Cat Deck The Halls

10

C ORA LEE FRENCH had been up since well before daylight on this cold winter morning. She had always been an early riser; her housemates teased her that she wanted the newspaper on the doorstep when her bare feet first swung out of bed. But this morning, even after she’d showered and dressed and put her breakfast on the table, the paper still wasn’t at the front door.

Over a solitary breakfast of instant oatmeal, and then three Christmas cookies with her last cup of coffee, she had, out of desperation, read yesterday’s classified section. Breakfast didn’t taste right without something to read, and by the time she’d finished eating, she knew more than she wanted about how hard it was to get skilled help, how high real-estate prices and rents were climbing, and how many small animals were coldly given away to strangers, via the want ads, as casually as one would donate one’s unwanted clothes. She left the house wondering what had happened to the sober responsibility that had infused the training of her own generation.

Getting old, she thought, amused at herself. Old and cranky.

The interior of her car was bone-chilling cold, the wet windshield soon fogged over. Waiting, with the wipers swinging, for the engine to warm the interior and clear the glass, she glanced at her shopping list, which included half a dozen last-minute Christmas errands she’d put off in deference to choir rehearsals; then she headed down the hill to the village, the oaks and pines dripping, the dropping street and the rooftops below her shining from the rain.

The grocery would be open, but she’d have to wait for the shops, even with their earlier holiday schedules. Banker’s hours, she thought, and laughed at herself again because she wanted all the stores to open up at dawn-she couldn’t help it if she was a morning person.

Though when she was doing a play or concert, like the upcoming Christmas pageant, she would be a night person, too, for a while, enjoying afternoon naps when necessary to provide sufficient sleep. You can sleep when you’re dead, Cora Lee believed. That was one of Donnie’s favorite sayings. Even when they were kids, he’d said that, quoting his own father. Now, with Donnie’s reemergence into her life, Cora Lee was interested to note that they both still used that expression.

Happy-go-lucky Donnie French. He’d been the closest thing to a brother she’d had. Inseparable playmates when they were small, blue-eyed, golden-haired Donnie, and her own dusky, black-haired coloring caused folks, even on New Orleans ’s streets, to turn and stare at them. Donnie, suddenly back in her life. What a wonderful Christmas present for them both.

As she left her car, heading into the market, the air was filled with the scent of pine from the cut trees stacked outside the door. Red and green decorations hung within, festooning the tops of the shelves beneath gold garlands. The store was filled with popular Christmas tunes and with the spicy smells from the bakery. This time of year she missed having family and children of her own. Her husband dead for so many years, and they’d never had children. But now she had family again, real family, besides her housemates and her close friends.

She and Donnie had been a pair when they were kids, Cora Lee the dusky tomboy, Donnie the sweetly smiling blond charmer-but Donnie was always the bolder and more adventurous, the wilder troublemaker. A pair of scoundrels. Well, they’d never gotten into serious trouble, just pranks and dares, and foolish acts of poor judgment. And Donnie, despite his sometimes wild and defiant ways, had been in some respects the more even-tempered.

He had been the methodical planner when he set his mind to it, when they had something to gain. While she had swung crazily with her overwhelming moods, between soaring joy often generated by the jazz music that surrounded them on New Orleans’s streets and a deep sadness generated by her mother’s own sadness-at their poverty and then at her father’s senseless death from stray gunfire.

Even as a child, Cora Lee had known instinctively that she would have to make her own happiness as she grew older, that she would have to learn how to lift herself out of the kind of sad days that her mother experienced. She hadn’t known, then, the word “bipolar” or the other fancy terms. But she had understood her mother as best a child can, and she had vowed never to fall into the kind of mourning to which her mother had succumbed.

She had vowed that she would be strong enough to lift herself out of sadness. And always, she had refused to call those dark moods depression. She still hated that overused, catchall word that was used to describe so many different situations.

As a child, she’d only known that she would be on her own far too soon, and that no one else would, or could, teach her the survival skills and resiliency she’d need. That only she could teach herself how to cope. How to solve life’s problems. Maybe she’d learned by watching her inept mother-learned that you always had a choice of solutions to a problem. You did, she had known even then, if your thinking was open enough and creative enough to ask all the right questions, and to choose the best answers. It made Cora Lee incredibly sad that her mother had never learned how to do that.

Now, as she finished her shopping and left the market, wheeling her loaded cart, she paused beside the newsstand, the headline of the Molena Point Gazette catching her eye. So that was what the sirens were about, last night.

COPS CONVERGE ON PLAZA CHRISTMAS TREE POSSIBLE MURDER? NO BODY FOUND

She scanned as much of the article as she could see above the fold. She was damned if she’d buy a paper; they paid for newspaper delivery. It was terrible to think of a murder at Christmastime. The circumstances sickened her-to kill or wound a man beneath a Christmas tree. She frowned, reading the strange details. Blood, but no body. Maybe the victim had been injured, but had gotten away. Except, the paper said, there had been a witness; someone had seen a body.

