Joe is there, she thought. And so is Pan. Striker doesn’t need his mama racing to comfort him after every little mishap. Yet even as she lapped up her pancakes, her mind was at the veterinary hospital, imagining needles and blood and the big metal examining table. She watched Wilma, who was nervous, too. About Striker? Or about the man casing their house? Did Wilma know more about him than she had yet told them?
Shortly after breakfast, while Lucinda cleared the table and did the dishes, Wilma turned on the phone’s speaker and called the clinic. An aide switched the line to John Firetti.
“Striker’s fine,” John said. “He had a local sedative so I could put three stitches in his paw. They’ll pick him up in a few hours, when that wears off so he can walk steadier.”
“Can he walk, on the wound?” Wilma said, glancing at Pedric who sat before the fire, intently listening.
“If he’s careful,” John said. “It isn’t bad, but it will take a few weeks to heal fully.” When they’d hung up, Wilma and Dulcie looked at each other.
“He’s a youngster,” Wilma said, “he’s going to get a scratch now and then.”
“It’s more than a scratch!” Dulcie snapped. “Three stitches!” But then she jumped to the desk beside Wilma and rubbed her face against her housemate, apologizing, loving her. Wilma picked her up, cuddling her. Dulcie knew she shouldn’t be mad. Striker would be all right, she was just edgy. And now, before the fire, Pedric began a tale—to comfort Dulcie and Courtney, to keep them all from worrying. But the tale was for his own Kit in a very special way. Kit loved Pedric’s stories, the tortoiseshell was all about stories, she had been ever since she was a tiny orphan following the wild band of talking cats, trying to cadge enough to eat from their leavings and shyly listening to the ancient tales they told. None of the big, wild cats had wanted Kit, but traveling at the edge of their clowder, she felt protected from larger predators. When they gathered at night, she crouched close in the shadows, hidden but safe, listening to their tales and memorizing every one.
Now, Pedric’s story of long-ago Ireland brought a keen brightness to Courtney’s eyes, too. There was a band of wild speaking cats in that legend, living among the Irish downs. It was a long tale, and two others about speaking cats followed. When Pedric finished with the classic “they lived happy forevermore,” Courtney put a paw on his hand. “Now tell about our wild feral band, about the speaking cats that live up in the ruins.” She looked at Kit. “Were those the ones you lived with when you were a kitten? Can we go to see them?”
“Who told you about the Pamillon cats?” Dulcie asked gently.
“Striker did. He heard you and Pa talking.”
Dulcie wished the kittens didn’t catch every casual remark, every whisper. She’d hoped they wouldn’t want to make that journey to the wild, feral band until they were older; she had started to explain about the clowder cats when a car pulled up the drive.
In a moment the plastic cat door banged open and Buffin came bounding through, then Joe Grey. The kitchen door opened behind them and Charlie came in carrying Striker tucked against her shoulder, his bandaged paw tangled in her red hair. Kate was last, carrying a little box of bandages, medicine, and instructions. Dulcie leaped up on the table to greet her child. When she sniffed at Striker’s bandage and the strange medicine smells, and then nuzzled him, Striker looked happier. But it was the expression on Joe Grey’s face that startled her.
Joe did not look guilty for letting Striker get hurt. He looked keenly excited.
“What?” she said.
“Coming back down Ocean,” he told her, “we turned on my street to see how Ryan and Scotty were doing with the tree removal. The tree’s all down, and cut up. They were loading it in the truck. Ryan has plastic sheeting over the broken roof. The side street is still blocked, officers still going over the broken-in cars and talking to the residents. But the house on the corner?” Joe said, looking at Kit. “The house where you and Pan saw the BMW hidden? They’ve got crime tape around it, too. Harper’s truck is there and two squad cars. The swinging doors to the garage are open and the car is gone.”
“Oh my!” Kit said. “Did the officers break the lock and find the garage empty? Did the thief come back and drive it off before they ever got there? Or have the cops already returned the car to its owner or had it towed to the compound?”
“Maybe,” Wilma said, “the car thefts aren’t why Harper and Dallas are there.”
