by Jayne Denker
The first thing that made him tense up was the complaint came from Bedelia. Will knew all her neighbors, and only one came to mind that would inspire her to call the cops. Suspected drug use next door? He was pretty sure it wasn’t her hundred-year-old, churchgoing neighbor to the south. Nope, it had to be the house on the other side. Jordan. And he was the only cop on duty to check it out. Fantastic.
When he pulled up and parked at the curb, Bedelia was on her front porch, pacing excitedly. Well, sure. Holly hadn’t been the dullest of neighbors by a long shot, but aside from the time two months ago when the paparazzi had camped out on the street, trying to get a shot of Celia because of her relationship with her celebrity boyfriend, there hadn’t been a disturbance there for years.
Until now. Go, Jordan. Way to make Holly proud . . . and screw up your sentence. If she was using, she’d be hauled off to a real prison instead of being allowed to lounge around her grandmother’s house for three more weeks.
Bedelia pointed over at the house, as if he couldn’t figure that out for himself. Will sighed, nodded, and gestured for her to stay put—because she was halfway down her porch steps before he could blink—getting more irate with Jordan’s stupidity with every step. By the time he got to the front door, he was pissed enough to yank open the screen and knock on the front door a little too forcefully.
Nothing. He knocked again. “Jordan? Are you in there?” he called. “It’s Wi—Officer Nash.” Damn, he didn’t know what to call himself around her now. “There’s been a complaint. Open up.”
“Get lost,” came the muffled answer.
“I can’t. I have to investigate the problem. Do we have a problem, Jordan?”
“You can’t come in.”
“Yeah, yeah, you know I need a warrant. Let’s put it this way: I can’t, but your probation officer can. So I can either call him right now, and he can make the hour-and-a-half drive and get here all pissed off and ready to haul you back to Sullivan County, or I can interrupt the judge’s Moose Lodge barbecue so he can issue a warrant. Trust me, you don’t want to have Uncle Dave’s attention—especially after you got him dragged away from a pulled-pork dinner. So what’s it going to be? One of them, or me?”
The door opened sooner than he expected. “I’ve got nothing to hide . . . Officer.”
Jordan used to have a playful smirk when she called him that; now she was just using his title as a weapon. No obscure names starting with W either, he noted. Yep, he’d really screwed up the other night. But it didn’t matter at the moment. Right now, he had to be all business.
“Fine. Then let me come in and check everything out.” He paused, sniffed the air, and his heart sank. “Oh, come on! I can smell the pot from here!”
“It’s not pot!”
“Do not tell me it’s freaking oregano. I’m not stupid.”
“I swear, it’s not!” Jordan looked past him, over his shoulder, fidgeting nervously. He turned around to find Bedelia creeping up on them; she was already in the Leigh driveway. “Okay, get in here and I’ll show you,” she whispered. “Close the door.”
A film hung in the air, and the smell was even stronger in the living room. “Jordan,” he began, sighing wearily.
“I said it’s not pot. It’s sage.”
“It’s what?”
“Saaage-uh,” she drew out, as though he were a moron. “Garden variety herb, used for cooking? And also smudging.”
“For . . . what, now?”
“Smudging. You know—clearing bad energies? This is a sage bundle.” Jordan held up a bunch of gray-green leaves bound with crisscrossed colored string. The blackened end of the bundle was smoldering slightly. She held a saucer under it to catch any embers that fell. “Smell.” He leaned forward. It did indeed smell like marijuana. He wasn’t sure if he was irritated or relieved. “Hold still. I’ll smudge you too. You need it.”
He jumped back. “What are you talking about?”
“You can smudge people and places. Anything, really. I’ve done the house, bottom to top—each window, each door, each corner. Before that, I did me. Now I can do you.”
“No thanks!”
“All I’m going to do is wave this over you so the smoke—”
“I said no. Now, how did Bede—er, the complainant smell this?”
“Probably when I saged the perimeter of the property. Protects it from unwanted intruders . . . if you do it right. Guess I’ve gotta improve my technique; it let you through, after all.”
Ignoring her baiting, he ventured, “So you, uh, you’re into this kind of . . . thing?”
“I dabble. I’ve got some friends who’ve shown me a thing or two.”
“Huh.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He hastened to appease her as she bristled again. “Nothing. It just doesn’t seem . . . You’re sort of . . .”
“What?”
“Cynical?”
“I prefer ‘practical.’ But that doesn’t mean I can’t believe in—”
“Airy-fairy woo?”
“Treading on my freedom to believe, there, Officer. Plus you’re getting sorta judgy. Whatever you want to think, it’s not illegal.”
“Mind if I take a look around anyway?”
She sighed, irritated. “What, because I might be masking the smell of pot with a similar smell of sage? That’d be genius.”
“Just want to make sure there’s nothing else I need to know about.”
“I’m not hiding anything. Totally aboveboard here.”
“Okay. So . . . yes?”
“Knock yourself out.”
Will hooked his fingers in his belt, absently turned down his radio that burbled too loudly in this enclosed space, and wandered from the living room to the dining room, then to the kitchen and back again. “Jordan . . .”
“What?” Still irritated.
