Cat Telling Tales

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  “You wouldn’t catch me living in this stink,” Denise told him. “Bad enough to have to drive through it. I guess if you have to make a living, though, if you have a family to feed, some folks don’t have a choice.

  “Me,” she said, looking over at the tomcat, “you won’t catch me tied down. Any more than you, right? Single, footloose, a little money in the bank, and I go where I want, when I want.” She didn’t seem to consider that cats don’t have money in the bank. Maybe she thought mice in the fields took the place of hard cash.

  She’d picked him up early that morning at the rest stop, a long way from where he’d left his last ride. From the minute he’d approached Denise’s U-Haul, she’d been kind to him. When he hopped in the cab waiting expectantly for her to head out, she hadn’t even done a second take. She had simply laid a folded blanket atop the duffel, so he could be comfortable and enjoy the view. They had shared her burger and fries in equal portions, and her remarks to him were direct and comfortable—making him wonder what she would do, if he answered her.

  But he’d never find out, his commitment to secrecy was way too deeply embedded. Caution was bred irrefutably into his every cell, passed down for thousands of generations, and reinforced by parental discipline. The occasional transgression of some individual cat, they all knew, was recklessly dangerous.

  While beyond his partially open window the sea lay flat and gray, the sluggish waves smothered by the fog, on their left they passed an occasional small lake that, despite the fog, gleamed blue and clear against a background of dark pines, lakes with no houses around them, the surrounding forest dense and wild. He watched an osprey arrow down into the fresh water; a violent splash and it rose again with a fish gleaming in its talons. The great bird’s powerful flight made him dream of soaring high above the hills, effortlessly winging the long, long miles, high above the killer wheels of speeding cars and trucks—made him wish he could dive down out of the clouds with such power as that bird, drop straight down onto his destination. And the photographs from Debbie’s album filled his mind, the little seaside village with its sheltering pines and cypress, its white beach and fishing dock, the ocean bright and clear, so very like the home his pa had described for him, when he was young. That was the first place Pa could remember, from his lonely kittenhood.

  He couldn’t be sure he was headed for the same place. For that one spot, on this vast coast, where Misto, facing old age, might have gone, in the way so many animals longed to do. He could only pray Misto had returned there, and that he could find him.

  He had left Eugene three days earlier in the backseat of a 1992 Toyota Camry, sweltering in the lap of a fat old lady who smelled of mothballs and pee. Even when he lifted an armored paw and growled at her, she couldn’t stop petting and hugging him. He had stayed in the car because they were headed south, the woman’s daughter and son taking turns driving. And because they seemed a harmless threesome, didn’t seem like people who would hurt a cat. A prime path of learning, in a young cat’s life, was to listen to his own instinctive fears, to go with what they told him—or not, and learn a hard lesson.

  He had picked up the little family just outside Eugene, just two miles west of the burned-down nursing home. Their car had been parked at a lunch stop. The family had sat nearby at an outside picnic table eating hamburgers, studying an unfolded Oregon map, discussing where to stay for the night. It was already late in the day, they had come down Highway 5 from Seattle, were headed over to the coast, to Coos Bay. He’d bummed some hamburger by charming the old woman, and then conned them into a ride. He hadn’t counted on the woman’s overheated lap and her endless petting. At Coos Bay, where they pulled into a motel with a lighted VACANCY sign, he’d streaked out of the car the minute the old woman opened her door, had vanished among a tangle of shops, small gardens, and garbage cans. Had sat among the overgrown bushes listening as they called and called him, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.” He’d watched them set a half sandwich torn in small pieces, and a used Styrofoam bowl of water, outside the motel door. He’d slept hidden in the bushes ten feet from their door, listening to their blaring television tuned to an old sitcom, and to the frequently opening door as they looked for him, and to their annoyed and worried calls.

  “Maybe this was his destination,” the old woman had said querulously, just before they turned out the light, “maybe he didn’t want a home at all, maybe he was just hitching a ride.”

