Cat Telling Tales

7

The Harpers’ pastures spread away above the cliff untouched by the fire, the grass green and lush and tall from the winter rains, weaving up into the wire mesh between the white fence rails. The north and south pastures were separated by a narrow gravel drive leading in from the highway to the pale frame house and stable. A big hay barn rose at the rear, stark against the dark pine woods. The old house had started out small and plain but now a tall new great room, all glass and timbers, looked down across the pastures to the falling cliffs and the sea below. Max and Charlie, with happy disregard for convention, had turned the old living room into a new master suite, had converted their old bedroom to Max’s study, and joined the two smaller guest rooms together to give Charlie a spacious new studio.

Now, the stable’s big sliding doors stood open, allowing the roofed alleyway between the two rows of stalls to catch the ocean breeze. Joe watched Clyde fetch the wheelbarrow from behind the stable, watched him and Ryan wheel the heavy bags of feed from the back stall out to the hay barn, emptying the stall for Billy’s seven cats. He watched Ryan sweep the stall’s hard dirt floor clean of straw and attack the cobwebs along the ceiling, then carry in the five old Styrofoam coolers that Billy used for cat beds. Turned on their sides, with the lids taped on and new doors cut near one corner, they made cozy little houses, shutting out the chill. Clyde lined them up along one wall, while Ryan washed Billy’s chipped crockery and filled a bowl with fresh water. It was nearly two hours before Billy and Charlie returned with their little patients, and Charlie backed the Blazer down to the stable door.

Getting out, Billy stood looking into the stall, then looked shyly at the three adults, his cheeks coloring with pleasure. Then he went to fetch his cats. Setting the carriers in the stall, he left them closed while he headed out to the hay barn.

“What?” Charlie said.

Billy turned back. “Getting straw for my own bed. If—”

“You’ll be sleeping upstairs,” Charlie said, “over the stable. There are two bedrooms, you don’t need to sleep in a stall.”

Billy looked at her quietly. “I’d rather, if it’s all right. The cats’ll be easier if I’m with them. And . . .” He grinned at her. “More like home, maybe. And I like the smell of the horses, I’ll like hearing them around me at night.”

“You’re sure?”

He nodded. “I can park my bike in here, too, out of the way of the horses, to keep it dry.”

“All right, then,” Charlie said. But as Billy turned to head for the hay barn, Clyde stopped him.

“We have a folding cot down at the house, and some camping blankets. Leave the straw until you try that.” There was even a half bath up by the tack room, a convenience that saved Charlie and Max and their boarders from tracking mud and hay into the house. The tomcat could just imagine what kind of bathroom had been in the burned shack; even a litter box would be more luxurious.

Sure as hell, he thought, that old shack had been ripe for the smallest spark to break into flames. But why not the other two? Why hadn’t they burned? And why hadn’t the old woman gotten out of there? Or, the tomcat thought again, was she dead before the blaze started?

Padding out the big door into the stable yard, he watched Ryan, Charlie, and Billy start off across the south pasture to bring the horses back. Clyde headed for the pickup to go fetch the cot, then turned to look at Joe. “You coming?”

“Think I’ll hang out here for a while,” he said innocently, as Max’s truck turned in from the highway.

On the narrow lane the two trucks paused, driver to driver. Clyde said, “Billy’s moved in. The kid . . . What’s wrong? What have you got?”

“Coroner’s preliminary,” Max said. Joe eased closer, along the pasture fence, as Max glanced toward the stable. “Where’s Billy?”

Clyde nodded toward the south pasture. “Bringing the horses in.”

Max nodded. “Looks like Hesmerra was poisoned.”

“What, spoiled food? Billy wasn’t sick.”

Max was silent.

“You mean deliberately poisoned? With what? Why the hell would anyone poison that old woman?”

“Coroner hasn’t done the autopsy yet, but he’s thinking wood alcohol. There’s isopropanol in the blood. He’ll work on her tonight. Alcohol could have been easily added to her booze. Heavy drinker like that, she probably never noticed the difference.”

Easing deeper into the bushes, Joe wondered if the old woman might have been so hard up for booze, she’d purposely drink rubbing alcohol? But that didn’t make sense, she had all the whiskey she wanted, Erik Kraft bought it for her.

Would Erik give that old woman poison? But why? Who else was there? She lived practically as a hermit, only her grandson around most of the time, and Billy sure hadn’t poisoned his gran. He wondered about the neighbor who had moved out, Emmylou Warren, the woman who had come to the fishing wharf looking for her two cats. Could she have poisoned Hesmerra’s whiskey before she moved out? But why? A lot of questions to be answered, Joe thought, laying back his ears.

