Cat_shining_bright_Merfi_630007 - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Unknown (ч. 3)

But stern Reverend Samuel? Tall and bent, he stood a little way from the bride and groom, solemn faced and grim. This was not how weddings were supposed to proceed. Weddings were courteous, proper affairs. Yet was there, Joe wondered, was there the shine of a smile in the reverend’s dark eyes?

Joe daren’t look at Clyde. He knew the look he’d see on Clyde’s face, as if this were all Joe’s fault. When again he looked at Ryan, she had backed away from Voletta, letting Max and Dallas handle her, but Ryan’s green eyes still blazed. Joe watched Max take Voletta gently by her arm, lead her to a squad car, carefully help her in, locking her in the back. Already Juana Davis and Kathleen Ray were taking pictures of the stolen items jumbled in the bags, and of the jimmied lockers.

Why had Voletta done this? Why had she come here? Now she was in as much trouble as her thieving niece. If Voletta wanted the expensive tools to sell, why didn’t she sneak them from the truck up at the job? Joe thought. Too risky, with Ryan, and Scotty and the other men working there in broad daylight?

Or did Voletta create this disturbance to purposely put an ugly note on the wedding, to turn Kate’s happy day sour? A crazy, vindictive old woman with no love for Kate, who had tried hard to buy her land. No love for Kate and Scotty, who had surely reported the movement of the cars that night. What could be better than an ugly burglary right in the middle of their wedding?

And what better victim to steal from than Ryan Flannery, who was tearing up the old mansion of the family estate, and who had put that big cat shelter on the open land so near to Voletta, spoiling her privacy? Voletta might have little to do with the rest of the Pamillons, Joe thought, but she still looked upon the abandoned estate as her land, as her heritage. She might easily hate anyone who moved onto it with, in her mind, no right at all to be there.

The wedding party resumed as congenially as if there had never been an ugly disturbance, as if Voletta’s wicked destruction and the cats’ screaming confrontation had never occurred—as if Ryan’s beautiful king cab did not sit in the carport cruelly battered and forlorn. While the old woman was escorted to MPPD and booked by officers Wrigley and Brown, the wedding guests crowded into the Damens’ big family kitchen, where the bride and groom cut the cake, exchanged bites and, laughing, smeared each other’s faces with white icing. The only folks who had missed the excitement were Ryan’s dad, his lovely wife, Lindsey, and Rock, who, trying to keep his balance in the small outboard, watched his companions reel in their catch, reaching a paw now and then to pat at the long string of trout already dragging beside the boat.

The half-demolished wedding cake sat on the decorated kitchen table; guests carried plates of cake and canapés to the patio where the chairs had been rearranged, small tables were unfolded, and Ryan and Charlie poured coffee. The three kittens roamed the top of the patio wall, leaping down to the white-covered barbecue to bat at the pots of daisies. The four older cats settled in friendly laps near to Max and Dallas. Max had just taken a call: Randall Borden was out of surgery, his appendix removed with no complications. He would remain in the hospital, then be sent to a recovery unit until he was well enough to be transported to county jail, facing arraignment for two counts of murder and for car theft.

The cats knew that Egan Borden would soon be arraigned for car theft and on breaking and entering, which, though it was only a misdemeanor, carried a jail sentence. His brother, Rick, would board a flight for Texas accompanied by two U.S. marshals, his hefty list of charges enough to keep him locked away for some long time. Life, it seemed to Joe Grey, had a way of rolling over just as pleasantly as he rolled over now on Ryan’s lap. Life, the tomcat thought with uncommon sentiment, is not only challenging, wild sometimes, it can be tender, too. Warm and tender and good.

When Ryan looked down at him, her green eyes amused, he again had that feeling that she could almost read his thoughts. Across the table, Clyde grinned at them, and reached to take Ryan’s hand—but soon Ryan picked Joe up and wandered across the patio holding him against her face, whispering to him. “They didn’t see Courtney’s picture, no one saw the teacup. Max and Dallas must have examined that box before Robert Teague picked it up, but maybe none of them noticed the painted cat or that she looked like Courtney.”

