Cat Striking Back

28

ENTERING THE CHAPMAN house, Charlie had gone into the laundry room first to check on the mama cat. Before she’d switched on the light, a low hiss greeted her. She’d paused, then thrown the switch for the single light over the washer.

Mango stood just outside her blanket-lined box, boldly facing Charlie, her tail lashing, her ears flat, shielding her kittens with a growl so businesslike that Charlie hadn’t approached her.

“Someone was here,” she said softly. “Someone scared you, Mango.” Nothing but intrusion by a stranger would have frightened Mango so. She peered around Mango to see if the kittens were all right. They seemed to be, two of them nosing at their mother, the other two curled up, yawning.

The laundry window was closed, as it should be. The room was as she had last seen it, nothing seemed different. Mango continued to face her, too upset to settle in again with her kittens. Leaving her alone to calm down, Charlie moved into the kitchen, her hand concealing her pepper spray.

Nothing seemed disturbed there, the small electrical appliances and the kitchen TV were all in place. But as she’d entered the dining room, she’d stopped cold and backed against the wall, scanning the living room and the hall beyond, then looking around with dismay.

The walls were no longer bright with the jewel-like rows of miniature paintings that she’d so enjoyed. All three walls were bare except for rows of small picture hooks marching across like dark insects poised in some miniscule military maneuver.

Warily she’d moved on through the house knowing she should leave, should go back outside and call the department. Removing her shoes and switching on lights as she entered the silent rooms, she’d slowly scanned each area, walking in the center, away from the cupboards and cabinets that a thief would have examined and where he might have left minute debris from his shoes.

She’d found nothing else disturbed beyond the missing paintings. No closet door had been left open, no drawers with their contents spilling out. The sliding glass door with its pry marks was securely locked; she used a tissue around her fingers to make sure. At last, certain that no one was there, she’d called out to Joe Grey and Dulcie, at first using only, “Kitty, kitty,” in the silly, high voice that she sometimes used to tease Joe, and that he hated. She’d called Joe’s name, and Dulcie’s, but there was only silence.

What if the cats were hurt, unable to answer her? Moving carefully from closet to closet, using a tissue to turn the knobs, she searched for them knowing Max would be furious that she’d prowled the house like this, playing cop.

When she was certain the cats weren’t there, and having found nothing more out of order besides the missing paintings, she’d hurried on to the Waterman house, stopping to fetch gloves from her Blazer. She was at the Watermans’ door when Clyde and Ryan pulled up.

“Chapmans were robbed,” she told them. “Looks like they took only Theresa’s paintings, but it makes me worry about the cats. I want to look in the other three houses before we call the department.”

“Not a good idea,” Ryan said. “Call the department now, Charlie.”

Charlie looked at her and knew she was right. She called the dispatcher, then she called Max. The phone went dead while they were talking, but that wasn’t unusual in this hilly area. She sat in the car with Ryan and Clyde, and Rock, waiting impatiently and worrying about the cats, worrying that the thief might have hurt them. It was a given that if those cats spotted the burglar, they’d followed him into the houses. Though they were only cats and shouldn’t draw his attention, those three had a way of attracting trouble.

When Detective Davis arrived, Charlie gave her the keys to the four houses, and they waited while Davis and four other officers cleared each house. Charlie wanted to go in with Davis, but only when all four houses had been cleared did Juana take her through, so Charlie could tell her what might be missing. Juana had found no sign of a break-in. When two more units arrived, Juana sent two officers to canvas the neighborhood.

In the Waterman house, Charlie found nothing out of order until, wearing gloves, she retrieved the hidden key for Rita’s jewelry cabinet. When Davis opened the carved door, they stared in at empty shelves.

“Rita’s beautiful jewelry. Her baroque and Byzantine pieces, the lovely cloisonné.” She turned to look at Juana. “That seventeenth-century faux emerald necklace I so liked.” She stood very still, touching nothing, her anger sharp and hot.