“Why, then?” Joe said. “They had to get a warrant to search the house, had to get the judge out of bed early . . .” He watched Charlie untangle her long hair from Striker’s bandaged paw.
“That house,” Charlie said, “is part of the murder scene.”
They all looked at her.
“Barbara Conley lived there, she rented it two or three months ago. Didn’t you know that? Her rent, where she’d been living, had nearly doubled.”
This embarrassed Joe. He lived only two blocks away, he thought he and Ryan and Clyde knew everything that went on in the neighborhood. They did know that someone had moved in, late one evening—a small rental truck, a few boxes, minimal furniture. A curvy blonde, a couple of guys helping her. Joe had watched idly from his tower, and thought little of it. What was there to think? The house was a rental. He didn’t know Barbara Conley—sweet-scented beauty salons were not his hangout of choice. And Ryan might not have known Barbara at all, Ryan cut her own dark, blow-away hair, cut it after she’d washed the sawdust out.
“You sure, last night, there was a car?” Joe asked Kit. “Maybe we should have called Harper. But it was so damned risky.”
“Maybe,” Kit said, “we should call him now.”
“He knows your voice,” Joe said. “He knows Dulcie’s voice, and he sure as hell knows mine.”
“I can disguise my voice,” Kit said. “I can . . .”
But Courtney had already leaped to the desk. “Captain Harper doesn’t know my voice.” Courtney’s voice was quite different from Kit’s and Dulcie’s, her higher tones were still that of a youngster, a tender human teenager.
“You’ve never done this,” Joe said. “You don’t—”
“She’s listened to you make a call or two,” Dulcie said, lashing her tail. “Take her in the bedroom, Joe, show her how to use Wilma’s cell phone, help her with what to say.”
But Courtney scowled and lashed her own tail, she didn’t need to be told what to say, she knew what to tell Captain Harper.
Wilma’s “safe” cell phone lay on the nightstand, the old phone with no GPS, that Clyde had doctored, like Joe Grey’s phone, with a false identification. Courtney, hopping on the bed, and with very little instruction from her father, pawed in the single dial for Max Harper.
She told Harper, in her little-girl voice, that she’d seen the police “investigating that house on Dolores Street. I saw something there last night that you might want to know about. In the wind, around four in the morning, a car pulled in that driveway. A man got out, unlocked the garage, pulled the car in, and padlocked the doors again.
“He stood by the house, where the bedroom is, then he went in the front door, he had a key for that, too. He was in there about five minutes then came out again, locked the door and went away. I thought maybe he was visiting, that lady has a lot of company, but then when I saw the police there . . .”
“Do you want to give me your name?” Max said. “Want to tell me where you live?”
“I’d rather not,” Courtney said. “My mother would say I was spying.”
Max was silent; he’d started to speak when Joe Grey reached out a paw and punched the disconnect.
“You did great,” he said, purring and licking Courtney’s ear. “You’re my big girl. My big, grown-up girl.” And that thought, while it made Courtney smile, sent a sinking feeling right to the middle of Joe’s belly. She was growing up. It seemed like the kittens had just gotten there, tiny little blind things, then soon little balls of fluff. And now look at them, look at his smart,
beautiful daughter. All three kittens were growing up too fast, racing toward the time when they would leave home to make their own lives. And Joe Grey followed Courtney back to the living room feeling painfully sad—until he caught Kate’s glance and Charlie’s, and knew that their minds were on Buffin, on the amazement that had happened at Dr. Firetti’s.
Joe wasn’t yet ready to talk about that. Nor, it seemed, did Kate and Charlie want to discuss Buffin’s behavior this morning while Striker was having his paw tended. Maybe because none of them, maybe not even Buffin himself, knew quite what to make of his keen and peculiar interest in Dr. Firetti’s caged patients.
10
It had been just after Charlie walked in on the double murder and then Striker cut his paw, that Buffin discovered a new wonder. An amazement that filled his mind right up.
Charlie had parked her Blazer in front of Dr. Firetti’s clinic, its two older cottages joined into a large complex by the sun dome between. She got out carrying Striker with his bloody, wrapped paw. Kate carried Buffin snug across her shoulder but Joe Grey galloped ahead, a frown of worry in his yellow eyes.
