Cat Coming Home (4 page)

A
N HOUR BEFORE
the truck came roaring down at Maudie, and a dozen blocks away, the tortoiseshell cat paced the early-morning rooftops looking down from between the peaks and chimneys at the village shops below. Kit’s black and brown coat shone dark within the fog, drops of fog clinging to the tips of her long fur like tiny jewels. Below her, the shop windows were bright with a dazzle of small, lavishly decorated Christmas trees, with silver and gold packages which, while only empty inside, were festive and enticing. Several windows featured carefully arranged crèche scenes, and these always drew Kit. In the small hours of the nights before Christmas, when the streets were at last deserted, she and Dulcie would prowl the dark, empty village, standing tall on their hind paws peering in at the baby Jesus and the wise men and the little miniature animals all snuggled in their beds of straw—but there was never a cat, the crèches never had cats. Dulcie said there
were no cats in the Bible, but Kit wasn’t sure she believed that. Why would there be horses and cows and dogs, wild pigs and weasels, but no cats? Why, when everyone knew that a little cat would have to be God’s favorite?

She’d left home this morning before daylight while her human housemates still dozed. Though Lucinda and Pedric Greenlaw, at eighty-some, liked to be up for an early breakfast and an early walk in the hills, they’d been out late last night. They’d been fast asleep as Kit bolted through the dining room, through her cat door that was cut into the window, trotted across the oak branch to her tree house, and took off to the next roof. And the next roof and the next, heading for the village, traveling high above the ground as handily as any squirrel among the leafy canopy.

Now in the center of the village, she listened to the rhythmic thudding as an early jogger fled past, and watched a gray-haired dog walker heading for the shore pulled along by an eager red setter. A young man in sport coat and chinos stepped out from a nearby motel and, two blocks down, turned in at the nearest bakery seeking his morning coffee and, most likely, some delectable and sugary confection. As he disappeared inside the steamy café, two runners came up the hill from the shore, breathing hard, looking smug with their efforts. Humans wore themselves out running from nothing, but too often had no clue when to run from danger. Kit watched the human scene with interest, but she watched the rooftops around her with sharper scrutiny. She was looking for the stranger, for the yellow tomcat.

She’d glimpsed him over the past days only briefly, had
seen him watching her from among shadows, from leafy cover, but had never gotten a close look at him. He was a big cat, his fur as pale yellow as sunshine. He had watched Joe and Dulcie, too, but why was he so shy, why did he keep his distance so stubbornly as he followed them? She knew he was no ordinary cat, the way he watched them, she knew he could have spoken to them if he chose. What did he want, to follow them but then refuse to approach? What was he doing in the village? Where had he come from? The mystery of him sent her heart pounding with excitement and with challenge, sent her imagination rocketing as she searched for the elusive stranger.

A sound startled her. Did she hear a soft yowl, a tomcat’s yowl? She leaped to a high peak, listening. But no, what she heard was not a cat at all but the faintest screech of nails being pulled, and then the distant thunk of boards being tossed in a heap, and Kit smiled. That was only Ryan, pulling off the siding, at work renovating that little frame cottage—had to be Ryan, from the direction, and the early hour. What other carpenter or contractor started work so early? Looking around at the empty and silent roofs, Kit licked her cold paws, and then headed across the roofs toward the residential hills where Ryan would be working. If she couldn’t find the mysterious tom, she would ease her restlessness among friends, and away she went, racing over the shingles and across the oaks’ spanning branches.

She stopped suddenly when three cop cars streamed past along the street below, moving without sirens and in a hell of a hurry. And here came an EMT right behind them, all as quiet as soaring hawks watching for prey.
Spinning around, Kit followed them, praying this wasn’t another invasion but, racing over the rooftops, meaning to be there if it was, hoping to get a look at the invaders, this time.

She thought about the women who had been beaten and robbed: a lone woman in her garden picking roses, the front door left unlocked behind her and no one else at home. A lone woman opening her door at night to a stranger because he said his car wouldn’t start. He’d pulled her onto her darkened porch, where he’d already unscrewed the lightbulb, had knocked her around, trashed her house breaking furniture, taken a few small items, and left. The third woman was attacked in the dark stairway of her condo, again when the lightbulb had been unscrewed. Why had she gone in there when there was no light?

