Cat Playing Cupid

27

ALONE IN THE BARN, wishing Sage would hobble out and apologize to her and say he'd been wrong, say that Stone Eye had been an evil tyrant and the clowder was better off without him, and knowing Sage would never do that, Kit began to smell a lovely aroma from the kitchen. Charlie's delicious shrimp casserole. Crouching in the straw feeling lonely and neglected and sniffing that heady scent, growing hungrier and hungrier but unwilling to go in the house and face Sage and make up-he'd have to apologize first-she waited. Maybe Charlie would come out and would understand and would maybe bring her some nice shrimp to eat and tell her she was right and Sage was wrong. Listening across the yard to little sounds from the kitchen, she longed to hear the door open and Charlie's footsteps approach. She felt sure Charlie could make everything all right.

But Kit waited a long time before Charlie appeared in the barn, calling out to her. Then she waited a long time more, letting Charlie call and call, before she came out from her hiding place in the pile of straw.

Immediately Charlie picked her up, scowling down crossly but gently stroking her. Charlie did not apologize for Sage's behavior. Nor did she sympathize with Kit. She simply headed for the house.

But before they went inside, into the big kitchen, Charlie sat down on the steps, holding Kit tenderly. "You're hurting, Kit. You feel all alone, and Sage doesn't understand."

Kit sniffed.

"Do you think Sage feels alone, too?"

Kit didn't care.

Charlie took Kit's wild little black-and-brown face in her hands, looked into her angry yellow eyes. "Do you think he understands why you're angry? Really understands?"

Kit didn't care about that either. If Sage didn't understand now, he never would. She'd said it plainly enough.

Hadn't she?

"Do you think," Charlie said, "that you might have been thinking like a kitten who expects to be understood but never really explains what's wrong?"

Kit glared at her.

"Do you think, if you explained to him that the way he sees life is a threat to the freedom you see in life, that he would understand?"

Kit was quiet, thinking. Charlie said nothing more. She rose, carrying Kit, and in the kitchen she set her down on the window seat, at the far end, as far as possible from where Sage was tucked up among the cushions. His head was down, his eyes closed in misery.

Charlie served each of the cats a plate of warm shrimp casserole, each in their own corner, then set her own plate beside a green salad and sat down at the table. She didn't talk as she ate, didn't seem to notice them. She sat enjoying her early lunch and reading some manuscript pages from the book she was working on. The cats ate in grim silence-though anger didn't seem to spoil their appetites. They ate fiercely, as if tearing at fresh kill, glancing at each other only occasionally.

After a long while, as Charlie ignored them, their glances grew more frequent and then gentler. And as the soothing effect of the warm shrimp eased and cheered them, they looked at each other more kindly. Charlie gave no sign that she noticed. When she'd finished, and rinsed her plate, she left them alone and headed back to her studio. But in truth, she was so upset by the cats' battle that she wasn't sure she could work, not sure she could put herself back into the fictional world that she built around her as she wrote.

Oh, Kit, she thought, do you love Sage? Love him enough to follow him back into the wild despite your differences? To follow him even when you can't agree on what's important in life? Indeed, two sets of their deepest beliefs were at cross purposes here, just as could happen with humans, one set of values deeply threatening the other. Oh, Kit, don't go if you can't be happy. Don't go if you can't believe alike, don't go and leave us, only to be miserable…

But now all Charlie could do was leave them alone, so her interference didn't muddle their relationship, and hope they'd sort it out.

Getting back to work on the new book, soon immersed in the tangle of the story, still Charlie was aware of the cats' softer voices, as if they were making up. Later, when she heard only silence she rose and went to look.

They were napping, curled peacefully together. She turned away, smiling, and soon she was deep in the book again, deeply relieved that silence reigned from the kitchen. Later, if she was aware of a soft metallic sound, she ignored it.

