The Empty Cradle

by Jill Nojack

  “You know you want to! The shop, gallery, and cafe are all closed today. We need this day off. Prudence and Sarah are watching the girls now, and Lydia takes over tomorrow if Jenny isn’t back by then—because everyone knows this is just a mistake—so you and I, we can get in a little wild time.”

  “That’ll be groovy, if you’re thinking of the same kind of wild time that I am.” He gave her a lazy grin. “But if you’re not, I don’t think taking our animals into the woods is a great idea right now.”

  “I’m so antsy, though. You know how it is when Sheba doesn’t get out to play. I’m ready to climb the curtains.” She giggled. “What will the neighbors think?”

  “Like any of our neighbors are close enough to see into our fortress?”

  “Come on! You’re the one I joined with Sheba for—it’s not my fault she’s so playful and determined.”

  He laughed. “Really? So you weren’t paying attention when Aurelie counseled you about choosing an animal to join with that represents your natural self before society forced you to conform?” He grinned. “But yeah, I get it. It’s not like I haven’t been a little too interested in shiny things lately myself.” His expression went serious and he put his hands on her shoulders gently. “But we don’t know what’s out there, baby. With pets disappearing and what happened to Junior Rangel…”

  “Natalie thinks Junior got into trouble because he was looking for it. He was probably hunting the thing. Like, how stupid is that—he calls it a monster and then he goes after it? Kit and Sheba will be happy to avoid anything that’s bigger and more dangerous than they are. Just a whiff of whatever it is would warn them off.”

  He turned back to the stove, where the pancakes were bubbling up perfectly, ready to be turned. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

  “Nope. We can stick around the outskirts of the woods near civilization to make sure we’ve got someplace to go if we run into anything dangerous.” She stood behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, standing on tip-toe to whisper toward his ear, “Let’s go out and play.”

  “Sheesh, you win. But later. Tonight maybe. I’ve got to get some work done in the nursery today, and it would help a lot if you take on some of the painting.”

  “Of course I will! I have plenty of time to lay down a couple coats of something pretty for our little guy or girl.” She landed a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you.”

  “You know I can’t say no to you. But if we get eaten by bears….” He faked a stern face. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  ***

  This time, Natalie was prepared for the olfactory assault launched by Junior Rangel’s apartment when he opened the door. A liberal application of tincture of mint and jasmine battled it from beneath her nose to assure that a prolonged stay wouldn’t be too unpleasant.

  It cut down on the smell of moldering footwear and animal urine, but it didn’t do much for the direct blast of stale whiskey breath that exploded out at her when Junior opened the door, saying, “Leave me alone. I kept my end of the bargain. I told you everything I know.” His injured leg was wrapped in a clean white bandage beneath a pair of camouflage shorts.

  “I don’t think I’ll be going just yet. Not unless you want Ms. Sanders to clear out a few illegally stored items from her property?” Natalie flipped open her phone, ready to dial.

  Junior shook his head. “Just…get inside. The neighbors got no need to know my business.”

  He offered her a seat on the couch, but she was reluctant to share with the shiny, sticky-looking spots on the dirty brown tweed upholstery. “No thank you. I’ll stand.”

  “Suit yourself.” He lowered himself carefully, holding his right leg stiff, grimacing as he went down.

  “So, you said you didn’t see what got you,” she said. “Or is it that you don’t want the police interfering and bagging your trophy before you can claim it?”

  He glared at her, but he said nothing.

  “So that’s it, is it? Despite telling me you wouldn’t, you want after the creature? And then and it went after you.” She hoped she gave the impression of looming instead of teetering when she leaned toward him. She looked down at him with a determined glare. “I need to know exactly what you saw. What makes this thing a monster? You were holding out on me before.”

  “I don’t have to tell you. You’re not the cops. You’re nobody.”

  Natalie shook her head, rolled her eyes, and raised her hands in a “oh well” gesture before flipping her phone open again. She tapped a contact and listened to the rings, then said, “Cassie, I’ve got some information you may be interested in….”

