Cat Coming Home

2

IN THE SMALL village of Molena Point, far above L.A. on the central California coast, chief of police Max Harper and his tall, redheaded wife, Charlie, had just returned from an early evening ride up into the hills above the sea cliffs. In their cozy stable, as they unsaddled the horses, their conversation centered around plans for their annual pre-Christmas potluck. Max’s buckskin gelding and Charlie’s sorrel mare stood in cross ties between the two rows of stalls as Max and Charlie checked their feet for stones and then rubbed them down. At the end of the alleyway beyond the open barn doors, their green pastures spread away between white fences, allowing a glimpse of the sea beyond. The weather was warm for late November, the ocean breeze welcome; though in a few days, the local weather guru had forecast, a cold spell could be expected.

“That would be nice for the Christmas party,” Charlie said, “cold weather, and a fire on the hearth.” Usually, the Harpers hosted the casual buffet there at the ranch where they had ample parking for police vehicles and the cars of their civilian friends. This year, because of the rash of home invasions that had descended on the village, their friends and the personnel of Molena Point PD would gather in the heart of the village, at the Damens’ house, where officers on patrol could stop by on their dinner breaks, while their wives and families could linger on for a more leisurely visit. The invasions were worrisome, as the department had made no arrests and thus far had no good leads. Max had doubled patrols and extended officers’ hours, and many vacations had been canceled, the added costs stretching the department’s budget thin enough to cancel Max’s order for four new squad cars—and leaving Max short-tempered and abrupt, reining himself in with a far harder hand than he ever controlled his buckskin gelding.

“No one,” Charlie said hopefully, “would dare pull a home invasion Christmas week. Not with so many people crowding the village from out of town, for the plays, for the pageant, and a choir singing almost every night, tourists shopping and walking the residential streets, and so much traffic.” Although the minute she said it she saw how silly her statement was, that with crowds everywhere, who would notice a few more strangers?

Max gave Bucky a last swipe with the rubdown cloth and looked over at her, his lean, tanned face touched with amusement. “What better time, with doors unlocked to welcome guests, houses full of people going in and out, no one paying attention to who might step inside uninvited, maybe with a weapon at the ready?”

Charlie sighed, and wished the world were different, and then was ashamed of that childish thought. She watched Max lead Bucky into his stall, watched her husband’s thrifty movements as he fetched two rations of grain and a handful of carrots from the feed room. The brutal home attacks enraged Max, though he tried to remain low-key. These assaults, all on women at home alone, hadn’t so far netted the invaders much of monetary value. Maybe their victims’ fear, the enjoyment of their own power over the frightened women, was all the reward they were seeking. As the holidays approached, filled presumably with love and good cheer, these attacks on isolated homeowners seemed far more ugly. It didn’t help that the villagers’ growing unease was heightened by news coverage that was slanted with the weight all at one end.

The Molena Point Gazette had always, in the past, been in harmony with the local law enforcement; the editor had liked Max and was pleased with the job he did, with the stability and low crime rate in the village compared to other nearby towns. Now that the Gazette had been sold, and with a new editor at the helm, the little local paper was coming down hard on Max’s department. Emerson Ribble, the new editor, and the one new reporter he’d brought with him, seemed intent on smearing MPPD, implying that they should know beforehand the exact time and place of each attack. The paper’s cutting editorials didn’t suggest how that might be done, how any police department could run surveillance on every house and backyard cottage, on every little twisting street within the crowded square mile of the village, and do it twenty-four/seven. They didn’t seem to grasp, or didn’t want to point out, that the very basis of home invasions was the element of surprise.

One invasion had occurred just before supper-time when children were still playing in the street. Two homeowners had been attacked first thing in the morning when they went out to get the paper, leaving their doors unlocked behind them, returning to find they were not alone. So far, seven women had been beaten badly enough to be taken to emergency, four of them hospitalized. Max, besides increasing patrols into the quieter, out-of-the-way neighborhoods, had encouraged people to take their own sensible precautions as well. He’d been on TV three times, had done four newspaper interviews laying out the steps that people could take to discourage forced break-ins. It was all commonsense, basic information: Keep doors and easily accessed windows locked when you’re inside or outdoors, even when you’re right in the yard. Don’t answer the door without looking first to see who’s there. Don’t open the door at all to strangers; speak to them through a window or install a simple intercom. Watch your neighbors’ houses, note any strange cars in your neighborhood. Call your neighbors if anything looks suspicious—strangers hanging around, strange cars showing up repeatedly. Report to the police anything that couldn’t be explained, that made you uneasy. He had not suggested Mace or pepper spray, though anyone with good sense should already have looked into those or other options. The Gazette had printed Max’s articles as he’d dictated them, but then in their own articles and editorials they’d gone after him viciously, as accusatory as if he were masterminding the invasions himself. The one common denominator among the attacks was that each had occurred at the same time officers were headed for, or on the scene of, some other emergency call, when cars and men were drawn away from neighborhood patrol. Assuming the invaders had a police radio, the department had switched to a new code language, plus more reliance on cell phones.

Leading her sorrel mare into the stall, Charlie removed her halter, shut the stall door, then joined Max in the doorway of the barn; they stood enjoying the evening, watching their two half-Dane mutts out in the pasture, sniffing hopefully around a rabbit hole the rabbit long ago departed. This was the first day in some six weeks that Max hadn’t worked long overtime hours. He wasn’t twenty anymore, Charlie thought crossly, he needed some rest. Max was pushing retirement, and sometimes she wished he’d take early retirement.

But Max loved his work, he loved the department, and she wasn’t sure how he’d fare if he were idle. Though the way things were going, it looked like someone was working hard to push him in that direction, to separate him from Molena Point PD before he was ready. That enraged her almost beyond endurance, that someone was trying to destroy Max, that they were beating and injuring innocent civilians in order to hurt her husband.

Not that they would succeed. Whatever these people did, whatever this smear campaign was about, they wouldn’t destroy Max Harper, she thought fiercely, or destroy the men and women of the department who were so loyal to him.

But, standing with Max’s arm around her as they watched the evening descend, listening to the sea crash beyond the cliffs, Charlie had to smile. Despite the current trouble, there was one aspect of the investigation that even Max didn’t imagine, and lent a gleam of hope. Max could have no idea that one gray tomcat might tip the scales, that when Joe Grey and his two lady pals got their claws into the invasions, these cases could begin to open up and the department would start to receive evidence that, by its very nature, was inaccessible to the officers of Molena Point PD.