Shirley Murphy - Cat Cross Their Graves

"How-"

"Captain, Lori means a lot to Jack Reed. Find that man, Captain. Find Fenner. I hope he burns for what he did to Patty Rose." There was a click, and the line went dead.

Joe lay on the couch, heart pounding, trying to look half asleep. What was it about females? Did they have to make editorial comments?

So Jack Reed had Fenner. But where? He tensed when Harper called for four units to watch Reed's warehouse and shop. As the captain and detective hurried out, double-timing it down the hall and out the back door to police parking, Joe raced out the front on the heels of another officer and around the side of the building.

He was crouched to leap up an oak tree and across the rooftops to Jack Reed's when he was rudely snatched up-for the second time that day. Jerked right off the ground. Yowling and snarling, Joe twisted around to face his housemate and lifted an armored paw. Clyde wasn't going to stop him, there was no way he was going to miss seeing this one come down.

''Oh, child! It's freezing out here!" The words came through Lori's dream as soft as velvet. Pulling the quilt tighter around her, she was propelled suddenly through her dark, alarming dream into the safe place she'd been trying so hard to reach. She felt herself lifted up, wrapped in the soft comforter. Warm arms held her safe, and she smelled Cora Lee's jasmine scent.

Safe in Cora Lee's arms, she woke fully. Cora Lee carried her into Genelle's house, out of the cold, bright wind, and set her down on a sofa and tucked the comforter around her. Kneeling beside the couch, Cora Lee looked at Lori, her dark eyes worried. "Oh, child. I looked everywhere for you. No one found you in the library! No one looked for you!" she said, biting every word. "I went straight there from the hospital to get you. That woman-that Nora Wahl! She did nothing! She told no one. Didn't even look for you. I can't believe she…" Cora Lee's dark brown eyes flashed with such anger that Lori had to swallow a laugh. The tall, honey-skinned woman was even more beautiful when she was mad.

"Oh, Lori! You came to Genelle running from that man, you didn't tell us, and now… Who is he? He's out there somewhere looking for you? And you were waiting here all alone." Cora Lee grabbed her up again, hugging and rocking her as if she was a tiny little girl.

"What happened?" Lori said softly, dreading to hear what Cora Lee would say. "Why did you-"

"It was Genelle, they took her to the hospital. She fell, and was unconscious. I've just come from there."

Lori pulled away, staring at Cora Lee.

"She's feeling stronger already," Cora Lee said. "They think she'll be all right. She… She insists she wants to come home."

"How did she fall?"

"She had stepped away from her walker, couldn't reach it or her oxygen. There, by the bookcase, maybe ten minutes after Mavity left. Mavity Flowers is my housemate, one of them. When our friend Wilma got here, she found Genelle on the floor, and she called nine-one-one."

"My mother… She had oxygen," Lori said. Then, "Genelle is going to die?" The emptiness was all inside her. Like the hollow dark dropping away in her dream.

Cora Lee hugged her again, speaking into her hair. "It will soon be Genelle's time, Lori, but maybe not quite yet. We all have our own time. I don't think that's the end of us at all, how could it be?" She looked intently at Lori.

Lori swallowed, trying to push back the hollow darkness. She managed a watery smile. "Genelle said she can talk about death if she wants, she can say anything she wants. She… told me… she keeps wondering what's next."

Cora Lee nodded.

"She told me… this world is a nursery," Lori said.

"A nursery for souls," Cora Lee said. "That when we're born we dive down into this world and swim the best we can. Does that seem logical to you?"

Lori didn't answer.

"She says that it's here we learn how and why," Cora Lee said. "That makes sense to me. I find it comforting."

"Can I see her? Can I go to the hospital?"

"Genelle would like that very much."

Lori didn't realize until she said it that she couldn't do that, that Pa might find her. Except, if he'd taken that beetle man somewhere and was so angry, maybe he wasn't looking for her at all right now. Maybe he was too busy.

Maybe that man would tell Pa about the basement, she thought, her heart sinking. And Pa would go back to the library looking for her and find Uncle Hal's billfold. Then he would be mad.

"What?" Cora Lee said. "You don't want to see her?"

"Would we go in a car, and right into the hospital?"

Cora Lee nodded. "We will. Just let me get her things together. You don't have a cold or the sniffles? They won't let you in if you're sick."

"I'm okay. Cora Lee? I don't want her to die."

Cora Lee turned away, not speaking. And Lori thought, I didn't want Mama to die. But that didn't make any difference.

Joe dug his claws hard through Clyde's jacket into his tender flesh. "What the hell are you doing!" he hissed in Clyde's ear. "Drop me. Put me down." He couldn't remember when he'd clawed Clyde like this, and he wasn't sorry, not even with Clyde's blood on his claws. Clyde pulled him off fast and held him away as if holding a bomb about to explode. His expression was shocked, embarrassed. He looked around to see if anyone could hear them, but they were alone. "I wanted… I guess I interrupted something important?"

"Damn right you did. They're about to bust Patty's killer, he could be the same guy who did those kids." Behind Clyde, Max Harper's police unit sped out from behind the station headed in the direction of Jack Reed's house. "Hurry up, Clyde. Where's your car?"

Clyde didn't move.

"You have wheels? Where's your car!" Joe looked across the parking lot until he spotted a flash of red nearly hidden between two trucks. "Come on! You can drop me off, you can at least do that. Come on, Clyde. This is the guy who shot Patty-"

"I'm not taking you where there's shooting."

"I didn't say there'd be shooting. Put me down, then!" He started to fight again, ready to leap onto the oak tree. Clyde grabbed the nape of his neck like a kitten, so enraging Joe that he screamed and yowled and was about to bloody Clyde's face.

"Stop it! Stop it, Joe! This is me, Clyde!"

"Put me down or I swear you're hamburger!"

Clyde stared at him, shocked, then took off running, clutching him, swinging into his car. He dumped Joe on the seat. "Where…?"

"Jack Reed's place."

"Why would-"

"Will you hurry! My god, Clyde…"

Clyde started the car, spun out of the lot. "Hang on. And keep your claws out of the upholstery."

Joe considered the expensive white leather beneath his paws, brand new, as soft as velvet and far more costly. The cherry red 1926 Rio was worth enough to keep Joe in smoked salmon for twenty decades; even one claw mark, according to Clyde, would decrease its value. Swinging a U-turn, Clyde followed the police units at a decorous pace that drove Joe crazy. "Could you step it up a bit?"

"You want me to get stopped for speeding?"

"If I can't slip in behind those guys' heels, I'll have to go through the attic, drop out of the crawl space right in their faces."

"How do you know?"

"Already been in there. Already done that. There's no other way in. Damned house is boarded up like a prison."

"I'll take you in through the front door."

"This is a bust, Clyde, not a Saturday-afternoon ball game. You're not going in through the front door."

Clyde just looked at him.

"Keep your eyes on the road. You're a civilian. Even if you are Harper's best friend you can't go charging into a police bust. Even if you were carrying, you-"

Slowing for a stop sign, Clyde looked at him hard. Joe wished sometimes he could carry, that a cat was equipped with more effective weaponry than claws and teeth. Clyde slowed at Jack Reed's street, looked up toward Reed's house. The block was dominated by police units. They could see Reed's truck parked farther on; Reed was just getting out. Harper and Garza stood on the walk waiting for him, Max's hands at his sides.