When the living room fire had burned nearly to coals, the Greenlaws rose to leave, Pan happy to be going home with Kit. As much as he loved the Firettis, he hadn’t meant to move in with them forever, only long enough to comfort them in their loss over Misto. But how could he tell when that was? John and Mary would grieve for Misto forever, they all would. But now, at least for a few days, the Firettis had Buffin and Striker to ease them, while Pan himself hunted with Kit and lounged in the tree house.
It wasn’t long until the Damens’ lights went out, until they were all asleep, Rock and Joe in the upstairs studio, Wilma tucked up in the guest room with Dulcie and Courtney. The cats slept lightly, their ears at alert. There was no attempt at a break-in with Egan in jail and with Randall under guard in a hospital bed, probably hooked up to plastic tubes and with a uniformed guard at his door. And, hopefully, Lena and Rick on their way to jail, though they had had no word from Dallas or Max Harper.
At three that afternoon, the call came. Not from Max, but from John Firetti.
Clyde was just home from work. When he answered the phone, John nearly shouted in his ear, “Negative, Clyde! The test was negative! No rabies! Joe and Rock are free, you can let them run. My God, this waiting has been hell. Shall I bring the boys and Snowball home?” he asked hesitantly.
“I’ll come,” Clyde said. “I’m on my way.”
But the conversation, when Clyde arrived at the clinic, was not at all what he’d expected. They stood in the recovery room, Striker, freed from his cage, racing the length of the room round and round on three legs, working off an endless burst of energy—while Buffin remained curled up close to the fluffy little dog. Watching Buffin and Lolly, Clyde felt a hollowness in the pit of his stomach at separating them.
John seemed to have trouble putting his words together. This was the first time Clyde had ever seen John Firetti shy and uncertain. They were both watching Lolly and the buff kitten pressed lovingly together.
“I think our little dog is going to make it,” John said. “We’ve done everything we can for her. It’s Buffin who has kept her comfortable without heavy drugs. The minute he hops in her cage and curls up beside her she sighs, you can see her muscles ease as the pain subsides, as she relaxes against him.
“I don’t know how he does it,” John said. “It’s a quite amazing talent, it’s the kind of healing that scientists have argued about for centuries. And here it is, in this young, half-grown kitten.”
Clyde moved closer to the cage, looking in at Buffin then glancing at John. “Would you like him to stay for a while longer?”
“I would indeed . . .” John began. “Until she’s completely healed.”
“Yes,” Buffin told Clyde, his blue eyes pleading. “I want to do that. She’s better but there’s still some pain, she still needs comforting.” The big kitten looked up intently at Clyde. “Is this what I was born for? To help other animals, to help them heal?”
“To help heal,” John said, nodding. “To give solace. Everyone is born for some special reason, some special good.” He sighed. “But so many never find it.”
Clyde smiled. “Wilma told me once, everyone is born about something, some passion or talent that will guide his or her life. If he doesn’t have such a longing, or never discovers and uses it, he is only a shell, empty, to be filled with something ugly instead.”
Buffin looked from John to Clyde. “May I stay, then? For a little while? Maybe . . .” he said, looking up at the doctor, “maybe John and Mary need me, too?”
“We need you very much,” John said, reaching into the open cage to stroke Buffin.
“And maybe they need me,” Striker said, jumping up into the cage, rearing up to touch his nose to Clyde’s, then placing a paw on John Firetti’s shoulder. “And Pan can be home with Kit, in the tree house.”
So it was that only Snowball went home to Rock and Joe, the little white cat kittenish with delight to be back with her big dog to snuggle and protect her. So it was that Wilma and Dulcie and Courtney were at home—without Courtney’s brothers—and Dulcie’s heart was heavy. Her two boys had left the nest, had left so much sooner than she had ever imagined.
Wilma said, “It won’t be long and they’ll be home again. It’s no different than human children off to camp.”
