Рита Браун - Catch As Cat Can

No need for her to describe her car. In Crozet everyone knew everyone else's wheels.

With lightning speed, Lottie climbed up the steps, pushed open the door, grabbed the sack, and walked back out again, the sack over her shoulder. She shoved it under the caboose and as she did, she saw Harry's and Cooper's shoes. She started running for her car.

Whoever was hanging on the caboose dropped.

“Thomas!” Pewter exclaimed.

“No, you don't.” He tackled Lottie just as Sean opened Lottie's car door, unaware of the drama at the caboose.

“The money's under the caboose.” She hissed a whisper, hoping that Cooper would nail him. He let her go. She hurried for her car, Tucker right behind.

Thomas bent down and grabbed the sack just as Coop stepped out from behind the caboose.

“Hands up, you're under arrest.”

He saw Cooper was unarmed, hit her in the midriff with the sack, and tore after Lottie, who pushed Sean out of the way as she was plucking the keys out of her bag.

“Stop.” Tucker bit her on the ankle.

Lottie howled but managed to shake the dog off, hitting Tucker in the head with her purse. She slipped in the car, slamming the door shut while Tucker barked for all she was worth.

“You okay?” Harry bent over Cooper.

“Stop them,” the tall woman gasped.

They could hear more running footsteps and hoped some of them belonged to Rick and Fair.

Harry, unarmed, heard a gun fire, felt wind by her temple, and hit the ground.

The cats were right with her. A sensible person would have rolled under cars for cover. Not Harry. She ran for all she was worth to the front of the main building.

“What's she doing?” Pewter kept up with the human. As humans aren't that fast, the cat didn't have to overexert herself, but she was out of shape.

“There's only one way out. She's going to block it.” Mrs. Murphy knew how her human thought.

“They'll blow through that chain-link gate.” The gray cat was really worried now. She had visions of Harry being run over and then realized that same fate could apply to her as well.

At the gate Harry rolled it shut, then climbed up on the crane. She sat high in the cab. She could see Sean crawl out of the way, Tucker helping by tugging at Sean's collar, as Lottie started her engine. She was ready to run them both over.

Thomas had sprinted to his car, a Mercedes sports car. He shook his fist as Lottie roared by him.

They would have to drive around the full car lot, around the side of the building, and then out the front drive to the gate.

Rick figured that out. He ran through the cars toward the front gate.

“Push over flowerpots, Pewter, anything to slow them,” Mrs. Murphy hollered.

Tucker, rounding the corner at warp speed, heard the tiger, and started slamming into the wooden trellis, whiskey kegs, empty, old wooden milk cartons. “I bit her on the ankle!” the mighty little dog barked.

Fair Haristeen also figured out where the crisis would be. He, too, was running through the parked cars as fast as his legs would carry him.

“Got it.” Harry fired up the crane, the heavy diesel motor rumbling.

People, hearing the commotion, began to pour out of the building. A few were unsteady on their feet. Those might have thought it was the ghost of Roger O'Bannon, loaded again, creating another memorable drunken scene.

Harry, nervous, forgot exactly which calipers controlled what. She swung the ball over the festooned building, causing those outside to scream and hit the dirt.

“Dammit!” Harry cursed, took a deep breath, gently squeezed the correct calipers, and swung the ball back.

Big Mim, back on her feet, realized what Harry was doing.

The roar of car engines and squeal of wheels were heard from behind the building. People scattered again.

Harry ran the ball up to the nose of the crane, positioning it directly above the gate. She blessed Sean for putting out the colored floodlights.

She didn't know the exact time it would take from when she squeezed the calipers to when the ball would hit, dropping straight down vertically. She prayed she'd get it right as she kept her hand on those calipers.

Lottie took the corner around the main building on two wheels. She crushed the trellis. Tucker dodged out of the way. The cats fled to the safety of hiding under the crane.

“Hurry, Tucker, Thomas will be right behind,” Mrs. Murphy called to her dear friend.

Tucker ran for all she was worth.

Rick, gun in hand, reached the corner of the building, too. He fired at Lottie's tires but she saw him and swerved. Thomas, not ten feet behind her now, also saw Rick and he turned his vehicle straight at the sheriff, who tucked and rolled as Thomas swerved to miss the side of the building, narrowly missing Fair, who leapt on top of a car hood, then onto another one.

The guests, mesmerized, watched.

Diego, realizing Thomas was part of the drama, stepped away from the crowd as he edged toward the parked cars closest to the gate.

Tucker made it to the crane in the nick of time.

Cooper, shoes off, ran over the pea gravel in her stocking feet. She'd grabbed her gun. She hurried around the other side of the building.

“My God, she's going to ram the gate!” Big Mim screamed.

Just as the nose of Lottie's car hit the gate, Harry squeezed the release calipers and down dropped the wrecker's ball.

Smash! The ball hit the hood, driving the engine out the bottom. Lottie, no seat belt on, flew through the windshield with such force that she catapulted into the caved-in gate, killed on impact.

Harry picked up the ball and swung it toward Thomas. She lowered the ball. He had little room to maneuver with Lottie plastered in front of him. The ball crashed into the passenger side of the Mercedes with a metallic splintering sound.

Diego Aybar ran to the car, pulling out a dazed and bloody Thomas.

53

Monday morning, Rob Collier tossed the mailbag through the front door of the post office. “Harry, way to go, girl.” He held his thumbs up.

“Thanks.” She sheepishly smiled.

By then most of Crozet had filtered into the post office for their mail and to talk over events.

“I figured it out. I don't know why people are complimenting her,” Pewter groused.

“Yeah, yeah.” Tucker, tired from greeting everyone, sat by the table.

Miranda must have hugged and kissed Harry ten times. Every time she thought of the younger woman's quick thinking and cool head—after all, Lottie or Thomas could have shot her right out of the crane if they had kept their wits about them—Miranda had to hug and kiss her again.

A tired Coop finally rolled in at eleven. “Hey, partner.” She smiled. “I think we've dotted the i 's and crossed the t 's.”

“Will Thomas live?” Miranda asked, always concerned even when people were worthless.

“His face is a mess. He's full of broken bones but amazingly that's all.”

“It was Lottie who opened Don's safe, wasn't it?” Harry figured that out.

Coop curled her upper lip. “Thomas blanched when I gave him a wad of bills to inspect. He's blaming everything on Lottie and she's not here to give her version of events.”

“Was it drugs?” Miranda offered Coop a cup of steaming tea which she gratefully accepted.

“No. No, it wasn't. It was a lot more sophisticated than we realized. They were selling stolen cars in Uruguay. A four-year-old Mercedes sedan can bring as much as two hundred and twenty thousand dollars, a new car brings three hundred thousand. Thomas, thanks to his job, could ship stuff down there very easily.”

“Cars, entire cars. Wouldn't the airlines or the shipping companies check the registration numbers?”