Cat Coming Home

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  Vic Colletto had worked for him when Jack was partners in Vincent and Reed Electrical Contractors. He’d fired young Colletto for drinking on the job; the kid had been wiring a house, dead drunk, rolling drunk. Kicked off the job, Colletto had been angry as hell, and now at last he was getting back at him. Vic, who was in for breaking and entering and several counts of theft, had been in Soledad only a few weeks when he challenged him, tried to make him fight. Jack survived in prison by keeping to himself; he’d managed to avoid confrontations until Colletto began a steady diet of harassment. Colletto hung out with several inmates he’d known on the outside, one of them a con artist whom, Jack was pretty sure, he’d seen in Molena Point. He couldn’t remember the circumstances, couldn’t recall his name. The guy was out now, back on the street, and good riddance. Strange, though—it was after he left that Victor’s bullying grew bolder.

  What worried Jack was that Victor’s two brothers lived in the village. If that skuzzy Kent Colletto harassed Lori, or worse, he’d have to try to escape, to get away while he was on garden detail, find Kent and kill him. The thought sickened Jack.

  He wanted to talk with Warden Deaver, get him to call Max Harper with a heads-up on the Collettos, get Harper’s people to keep an eye on Lori. Trouble was, that could backfire. It was hard to know who to trust, even within Molena Point PD. If word got back to Vic’s brothers that the law was protecting Lori, that would wave a red flag in their faces. Lori was thirteen, she was growing up fast and she was probably a lot more savvy than many kids her age—but savvy wasn’t enough by itself to keep her safe. Vic was in for robbery of a convenience store in which he’d beaten the clerk so badly he nearly died, and his brother, Kent, was no better, had twice done time in juvenile for battery. Lori was little more than a child, she had no defense against that kind of brutality.

  Lori had some childish dream that he’d be pardoned, that he’d soon be home again, but that wasn’t going to happen. She talked about his release when she visited, letting her imagination run wild, about how maybe the governor would commute his sentence, let him come home, and they’d get a little house, how she’d cook and keep house for him. Jack dozed, thinking about being home again, in his own home with his little girl.

  He jerked awake to see Lori standing by his bed looking down at him, at first thought she was part of his dream. She reached down over the rail, put her hand on his, careful not to move the IV tube. Her small fingers were ice cold, bringing him fully awake. Her long brown hair shone so bright, just like her mother’s. He wanted to grab her and hug her, but a guard was standing right there. She was dressed in her school uniform, looking so clean and beautiful. Cora Lee stood behind her, tall and slim, looking beautiful, too, and efficient in tailored white slacks and a cream-colored blazer that set off her warm coloring. Her brown eyes met his, dark with worry.

  Holding Lori’s hands, he wished he could talk privately with Cora Lee, tell her his own worries about Lori. There was no way they could do that, with the guard standing at the foot of the bed listening to every word, watching their every move, his pale blue eyes never leaving Lori as she held Jack’s hand—even though Lori knew she wasn’t supposed to touch him—as if a thirteen-year-old child might have smuggled in a gun. She looked up into the man’s cold eyes and drew away. Nothing was supposed to pass between them, not even love. When they put you in prison, all your rights were taken from you, and most of the rights of your loved ones. Lori could bring no little gift, Cora Lee had to lock her purse in the car, leave her car keys at the admitting desk, and he knew they’d gone through a body scan.

  “Pa? We came as soon as the warden called.” She searched his face, trying to see in his eyes how badly he was hurt, trying hard not to cry. He knew he looked like hell, bound up in bandages, and stuck with tubes. He wanted to hug her and hold her and he wasn’t allowed. Wanted to tell her how sorry he was that she had to endure this.

  Cora Lee said, “I talked with Max.” She took a deep breath, glancing at the guard. “The warden called him.” She seemed to think the guard might stop her. “Max told me it was Victor Colletto who stabbed you.” She put her arm around Lori. “We’re doing as he told us. There will be extra patrols along our street, and a grown-up will be with Lori twenty-four/seven, at work with Ryan, at school. And of course up with the horses. Charlie Harper will ride with her.” No one said that Charlie Harper rode armed, but Jack knew that.

