Cat Breaking Free

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  "It hurts me to see how you miss Frank, I wish there were something I could do." He took Chichi's hand again, in both of his. "There's nothing either of us can do about cops," he said angrily. He removed his hand only when the waiter appeared, bearing elegant plates of pasta. The smell of shrimp and scallops made Kit lick her whiskers.

  There was only silence, then, as the couple occupied themselves with their lunch. She looked around the restaurant. All the tables were full, and people were waiting, too. Those who'd been served were happily enjoying lovely things to eat. And it was not until she looked again into the patio at the Harpers' table, that she saw Charlie staring at her. Staring right into her eyes, trying not to smile.

  I'm not doing anything! Kit thought fiercely, giving Charlie a flick of her tail. Cats are born curious! But then she smiled, too, because Charlie only wanted to know what Chichi and Roman Slayter were saying; Charlie was just as curious as she was.

  The caged cats were very hungry. Even Joe and Dulcie were growing hungry, and they'd been eating better than the prisoners. The kibble, which had been old and dry anyway, was all gone. To Joe and Dulcie, kitty kibble was meant for a dire emergency. The stale cat food at the bottom of the bowl stunk so bad it made them all flehmen, baring their teeth and pulling faces. Joe thought the three ferals must surely be longing for fresh game, for freshly killed squirrel or rabbit; Joe thought lovingly of the delicacies that Clyde regularly provided, and of the fresh selections that might be waiting in the alley behind Jolly's Deli, gourmet fare laid out for any village cat who cared to partake-who was free to enjoy George Jolly's largesse.

  Maria had returned from shopping just after Chichi went flying out the door. They could hear her in the kitchen putting away groceries, and then soon they could smell searing meat. The three captives sniffed the good scent and looked hopelessly at each other. And Cotton pressed his white face to the bars, searching the floor. "Where did they drop the key? You think it's really lost?"

  "It's lost," Coyote said. He smiled a wolfish smile. "That Luis was mad as a rabid raccoon."

  "But didn't you see?" Willow said softly. She glanced across at Abuela, but the old woman slept. "Grandma took the key, I saw her."

  "Abuela?" Cotton said. "Are you sure?"

  Willow twitched her whiskers. "She slipped it out of the lock and into her pocket. She slid the lock under the cushion of her chair, but when she moved, it fell."

  Even as they spoke, Abuela came awake. She looked around the room, looked at the closed door. She slipped her hand under the cushion of her rocker and drew out the key. They stared at each other, rigid. Had she heard them?

  She rose, dragging her cane along with her. Was she going to let them out? They were frozen, watching, their five hearts pounding so hard Joe thought everyone in the house would hear them.

  She moved to the double-hung window, which was open the few inches from the bottom. Finding the screen unlatched, she frowned. But she reached through. Bending down awkwardly, she managed to reach her arm through and swing. They saw the bright flash as she tossed the key in the direction of the far bushes.

  She returned to her chair. The cats were silent until they were sure she slept again, her mouth a little open, a tiny glisten of drool appearing at the corner.

  "Oh, my," Willow said softly. "No one will ever find it now." She looked at Joe and Dulcie, a tear running down her pale calico nose. "Now there's no way out."

  "Not so," Joe said.

  The three cats looked at him.

  "We have friends," Joe said.

  Dulcie licked her whiskers. "Do you remember a scrawny tortoiseshell kitten who once traveled with your clowder? Who came to Hellhag Hill with you, and stayed there?"

  "That scraggy kitten?" Cotton said haughtily.

  Willow said, "So that's what happened to her! She went away with you!"

  "Sort of," Dulcie said. "She found two humans who… who knew what she was without her telling them. Without her ever speaking."

  "Oh, my," Willow said. "How very strange." Her look said that she'd like to find such a human, but that she would be too shy and afraid to make friends.

  "That scrap of tortoiseshell," Cotton said. "I thought she went down Hellhag Cave and the ghost got her."

  "She's alive and well," Joe said. "If no one else finds us, she will."

