With the two thus occupied jotting down numbers she ducked her head, tucked her tail under her belly, and crept behind their backs through the workroom like a pale ghost; there she eased among some packing boxes into a draft of cold air coming from the open door—but just as she started to dart out, a small noise from above, a creak in the upstairs floor, made Thelma glance around the storeroom then look up at the top of the stairs. But that door was shut tight. Maybe Fay had gotten up for a moment.
“No worries,” Ulrich said. “It’s just the cat.” He laughed. “It can’t get out, no cat would think to turn a doorknob, not when she couldn’t even jump through a hoop last night.” Then in low voices, they began arguing.
In that instant the dust rag flew behind the two of them like a gray ghost and Courtney was gone into the alley. The two thieves were after her as she headed for the street, racing through the shadows into the bushes, losing her dusty cloth on thorns and tangles, panting at the sound of their pounding footsteps. She didn’t hear Joe Grey bolting over the rooftops, she didn’t hear Pan leap from his cold nest against the apartment wall and race to join him, she only ran.
22
Shortly before Courtney fought the apartment door open and followed Ulrich down the stairs and across the shop to the storeroom, across the village Joe Grey leaped from his tower racing after Thelma’s car. A cold flash of fear had awakened him, almost a vision—though he’d never believed in visions. He had imagined bloody pawprints going down the Seavers’ stairs, more bloody prints leading behind the fancy furniture, then a gray rag draped over Courtney. What the hell was the matter with him, what was he seeing? Back there in the tower, had he had some crazy premonition? The scene was still with him as he raced across the wet shingles and peaks following Thelma, he was so uneasy he could feel his belly churn. He’d heard enough of Thelma’s “. . . I won’t need the safe number,” Varney’s indecipherable mumble then Thelma’s “I already called . . .”
Now, not seeing Thelma’s car parked before the antiques shop he galloped along the front and side looking in through the big display windows. He didn’t see Courtney. When he climbed to the roof and padded along the edge peering into the second-floor apartment, into the bedroom and living room, he didn’t find her. Fay was sound asleep. He crossed the roof and looked down, and there was Thelma’s car backed into the alley; leaning down right over it, he could feel the engine still breathing warm air. Why had she backed in? Lying flat on his belly just above the outer door to the storeroom, his head cocked over the edge, he saw that the alley door was open—and the inner door open wider. Had Ulrich shut Courtney upstairs knowing she couldn’t get out, that she wouldn’t know how to turn the knob?
Right. His vision, that impossible dream-picture that only Kit might have seen, had shown him bloody pawprints on the knob and on the stairs. Well, she’s sure as hell out now, he thought, smiling. At least she’s out of the apartment.
He heard Thelma Luther’s voice from the workroom beneath him, and then Ulrich; sounded like they were counting money. He could just see the door to the safe standing open. “Nine hundred and eighty-two,” she said. “That’s a total.” Then the faint sound of clicking, like an adding machine. “Five thousand, ninety-six. Next column?” It was then that he saw the faintest movement among the shadows behind the two figures.
Leaning so far over the gutter he had to claw hard not to fall, he prayed that was Courtney, that she was positioning herself for escape. Even from the roof he caught a whiff of her, faint but fresh. Was she waiting for a chance to bolt into the alley and be gone?
Maybe he should climb down the ivy vine to the alley and make a great yowling and scuffling like a giant cat fight, bring the two crooks racing out to see what was going on, and Courtney could dart away behind them?
Would that work, or would it only screw up her own plan? He almost jumped out of his skin when Pan, making no sound, appeared out of nowhere pushing against him. The yellow tom must have dozed on his watch at the window where he was supposed to be alert. Had he seen or heard any of what went on? Pan eased down beside Joe. It had started to rain again, a shower of small, sharp needles. Below them, Thelma and Ulrich were arguing, Thelma’s voice coldly angry. “Nevin was stupid to do that! Stupid and just asking for prison—and putting me in a hell of a fix.” The outside door opened wider, the tomcats ducked back, and Thelma hurried out, angrily pulling on her jacket against the blowing shower . . .