Joe Grey smiled. It was enough that the cats’ attack on Voletta Nestor had alarmed everyone present—and had more than alerted the cops, the cats were still getting thoughtful glances from them. We don’t need that, Joe thought, and we don’t need the chief and detectives thinking about our attack or about the teacup, either. About Courtney’s likeness on a centuries-old porcelain treasure. We don’t need any more questions.

Ryan returned to the table, tucked Joe back on her lap and took Clyde’s hand again. As Joe watched the two of them, and watched the happy newlyweds across the patio, he was filled with pleasant thoughts—but when he glanced up at the three kittens playing, suddenly his spirit dropped like a heavy weight. Suddenly he realized how lonely life would be now, how very empty with Striker and Buffin leaving home, leaving their mother and Wilma, leaving the nest where they were born. Joe watched the two buff kittens batting at Courtney through the potted daisies, he watched them look up as if laughing, to where the Firettis sat, and the sad feeling filled him, the cold knowledge that tonight their two boy kittens would have a new home.

Buffin and Striker had made their own decision. Not Joe nor Dulcie nor Wilma meant to forbid them. The boys had bonded with the Firettis, with these two loving humans; they had bonded with the life of the hospital. They would not be going home with Dulcie and Wilma when the party was over. Even when he looked up at Courtney playing happily with her brothers, he saw a lonely sadness touch the little calico’s face, he knew she’d miss Buffin and Striker, and his own dismay nearly choked him. Dulcie reached out to him from where she lay in Wilma’s lap, her soft paw covered his paw and he saw the same loneliness on both Dulcie’s and Wilma’s faces.

But it was the kittens’ right to step out into the first chapter in their new lives. He looked around the patio at the rest of the party, so happy, talking, laughing, congratulating bride and groom. He didn’t want Kate and Scotty to see his sour mood, to put a painful note on the wedding—Voletta had done enough of that. Though her destructive temper tantrum had caused as much amusement as anger.

Clyde rose to change the music to the old forties hits that they all loved, and as a CD belted out Artie Shaw, half a dozen couples were soon dancing. Max danced the first dance with the bride. At the next number he handed her over to Scotty. After several dances, Kate returned to the kitchen to cut small slices of what was left of the wedding cake. She wrapped each in foil, and handed them around to all the single officers, gleaning laughs and a few startled looks. “This is not to eat, it’s to sleep on. It might not be traditional,” she said, “for men to get the wedding cake and dream of their brides. But who knows, stranger things have happened.” That gained more laughter and rude teasing, enough to make her blush. When she gave the two female detectives their cake, Juana Davis said it was a bit late in her life, when she was already expecting a grandchild. But beautiful young Detective Ray smiled and tucked the cake safely in her pocket.

The bride and groom stayed for a half-dozen more dances before they departed. They were there for the sad moment when Mary and John Firetti cuddled the two boy kittens and headed home—the kittens receiving many kisses from Dulcie and Courtney and Wilma, and nose nudges from Kit and Joe and Pan. It wasn’t as if they were leaving Molena Point, they were only a few rooftops away. Joe thought of Buffin’s future, of the many animals he might help, and maybe humans, too. As for Striker, that kitten knew the number of roofs from the clinic to MPPD as well as to his father’s house, and of course he knew the way back to his mother.

“I’m not leaving for good,” he told Joe. “But right now Buffin needs me, and the Firettis need both of us. And,” the big kitten said, “the first time you need a partner, I’m right there with you.”

Wilma and Dulcie and Courtney left shortly afterward, Wilma carrying them both, Dulcie wiping tears with her paw. Heading home, Wilma was satisfied that the threat of housebreakers was past. Those who had wanted the Bewick book knew well enough it was locked in MPPD’s evidence room—or, they thought the rare volume was there. They had no idea the real book was only ashes. Now the thieves’ minds would be on other matters, on lawyers, on the county attorney, and on their imminent indictments.

Party-cleanup time was plate-licking time for Joe and Pan and Kit. Trash was bagged and taken out, the kitchen given a quick wipe-down, the chairs and tables folded and stacked, then Ryan collapsed on the couch. Upstairs, Snowball woke at the silence and came padding down from her retreat to be hugged and petted and loved; the little cat might not like crowds and parties but she loved the attention afterward that centered on her, alone.