  “I’ll be like a prisoner,” Lori said in a small voice, and then wished she hadn’t said that.

  “Can you get her out of the village somewhere?” Jack wanted to say, Send her to your sister in New Orleans. But he didn’t want to say even that in front of a stranger, not even a prison guard.

  Lori shook her head. “I’m not going to run away. That Kent Colletto’s nothing but a punk.” And then, at Jack’s look, “I’ll be careful, Pa. I’ll do what Captain Harper tells me.” But then she grinned. “Warden Deaver told Cora Lee that Victor’s in confinement and will be moved to another prison, that he might have to go back for new sentencing. I hope they hang him.”

  Jack tried not to laugh, it hurt like hell to laugh. For a long moment they were silent, just looking at each other. He longed to keep her safe, and there was no way he could do that. He felt as useless as he had when, before he was sent to prison, he’d tried to protect her from Fenner, and nearly failed. Felt as useless as when Fenner had found her hiding place and nearly got his hands on her.

  He looked at Cora Lee. “Our friend Max, tell him to keep safe. Tell him to take care not just of Lori but of himself.” His look held Cora Lee. Her own eyes widened, then she nodded. He wanted to tell her more, but he hestitated to name names since they weren’t alone. He said, “Some guy just coming out of prison, that could be bad news.” Maybe that was enough, maybe that would give Max a heads-up. Again Cora Lee nodded, and then she grinned at him, gave him a thumbs-up and a look as warm as a hug.

  13

  THE THREE CATS had hardly scrambled up to Maudie’s roof when Kit blurted out, “That was no accident, that truck was parked around the corner up there waiting for her. I saw it, the minute she came out the driver gunned it and took off and—”

  “Slow down,” Joe said. This tortoiseshell, when something set her off, could be as volatile as bees in a windstorm. “What did you see? Tell it slowly.”

  “He was waiting for Maudie, parked around the corner where no one could see him from the house, and the truck windows so dirty I couldn’t see much of him, only a smear behind the glass.” She took a breath, trying to go slower. “When he saw her come out of the house he stepped on the gas and barreled straight for her, you saw him …” Again she stopped, her yellow eyes huge with distress, her tortoiseshell ears flat with frustration. “She has to know it wasn’t an accident. Why won’t she report it? Is she afraid to report it?”

  “Or,” Dulcie said, “is she protecting someone? You didn’t see the driver?”

  Kit moved out of the shadows, to sit where the roof was warming. “Only a pale shape with what looked like a dark cap pulled down. The windshield was caked with dirt, and there was dirt on the license plate. And there’s something else, too, there was another invasion this morning, I followed the squad cars, it was that house with the glass at the top, Becky Lake’s house. I listened when Detective Ray interviewed her, she said two men broke in when she answered the door and she was alone and they beat her and they kicked her little dog and then they ran and …”

  “Slow down,” Joe and Dulcie said impatiently. “Did she describe them?” Joe asked.

  “One tall and thin, the other stronger looking, both with dark clothes and stockings over their faces. Chief Harper was really mad when he got there—another invasion where they got away, and maybe mad because of the Gazette this morning, too, it was on a newsstand, all about the earlier invasions that aren’t even news anymore, smeared all over the front page that there’s never a cop when one happens and Harper’s not patrolling the village, that he’s letting
crooks and killers run loose while his officers sit around drinking coffee,” she hissed with anger. “Do they think he can have cops lined up on every street waiting for someone to ring a doorbell?”

  Dulcie and Joe were quiet. Kit’s mood this morning had swung from despondency at the cruelty in the world to flyaway rage—calming for only a moment, for a little snuggle with Benny. Now again she was as volatile as a caged bobcat. “And there was something else, there was a fish smell around Becky’s front door, old dead fish, I followed it to the curb and then it was gone, I guess they got in a car, I could still smell a whiff of exhaust.”

  “Fish,” Joe said. “Fine. A dozen wharves up the coast where people fish, hundreds of people coming and going and half of them tourists.”