But could that be a hoax? A false report? Maybe the blood wasn’t that of a person at all. Animal blood? That thought didn’t comfort her.

The police wouldn’t have had any lab information last night, when the paper went to press. Maybe…A hundred conjectures ran through Cora Lee’s mind, and with them, the coldness. Hoax or not, this was ugly. Death, violence, the defiling of Christmas. Ugly, when there should be only love.

She was loading her groceries in the trunk when a squad car pulled into the parking slot next to her, and Juana Davis gave her a yawning “good morning.”

“You’ve been up all night,” Cora Lee said.

Juana nodded. “Most of it.”

Cora Lee looked at the little girl huddled in a blanket, in the front seat next to the detective, crowded up next to the complicated console, as close to Juana as she could get. A little girl with eyes darker even than Juana’s eyes, black as obsidian in such a thin, white little face. Long, ebony hair framing her milk-white skin. And such a sad expression that Cora Lee longed to pick her up and hold and comfort her. The child’s eyes were filled with fear, as she pushed closer to the detective-eyes as wary as those of a wild creature.

“There was an incident last night in the plaza,” Juana said, scanning the half-empty parking lot.

“I saw the paper.”

“The paper doesn’t mention this little girl, but she was part of it. We found her hiding in the plaza, pretty scared. Blood on her clothes. The call came in from an unidentified informant who saw the child at the scene with the body. Max kept that out of the paper.”

Cora Lee nodded. The child had said no word, she only watched Juana. Juana’s eyes told Cora Lee that the officer hated talking about the little girl in front of her, as if she weren’t there, told her it couldn’t be helped.

Cora Lee wondered if the child did not speak English. Or if, perhaps, she couldn’t speak at all.

“We have no identification, no idea who the man was, or who this young lady is. She came home with me last night.” Juana waited a moment, watching Cora Lee. “We don’t want to take her to Children’s Services.”

“Of course you don’t.” Cora Lee had heard plenty about situations with various child welfare departments from Lori Reed. She looked at Juana’s dark eyes, the detective’s sternness gone now. “You need somewhere for her to stay.”

“We’re not sure, yet.” Juana held the child’s small white hand. “Maybe for a few hours. There’d be an officer with her.”

“We have plenty of room for both of them to stay. Susan’s in San Francisco for the holidays. Mavity and Gabrielle and Lori and I are just rattling around, and my cousin Donnie is downstairs. We’d love to have any officer you send, two if you like. We’d really love to have another child for the holidays.”

“Overnight might not be safe, for any of you. But for a few hours, so she could spend some time with Lori and Dillon, and play with the dogs. She loves animals-cats, at least. When we found her last night she was snuggled right up to Clyde ’s cat and the Greenlaw cat.”

“The dogs would be thrilled to have someone to play with. Lori and Dillon have been so busy on their contest entry they’ve had no time to roughhouse with them. And of course the girls would love to have her.” Leaning down, Cora Lee looked in at the child. “I think our guest might be the first one to test out the new playhouse.” She smiled. “Would you like that?” Then, to Juana, “Would you like to come on up now? I’m headed home.”

“On my way,” Juana said. “If you’re sure you’re comfortable with this.”

“I’m sure,” Cora Lee said. “Our dogs are good protection, they can be fierce, when someone threatens.” She looked at the child again. “And yesterday evening, Mavity baked pumpkin pies.”

Juana laughed. “You know my weakness. I won’t follow you, I’ll take another route.”

Cora Lee, swinging into her car and heading up the hills, glanced in her rearview mirror to see Juana’s white Chevy leave the parking lot, turning in the opposite direction. But when she pulled into her drive, the squad car was already there. Down the street two neighbors were out in their yards, looking, making Cora Lee smile. Every time a squad car showed up at their house, she’d see a neighbor or two peering out, and that highly amused Cora Lee and her housemates-though most of the neighbors knew of their friendships within the department, there had been one time that was serious police business, and some folks preferred to remember the unpleasantness. That case, Cora Lee thought uneasily, had also involved children.

But nothing would happen to this little girl, not with police protection, and two big dogs on guard. Parking in the drive, she made two trips into the house loaded down with grocery bags while Juana sat in the squad car talking in a one-sided conversation with the little girl, until at last the child seemed willing to get out. Across the yard, Donnie was at work on the garden wall he was building along the side of the property.

It seemed a very cold day to be mixing mortar, but maybe that didn’t matter. As Juana helped the child out of the car, Donnie turned away, heading for his truck. Cora Lee went on into the kitchen to put away her groceries, leaving the door unlocked behind her.

Soon Juana and the little girl came into the kitchen hand in hand, Juana letting the child take her time. Cora Lee thought the dogs were in their fenced yard, in the back, but when the big poodle and the Dalmatian heard a strange voice, they came racing through the house. The child shrank against Juana, and Juana lifted her up, to make her feel more secure. Cora Lee grabbed the dogs’ collars, telling them to sit and stay.