  Coyote sneezed. His eyes danced with amusement within their cream-and-black circles. "That tortoiseshell… always nosing into everything, asking a million questions." He shook his whiskers, flicked his tall ears. "You don't believe that skinny scrap will save us?"

  Dulcie smiled. "When we've been gone long enough, she'll come looking."

  "So?" Cotton said. "She'll find you, just like that? And then what?"

  "Kit has her ways," Dulcie said. She hoped Kit would be as stubbornly curious as she usually was. Hoped she wasn't preoccupied with some other matter, too busy to notice how long it was since she'd seen them-that soon Kit would indeed decide they were in trouble, and come searching for them.

  Charlie had the horses groomed and saddled when Max's truck turned in off the main road and headed down their long dirt drive. What a lovely day, she thought, tightening Bucky's cinch. Lunch with Max, and now a long evening ride together. This was how a happy, newly married couple was supposed to live. Shrugging into her heavy jacket, she led Bucky and Redwing out into the stable yard and slid the main barn door closed behind them. She'd fed them early and lightly, and would feed them again when they got home; they were used to evening rides when the weather was bright. Waiting for Max to take his papers in the house and get a jacket, she stood looking down over their pastures to the sea, filled with a deep contentment.

  In the setting sun, the green hills were awash with golden light, and the evening air chill and clear. Calling to the dogs, she let them out the pasture gate. The two fawn-colored half-Danes bowed and danced around her, eager to be off, though they'd been running in the pasture most of the afternoon. She needed the exercise more than they did, after that huge lunch at Tony's. Waiting for Max, she stood thinking about Kit, there in Tony's, crouched among the ferns, spying. What had Kit heard? What had Chichi and Roman Slayter been talking about?

  After lunch, when she'd dropped Max and Dallas at the station, she'd stopped by Lucinda's hoping Kit might have come home, but she hadn't. Lucinda hadn't seen her since breakfast. It was an exercise in futility to try to keep track of Kit, she was worse than Joe or Dulcie. Watching Max come out and lock the door behind him, she was filled with dismay that she couldn't share with him the cats' secret. It hurt her that she must lie to Max.

  But she could never tell him. Not only would she breach the cats' trust, she had no idea how this particular truth would affect him. Max Harper was a realist, a down-to-earth man who believed in clear and objective thinking, in statements that could be proven. Yet if the cats' secret were proven to him, in the only way it could be, if he were to see and hear his three best snitches speak to him… She didn't like to consider his possible reaction. That truth, to a hardheaded realist, could be more than unsettling. Yet, though such a thought frightened her, there were times when she was so deeply amused at the situation that she had to turn away from him to hide a smile.

  Watching Max cross the yard, she admired his long, easy stride, his lean body and leathery face. His brown eyes were fully on her.

  As he swung onto Bucky, he gave her a grin that made her stomach twist with love for him-and because there must be this one secret between them. The only secret except, of course, for occasional police business. Winking at her, he moved Bucky out at a fast walk.

  The chilly evening made the horses immediately want to run, fussing and rattling their bits. Ahead, the sea shone deep gold as the sun settled into it, the sea's swells reflecting fire. The hills seemed aflame, too; but their long shadows darkened then vanished as the sun dropped. Who needed to fly to Italy or France or the English downs? It was all right here, a perfect world. As long as Max was in it.

  Whe
n the horses had warmed up, they gave them a nice gallop across the south pasture, and moved on through their locked gate and out onto open land high above the Pacific. Both horses were fast walkers, eating up the miles. As dusk thickened, they trotted along beside fenced acreage, skirting their neighbors' pastures. Max was quiet tonight, as he was when his mind was on department business. He looked over at Charlie quite suddenly.

  "What do you think of Clyde's blond bimbo?"

  "Chichi?" she said, surprised.

  "Give me your impression, a woman's impression."

  "Well, she's… First off, I don't think she's Clyde's bimbo. Maybe she was once. Now he seems to want to avoid her at all costs. She's… she seems cheap, but I don't know her well." She laughed. "Even his cat doesn't like her. Don't animals always know?"