And the strangest thing was, none of the women had been raped. These men forced themselves into their homes, broke the furniture, stole money and jewelry, and fled. Sometimes two men, sometimes three, their faces covered with stockings in a trite but effective disguise. It was the very absence of further brutality that most puzzled the police, and puzzled the cats, as well. Could the perpetrators, if they got caught, not want to stand trial for the more serious offense of rape? That seemed to the cats the only possible explanation—brutal small-time thugs, wanting to have their fun but still save their own necks.

Racing over the roofs following the silent patrol cars, Kit heard a scream somewhere ahead—but not a human scream. It was an animal: a dog, in terrible pain. A little dog, screaming and screaming, its cries sickening her as she leaped from roof to roof, so upsetting her, she nearly fell off
the edge, and scrambled to regain her footing on the damp, slanting shingles.

The cop cars slowed, pulled to the curb. The screams came from directly below her now, from a house she knew well. She pictured the little Skye terrier who lived there, tiny and frail beneath its long silky brown fur. If that little dog was hurt, this, to Kit, was far more upsetting than an attack on a human person. To hear a little animal hurting and helpless tore at her, left her hissing and shivering.

B
ECKY LAKE’S SHINGLED
studio home was shaded by pepper trees, its interior one large room with an alcove for the kitchen, another for the bath and closet. Its steep roof rose like a pyramid, flattened at the very peak into a four-by-four-foot skylight, the thick, clear glass usually dusted with leaves from the pepper trees and decorated with little cat paw prints. Kit had spent many hours lying across the glass looking down into the paneled room with its high rafters and wide stone fireplace, a retreat that might have been built at the edge of a mountain stream or in the Swiss Alps, but that fit right into this casual and wooded village. Peering down through the skylight, she could see Becky’s Christmas tree, all hung with little carved wooden toys. On the hearth stood a ceramic pot of holly branches gleaming with clusters of red berries. She didn’t see Becky, but she could see the little terrier. Rowdy lay on his side, biting
frantically at his shoulder, his cries so loud they made her ears ring.

Had the neighbors heard him, was that what had generated the 911 call? Well, help was here now, but why didn’t they hurry? She looked down at the three black-and-whites on the street below and the EMT van in the drive, watched Officer Brennan and Detective Kathleen Ray pile out of a squad car and double-time it up the steps. Kathleen was taller than Brennan and slimmer, her dark hair knotted sleekly beneath her uniform cap. Brennan pounded on the door and then threw it open. Weapons drawn, they eased inside. Behind them, two more uniforms moved up the walk, and Max Harper’s pickup pulled to the curb.

The chief sent two additional officers circling around to the back, and then he, too, stepped inside, his hand on his holstered weapon. Where was Becky Lake? How badly was she hurt? Why didn’t someone help the little dog, why didn’t they help Rowdy?

Becky Lake was only twenty-something, and she and Rob were newly married: Rob was the manager of the little local grocery store. Becky, a slim, pretty girl, always looked so fresh and clean, always smelled of soap and water as if she’d just stepped from a cool shower. Even as Kit watched, Becky appeared in the open door supported by Detective Ray, her ash-blond hair a tangle, her pale blue blouse torn, revealing a white silk bra and various bruises already turning purple or red. Kathleen supported the girl, trying to calm her, but Becky clung to her for only a moment, then pulled away, turning back toward the house. “Rowdy. I have to go back. Oh, please, he needs help, not me.”

“Brennan is calling Dr. Firetti,” Kathleen said. “He’ll come as quick as he can. We don’t want to handle the dog and maybe hurt him worse; it’s best the doctor take care of him.”

Becky fought to free herself. She was shaking, wiping at her tears. “Please, please help Rowdy. Can’t I just be with him?”

“It’s a crime scene now,” Kathleen said. “We’d rather you stayed out here. If we pick Rowdy up or handle him, we could make his injuries worse. We want to wait for the vet.” But then, watching the younger woman, Kathleen relented. “Come on,” she said, “you can sit with him if you’ll stay in one place. Don’t pick him up, Becky.”

Becky nodded and they moved inside. Above them, Kit slipped down from the roof into the foliage of a pepper tree and then into the bushes beside the open door. She could see where the glass pane beside the door had been broken out, could see Becky inside kneeling beside the fireplace gently stroking the little terrier. Officer Brennan stood by the far glass wall speaking on his cell phone. He had pulled on cloth booties, as had Kathleen and the chief. Kit didn’t have cloth booties, and as she slipped inside she hoped to hell that, if they used some electronic gadget to see footprints, they’d miss hers. Shards of glass sparkled everywhere across the dark wood floor; she stepped carefully among them, staying in shadow and close to the walls. The little dog continued to scream. She wasn’t sure what she thought she’d see that the sharp-eyed cops would miss. But visual surveillance didn’t matter so much, the detective would be on top of that; it was the scents that Kit was after, the elusive smells that no human could detect.

