Cat Breaking Free

34

The chill February morning was still dark. Max, having kissed Charlie good-bye as she worked at her computer, shrugged on his jacket and headed out to his truck. Over Charlie's protests, he'd been eating breakfast in the village all week so she could work. For two weeks she'd been out of bed by four, was showered and at the computer within twenty minutes, a cup of coffee by her side. She always brought a thermos of coffee into the bedroom for him to enjoy when he woke.

Heading across the stable yard to his truck, he glanced to the pasture where he had turned the three horses out, smiling at the way they tore at the fresh spring grass. Since Charlie started on the book, he had returned to his old routine of feeding the dogs and horses as he had done before they were married. In the last six months, Charlie had royally spoiled him.

The book she was working on pleased him very much; she knew animals, but this story was amazing. And it and the illustrations totally absorbed her. Turning onto the main road, he looked off across the pasture again where Bucky and Redwing had begun to play, chasing the two dogs.

Charlie's project had started out as a short, children's book, but was turning into a much longer and more complicated story, into a book for all ages; it reminded him of the horse and dog stories he'd read as a boy. He wouldn't have chosen cats to write about, but Charlie understood them amazingly well, her words rang so true that he had begun, himself, to understand the small felines better. As he reached the end of the drive he was surprised to glimpse a cat tearing across the pasture as if terrified, as if racing for its life. Stopping the truck, he tried to see what was chasing it, half expecting a coyote or bobcat. It must be a cat from one of the small ranches. Swinging the door open he stepped out thinking to turn the predator aside. Or, if it was a cougar, he'd run it off and go back to tell Charlie and to shut the horses and dogs in the barn.

But behind the fleeing cat, nothing else moved in the green grass; and suddenly the preoccupied cat saw him. It disappeared at once. It would be crouching low in the grass-yes, he could just make out its dark shape, deadly still; as if it was more afraid of him than of whatever chased it. He watched until he was certain nothing approached it, then headed on down to the village. Maybe the cat had, like the horses and the two pups on this chill morning, only been playing-running for pure joy in the cold, early dawn.

Parking near the Swiss Cafe he moved in across the patio to the back table to join Dallas and Juana Davis. Clyde was there this morning, too. Stopping to give the waiter his order, he sat down with his back to the wall; he reflexively glanced above him.

From within the thick jasmine vine Clyde's gray tomcat peered down at him, his yellow eyes returning his stare as bold as some skilled confidence man.

Clyde grinned. "He was hungry. I get tired of cooking for him."

Max looked at the cat, and looked at Clyde. "You order yet? I'm surprised the cat doesn't order for himself."

"He orders too much. Gets expensive."

Dallas laughed, then went silent while their orders were served. Max thought the cook must have seen him walk in the door; he nearly always ordered pancakes. He watched Clyde set a small plate up on the wall. Clyde said, "Slayter called Ryan again last night, wanted her to meet him again, was really pushy. She turned the speaker on so I could listen, told him she was busy. He said he desperately needed her help." Clyde grinned. "She told him to call 911." He glanced at the other tables, but the people around them were deep into their own conversations, a bunch of guys arguing about baseball, one couple so involved with each other they wouldn't have known if an earthquake hit the restaurant. "He told Ryan he's up here looking into a shooting in L.A., that he followed the suspect up here, that he's working as a private investigator."

Davis said, "Did he tell her what shooting?"

"Something that happened during a bank robbery. Said the case is still open."

"If he's legitimate," Davis said, "he'd have come to us, share information."

"She told him that. Slayter told her LAPD was accused of killing the guy. Unnecessary force during a bank holdup. Said there'd been an investigation and two officers had been suspended-that it was those officers who hired him to find out who did kill him."

"Who was the victim?" Max said. "Did Slayter mention a name?"

"A Frank something."

"Frank Cozzino," Dallas said.

Clyde nodded.

Davis spread marmalade on her toast. "Slayter wanted Ryan to pass him departmental information. Wanted her to pump us. Interesting."

"Sleazebag," Dallas said casually.

Clyde was silent, looking from one to another. Above him, Joe Grey belched. Everyone laughed. Clyde looked up at the tomcat, scowling. He couldn't mouth off to Joe-with sufficient prodding, who knew what the tomcat might do. Joe looked back at him, smug as cream.

Max said, "Frank Cozzino was a snitch for LAPD. He worked for several gangs, gathering intelligence for them on some high-powered burglaries. Then he started passing the information on to L.A. Looks like that got him dead.

"He and the DA managed the cases so smoothly that it was a long time before anyone caught on that he'd furnished the information. When one of the gangs made him on it, someone took him out and tried to make it look like the uniforms did it. Of course L.A. got the blame." Harper finished his coffee and set down his cup. "L.A. has the bullet but they've never come up with the gun."