  "Know what, Charlie?"

  The question startled her. "If a person's to be trusted. Dogs seem to know, don't they? Know if a person is threatening, if they should keep away." She looked hard at him. "Surely dogs sense those things? Why wouldn't all animals?"

  "Animal sense," he said, and shrugged. "They do sometimes."

  She said, "You told me Chichi was watching the village shops, keeping a record of who opens up and what time, of who closes up, how many clerks. What's she up to?" He'd said the snitch had told him what Chichi was doing. "Well," she said, "I guess you can't arrest her for… as an accessory?"

  "Accessory to what? Nothing more has happened."

  "Arrest her on suspicion? Or on some kind of drummed-up charge, before there are any more break-ins?"

  He laughed and shook his head. "We'd really have to stretch, to do that."

  "But if there are more burglaries, and she has the list of those places…?"

  "When and if that happens, yes. You know that, she'd be an accessory, then." But he was brief, as if holding back. There was something he wasn't saying, that he didn't feel free to tell her. Of course that was sometimes necessary, but it always made her burn with curiosity. She guessed she was as nosy as the cats.

  "Meanwhile," she said, "at least the list your informant gave you helps know what shops to watch, doesn't it? Helps you know what places they might rob?"

  Max nodded. "Particularly if they're planning one grand snatch-and-grab, all the shops at once. Get out fast, head for some prearranged destination."

  Charlie watched him. "Would you have enough men?"

  "If they're planning this in conjunction with some kind of diversion, where we're busy with crowd control, for instance, we might not."

  "But what kind of diversion? Oh… the jazz festival's next week."

  "Or maybe this growing dispute over water control. If there's a full-blown protest, if someone were to bring in a hundred or so protesters to clutter up the streets, slow down traffic…"

  She shook her head. She'd hardly paid attention to the battle over the area's water supply, it seemed a part of central coast life, seemed to go on and on.

  "It's been done before," Max said. "Bringing in professional protesters for various causes-so far, never in Molena Point."

  She eased in the saddle and flicked a hank of Redwing's mane straight. "A diversion? A protest? The jazz festival? Or why not the big classic car gala? Except that's months away. Oh," she said, "and you bring in extra police, then. And CHP"

  "Exactly. I don't think this little group is that high-powered. And now, with Luis Rivas's brothers dead, maybe Luis will change his plans. But still there's Tommie McCord and I'd guess a dozen others." He looked intently at her. "How much is Ryan seeing of this Roman Slayter?"

  "Slayter is part of this?"

  "I don't know, Charlie. Just a hunch."

  "The snitch, again?"

  Max grinned. "Maybe. How much is Ryan seeing of him?"

  "She's not seeing him at all, if she can avoid it. She hates Slayter. She had dinner with him a night or two ago, because he told her he had information about the jewel burglary. She said she stormed out of the restaurant before their dinner was served."

  "She told me about that," he said. "In L.A. the Rivas brothers ran with a dozen men. They could all be here, holed up in motels, rented rooms."

  She looked bleakly at Max. "That's not a pleasant thought. That house where I saw that truck…"

  "That house belongs to an elderly widow, Estrella Nava. She's the Rivas boys' grandmother. Dallas dug that out this afternoon after you found the truck."

  "Can't you get a search warrant on that?"

  "We'll search at the right time. Dallas and Davis are talking with the jewelry store and shop owners, the ones Chichi's been watching." He shifted in the saddle, looked down at the sea, then back at her. "Store owners are pretty much in agreement." He let it lie and busied himself leaning forward over Bucky's neck to straighten Bucky's mane under his headstall.

  "Agreement on what?" she pressed. "What can they do?"

  He smoothed Bucky's mane all the way down the withers, exasperating her.

  "You're such a tease! What are the store owners planning? What are you planning?"

  "The owners like the idea of a sting," he said. "There are eighteen stores on Chichi's list. If it's the jazz festival, some of the streets will be closed off, curb-to-curb crowds. Hard to get a squad car through in a hurry. If the robbers come in on foot, and if they have enough men to hit all the stores at once, they'll grab and vanish in the crowd while we're cruising traffic and keeping order.

