Cat Chase The Moon

4

It was over three weeks after Nevin and Thelma and Mindy moved out and left him that Zeb found the letter. He found it on a Friday, the day Mindy had always started begging about going to the library for Saturday. He wondered if Thelma was taking her to story hour since they’d moved away from the ranch and into the village, with the library and shops right there close. Thelma always grumbled about story hour, she didn’t like sitting around listening to what she called “kiddies’ books.” The librarian, Ms. Getz, said you had to grow up, grow truly mature in the way you looked at life, before you began to enjoy reading again the best children’s stories.

Well, this Friday he’d gone out to the road to get the mail and the paper, all junk mail usually that he’d throw in the trash. Except his bank statement was in there and he tossed it on the table. Varney had had his mail forwarded to a post office box when he left six months ago. Nevin and Thelma did the same just a few days before they moved out.

Before they left, Zeb had hardly ever brought in the mail. Mindy did it, or Nevin. Zeb didn’t get much mail himself, only an occasional postcard from a cousin or some old friend or one of Nell’s friends; and their statement. Just to be sure he hadn’t missed anything, he shuffled methodically through the junk ads, tossed them in the trash, and turned to pick up the bank statement.

But this wasn’t his statement. It was Nevin’s. And not Nevin and Thelma’s regular account. Just Nevin Luther, alone. And it wasn’t from their bank, either, the one in the village. This was from the Bank of Walnut Creek, way up the coast.

Nevin had never had an account in that bank. Why would he? Why drive way up there? Zeb had never seen a statement marked like this. He sat down at the kitchen table with the envelope before him, deciding if he should open it or direct it on, mark it “wrong address”? It wasn’t his business.

He made himself a cup of coffee. Waiting while it brewed, he sat staring at the bank logo and at Nevin’s neatly typed name, with this address. Maybe the bank had made a mistake when they were sorting out changes of address on the computer.

Pouring his coffee, sitting down again, he ripped open the envelope before he had time to think about it, wasn’t even careful how he tore it. Pulled out the statement and stared at the front page where it gave the monthly total, which made him gag on his coffee.

Total assets: $1,271,899.10. One million? He read it again.

Total liabilities: $0.00.

Qualifying balance: $1,271,899.10. One million, two hundred and seventy-one thousand, eight hundred and ninety-nine dollars, and ten cents.

Zeb sat for a long time. He checked the amounts and dates of the individual deposits. None were too large, but many were just a few days apart. Took a lot of gas to drive up there that often. Would Nevin have done the banking by mail? That wasn’t like him, he didn’t trust the mail. He refilled his coffee cup and made a ham sandwich. Went out to the shed, picked up the two dozen newspapers stacked neatly on top of an empty crate, papers he kept for blocking the doors during a flooding rain and for sopping up water when he defrosted the freezer. The discarded papers were pretty much in order.

It took him the rest of the afternoon to find and tear out the pages with articles about the recent increase in bank-withdrawal thefts. And all the time thinking about where Nevin would have put the rest of the statements.

If Varney or Thelma knew nothing about this, Nevin might have figured it was safer to leave them here. He began to search the house, Nevin and Thelma’s room first, closet, between the mattress and the springs, the dresser. He found them wrapped in a woolen sweater that Thelma had told Nevin to keep in a zippered plastic bag because of moths. A thin stack of statements with a rubber band around them, folded inside the gray sweater. The same bank, the top one dated the month before the current one, which he slipped in with the others.

Zeb woke real early Saturday morning. He fed and watered the horses, made one phone call, one of the few real friends he had left in the world. He and Robert Blake had ridden broncs together when they were young. Young and strong—and rode the bulls, too, crazy kids. He left the ranch in the old truck, the only transportation he had.

He swung through the village; he was there at eight when the UPS store opened. He made copies of all the statements, at a machine where he was somewhat shielded from the view of prying eyes. He didn’t copy the clippings. He put the copies in a brown envelope and shoved that under the floor mat on the driver’s side. He returned to the house, put the original statements back the way he’d found them, with the new one, folded into the sweater. He was in Santa Cruz by mid-morning, turning in at his friend’s used-car lot.