Dallas finished his breakfast and laid half a slice of bacon up on the wall, making Clyde smile. "Maybe those two guys did hire Slayter. But if he's up here for that, why hasn't he come to us? Why try to go through Ryan to find out what we have?"

Davis finished her coffee, wiped her hands on her napkin, and straightened her uniform jacket. Tucking a five and some ones under the ketchup bottle, she rose. "You want to go over that matter you mentioned, Max?"

Harper nodded, reaching for her money to add to his own.

"I'll make a pot of coffee," Juana said. "I made empanadas last night, we can warm them up later."

Dallas rose, too, handed Harper a ten, and he and Juana headed back to the station. From atop the wall, Joe Grey watched them as he dispatched Garza's bacon. He liked and respected Juana Davis; she was a thorough, no-nonsense detective, yet with a frightened victim or with a wrongfully accused arrestee she was warm and understanding. Juana's proper, dark uniform and regulation dark stockings and black Oxfords contrasted sharply with Garza's faded jeans and old tweed sport coat, and Harper's jeans and boots and Western shirt. In this casual village, it was Juana Davis who stood out. Wondering what "matter" Harper and the two detectives meant to discuss, Joe slipped off the wall into the alley and headed for the station.

By the time Clyde and Harper rose, and Clyde turned to speak to the tomcat, Joe was long gone. Not a leaf stirred atop the wall where the gray cat had crouched. He'd vanished like the Cheshire cat. Only the empty plate remained, tucked among the leaves and licked to a fine polish.

Juana Davis’s office was down the central hall, past Harper's and Garza's offices and past the staff room. If Joe had continued on, he could have entered the large report-writing room with its individual cubicles and latest electronic equipment, or the interrogation room. At the end of the hall was the locked, metal-plated door leading to the officers' parking area, and the jail. Having slipped in through the glass doors at the front of the station on the heels of a hurrying rookie, he double-timed back to Davis's office, hoping she wouldn't wonder why he'd shown up there so soon. But he might as well put a bold face on it. Strolling on in, he made himself comfortable atop her coffee table and stretched out, licking bacon grease from a front paw. Coming in behind him, Davis gave him a stunned look.

"You little freeloader. You spend all morning stuffing yourself, and now you think I have something to feed you?" She looked up as Garza entered. "Talk about pigs!"

Garza picked Joe up off the table and laid a stack of papers down in his place. Setting Joe on the couch, the detective made himself comfortable beside the tomcat. This kind of behavior never ceased to amaze Joe. All his life Garza had raised and trained gun dogs, their pictures were all over his office. Garza was not a cat person.

"There was a time," Juana said, "when you wouldn't be caught dead petting a cat."

"He's getting soft," Harper said, coming in. "You behave like this around those two old pointers of yours, they'll pack up and move out."

On the center cushion of the leather couch, Joe Grey washed his shoulder with deep concentration. He had to admit, he'd done a number on Garza. The guy was becoming almost civilized, turning into a regular cat fancier. For this, the tomcat had to congratulate himself. He had, very smoothly, charmed the department's upper echelon, while all the time maintaining a persona of simple-minded feline innocence. And as he lay purring and dozing beside Detective Garza, Joe realized he was smack in the middle of a major departmental planning session.

The confidential discussion he was witnessing was a brainstorming, nuts-and-bolts logistical plan of action, as the three officers laid out departmental strategy for handling a really big jewel heist-maybe the biggest jewel burglary this village had ever witnessed.

If their information was good. This wasn't intelligence that Joe or Dulcie had provided; Joe listened with curiosity and with rising anger. Why was it that the small, lovely village attracted these hoods? Why couldn't they leave Molena Point alone, go somewhere else to make trouble!

Well, but there was money here. Plenty of money. Movie stars; executive types coming down for conferences and for their brainstorming getaways; upscale tourists. And when the Colombian gangs in L.A. had discovered Molena Point and put the village on their thieving roster, every crook in California tried to copycat them. Didn't matter that Molena Point had one of the finest small departments in the country-with a little help undercover, Joe thought modestly-every sleazy no-good thought he could beat the odds.

Davis said, "Doesn't seem possible that L.A. bunch would undertake this kind of operation, after they messed up so badly down there."

Dallas shrugged.

"Maybe not possible they can do it," Harper said. "But given their past attempts, I'd say it's way possible they'll try, that they think they can pull it off."

"Big dreams, short on brains," Davis said.

"I wouldn't bet on it," Max said. "They've pulled a few good ones. And with Dufio out of the way…"

They were quiet a moment. "You think they killed him?" Davis said.

Max refilled his coffee cup from the pot Davis had set on the coffee table. "We should have the ballistics, end of the week. I'd give a month's salary to get my hands on the gun."

"One thing sure," Dallas said. "The oak tree bark, outside his cell window, doesn't pick up prints worth a damn. But we have a nice collection of fibers."