  “And our own little fishing dock,” Dulcie said. She was quiet, looking at them solemnly. “And there’s something else, too. Cora Lee called Wilma early this morning. Jack Reed’s in the county hospital in Salinas, they took him from the prison by helicopter. He was stabbed, and he’s critical. It isn’t fair. Why Jack Reed?” Lori Reed was the cats’ friend, she always had time to stop and pet them and find a little snack for them. Though she didn’t know they could speak, she talked to them as if they could understand her. It was Dulcie who had found Lori hiding in the library when she ran away from home that one time, when she was just a little girl.

  “Jack Reed shouldn’t be in prison with those damned gangs,” Joe said.

  “It wasn’t a gang,” Dulcie said, licking her paw in consternation. “It was Vic Colletto, it was Maudie’s nephew.” Sometimes the problems of their human friends were nearly too much; sometimes she wondered if she’d rather not know about human troubles, would rather still be an ordinary housecat without a care beyond an elusive mouse or cadging another kitty treat.

  Except it really didn’t work that way. A nonspeaking cat knew when trouble hit, she could feel the distress of her humans, and could suffer even more because she didn’t understand the cause. A nonspeaking cat felt the pain but had no clue as to what had caused it, or how she might help to ease the trouble. No, Dulcie thought, it was better to understand all she could, no matter how terrible. In her little cat heart, she wouldn’t want to return to that simpler life. She was lost in her distress for Lori when Joe rose suddenly, his ears laid back, staring away through the tops of the oaks, a growl low in his throat.

  High in an oak tree not twenty feet from them, a cat crouched staring down at them, the big yellow tomcat that had been shadowing them. Though he was half hidden among the foliage, they could make out his wide head, broad shoulders, his coat as bright as butter. Boldly, his yellow eyes watched them.

  Still growling, Joe was crouched for attack when Kit started toward the cat, her tortoiseshell fur puffed up, but her whiskers curved into a little smile. Her yellow eyes burning with curiosity, she approached the tomcat with her nose out inquisitively, her little dish face showing only fascination. Quickly Joe moved beside her, walking stiffly, ready to fight—but this was no ordinary cat, not the way he was looking at them, not with that wise and knowing expression.

  There were no speaking cats like themselves in the village. Only on the empty hills was there a small band, descendants of three pairs brought over from Wales generations ago. That clowder lived now among the ruins of an old mansion, but they knew those cats. There was no big yellow tom among them, this cat was a newcomer. But from where? Even as they approached, Joe still in attack mode, the cat backed deeper among the leaves as if to leap away. The three paused. Joe was about to speak, to challenge him to come down and make himself known, when the cat vanished. He was there one second and then gone among the branches. The leaves shivered where he’d passed, the spaces between the twisting branches revealing empty sky.

  They waited, but the yellow tomcat didn’t reappear. Kit peered silently up through the treetops, her paw lifted, her ears up, her fluffy tail very still. When at last they turned away, the little birds above them began to chirp again among the canopy of leaves and to flit about, lively and busy once more, now that the stranger had departed—though they kept a wary eye on the three cats who remained prowling the rooftop. Somewhere a door slammed; then once more the only sound was the hush of the sea, and the off-key chirping of the house finches. Kit looked at Dulcie, her eyes wide with interest. A speaking cat, another like themselves. Why was he so shy, why did he melt away, unwilling to speak to them?

  They hadn’t seen him clearly, hidden among the oak leaves, except his golden eyes. Hadn’t caught his scent over the dry smell of the oak itself. They had glimpsed the breadth of his shoulders, but couldn’t tell his age, could see for sure only that those knowing golden eyes belonged to no common house cat. And when Dulcie and Joe looked at Kit, they knew they hadn’t seen the last of the yellow cat.

  “Come on,” Dulcie said uneasily, hoping Kit wouldn’t race away, following him. “It’s nearly noon, maybe Lori and Cora Lee are back from the hospital, maybe they have some news about her pa.” Until they knew who this cat was, Dulcie hoped she could distract the tortoiseshell. They never knew where Kit’s wild impulses and giddy enthusiasms would take her, but usually it was straight into trouble.