The minute the tech behind the desk saw them and rang for Dr. Firetti, John appeared and took Striker from Charlie. Carrying the wounded kitten gently in his arms, he led them back into one of the examining rooms. The space had cages all around three walls, two long metal tables in the middle, and a counter and sink on the fourth wall beneath bright windows.
On the counter was a shallow round basket lined with a clean towel. Curled up comfortably was red tabby Pan; he looked up at his friends, frowned down at the look on Joe Grey’s face, and watched John Firetti unwrap Striker’s wounded paw. Since Pan’s father died, he spent considerable time in the clinic, he could not abandon the Firettis yet, he could only try to fill the empty place in their lonely household—except when the car thieves were at work, when, in the predawn hours while John and Mary slept, Pan and Kit and Joe Grey stalked the rooftops. Now, seeing the bloody scarf around Striker’s paw, Pan watched intently, his amber eyes filled with questions.
He didn’t leave his basket and approach. He remained where he was, watching as Joe Grey leaped to the metal table where John had unwrapped Striker’s paw. A cart stood beside the table, laid out with alcohol, swabs, bandages, local anesthetic, syringes, and more, an array that, Pan could see, made Joe Grey go queasy, made the gray tomcat’s ears drop and his pupils darken with alarm.
Joe had had his blood drawn once, maybe on this very table, to help save the life of one of the feral cats. He’d almost fainted at the sight of his own blood flowing into the glass tube. Now, he began to feel the same.
A tech had come in to help, a small, dark-haired girl, but John sent her away and told her to shut the door. He asked Charlie to scrub up, at the sink before the windows. Charlie often doctored her own dogs and cats and horses, sometimes under his telephone directions. Once the tech had gone, and humans and cats could talk freely, John wanted to know how Striker had cut his two pads so badly, and on what.
“A metal roof vent,” Joe Grey said, ashamed he’d let that happen.
“You’ll need a tetanus shot,” John told Striker. “You’re lucky not to have cut a tendon.” As he prepared the needle, Joe shut his eyes. For a tough, street-battling tomcat, his fear of a hospital was quite another matter. Joe Grey could whip the biggest German shepherd he’d ever met, but that sharp needle undid him. Young Striker, on the other hand, seemed quite in charge of himself. He hadn’t let out a sound since that one cry, on the rooftop, when he’d cut his paw.
But it was Buffin who was the most interested in the clinic. He gave John a loving look. John winked at him and then for a moment stood watching him as Buffin looked all around the hospital room, his eyes wide, studying with keen interest each cat or small dog in its cage. Some looked sick, some were bandaged, several were asleep.
“You kittens have had all your shots,” John said. “The few cats who are infectious are in a separate ward.” He glanced up at Kate. “You and Buffin want to look around?”
“Yes,” Buffin said immediately. “They are sick and hurt. But you can cure them.”
“I do my best,” John said. “I mean to heal your brother’s paw, if he will follow my instructions.” Kate, leaving Charlie to assist at the operating table, took the buff kitten on a little tour, carrying him slowly from cage to cage, pausing at each. Behind them John Firetti was softly asking Striker questions as he worked cleaning and disinfecting the paw’s two cut pads.
“How did this happen? This was a roof vent?”
“Something sticking up from the roof. A bunch of somethings where we were hiding, watching the cops.” Striker was very calm, the sight of his own blood didn’t seem to bother him. Joe watched his son with envy.
“There was a murder,” Striker said. “At the place where Charlie gets her hair cut. They were bringing two bodies out, all wrapped up. We ducked down behind those metal boxes and pipes on the roof and that’s when I hit my paw on a raw edge.” He watched without flinching, Charlie’s hands holding him gently as John began to put in the stitches. John was telling Charlie all the while where and how to stanch the blood, what to do to assist him. John had helped deliver the three kittens, they were special to him.
John Firetti had spent all his life, as had his father before him, keeping the secret of talking cats—and searching for a speaking cat or kitten among the band of ferals they fed, down at the seashore. They had never found such a wonder there—but John had discovered, early on, the talents of Joe, Dulcie, Kit, Pan, and at last Misto. Never had he and Mary thought they would have such a housemate as the elderly, golden cat, and the end of Misto’s life had come far too soon.
