Ширли Мерфи - Cat Chase The Moon

“Feel better?”

“Yes, thank you.” Maurita yawned, hugged Buffin, and sat up. “Much better.” Did Detective Davis know how soothing her treatment was? And this little cat, he was amazing, healing in a different way.

There was a light knock, and the door opened. Another detective entered, a tall woman, as slim as a model in her uniform, and beautiful, long black hair shining down her back, as sleek as Maurita’s should be when she took care of it. She carried a black camera bag open at the top with a dark garment sticking out, perhaps a jacket.

“I’m Detective Ray. Kathleen.” She put out her hand, shook Maurita’s bruised hand carefully, and sat down beside her. “I brought you some clothes.” She opened the camera bag, took out a folded suit coat, nearly black but not quite. Police blue. Maurita glanced at Juana, frowning.

Davis said, “See what you think of our plan.”

In the dim shadows of Seaver’s Antiques, Courtney, in sleep, had slipped away from her nightmares about the dangers to her daddy, into softer dreams. Dulcie continued to talk to her, reminding her how bold and strong Joe Grey was, trying to ease her into happier environs, to help the soft night soothe the young calico until she was peaceful once more. As the moon sank lower toward the sea, Courtney and her mother dozed.

But soon Courtney woke again and sat up, her mind full of the sharpest dream yet, a spark of gold shining among ragged logs, blood on the sand and on the grass. She couldn’t make out the golden spark, but she saw moonlight touch a woman’s face, her delicate earlobe ripped and bleeding, torn in half as if by a scythe from some medieval tale, rough steel through tender skin. She saw the vision for only an instant, then it was gone—and that’s when she heard the sound. The same sound she’d heard days before, the faint hum of a car stopping behind the building, a ring of the upstairs phone, Ulrich’s voice as he answered, and then Ulrich padding down the stairs barefoot or in slippers, quietly opening the inside door to the storage room, closing it behind him. She heard the outside door open to the driveway; it didn’t close.

Ulrich’s voice and that of another man. Brief words. The sound of the safe being dialed. She heard it open and then close again. The back door closed. She heard Ulrich lock it, and the car pulled away.

Before the sounds and voices, had she been dreaming? That shifting ray of moonlight among blood and sand. Had she glimpsed the torn-away earring? No one knew what it looked like, Courtney thought. Joe Grey hadn’t seen it, he’d seen only the torn ear and the flowing blood. He had told her what he heard at MPPD, that when the coroner and Detective Kathleen Ray examined the other earring, the crushed gold wires embedded in Maurita’s other lobe, no one could be sure what shape it might have been; that puzzle was now at the jewelers, to see what they could make of it. Her daddy said it might mean nothing at all, but the earrings were part of the case and should not be overlooked.

As the moon eased lower, its glow touched Kit and Pan where they slept in their tree house. It touched Joe Grey in his tower. All had arrived back in the village, Ryan taking Kit and Pan home from the hospital, where the two quietly snuggled down in their tree house. They didn’t go inside to wake Lucinda and Pedric, to launch into a long tale at this late hour.

Charlie had brought Joe Grey home, leaving Officers McFarland and Crowley still at the ranch working the scene, photographing and printing Nevin’s car, photographing the stall, taking blood samples. The three cats were still edgy with the emotions of the night, unease born of the storm of human anger at the Luther house, the smell of human blood, the rage of shouting and hard-hitting fists—and for Joe the thud of the stallion’s hooves striking human flesh, nightmare images that, even in sleep, made him growl and made his ears go flat, made his fur stand stiff.

But Courtney and Dulcie slept peacefully now, feeling sheltered and safe, mother and daughter snuggled together, Courtney willing herself to forget the ugly dream of the woman in the grave, forget the hate that lay beyond her cloistered world of velvet and carved rosewood. They slept soothed by the magic of the tales they had told each other, Dulcie’s dreamy fairy tales, and Courtney’s sharp images from her past and then from the underground that Kit and Pan had described. On that journey into the Netherworld, her two friends had seen wonders beyond most cats’ imagining. Wonders that Dulcie wished Courtney didn’t know. When Kit started telling an adventure, it was nearly impossible to stop her.

That evening, listening to Courtney’s retelling of Kit’s tales, Dulcie had found it hard to quiet her own distress. Courtney relished those stories; she was so intense with longing to see those wonders that Dulcie didn’t like to think where this might lead.

But maybe it was better that Courtney’s thoughts were trapped, for a little while, in the Netherworld’s wild and impossible lands, than trapped in the dreams of fame and stardom that Ulrich Seaver fed her—visions that might lead to far more misery than any Netherworld haunts.

16

It was earlier when Joe Grey woke in his tower, listening. Downstairs, the phone had rung once, in the master bedroom. It hadn’t awakened Clyde, Joe could hear him still snoring; but he could hear clearly Ryan’s sleepy voice as she picked up. Outside Joe’s windows, clouds had gathered so thickly that there were only occasional smears of moonlight. When Charlie had brought him home, he had leaped out of her SUV, had gone straight up to the roof, to his tower, and collapsed among his pillows yawning hugely.

“They did?” Ryan was saying. “She’s coming there with you? Well, that’s good news.” She sat up in bed holding the phone, pushing back her dark, rumpled hair. “She managed to unlock the front door? But she’s all right, Juana? She didn’t mind being brought into the station?”

She listened, then, “Trying to look in the windows. Was that her attacker? After all your trouble to hide her, the guy tracked her there? But why did she run? Why didn’t she call the station?”

Another silence, then, “Maybe the patrols will corner him.” Then, “You do?” She smiled. “Sure you can. That will be a blast. Let us know when.” They talked for a few minutes more. Ryan said, “I will,” then a little click as she put the phone back in its cradle. Joe peered down over the edge of his cat door, watched her stretch out again and pull the covers up as if to catch another few winks. Clyde was still snoring.

All over the village, Joe thought, while night patrols searched for Maurita’s stalker—and had searched for Maurita—other officers would soon be getting ready for first watch. The tomcat felt smug that he didn’t have to answer to MPPD hours and rules, and that he didn’t have to shave, shower, and put on a uniform.

But, too curious about Maurita to stay in his warm nest for long, Joe Grey gave his sleek coat a couple of licks, skipped breakfast, and headed for the station.

He had known that Maurita was getting better in the nursing home, word passed quickly from John Firetti among their friends. But to know that a man, likely the same man who nearly killed her, had found where she was, must have triggered her fear all over again—frightening her enough to run.

Well, she was with the cops now, and safe.

Making straight for MPPD, Joe hit the roofs running—hoping that Mabel Farthy, their motherly desk clerk, was back at work after her flu and had brought something good to slake his hunger. Sugar doughnuts? Oatmeal cookies? Fried chicken? Hoped he could get at the goodies before the guys in the department scoffed them all up.