Dulcie wasn’t sure it was the same. Buffin and Striker might be home again for a while. But this sudden parting was the first of many, of a long voyage for her children as they started out on their own. They would be back, might be in and out of the house, but they would never again be homebound kittens needing only this one shelter, needing only her and Joe, needing only this one safe place in their lives. Now, already, they were heading out into the bigger world.
Though maybe, she thought, maybe Striker with his predatory nature might decide to join her and Joe in their own pursuits, might hunger for secret investigation, hunger to stalk the bad guys who preyed on the world. That would comfort her, and would make Joe Grey more than happy.
And Courtney? Dulcie nuzzled her calico kitten. She knew where Courtney’s dreams lay, where perhaps an ancient fate waited. Courtney’s longings frightened Dulcie, but she knew she couldn’t change them. This young lady had been born knowing images of distant times, and of times perhaps yet to come. Dulcie and Joe could only love her and keep her close when she was willing—or could only love her from a distance when she was far away.
But that day hadn’t come yet. Now, Dulcie would treasure the time they had with their kittens and not dwell needlessly on the future.
26
When Ryan opened the studio door and released Joe and Rock from their glass-walled prison they burst through Clyde’s study and raced down the stairs, Rock leaping over Joe, dog and cat circling through the house upsetting furniture again, then pounding into the kitchen looking pitifully up at Ryan as if they had been on starvation rations for weeks. Trying not to laugh, she gave Rock a big hug, as Joe Grey leaped to the table.
“So where’s supper?” said the tomcat. There was no food in sight, nothing but scattered sections of the morning paper.
“It’s a little early. It’s not like you haven’t been eating, I’ve waited on you hand and foot, treats from the deli, the works.”
Joe stared at her unblinking, his yellow eyes intent, one white paw lifted, whether in supplication or threat wasn’t clear. Ryan turned away, amused, and fixed a plate for him of cold steak and sardines. She fed Rock his usual homemade vegetable and chicken stew with slices of steak on top. Joe ate standing on the open paper reading the latest details of the local car heists; eight cars had been examined and photographed for evidence and returned to their owners. All the thieves were behind bars, either in the village jail or in county lockup. All except Randall Borden, in the surgery wing of the village hospital. One woman was on her own recognizance as a person of interest. That could be Voletta. The paper was tight as hell with its information. He wasn’t going to learn anything more until he hit the station.
Quickly swallowing the last sardine, he dropped from the table and took off for MPPD, not even waiting for Clyde and the kittens to get home. He was up the stairs, up on his rafter, and out through his tower racing across the rooftops.
He entered the department on the heels of tall, thin Officer Blake and Detective Juana Davis, both in uniform, holstered weapons, radios, phones, nightsticks, Tasers, the works. When Blake turned into the conference room, Joe stepped up to walk beside Juana as casually as would another officer. She looked down at him, her black eyes laughing.
They got a laugh, as well, when Joe marched into Max Harper’s office beside her. “You two working the streets together?” Max said; then, “How was San Francisco?”
“Foggy,” Juana said. “The three days did me good, nice hotel, breakfast in bed, shopping.” She sat down at the other end of the leather couch from Detective Garza. As Joe strolled in, Dallas gave him that look that always made the tomcat uneasy. That what are you up to? gaze that Joe could never quite deciph
er, that he didn’t want to decipher. The detective was dressed in a tweed sport coat and jeans. His half of the couch was scattered with files and an electronic notebook.
Ignoring the softer furniture, Joe leaped to the chief’s desk and past him into the bookcase, purring at Max’s familiar scent of fresh hay and clean horses, at his comfortable jeans and frontier shirt. Only a police chief with Harper’s reputation, and maybe in a small town like Molena Point, could get away with the casual clothes and western boots that he preferred.
Making himself comfortable between two piles of reports, Joe scanned the papers on the chief’s desk and the notes on his clipboard. A list of the stolen cars, check marks as to whether they had been recovered (including the two that had been left behind in the old barn). There were check marks indicating whether each car had yet been gone over for prints and other evidence and whether it had been returned to its owners.