In that instant, the dust rag flew out the door behind her and Courtney fled for the alley, followed by her bloody pawprints, a streak vanishing in the rain, Ulrich and Thelma after her at a dead run. Ulrich grabbed at her, missed her, grabbed again and caught her tail. She swung around slashing him, she raked down his arm and leaped into the ivy vine; she was halfway up when Ulrich jumped, reaching for her—and Joe and Pan exploded onto him from the roof so hard they knocked him to the asphalt; the tomcats were all over him scratching his head and shoulders, he tried to get up and they knocked him hard against the alley wall—while Courtney flew to the top of Thelma’s car and from there to the stone pine that crept up the neighboring building.
She leaped from the pine to the next-door roof and ran, she vanished among the peaks that rose around her. Ulrich ran along the alley looking up where Courtney had disappeared. From the shadows the calico heard Ulrich swearing, calling her names she had never heard before. She knew that if she moved again, they would hear her running on the wet gravel. Ulrich paused frequently, listening for the sound of scrabbling paws or the occasional flip of tiny pebbles. Courtney crept along as quiet as a frightened rabbit until her footfalls grew silent on the wet wood shingles of the steeper roofs.
When they couldn’t hear her anymore, Thelma returned for her car; but even circling the block peering up at the rooftops, circling the next block and the next, she could see nothing, no distant flash of bright calico, no flying streak of color. Neither Thelma nor Ulrich glimpsed the racing tomcats following Courtney at a distance, hidden in shadows or around corners so as not to lead her pursuers to her. It had stopped raining but the air was heavy and damp.
Just once did the tomcats catch up with Courtney, deep between two peaks. “The PD,” Joe whispered, “they won’t come there.” Courtney gave him a bright and devilish look. As if this were a game, and not a race for her life. Swerving into the shelter of a stone chimney, she spun backward when she saw Ulrich straight ahead. He was racing up the stairway between two apartments. Courtney leaped to the adjoining roof, vanished beneath a steep overhang, bellying down beneath a heap of rotting leaves.
There she crouched shivering—until Ulrich saw her. He came right at her, reaching. She flew out past him scattering leaves, she was gone between chimneys and ledges, her heart thundering so loud she couldn’t hear her own footfalls. She leaped to a steep dormer where Ulrich had to scramble to get up. She could sense Joe and Pan behind them, she knew they were gaining; she thought they’d jump him again. Ulrich Seaver, so kind and sweet-talking—plunging after her now with rage enough to kill her.
Thelma’s car was still cruising the streets, maybe she was afraid, in the dark and wet, to climb to the roofs. Ahead, across the street, was the courthouse and its big parking area, she was near the north end where its tower rose up. Police cars were parked at the other end, in front of the station, and more black-and-whites were lined up in the back. Oh, Courtney ran for the PD, her breath nearly gone. She dove into a giant pine that spanned the street to the court building, and crossed the heavy branches onto the courthouse roof. As she looked ahead to the police station, she heard Joe and Pan scramble across and they were beside her. She heard Ulrich behind them crawling clumsily across the biggest limb, and the three cats flew up the tower’s steps, six feet, ten feet, Ulrich close behind them. He was up the stairs reaching for Courtney when she clawed his hand and leaped away. She flew straight down to the courthouse roof again, the tomcats guarding her, rearing up snarling at Ulrich, their claws flashing until Ulrich drew back, he
’d had enough of cat scratches.
Nor did he like being this close to the station and the cops. He started down the stairs scanning the roofs and streets, but the cats had vanished. Thelma’s car had drawn up below him. He swung down the last steps and into the front seat. “Get out of here, they’re gone. Where the hell did they go?” He touched a contact on his phone. “Send the men up by the courthouse. Damn cat is out, running across the roofs. See if you can catch it. Search the whole damn town until you find it.”
Thelma said, “When Fay wakes, when she gets up to get ready for work, when she can’t find the cat, what will you tell her? And what will she say when she sees the safe and the back door open?”
“Oh, the damn safe.”