Against a far wall, two armchairs had been overturned and an end table broken. One of Becky’s sandals lay beside them. As Kit prowled the room staying out of sight behind the overturned furniture, she could detect no scent but the sharp cinnamon smell of baking that flowed from the kitchen to drown any scent of the invaders. Across the room Brennan was growing nervous, shouting into the phone for Dr. Firetti to hurry.

John Firetti was Kit’s own doctor, she knew he’d drop everything and come—if he wasn’t in the middle of some other emergency. Beyond the overturned chairs a lamp lay broken, and the phone fallen beside it. By the time Brennan holstered his cell phone and looked up, Kit had abandoned her search and slipped back outside to the porch—that was when she caught another smell, a rank smell, faint but unpleasant. The faint stink of fish so old and ripe it made her pull a face of disgust, flehming and nearly gagging.

Kit liked her seafood fresh, preferred it the day it was caught. This smell was like the rotting fish Lucinda buried under the rosebushes to keep them blooming with such careless abandon. Had one of the attackers come from a fishing boat? Or perhaps from the wharves along the coast where fish might have been cleaned and the offal left to rot? Or maybe from the little fishing wharf at the edge of the village? Kit took a good whiff, gagged again, and backed away. She kept backing, straight into the bushes, as Captain Harper appeared inside the house, coming out of the kitchen. Harper didn’t need to catch her snooping, he already had too many questions about cats and crime scenes.

Though the chief had grown used to the three cats wandering in and out of the station, sleeping in an office bookcase or on a desk, enjoying handouts from the dispatcher, being spotted at a crime scene wasn’t so smart, they didn’t need the officers’ puzzled stares. Now, hidden from Harper, Kit stuck her nose out of the bushes and watched as Dr. Firetti pulled up to the drive in his white van.

Parking, he stepped out, and an office nurse with him. The two hurried into the house, and soon the scent of alcohol wafted out. Maybe Firetti was giving the little dog a shot for the pain? Kit listened for several minutes to their mumbled voices, and soon the screaming stopped. Then, Dr. Firetti came out carrying little Rowdy on a dog-size stretcher. Kit watched through the van’s open side door as they settled Rowdy in a padded bed with high sides, and the nurse sat down beside him. Sliding the door closed, Firetti stopped to speak with Becky. He’d call her when he’d examined Rowdy. Stepping into the van, he headed for the veterinary hospital. In the bushes, Kit breathed a sigh of relief for the poor little mutt. Rowdy was no bigger than a cat himself—though a hell of a lot louder. Becky stood on the porch clutching Kathleen’s hand. Kathleen sat down on the step, drawing Becky down beside her, waiting as the young woman tried to collect herself. Kit, hidden beneath the mock orange bush, crouched only a few feet from them. Kathleen said, “Do you feel like answering a few questions? After that, the medics will take you to the hospital. Is your husband at work?”

Becky wiped her tears. “The questions are fine, but I don’t want to go to the hospital. And please don’t call
Rob—yes, he’s at work, but he’ll be so upset. I’ll call him myself, in a little while.”

“You need someone to be with you. And,” Kathleen said gently, “we need to know how badly they hurt you. We need to know exactly what they did.”

Becky looked down at her torn clothes, at her bruised arms. The side of her face was red and swelling. When she looked up at Kathleen, her eyes were steady. “They didn’t rape me. Thank God they didn’t do that.”

Kathleen studied her. “If they did, and you press charges …”

Becky shook her head. “They didn’t. Maybe Rowdy stopped them. He’s such a little thing, but he went after them real fierce, screaming and biting them. One of them kicked him. He’s hurt so bad. Will he be all right?”

“Dr. Firetti will do the best he can,” Kathleen said, then was silent, waiting.

“I’m just bruised,” Becky said, seeing her look. “I don’t think anything’s broken. They beat me, the one did. There were two men, they ran when you drove up. They took money from my purse. Kept trying to make me tell them my PIN number. I don’t have a PIN number, Rob and I don’t have ATM cards, we’ve never wanted them. They wouldn’t believe me.”

