Murphy_Shirley_Rousseau_Cat_Coming_Home_BookFi

31

IT WAS LATER that morning that Joe dropped to the roof of Ryan and Clyde’s little cottage amid the drumbeat of hammering from the yard below—and landed facing the yellow tomcat. They hissed at each other and bristled, but without much ferocity, only with the usual rush of tomcat one-upmanship, that sudden and heady surge of adrenaline that made the yellow cat lash his tail and give Joe a ritual snarl. Below them, Ryan and Clyde were building wooden forms, getting ready to pour the foundation for the new sunroom. When Joe padded around onto the small wing that extended behind the cottage, he could see that they had the big header in for the glass sliders. A roll of heavy plastic lay nearby, ready to cover the new opening against unexpected gusts of passing rain. He didn’t see the two Latino laborers; he thought they were working another job, preparing for yet another remodel. Ryan was right, this would be a busy month for her, the joys of the holidays sandwiched in between bouts of heavy labor; and that was the way she liked it. She never complained, so Joe guessed the construction work must be for Ryan as heady as restoring rusty old cars was for Clyde or, for Joe, offering up to MPPD a nice piece of evidence to fit into their investigation.

When he looked over at Kit and Dulcie, he had to laugh at the feathers stuck to Kit’s mottled face where she’d just finished off an unwary starling. Beside him, the yellow cat had relaxed his wary stance, and the four of them lounged companionably, watching Clyde drive stakes for the forms. They watched Lori Reed came out the side door, hauling pieces of carpet taller than she was. Dragging her burden into the narrow side yard, she heaved the heavy bundles into a green metal Dumpster that seemed nearly as big as the house. Her brown hair was tucked up under a baseball cap. She wore shorts, boots, a faded T-shirt, leather work gloves, and a cloth mask tied over her nose and mouth against the dust from the ancient rug.

“Her pa’s going back to prison tomorrow,” Dulcie said softly as Joe rolled over, close beside her. “To the prison infirmary.” Her fur, baked from the sun, smelled clean and sweet. Over the noise of the hammers, the three talked in little cat whispers. “That’s a visiting day,” Dulcie said. “Lori and Cora Lee will leave at midnight tonight, to be in line in the morning.”

The yellow tom flicked an ear. “A long wait for tired families, wives and kids in line for hours, and then only a few short minutes for their visit. And a long wait, too,” he said dryly, “for the prisoners’ scuzzy partners, on the outside, to pass on their coded information. Their plans for whatever’s coming down out here, beyond the prison walls.”

From within the house, Benny appeared, also wearing a mask. He went straight to Rock, to lean companionably against the patient Weimaraner. Lori, having apparently hauled out the last of the carpet, went to kneel beside them, putting her arm around Benny. “You can help me sweep, if you like. There are two brooms.” Looking pleased, Benny nodded and rose, and the two disappeared inside again. In a moment the cats could hear their brooms swishing across the bare wood subfloor. Joe looked at the yellow tomcat.

“There was a man in prison,” Joe said. “Kit said his name was Arlie something? What did he look like?”

“He’s been out a couple of months,” Misto said. “A handsome man, maybe in his fifties, close as I could tell. Square build, very white hair. Clean shaven, soft-spoken, and—urbane is the word. The others laughed at him, called him ‘the gentleman.’ But not to his face; he could be mean, you could see the rage surge up in him. They didn’t mess with Arlie, even the prison gangs left him alone.”

“And the man you were watching in the motel,” Joe said, “could he be the same?”

Misto flicked his whiskers. “His hair was black, and a black beard. I couldn’t pick up his scent, nothing but shaving lotion, and her perfume. He’s built the same, voice the same. Not hard to grow a beard, then dye his hair and beard.”

“Did you follow him here,” Dulcie said. “Is that why you came?”

The yellow cat smiled. “Not exactly. It’s what he said that brought me here. Arlie and Tommie McCord talked about the village. Prison talk, McCord going on about the burglaries he’d pulled here. And Arlie describing the fine house he’d once owned on the shore when he lived here. Bragging talk. But I thought I’d seen that house, a vague memory of concrete slabs with glass in between. ‘Modern,’ he called it. The memory of that house was like a dream, I didn’t know then where I’d seen it.

“He talked about beautiful women sunbathing on the beach, and then about cats, said there were too many cats on the shore around his house, cats hiding in caves in the cliffs. Said they were disgusting, that the village should get rid of them. That had McCord listening, all right, and laughing, a strange, mean laugh. But it sounded so like the muddy shore I remembered, that house, and the shore where the sea will come up to cover all the sand, and there’s a little fishing dock. When he told about a man who came to feed the cats, that was a jolt. I was sure I remembered him.” Misto looked at them with excitement. “I was a kitten in that place, I’m sure of it. I think I was born there.”

“That could be Dr. Firetti,” Dulcie said. “The man who fed the cats, he’s fed them for years. He’s our doctor. He feeds the strays and traps and, pardon the expression, neuters them, gives them their shots and turns them loose again.”