  "Or they could plan to hit in early morning, just before or during opening time when there's maybe only one person in most shops. Or even the middle of the night, two or three a.m., if they can get a handle on the stores' security systems. We're not sure these guys are sophisticated enough to deactivate many of the alarm systems, but we don't know that."

  "So what's the sting? What are you and the shop owners planning?"

  He gave her a look that needed no words, that said this was totally off-the-record confidential, and that made her nervous. If she promised not to share what Max told her, she was promising not to tell Joe Grey and Dulcie and Kit-not to tell the three snitches who relayed to Max the very information he was relying on.

  There were times, Charlie felt, when promises must be broken, no matter how shabby that made her feel. It could be far shabbier not to tell the cats, to leave them only half informed, and thus perhaps in twice as much danger.

  30

  At the same time that Charlie and Max set out on their evening ride across the hills, Kit began to miss Joe and Dulcie. She hadn't seen them since the night before, at Wilma's house, hadn't seen them all day while she was spying on Chichi Barbi and then racing home to Lucinda to call the station. Where were they, all that time? Where were they now? As evening settled onto the Greenlaws' terrace, throwing soft shadows across the rooftops, Kit fidgeted and paced, increasingly uneasy until at last, losing patience, she sped away, hit the roofs, and went to search.

  Kit seldom worried about the two older cats; they were usually looking for her. She might wander away or she might get angry and go off in a snit, but that was different, she knew where she was. Now, in the falling dusk, muttering softly to herself, she prowled among the shadows of balconies and peered down into the streets and alleys. Had they gone off to the hills hunting without her? Oh, they wouldn't! She did not choose to remember that she herself had recently vanished for several days, that she had worried not only Joe and Dulcie but all their human friends, that they'd all gone searching for her. Well, she couldn't help that, she'd been locked in. Locked up in that old rental house and she couldn't get out and that wasn't her fault. Locked in, trapped in there and scared out of her kitty mind.

  Locked in? Kit thought, and felt her fur ripple with unease. That idea gave her a very bad feeling…

  But Joe and Dulcie wouldn't be locked in. Where could they be locked in? Who would lock them in, and why? That couldn't happen to them.

  Yet why this terrible, sinking feeling? Now that she'd thought of such a thing, she got so nervous she had shivers in her bel
ly and her paws began to sweat.

  She searched every inch of the village rooftops, or tried to; she looked and searched until it was deep dark. There were clouds over the moon, low and heavy. Were they at home by now? Maybe Clyde was cooking something special or maybe Wilma was making chicken pie? The slightest scent of chicken pie on the breeze would always draw Dulcie home. Well, she'd just trot by Clyde's and then by Wilma's and sniff the air. She was all alone anyway; Lucinda and Pedric had gone off with Ryan's sister, Hanni, the gorgeous interior designer, to look at furniture-instructing her to go to Wilma's if they were very late, to stay there with Dulcie- leaving a poor little cat to fend for herself.

  Well, Lucinda had left an elegant supper in the apartment for her, laid out on the kitchen table with creamed sardines and kippers set into a double bowl of ice. Kit licked her whiskers. She would look a little more for Joe and Dulcie and then return to the rest of the creamed sardines; and she headed first for Clyde and Joe's house.

  Approaching across the roofs, she saw Clyde's car in the drive. The living room lights were on and she could smell something nice, a deep slow beefy smell, like maybe a roast in the oven. With that good aroma filling the evening, Joe would surely be home. She was headed for Joe's tower when she heard Clyde's voice yelling, blocks away behind her, calling, calling Joe Grey.

  But at the same moment two other voices exploded, closer, ringing out from the house next door, from Chichi Barbi's bedroom: a man shouting and swearing and Chichi shouting back at him.

  "The hell you don't have it! Give it over, Chichi! Why the hell would you take the key! What the hell would you want with the damn key! You said you didn't want nothing to do with them. Hand it over!"

  "I don't have your key, Luis! Why would I take it!"