Robert had pulled one of his cars up to the front of the lot, ones he hadn’t done much cosmetics on yet though he’d maybe fixed up the engines, replaced a few tires. This one was just what he wanted, eighteen-year-old Ford coupe, blue paint so faded it was almost gray. It had nearly new tires, though, and Rob had washed it and polished it as best he could. They hitched the car behind the truck with a car dolly, so Zeb could haul it safely home. They had a beer, shot the bull for a few minutes. Zeb paid for the car with his credit card, which he had used for Nell’s medical bills. He was home again around one, he had plenty of time. Passing the Harpers’ ranch he noted Charlie’s SUV parked by the house, the light in her studio reflecting against the hay barn.

At home he unhitched the car and backed it deep in the shed, tucked the envelope of copied statements in his pocket. Parked the truck just outside where he always did. He checked his watch again. This was Saturday, the best night to try, but he had plenty of time. He knew that little area, it was closer than the village, he knew most of the shopkeepers. The bank stayed open until six on Saturdays so people could deposit their pay, and the restaurant owners could make big deposits to nearly empty their safes before the busiest night of the week when robberies would be lucrative. Restaurant safes were weaker than a bank vault.

Throwing a saddle on his bay gelding he headed at a jog then an easy canter for the Harper place. It was Charlie who had taught Mindy to guide a horse with body movement, easy and nice, a little pressure, a little shift of weight.

He could see Charlie in the kitchen pouring a cup of coffee. She waved him in, and reached for another cup. She had cut her curly red hair short, a bright cap where it used to be a long flaming tangle tied back out of the wind.

Throwing his reins over the hitching rack near the pasture fence, he entered through the all-purpose front door into a big, tile-floored mud room, hooks for jackets, shelves for boots, long sink for scrubbing up hands and arms, pots of flowers on the windowsill. One door stood open to the kitchen, another to the big, high-raftered living room that looked out across the pastures to the sea. When he entered the kitchen, Charlie looked at his expression for a long minute, gave him a hello hug and led him to the table. He didn’t visit often without phoning, didn’t visit for no reason. She looked at the brown envelope he laid on the table, her bright, freckled face puzzled and then uneasy. She reached to the kitchen counter, fetched a plate of gingerbread; looked back at the envelope then at Zebulon, waiting.

“Would you hide it for me where no one else will find it? Well, if Max finds it, that’s okay. At my house, nothing’s very secure. Hide it from Max and not tell him unless he does find it. Or until the time is right. Is that putting too much on a cop’s wife?”

Charlie laughed. “Can you tell me what it is, or is that a secret, too?”

“It’s copies of Nevin’s bank statements, a bank up the coast. I don’t know if they mean anything. I think they do, and that Max will want them. The originals are in Nevin’s dresser. Are you okay with them here, or do they put you in trouble?”

Charlie touched the shoulder holster under her light vest, and grinned at him. The statements would be safe here. She took the envelope, stepped into the living room and behind the fireplace. He heard a stone slide, then a lock click and turn several times. Heard a metal door open.

She returned without the envelope, her stardust of freckles bright with interest, her green eyes wide with questions she wouldn’t ask. Whatever this was about, she knew he had his reasons. That he was doing the right thing, or getting ready to do it. She knew Zeb wouldn’t make trouble for Max.

As for Zeb, he trusted Charlie as he trusted the chief himself. He finished his coffee and gingerbread. He rose, gave her a hug, left quietly out the mud entry. He untied his gelding and headed home, the back way again, they were hardly seen as the bay moved quietly through the woods. At home Zeb unsaddled him, rubbed him down, and went inside to his room.

He had a little nap, drifting off wondering how all this would turn out, wondering if he was making too much of nothing.

He was up and left the house around five, drove in to the shopping center across Highway One from the village: newer grocery, drugstore, lots of casual restaurants and shops, fire station across the side road. He’d liked Molena Point when it was smaller, when this here land was all dairy barns and pastures, before the village started to outgrow itself.

He pulled into a small alley behind the drugstore where he could see the backs of a row of restaurants; and just across the blacktop, cars parked before the bank, its fluorescent lights reflected in their windows. He killed the engine and sat in his car watching for a possible shopkeeper on his way to make a deposit.

