When Kate had offered to have Ryan Flannery’s carpenters fix Voletta’s falling-down fence to keep her animals in, Voletta’s response had been rude and hateful—the wandering goats and donkey still came up to push and nose at CatFriends’ outdoor shelters, upsetting the cats. They would keep coming, pushing at the heavy wire mesh until they tore up the shelter or until Ryan had built her own heavier fence to keep them out.
Lena dragged her luggage inside the front door and Kate saw a light go on in the right corner bedroom. Returning to her car she pulled it around the cottage to the back. From the shelter, you couldn’t see much on that side of the house, couldn’t see who came and went. If Lena had stopped for groceries she would unload them there, directly into the kitchen. Before Kate turned away, glancing up toward the ruins with its exposed living room and nursery where the two-story wall had long ago fallen, she saw three of the wild, clowder cats crouched at the broken-away edge of the nursery floor, looking down watching Lena.
The wall of those two front rooms had, years ago, been shattered by falling trees during a storm far worse than this year’s blow. The rotted trees still lay among the rubble, with green saplings growing up through them. Ryan’s crew was building supports in preparation for tearing apart and rebuilding that part of the mansion. As the three cats watched Lena, Kate thought they were whispering to one another.
Why would the ferals have any interest in Lena or Voletta—except to stay clear of the cranky old woman and the motley animals she tried to keep corralled within her rickety fence? Kate wondered if the ferals, in the storm, had heard Voletta’s window shatter and had come down from their new hiding place, curious, as Scotty took Voletta away in his car. Wondered if they had watched them return this morning, Scotty helping her inside in a walker. Ever since Ryan’s engineers had begun tramping the ruins, photographing and measuring, and then when the construction work started, the cats had stayed away. They had chosen for their new lair a northerly hillside above the estate, dense with boulders and cypress trees—one of their favorite early-morning hunting grounds and now a new temporary home.
“We don’t mind moving up there,” Willow had told Kate. “The carpenters are noisy, and when the machines are here we don’t want to be anywhere near them. When we do come down, to see what the men are doing, we stay here in the back away from the machinery.”
“It won’t be for long,” Kate told Willow, “and you’ll have your favorite places in the mansion back, only better.”
Cotton said, “We used to watch Voletta Nestor take her morning walks up among the ruins. Now she’s been hurt, I guess she won’t be doing that for a while.”
“Wandering,” Willow said, “as if she’s searching for something.”
“And other times,” Cotton said, “going right to where she keeps her special box.”
“Safe,” Willow said. “It’s a safe. When she goes there she puts in packages wrapped in brown paper. She keeps it locked—in a niche under the back kitchen stairs, and boards pulled over. But now, since you bought the property, she’s been taking packages out instead of putting them in.”
“How often did she do that, put packages in?”
“Every few weeks,” Willow said. “You weren’t around much then, we never thought to tell you. She’d go to town, bring home groceries. Later she’d walk up there, the little packages in her pockets.”
The ferals had watched Kate, earlier, as she went down to tend to the elderly lady. She had looked up at them and smiled, and they had switched their tails in greeting. It had surprised her that they would return to the mansion when Scotty, Manuel, and Fernando were working there; but this morning it was quiet work, no tractor or heavy equipment, just shovels and hand tools.
Ryan’s crew would make this part of the house whole again. It, like some of the other added-on wings, had not been as solidly constructed as the core interior—that main, old house was a ruggedly sturdy, four-bedroom retreat that even now needed only cleaning up, minor repairs, and new wiring and plumbing. None of the later additions, the front rooms and outbuildings, had been so strongly built, and these would be replaced. The basements and cellars were solid enough, Ryan had had an engineer examine them. “A fine foundation,” he had told her. Some of those underground spaces would be used for storage, but many would be left for the feral band, just as, outdoors, Ryan and Kate would leave the piles of old stone and rubble, and a number of strengthened storage sheds to afford shelter and hiding places.
