receded, as if they had headed down the hall behind the office, Joe padded away across the roof. He backed down into the bushes as Dallas entered the room through the inner door from the hall. Through the glass slider, Joe watched the detective fit goggles over his eyes. He squinted as Dallas scanned the room with the laser. Didn’t take long to pick up footprints from the carpet, fingerprints from the dresser and headboard. When he’d finished, Dallas turned on the lights, throwing the room into stagelike brilliance, highlighting the shabbiness of the dated, Swedish modern bedroom suite.

Avoiding certain areas of carpet, Dallas began to dust a few selected areas of furniture in the conventional way, to pick up prints the laser had found. Using the laser was a hell of a lot faster than the old drill. If scientists kept coming up with these startling new techniques, they’d put a cat out of business.

When Dallas left the scene, Joe headed for the station, hoping more information might be forthcoming. Maybe a patrol, or the CHP, had already picked up the Cadillac or the Toyota. Or even the old truck, which Kit had reported earlier. All the way to the courthouse unanswered questions rattled around in his head. If Kent Colletto was part of this tangle, could Maudie know that? Did she not want
to turn in her own nephew? She hadn’t seemed that fond of Kent, but he
was
family, and the woman was harboring some secret. If Kent
was
involved in the invasions and he thought Maudie knew, wouldn’t that put her in danger from her own nephew as well as, possibly, from her son’s killer?