  “Don’t!” He cut her off, looking desperate. “I’ll tell you. Just hang up.”

  “Yes, dear, I just wanted to say that I appreciate Tom having added bread pudding to the menu at the diner…yes, that’s it. Enjoy your day.” She met his eyes again. “Start talking. No more chances.”

  “I don’t know what it is. It ain’t that big, maybe big as a lynx, a young one. Short coat, tan colored, like a cougar, but…. Huge feet. Big claws.” He held his hands apart about four inches. “But I don’t think they’re what got me. And its head is—well it’s weird—almost no fur on it. And its face—that face, it looks almost human. Ain’t catlike at all.”

  “Human?”

  “Yeah, I ain’t kiddin’ ya. Human. ‘Cept fer the eyes.”

  “What about the eyes?”

  “They’re yellow. I seen a lion in the zoo once. They were just like a lion’s eyes.”

  Natalie rubbed her chin, trying to remember what that reminded her of, but she was increasingly distracted now that the effect of her tincture was wearing off and the apartment’s perfume was getting to her. “You say that you don’t think the animal attacked you?”

  “It was dark, and somethin’ tore at me from behind, like sneakin’ up and reachin’ around. The moonlight bounced off it, though—whatever it was, it was steel—some kind of knife with four prongs, if they make a weapon like that. The monster has sharp claws, but I bet they ain’t made a’ steel.”

  “Are you saying the animal wasn’t even there?”

  “Well, I was busy trying not to pass out, so I weren’t lookin’ around much to figure that out. But…yeah, it was there. I saw it as they walked away. Whoever attacked me snapped a leash onto it.” He gave a half shrug. “Maybe there’s two monsters, it’s just that one of them is a woman.”

  “A woman?”

  “The glimpse I got, she moved like a woman, you could tell even in that long black dress and hood she wore.”

  Natalie’s eyes widened at that. A witch. She’d known it all along.

  “Anything else you need to unburden yourself of just to make sure my dialing finger doesn’t get itchy?”

  “Look, lady, that’s it. Except…” He sucked in his upper lip in concentration,” …the thing was lookin’ back at me as she tugged it along. Like it wanted to stay, but she wouldn’t let it. And it didn’t act like it wanted to eat me or nothin’. It was whimperin’, sad like.”

  Natalie hmphed. “Well, that does add an additional layer to the puzzle. Did the doctor tell you whether or not you were attacked with the same weapon used on Maureen Oliver?”

  “Nah. Nobody said anything about that.” Junior shook his head. “If so, it woulda been a terrible way for her to go.” He dropped his head in his hands and took a deep breath. “If I coulda just stayed away from Zelda I mighta been there to protect her. Mo would still be alive.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Jus’ that if Maureen hadn’t dropped me because I cheated on her with my ex, maybe she wouldn’t a gotten some weird pet that maybe got her killed. Like, maybe she was lonely, and that’s why she took it in.”

  “Zelda James is your ex?” Natalie could easily picture that one, but…. Well, it had never occurred to her to ask what his relationship had been to Maureen. She’d been focused on other things. “And you also dated Maureen Oliver?”

/>   By his response, Natalie was sure she’d broadcast her shock at what some women would resort to when faced with a shortage of eligible men. “Yeah. What of it?” he said.

  “Nothing. You’ve simply given me something to think about.” Was there more to what happened when Zelda turned up in her garden than Zelda trying to warn her away from Deborah? She’d jumped to that conclusion so fast because Zelda was such a weak thing. But a woman scorned….

  She turned and exited the apartment quickly, calling back over her shoulder, “Inform me immediately if you think of anything else that might identify who attacked you. And do yourself a favor. Stay out of the woods!”

  Outside, she stopped to take a deep breath of blissfully fresh air before she rushed out of the complex and down the street to her car, punching the contact for William as she did. And she was going to be needing Robert’s library again.