Yes, he didn’t wait long and here came Jon Jaarel driving into the lot in his new, white Lexus hatchback. Older, blond man, his once athletic trim still thin but going soft. Jon pulled in carefully between a bread delivery truck and a tall, rented camper, a narrow space where he wouldn’t readily be seen by some pickpocket; the way Jaarel acted, Zeb knew he had money on him. As Jaarel opened the door and started to step out, his trench coat pooched in front as if he were pregnant. In the shadows of the tall vehicles, a car drew up nosing into the narrow space between Jaarel’s door and the truck; the driver swung out, bundled up in the chill dusk, heavy jacket, hood pulled up. As Jaarel stepped out, the driver hauled back and slammed the door against Jaarel, knocking him hard into his own steering wheel and slamming the door against him. Jaarel struggled as the robber leaned in, ripped open Jaarel’s trench coat, snatched out the money bag, and slammed the door in Jon Jaarel’s face, a terrible blow. And the man was gone, barely a flash of his green car as he spun and sped away.

Jaarel lay still in his white hatchback, bleeding, as Thelma’s car disappeared among the shops and small streets.

Nevin. The robber was Nevin.

Shamed and shocked, Zebulon wanted to run across and help Jaarel but he didn’t have the nerve to be seen there. He was certain Jon was dead, the way the blood was gushing. And what if Nevin saw him? Grabbing his old phone, he hit the emergency button and alerted the local branch of the fire department, which was right across the highway. He backed out of the alley looking for Nevin but didn’t see him. Didn’t see any cops. He drove sedately up a side street as an ambulance screamed out of the station and across the main road.

Joe Grey waited, pacing with hunger, for their friends to arrive with their potluck supper offerings. At last here came Wilma, sliding out of her car carrying a wrapped casserole, Dulcie and Courtney leaping out behind her, noses to the air sniffing the good smell of her tamale pie. As Wilma headed for the kitchen, the Greenlaws double-parked in the drive. Kit and Pan jumped out of the black Lincoln Town Car and raced in the house, Pedric behind them carrying a tray covered with clear wrap that smelled like a field of ripe strawberries. Joe was rearing up sniffing the good scents of supper when they heard, from across the street, a car start. Curious, Joe raced to the front window to look, the other cats crowding behind him. Thelma’s car, the green Volvo, was just turning the corner up toward Highway One, Nevin driving. Thelma stood in the yard looking sour, then turned back in the house scowling and dragging Mindy behind her. Maybe Nevin was going to the store, they always fought over that. Nevin said it was Thelma’s place to do the shopping. She said she’d shop if he’d cook, but he never did. Maybe he’d said her car needed running so the battery wouldn’t die.

Abandoning the sleazy couple, the cats returned to the kitchen; the big room was full of talk and laughter, the sounds of plates and silverware, and the aroma of supper and of the garlic bread that Charlie had just brought in. She didn’t have to say, Max is working. He usually was. Clyde was saying, “It’s Dulcie and Courtney and Kit that I worry about—it’s the sweet cuddly ones that a cat dealer would steal and sell.”

Joe gave Clyde a hard look. “You’re saying I’m not sweet and cuddly?”

“Sweet as syrup,” Clyde said, cuffing him on the shoulder. “Who wouldn’t love to steal a mean-looking tomcat with teeth like rapiers?”

But the idea of a cat thief was too bizarre. “Why would anyone steal a cat?” Joe said. “If that guy knew we could speak, he’d have snatched us all up long ago. And why come to the library for an ordinary cat, there are cats all over the village, neighborhood cats wandering everywhere. As far as cuddly, little children are the cuddly ones. Little kids are kidnapped all the time.”

But then he was sorry he’d said that, the thought of what happened to those kids made his paws go cold and his stomach queasy—and Clyde looked at Joe a long time. He said, “And there sure as hell aren’t cats like Courtney all over the village, with her picture in half the history books. What about those books he was poring over, what was that about? All McFarland said when he looked later, after the guy had put the books back, was that they were from the shelves on ancient art.”

Dulcie said, “The watcher looked a lot like the bank robber that pregnant woman described. Dark rumpled clothes, long black hair, wrinkled cap, old worn-out coat. It could be the same guy . . . And he stole a bundle of money.”

Clyde shook his head. “How would a robbery fit in with his prowling the library, watching cats and children?” He glanced at the Greenlaws and at Wilma. “I think the cats would be smart to stay in tonight.”