  14

  THE THREE CATS arrived at the seniors’ house panting from their long run up the rising rooftops to the north side of the village. “They’re home from the hospital,” Dulcie said, seeing Cora Lee’s car in the drive. They found the tires still warm, the hood warm when they leaped onto it, approaching the roof beneath Lori’s window.

  The rambling two-story house had once been a decrepit relic, curling shingles, peeling paint, and a garden full of healthy weeds. Cora Lee and her three senior friends had attacked the neglected house with hammer and nails, new Sheetrock, fresh paint, with the help of Ryan and several handymen. They had built low walls to define new planter beds, where now winter flowers painted an excess of bright colors between the pale stonework. The ladies hadn’t known when they moved in that at the back of the deep lot, where it fell away to the canyon below, lay a row of little, hidden graves. Graves undiscovered for years until Jack Reed found his brother standing over an open pit, prepared to bury another murdered child.

  It had taken courage for Lori to move here when Jack went to prison. Now she would live nowhere else—until her pa came home. Now the four ladies were her family. She knew the dead children had been exhumed from their anonymous resting places, each sent home for a proper burial, and Lori was okay with that; she could look out at the canyon now and think only that at last those little souls were at rest.

  At the back of the house, where the lot sloped down, two small basement apartments looked out to the wild canyon. These were an important part of the senior ladies’ retirement plan. Having pooled their savings to buy the old place, they intended to avoid going into rest homes in their declining years. They would remain here together, and later hire live-in help who would stay in the apartments. Trustees would then see to the management. At present they were all four too healthy and strong to need a caretaker, and their only guest was Lori, who shared the upstairs with Cora Lee in a big, sunny room of her own. The cats were crouched to leap to the roof of the garage just outside her window when they heard a choked little sob, and another, from the room above them.

  “Oh,” Kit whispered, tucking her tail under with dismay. What had happened? Listening to Lori weeping, not wanting to think the worst, she scrambled to the roof, the others behind her, and looked in through the decorative metal grille of the open window.

  Lori lay on her bed, her face pressed into her pillow, crying as if her heart would break.

  With a reaching paw Dulcie slid the screen open and the cats slipped between the curlicues of metal into the bedroom. Both Dulcie and Kit mewled to announce their presence, but not until Joe gave out a loud tomcat meowwrrr did Lori stop crying and look up at them. At once, Kit bounded across the covers and poked her nose at the child’s wet cheek. Lori’s shudders stopped. She took Kit in her arms, pressing
her face against her, then reached to stroke Dulcie and Joe Grey. “How did you know I needed someone?” She looked at the open window. “You heard me crying? Cora Lee was here and the dogs, but I sent them away. I wanted to be alone, and then I was sorry.” She looked bleakly at the cats. “I wish you could understand. Pa’s hurt so bad. He might die,” she said in a small voice. “I wish you could understand, I wish I could tell you about Pa, I wish you could talk to me.”

  She wiped at her tears. “What will I do if Pa dies? He can’t die. He was so still, so white and still, and his voice was just a whisper.” She looked forlornly at Kit. “He mustn’t die, he can’t die alone in that hospital with no one there but some guard, he can’t die all alone. That damn prison! Why is he in prison!” she said, echoing almost exactly the cats’ own thoughts. “He didn’t do anything wrong; maybe he saved a lot of children’s lives! He saved my life. If that Fenner had got me alone, I’d be dead too, just like the others.” She shoved her face into Kit’s fur, her body shaking with hard sobs. It was as if only now, after she had seen her father near death, that all her grief was coming out after nearly two years with her pa in jail, and the years before that when she hadn’t understood what was happening to him. She wept uncontrollably, soaking Kit with tears. She grew still when Mavity Flowers called from downstairs, her gravelly voice reaching Lori with surprising strength.

  “Lori, you want lunch?” The little woman must be standing at the foot of the stairs, but very likely she hadn’t heard Lori crying, her hearing wasn’t that good. Mavity Flowers, one of the four senior ladies, was a small, straightforward woman, her round face prematurely wrinkled from the sun. At well over sixty, she still worked for her living cleaning houses, enjoying a change of pace as she put herself to sleep at night reading her favorite romance novels.