  ***

  “Chief, whatever animal is prowling around the woods out there, you can rule it out as the cause of death for Maureen Oliver or the attack on Junior Rangel,” Doctor Don said, as Denton motioned him in through his open office door. “The cast I took from the prints isn’t a match for their wounds.”

  Don slid into a chair and leaned back, loosening his tie before he rested his elbows on the chair’s armrests. “I’m no closer to figuring out what the weapon was than I was seven days ago. I’m thinking about revisiting the Freddie Krueger hypothesis.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind, Karl. I’m just saying I’m stumped.”

  “You figure out what kind of a cat it is?”

  “My best guess? We’ve got a Canadian lynx that came down over the winter and forgot to go home when it started to warm up, maybe because of a ready food supply. They’ve got bigger paws than most cats their size because their feet serve as snowshoes. But they’re no bigger than a bobcat, and they’re shy. They won’t make trouble for a human unless the human makes trouble for them first.”

  “Do we need to do an alert on this, do you think? Danger to the populous?”

  “Maybe we should just remind people there’s a reason their pets and young children aren’t supposed to roam freely. Other than that, we’ve had bobcats in the woods before, and they haven’t bothered anyone. Don’t see why a lynx would.”

  “That’s fine, then. We don’t need to get the whole town into a bigger uproar. Best sometimes just to let sleeping cats lie, eh, Doc?”

  Doc Don nodded, then leaned forward slightly, serious. “But look, Chief, what’s the timing look like for Holgerson being the killer now? Wasn’t he still locked up when Junior was attacked?”

  “Holgerson escaped shortly after noon. Rangel didn’t come up injured until a few hours later. There would have been time for Holgerson to go after Rangel if Jenny dropped him off in the woods before she went home. But why he’d go after him is anyone’s guess.”

  Denton’s phone rang and he looked down to see who was calling. “I have to get this Doc. Bailey interviewed Rangel this morning. Maybe he got something more out of him. I’d appreciate it if you stayed put. I’ve got questions about how we can tie this weapon to Holgerson to figure out what he might have access to that would leave the kind of damage you’ve seen.” He picked up the call and went to the window, looking out over the green expanse of grass and well-manicured bushes that dotted the municipal building’s front lawn as he talked.

  “Changing his story is he?” the chief asked, sounding pleased, then exploded as he said, “He said what?”

  Don darted a glance toward the door as he started to stand, but he wasn’t fast enough. Denton turned back from the window, his expression fierce.

  “I hear you. I’ll take it under advisement.” Denton growled, then shoved the phone back into its holder on his belt. He turned to Don. “It appears that Mr. Rangel has now remembered being attacked by a woman. Or, at least, by someone who moves and dresses like one.”

  Don rubbed at his midday growth of chin whiskers, then said, “Well, that certainly puts things in a new light.”

  19

  Sheba kept to the edges of the woods, just as Cassie had promised. The nearly full-grown cat moved like the mist, deep enough into the brush that the scent of other wild things tunneling through the mulch could stir her. They kept pace in front of her, darting from shadowed pocket to shadowed pocket, or alighting to push sharp beaks forward on fragile necks to capture the spring seeds that teased their noses. But she didn’t go so deep that the safety of well-tended lawns wasn’t just a short dash away.

  Tom held Kit back to prowl behind her. He was more cautious than his mate. His tail traveled low to the ground, its tip twitching. His ears swiveled restlessly; he remained alert for the first hint of a predator in the woods.

  It wasn’t a predator that his animal smelled, though. It was a ripe bouquet of fish and something else—canned tuna and fatty chicken skin? He could tell by the way that she altered her path Sheba had scented it, too. That smell should be in someone’s trash, not out in nature. Picking through trash cans was one of Kit’s favorite things; he knew exactly what they smelled like.

  He picked up the pace to follow her more closely as she sped up, heading for the enticing smell of delicious discards. He spotted the empty tuna can and scrap of chicken skin mixed up with a heap of bones on the forest floor. Someone’s picnic scraps. Nothing to worry about.

