I caught myself before I answered out loud. Albert was looking at me, funny. I’d wanted to leave him on edge. A little afraid. “Nice pet you got there.” I hoped Frank didn’t mind. “Take care of him.”
I winked at the ferret. “And quit staring at my ass.”
The vet wasn’t in when I called from the car. The shelter line was busy when I stopped for groceries. By the time I got home, he’d left for the day.
“Small towns.” I was pacing. Wallis was watching me, bemused, from her seat on one of my mother’s placemats.
“We can go back to the city any day, babe.” She eyed the bag I’d dropped on the counter. “What did you get?”
“Chicken. For me.” She didn’t blink. “Bones, Wallis.”
“I’m not a
kitten.”
She turned her back on me.
“You used to like Fancy Feast.”
I saw her shift. I’d made my point. “That was when I was starving. And you were…uncooperative.”
I stacked the cans in the cabinet, knowing I’d never open them. “I didn’t know, Wallis. I mean, it’s
cat
food.”
She shifted again, flipping her ears back to catch my words. “You weren’t listening. You were so busy with your training and your life.”
I caught the peevishness sneaking into her tone. “Wallis, at least back then, I had a life.”
“As I recall, you were the one who wanted to get out of town.” The round tabby turned sideways on the flowered mat and started washing her hind foot. “I’m at home anywhere.”
“Wallis.” I could hear the anger creeping into my voice, but she didn’t look up. Those toes were going to be awfully clean. “You know why we left.”
More silence. Nobody can ignore you like your cat. I grabbed a head of garlic and began peeling.
“I couldn’t handle it anymore.” I might as well have been speaking to myself. She started biting her hind claws, trimming them down to size. “The cacophony, the constant noise.”
She glanced up at me, holding that white bootie up to dry. “The voices, you mean. You claim you want to hear us, to understand us. And then when you do, you freak out.” She went back to the foot. “What’s that about, do you think?” As I heard her, I got the distinct feeling of fur in my mouth. “And could you not put so much nasty garlic in that?”
“It’s
my
dinner.” Another look. I slumped into a chair. “One thigh, Wallis. That’s it. And could you not do that while we’re talking?”
She shot me a look, but at least she paused.
“Look, I freaked. Okay? You know that.”
She sat up to face me. I had her full attention now. “I’d been talking to you for years, you know. Sometimes, I swear you heard me.”
I nodded. I’d gotten messages from her. We all do from our cats. “It was the other animals, mostly.” Mostly true. “And, okay, once I started hearing you for real—in full sentences, well, I lost it.”
“You
thought
you’d lost it.” She blinked slowly for emphasis.
“Well, there’s no precedent.”
“Oh, please.” She turned away and made to jump off the table
“Wait a minute, Wallis. I need some advice.”
She hit the floor with a thud, but she didn’t walk away.
“Lily’s still not making sense.” I felt, rather than heard, her smirk. “Seriously, I want to get her some tranquilizers. But Albert’s ferret—”
“
What?”
I’d overstepped. Animals don’t belong to people.
“His name is Frank. Anyway, he seemed to be listening. He thought Lily was confused, that she’d seen something and couldn’t make sense of it.”
“She’s listening to rats now.” She lashed her tail.
“Wallis, come on.” Swipe, swipe. “He’s a ferret. They’re related to polecats.” Swipe. “I could use your help now.”
“Well.” Tabbies are vain. It’s the stripes. “Now that you admit it.”
“Do you think a ferret could be picking up something I wasn’t?”
She collapsed on the floor and studied me. Those green-gold eyes had seen a lot. “What are you asking, Pru?”
“I don’t know exactly.” I didn’t. “I want to understand why this happened—and who did it.”
She rolled on her back. In previous years, I’d have thought nothing of petting her fluffy white belly. That was before I knew her so well. “You still want to get that dog off.”
I nodded. She stretched. “
Cherchez la femme.“
Wallis likes to think of herself as sophisticated.
“Delia? The girlfriend?” Wallis reached out to grab the leg of my chair. “Yeah, I need to speak with her. But first, I think, the mother.”
One green eye looked up at me. “You are a cold one, aren’t you?” There was a note of admiration in her voice. “If you’d ever had children of your own….”
