by Peg Kehret
She poured fresh water in the cats’ bowl and filled the pie plate with cat food.
She took out the paper and read the message again.
The note must be from the driver of the tan car, Megan thought. He thinks I can identify him and wants to scare me so I won’t do it. He knows from the newspaper article that I come here to feed the cats, so he knew where to leave his message.
She had already told the police everything she remembered about the driver. It was too late for anyone to warn her not to tell. Of course, the driver didn’t know that.
Her hands trembled as she folded the note and put it in her pocket. The driver must be desperate to write such a threatening note. Maybe Mom was right. Maybe the crash had not been an accident.
A new idea exploded in Megan’s mind. If the crash was on purpose, she thought, then I am the only witness to a murder! Now the murderer is threatening to kill all the cats if I tell the police about him, or about this note.
Megan swallowed hard. She remembered that Officer Rupp had told her not to talk about what she had seen.
She wondered if the police had feared some sort of threat. Maybe that was why her picture wasn’t in the paper. Maybe the police had told the newspaper not to use Megan’s name because she was the only one who had seen the tan car, and they didn’t want the driver to know who she was.
The driver had found her anyway, even without knowing her name.
Megan debated what to do. Should she call Officer Rupp and tell him about the note?
How would the person who left the note know whether Megan told anyone about it or not? Was someone watching her?
Megan looked quickly around. Two cars headed up the freeway on-ramp; neither was tan. There was no car parked near the field, and no one was walking nearby.
“Mew.” The soft sound broke in to Megan’s thoughts. “Mew, mew.” It came from the drainpipe.
Megan knelt in the grass and looked inside the drainpipe. She couldn’t tell for sure how many kittens there were, but several tiny bodies squirmed and mewed next to Mommacat. They were so small, they looked more like mice than kittens.
Megan longed to pick up one of the kittens, but she knew better than to reach inside the drainpipe. Mommacat would surely try to protect her babies. The scratch on Megan’s hand had finally begun to heal, and she didn’t want another one.
Megan brought the pan of food and the bowl of water closer, leaving them just outside the drainpipe.
The kittens helped Megan decide what to do about the note. Taking it to the police would not help the woman who had died. Even if Megan could identify the driver of the tan car, which she could not, it wouldn’t bring back Dinkle’s owner.
But it was not too late to help the cats. These new little kittens could be caught and tamed. They could be adopted by people who would love them and care for them. They wouldn’t have to grow up hungry and fearful and wild, as Mommacat and the others had.
Megan decided not to tell anyone about the note until all the cats had been safely moved to new homes. Then she would show the note to Mom and call the police.
She peered in the drainpipe at the newborn kittens one more time before she walked to her bike. She needed to get going or it would be too late to call Feline Friends. Their office was only open until four-thirty.
As Megan got on her bike, the same blue pickup truck came down the street and stopped beside her.
The driver rolled down his window and called, “Good news! I found out who owns the land. I’ll call the owner and ask him to pay for relocating the cats.”
“That’s great!” Megan said.
“We should have his answer by Tuesday. In the mean-time, the county has put the building permit on hold. Your cats are safe for at least a month.”
“I’m going to call a group called Feline Friends,” Megan said. “They help homeless cats. They might know a place where the cats can live.”
The man’s smile disappeared. “Don’t call them until I’ve contacted the property owner,” he said. “Feline Friends would need his permission to remove the cats, since they are on private property. This situation could get a lot of publicity, and the property owner is more likely to cooperate if he knows what’s going on before the media gets wind of it.”
“All right,” Megan said. “I won’t call them yet. But how will I know if the owner is going to help or not?” She thought of giving this man her phone number but decided it wasn’t smart to do that when she didn’t really know him.
“I drive past here several times daily. I’ll watch for you. If I don’t see you, call me on Tuesday.”
He took a business card from his wallet. He opened the truck’s glove compartment and reached inside for a pencil. He crossed out the telephone number on the card and wrote down a different number. Then he handed the card to Megan.
It read:
COLBY CONSTRUCTION
Brice Colby, President
“Thanks for your help, Mr. Colby,” Megan said.
The man waved and drove away.
Megan wondered why Mr. Colby was being so helpful. Maybe he just likes cats, she decided. Maybe he has a cat of his own.
Now she didn’t need to hurry home to call Feline Friends or the other animal-welfare agencies. She could stay and watch for Mommacat to come out of the drainpipe and eat. She could make sure Mommacat and her kittens were okay.
In her relief at having help with the cat problem, she forgot for a moment about the note in her pocket.
9
Lacey bought a morning newspaper on her way to school the morning after the accident. She skimmed it quickly until she found the headline: POLICE SEEK DRIVER IN FATAL HIT-AND-RUN ACCIDENT.
Fatal? Disbelief slid down Lacey’s backbone. It must be a different accident. Fatal meant someone had died. She had not hit the other car hard enough for anyone to be killed. Had she?
As Lacey read the whole article, her breathing became shallow and rapid. It was her accident, no doubt of that. An autopsy was being done to determine the exact cause of death.
The only witness to the accident, a twelve-year-old girl, had been in the empty field feeding some feral cats.
