Murphy_Shirley_Rousseau_Cat_Coming_Home_BookFi

41

THIS WON’T WORK,” Dulcie said as Wilma hurriedly pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. “From the car, we won’t see anything, won’t have a clue where they’ve taken Benny. What, you want to just drive the streets clueless?”

“But you can find him, running the roofs clueless?” Wilma gave her a skeptical look and bent down to tie her jogging shoes.

“I can scan the streets faster from up there. I can see on four sides of a block in seconds. And sound rises, Wilma. I can hear more, too. If you try to follow me in the car, how will you see me? And what if I lose you among other car lights? It isn’t like we carry walkie-talkies.” That wasn’t a bad idea, Dulcie thought, except for the weight, except for having to wear a collar, which in itself terrified her. “I can look for him better alone,” she repeated stubbornly.

“Go,” Wilma said at last, exasperated. She had never, in all her working career, let her parolees rag her the way the little tabby bossed her around. She watched Dulcie streak away through the house, heard her cat door slap open and back as she bolted through. She imagined Dulcie scrambling up the oak tree, leaping to the neighbors’ shingles and vanishing across the rooftops. Where would she go, how would she know where to look? And yet, having lived with Dulcie a long time, she suspected the tabby would find a way.

She debated whether to call Ryan and Clyde, find out if they’d gone to help search for Benny. Maybe she could help them? Kit must … Oh, she thought, it’s Rock! Kit wanted Rock, she wanted him to track the child.

But then Dulcie’s on a wild-goose chase, she thought, looking away toward the windy rooftops. Will Dulcie think of Rock? Will she try to find and join them, instead of searching blindly by herself for Benny? She imagined Dulcie alone in the night searching uselessly, then imagined the ragtag midnight procession as Rock pulled Ryan through the dark streets, Clyde and Joe running to keep up, joined perhaps by a detective or two, a strange parade racing through the night. Will Dulcie find them? Or will she just go on searching all alone?

RACING OVER THE roofs toward the hills, Dulcie didn’t think about Rock, she was obsessed with the notion that the kidnappers, unless they had a safe house in which to hide, would escape among the hills above the village, among the twisting and narrow lanes. Maybe they had a cabin back in the woods somewhere. Parts of Molena Point, wild enough for deer and coyotes and the occasional cougar, were surely remote enough to hide a kidnapper. A thin fog was beginning to drift down over the village. She paused frequently to rear up and listen, though chances were slim the child would be able to cry out. The village seemed huge tonight; one little boy could easily be swallowed up in the dark. An owl swooped low over her head, but she was too big for its supper. Ahead, a car passed on a cross street; she followed for only a block before it turned into a driveway.

A lone woman got out, a teenager who really shouldn’t be out this late. This was crazy, searching with no clue, running after every car. Though this time of night the cars were few, their tires singing a lonely song on the paving. Dulcie was maybe ten blocks from home, above the village, when she saw a red light undulating up through the pine trees some blocks ahead. A cop car? Faintly she heard a car door open, and the squawk of metal grating on metal, heard a distant police radio kick in. The sounds came from higher up the hill and, hearing no other commotion in the silent village, she headed there. She had raced three blocks when a patrol car came slipping along below her heading in that direction. She was racing to keep up when it turned on its siren, and she burned up the rooftops running, her paws pounding like rain above the heads of the sleeping village.

IN MAUDIE’S GUEST room, Ryan picked one of Benny’s dirty socks from the hamper, using a pencil to lift it into a plastic sandwich bag. She didn’t open the bag until Clyde had brought Rock in, on his lead; then she presented the scent to him, letting him take a long sniff. Rock knew what this was for, he knew the drill. His short tail wagging fast, he sniffed the lure, then sniffed thoroughly along the length of Benny’s unmade bed. Clyde and Dallas stood in the bedroom doorway, watching—and Clyde looking smug. Dallas was still perplexed at the big dog’s sudden expertise, with no long regimen of training. Rock peered under the bed for only a second, then backed out again.