Now as John and Charlie worked on Striker’s paw, across the room Kate’s attention was on Buffin; the kitten knew these were not speaking cats, he didn’t try to talk to them. But, “This tabby,” he told Kate, “he’s healing, but his middle still hurts. Tell Dr. Firetti that his middle hurts, he will want to know that.” Buffin didn’t know yet what one’s insides were called, but he could sense the hurt. He looked in at a Siamese with a splint and a long white bandage on his broken leg. The cat was lying patiently, but in his eyes Buffin saw how tense he was.
“He wants out, he wants to run and he can’t. But his leg is healing,” he said softly, looking up at Kate. Resting easy in Kate’s arms, he said, “What would cats do, if they didn’t have humans to help them?”
“Some would die,” Kate said, trying not to show her amazement at the young cat’s observations. This kitten was sensing what human doctors might not be able to see. He looked in at a little fluffy dog who raised its eyes to him. “He’s lonely, Kate. I could stay in there with him while Striker is coming awake.”
Kate looked up at the doctor. John nodded, and she opened the cage. As Buffin settled in, the little dog grew brighter and snuggled up to him, licking Buffin and wagging his tail.
When Kate looked up, Pan was watching Buffin. He sat very alert on the hospital counter, she could almost read what he was thinking: What is this kitten, who seems to possess even more than our own special talent?
Now, as Dr. Firetti wrapped Striker’s paw in fresh bandages, Pan joined Joe Grey on the table. Joe, having tremulously watched the surgery, looked determined to regain his dignity. Pan, having lived with the Firettis for over three months, was used to the blood, the cutting and stitching. What the red tom was wondering was, What about Buffin and his strange observations? What skill does this kitten have, that is beyond even his gift of speech? He wondered if Buffin would speak to Dr. Firetti about the caged cats, about what he sensed. He wondered what this son of Joe Grey would be capable of, in his amazing life.
11
It was early that evening, just below the Pamillon estate, when Lena Borden arrived to take care of her aunt Voletta until her wounds healed. The sun had sunk behind the woods, night reaching down to quench the last glow across Voletta’s five acres that ran from the house down throug
h the trees and on into land that might once have been pasture; land that was now rough with short-nibbled weeds, thanks to Voletta’s donkey and three goats. Kate watched from up the hill at the shelter. She had just finished feeding the rescue cats and had sent a young couple on their way with a pair of spotted kittens to replace their elderly Siamese whom they had lost to illness a month ago. All the paperwork was done, Kate had talked with their veterinarian, had visited their home, which turned out to have a delightful garden inside a large, catproof enclosure. She had even done a background check, which she knew would be clean. She was pleased with the match, the couple truly loved those kittens.
Now, standing at an open window, pushing her short blond hair back from her cheek, she saw Lena’s old white Ford station wagon making its way up the narrow road that branched off to Voletta’s cottage, the little lane narrowing as it ran on up into the woods behind the Pamillon mansion. Kate wasn’t thrilled to see Lena; the three times she had talked with her, while offering to buy Voletta’s place for enough so the old woman might move into a nice retirement home, Lena had at first been surly, then had gotten an almost frightened look in her blue eyes. Kate still wondered what that was about.
She watched Lena pull around the house on the gravel drive, to Voletta’s front door, though that entry was seldom used. Voletta Nestor and any occasional visitor parked at the back near the kitchen door. Lena stepped out, opened the trunk, hauled out a suitcase and a large duffel bag and set them on the porch. She was a pretty woman, her creamy complexion and straight-cut hair gave her the look of a young girl. Most of the time, she had the voice and the ways of a young girl, shy and uncertain.
This morning, after Scotty brought Voletta home from the hospital, Kate had taken her down some breakfast, had checked on her twice during the day, and had taken her a hot lunch. For this reason alone, she was glad to see Lena. Her visits to the old lady weren’t pleasant—Voletta was crankier than the donkey and goats that roamed her yard and tore up the neighbors’ gardens for miles around. Kate wondered how long Lena could tolerate them, as well as tolerate Voletta.
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