Max was saying, “Barbara Conley dated Robert Teague, too. My guess is, Randall saw them together. When, maybe weeks ago, they left Teague’s BMW parked on the street, Randall had the equipment to hack into the electronic security, including the garage door opener. Then, the night that Teague got back from the city, the night of the heists, Randall opened the garage door, cranked the car, and drove off neat as you please.”
“With that box of porcelain in the back,” Davis said. “You think Randall even knew it was there? Think he knew what was in it? Didn’t Teague say the porcelain was worth over thirty thousand?” She was quiet a moment, then, “You’re not looking at Teague in connection with Barbara’s murder?”
Max shook his head. “We’ve got the gun that killed her and Prince, got the report from ballistics. It was in Randall’s pocket when they brought him out of the attic. Question is, between the time he was arrested, then escaped to Barbara’s house and crawled up in the attic, where did he have the gun stashed? It wasn’t on him or on Egan when we hauled them out of Randall’s car and locked them up.”
Dallas said, “Possible he hid it in the attic after the murder, before we knew that house was connected to the car heists. The fingerprints were smeared like there’d been a cloth wrapped around it, but we got some clear ones. What makes me mad is losing the young girl who called that the BMW was there. She wasn’t one of our snitches, I know their voices too well.”
She was my daughter, Joe Grey thought smugly, hiding his smile.
“But the guy who called later, after Randall escaped from jail,” Max said, “we know him all right. Randall didn’t have a phone but he contacted Lena somehow. She’s there to pick him up, then finds he’s too sick to move, even with a partner to help her—sure as hell Rick was in the car, waiting. She calls the medics.
“Then we get our snitch’s call about the Ford, driver, and a passenger. Less than three minutes we have five cars on the street and freeway, plus a couple of sheriff’s units, but not a sign of them.”
Dallas said, “How does the snitch do that? He had to be there in the house with them. Did he follow Lena there? Or follow Randall?” The detective shook his head. “Pretty quick moves. This stuff gives me the creeps. And,” he said, “he knew who Rick Alderson was, he knew both Rick and Egan.”
Dallas was silent, looking at the chief and Juana, knowing they didn’t have any more answers than he did. No one glanced at the tomcat snoring on the shelf behind Max, no one had a notion that their snitch was listening right there beside them.
“Then,” Dallas said, “we get that call from the woman who works over at the drama center.”
“I haven’t heard this part,” Juana said. “Only what McFarland told me on the phone, then my phone cut out. Borden escaped, to the embarrassment of Officer Bonner,” she said, grinning. “You got a call on Randall, the medics haul him out of the attic, and he’s in surgery for appendicitis. Very nice. He goes to emergency and the state pays for it. But what’s with the woman from the drama center?”
“She was parked in that big lot behind the classrooms,” Dallas said. “Came back to get a sweater from her car, saw this guy crouched down between two parked cars removing a license plate. She drew back, watched him replace it with another. Removed California plates, bolted on plates from Washington State, the front plate dented.”
“So,” Max said, “our men are already out on the highway while they’re still in the village changing plates. The traffic was heavy, a lot of trucks—somehow the Ford slipped in between the big rigs. Even our patrol unit parked by the high school missed them, and that sure as hell made me feel lame.
“But then,” Max said, “you’ll like this part. Two CHP units are still patrolling up Highway One along near the Pamillon land, near Voletta Nestor’s place. They knew, from Randall, that he and Lena had been staying there. They turn on up the narrow road, pull around behind that dense eucalyptus stand—and there’s the Ford jammed in among the trees, almost invisible. Dented Washington plates. Lena and the driver were gone.