“Can you describe them at all?”

“Both tall. One thin, maybe stooped a little. The other square and well built. Black hair, I could see that much under the stocking. A little taller than the thin one.” She was silent a moment. “Clean fingernails,” she said, frowning. “The bigger man had nice nails, as if he’d had a manicure, and that surprised me. He was the one who kicked the
door in, kicked it off the chain, and burst in ahead of the other. I should never have trusted a chain.”

Officer Brennan appeared in the doorway. “Dr. Firetti called. He said Rowdy’s shoulder is broken, but so far he hasn’t found any internal injuries. He wants to put him under anesthetic so he can set the shoulder. He’ll go ahead, but he wonders if you’ll stop by later to sign the release.”

Becky nodded. Kit listened to Becky and Kathleen argue until, under Kathleen’s gentle but stubborn urging, Becky agreed to go to the hospital. The minute she had left with the EMTs, Kathleen retrieved a black bag of crime-scene equipment from the squad car, pulled on the cloth booties again, and went inside to photograph and lift prints. Behind her, Kit returned to the little cement porch, took another sniff of the odor of ancient fish, and followed it.

The fishy trail led into the house, but then out again at the other side of the threshold. She followed it to the sidewalk, trying to look casual, like a neighborhood cat out for a stroll. After only a little way, the trail vanished at the curb, most likely transferred into a waiting car.

Unable to find another trace of the scent, she left the scene and headed for Ryan’s cottage, hoping to find Joe and Dulcie. Becky’s cursory description of the invaders, plus the smell of fishy shoes, had to count for something, and Kit wanted to share what she’d learned. She was high up the hills, below Maudie Toola’s and a block over, when Maudie’s son David came jogging downhill, his short brown hair tucked under a cap, his tanned face smooth and lean. She peered down from the roof as he passed below her and disappeared down the hill, soon blocked from
her view by shaggy, overhanging branches. Kit moved on up, drawn by the screech of nails and the echo of tossed boards.

Trotting along above the side street that would lead to Ryan’s cottage, she watched an ancient brown pickup truck pull to the curb beneath her, just before it reached Maudie’s street. A rusty, dented old truck with a dirt-smeared windshield. It stood with the engine idling. When the driver didn’t get out, but simply sat there, a dark shadow behind the dirty glass, a ripple of unease made her fur twitch, and she settled down to watch. The shingles beneath her paws were rough and damp.

From where she crouched she could see Maudie’s Tudor house and the roof of Ryan’s cottage. Could see Joe Grey and Dulcie lounging on the cottage roof, glancing idly up at the little birds that flitted among the branches above them—and then everything happened at once. She saw Ryan leave the cottage and head downhill to Maudie’s, saw Maudie come out her own front door heading for her car at the curb, her keys jingling in her hand. She watched Maudie step off the curb, pop the trunk open, and begin pulling out packages. At the same moment, the old truck took off fast, heading straight down the hill at Maudie. Ryan shouted. Joe and Dulcie and Kit shouted and damn the consequences as Ryan grabbed Maudie and pulled her out of its path. The truck barely missed her; it swerved around the Lincoln, metal screeching against metal, skidded downhill and around the corner and was gone.

Kit crouched among the branches, shivering. Why would anyone want to hurt Maudie? Why would anyone try to run their truck into a harmless old woman?

Down on the sidewalk, Maudie clung to Ryan. On the porch, Benny didn’t move, he stood on the step, white and frozen. As Scotty came rushing out, Ryan grabbed her phone and started to dial, but Maudie snatched it from her. Joe and Dulcie had fled to Maudie’s roof, Kit watched them scramble down to the garden and slip into the house behind Maudie. Kit remained very still, setting into memory every detail of that strange attack: the vague shadow of the driver’s face behind the dirty windshield, a thin face beneath what might have been a dark hood, the rusty scars on the truck, the mud on the back bumper and license plate. Kit’s distress at the beating of Becky Lake, and now the attack on Maudie, left her feeling very small and useless. Ears and tail down, she at last made her way from the rooftops down into Maudie’s yard, where she crawled under a camellia bush and curled into a little ball among its fallen petals. She didn’t understand humans. She thought about all the ugliness among humans that she and Dulcie and Joe had seen, and about the grim photographs and reports of murders that were available to them on the desks of their law-enforcement friends, and the more she thought, the more defeated she felt; all alone, she put her head down on her paws, filled with a terrible remorse for humankind.