Cat Chase The Moon

16

It was earlier when Joe Grey woke in his tower, listening. Downstairs, the phone had rung once, in the master bedroom. It hadn’t awakened Clyde, Joe could hear him still snoring; but he could hear clearly Ryan’s sleepy voice as she picked up. Outside Joe’s windows, clouds had gathered so thickly that there were only occasional smears of moonlight. When Charlie had brought him home, he had leaped out of her SUV, had gone straight up to the roof, to his tower, and collapsed among his pillows yawning hugely.

“They did?” Ryan was saying. “She’s coming there with you? Well, that’s good news.” She sat up in bed holding the phone, pushing back her dark, rumpled hair. “She managed to unlock the front door? But she’s all right, Juana? She didn’t mind being brought into the station?”

She listened, then, “Trying to look in the windows. Was that her attacker? After all your trouble to hide her, the guy tracked her there? But why did she run? Why didn’t she call the station?”

Another silence, then, “Maybe the patrols will corner him.” Then, “You do?” She smiled. “Sure you can. That will be a blast. Let us know when.” They talked for a few minutes more. Ryan said, “I will,” then a little click as she put the phone back in its cradle. Joe peered down over the edge of his cat door, watched her stretch out again and pull the covers up as if to catch another few winks. Clyde was still snoring.

All over the village, Joe thought, while night patrols searched for Maurita’s stalker—and had searched for Maurita—other officers would soon be getting ready for first watch. The tomcat felt smug that he didn’t have to answer to MPPD hours and rules, and that he didn’t have to shave, shower, and put on a uniform.

But, too curious about Maurita to stay in his warm nest for long, Joe Grey gave his sleek coat a couple of licks, skipped breakfast, and headed for the station.

He had known that Maurita was getting better in the nursing home, word passed quickly from John Firetti among their friends. But to know that a man, likely the same man who nearly killed her, had found where she was, must have triggered her fear all over again—frightening her enough to run.

Well, she was with the cops now, and safe.

Making straight for MPPD, Joe hit the roofs running—hoping that Mabel Farthy, their motherly desk clerk, was back at work after her flu and had brought something good to slake his hunger. Sugar doughnuts? Oatmeal cookies? Fried chicken? Hoped he could get at the goodies before the guys in the department scoffed them all up.

Leaping to the courthouse roof, racing for the oak tree at the far end, he was backing down its rough bark when he paused, clinging among the branches. He didn’t need to peer inside to know that Mabel wasn’t at her desk; even through the bulletproof glass doors, EvaJean Simpson’s scolding voice made his fur crawl. The temp he hated, whom they all hated. If she ever brought him breakfast, it would be laced with strychnine.

A squad car stood in front, beside the Firettis’ car. Officer Green, Maurita, and the Firettis were just headed in through the glass doors. Maurita was beautiful, even in cotton scrubs, her bruises nearly gone, the thin woman looking far better than she had lying half dead and nearly buried in the sand. She was carrying Buffin close against her shoulder. Only the young cat spotted Joe Grey, or caught his scent. His ears went up, he gave his daddy a silly cat grin, then turned innocently away. Joe wanted to slip in, too, but one look at EvaJean, and he stayed where he was. She was in a hell of a temper. He backed down the tree and peered in through the glass, cringing at the clerk’s bossy voice. He watched Officer Green urge Maurita and the Firettis on down the hall, saw Juana’s door open and they all disappeared inside, EvaJean still fussing. The door had already closed as she shouted, “And get that cat out of there or I’ll call an officer who will.”

That made Joe laugh. Anyone in the department would offer ear rubs and back scratches, but no one would toss a cat out, certainly not one of Joe Grey’s own kittens.

Joe backed into the bushes when a squad car pulled up in the red zone. Officers Carlos and Haley opened its back door and ushered out a tattooed prisoner, at least six feet four and hard muscled. They had him in handcuffs and leg irons but he was still fighting them, he was so angry he was probably on drugs, which would make him harder than hell to handle. Joe knew better than to try to slip past this bunch, which might explode despite the chains—but against better judgment he was through the door behind them anyway and into the holding cell hoping they wouldn’t put the guy in there with him.