  “Cats don’t hitch rides, Mama. Go to sleep,” and the room went dark, leaving only the faint sounds of covers rustling as the three got settled.

  They called him the next morning, too, before and after partaking of the motel’s free breakfast, but at last they gave it up. Leaving a torn-up sweet roll for him from the motel’s free continental breakfast, they went on their way. As the car grew smaller and then merged onto the highway, he’d eaten the sweet roll then settled down among the bushes just at the edge of the parking lot, waiting to cop another ride south. His dreams filled with pictures from Debbie Kraft’s photo album, shots taken when Vinnie was small, before Tessa was born, apparently before Debbie and Erik began fighting and carping at each other. Pictures of a shore that blended exactly with the tales his daddy had told him, pictures of a rocky cliff above the white beach, the blue and roiling sea, the white-crested waves.

  There was no picture of the man his daddy had told him about, who brought food to the feral cats, who talked to them as if they could understand him. Misto had been only a kitten when he was part of that feral band, but he’d known enough not to answer back to the man. How could it be, that Misto had been a kitten in the same village where Debbie Kraft grew up, where her husband still spent part of his working year? How strange was that?

  For months after he abandoned the Kraft household, after Erik threw one too many shoes at him, he had searched Eugene for his sisters and his daddy. He’d gone to the house he remembered, from when he was a kitten, but Misto’s scent wasn’t there. Even after he went to live in the nursing home, he’d go rambling at night searching for Misto, but he never found his scent; he hadn’t seen Misto now for well over a year.

  Once, after the fire, he’d returned again to the Krafts’ house, imagining Erik might indeed have abandoned his wife and children as he’d sometimes threatened, imagining he could be with Tessa again. But, lingering in the overgrown yard and then leaping up a tree to peer in through the dirty windows, he’d seen and smelled the emptiness, the abandoned trash, the discarded clothes, and knew they would not be back. And he’d gone away again, missing Tessa.

  After the “mothball woman” and her family departed Coos Bay, he headed south again, traveling on the berm and through the tall grass of pastures that bordered Highway 101, warily crossing the occasional side road. It was late afternoon when he’d come at last to a rest stop set beside the highway among the pine woods. He was paw weary. The clearing was deserted save for two cars parked together near the restrooms, beyond a cluster of picnic tables. A dusty willow tree sheltered the cinder-block building, while a second willow provided shade for a half dozen picnic tables with attached benches, all bolted to concrete slabs buried in the earth. Could you trust humans with nothing? The dusty earth was embossed with numerous tire marks crossing over each other, and these were dissected by lines of long, thin paw prints that stank of coyote. He’d backed away from these, and looked the two cars over, wondering about a ride.

  But both were muscle cars, an old fishtailed Chevy painted red and white, and a low-riding orange roadster with the top down; and he could hear the bantering voices of several young men echoing from the restrooms. Moving into the bushes at the edge of the clearing, he’d settled down, listening, wanting to know where they were headed and to assess their character, see whether it would be safe to try to make nice and con a ride—he was feeling desperate to move on—but already their strident voices made his skin twitch.

  The voices grew louder and more raucous, then two young men emerged laughing and idly shoving each ot
her, scruffy-looking fellows, a Caucasian and a Latino, long hair hanging down their backs, black jackets and baggy black jeans sagging wrinkled over dusty black boots. Ducking down, Pan remained still as they swung into the Chevy, watched the driver race the engine with a heavy foot and take off in a storm of dirt and gravel. With his eyes squeezed closed, he’d felt gravel pepper his face. Soon three more guys followed. Laughing loudly, they didn’t bother to open the doors of the roadster but swung in over the top, took off with a roar, another shower of dirt and rocks and blast of exhaust.

  Then, blessed silence.

  Pan came out of the bushes. The rest stop was deserted once more, the sun low, the only sound the hushing of the sea. Heading for the willow tree beside the restrooms, he scaled its rough bark through its lacy fronds, leaped to the warm metal roof, and curled up in the willow’s late shade. On the roof, safe from dangerous humans and coyotes, he slept. The coyotes yipped and yodeled all night.