Before anyone could argue, Ryan said, “Dinner,” loud enough to stop a barrage of hot feline arguments. She had set out the cats’ plates in grand style on the kitchen counter, each with a blue place mat, each with a nice serving of Wilma’s tamale pie, garlic bread, Ryan’s fresh green salad, and half a strawberry tart. No one paid much attention to the sirens from up the hill at the shopping center, such wails were common from the smaller fire station that served the valley—fire trucks and maybe an ambulance headed to one of the fancy older folks’ communities: elderly people living together, many with no real family and too often needing medical help. Dulcie looked at Joe, feeling suddenly sad for those lonely folks—and feeling sad for herself and for Joe, now that their kittens were nearly full grown, the boys already off on their own and Courtney so wild with adventure that she would be leaving home soon. Dulcie looked at Joe. “I miss the boys.”

Joe rubbed his head against hers. “So do I, but they’re growing up, they’re doing what they want to do. Buffin has settled in, like a miracle, to what he was meant to be.”

He twitched a whisker. “And doesn’t that make John Firetti happy. It’s like having a new hospital assistant, only better. And for now, Striker’s happy there, too. Now, our two kittens are all the doctor and Mary have to comfort them, since Misto died.”

Dulcie smiled, her ears up again. “Maybe we haven’t lost Striker, maybe he’ll hang around the cop shop more than you guess.”

Courtney exchanged a glance with Kit, a look of understanding. Courtney did miss her brothers—but perhaps only a little, now that she had her mama and Wilma all to herself, the three of them had the house to themselves, and she, the one remaining kitten, had things pretty much as she wanted.

But Striker and Buffin, the two stars in the Firetti household, had what they wanted, too. They got to wander the hospital, they got to go to the shore every morning and evening to watch John and Mary feed the wild ferals.

Courtney got to do that sometimes, running on the shore among the wild beach cats, leaving her own pawprints in the wet sand. But, she thought, whatwill my grown-up life be like? Buffin has found his place, he healed that little dog and sent him home happy, and he’s healed more.Dr. Firetti says he has a rare talent. And Striker, all claws and teeth, he wants to chase the bad guys like our daddy. But there’s something more, too, for Striker. Some other talent, I can sense it; but no one knows yet what that is.

But what will I do with my life? This right-now-today life? And she thought, even this very village sometimes brings back such strange memories. Brings back long-past times, Medieval times that, when I wake, I can’t stop wondering about.

In the library she would look at her own pictures in ancient books, see herself in woven tapestries, yet when she tried to remember more about those long-ago ages, she knew that right now in this life, something maybe even more exciting waited for her, that a wonderful adventure waited, she could sense it like a bright glow all around her. She thought about that mystery all through dinner.

Afterward, when the cats and humans gathered in the living room by the fire, no one turned on the TV or a radio, no one knew there had been another robbery, another theft of money that had been headed for deposit in the bank. No one knew that the victim was dead.

Max Harper was still in the hospital with the woman from the grave when a second call came through from the dispatcher to his cell phone. Though the rescue units and his officers were careful not to pass information on to the news media, the local paper would have this one soon enough.

The caller wasn’t his regular snitch, wasn’t the familiar voice he was used to. Though the man’s style was the same, passing on the information quickly, and immediately hanging up. And, like Max’s usual snitch, his phone was untraceable. Likely an ancient cell phone with no GPS. The voice was that of an old man, shaky, frightened, and distraught. This disturbed him. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with another mangled body, this one decidedly dead. For one of the few times in his life Max Harper called in one of the detectives to work the case with the attending coroner—Jane Cameron might be young and beautiful, but she was a tough investigator, she had just been promoted in rank, and she didn’t get sick at the sight of a gory corpse.

The old man grew more and more upset as he drove the back way to Highway One and up past the turnoff to the Harpers’ ranch. There was no one outside in the pastures to see him drive by and head up his own lane for home.

Having left the scene as the sirens came screaming, he had felt steady enough then, filled with a sense that he’d done the right thing. That he might have saved Jon Jaarel’s life.

Could there have been any life left in the man after that brutal attack? What if it was murder, what if Nevin had killed him?

