Cat Chase the Moon

28

Joe watched Zeb and Mindy move their meager belongings from Thelma’s Volvo into the Harpers’ barn. Zeb still looked shocked. Perhaps not so much that DeWayne was dead, but that the woman DeWayne had run with all those years was his own daughter-in-law. That made Maurita family, and to Zeb Luther, family was important. Maybe, Joe thought, because his own children hadn’t turned out so great?

Would this woman be any different, this female jewel thief?

Thinking more about Maurita and Zeb than about the Saks burglary, Joe watched Max take Thelma’s car on down to the highway, parking it among the limos. Some were shot up, some dented, all under police custody and filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stolen property. Already officers were starting them up, driving them back to the station to unload. An armored truck stood waiting in the background. The beautiful shoes and wallets and handbags, the designer suits and coats and dresses, would be locked in the heavily reinforced evidence room. The jewelry, each piece, would be photographed, fingerprinted, and locked in the strong iron safe that was bolted to the floor there. Max didn’t like having this kind of wealth stored in the department. As soon as daylight shone, the stolen goods, all inventoried, would be sent by armed guard to the nearest Saks warehouse.

Joe wondered, as he and Mindy and Zeb piled into Charlie’s SUV and headed for the Pamillon estate, how Zeb would respond to Maurita. Would he have only disdain for the battered woman because she had been a thief, like DeWayne?

But why should he, when DeWayne had forced her to follow his orders? When DeWayne tried to kill her when she finally ran—when she was soon too beaten to fight back?

Maurita was still under protection. Even though DeWayne was dead, his scuzzy partners were not. This young woman knew enough about their past records to help convict them, and they could be as mean as DeWayne. Joe Grey hoped they would remain in prison, that they would not be free again—but until sentences were passed, or until some of them died of their wounds, he’d feel edgy for the young woman.

He thought Maurita and Zebulon had a lot in common, losing DeWayne even though they’d hated him. He wanted them to bond, to feel only tenderness for each other.And he was off on the kind of daydream that Dulcie or Kit might imagine, happy thoughts about Zeb and his newly discovered daughter-in-law. He was so involved in hoping they would become a real family that, traveling up the dark highway, they were at the mansion before he knew it. A soft light burned at the cat shelter, in the little office. They parked by the door. Charlie stepped out, Joe leaping past her. She knocked and called out.

The minute Scotty opened the door, bare legged and wearing a short robe, Joe Grey slipped past him into the office where the light burned, where Maurita’s cot was neatly made up. As if she hadn’t slept in it, as if maybe she had paced all night. Joe couldn’t speak to Scotty, with Maurita present and with Zebulon standing in the doorway. She sat on the cot looking up at them, her expression both desolate and hopeful. She looked at Zeb and she knew who he was—and, from his look, she knew what had happened—and there was nothing she could say.

Kate appeared from the bedroom wearing an extra-long shirt of Scotty’s, her short blond hair a tangle. Charlie, her red hair just as ruffled, moved inside past Scotty and into the little office. She sat down on the cot and put her arms around Maurita.

Maurita leaned against her. “It’s come down,” she said. “They took out Saks.” She looked at Charlie. “When we passed their motel, the way the cars and limos were arranged, I knew. I couldn’t sleep, for the scared feeling—scared that a cop would be hurt. I tried the radio but I couldn’t get much but static.” A tiny radio sat on the desk, turned low. It was more squawk than clarity and was, at the moment, occupied with a disgusting melody that no one wanted to hear. “When I called the dispatcher, she would tell me nothing. She said, ‘I am not allowed to give out that information.’”

Charlie rolled her eyes. “EvaJean, the bitch.” Then, in a kinder tone, “I asked Max to let me come out and tell you, though it’s his job to do this.”

Maurita’s eyes looked deep into hers, waiting.

“Maurita, several of the burglars were killed tonight. DeWayne was shot when he charged two officers. He died at once.”

The young woman leaned against her; she was shaking. Charlie didn’t know what else to say. She had a right to cry; after all, he had been her husband.

But when Joe Grey jumped up and pawed at them, when Maurita turned to look at him, the tears in her eyes were a mix of not only shock, but laughter. Her expression was uncertain for a moment but then replaced by a deep and satisfying contentment. Joe wanted to shout, You’re free. He’s dead and you’re done with him, done with those brutes he ran with. They’re either dead themselves, or will be locked away for good. You’re free, Maurita, to do with your life as you please.

Charlie was thinking the same: Maurita was free of her imprisonment, and there was one less scum in the world.

“But two fine young police officers were shot,” Charlie said sickly, and she prayed that they had received only surface wounds, that they wouldn’t go through the hell that some injured officers suffered.

That day at the mansion, and the night to come, turned into a tangle of emotions as cars began to arrive. Only Zeb, Mindy, and Maurita didn’t know what the gathering was about as people began to pull in. Kate said, “I invited a few friends over, they’re bringing takeout breakfast.”