A sketch of the missing driver accompanied the story. Lacey didn’t think the sketch looked anything like her. For one thing, the witness had thought she was a boy. Also, the person in the sketch had a long face and high cheekbones; he looked older than Lacey, and thinner.
No one who sees that sketch will think of me, Lacey thought. Will they?
Feeling sick to her stomach, Lacey quit reading and looked behind her, as if fearing her parents and teachers and all her friends were reading the article over her shoulder.
I should have stopped right away, she thought. Or I should have turned around and gone back instead of continuing on to Grogan’s. If I had stopped, maybe I could have helped that woman.
She wondered what would happen if she turned herself in now. Maybe she would be sent to the county jail, just like her brother. Maybe worse. Maybe a federal prison. When you kill somebody in an accident, and don’t stop to help them, is it the same as murdering them? Lacey didn’t know and she didn’t want to find out.
Could the girl identify me, if she saw me? Lacey wondered. Lacey didn’t think so. If the girl had seen Lacey clearly, the sketch in the paper would resemble her more closely.
Lacey was positive the girl had not seen Lacey’s license plate. If she had, the cops would have come by now.
Lacey was sorely tempted to skip school and hide out somewhere. She wanted to be alone. She could call the school office and say she felt sick, which was the truth. She could hang out at the mall or go to the public library and study.
But she had her final exam in algebra that day, and she needed an A to maintain her average.
Besides, if anyone thought that she was involved in the hit-and-run accident, it would look mighty suspicious if she was not at school the day after the accident happened.
No, she would sit in class as usual,
and take her test, and try to act normal. After school she would go to work, just as she did every day, although she would drive a different route so she didn’t have to pass the scene of the accident. Lacey didn’t think she would ever again be able to drive past that corner.
She would go on with her life as if nothing had happened, and hope against hope that no one ever found out what she had done. Because if they found out, everything she had worked for all these years was out the window. She was sure the Jefferson Foundation did not give scholarship money to drivers who kill someone, accidentally or not, and then leave the scene.
No scholarship meant no college, just as no car meant no job. She would end up like the rest of her family—doing time behind bars or cleaning toilets in a motel.
It wouldn’t do the dead woman any good to have Lacey turn herself in now. All that would happen if she confessed was that two lives would be ruined because of the accident instead of one—the dead woman’s and her own.
Lacey stuffed the newspaper into the trash container outside the school and started for her first class.
Mommacat stayed in the drainpipe with her kittens. Megan finally grew tired of waiting for her and went home. She found Kylie sitting morosely on the front steps.
“Dinkle’s gone,” Kylie said, her eyes brimming with tears. “A man came and got him.”
“Who?” Megan said.
“Mr. Leefton. His mother got killed in that accident you saw.”
“When did he come?”
“A little while ago,” Kylie said. “He talked to Mom on the phone before he came. He was out of town yesterday and didn’t find out what had happened until ten o’clock. He thought that was too late to call us, and he was too upset last night, anyway.”
Megan was glad that there was a reason why the police had been unable to reach the family sooner. It meant that Megan had not witnessed a murder; the crash really had been an accident. Somehow the note in her pocket didn’t seem quite as threatening if the collision was accidental.
“Was Dinkle glad to see him?” Megan asked.
Kylie wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “Dinkle went nuts! He yipped and jumped and ran around in circles.”
“Good,” Megan said.
“Mr. Leefton wasn’t happy, though,” Kylie said. “He cried. But then he kneeled down and hugged Dinkle, and then he blew his nose and was okay.”
Megan felt sorry for Mr. Leefton; it would be awful to have your mother die.
“Dinkle kept licking Mr. Leefton’s hand,” Kylie said.
Megan was glad Mr. Leefton and Dinkle were together. They probably needed each other right now. She wished she had been home when Mr. Leefton came. “Did Mom tell him how I chased Dinkle and caught him?” she asked.
“Yes. And I told him how I walked Dinkle and cleaned up after him. I was going to sing my walk-the-dog song for him, but Mom told me to hush.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
“He tried to give me twenty dollars for taking care of Dinkle, half for you and half for me, but Mom wouldn’t let me take it.”
“That’s okay,” Megan said. “I wouldn’t want to take a reward for helping Dinkle.”
“I would,” Kylie said. She started to cry again. “I wanted to keep Dinkle.”
“He wasn’t ours.”
“I wanted to keep him anyway. I already had a song made up for when I play ball with him.” She began to sing, “Throw, throw, throw the ball—”
Megan interrupted. “One of the cats I feed had kittens today,” she said. “I’m going to ask Mom if I can keep one of them.”
Kylie brightened. “Can I keep one, too? If we had two kittens, they could play together and not be lonesome when we’re at school. Being lonesome isn’t any fun.”
The wistful tone of Kylie’s voice told Megan that her sister was not referring only to the kittens.
“You can ask Mom,” Megan said.
“If I get a kitten,” Kylie said, “I’m going to name it Dinkle.”
Megan went inside to get a snack. The morning paper was still on the kitchen counter. Megan glanced at it as she reached for a banana.