She glanced at him and put her foot to the pedal, more anxious about the money than the cat. If that money was gone, nearly a fourth of it belonging to her, she swore she’d kill Ulrich.
They skidded into the alley, found the door and safe open as they’d left them. That was a load of luck. Making sure the money was all there, and that the way the envelopes were arranged was the same, they locked up and took off again. They didn’t see small, wizened Officer Bean standing deep in the shadows of the workroom among crates and stored furniture, a camera in his hand.
Bean had shot the envelopes in the safe without moving anything. He had slipped out one envelope, opened it, and photographed and fingerprinted the money, but so carefully that Ulrich would never know. When he heard no one coming, he had been able to fingerprint several envelopes and their contents without leaving a trace of his own prints. And Bean, with what amounted to a criminal’s degree in safecracking, now had the combination to the safe. He prowled the office as well, took some additional pictures, let himself out, pocketed the key that had hung on the inside of the open door, and he was gone into the night.
As Thelma and Ulrich left the antiques store, headed back for the courthouse, three of DeWayne’s men appeared behind them in a small gray Audi. The two cars parked behind the courthouse on a narrow side street. The men climbed out, pulled a ladder from a rack on top of the Audi, and they hit the roofs. Seaver had pulled on a cap from among the junk on Thelma’s backseat and had wrapped a scarf around his neck. He looked as much like his companions as DeWayne did, where he watched, wrapped in darkness.
23
The courthouse roof didn’t thunder under their paws like the gravel had; they fled along the sloping far side, out of sight of Thelma and, hopefully, of the men racing the roofs behind them. But when the cats dropped down to the lower roof of MPPD, praying the window of the holding cell was open, their pursuers saw them and saw the barred window and they fled, evading the nearby cops. Bailing over the side of the building, swinging down clutching the window moldings and dropping to the sidewalk, they piled into the two cars and were gone. The cats crouched in the shadows smiling, watching them race away.
The high window was wide open to dispel the ripe scent of the holding cell, of the occasional drunken detainee—but tonight, when they looked in, the cell was empty. Though if the rain increased, some homeless people might come in trying to haggle for a bed. Quickly the cats slipped through the small window between the bars, dropped down six feet onto the thin mattress of the narrow bunk and dove under, Courtney pale with fear, her pink nose and ears nearly white.
Even before they could huddle together in the darkest corner, so the young officer at the desk might not see them, a squad car pulled up in the red zone. Peering out, they could see Max Harper at the wheel looking in through the bulletproof glass doors and through the cell bars straight at them, straight into the shadows beneath the cot. Had he seen them racing across the roof, had he seen the men chasing them?
Max sat a minute, frowning. Well, hell, there was the lost calico everyone had made such a fuss over, and Joe Grey and Pan were with her. All three cats were scared as hell! The calico was trembling, the look on her face one of icy fear. Joe Grey and the orange tomcat looked nearly as frightened.
He’d seen those guys chasing them across the roofs, seen the four figures get in their cars and take off. One could be a woman, it was hard to tell, the way the person was dressed. Thelma Luther? He recognized Ulrich Seaver, but he didn’t get a good look at the other two sleazebags; both looked like limo drivers for DeWayne Luther. Why would they be interested in a lost cat? And other men had run, into the night. Max could have followed any of them; but he knew Thelma’s car. Was that Thelma, bundled up like a man? His thoughts about following them were mixed.
For days, everything had been crazy. Everything that happened seemed to rotate around cats. Posters all over the village and in nearly every shop. His friends and all the folks from CatRescue combing the neighborhood searching for the calico, for Joe Grey’s grown kitten. While all that time, a few people knew very well where she was, and had said nothing. Not even Charlie, and he trusted her with his life. Ryan and Clyde, Wilma and the Greenlaws had been just as secretive, not a word. Those five, and Kate Osborne and Scott Flannery. He knew and loved them all, he trusted them all, but they too often made him wonder.