“The house.”
“What about it?”
“It’s spotless.”
“Is that a crime in this town?”
“It’s just . . . surprising. You being you and all.”
She crossed her arms and glared. “Now I’m . . . what? Filthy? Uncivilized?”
Dammit. He was not handling this well at all. First he was surprised at the revelation that there might be more to her than her former juvenile delinquent, party-girl image (never mind that she encouraged that impression), and it turned out to be something spiritual. Offbeat spiritual, but spiritual nonetheless. Now he was assuming her housekeeping skills would be subpar just because she had a relaxed attitude about, well, everything else in her life. He was expecting her to act like a careless, spoiled teenager—the impression the entire town had of her. He hadn’t realized he was buying into it until just now.
“Mind if I go upstairs?”
“Okay. But don’t get any ideas.”
He smirked at the only sexual allusion she’d made since he’d last seen her and climbed the stairs, Jordan several steps behind him. On the second floor it was the same, just without any smoke hanging in the air: neat bedrooms, a spotless bathroom without even a toothpaste splatter in the sink.
“Happy now?” Jordan demanded from the landing, hands on hips.
“Just had to make sure—” Then he jumped a mile as something brushed against his leg. He looked down to find a fat black-and-white cat winding itself around his calves in a figure eight. He remembered she’d had a cat on her lap Saturday night. What had she said that night—they were “keeping each other company”?
“Friend of yours?”
She shrugged. He frowned. This wasn’t the same cat that had curled up with them on the porch. Then another, this one gray, with long hair and a fluffy tail, appeared in the bedroom doorway behind her. He hadn’t noticed it when he’d stuck his head in the room a few minutes ago—who knew where it had been hiding—but he had seen a lump under the bedclothes. He went back into the bedroom and pulled back the covers, revealing an orange tabby curled up in a tight ball. It stretched
and yawned widely, showing off its tiny sharp teeth, rough tongue, and the ridges on the roof of its pink mouth. This was the one he remembered from the other night. But the others . . .
“Jordan?”
“What?”
“Where’d you get all the cats?”
She shrugged again. “Around. I started feeding Fred . . .” When he raised an eyebrow, she explained, “The orange one. That’s what I named him. I gave him tuna, and I guess the other cats smelled it. Pretty soon he had friends at the dish in the yard. So I put out another dish.”
“And now you have three cats.”
“Um, five. The other two are around here somewhere . . .”
“Jordan!” he burst out, aggravated.
“What!” she snapped, just as irritated.
“These cats belong to your neighbors! You can’t just . . . take them.”
“I didn’t take them! They came around looking hungry, I fed them. I opened the door to the house, they walked in.”
“They’re not strays! People are looking for them!”
“Well, how was I supposed to know they weren’t strays! None of them had a collar or anything!”
Will raked rigid fingers through his hair. “You. Do not live. In a vacuum. There’s a whole world at the end of your driveway. You have neighbors, who have lives. And cats. Things—and cats—do not just appear in your life for the taking!”
Jordan just stared at him. After a moment she muttered, “I have no idea what you’re talking about right now, you know that?”
He knew. He knew he was sounding crazy and was venting his frustration at the strangest things. But he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
“The cats have to go.”
“Fine!” she snapped as he pushed past her, out of the bedroom, and started down the stairs. “Sorry I was trying to help some poor defenseless animals! I won’t do it again!”
His steps slowed as he reached the foyer. She was just trying to help. She’d taken in five cats, fed them and given them shelter, because they looked hungry and she thought they didn’t have homes. It was an honest mistake, and if he’d been in a better mood, he’d have been able to appreciate her compassion and generosity. Maybe later. Right now, he was just annoyed.
Plus he needed some fresh air. The sage stank. He strode outside, pulling out his cell phone to call Marisol. She’d know all the people who were looking for their cats by now. Jordan followed him out, and he said, “Get all the cats. I have to take them back to their owners.”
Jordan nodded coldly and went back inside. As he looked up Marisol’s number, he turned around to find Bedelia still standing in the yard, waiting for the outcome of the drug raid. Will felt a headache creeping up the back of his skull.
“Everything’s fine, Bedelia.”
“With that smell?”
“Everything’s fine,” he repeated. “Nothing out of the ordinary going on.” Well . . . nothing illegal. Not this time, anyway.
“You’re over here an awful lot for nothing going on.”
“Well, then, stop calling me out here!” He meant it as a joke, but Bedelia just scowled and played with the ends of her long, gray hair that strayed over the shoulder of her denim jumper. “Sorry. Look, you were right to call if you thought something was going on. Better to be safe than sorry and all that.”
“She is a criminal, after all.”
“Jordan’s no threat to you or anyone else. If you’d talk to her, you’d see that.”
“I can’t help but worry, especially when I see you over here all hours of the day and night.”
Will swallowed thickly. Was Bedelia implying she’d seen him on Jordan’s porch in the middle of the night? Well, what if she had? They’d just been sitting there. Nothing illegal about that either. But the headache that had been threatening started to bloom as he pictured Bedelia spreading stories around town, telling everyone something was going on between him and Jordan, even though nothing had happened. Whatever had gone on in his head the other night was his own business as long as it stayed put and didn’t creep out at the worst times. Like, apparently, three o’clock in the morning, when Bedelia suffered from a bout of insomnia and looked out the window at her neighbor’s house.