Wilma and Dulcie arrived with tears in their eyes, but they weren’t crying for DeWayne. Lucinda and Pedric and Kit and Pan drew up in the Greenlaws’ Lincoln Town Car, their faces filled with sadness. They all knew that DeWayne Luther was dead and folks looked at Zeb shyly. They got back only a handshake and a nod. Ryan and Clyde slipped in, Ryan snatching up Joe Grey, crying into his fur.

But none of it was about DeWayne Luther.

John and Mary Firetti were right behind them, Buffin and Striker on John’s shoulder. Dulcie mewed at them. Wilma, her gray hair tied back crookedly in its ponytail, put her arm around John. Wilma had helped Dulcie to raise the three kittens, but Dr. Firetti had helped to birth them—this gathering was about the girl kitten.

If Zeb and Maurita and Mindy guessed that the poignant celebration was because Maurita was free, they were right in part, but that was not the cause of the sadness that filled the little office—Maurita was free, but Courtney was not, and Ulrich might never stop looking for her. He and Fay might go to prison for involvement with the Luthers’ crimes, or they might get probation and walk free, and Courtney could always be in danger.

Now, with the young calico’s final and distant escape to come, her friends began the real grieving. For years hence, they would find that day resonating in waking memories and in nighttime dreams as real as this day itself.

As they all crowded around the table, Zebulon’s mood softened and he laughed. Soon noise and laughter rocked the tiny apartment, driving away the sadness, but causing Maurita to draw back in shy silence. And still, during the friends’ arrivals, no one had seen Courtney.

The six other cats ate their own takeout quickly, clambered down from laps and side tables and headed for the ruins. Still no Courtney. She would not show herself, thinking the Seavers might be out looking for her, not when Seaver might see all the cars up here and wonder. Who knew where they would choose to search? Courtney had no idea they might be in jail.

Down in the depths of the ruins, the cats spent a long time with Courtney alone. There wasn’t much time left together. Now, when folks began to leave, Wilma took all seven cats to her place to wait for dark, for a last visit, where the three kittens had been born. In their own first home, they curled up on the couch with Wilma, a gentle fire burning on the hearth, Joe Grey and Dulcie snuggled close to their calico kitten, Buffin and Striker lying nearly on top of her. Kit and Pan lay sprawled on her other side, their noses against her calico coat.

Only after supper, when darkness fell, would they all go together, the cats and their families, back to the Pamillon ruins. There they would say good-bye to Joe and Dulcie’s calico daughter.

Zebulon, before leaving the Pamillon estate after breakfast, took Maurita’s hand solemnly. “Will you come home with us? Will you be part of our family—will you want us, the same as we want you?” He put his arm around her. “We need you, Maurita.”

“And I need you,” Maurita said softly. “I’ve never had a family.”

We’re lucky, Mindy thought. And we’ll be happy—if Mama and Varney get hauled off to jail and can’t come bothering us.

“It might be well,” Charlie said, “if you three stay at our house for a few days, where Maurita will be safer until we’re sure those men are all in custody.”

Maurita hugged Charlie; she had begun to feel more at ease, more in charge of herself. As if she had found something of herself that was lost—lost or maybe never discovered.

“Meanwhile,” Charlie said, “we can dust up your house a bit, change the sheets, get in some groceries.” And the four of them headed for Zebulon’s place, to brighten Maurita’s new home, to make it ready and welcoming. Mindy and Maurita, Charlie and Zebulon worked for the rest of the day, washing windows, cleaning the kitchen. Rearranging Maurita’s new room, which had been Nevin’s. The room of no-good Thelma’s husband, but that didn’t bother Maurita.

With freshly washed curtains and clean windows, she would see, in early morning, the sun rise over the eastern hills, would see at night the sun set above the sea. Looking around her, she felt clean, she felt new. The way she used to wish life would be. All she’d needed was a little help. The terror of DeWayne’s brutality was beginning to fade, wiped away by human friends, human love. By the surprise of being part of her own family. And, earlier, by the warmth of those long, quiet days of cat love.

When Charlie and the Luthers arrived back at the Harper ranch for an early supper, Max’s truck was parked by the house. “I took off early,” he said, coming in, yawning. “Handed it over to Cameron for the night—all those bastards are snug in their cells. Dallas and I are on call.”

Across from the house, above the hay barn, the Luthers’ beds were already made up in two rooms next to Billy’s. Both Zeb and Maurita found they were able to handle the stairs, with Mindy’s help; and Billy Young had been busy. The outside alarm was set, two loaded firearms stood inside Billy’s and Zeb’s bedroom doors, and the two big dogs ran loose and watchful in the fenced entry yard. Mindy had strict instructions not to touch the shotgun and rifle. “When you are old enough,” Max said, “and that will be soon, you will have the same safety training as Billy is getting. Maybe even take the same classes as a police cadet, if you like.”

Mindy grinned at him with delight, and so did Zebulon. Zeb would much rather have her thoroughly trained by a professional, than to do a bad job himself.

It was that night, during supper, that the earring appeared.