It was late that afternoon when, finishing her work for the day, she went into the kitchen and found the window seat empty and a glass panel above it open six inches. Alarmed, afraid the cats were gone, she had turned away to search the house when Kit came bolting in through the window behind her, her claws scrabbling on the sill, and raced to her, smearing dirty paw prints across the cushions.

"He's gone, Charlie. I woke up and he was gone, we were asleep and I was dreaming and then I woke up and the window was open and Sage was gone and I followed his scent that leads into the woods and I'm going back after him but I came to tell you so you wouldn't worry…"

Charlie grabbed her before she could leap away. "He's hurt, Kit. I'll come with you! He's awkward and clumsy in his bandages and cast, and it'll be dark soon. He mustn't be out there alone, he can't defend himself!" Carrying Kit, Charlie snatched up her jacket, shrugged it on while juggling the tortoiseshell, and they were out the door and heading for the woods.

"Now, Kit," she said, setting her down. "Now you can track him."

And Kit was off, following Sage's scent around the barn and straight into the heavy woods, tracking the crippled cat while already the shadows of evening were running together toward night.

JOE WAS IN a dither to leave the ruins and get back to the village. Having seen the shadowed figure slip away among the broken walls, he paced the mansion's roof beneath overhanging limbs willing Clyde to hurry, willing the detectives and coroner and everyone to get back in their cars and leave so he and Clyde could search for the guy or follow him.

The dark intruder had been spying close enough to the grotto to know they had exhumed a body. If that mysterious presence was the killer, he'd surely run.

Had he known they'd be there looking for the grave? Joe wanted to alert the two detectives, but he could not.

And he couldn't alert Clyde or Ryan; they stood in a huddle by the cars with John Bern, Mike, Lindsey, Dallas, and Juana Davis. Joe couldn't even go up to them and yowl, couldn't make his presence known. He could just hear Mike: You brought your cat up here, Damen? Rock was following cat scent! You laid a trail of cat scent! No wonder he tracked like a pro.

And he couldn't alert the dispatcher, Clyde had the phone on his belt. Even if he had a phone, how could he tell the dispatcher that Davis and Dallas had just missed a fleeing eavesdropper? It would look like the snitch was right up there in the ruins with them, that's how it would look.

And once he got Dallas and Davis wondering why the snitch was here and how he'd known they were coming here, got them looking for him, combing the ruins to find him, that could be trouble, big time. For one thing, he hadn't covered his paw prints, he'd assured himself that after they left, the wind that softly blew across the hills would wipe away those telltale marks, would destroy his recent trail through the cemetery.

No, the only option he had was to slip through the rubble and into the open roadster without being seen, hunch down on the floor under the lap robe, and pray for Clyde to hurry. He was crouched to leap off the roof when he heard a car start from the direction of the old wooden shed, a soft, smoothly running engine. He reared up, staring through the falling dusk.

There! There it went, a small, dark car sliding away between the dead oaks, over the thick carpet of rotting leaves that covered the narrow back path-and it was gone, down the narrow back road, hardly more than a trail, that would lead out, north of the village. Faintly, he could hear rocks crunching under its tires where the leaves were thin.

When he turned to see if anyone else had heard, they hadn't, no one was looking in that direction. They were too far away, that faint hushing only a cat would hear.

He hoped the rough lane would tear out the underpinnings of the sleek, navy blue coupe, prayed the driver would get stranded in plain sight.

But no such luck. Already the car was gone, dropping down the hills where it would be lost among the narrow streets and small crowded cottages. Racing through the roof's shadows where trees overhung, he slicked down a dead oak and galloped across the rubble to the old shed.

It was half falling down, evening light shining in through the cracks. Investigating the dry earth within, he found tire marks, then sniffed in and around the rough walls for human scent over the stink of lingering exhaust. He detected a trace of shaving lotion or perfume, but it was so mingled with car smells and the stink of lantana vines growing in through the roof that he couldn't make much of it. He wasn't sure he could recognize the same smell in another setting, or even on the human source.