It took a long time to book the prisoner, he wouldn’t answer questions without being strong-armed. They should have been booking him in the back by the jail. He fought the fingerprint routine, he swore he didn’t have a driver’s license, they had to frisk him for it. Twice Joe pushed out through the bars and started to make a dash down the hall, but the guy began to fight again, and the tomcat drew back. He could have made it fine, he thought, but a cop had set up a folding chair outside Juana’s office to guard Maurita, and how could a cat eavesdrop now?

He waited forever until the prisoner was dragged away down the hall to the jail, and until Maurita’s guard rose as Davis’s door opened, and moved away as if on an errand. In that moment Joe fled down the hall and in through the crack in Max’s door. He had slid deep under the console into the shadows when he heard a knock on Juana’s door and could smell tea and sweet rolls. He heard the guard sit down again. The best he could do, to eavesdrop, was catch every third or fourth word, he couldn’t make much of it. Someone else went in and out, he could smell bacon and eggs, which didn’t help his hungry mood much. Two women talking. Then someone left heading down the hall, then silence for a little while, so quiet that Joe dozed, jerked awake now and then by the creak of the guard’s metal chair. He woke fully when he heard the steps of two women leave the office. He watched Detectives Juana Davis and Kathleen Ray head down the hall and out the rear door. He could just see them through the bars as they crossed the back street toward Juana’s condo. He slipped out of Max’s office, following them, ignoring the guard. Kathleen was carrying a camera case, slightly open. As they started up the condo steps they were joined by two fellow officers. They’d left Maurita alone in Davis’s office? But the deputy was guarding her.

Curious, Joe eased behind the officer’s back and into Davis’s office, listening to the faint click of computer keys.

He faced Kathleen’s back where she worked at Juana’s computer, her long black hair hanging over the chair. Officer Bonner sat on the couch reading aloud a report as if Kathleen was typing it for him—but Kathleen couldn’t be here. By this time she’d be in Juana Davis’s condo. No way she could be here, working at Davis’s desk.

With Kathleen sitting right here, who the hell was with Davis? No one in the office looked like Kathleen, tall and as slim as a model, long black hair like Maurita’s, like . . .

Joe Grey’s eyes widened. He leaped to the desk, stepped around behind the computer monitor and stared into the woman’s face.

Kathleen looked back at him, startled. “What? What, Joe Grey? What’s that expression, what’s the matter with you?”

He slipped around the monitor and rubbed his face against hers, comforted by her familiar scent. The computer itself and the desk still smelled as they should, smelled like Juana Davis. When he leaped to the couch beside Bonner, the scent at the other end of the cushions took Joe a minute to sort out: yes, it smelled pleasantly of Maurita. A pair of blue scrubs lay over a chair, a pair of white nurse’s shoes were pushed underneath. He looked up when Davis entered alone. Kathleen looked around at her. “All settled?”

“Clean sheets,” Juana said. “Maurita has the other twin bed in my room, two officers to rotate in my office-guest-room. That’ll be pretty crowded. I’m sending my two cats to board with the Firettis, Ryan’s picking them up. And she’s dropping Rock off at my place. He might lack a little in some finer points of training, but he’s a good guard dog. And a good loud alarm,” she said with a warm Latino smile. “And he likes cats just fine. But my two cats’ view of dogs . . . they don’t like them so much. They’ll be better with John and Mary. Ryan’s bringing Rock’s special diet and a leash and choke chain. She’ll teach Maurita Rock’s commands, which she and our officers will need to know.”

Joe Grey didn’t think much of the condoas Maurita’s hiding place. Two walls ofsecond-floor windows with easy locks, the windows on the north open to a small rooftop surrounded by staggered walls and crannies and taller roofs, a little retreat where anyone could stand, looking in.

Between the condo’s front door and the side windows, glass sliders opened to a wide deck, from which Juana could see the back of MPPD. That, at least, was screened and roofed with wire mesh so Juana’s two cats could play outside. A straggly young bougainvillea vine led up to it. A cat could bypass the deck and slip right up onto the open roof beneath the side windows.

Could a prowler do the same, crawl up that flimsy vine and over? They would have to be lightweight, and agile.

But when he thought of sharp Weimaraner teeth and of well-used service revolvers resting in the officers’ holsters, he guessed that would be a hazardous climb, even if Maurita’s stalker was superathletic. Smiling, he hoped Rock and the cops got a good bloody crack at him.