Supper was a tamale pie that Charlie had taken from the freezer, and a salad that Mindy made. They had just sat down when they heard Jimmie McFarland’s car pull up in front, parking next to Max’s truck. Charlie let him in and asked him to join them. He was carrying a small white box. He said he had eaten, but accepted a slice of lemon pie and coffee. Jimmie, glancing kindly at Maurita, held out the box to Max.

“Dallas found this, just a little while ago. Or, Joe Grey found it.”

“Joe Grey found it,” Max said in a flat, uneasy voice. Charlie’s stomach lurched. Max said, “Let’s hear it,” in that same suspicious tone.

They all knew the Saks crime scene extended from the store itself to the pile-up of cars being hauled away on the highway; but that it also included the motel rooms where the burglars had stayed as they posed as limo drivers. The sun was setting when Detective Garza and Jimmie McFarland went to work on that part of the scene. At the same moment, Joe Grey was running the rooftops, working off some of his grieving before they all returned to the Pamillon estate to bid Courtney a last good-bye. Racing the shingles among the smell of restaurant suppers, he saw a squad car and Jimmie’s car below him and yellow crime tape strung around the motel and parking lot. He backed down a young acacia tree and was about to slip into the motel to see what Jimmie was doing, when, deep in the flowery ground cover, he stepped on something that hurt.

Something hard but delicate, buried deep among the blooms. He pawed it gently out.

There was the earring.

The ornately fashioned gold loop looked, indeed, as if it had been made by Peruvian hands, like pictures of that ancient jewelry he had seen, an intricately carved crescent moon hanging from its center. He was sniffing at it when he heard footsteps.

Dallas Garza stood over him.

He looked up at Dallas and pawed at the earring as if playing, as would a kitten with a toy. Dallas looked back at him with all the suspicion he’d ever felt about Joe Grey. Not cold, cop suspicion, but startled disbelief.

The detective turned away, fetched a small box from his glove compartment, emptied it and lay the earring inside, then slipped the box into a small evidence bag. Returning to Joe, he called Jimmie over. “Take this up to Max. He went home early.”

Now, at the Harpers’, before Jimmie tied into his pie and coffee, he handed the box to Max. “Dallas found this near the motel. They’re finished with it, fingerprints, DNA, photos—didn’t take long. He thought Maurita might want it.”

As long as DeWayne was dead, and Maurita hadn’t wanted to press charges, there wasn’t much point in keeping this one piece of evidence. They had the bloody pictures, the doctors’ reports, the other, smashed earring. And DeWayne’s accomplices had plenty of other charges against them, in case they were involved.

Max took the box from Jimmie and opened it. He studied the contents, then held it out to Maurita. She accepted it, looking sick. The earring lay on a clean cotton pad, it was battered only a little, an ornate gold loop with an intricate crescent moon suspended inside. She touched the scar down her torn ear, felt the surgeon’s stitching. She sat looking at the earring for a long time, thinking, then looked up at Max. “Do you have a spade, or a short shovel?”

Max rose from the table. But Jimmie said, “I know where they are,” and he was out through the tiled mud room that served as the house’s one entry. Heading for the stable, the two big half-Danes leaped all over him barking and licking his face. Jimmie ruffled their ears and told them to get down. They obeyed him, watching as he put a shovel and a spade in his car, then stood waiting for Maurita.

“We won’t be long,” Maurita said in the doorway as she stopped to hug Charlie. “I’ll do dish duty tomorrow, and I’ll cook.” Zeb and Max watched her with interest. Already she looked stronger, as if doing a day’s work, as if beginning to make a new home, was already driving back the weakness that had overwhelmed her.

In Jimmie’s car, they turned north up the highway, then left down Ocean Avenue to the beach. Here it was darker as thick fog rolled in, hiding the last of the sunset. Jimmie opened the trunk while Maurita prowled the sandy park, stepping carefully, looking down at the sand and the way the fallen trees lay. When she had her bearings she took the shovel, and slipped the spade in her belt. When he moved to help, she looked at him with an expression he couldn’t read.

“I want to do this, Jimmie.”

She dug for a long time, but the sandy dirt was soft. She dug nearly as deep as she could reach, then she used the spade to make a tiny hole. She dropped in the box. She wrote nothing on it, she said no word. She filled in the little hole, pounding the dirt with the handle of the spade, then shoveled back the dirt she had removed. She smoothed it over roughly with the shovel, then walked across it a few times, kicked some grass across it and tossed on a few small stones so it resembled its surround, matching the rest of the park.

She cleaned off the tools with a tissue and put them back in the trunk. He closed the trunk and took her hand. They walked across the little road that ended where the beach began; the waves were high, crashing in. They climbed the cliff high above the sand, sat hand in hand, in silence, Maurita’s long black hair blowing in her face. Her expression was a church kind of look, deep and thankful. As if she had buried the last of her hatred. As if her anger and resentment would lie there deep beneath the earth until time ended, completely removed from her. She looked past the breakers to the soft blanket of fog, and she leaned silently against Jimmie.