From beneath the bed, Joe Grey watched his protégé, but made no move to join him. When Rock peered hard at him, Joe closed his eyes in a gesture that Rock knew meant, Don’t mess with me now, ignore me. At once Rock backed away, staring up at Ryan for direction, huffing with impatience.

“Find,” she said softly.

Rock put his nose to the floor, drank in Benny’s scent, and sped out of the room, nearly knocking Clyde and Dallas down, flew down the stairs pulling Ryan along so she had to grab at the rail to keep her balance. Racing through the house with his nose to the floor, through the studio, he pressed his body against the glass slider, pawing at it until Ryan could shove it open. Bolting through into the backyard, his nose to the ground, he headed up the hill crashing through bushes, jerking Ryan along as fast as she could run. This wasn’t obedience time when the big dog had to walk at heel on a loose leash, this was work time, Rock was in charge now. As he dragged Ryan up through the neighbors’ backyards, Clyde and Dallas following, the detective didn’t see Joe Grey following behind them, nor did he see, racing across the roofs above them, Kit and the yellow tomcat leaping in fast pursuit. Didn’t see Kit nipping and shouldering at Misto until he stopped and turned on her. With all the crashing through the bushes, no one heard them arguing in soft cat voices, Kit saying they should go back, should watch Maudie, not leave her alone, the tortoiseshell so adamant that finally Misto did turn reluctantly to go back with her, to peer down through the windows at Maudie.

MAUDIE WATCHED THE trackers from her studio doorway as long as she could see them, listened to them crashing up the black hill. She’d wanted to follow in her car, to be there when they found Benny, but Dallas had other ideas. “You’d be in the way of the dog,” he’d told her, his square Latino face serious with concern. “Driving along after him, your headlights behind him, you’d distract him, make him lose the trail.”

Maudie wasn’t sure this was true, but she didn’t want to impede the search. “I can keep up, on foot,” she’d argued.

“That could confuse him, too. You have Benny’s scent on you. You’d have him doubling back sniffing at you. We want him to follow fresh scent.”

Maudie didn’t know whether Dallas was speaking the truth at all, or simply wanted her out of their way. But she couldn’t argue with him, she surely couldn’t jeopardize the search. The police thought Kent might have kidnapped Benny, but she was certain it was Pearl. And if Pearl had him, she was terrified for the child.

“You’ll help most by staying here,” Dallas had said, “in case Benny somehow manages to escape and find his way home. You need to be here for him, Maudie. To comfort him, and to let us know he’s been found.”

She prayed to God he’d be found. She thought about Jared being part of that gang, and she felt sick. Could you trust no one? Soft-spoken, clean-cut Jared. Sleeping in the guest room alone with Benny. Had Jared had a hand in this, had he helped get Benny out of the house? And exactly when had they taken him? Behind her back as she stood on the porch watching the police? Or when she’d left the house to go down to Alfreda’s? This all had to be connected, the invasions, the theft of her keys, the rifled and stolen storage boxes, the invasions. All linked together with Benny’s kidnapping. But for what purpose?

Standing at the kitchen sink wrapped in her woolen robe, she watched the dark yard, praying Benny would appear out of the night, that somehow he would break free and find his way home. Praying to see his small shadow slipping along through the neighbors’ dark yards, making his way home. Praying to see him free of Pearl, and safe. Turning to the stove to pour the rest of the cocoa into her cup, she caught her breath at a sound behind her. Turning, she spilled hot cocoa on her hand. Pearl stood by the table, her thin face smeared with blood, her windbreaker torn and bloody, her expression smug. A bloody gash ran up her face into her kinky, bleached hair. She held a small automatic, aimed at Maudie.

“Where’s Benny?” Maudie whispered. “What have you done with him?” She dabbed at her hand with the dish towel, edging the towel toward her pocket.

“Give me the ledger pages Caroline had,” Pearl said. “And your bonds. You’ll sign them over to me. Then I’ll bring Benny here.”

Maudie just looked at her.