Kate wasn’t sure what she would do with the renovated mansion. She had in mind a cat museum like the one she so loved in San Francisco. Paintings, sculpture, tapestries; that museum had originals by many famous artists. And she wanted rooms for art classes, too. The cellars and tunnels left for the ferals would be blocked from the public. Parking could be a problem, which was why she had wanted Voletta’s land. As dusk gathered, at the back of Voletta’s cottage the trees turned bright when the kitchen lights blazed on. Then lights in the living room, too, shining out on the rear yard. At the front of the house, the windows in the right corner bedroom were now dark.
She watched Scotty and their two carpenters, higher up the hill, putting their tools away, wrapping it up for the night. Scotty’s red hair and beard caught a last streak of vanishing sun. His big square hands were quick and capable as he loaded the tools in his truck. Watching him, a warmth touched her, a sense of his arms around her. The memory of her head on his shoulder; Scotty holding her as she’d cried against him, the day the old yellow tomcat died.
But a shiver chilled her, too. As much as she knew she loved him, this could never be permanent.
She wanted to stay with Scotty, she wanted them to be married, and she was certain that he did, too. But that could never happen. Not when she must lie to him, when she could never share her knowledge about the speaking cats. That confidence was ironclad among the few humans who did know the cats’ secret. And, with Kate, there was even more to keep hidden.
In the Harper marriage, Charlie knew the cats could speak, but Max didn’t. Charlie had to swallow back every accidental hint, every incriminating remark that might want to slip out. And Kate would have to do the same. She would have, too often, to lie to Scotty, and she would hate each deception. A solid marriage wasn’t meant to harbor secrets, marriage was meant for openness, the only secrets being those shared by both.
But, she thought, the lies have worked for Charlie, she has made them work. Though it was never easy. Too many times she had seen Charlie turn away from Max’s observing look, cross the room to refill their coffee cups, straighten the kitchen chairs, hunt in her pocket for a tissue, anything to distract from what might have been a misstep. Kate wondered if she could live like that with Scott Flannery, who seemed to conceal nothing, who held back no secret.
But thinking of living without Scotty was even more painful. Now, as Manuel and Fernando climbed in their truck and took off down the hill, and Scotty’s truck headed for the shelter, Kate turned away and went to start dinner in the kitchen of the little apartment. Two small filets, scalloped potatoes in the microwave, a salad. While she set the table, hearing Scotty’s truck pull up, her heart was pounding with conflicted thoughts, with the sight of him, tall and muscled, his flaming hair and neatly trimmed red beard. She could feel his hand in hers as they walked through the woods, or as he helped her install walkways and bridges in the big enclosures for the shelter cats.
These cats were not meant to be confined for long, they were meant to have homes. Or, if they were feral and had roamed wild and free, they would be returned to their own territory and looked after, from a polite distance, by the CatFriends volunteers. They would have had shots and been spayed, they would have water, and food besides the rats and mice they hunted, and would have secure outdoor shelters. Scotty understood that these wild cats that CatFriends had trapped were wary and frightened, and he was gentle with them.
She had watched Scotty around the ruins, how he would glance at the ferals, knowing they
were wild. She could see his smile when they peered out at him, could see his interest in their shy ways. He always paid attention, as the men got to work with loud equipment, to how the cats would disappear, avoiding the very places the men meant to break and dig.
Now, as she watched Scotty come up the steps, moving on into the bathroom to wash up, she put the potatoes in the microwave, the steaks on the hot skillet, and the salads on the little apartment table.
“Those feral cats,” Scotty said, sitting down, “that band around the ruins. Will they stay at all, when we bring in more heavy equipment, bigger tractors and backhoes? Or will they leave for good, frightened and displaced? Where will they go?”
“There’s a lot of land,” she said. “Rocky places up in those trees, caves to hide and to den in. Places so far back in the woods, you can hardly see the mansion. I’m guessing they hunt there, in the early hours.”