The house wasn’t torn apart as if someone had seen Rita wearing such jewelry and was looking for it. This thief knew not only where to look, but must have known the location of the key. Leaving the master bedroom, they went through the rest of the house again but Charlie could find nothing else disturbed, everything seemed to be in place. Certainly the electronic equipment was all there, televisions, the music system, and the computers. As they walked through, Charlie innocently called the cats, saying, “Kitty, kitty,” so they’d know she wasn’t alone.

No one mewed, she heard no clawing at a door, no faint cry of a cat in distress. She had a sick feeling that the burglar might have discovered the cats following him as he made his thieving rounds, that maybe Joe had followed too closely on his heels and the burglar had turned on him. Had an edgy thief, finding the big cat stalking him through the dark rooms, been startled into cornering Joe and hurting him? And what about Dulcie and Kit? Had the three cats been together, all three witnesses to the thefts? All three victims?

She watched Juana, wearing cotton gloves, open each closet. They found just the usual household contents, some cupboards cluttered, some neatly arranged. At last they left the Watermans’, moving on to the Becker house, where Juana had found much of the furniture missing, indentations on the carpet where little tables had stood, empty picture hooks on the walls, bare places on the hardwood describing the absence of Frances’s small imported rugs.

The house was cold, too, from a draft through the open window just beside the front door. “He didn’t get in this way,” Juana said. “He may have forced the window and reached through, not knowing it was a double bolt with no key in the lock.”

No, Charlie thought. No burglar could have entered. But a cat could.

“You want to record what’s missing?” Juana asked. Charlie nodded, Juana produced a small tape recorder, and Charlie followed her through the rooms inventorying as best she could remember every missing rug, carved table, painting, and piece of porcelain. They had circled the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen, had returned to the front hall and were headed for the main-level bedrooms when a yowl brought them up short. Charlie spun around. Davis reached to open the closet door, which shook with thuds. Joe yowled again, louder, and Dulcie and Kit mewled frantically.

Juana pulled the door open and the cats were all over Charlie. Joe Grey hit her shoulder, clinging with demanding claws. Dulcie and Kit climbed up her jacket, mewling and lashing their tails with indignation that they’d been locked in. But even as Charlie hugged and cuddled them, Kit leaped free again, streaked out through the open window and the wrought-iron grille and disappeared into the night. Dulcie tensed to race after her, but Joe laid his ears back. His look said, Let her go.

Dulcie scowled at him as if thinking Kit could use some help, and before he could stop her she, too, was gone. Joe and Charlie stared at each other, the tomcat’s yellow eyes burning with annoyance. Davis looked on in silence. Neither Charlie nor Joe dared wonder what she was thinking. After a moment, she said, “What about the closet?” The shelves were nearly bare.

“It was full,” Charlie said. “He cleaned it out. Everything was wrapped, I can’t itemize those pieces. I think they’d be similar to what we listed.”

Carrying Joe, Charlie returned to her Blazer. Ryan and Clyde were parked behind it, Rock asleep in the backseat. As Charlie approached the convertible, Rock woke and lunged up to nose with delight at the tomcat, slobbering in his face, making Joe grimace.

One squad car had left, and Davis was still in the Becker house. Watching carefully to make sure they were alone, they sat in the roadster listening to Joe’s whispered and condensed version of the night’s adventure.

“He could have killed you,” Clyde said. “Could have killed all three of you.”

“Four,” Joe said, reminding them of Tansy’s part in the action.

“And the burglar?” Charlie asked. “Did you get a better look at him?”

“Not a good look,” Joe said. “But I’d know that smell, the same as around the swimming pool.” He tried to describe the scent, which seemed to him a cross between catmint and maybe mouthwash. “How did he get openers to all four garages and the door keys? And what made you come looking in the middle of the night?”

“So strange,” Ryan said. “All at once we got worried about you three. Rock was pacing and fussing, and then Wilma called. We all felt that something was amiss.” She frowned, her green eyes puzzled.

Joe Grey shrugged. He didn’t think it strange that a few perceptive humans could sense when their friends were in danger, he was surprised it didn’t happen more often. He was about to express his opinion when, seeing two officers approaching, he curled up in Ryan’s lap and closed his eyes.