Whatever, it looked like the calico herself had finally made the decision. Max guessed that when she did escape, Seaver had seen her and given chase. He must have called DeWayne’s drivers to help him—his fellow thieves. But he couldn’t call DeWayne himself, he was long gone, by the reports they were getting from across the country. Those departments would keep looking until they had DeWayne locked up. He was wanted locally for assault and attempted murder, they had three more warrants for murder out of state, more than a dozen warrants for big-time robbery, to say nothing of the out-of-the-country extradition papers for his return.
Before Max left the squad car he called the desk, sent three officers to work the streets for the men who had run. There was more to this than just a cat. He didn’t know what they’d arrest them for . . . Making a disturbance . . . Trespassing on the roofs? They’d think of something. He told the young clerk to put the coffee on for roll call. “And lay out the doughnuts Kathleen brought in last night.” That got the young man out of the front office for a few minutes. When he was gone, Max stepped from the squad car, stood at its open back door rearranging something inside. He returned with a small and ancient suitcase the cats knew well. It was the shape of a two-centuries-old carpetbag, soft leather, a solid bottom, a clasp and two handles together at the top. Joe Grey imagined him emptying the bag in the car, pulling out his neatly folded uniform, his regulation cap and black shoes, and setting them on the seat. These were the spares he carried in case he had to go to court or see the judge or the mayor unexpectedly. For serious occasions, Max didn’t often wear jeans and a western shirt as he was wearing now. Before he left the car he made one more call. Then, moving in through the glass doors, he knelt before the holding-cell bars adjusting his boot, his back to the desk, hiding the cats, looking down at the fear on their faces—but not fear of Max.
Joe Grey had no reason to fear the chief, the tomcat slept all over Max’s reports, he practically lived at the station—despite Harper’s crankiness when he couldn’t find a document, Joe and Max were pals. The thought did cross Max’s mind that Joe Grey himself might somehow have found and released the young calico, but that idea was beyond bizarre, cats weren’t that clever or that handy; and the tall, tanned chief didn’t like fantasies muddling his reason. Courtney looked up at him, frightened and pleading. The chase, those men pounding across the roofs grabbing for her, had left her rigid with fear.
Courtney was indeed shaking so badly her stomach felt sick. She wanted to curl up in the darkest corner and vanish. Watching Max, she didn’t know what he’d do. When she looked at Joe and Pan, both tomcats looked unwell, themselves; too much running, too much fear—and Max had never caught them being chased into the station, hiding from crooks in the station. This would not look good for the department, men chasing cats all over the rooftops and then the chief finding them hiding in the holding cell. Max knelt by the bars, looking in
at them, looking as distressed as she’d ever seen him.
A hurt or frightened animal got to Max, where a defiant felon only made him mad. He glanced toward the desk but the clerk was still in the conference room. He opened the bag he had emptied. “Inside, Joe. Quick.” Reaching through the bars he pulled Joe unceremoniously into the bag, picked up Courtney more gently and settled her beside him. “Pan, get in here.”
Within seconds the cats were being carried down the hall, peering out the thin crack that Max had left in the nearly closed suitcase. Past the conference room where Jerry was laying out paper plates and they could smell the coffee start to brew. Past the closed doors of the other offices and out the back door beside the jail. Crossing the police parking lot, Max swung into a decrepit old Ford, one of the shabby cars the department kept for when officers didn’t want to be spotted. Pulling into the street, he turned left. Then a right, and two more rights into a shadowed space tucked between two condos.
Joe couldn’t see much from the bag, but they had to be behind Juana’s condo where, upstairs, Maurita was hidden. What was this, a group shelter? Max carried them up the back steps, and knocked softly. Juana let them in at once, shut the door behind them and opened the bag. Reaching in, she stroked the three huddled felines, seeking to calm them. The dark-haired Latina cop looked nearly as square in her pale blue sweats as she did in uniform. Seeing the distress in Courtney’s eyes, she took the calico in her arms. Courtney purred and rubbed against her—but when she saw Buffin snuggled on the couch in Maurita’s lap, she was so glad to see her brother she leaped straight for him, burrowing on the blanket between them, smearing blood across them from her injured paw. Maurita, in her scrubs and a robe, ignored the blood and snuggled Courtney close.
Cat Chase the Moon Page 16