Ryan went out once to look at her poor truck, but soon came in again. They had already brought the bags of tools and power tools inside. Now, Clyde held her close. “I’ll take it to the shop in the morning. We’ll have it right in a day or two if we can get all the parts. You’ll look mighty grand, taking the Jaguar to work among lumber and torn-out walls.”

“I’ll look mighty grand to Lena,” she said coldly. “I wonder if Max will keep Voletta in jail or set bail and send her home. They can’t care for her wounds very well in a jail cell, and he did release Lena to take care of her. At least Lena’s good for something. And,” she said, smiling, “will Voletta get bail under the same conditions? Home confinement and a PO?”

“And a leg bracelet?” Clyde said. That set them laughing, until Snowball, with too much noise again or maybe feeling left out, went back upstairs. But soon they were all in bed, doors locked, lights out, Snowball and Joe Grey snuggled close to Ryan and Clyde.

At the Firetti cottage, Buffin cuddled with his little dog, Lolly, who felt well enough to caper around the bedroom before she settled on the bed, the three animals and Mary and John cozy together.

At the Greenlaw house, Kit and Pan started out in the big bed with Lucinda and Pedric as they usually did. Maybe later, in the small hours, they would head for the tree house and, if the moon grew brighter, maybe for a short hunt.

The clouds did clear, and up the coast where the moon gleamed over the sea, at a small, exclusive inn, embers burned in the fireplace and the terrace doors stood open. The bride and groom, having risen from bed, sat on the wide deck, a quilt wrapped around them, listening to the breakers crashing below. “It wasn’t the usual wedding,” Scotty said, “thanks to Voletta and to our wild little cats.”

“It was the best wedding,” Kate said. “I hope Juana and Kathleen got some pictures of the cats going after that woman and all of us crowding to help them, what a wedding album that will make.”

“That, and the picture of you with icing all over your face.”

“Pictures of both of us with icing,” she said, leaning close against him. “This is a marriage of sharing.”

And it would be. They both knew that, just as the cats knew. At Wilma’s house, where Dulcie and Wilma and Courtney were tucked up in bed, Dulcie said, “They will be happy. Happy because they love each other and because now they don’t need to keep secrets, because they can talk together honestly. And because, knowing those two, they won’t fight but will talk things over, come to a sensible understanding, the way two cats would do.”

“Always?” said Wilma, turning to look wryly at her.

“Almost always,” Dulcie said; and she smiled and rolled over and in seconds she was asleep. Wilma slept, too.

But Courtney pawed under the pillow for the tiny foil package of wedding cake that Kate had given Wilma to save for her. She lay holding it in her paws, sniffing it, at first dreaming wide-awake memories: but soon dreaming visions of times long past, pictures of lands far away, of handsome tomcats suddenly remembered. Yawning, she drifted into sleep clutching her little cake against her whiskers, wondering if the wedding cake would tell her where her future lay, tell her where this new life in which she had landed might take her. Tell her what grand dreams this new world would unfold for her.

About the Author

In addition to her popular Joe Grey mystery series for adults, for which she has received eleven national Cat Writers’ Association Awards for best novel of the year, Shirley Rousseau Murphy is a noted children’s book author who has received five Council of Authors and Journalists Awards. She lives in Carmel, California, where she serves as full-time household help to two demanding feline ladies.

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Also by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Cat Shout for Joy

Cat Bearing Gifts

Cat Telling Tales

Cat Coming Home

Cat Striking Back

Cat Playing Cupid

Cat Deck the Halls

Cat Pay the Devil

Cat Breaking Free

Cat Cross Their Graves

Cat Fear No Evil

Cat Seeing Double

Cat Laughing Last

Cat Spitting Mad

Cat to the Dogs

Cat in the Dark

Cat Raise the Dead

Cat Under Fire

Cat on the Edge

The Catsworld Portal

By Shirley Rousseau Murphy and Pat J.J. Murphy

The Cat, the Devil, the Last Escape

The Cat, the Devil, and Lee Fontana

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

cat shining bright. Copyright © 2017 by Shirley Rousseau Murphy. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Cover illustration © Beppe Giacobbe

first edition

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

Print ISBN: 978-0-06-246031-8

Digital Edition AUGUST 2017: 978-0-06-246088-2

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