  He dreamed he was crouched, not beneath the willow tree, but in an oak outside the nursing home. In his dream, the night was red with flames, his elderly friends were being led out, or wheeled and carried out to safety from the licking flames. Then the flames were mixed with other fires: hearth fires, bonfires, blazes from other times, ghostly flames echoing from past centuries. He heard bits of conversation that were not of this time, saw strangers’ faces tangled together without order. Only when a late car pulled into the rest stop did he wake.

  The wind was up, the night growing cold. He looked the driver over, but didn’t like what he saw. Between midnight and dawn only three cars came, stayed a little while as the drivers used the restroom, then left again. Pan remained where he was, on the tin roof. Dawn broke late, beneath dark clouds, the sky heavy, the wind icy. He watched a U-Haul truck rumble in off the highway and park at the edge of the pine grove just beyond the picnic tables—and that was how he met Denise Woolsey.

  The driver got out, sat down at one of the tables and opened a brown bag that apparently contained her breakfast. A large woman in jeans, flat-heeled boots, soft leather jacket over a faded khaki shirt. Interested, Pan had slipped to the edge of the roof to look her over, had watched her feed a nervous squirrel a portion of her sandwich, watched her fill a paper cup of water for the little beast, and knew she’d be his next ride.

  He rode with Denise as far as the San Francisco Bay Bridge, where she meant to head inland for Stockton. He tried not to think about getting out of the safe and cozy cab when she stopped for gas and to use the restroom, he didn’t relish going it alone on the mean and windy streets of the city. But he’d find his way. He always did. Somehow he was always able to sniff out an accommodating soul to carry him. In the world of concrete and fast cars he didn’t have much choice, it was either con some softhearted human, use all his charm and panache, or perish.

  14

  Slipping into the conference room, Joe watched Juana and the chief escort their loud, pushy female visitor back to Max’s office, both officers trying to hold their tempers. She was a big, square woman, solidly constructed, her skin tanned and coarsened from the sun as if she might be an avid golfer, her sun-streaked hair hanging limp to just below her jaw, her scowl lines deeply embedded. Where Debbie cultivated a helpless demeanor, her older sister, Esther, exuded an overriding bad temper, her dark brown eyes flat and cold, a woman Joe would prefer not to tangle with.

  Following behind the chief, slipping inside his office and quickly beneath the credenza, he watched Esther settle heavily into the leather couch facing Max’s desk. Juana sat tentatively on the arm of the leather chair to Esther’s right, easing her sore knee, her black uniform stark against the tan leather. Max stepped to the credenza, reached for the coffeepot that smelled of the usual overcooked brew, turned to Esther and offered her a cup.

  “No,” she said defiantly, with no touch of a graceful refusal. “Why did you call me here? Is this about my mother? What’s she done now? I just got back in town, I haven’t even unpacked. Whatever kind of trouble she’s gotten into, I’m not responsible for her, and I don’t appreciate your messages. My husband uses that answering machine for business.”

  “Your husband is with Kraft Realty?” Max asked, knowing perfectly well that Perry Fowler owned half the business. She nodded curtly. He said, “I was at your house twice, Mrs. Fowler. I left messages on the door, and then two e-mails asking you to come in.”

  “I’m here now. What do you want?”

  “I asked you in here with bad news. To tell you that your mother died yesterday morning.”

  The woman’s eyes widened, her mouth pursed tight, but Joe couldn’t read her expression. Was it pain? Remorse? Some sort of distaste? “What did she die of?” she said. “Did she drink that much, to go into some kind of alcoholic seizure?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “That’s the first thing you think of, with a drunk. Or did her heart give out, from abuse?”

  “There was a fire,” Max said. “Her house burned, there was little left, just blackened timbers and ashes.” Put off by the woman, was he goading her to see what she might reveal? For sure, he was taking a cop’s keen pleasure in seeing her squirm. He didn’t trust this woman, and the tomcat felt completely in tune with the chief’s sentiments.