In spite of himself, Joe felt his ears go rigid with interest. It took all his effort to keep his head down and appear to doze. With Garza on his right and Harper on his left and Juana looking straight at him from behind her desk, it was almost impossible not to stare from one speaker to the other like a spectator at a tennis match.

He could see Harper's notes, though. He was only a foot from the clipboard that Max balanced against his crossed leg, from the chief's bold handwriting. And he had a front-row view of the map that Dallas had laid out on the coffee table. Rising to rub against Harper's knee, he took a closer look at the map, getting a strong, pleasant whiff of Harper's horses.

Harper had marked twelve jewelry stores on the map, and five other upscale shops. He had noted, beside each, the store name, the opening and closing times and the names of the owners. Every officer, even the rookies, would have all the information at hand-every officer and one tomcat. Joe concentrated as hard as he could to set the layout clearly in mind. He wished Kit were there; with her photographic memory, she'd have the diagram down cold.

Through narrowly shuttered eyes, he studied Harper's notes, which included hidden video cameras both inside and outside the targeted stores, several still photographers and a team of officers hidden near each location-in one huge departmental sting. A sting that would employ not only every officer in the department-no one off duty or on leave-but a dozen or more men Harper would borrow from surrounding districts up and down the coast.

"Have them down here in time to get familiar with the layout. Billet them among us."

Dallas said, "I can take four comfortably, more if needed."

"Two, maximum," Davis said. She had, a little over a year ago, sold her house and moved into a small condo. Harper said he and Charlie could take the rest. "Ryan should have the upstairs finished by then-finished enough."

"Maybe not a shot fired," Garza said hopefully. "Not a piece of jewelry unaccounted for."

"If we're lucky," Harper said tightly. "Don't count your chickens."

"Jewelry stores still happy with their plan?" Juana asked.

Max nodded. "They've already collected every piece of faux jewelry they could lay hands on. This whole thing makes me edgy, it's too pat. The fact that we have a specific date, specific hits… If our intelligence is valid."

Joe closed his eyes so he wouldn't stare at the chief. What intelligence? These guys were talking about things that neither he nor Dulcie were aware of. Nor the Kit, surely. Who was passing information to the department? And was it good information?

Or was someone playing snitch, meaning to double-cross the cops? His anger at that made his claws want to knead into the leather cushion. Hastily he shifted position, scratching a nonexistent flea. These officers thought their information was coming from their regular snitches, and they could be walking into a trap, being set up big-time. Joe's heart was pounding so hard he thought Harper and Dallas must hear it or notice its hammering blows right through his fur. He closed his eyes, trying to get a grip.

Juana said, "This snitch has never let us down. Without her, we wouldn't have a clue. If she's setting us up…"

She? She, who? Dulcie hadn't made those calls. Kit had made a couple of calls when she spotted Chichi spying. But did she have all this other information, that Luis planned to hit all the stores at once? As far as Joe knew, Kit hadn't been privy to any one specified time and date. Unless she hadn't told them- hadn't had time to tell them?

Had Kit learned this and called Harper while they were locked up? And in her panic to save them and to help the ferals escape, she hadn't thought to tell them?

It was earlier that morning, long before dawn, when Kit woke in the dark in the branches of the pine tree and thought about Luis chasing them and about his dead brother Hernando. She looked over at her three sleeping companions and shivered and was hungry again and lonely and didn't know whether to go home or to keep running with them, didn't know what she wanted. Didn't know if they would search for their clowder and their cold-hearted leader and return to that miserable life, or if they would go off on their own, as she wanted, just the four of them, and start their own clowder and be free of Stone Eye? Or defy him, battle him, run from him forever?

Was that what she wanted? This morning she wasn't sure, she didn't know. But a voice inside whispered, "Lucinda and Pedric love you. You will hurt them terribly if you don't go back."

Crouching in the pine boughs shivering from exhaustion and cold and the effects of fear, Kit wanted to run on across the open hills forever and she wanted to return to Lucinda and Pedric, to her human friends, to human civilization with all its faults and goodness. To her own dear Dulcie and Joe, to Wilma and Clyde and Charlie and all her human family, to a life so layered in richness and the mysteries of humankind that she would never truly learn it all.

She wanted both. Wanted everything. Crouched miserably among the branches, she might never have known what she wanted if she hadn't grown thirsty and backed down the tall trunk to find a drink of water-and come face to face with Stone Eye.

She dropped the last six feet into the soft cover of pine needles smelling the scent of water on the wind and there he stood on a fallen log. Watching her. Stone Eye. Broad of head and shoulder, heavy of muscle, ragged of ear. His eyes blazed with rage, his fangs were bared. He looked up into the pines where Willow and Coyote and Cotton slept, and he snarled with fury. As if they had purposely escaped him, had defied him and intentionally run away. And as he closed on Kit lifting his knifelike claws to strike, Kit ran.