“You know a lot about them,” he said, watching her.
“I’ve read a lot about ferals. And I know one thing, no cat wants to hunt down there at Voletta’s, intently stalking a rabbit hole, when that bad-tempered donkey and those three billy goats might come charging down on them.” She was interested that he cared, that he had thought about the cats’ fear of the workmen and heavy equipment—but then he startled her sharply:
“Wilma says there are pictures in the library of feral cats centuries ago. Pictures that look just like Dulcie’s calico kitten. I told her, that seems pretty strange. Wilma said it must be some special breed of that time, that the kitten is some kind of throwback.”
“Could be,” she said. “Genetics is a complicated science, I don’t begin to understand it all.”
“Pedric has seen the pictures. He thinks that kitten has been reincarnated,” Scotty said, smiling. “That’s his Scots-Irish blood, Pedric loves the old, mythic tales—we Scots are all storytellers.”
“Are you a storyteller?”
“I can’t make up the wild tales that Pedric does,” he said easily. But Kate wished, oh how she wished, that Scotty could believe those ancient stories—that he could believe all the wonders that surrounded him right here and right now, miracles that she knew to be true.
12
The stalker returned to Wilma’s the next night. This time he didn’t just watch her house, nor had he followed her as she shopped. He had waited out in the night until he was sure she slept, waited long after the reading light went out in her bedroom, until the house was dark.
Wilma and Dulcie and the kittens were sound asleep, tangled together in the double bed, Courtney’s paws in Wilma’s hair, Dulcie’s head on Wilma’s shoulder. Buffin was snuggled close to Striker, who was curled around his bandaged paw to protect it. Striker was the first to wake, raising his head, softly hissing. “There’s a noise. Someone . . .”
Wilma sat up, listening. Dulcie reared up beside her. “Someone’s out there,” the tabby whispered. They all could hear scraping noises at the front window. Dulcie slipped off the bed, stood tall on her hind paws, her tail twitching, her ears sharp. The kittens slid stealthily down beside her, everyone listening.
But now there was no sound. Only silence.
Then the sudden sharp clink of shattering glass.
In a moment they heard the front window slide open, then another sliding noise as if someone was climbing in over the sill.
Quietly Wilma rose, pulled on her robe, lifted her revolver from the nightstand, unholstered it, and slipped it in her pocket. The kittens watched her wide-eyed. Without a sound she opened the bedroom window and silently slid back the screen. She motioned the four cats through—but Dulcie didn’t want to leave her.
“Go,” Wilma said softly. “Go now. Up to the neighbor’s roof, out of the way in case of gunfire.”
Dulcie just looked at her. Wilma picked her up forcefully and dropped her out the window, down among the waiting kittens. Thin light from a quarter moon followed the cats as they climbed the neighbor’s honeysuckle vine. When they were gone, safe on the roof, Wilma crouched by the bed, her voice muffled by its bulk and covers, and softly called 911. Then she moved to the bedroom door listening.
The invader was in the living room, trying to open desk drawers. She heard him try the large, locked file drawers first, then pull the small drawers open, heard him rummaging as if he might be looking for the file-drawer key. But why, what did he think she had? She had nothing of real value that she’d ever kept in the house—well, except the Thomas Bewick book, the rare collector’s volume that she had at one time hidden in the secret compartment behind the files in the locked drawer. The book that she and Charlie had dug from among the Pamillon ruins.
But how would a burglar know about that? Or know its value? No one knew about the Bewick book except her closest friends. If that was Calvin Alderson’s son out there, the young man who had been watching her, how could he know about the handmade, one-of-a-kind volume that they’d found on the estate? What connection could Rick Alderson, or his father, have had to the Pamillons?
How could he know about that one volume printed differently from the rest of the edition, the one book that because of what the author had added to it, held a secret that must never be told? A book that, despite its considerable value, she had at last destroyed? How would he know any of the Pamillon secrets?