“Wallis, you’ve been neutered.”
“
Spayed
, please. And I had a life before, you know.”
There was no use arguing with Wallis. I didn’t know how many of her stories were true, I just knew she had them. “Charles’ mother might be important. She’s the one who controls Lily’s fate now.”
“
Dogs
.” Another stretch. “Dogs and rats.”
“Ferrets, Wallis. Frank is a ferret.” But she was already asleep.
***
I could have followed her lead, crashing out on the lumpy sofa in the next room. There was too much going on, however, and if the last few months had taught me anything it was that I had to take care of myself. That meant food, that meant time. And not pouring myself a water glass of Maker’s Mark whenever things got rough. What I’d said to Wallis was true. I’d fled the city in a panic, with only a cat carrier and a suitcase, convinced that I was going mad. My mother was already in her last months by then, and her illness gave me cover. I crashed in her old house, and before long I was spending my days by her bedside at the hospice. Some people thought I was a saint. Others saw me as the prodigal daughter. After all, I hadn’t visited much since I’d left, too happy to be out of this one-horse town and on to a city that didn’t believe in last call. Wallis and I knew the truth. Sitting in that antiseptic environment was the only peace I had. No strange voices, no sharp scents or sounds more vivid than those we poor humans face. Just breathing and the occasional hushed interruption from the hospice staff. By the time she died, I was at peace, as much as I could be with my changed world.
When the chicken was ready, I put on some music. Baroque violin, low and soft, and brought the food out to the table. True to my word, I’d kept one thigh separate: no garlic, no salt, and when Wallis hopped back onto the table to begin licking at its crisped skin, we shared a companionable silence. From the table, I could see out over my mother’s land. Two acres, tumbling down to a brook. Soon autumn would be making the hills beyond into something like a postcard. If I were a little closer to the mountain, I’d have realtors falling all over themselves trying to give me cash for the old place. Times like this, I wasn’t sure what I would do if they called.
“The ferret might be wrong, you know.” Wallis’ voice intruded on the plaintive strings. “Especially this time of year.”
I knew what she meant. Whenever I went outside, I caught it: the hustle, the rush. Everyone a little on edge. “You think he was tuning in to something else?”
She hesitated, and I glanced over. With one paw she had the chicken piece pinned. All I got was a low growl as she pulled the flesh from the bone.
“
Bird.
”
I didn’t think I was supposed to hear that. She licked her chops. “You said the ferret said that the dog was confused. Well, maybe. And there may be other reasons for that. This is a crazy time. Busy. Autumn coming up and all. He could be wrong, too.” She ran a foreleg over her face, wiping grease from her whiskers. “We’re not all psychic.”
“But he could be right.” I gestured with the drumstick. “He could have been getting something I didn’t.” I was still learning about the limitations of animal communication. While Wallis and I had open lines, it seemed there were other animals I couldn’t read at all, or not correctly. “Besides, I don’t have anything else to go on.”
“Sometimes I don’t think you’ve the sense of a kitten.” She paused while combing a paw over her ear and looked up at me. “You got a scent image, right?” I nodded, and she went on washing. She could read my memory. “Well, that’s how dogs think, isn’t it?”
“You may have a point.” I didn’t want to go there. Didn’t want to feel that hot, sweet flood of pain.
“Course I do.” Face clean, she jumped from the table, leaving me to finish alone. “Not the sense of a kitten sometimes. Not at all.”
I’d had the rest of the afternoon to think things over. I’m no bleeding heart, but Lily was more than a paycheck to me, and there were still too many loose ends to let any of them go. When I’d walked in Wednesday morning, Lily had been barking like mad and running free. Right away, even before I’d seen Charles, I’d known something was wrong. For starters, Lily should have been in her crate. That’s where she goes each night. Where she spends the greater part of the day, and that’s where she should have been that morning, waiting for our weekly session.
Don’t get on me. I said crate, not cage. It might look small to you, but to her it looks like security. We’re talking a hard-luck bitch here. A girl who’s seen too much of open space in the form of cold dirt yards. Too much of “freedom” in the sense of fend for yourself when the scraps are thrown. And if those scars around her neck and ears were any indication, she’d valued the privacy, too. Nice to be able to sleep without worrying who might be coming for you.