Max glanced away to the south pasture where Ryan and Charlie and Billy were coming back with the horses, Charlie carrying a grain bucket that would now be empty, a little enticement to catch the nervous mounts. “I need to talk with Billy,” he said, and drove on into the yard. Joe watched the sorrel mare buck and snort as Charlie and Ryan turned the horses back into the north pasture. But it was half an hour later, after they’d all eaten a bite of deli lunch around the big kitchen table, that Max took Billy aside. As they walked outdoors, Joe followed, slipping into the bushes as the two hoisted themselves up on the pasture fence. They sat in companionable silence, their boot heels snug on the lower rail, their backsides nudged occasionally by the small bay mustang who, always curious, had come up to be friendly. The chief looked down at Billy. “Did Gran keep wood alcohol around the place?”

“Wood alcohol? Rubbing alcohol?”

Max nodded. “Maybe for aches and pains, sore muscles?”

“Not that I know of, I never saw any. If she had a sore muscle she used Vicks rub.”

“Do you remember rubbing alcohol around your neighbor’s?”

“Emmylou?” Billy shook his head, frowning.

“Did Gran ever try to drink wood alcohol?”

The boy’s brown eyes widened. “She wouldn’t do that, that’s poison. Gran might be a lush, but she had better sense than that. She could hold her liquor all right, too. She drove to work every day, five days a week, and only ever got one ticket. Why would she do something dumb like drink poison?”

Max said, “Are those your trash cans, out by the highway?”

Billy nodded. “I took them out this morning before I went to work. Mr. Zandler’s real strict about that, said he didn’t want rats around the place.” Billy smiled. “My cats took care of any rats that showed up. Well, Zandler paid for the garbage pickup.”

“Where did she keep her stash of whiskey, Billy? She must have had more than one bottle.”

“She usually had a case. There’s a cave under the hill, behind that stack of boards and doors, maybe an old vegetable cellar. She’d bring home a couple of bottles at a time, stash them in the cardboard box. And Mr. Kraft, when he came, he’d bring four or five.” Billy looked at Max a long time, his brown eyes searching the captain’s face. “You’re saying she drank wood alcohol? If she did, someone gave it to her. Put it in her whiskey?” He swallowed. “You’re saying she was poisoned.”

“The coroner thinks she was. He should have a definite cause of death by tomorrow. He says she didn’t die from the fire, she was already dead when the fire started. She didn’t feel the flames, Billy.”

Billy’s tears welled. “Thank you. But how could she be poisoned, no one would do that. I’ll show you where she kept her whiskey. Could one of those bottles have been that way when she bought it?”

“They were bottles with labels, and sealed? Not someone’s home brew?”

“From the market, yes. She didn’t suffer, then? Except . . . she must have been sick from the poison. But she was dead when the fire began?” Billy couldn’t seem to get beyond that. He wiped his sleeve across his face, and Max put his arm around him.

“Did your neighbor know where she kept her whiskey?”

“Emmylou? Probably. Gran always had a bottle. If Emmylou watched Gran much, she might have seen her go in the cave. You don’t think Emmylou hurt her? She wouldn’t. If she saw anyone else go in the cave, she’d have said, she’d have told Gran.”

“Did they get along all right?”

“Yes, they’d go back and forth for coffee, breakfast sometimes. Emmylou doesn’t drink, but they got along fine. Emmylou tried to see that Gran ate, she’d fix something for the two of them, and for me if I was home. They were fine—until Emmylou couldn’t pay her rent.” Billy shifted on the fence rail. “Gran wouldn’t let her live with us. Emmylou asked if she could, just for a little while, until she found a place to rent, but Gran said our house was too small. Well, there was just one room, our two cots, the stove and table. That’s the only argument they ever had. Emmylou had nowhere to go and I guess not much money. She has another friend in the village, but she’s gone off somewhere. Gran wouldn’t let her stay, but they didn’t fight, exactly.”

“Do you know where she went?”

Billy shook his head. “I guess she’d have to live in her car, an old green Chevy, a four-door.”

“Did Gran keep money in the house?”

He looked down at his worn boots. “Under her bed, under the floor. At least some of it was there. She thought I didn’t know. She’d cash her paycheck, give me some for food, keep the rest for whiskey. Mr. Kraft always gave her money, a wad of money. Maybe she kept that somewhere else.”

“She didn’t put it in the bank?”

“No. In a little tin box under the floor. She thought the box was fireproof. That’s all I know of. Maybe it all burned up.”