Quietly she slid the bedroom door open and moved down the hall toward the living room. Across the room he was still rummaging at the desk, his back to her. She watched him trying to jimmy the file lock on her nice cherry desk and that made her mad. “Stand up,” she said, cocking the revolver. “Turn around, hands laced on top of your head.”
He spun around, staring at the gun. A slim man. In the dark, backlighted by faint moonlight, she couldn’t see his face but it was the same man, the same wide, slanted shoulders, exactly like Calvin Alderson twenty years ago. Seeing the cocked gun in her steady grip he was still for only a second then spun around grabbing at the front door, turning the lock, jerking it open, and was gone. In that second she could have fired, could easily have killed him.
She let the hammer down slowly. She heard his footsteps pounding down the walk, then heard a car take off. Quickly she found a tissue, put it over her hand to open the door. She ran, chasing the car . . . a pale SUV. What make? She couldn’t tell. Nor, in the faint moonlight, could she see the license number. She was shocked to see Dulcie chasing it, too, running down the street. Oh, Dulcie! She was half angry, half filled with love to see Dulcie’s dangerous, insane effort. When the brown tabby at last lost the car and returned, Wilma grabbed her up, hugging her.
“It was a Subaru,” Dulcie said, “but I only got the first three numbers.” Wilma grabbed the desk phone and called back to the dispatcher. Then, carrying her gun cocked once more, she cleared the house, though she felt certain he’d been alone. When at last she let down the hammer and pocketed the weapon she picked Dulcie up again, hugging and loving her. “The kittens are still on the roof?”
“Yes,” Dulcie said. “What was he after? Why didn’t you shoot him?”
“He didn’t come at me or I would have. Think of all the legal fuss that would bring down on us, when he didn’t actually attack me.”
They waited sitting together until Officer McFarland arrived. A second squad car stopped briefly. From the driver’s seat, Officer Brennan asked her a few questions. He double-checked on the license, on the car’s description, then took off fast in the direction Wilma had seen the SUV disappear.
In the house, young Jimmie McFarland, clean-cut, short brown hair, looked the damage over carefully. He took a dozen photos, then began to scan for prints on the window casing, on the front door and knob, on the broken glass, the desk. Most were Wilma’s prints, some smeared as if with gloves. He did find a few additional prints where the invader had apparently taken off his gloves to manipulate the locks on the desk. It was the half-dozen white flecks on the oriental rug near the desk that interested him most. “What are these?”
Kneeling to
look, Wilma shook her head. McFarland picked them up with a needle, searched the rest of the room for more. He found one speck caught on the concrete step where it joined the doorsill, he put them all in a small plastic bottle and dropped it in his pocket.
“They look,” Wilma said, “like bits of Styrofoam packing. Could they have been caught in his shoes?”
Jimmie gave her an interested look but was silent. A look that said, I’d like to tell you, but I can’t, a look she knew well. These specks were connected to something else, to some other case they were working. Maybe, in the morning, Max would tell her. She sat in her favorite chair holding Dulcie in her lap, stroking her, while McFarland called Dallas.
He told the detective what he’d found, what he’d collected, including the Styrofoam flecks. He answered several questions with a simple yes or no. During their conversation, the kittens were not to be seen. Obeying their mother, they were still on the roof. They were probably freezing, but they had minded Dulcie.
Was the burglar Rick Alderson? That little seven-year-old boy she had known so long ago? Was he not still in prison in Texas, but out on parole? She knew nothing at all to put him together with the Pamillons and the Bewick book. But what other interest would he have here, except a valuable item he meant to sell?
Or was his interest in her, instead, in retribution for his father’s death? But that didn’t make sense, little Rickie had hated Calvin Alderson.
Once McFarland had every bit of evidence he wanted, Wilma found a cardboard box in her garage, they took it apart and taped it over the window, closing off most of the broken area. It wouldn’t keep people out, but it would block the wind and keep more glass from falling.
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