“I want the pages now, or you won’t see Benny again. You’re alone in the house, David’s gone, there’s no one here to help you.” She glanced at the dish towel. “If anything happens to me, you’ll never get Benny. No one will ever find him.”

“You wouldn’t kill your own child.” But Maudie wasn’t sure that was true.

“No woman has ever killed her own kid? I never wanted Benny. All these years, he’s only been in my way. Why would I want him now? Except to use in trade,” Pearl said, smiling.

“And Jared was in it all along,” Maudie said. “You and Jared and Kent did those cruel invasions together. And that man with the black beard. But why? Who is he?”

“Get the pages.”

“You’ve already been through Caroline’s things. If you didn’t find what you wanted, then it isn’t here.”

“Do you want me to bring your grandson back to you, dead?”

“It’s too late to trade,” Maudie said. “The LAPD has a copy of what you’re looking for, and there’s a warrant out on you.”

“I’m losing patience. I want the pages. Without them the boy’s dead.”

“What makes you think there isn’t more than one set of copies?”

“If there is and I find out, I’ll come back and kill him.”

“From behind bars?” Maudie said, laughing.

Pearl clicked off the safety. Her dark eyes were cold, her face as pale and hard as stone. Was this how she looked across the blackjack table, dealing out a crooked hand, taking the players’ money? Pearl glanced down at the gun, lifting it slightly so it was aimed at Maudie’s throat.

“There’s only one set of copies,” Maudie said, resigned. “In my safe-deposit box.”

“And the bonds?”

“And the bonds.” It was the middle of the night, they’d have hours to wait before the bank opened. Maybe this would give the searchers time to find Benny, maybe time to find and arrest Pearl? In that moment, she knew she should have made another copy. She’d thought about it, but had decided the pages would be safe enough, locked in the bank vault.

“We’ll be at the bank when it opens,” Pearl said. “You’ll give me the pages plus whatever cash you keep in the box, and sign over the bonds. You always kept cash in your safe-deposit box.” She smiled. “You didn’t know I knew that.”

All Maudie could think was, she wanted Pearl dead. Beneath the dish towel, her hand was so close to her pocket. Could she be quick enough? Shove her hand in, shoot through her pocket, never revealing the gun? But Pearl stood so close to her, still with the safety off the automatic. She was trying to think how to do this and not die herself when she heard a man’s voice from somewhere above them. Startled, she glanced toward the ceiling. Pearl stiffened but didn’t look up, didn’t take her eyes from Maudie.

There was no one upstairs, Maudie knew that. Unless that officer down the street had seen Pearl slip in and had followed her? Maybe he’d come to the kitchen window and seen Pearl holding a gun on her? Maybe he’d somehow gotten in upstairs. Not likely, that portly cop climbing on the fence or up a tree. She wondered if the construction ladder was still outside, lying beside the garage wall. Maybe he’d called a second cop and they were ready to come down the stairs behind Pearl? Except, they wouldn’t be talking, knowing they’d be heard in the kitchen below.

But then, when the voice spoke again, it seemed to come not from the rooms above at all, but from over the garage. Or maybe from someone out on the street, maybe it was one of her neighbors, his voice deflected by the house walls. She shifted the towel, rubbing her hand with it as she eased toward her pocket.

But what if she killed Pearl, and Benny was badly hurt somewhere, and the tracking dog didn’t find him? What if help didn’t come in time, if they found him too late because she’d killed the only person who knew where he was?

How badly had Pearl hurt him? Pearl’s face and hand were bleeding; what was that about? Had Benny fought hard enough to injure her like that, to make that deep wound down Pearl’s cheek? What would Pearl have done to him in retribution? Maudie’s heart pounded with fear for her grandson, far more fear, even, than the storm of hatred that she felt for Pearl. As Pearl gestured with the gun, quietly Maudie laid down the dish towel and slid into a chair at the table. Prepared to wait for morning, to wait for the bank to open. Prepared to do as Pearl ordered—praying that, one way or another, Benny would be safe and unhurt.