So someone had let her out, and it wasn’t just for morning walkies. I might’ve been thrown by the sight of Charles, what was left of him, throat torn open. But at some level, I’d registered what was going on and now, going back over it, I was sure. There had been no leash in sight. Not by the body, not on the floor. Charles knew the rules. He’d not open the crate without the leash in hand. Routine, that was key. He was a programmer. He knew about rules.
So someone else had been in the house. Someone had seen the muscular white dog in her crate and popped the latch, maybe hoping she’d do the job for him. Hey, it wasn’t that much of a leap. You see that jaw, you hear the stories.
Poor little bitch. Despite the reputation her breed has, something happened with her. The blood hadn’t run true. Lily wouldn’t fight. Couldn’t, in some primal way, maybe, and that meant she wasn’t even a good “bait dog” to train the others. It was no wonder that her prior owner wanted to get rid of her. The miracle was how she survived at all.
It wasn’t that she was useless. Far from it. Lily should have been a farm dog, living some place where she could run around till she was wiped. Do some work. Build up whatever shreds of self esteem she had left in that thick canine skull. Did you know pit bulls were farm dogs once? Yeah, strong and tireless. Traits the so-called sportsmen recognized and put to their own uses, decades before the gangstas and their ilk. Lily could’ve been a throwback. A dog to follow you out to the herds, help you with the cattle. Earn a decent living and a good night’s sleep.
Not that she’d have changed places, not in a minute. Lily was smitten. Charles wanted a house dog, she was there, lapping it up. There’s no accounting for taste, and the computer geek wasn’t half bad. Until yesterday, I’d thought he’d come from the city, like so many of them, and seen only the big old houses. The mountains in the distance. The quiet nights. Knowing that he’d grown up around here—Raynbourne was only about a half hour away—made me respect him more. He knew what this area was like, and he’d come back anyway. And not to one of those new developments, either. Maybe they were too close to his old home. Maybe they couldn’t offer what this place did, with its wraparound porch and a view down to the river. Still, he’d put in the effort.
I had no idea what the house had looked like before, though I bet it hadn’t been good. Nobody who has stayed here has the money to fix anything up. He must have gutted it—the room where I’d found him was open clear through from the front porch to the big picture window in back. That was his workplace. His play space, too. He’d had the money to wire the place up to his specifications, make it the headquarters of GeekBrain West, or whatever he called himself. He’d hired locally, I’d heard. And he’d been good to Lily. Much as I dislike people, I had to give him that.
I thought of the timid white dog as I’d left her. Shell shocked and wired, tucked into a cage at the back of the town pound where her voice would go hoarse before her master came for her. I’d made myself retire early and slept badly for my pains. Maybe Wallis was right. Maybe I should have paid more attention to the images pouring from Lily’s horrified mind, but I didn’t want to face them. Having them come to me during sleep was worse, however, and I woke near dawn wet and shaking. There was no point in trying to get back to sleep. Why chase what I didn’t want? And although the growing light was making interesting designs on the peeling paint of my bedroom ceiling, I deeply suspected my time could be better spent.
“Directory assistance?” I lay on top of the covers, watching the ceiling slowly start to glow. Somewhere a cricket sang for a last chance at love. “Raynbourne?”
“No, don’t connect me.” Much to my surprise, there was a Harris listed in Raynbourne, and only one. With my luck, it was unrelated, but calling pre-dawn wasn’t the way to introduce myself. I went back to the shadows. Either one was growing, or there was something alive up there.
Thud! I jerked my feet back with a gasp. It was Wallis. “I cannot believe you’re going to call that woman.”
“Eavesdropping isn’t a very nice habit, Wallis.” I tucked my feet under the covers, trying for nonchalant.
“Please.” She settled by my feet and began her toilette.
“Must you lick your ass right on my duvet?” After my nightmares I was in no mood.
“Must you jump at shadows?”
I opened my mouth—then shut it. I still wasn’t sure how far our psychic connection went. “I didn’t hear you come in. You startled me.”
She continued her tongue bath. “
Someone
got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”
She was right. “It’s those images, Wallis. They’re pretty rough.” I didn’t know how the overwhelming scent of blood would translate to a feline. To me, and to Lily, it had been a horror.