The tire tracks were equally disappointing. Rows of chevrons that he committed to memory, but that were so common they didn't mean much. He could detect no nick or scar to further identify the tread. When he heard the faraway voices change and fade and engines start, he sped for Clyde's roadster.

Leaping in, he waited on the floor, suffocating under the lap robe as he tried to lay out a plan.

If he told Clyde what he'd seen, would Clyde try to find the vanished car? Or would he only demand that Joe leave this alone? Ryan wasn't riding back with them, she wouldn't be there to defend him. At last Clyde swung into the roadster, flipped the blanket aside, and looked down at him, smug and satisfied.

"That did go well. I have to admit, Joe, your scam was a stroke of genius. The coroner has the body, and Rock is now a trained tracker! I guess you know Ryan's way proud of you."

Joe smiled. He decided not to mention the darkly clad eavesdropper and spoil the moment with a fresh argument. He did his best to look both modest and innocent.

Ahead, the line of cars pulled around the side of the forlorn old mansion between the dead trees and broken walls, to the wider dirt and gravel road that led to the village. The coroner's white van, Juana Davis's blue sedan, then Dallas's Blazer. Then Ryan's big red king cab. Clyde's yellow roadster joined the end of the line, the tomcat crouched out of sight on the seat.

IN THE KING CAB, Rock rode on the front passenger seat beside Ryan, his head out the open window, drinking in the wind. Ryan didn't usually let the big dog put his head out where grit and stones could injure his eyes, but just this once he deserved a treat.

In the backseat beside Mike, Lindsey was silent, deep in thought, looking so solemn that Mike wondered what she'd do once they'd dropped her off at the station to pick up her car. Her expression of hard determination made him uneasy, he preferred the smiling, soft-spoken Lindsey Wolf he'd grown to care about all over again-if he'd ever stopped caring. This angry, alert side of her was worrisome. Her whole take on the morning's events was worrisome.

She seemed so certain that the corpse was that of Nina Gibbs. Seemed just as certain that Ray Gibbs had killed Nina, as sure as if the coroner had already determined identity and time of death, or as if Oregon had found trace evidence of Nina in Carson's tree house. Mike had never known Lindsey to let her imagination run so wild. He didn't try to convince her otherwise, didn't argue with her, he only wondered how prone she might be, given the mood she was in, to doing something foolish.

No one could be that sure what she might be thinking. Did her stubborn certainty have some basis? Were there facts about the case she wasn't telling them?

As Ryan turned down Ocean and into the village, driving slowly, stopping for a group of tourists headed through the gathering dusk for the lighted shops and restaurants, Mike took Lindsey's hand. "You're going home when you've picked up your car?"

She nodded, glancing out the window. "I think I'll rest a little, then I have some work to finish up that I promised for tomorrow. I'll have a sandwich for supper, at my desk."

Not until they pulled into the courthouse parking lot, when Lindsey was fishing her keys from her pocket, did she really look at him. She squeezed his hand, and smiled.

He looked at her levelly. "You'll be in the office, then?" he said uneasily. "You don't mean to do something foolish?"

She looked surprised and laughed, and swung out of the truck, turning to talk through the open window. "Because I said that was Nina, in that grave? Because I said…" She shook her head. "Even if that is Nina, what could I do?" She touched his cheek with gentle fingers. "I wouldn't know how to run some kind of investigation, if that's what you're imagining. And I know better than to interfere in cops' work."

Her words eased him, made him think his own imagination had gone astray. And yet as Lindsey leaned in to brush a kiss across his cheek, then headed away toward her car, Mike watched her not with his usual lusty interest but with questions.

He had a strong urge to follow her, at least swing by her office in a little while, see if her car was still there in the little parking alcove.

But he immediately chucked that. He wouldn't breach her trust and privacy. He didn't want to smother her any more than he'd want to be smothered. And, determining to do the honorable thing even while his instinct told him he was wrong, he settled back, riding home with Ryan to pick up his car.