“Well, our guys ease around behind the barn; the barn doors are open and here comes barreling out a gray Lincoln Town Car. They radio ahead for the units on the freeway and they take off after it. That road, dirt and gravel, is rough as hell. Lincoln is scorching toward the freeway as two more of our units pull in, damn near hit the Lincoln. Our guys swerve into the dirt embankment—at the same moment, the Lincoln coughs a couple of times, bucks to a stop, and just sits there. Stalled on that narrow dirt road. Brennan said the driver looked like Egan Borden. He’s cranking and grinding, but can’t get a rumble out of the Lincoln. Lena’s crouched down in the front seat, and now they’re surrounded by cops. Officers pull them out, secure him in a squad car, lock Lena in another unit, leg irons, the works. Called a tow truck to haul the two cars in.”
“How could it be Egan?” Juana said. “He’s already locked . . . Oh! Rick Alderson!”
Max nodded. “Both Egan Borden and Rick Alderson are in the jail. No release, no bail. Lena’s in the women’s cell. She can go on home if she can make bail, so she can take care of her aunt—but only with the condition of home confinement for both her and Voletta.”
Juana rose to make fresh coffee. “So what made the car stop?”
“The box of porcelain you were wondering about? Thieves had put it in the barn with the missing Lincoln and Mini Cooper, just dumped it on the floor like they thought it was worth nothing.”
Max leaned back, smiling. “While it was in the barn a mouse or rat got into it, pulled out the stuffing and dragged that under the Lincoln. It was building a nest under the hood. I’d say a rat, the way it had chewed the car’s electrical wires. So bad that, coming down that rough road, the last bit of wire broke and that’s all it took, the car stopped cold and we had them.”
Juana doubled over laughing. Dallas and the chief sat smiling. As the coffee started to gurgle, Joe Grey curled up tighter to hide his own grin. That rat, he thought, even if she is dead now, even if she did get me and Rock locked up, she ought to get some of the credit for rounding up the last of those no-goods.
27
Kate and Scotty’s small, casual wedding was held at the Damens’ house late Sunday afternoon. But hours before the ceremony, the happy couple was honored with a secret gathering behind the Pamillon mansion. The time was early dawn, the sun’s first orange glow edging the eastern hills, shining into the ancient courtyard where Courtney had first met the feral band. Where Kate had discovered Scotty watching the speaking cats, listening to their tales and in that moment the restraint between the two lovers vanished.
Sunrise glowed on the big boulder where pale Willow sat, the bleached calico leader of the feral band. Feral cats and the little group of four village cats and two kittens gathered before her. Only young Buffin was absent, he would not leave his small patient even for such an important event. Ryan and Clyde, Wilma and Charlie, the Firettis, and the Greenlaws stood close behind the feline celebrants.
Kate and Scotty knelt at the foot of the boulder, so as to be face-to-face with Willow. For a long moment s
he looked silently at the quiet couple, gentle and thoughtful. She touched her nose to their cheeks in a simple feline benediction, a rare endearment of friendship for humans to receive from the cat community. She put a paw on Scotty’s shoulder, placed her other paw on Kate’s hand. The words she spoke seemed to join their two spirits more closely and to join them securely to the cat family.
May the stars shine bright above you,
May the sun warm you,
And the world hold you softly.
May your thoughts and needs be as one,
For all time,
Your joys and conquests as one,
In this world and forever.
Then all the cats gathered around closer, clowder cats and village cats leaping up on the boulder, purring and caressing and nosing at the couple, rubbing their faces against them. So the Pamillon cats celebrated their acceptance of two people they had come to love, these feral cats who, for long generations, had feared and avoided humans. Now they and their human friends shared a long moment of joyful bonding. But then as the sun rose higher and the golden light spread, the ferals slipped away. They purred a good-bye, offered a last nuzzle, and they were gone. Suddenly the glade was empty, not a clowder cat to be seen.
Kate and Scotty stood a moment, holding hands, then the little party of humans and village cats headed back across the grassy berm to the shelter, the warmth of the ceremony a part of them now as it always would be.
They were in the apartment, the four cats and two kittens on the desk, Kate and Ryan and Wilma making breakfast, when Dulcie said, “Look, where’s Voletta going? How can she drive with her leg all bound up and her stitches still healing?”
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