“He didn’t neuter me,” Misto said. “He couldn’t trap me. I remember the traps, like wire cages. When he set them, I always hid from him. I was only small when a woman began to feed me, she came every day until we were friends. And then she took me away; I made my home with her until she died. She died very young, she was fine one day, and then an ambulance was there, it took her away and I never saw her again. And then I was on my own,” Misto said sadly.

“And you came here because you remembered this village, and because those prisoners talked about us,” Kit said, her ears sharply forward.

Misto’s ears and whiskers were down, his thin tail curled around him. “It’s hard to get old among strangers. Hard, when there’s no one else like you, no other speaking cat, no one who understands.”

“And your family?” Dulcie said. The hammering below and the scurries of wind among the dry oaks masked their whispers.

“My mate and I were happy, we had three fine, half-grown kits when she disappeared. I searched for her for a year, I found tufts of her fur near some spent bullets. If she was dead, I never found her body, and at last I gave up.

“I raised the kits, they were good hunters. But then in a garden near our den they took up with a family of children, and all three decided to stay. I didn’t want another human family, I wasn’t done roaming. They were grown and on their own, and I left them.”

“You’ve traveled all over?” Joe said, wondering how that would be, to live that vagabond life.

“I traveled for months, but then returned there, I was lonely for my young ones. But they were gone, the family was gone. I looked for a long time but I never found them. At last I moved on again, and I kept moving, always traveling. I didn’t find my children, and I met no more of our own kind.”

Misto looked from one to the other. “Do you know how it feels to think you’re the only cat within hundreds of miles like you, the only cat who can understand human speech, who could speak to a person if you chose?”

They all three knew how that felt, they knew that frightened loneliness. That was how Dulcie and Joe had met, when each thought there was no other cat like them. They remembered well the wild thrill, when they discovered each other.

Only Kit had never experienced that particular kind of loneliness, for she had grown up among a band of speaking cats. Kit knew loneliness of a different kind, shunned by the others like herself, an orphaned kitten, an outsider, tagging along behind a feral band that didn’t want her, eating the few scraps they left, trying not to starve. She wasn’t born of their group, she was a speaking cat but she wasn’t one of them, and she was driven off again and again, a little kitten who did indeed understand loneliness.

“And then,” Misto said, “there at the prison when I learned there were other speaking cats nearby? Of course I came to find you.” He smiled, such an open, delighted smile that Joe had to trust the old cat. “When I saw that blue vintage T-Bird pull into the prison yard on visiting day, I guessed that had to be Jared Colletto’s car, and I took a chance. Victor was always bragging about that car, how his brother kept it in factory-new condition, how Jared was okay in most ways but he was real prissy when it came to that T-Bird. When I saw that car, I thought, how many vintage blue T-Birds could there be? And here I am.”

“Did you live inside the prison?” Dulcie said. “How could …?”

Misto shook his head. “I lived in the open fields among a band of ferals—or at least people called them feral. Many were dumped cats who’d once had homes. Others were truly feral, born wild and their ancestors wild before them. I was the only speaking cat, though I never spoke to them.” The old cat licked his paw. “One of the guards put out food for us, at a side entrance. He’d pet us and talk to us. I wanted badly to talk to him, but of course I didn’t. He was a kind man, he was my friend.

“Some of the prisoners were kind, too. Some saved food for us, leftovers from their meals, they’d slip food to us in the prison yard. We could get into the fenced exercise yard, and even into the prison itself if we were quick, but you had to be wary, we weren’t allowed in there.”

“Weren’t you afraid?” Kit said. “Won’t those men hurt cats?”

“Most of them liked us, they liked having an animal around, to pet and talk to. We stayed away from the threatening ones, the reaching, hard-eyed, cold or spacey guys. Or the guys who were too gentle and smarmy and tried too hard to lure us close.”

Below them, Benny and Lori emerged from the cottage carrying a big trash can between them. Misto said, “Lori’s pa was nice, we were friends. As much as you can be friends, when you can’t talk together. He talked about Lori, he described her so well that I knew her at once. Long shiny brown hair, big brown eyes and little tilted nose. He said she worked for a contractor, and he was proud of that.” Misto twitched a whisker. “There’s a lot of regret in that man, the kind of regret and hindsight that traps a human, that can eat on a person and make him miserable.”

Lori and Benny emptied the trash can, tipping it high into the Dumpster, the carpet scraps and dust cascading out. After they put the can on the back porch, Benny continued to follow Lori, as clingy as a puppy. As if, Joe thought, the kid hadn’t had many young friends in his short life. He thought about the hit-and-run, about the danger to Benny, and about the stabbing of Jack Reed and the possible threat to Lori, and he was glad Rock was there watching the two of them with that keen, proprietary gaze. He just hoped Rock’s attention, and the vigilance of the people around the children, would be enough to protect these two from harm.