Shirley Murphy - Cat Breaking Free

Davis said, "We didn't have enough on Luis or Tommie to lock them up before the sting. They'd have been right out on bail… only circumstantial evidence to the first jewelry store burglary."

"What you did," Lucinda said, "was amazing." She looked at Chichi, who had come out of the kitchen with Charlie. "What Chichi did was very brave."

"Not brave at all," Chichi said, sitting down. "I was so angry, and hurting. I never believed the cops killed Frank, they knew he was on their side. But no one… Who was going to believe me? Luis swore at the hearing that he saw a cop shoot Frank. He did that for Slayter, lied for Slayter." She looked up at Lucinda, a hurt, naked look. "I did the only thing I could think of, hang in with Luis until I had the evidence. I hated that, hated being nice to them. I was hoping to find the gun." She looked at Harper. "But that turned out fine, that you found it.

"In L.A., when Luis ran out of the bank right behind Frank that night, I didn't see Slayter at all." She had balled up her fist, gripping her wadded napkin. "Slayter was there, in the shadows. Dufio told me, a couple of days before he… Before Slayter shot him." She shivered. "Shot him in that cell like an animal in a trap! Poor Dufio. He told me he'd seen Slayter in the shadows near the bank, but that's all he said. If he'd told me all of it, and sooner, you'd been able to arrest Slayter, and Dufio would be alive."

Wilma glanced across to Dulcie. No one had mentioned Slayter's scratch wounds; but the subject had been discussed earlier, more than Wilma and the cats cared to think about… As had the remarkably similar wounds on Hernando Rivas's body. Wilma had been in favor of the golf-shoe theory. No shoe had been found.

It seemed more than strange, to those who knew the truth, that in neither case had the coroner found any cat hairs. Surely there must have been a few. Wilma wouldn't think of broaching that subject to John Bern, though they had been friends for many years. If Bern did not care to mention cat hairs, that was fine with her. If he knew more than he should and was keeping it to himself, that was fine, too. She wasn't going to rock the boat.

Pedric looked at Chichi. "And there's no doubt that Frank Cozzino was furnishing information to LAPD?" Leaning forward, his elbows on the table, the thin old man looked very frail between the harder, young officers and Clyde.

Chichi nodded. "He informed LAPD for a long time." She said no more. She did not offer an explanation as to why Frank had turned to helping the police, what had made him change his thinking, any more than she explained why she had changed.

The cats, cleaning their plates, were again so sated they could hardly keep their eyes open. Any normal cat would have been sick. Joe sat nodding on the windowsill until Clyde gathered him up, and Wilma picked up Dulcie. Kit had only to trot into the master bedroom and tuck down among the quilts-or leap out across the oak branch to slumber the night away high in her tree house.

But Kit thought it best to stay inside at night, for a while, best that the old couple would not awaken in the small hours to search among the blankets for her, then wonder if she had gone off with the wild ones again, perhaps this time forever.

I'm done with that, Kit thought. This is my home, with Lucinda and Pedric. Willow and Cotton and Coyote have chosen their way, they didn't want what I want. She hoped they were safe, that they'd found a place of their own far away from Stone Eye.

She thought about her three wild friends the next morning when she woke before dawn to hear the first birds chirping, and when she went to sleep the next night and heard an owl hoot outside the window. She worried about them, as Lucinda and Pedric worried about her. And then, on the night of the next full moon, she dreamed so vividly about the ferals that the following morning, when she went with Lucinda to see the finished pictures for Charlie's book, she asked Charlie. The minute she and Lucinda were in the door, Kit asked her.

"Will you take me there? On horseback, up in the hills? I don't want to go alone. Stone Eye… I want…"

But Charlie interrupted her. "I've seen them, Kit. Not up on Hellhag Hill at all, and not off beyond it. Right up there," she said, pointing up toward the hills that rose away behind the house and barn. "Up beyond our own pastures, where that little brook comes down. I saw them there. Ten cats, and I'm sure your three friends were among them. A dark-striped fellow with long ears, creamy circles around his eyes and a face like a coyote? A pure-white cat with long hair and blue eyes? And a lovely bleached calico, sleek and creamy?"

Kit nodded to all three descriptions; and Charlie rose, reaching for her jacket. "Come on, Kit. I'll take you, while Lucinda makes herself a nice cup of tea."

Lucinda nodded. "I can look at the drawings again? And read a bit of the manuscript over again?"

"Of course you can." Charlie hugged Lucinda and went to saddle her mare.

Folding a saddle blanket across the pommel of the saddle and strapping it securely, she made a comfortable perch where Kit could ride. And they were off into the hills, the mare twitching her ear as she looked around at the kit. Charlie said, "Your friends could have a home with Estrella Nava-with Maria's abuela. She might welcome a little cat, maybe all three."

"They would never go back to that house, even if Abuela did try to help them."

"Luis should be gone a long time," Charlie said. "Maria is going to stay there with Abuela. She's determined he won't come back there. She means to clean up the house and paint it, and get a job in the village. Maybe rent out the downstairs, for some income." They rode for a long time, but saw no cats. Softly, Kit called to them. They rode up in the direction of the old ruined mansion, searching for the small clowder that the three must have gathered around them. Kit called and called, but no one showed themselves. It was growing late when they turned back, the kit bitterly disappointed. And suddenly there they were, crouched on the trail before them. Charlie pulled up the mare, and sat still.

Maybe they had been following them all along, maybe afraid of Charlie. Maybe taking some time to decide about her. Perhaps they decided that if she was treating Kit so well, then she, like the man who had cut the lock off, must be a friend. As the ten cats stood watching them Kit leaped from the saddle.

Three cats came to her; and slowly, one by one, the rest of their little clowder gathered around Kit. She said, "Stone Eye hasn't bothered you?"

"You know that old mansion to the north of here?" Coyote said. "That huge stone place, all fallen down?"

"The Pamillon mansion," Kit said.

Coyote smiled. "Stone Eye is afraid to go there."

"You made a home there? Where the cougar… Where I saw a cougar once?"

"We smelled the cougar," Cotton said. "An old smell. We made a home, for now. Those cellars are full of rats. Look how fat we've grown."

Kit laughed. They were fat. She licked the cats' ears, and they talked for a long while. Their conversation, about all manner of cattish concerns, so fascinated Charlie that she began thinking of a second book. Kit told them that Abuela would give them a home, but of course that did not appeal. "No," Coyote said, looking away toward the wild hills, and toward the fallen mansion. "We would not do that. This is our life."

Charlie said, "You will come to me, if you are in need?" They looked up at Charlie a long time. They did not seem afraid of the mare, but they were wary of the human. At last Willow said, "We will come." And as the afternoon drifted toward the hour when larger predators would come out to hunt, Kit's wild friends left her. With a last whisker rub for Kit, and a flick of ears and tail for Charlie, gestures that Charlie would not forget, the wild clowder was gone into the falling evening. And Charlie and Kit turned for home, both content, both smiling.