“You think Emmylou knew where the money was hidden?”

“I don’t know. I knew, so I guess she could have.”

They were quiet, Billy scraping his boots on the fence rail to dislodge the dried mud from his heels. When Max asked who he should notify about Gran’s death, besides Erik Kraft and Billy’s two aunts, Billy said, “There’s no one else. And my aunts . . . Gran hasn’t seen Debbie in years, she lives up in Oregon. Aunt Esther lives in the village, but she hardly ever came to see Gran. Except at Christmas. She’d bring a basket of food like we were some kind of charity case. She hated that we lived there, she was always so snooty. She hated that Gran drank, she always acted mad at Gran. She didn’t like me much, either. I don’t know why she came.”

“Did your gran ever get any letters, did your aunt Debbie write to her?”

“I never saw any letters. Usually Emmylou brought the mail in from the highway before I got home. I guess Debbie could have written, but Gran never said. Why wouldn’t Gran say, why would she keep that secret? I saw Debbie’s phone number in Gran’s little address book, but Gran never said she talked to her. I guess the book got burned, too.” The boy’s voice was flat, shut down. These two aunts had never been his family, had never tried to be. The two people he cared about had both been taken from him, his mother when he was eight, and now his gran. Now he had no one. A lone child, trying hard to become a man.

Max said, “You don’t know who your father is.”

Billy shook his head. “Before Mama died, she said it didn’t matter, that I only needed her. But then she died.”

Max shifted his position on the fence.

Billy said, “Gran would never talk about it, she said Greta wouldn’t tell her which boy she’d been with, she said the high school was way too lenient, letting the kids do anything. Then she’d start drinking more, and didn’t want to talk to me about it—like it was my fault I had no father. I didn’t understand all of it, then. I was only eight.

“Well,” Billy said, “no one came looking for me. No one ever came there saying he was my father.” He turned to scratch the ears of the bay pony, hiding his face from Max. “After the accident, after Mama’s car went off the bridge, Gran said it was her fault, it was her fault Mama died.”

“Why would it be her fault?”

“Because they fought, because Mama got so mad she ran out in the storm, took off in the car, got in a wreck and died.”

The boy’s words startled Joe. Brought his nightmare reeling back again: the stormy night, the two women yelling at each other, the child huddled on the cot. Shivering, he pushed the memory aside. He didn’t want to think about it, the unbidden nightmare sickened and scared him.

Billy said, “Gran would never tell me what they fought about that night. If I bugged her, she’d just drink more. Before Mama died, she didn’t drink so often. That night, the night Mama died, they were yelling and screaming, and when I tried to make them stop, they yelled at me, told me to go to bed and shut up. It was raining hard. Mama screamed at Gran that she didn’t understand anything and started to cry and slammed out, I heard her take off fast up the road, for the highway.”

Ducking his head, he straightened the pony’s mane. “That was the last I ever saw her. Except for her funeral. That night after the cops came to tell us Mama was dead, Gran said she should have stopped her, should have grabbed her keys, made her stay in the house. But she couldn’t have,” he said angrily. “You couldn’t stop Mama, she’d never listen. You couldn’t make her listen.”

Joe sat shivering, stricken, seeing the scene Billy had painted, reliving his nightmare, every word and every move, the feel of the rain, of his soaking fur. Savagely he licked at a front paw, wished he could lick away the dream as easily as dislodging a blade of grass—wished he could lick away the cruelty of the world, all the ugliness of humankind.

“After Mama died, there was always a bottle. By the stove, by Gran’s bed, under the covers. She stank of whiskey, and it made her mean. I hate the smell. She didn’t want to eat, she’d come home from work with no groceries, nothing in the cupboard, maybe crackers. That’s when I started working at the Peterson ranch, cleaning stalls. They didn’t turn me away because I was so young, I’m good with animals, I did good work for them. I earned enough to buy beans and bread on the way home.”

Joe looked up the lane as Clyde pulled in off the highway, the red king cab kicking up gravel and dust against the taller grass at the edge of the long dirt drive. He parked near the stable, got out and slid his old, folded camping cot out of the bed of the truck, along with some folded blankets and a striped mattress just about thick enough to make a small cat comfortable. Billy dropped down off the fence, took the load from him. Max said, “Get your cot set up, then I want to walk down the hill, have a look at Gran’s cave.”

Billy nodded and disappeared into the stable, as Max fetched a heavy flashlight from the cab of his truck. Joe waited until the chief and Billy headed down across the north pasture, then he slipped into the rank grass outside the fence and followed, slinking along unseen, the tall blades tickling his ears.