He decided to appeal to her softer side—the one he knew she had, because she’d always treated him kindly, even special, for some reason. She was always talking to him about her weaving, joking with him about her participation in the guerrilla yarn-bombing events around town (to which the entire police force turned a blind eye, as it was harmless fun for a bunch of older ladies), sharing news about her family.
“Bedelia, why don’t you be the bigger person here? Reach out to Jordan. She’s pretty much alone . . . here . . .”
And then it hit him. Jordan was alone—far too much. What if she was just lonely? It would explain the cats—and a lot of other things. The occasional sympathy he felt for her returned with a vengeance. Not that he’d be able to show it around her. If he did that, he risked complete rejection, and she’d never let him near her ever again. He wanted to help her; now he knew how. He just had to tread carefully, so he didn’t risk alienating her permanently.
Bedelia sighed. “You’re a good boy, Will. And I’d rather have you keeping tabs on the neighborhood more than any other officer we’ve got.”
“All our officers are good.”
“But you’re the best.”
Will heard a snicker from behind him. Damn, Jordan sure made it hard to feel sympathy for her, no matter what was going on inside her protective shell.
“Thank you,” he said to Bedelia, and he was grateful when she nodded and went back to her own house, even though she gave Jordan a bit of the stink eye before she did.
“What happens now?”
He turned to find Jordan at the top of the porch steps. She had Fred in her arms and was scritching him under the chin. The other cats wandered around at her feet. Slowly he made his way back over to her.
“I’m going to call Marisol and find out who these cats belong to, then I’m going to return them.”
“Without carriers? Cats aren’t big fans of car rides, you know. I’d think twice about throwing them in your police car and driving around with them bouncing around in the back, if I were you.”
With images of claw marks—and worse—marring his upholstery, Will nixed the idea. Zoë would give him hell if he had to have the seats repaired. “What about if you just, you know, let them out of the house? Wouldn’t they go to their own homes eventually?”
“I dunno. I mean, look.” She gestured around her; none of the cats had even left the porch. “They like me.” She leaned forward, a little conspiratorially. “I know how to make friends with animals, at least.”
He nodded. “Okay. Their owners can come here and get them. How does that sound?”
Jordan narrowed her eyes at him and pushed her nose into Fred’s fur behind his left ear. It must have tickled him, because the cat sneezed and flapped his head from side to side. She was just as skittish as the animals she wanted to take care of.
“Trust me.” He smiled—reassuringly, he hoped. “It won’t hurt a bit.”
With one call to Marisol for the rest of the owners’ identities, Will was able to invite the D’Annunzios; Andy Z; Robin, the kindergarten aide; and Abby, the vintage movie theater owner, to come get their cats . . . and chat a bit with Jordan. They were all on their best behavior—possibly because he was refereeing—if a little chilly and awkward. One step at a time, he thought. This was a long game. No instant results.
An hour later, only Fred remained. Nobody seemed to know who owned him. Then Robin, who was the last to arrive to collect her gray angora, Knuckles, had some information: A family who had spent a short time in the rental property next to hers owned a cat who looked remarkably like Fred, but they’d moved to Binghamton weeks ago. If this was their cat, they’d left him behind.
“Make some posters, put something on Craigslist,” he told Jordan. “Give someone a
chance to claim him. But if nobody does . . .”
“I can keep him?”
“Yes,” he sighed, smiling at her smile, half hidden behind the cat. She held Fred up under his armpits so he stretched out to nearly twice his usual length, hanging there with a slightly disgusted look on his face. “You two can ‘keep each other company,’ like you said the other night. Then maybe you’ll both stay out of trouble.”
“Doubt it.”
“Try, okay?”
Chapter 9
“Good morning.”
“This is getting to be a habit, Wolcott.”
“Wolcott? Well, now you’re just reaching.”
“It’s a legitimate name.”
“In what alternate universe?”
“Mind telling me why you’re here, Wyatt?”
“Better.”
Jordan allowed herself a brief smile, only because she couldn’t keep it off her lips. She couldn’t explain it, but she felt a whole lot lighter now that she and Will were back to normal. She’d never tell him, but she’d gone online the night before, after he and the neighbors had left, to look up more names beginning with W. She had an entire arsenal at the ready now, and she was prepared to use it. She hadn’t expected to have to dip into it so soon, though.
“So? Let’s have that reason why you’re back on my property within twenty-four hours of your last visit.”
“I have to have a reason?”
“Yes.”
“I’m here to help you with your ‘found: cat’ signs.”
“I don’t have anything to make them with.”
“I know.” And he whipped a pile of rolled-up papers from the back pocket of his jeans. “So I did them for you.”
“Aren’t you prepared.”
“Let’s go put them up around the neighborhood.”
“All right, all right,” she grumbled, turning away quickly to hide another, brighter smile. “You do realize this is the twenty-first century, and we can take care of all this with Facebook and Craigslist.”
“Already done.”