  He joined Sheba, and if his cat lips could have smiled, they would have, as she gobbled down the scrap of greasy skin, then stuck her head deep into the tuna can to tease out the last shred, purring like a classic Mustang. Cassie had picked her animal well when she chose to join with Sheba. Neither of them could pass up a treat.

  He knew she had finished it all when she shoved at the can with her dainty nose, scraping it a few inches along the ground as she looked for more.

  It must have been on a trip wire.

  As they both clawed at the net that snapped shut around them and lifted them into the air, he tried to shift, but his magic didn’t activate to the words he voiced in his head; he remained a cat instead of painfully shifting back into being a man. His angry yowl split the night, and Sheba’s sorrowful one joined it.

  When Sheba stopped struggling, he managed to maneuver himself so that he could soothe her with strokes from his rough tongue at the base of her ears, which lay flat against her head in fear. After a while, she relaxed a little, her ears lifting higher. She snuggled her head against the crook of his neck.

  Without the ability to shift or communicate, there was nothing they could do but wait.

  ***

  Butch’s head was pounding when he awoke on a cot in a dim room. The only light came from one small slit at his right side between the rough-hewn planks that formed the walls, but the light was dim and had the orangey glow of dusk.

  There were shelves all around filled with bags and tins and glass bottles. And there, across the room in a dark corner, a set of golden eyes reflected the light, looking directly into his. He tried to scream, but his mouth was taped firmly shut. He tried to pull back to the wall, but his hands were cuffed to a chain that ended in a bolt in the floor. He couldn’t move back all the way.

  What had Jenny done to him? He kicked out with his bound legs, banging them against the wall, and the eyes moved back, still fixed on his, but looking cowed now. Good. He fixed his gaze on the thing as he explored his bond. If he was lucky, it was duct tape.

  But he wasn’t lucky. It was a zip tie. That wasn’t coming off without a knife.

  If he could get out of the cuff, he still might be able to burst the door open by laying on his back and giving it a few good kicks. But only if whatever was lurking in the corner didn’t stop him before he did.

  And it didn’t matter anyway when the door opened and a woman’s voice said, “I’m sorry, Butch. I just need you to stay you here for a little while until I take care of a few things for your journey. Jenny will be along shortly.”

  The figure in a dark robe bent over the animal
in the corner. He heard the sound of a clasp being undone, then clasped again. Then the woman said, “And the first order of business is to make sure Denton is looking somewhere else when it’s time for the two of you to sneak out of town.”

  The dusk lit the woman as she exited, and the thing with yellow eyes followed.

  ***

  “Where’s my soda?” Twink asked, when Marcus returned from the kitchen empty-handed. “You better not be out. Physics is thirsty work.”

  “Sorry, I forgot. There’s somebody in the yard in a long robe. I wonder if it’s someone who needs to see Gram. Maybe I should go out and tell ‘em she’s not here?”

  “In the back yard? Let me take a look.”

  She followed him to the kitchen, where they could see out the window over the sink to the back of the deep lot. It was getting dark, but she made out a figure on the other side of Natalie’s garden, before the long yard turned into a wild tangle of brush. A figure in a black robe walked a circle around a small fire.

  “There wasn’t a fire the last time I looked.”

  He thought he heard the pitch of fear in Twink’s voice when she answered, “Whoever that is, they’re working some kind of spell. Natalie didn’t tell you anyone was coming by to place wards or anything?”

  “No. I know what those are. She does her own on the doors and windows every Saturday, but I don’t think she does any from the outside.” The left side of his mouth lifted in a grin as he shifted to face her and smiled. “She says it’s only fair we both have our weekly chores. Although hers mostly involve waving her hands around and muttering under her breath while I’m lugging the vacuum up the stairs.”

  His joke didn’t calm her down. She’d never stopped staring into the back yard. “Call Natalie. Right now.” Her voice danced on the edge of panic.

  He snatched the phone out of his back pocket as Twink leaned heavily on the edge of the sink, her upper body reaching toward the window for a better look. When she gasped suddenly, he turned, forgetting about the phone, and looked over her shoulder into the yard again.