“Then why keep at it?” She’d moved onto her thigh now. She didn’t have to finish the sentence.
“Because Lily’s a dog? Is that it?” Angry was better than frightened.
Wallis held out her foot, toes spread apart the better to get into the spaces between. “Because you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, Pru.” She paused, glanced up at me. “Think of it this way. Someone already rescued her once. Look where that got him.”
***
I was up and showered before I thought of a comeback. Even then, I didn’t know if it would play. Wallis had her own set of rules, and they were tougher than mine.
By the time I had my first hit of coffee, I was ready for the fight. She’d been sunning herself along one of the kitchen windows when I came in. The sun highlighted the guard hairs on her back, and I longed to dig my finger into her thick, lush fur as I’d used to do. This was a different world now. We were playing by different rules. Instead, I got the skillet out, making enough noise so I knew she was awake before I addressed her.
“Why did you say that about Lily, about rescuing her?” She shifted on the sill, ignoring me. “Wallis?”
One ear twitched as I cracked the eggs. The other followed as I opened the refrigerator for the butter, and I turned away to hide my smile. Some things don’t change. Swiping my finger along the bar, I held it out for Wallis to sniff. Her nose was damp, her tongue rough. She hadn’t said a word, but the offering had been accepted.
“Look, Pru, you trust me, don’t you?” She looked up at me, licking her chops. I nodded. “So take my word on this. You don’t know what you’re getting into.”
I walked back to the counter, surreptitiously wiping my hand on my jeans. “Wallis, you know. Better than anyone. I don’t want to know what I know.” This was ancient history. “But I do, okay? And since I do…” I lopped off a sizable chunk of butter and dropped it into the pan. I’m not the do-gooder type, and she knew it.
Wallis stretched, the question implied in the arch of her back. I sliced off another pat for her.
“I have to, Wallis. She can’t speak up for herself.” I held the butter out to her: a blatant bribe.
“Most of us can’t. We manage.” She turned back toward the window, and I dropped the pat in her dish. She had a point, and I knew it. It would be so easy to just let this go.
I turned the gas up and watched the butter skate around the pan, my thoughts just as frantic and hot. “But I can hear her. I can’t turn that off.” The butter sizzled. “And I know what happened.”
“You
think
you know.” Wallis jumped off the sill and went to examine her dish. The butter had softened a bit, and she licked it. “Humans. You think you understand everything.”
“I understand
some
things.” We were on familiar ground now, and I turned my attention back to the skillet as I poured in the eggs. “Someone wants that dog to take the fall. She was set up.”
“And you weren’t?” Wallis had made quick work of the butter and was now washing her face.
I paused, spatula in hand, and thought of the day before. The young cop with his questions. “What do you mean by that?”
Whiskers clean, she walked back to the window. A moment’s hesitation, a quiver, and she was on the sill again, staring out the window.
I shoveled the eggs onto a plate and joined her by the window. Together we looked out on my front yard of scrub bushes and old trees. “Wallis?”
Unlike the view from our New York apartment, the birds here were smaller and faster. With the window open on the warm autumn morning, I could smell the woods and hear the twitter and rustle of life. From Wallis, I caught an image, a flash of what was holding her interest. A small brown wren hopped on what had once been a lawn.
“Wallis, I know that if I push too hard, the cops will like me for it. I’m not a fool.” A twitch of the right ear was her only comment. “But why do you say ‘set up’?”
She kept staring. Somewhere up in one of the trees a blue jay cawed. The wren paid no mind.
“Some animals are prey, Pru. That’s just the way it is.” She was on her haunches now, staring at the wren. Whiskers forward. “And some walk into trouble, eyes open.”
“Are you saying Lily’s a natural victim?” I didn’t think animals felt empathy, but this was harsh. I was glad for the screen that kept Wallis from pouncing.
“Forget the dog, for once.” Out loud, Wallis began chattering softly with excitement, her soft, sharp mews mimicking the bird sounds. “It was the man who was killed. Quite savagely, if your reaction is any indication. Or don’t you remember?”
“I remember.” The morning scene was suddenly clouded, the scent of death strong in my mouth. I put down the plate, no longer hungry for fried eggs. Outside, something flew by—a hawk, a cloud, a shadow—and the wren was gone.