  Esther sat pressing one hand to her mouth, her other hand fisted so tight her knuckles had whitened. Max said, more gently, “She was dead before the fire broke out.”

  This seemed to ease her, help her regain her composure. “Who have you notified?”

  “Your sister, Debbie. She preferred that we notify you.”

  “If Mother died before the fire, how did she die?”

  “She was poisoned.”

  “Poisoned? What did she get hold of? Or, what was she taking?” she said suspiciously. “Was she on some kind of pills?”

  He didn’t answer.

  She was quiet for some time. “You’re not saying she . . . that someone gave her poison? Oh, you must be mistaken. You’re not saying she was murdered? Why would someone do that? Who would take the trouble? Not for money. She had nothing, whatever money she earned, she drank away.”

  “She could have drunk the poison by accident,” Max said, “though it doesn’t seem likely.”

  “I can’t believe someone would do that. Are you saying they burned her house, too?”

  “We’re not sure yet whether it was arson.”

  “I can certainly imagine her setting the house on fire by accident, you know how they are when they drink. She was never careful, she’d leave the electric heater too close to the bed, leave something on the stove with the burner on high, dash over when she saw flames, smother them with a wet towel.”

  She didn’t ask how Debbie was taking their mother’s death, she didn’t ask if Debbie was on her way down from Oregon. She showed little sign of pain or loss, no pity. Nor did she ask about Billy. Didn’t she care that her sister’s little boy might have died in the fire or been badly burned? Max glanced at Davis, whose stern face was ungiving, then turned back to Esther. “When did you last see your mother?”

  Esther hesitated as if thinking back. “This last Christmas. She was in jail overnight for drunk driving. I had to come down here Christmas morning to bail her out, so you can understand why I dislike this place. Check your records, you’ll see. Seven o’clock Christmas morning, I have to bail my mother out of jail.”

  “She spent Christmas with you, then?”

  “No. I dropped her off at her place. We were having people in. She . . . doesn’t mix well with our friends. As it was, I had to leave all the preparations to the housekeeper.”

  No wonder that old woman drank, Joe thought, knowing she’d raised a daughter like that. Except, he thought, which came first? Did Hesmerra drink because of her two sour daughters? Or did Esther turn mean-spirited, and Debbie self-centered and manipulative, because of their mother’s drinking? Who was the cause and who was the victim?

  But now Hesmerra was the final victim, the prey
of someone spiking her drinks, offering an embellishment she hadn’t even tasted in her early morning toddy. Max said, “Before you saw her at Christmas, how long since you’d last seen her?”

  Esther shrugged. “Maybe a year.”

  “What was the problem between you?”

  “The drink,” Esther said shortly. “And other things. Family matters, from the past.”

  “Such as?”

  “Captain Harper, that is private business, that has nothing to do with her death. I still can’t believe you think she was murdered.”

  “It’s always possible she took her own life,” Max said. She didn’t answer to that. He said, “Are you not concerned about your nephew? You might like to know that he wasn’t hurt in the fire.”

  She looked at him coldly. “I’m not taking the boy in, if that’s what you’re thinking. Is that why you summoned me here? I’ll make this plain, Captain Harper. I want nothing to do with that boy, I’m perfectly content to see Child Welfare take him.”

  Max and Juana simply looked at the woman. He turned away only when the phone buzzed, the dispatcher ringing through though he knew Max was interviewing. Through the intercom, the young rookie’s voice sounded tinny and uncertain. “Captain, you might want to take this one.” The way he said “this one,” Joe felt his heart quicken. Everyone in the department knew that certain, informative calls were to go directly to the chief. As Max picked up the phone, switching off the speaker, Joe bellied closer beneath the credenza. With his ears sharply forward, he could barely make out the higher tones of a female voice, though he couldn’t tell what she was saying, couldn’t even tell whether it was Dulcie or Kit. He watched Max hesitate, his gaze returning to Esther. “Hold on a minute.” Then, to Esther, “Detective Davis will take you up to the front for fingerprinting. Thank you for coming in.”