She paused and looked more closely. It was a different section of the paper than the one she had read that morning. The article was about high school seniors and their plans for next year.
But it wasn’t the article that caught Megan’s eye; it was one of the photos.
It’s him, Megan thought. It’s the driver of the tan car! Only it isn’t a boy, it’s a girl. The girl’s hair was cut short; Megan could see why she had thought the driver was a boy.
She read the paragraph that accompanied the photo. Lacey Wilcox, she learned, was the fourth of five children and would be the first in her family to graduate from high school. She was valedictorian, with a 3.98 grade-point average, and planned to attend the community college next fall.
This can’t be the driver, Megan thought. A girl smart enough to have the best average in her whole class would never leave the scene of an accident. She certainly would never leave me a note threatening to kill the cats.
And yet—a girl like that had a whole lot to lose if anyone discovered she had caused a wreck. Maybe she was scared that she would get an expensive traffic fine or that her driver’s license would be canceled. Would she be scared enough to drive away from the accident and, later, to write a menacing note?
Maybe Lacey Wilcox had a brother or a cousin who looked like her. Maybe that’s who was driving the tan car when the accident happened.
Maybe.
Megan studied the photo again and knew in her bones that it was not a brother or a cousin. She had seen the driver for such a brief time, and yet there was a definite likeness. If the police artist had sketched this photo, Megan would have said, yes, that’s exactly right. That’s the hit-and-run driver.
Megan knew she should call Officer Rupp and tell him that the newspaper photo looked like the driver of the tan car.
But what if she turned Lacey Wilcox in, and then Lacey did what she had said she would do? Anybody who was desperate enough to write a threatening note and wrap it up in a box labeled CAT FOOD was capable of most anything, including killing the feral cats.
Megan couldn’t take a chance on that.
She fingered the note in her pocket. She didn’t have to remove it to remember what it said. “If you want the cats to live, don’t tell anyone.”
I do want them to live, Megan thought, all of them: Pumpkin and Twitchy Tail and Claws and Slush and Mommacat and the new little kittens. They would all be safe in a few days, as soon as Mr. Colby made the arrangements.
After the cats are out of the field, Megan thought, I’ll tell the police that I know who was driving the tan car.
She got a pair of scissors and clipped the picture and the article about Lacey Wilcox out of the newspaper. As soon as the cats were safely in their new homes, she would show the photo to Officer Rupp.
She would show him the note then, too. But not now.
Kylie skipped into the kitchen. “Mom says maybe,” she said.
Mrs. Perk followed Kylie. “I hear your mother cat had her kittens,” she said, “without any help from you.”
“I couldn’t tell how many there were,” Megan said. “She had them in a drainpipe. I hope it doesn’t rain soon; they’ll get soaked if it does.”
“That mother cat will move them to a dry place if it rains,” Mrs. Perk said.
“How soon can we bring the kittens home?” Kylie asked.
“Kittens need to stay with their mother for six weeks,” Mrs. Perk said. “Then we’ll see.”
“They’re free,” Megan pointed out. Mom always liked a bargain.
“Free cats need to get their shots,” Mrs. Perk replied. “They’ll have to be wormed, and we’ll need to buy food and a litter box.”
“I’ll help pay,” Megan said. “I can use my birthday money.”
“I have sixteen cents,” Kylie said.
“We don’t even know
if these kittens will be healthy enough to adopt,” Mrs. Perk said. “Did you call Feline Friends?”
“No,” Megan said. “I met a man who wants to save the cats, too, and he is going to call the property owner to ask him to help. He told me not to call Feline Friends until the owner is notified.”
Mrs. Perk frowned. “What man?” she asked. “Where did you meet him?”
“He was driving by when he saw me copying the information from the sign, and he stopped and asked what I was doing.”
“Megan, you know you shouldn’t talk to strangers.”
“I was careful, Mom. He didn’t even get out of his truck. He gave me his business card with his name and telephone number on it. He already got the county to put a hold on the building permit until the cats get moved.”
Mrs. Perk looked unconvinced.
Megan got the man’s business card and handed it to her mother.
“Brice Colby?” Mrs. Perk said. “This is who’s helping you?”
“Do you know him?”
“He and his wife belong to my book club. Our group met at their home twice last year.”
“He seemed nice,” Megan said, “and he offered to help.”
“You can count on Brice to get things done,” Mrs. Perk said. “If Brice Colby says he’ll help you save those cats, you don’t have a thing to worry about.”
That night as Megan tried to fall asleep she remembered Mom’s words: You don’t have a thing to worry about.
Not a thing, Megan thought as she stared into the dark, except the fact that I’m withholding information from the police about a driver who left the scene of an accident. Plus I have a note from the driver, saying she’ll kill all the cats if I tell the police who she is.
10
Megan slept fitfully. She dreamed of car crashes, and of cats that multiplied until there were thousands of them, all wailing from hunger, and of strange notes written with red marker in a foreign language that she couldn’t read.
At breakfast Mrs. Perk said, “Be sure you’re home by four-thirty this afternoon. “We need to leave for the balloon festival by five, or we’ll never find a place to park, and I want to eat dinner before we go.”