Cat Coming Home

13

THE THREE CATS had hardly scrambled up to Maudie’s roof when Kit blurted out, “That was no accident, that truck was parked around the corner up there waiting for her. I saw it, the minute she came out the driver gunned it and took off and—”

“Slow down,” Joe said. This tortoiseshell, when something set her off, could be as volatile as bees in a windstorm. “What did you see? Tell it slowly.”

“He was waiting for Maudie, parked around the corner where no one could see him from the house, and the truck windows so dirty I couldn’t see much of him, only a smear behind the glass.” She took a breath, trying to go slower. “When he saw her come out of the house he stepped on the gas and barreled straight for her, you saw him …” Again she stopped, her yellow eyes huge with distress, her tortoiseshell ears flat with frustration. “She has to know it wasn’t an accident. Why won’t she report it? Is she afraid to report it?”

“Or,” Dulcie said, “is she protecting someone? You didn’t see the driver?”

Kit moved out of the shadows, to sit where the roof was warming. “Only a pale shape with what looked like a dark cap pulled down. The windshield was caked with dirt, and there was dirt on the license plate. And there’s something else, too, there was another invasion this morning, I followed the squad cars, it was that house with the glass at the top, Becky Lake’s house. I listened when Detective Ray interviewed her, she said two men broke in when she answered the door and she was alone and they beat her and they kicked her little dog and then they ran and …”

“Slow down,” Joe and Dulcie said impatiently. “Did she describe them?” Joe asked.

“One tall and thin, the other stronger looking, both with dark clothes and stockings over their faces. Chief Harper was really mad when he got there—another invasion where they got away, and maybe mad because of the Gazette this morning, too, it was on a newsstand, all about the earlier invasions that aren’t even news anymore, smeared all over the front page that there’s never a cop when one happens and Harper’s not patrolling the village, that he’s letting crooks and killers run loose while his officers sit around drinking coffee,” she hissed with anger. “Do they think he can have cops lined up on every street waiting for someone to ring a doorbell?”

Dulcie and Joe were quiet. Kit’s mood this morning had swung from despondency at the cruelty in the world to flyaway rage—calming for only a moment, for a little snuggle with Benny. Now again she was as volatile as a caged bobcat. “And there was something else, there was a fish smell around Becky’s front door, old dead fish, I followed it to the curb and then it was gone, I guess they got in a car, I could still smell a whiff of exhaust.”

“Fish,” Joe said. “Fine. A dozen wharves up the coast where people fish, hundreds of people coming and going and half of them tourists.”

“And our own little fishing dock,” Dulcie said. She was quiet, looking at them solemnly. “And there’s something else, too. Cora Lee called Wilma early this morning. Jack Reed’s in the county hospital in Salinas, they took him from the prison by helicopter. He was stabbed, and he’s critical. It isn’t fair. Why Jack Reed?” Lori Reed was the cats’ friend, she always had time to stop and pet them and find a little snack for them. Though she didn’t know they could speak, she talked to them as if they could understand her. It was Dulcie who had found Lori hiding in the library when she ran away from home that one time, when she was just a little girl.

“Jack Reed shouldn’t be in prison with those damned gangs,” Joe said.

“It wasn’t a gang,” Dulcie said, licking her paw in consternation. “It was Vic Colletto, it was Maudie’s nephew.” Sometimes the problems of their human friends were nearly too much; sometimes she wondered if she’d rather not know about human troubles, would rather still be an ordinary housecat without a care beyond an elusive mouse or cadging another kitty treat.

Except it really didn’t work that way. A nonspeaking cat knew when trouble hit, she could feel the distress of her humans, and could suffer even more because she didn’t understand the cause. A nonspeaking cat felt the pain but had no clue as to what had caused it, or how she might help to ease the trouble. No, Dulcie thought, it was better to understand all she could, no matter how terrible. In her little cat heart, she wouldn’t want to return to that simpler life. She was lost in her distress for Lori when Joe rose suddenly, his ears laid back, staring away through the tops of the oaks, a growl low in his throat.

High in an oak tree not twenty feet from them, a cat crouched staring down at them, the big yellow tomcat that had been shadowing them. Though he was half hidden among the foliage, they could make out his wide head, broad shoulders, his coat as bright as butter. Boldly, his yellow eyes watched them.

Still growling, Joe was crouched for attack when Kit started toward the cat, her tortoiseshell fur puffed up, but her whiskers curved into a little smile. Her yellow eyes burning with curiosity, she approached the tomcat with her nose out inquisitively, her little dish face showing only fascination. Quickly Joe moved beside her, walking stiffly, ready to fight—but this was no ordinary cat, not the way he was looking at them, not with that wise and knowing expression.

There were no speaking cats like themselves in the village. Only on the empty hills was there a small band, descendants of three pairs brought over from Wales generations ago. That clowder lived now among the ruins of an old mansion, but they knew those cats. There was no big yellow tom among them, this cat was a newcomer. But from where? Even as they approached, Joe still in attack mode, the cat backed deeper among the leaves as if to leap away. The three paused. Joe was about to speak, to challenge him to come down and make himself known, when the cat vanished. He was there one second and then gone among the branches. The leaves shivered where he’d passed, the spaces between the twisting branches revealing empty sky.

They waited, but the yellow tomcat didn’t reappear. Kit peered silently up through the treetops, her paw lifted, her ears up, her fluffy tail very still. When at last they turned away, the little birds above them began to chirp again among the canopy of leaves and to flit about, lively and busy once more, now that the stranger had departed—though they kept a wary eye on the three cats who remained prowling the rooftop. Somewhere a door slammed; then once more the only sound was the hush of the sea, and the off-key chirping of the house finches. Kit looked at Dulcie, her eyes wide with interest. A speaking cat, another like themselves. Why was he so shy, why did he melt away, unwilling to speak to them?

They hadn’t seen him clearly, hidden among the oak leaves, except his golden eyes. Hadn’t caught his scent over the dry smell of the oak itself. They had glimpsed the breadth of his shoulders, but couldn’t tell his age, could see for sure only that those knowing golden eyes belonged to no common house cat. And when Dulcie and Joe looked at Kit, they knew they hadn’t seen the last of the yellow cat.

“Come on,” Dulcie said uneasily, hoping Kit wouldn’t race away, following him. “It’s nearly noon, maybe Lori and Cora Lee are back from the hospital, maybe they have some news about her pa.” Until they knew who this cat was, Dulcie hoped she could distract the tortoiseshell. They never knew where Kit’s wild impulses and giddy enthusiasms would take her, but usually it was straight into trouble.