That was when his stomach really started to churn, when he began to feel pale and sick. Nevin, his own son . . . Over the years he’d known when Nevin was in trouble, and had tried to ignore it; and he had tried to keep the boy’s earlier troublemaking from Nell.

As he approached his empty house, evening began to close down around him. He couldn’t stop thinking about Jon Jaarel, injured and bloodied. The hardworking restaurant owner was a kind, steady man. Zeb prayed that he was alive yet was pretty sure he wasn’t. The old man was filled with a hollow emptiness, with futility at the brutal ways of his own boys, his own family.

He should have made a second call to the dispatcher, should have told Harper who the attacker was. He hadn’t seen Nevin full face in the dark but he saw enough to be sure; and he was sure that was Thelma’s car. He was sick inside, he didn’t know what to do, he felt so unsteady he could hardly drive.

How could he report his own son? All bundled up in old clothes like that, like a homeless man. He had moved so fast to get away that Zeb really hadn’t seen his face. He never saw which way Nevin went, he’d been too busy calling the medics—but he knew. He knew, from the way the man moved. He knew the body language of his boys.

This wasn’t the first bank-deposit robbery in the shopping area or in the village; and maybe Varney and Nevin were both responsible.

Pulling up before the house feeling even sicker, he saw his old truck sitting there and remembered to hide the car, get it out of sight. He wouldn’t want one of the boys to see he had another car. In case he . . . What? Decided to follow them, to see what else they were up to?

After he backed into the shed in the far corner and got out, he felt so shaky that he had to brace himself against the swinging wooden shed door as he closed it. Going inside he gripped the porch rail then the back door, then hung on to a kitchen chair as he sat down at the table. He wished he had some whiskey; there was no liquor in the house. What do you do when you feel scared hollow right down to your very soul?

He couldn’t even call the PD and ask if Jon Jaarel was alive; and ask if they’d caught the thief. Even if his phone was so old that it didn’t have GPS he was afraid to make another call. How did he know what kind of equipment the cops used?

He sat still for a long time, his head bent on his clenched hands. At last he went in the living room and lay down on the couch. He covered himself with Nell’s quilt and closed his eyes. His own boy. One of his boys. He guessed in the dark it could have been Varney but he was almost certain it was Nevin. He felt as weak as an old, old horse about to go under. Was there a place in the hereafter for worn-out horses and worn-out old men with nothing to look forward to? His life was gone. Nell gone, and the three boys turned out like this. Mindy was the only decent one, and the boys and Thelma had taken her away.

Max Harper was bound to find who did the killing—if Jaarel was dead. And then prison for the boy, or worse. And, he thought, if both boys were involved, if both were convicted even for short sentences, what would happen to Mindy?

Would Harper leave her in the care of her mother?

But Thelma would refuse to come back here. No telling where she’d take Mindy. Likely she’d head for the city. Turning over, not wanting to think any more, he felt himself drop into a hard, deep sleep. He wouldn’t have thought he could sleep, in this state. He felt himself fall into a black emptiness that, he’d read once, came from depression or fear.

On the Damens’ roof, late after supper, the cats sat watching the chill fog roll in, its promise making them smile. Soon the streets and rooftops would be all but hidden, they could slip away and go anywhere they wanted, totally unseen. Their human families couldn’t object to that. Who could see a cat in this hazy overcast? Already a long white tail of thick ocean mist crept low along the face of the hills, a dark dragon making its way up the valley, obliterating the lower fields. It would soon grow longer and wider to cover all the hills and valley and then sink down to hide the village.

Then it would be hunting time. No one to see and snatch up a prowling cat as they slipped down from the roofs and maybe to the little park to have another look for the earring—if the cops hadn’t found it, or the guy hadn’t taken it with him.

The earring was tiny. It might be crushed, but it could still be lying in the sand, lost or buried where the earth was soft and deep. It might never be discovered unless sensitive cat paws dug into every corner of the park and maybe beyond. Could you smell gold? Joe didn’t think so, but he very much wanted that little piece of evidence.

The victim’s testimony would be powerful, as would the cops’ color photos of her lying bleeding and nearly dead, half buried in the rough grave—this, backed by minute bits of evidence the detectives had collected. But to have the torn-off earring with her blood on it and maybe bits of torn flesh and, hopefully, both sets of fingerprints—that should go even further toward convicting the guy, if they ever caught him.