It had taken several months for Susan Brittain’s three housemates to learn to handle the dogs properly and insist they respond to commands, but the training sessions had paid off. As the dogs sat obediently, avidly watching the child, the little girl looked down at them, big-eyed-and the next minute she struggled out of Juana’s arms, straight to them; Lamb, the big chocolate poodle, surged forward, and then the child and dogs were all over one another, the dogs licking and whining, the frail, silent little girl hugging and hugging them.

Juana stood close over her for a moment, in case of trouble, but then she looked up at Cora Lee, grinning, and backed off-and the women watched with wonder the child’s transformation from a terrified and shrinking little being to a vibrant and lively creature. Still silent, but very much more alive.

“She needs animals, all right,” Cora Lee said.

“She only trusts the animals.”

The two women sat at the kitchen table with coffee and pumpkin pie. There was milk and pie for the child, but the little girl wouldn’t sit down, she wanted only to play with the dogs.

“That was your cousin who just pulled out?”

“Donnie, yes. He’s been working on the garden, building plastered garden walls, the way we’ve planned for so long. He laid the new stone walks, too.”

“It’s looking great, Cora Lee. You’ve all worked hard on this house-you’ve made a new, beautiful home from a place too long neglected. And the Christmas decorations, your huge tree, and the red bells and wreathes…”

“Donnie helped a lot-we’d never have dared such a big tree without him. It’s been a boon for us, to suddenly have him here, he’s done so much to the house. I didn’t know he had those skills. He’s been doing some jobs around the village, too, and people have already started to seek him out. He just finished a renovation for Sicily Aronson’s gallery.”

Davis nodded. “Opening it up to the café and bookstore. Makes all three more inviting.”

“I wanted to pay him for our work, but he refused. Said if we wouldn’t let him pay rent and board, he’d work for his keep.” Cora Lee smiled. “He said, ‘If you ladies keep feeding me so elegantly, I have to do something or you’ll be rolling me down the driveway.’”

“Sounds like a nice guy. I saw him in the village the other day; Dallas pointed him out. He was talking with a middle-aged couple-tall, dark-haired woman, strangers. He’ll have all the work he wants, as difficult as it is to get skilled craftsmen.”

“What did happen last night, Juana? You’re pretty concerned about the little girl, if Max didn’t tell the reporters about her.”

“I’d already gotten her away from the scene when the reporters showed up.” Juana described the events of the previous night. And the anonymous phone call, like tips they had received in so many other cases, this one telling them about the child.

“The caller said she was clinging to the dead man,” Juana said. “When Brennan found her, she was huddled in that little pump house behind the dog fountain, and those two cats were with her, Clyde’s big tomcat, and the Greenlaw’s cat cuddled right up to her.”

“I guess even that macho tomcat might have a soft spot,” Cora Lee said, smiling.

“She was afraid of Brennan, shrinking away from him. That’s when he called for a woman. She likes Jimmie McFarland, though, maybe because he’s quieter. She didn’t shy away from the chief and Dallas, either. I think it was just last night, so soon after the shooting, and Brennan’s voice is loud and gruff.”

“Can’t she stay here with us?” Cora Lee said. “We’re all women in the house, except for Donnie, and he’s a gentle soul. She and the guard could sleep in my room, with the dogs in there, and in the daytime she could hang out with Lori and Dillon while they work on the playhouse.”

Though there was two years’ difference in age between Lori Reed and Dillon Thurwell, the girls were fast friends, in part because both rode together, both keeping their horses up at Chief Harper’s ranch. Lori Reed, though she was the younger, had helped Dillon in school. Lori was intently committed to “real history,” as she called it, and to English, and her eagerness had rubbed off on Dillon, an interest that had changed Dillon a great deal.

Juana looked out to the living room, where the big poodle and Dalmatian and the little girl had curled up in a tangle among the floor cushions, the dogs panting.

“There’s no name tag on her clothes?” Cora Lee said. “No labels you can trace?”

“Kmart labels, could have come from anywhere. I bathed her last night, bagged her clothes for evidence, put her in one of my T-shirts. This morning Officer Kane brought me some clothes, his boy’s about the same size.

“There’ve been no California missing reports,” Juana said, “for an adult or for a child of her description. Nothing so far on the West Coast, and nothing yet in the national reports. Taking the word of our informant that there was a dead man, we’re guessing he was a tourist.”

“You think she was kidnapped?”

“It seems unlikely if, as the caller said, the child was snuggled up to him. It’s possible that an estranged father could have taken her, and run, against a court order. We have no report to that effect, yet, where the child fits that description.”

Cora Lee shivered. The two women looked at each other, both touched by the horror that the child must have experienced, if she was in that man’s arms when he was shot.

Though the child seemed busy with the dogs, they kept their voices low. She might not speak, but it was obvious that her hearing was just fine, turning when a dog huffed, glancing up at the women if they laughed. When they finished their pie and coffee, Cora Lee called the dogs, Juana wrapped up the child’s pie for later, and they headed out the front door, across the front deck, and down the four steps to the big garage, where Lori and Dillon were building their contest entry.