Ширли Мерфи - Cat Chase The Moon

The high window was wide open to dispel the ripe scent of the holding cell, of the occasional drunken detainee—but tonight, when they looked in, the cell was empty. Though if the rain increased, some homeless people might come in trying to haggle for a bed. Quickly the cats slipped through the small window between the bars, dropped down six feet onto the thin mattress of the narrow bunk and dove under, Courtney pale with fear, her pink nose and ears nearly white.

Even before they could huddle together in the darkest corner, so the young officer at the desk might not see them, a squad car pulled up in the red zone. Peering out, they could see Max Harper at the wheel looking in through the bulletproof glass doors and through the cell bars straight at them, straight into the shadows beneath the cot. Had he seen them racing across the roof, had he seen the men chasing them?

Max sat a minute, frowning. Well, hell, there was the lost calico everyone had made such a fuss over, and Joe Grey and Pan were with her. All three cats were scared as hell! The calico was trembling, the look on her face one of icy fear. Joe Grey and the orange tomcat looked nearly as frightened.

He’d seen those guys chasing them across the roofs, seen the four figures get in their cars and take off. One could be a woman, it was hard to tell, the way the person was dressed. Thelma Luther? He recognized Ulrich Seaver, but he didn’t get a good look at the other two sleazebags; both looked like limo drivers for DeWayne Luther. Why would they be interested in a lost cat? And other men had run, into the night. Max could have followed any of them; but he knew Thelma’s car. Was that Thelma, bundled up like a man? His thoughts about following them were mixed.

For days, everything had been crazy. Everything that happened seemed to rotate around cats. Posters all over the village and in nearly every shop. His friends and all the folks from CatRescue combing the neighborhood searching for the calico, for Joe Grey’s grown kitten. While all that time, a few people knew very well where she was, and had said nothing. Not even Charlie, and he trusted her with his life. Ryan and Clyde, Wilma and the Greenlaws had been just as secretive, not a word. Those five, and Kate Osborne and Scott Flannery. He knew and loved them all, he trusted them all, but they too often made him wonder.

Whatever, it looked like the calico herself had finally made the decision. Max guessed that when she did escape, Seaver had seen her and given chase. He must have called DeWayne’s drivers to help him—his fellow thieves. But he couldn’t call DeWayne himself, he was long gone, by the reports they were getting from across the country. Those departments would keep looking until they had DeWayne locked up. He was wanted locally for assault and attempted murder, they had three more warrants for murder out of state, more than a dozen warrants for big-time robbery, to say nothing of the out-of-the-country extradition papers for his return.

Before Max left the squad car he called the desk, sent three officers to work the streets for the men who had run. There was more to this than just a cat. He didn’t know what they’d arrest them for . . . Making a disturbance . . . Trespassing on the roofs? They’d think of something. He told the young clerk to put the coffee on for roll call. “And lay out the doughnuts Kathleen brought in last night.” That got the young man out of the front office for a few minutes. When he was gone, Max stepped from the squad car, stood at its open back door rearranging something inside. He returned with a small and ancient suitcase the cats knew well. It was the shape of a two-centuries-old carpetbag, soft leather, a solid bottom, a clasp and two handles together at the top. Joe Grey imagined him emptying the bag in the car, pulling out his neatly folded uniform, his regulation cap and black shoes, and setting them on the seat. These were the spares he carried in case he had to go to court or see the judge or the mayor unexpectedly. For serious occasions, Max didn’t often wear jeans and a western shirt as he was wearing now. Before he left the car he made one more call. Then, moving in through the glass doors, he knelt before the holding-cell bars adjusting his boot, his back to the desk, hiding the cats, looking down at the fear on their faces—but not fear of Max.

Joe Grey had no reason to fear the chief, the tomcat slept all over Max’s reports, he practically lived at the station—despite Harper’s crankiness when he couldn’t find a document, Joe and Max were pals. The thought did cross Max’s mind that Joe Grey himself might somehow have found and released the young calico, but that idea was beyond bizarre, cats weren’t that clever or that handy; and the tall, tanned chief didn’t like fantasies muddling his reason. Courtney looked up at him, frightened and pleading. The chase, those men pounding across the roofs grabbing for her, had left her rigid with fear.

Courtney was indeed shaking so badly her stomach felt sick. She wanted to curl up in the darkest corner and vanish. Watching Max, she didn’t know what he’d do. When she looked at Joe and Pan, both tomcats looked unwell, themselves; too much running, too much fear—and Max had never caught them being chased into the station, hiding from crooks in the station. This would not look good for the department, men chasing cats all over the rooftops and then the chief finding them hiding in the holding cell. Max knelt by the bars, looking in at them, looking as distressed as she’d ever seen him.

A hurt or frightened animal got to Max, where a defiant felon only made him mad. He glanced toward the desk but the clerk was still in the conference room. He opened the bag he had emptied. “Inside, Joe. Quick.” Reaching through the bars he pulled Joe unceremoniously into the bag, picked up Courtney more gently and settled her beside him. “Pan, get in here.”

Within seconds the cats were being carried down the hall, peering out the thin crack that Max had left in the nearly closed suitcase. Past the conference room where Jerry was laying out paper plates and they could smell the coffee start to brew. Past the closed doors of the other offices and out the back door beside the jail. Crossing the police parking lot, Max swung into a decrepit old Ford, one of the shabby cars the department kept for when officers didn’t want to be spotted. Pulling into the street, he turned left. Then a right, and two more rights into a shadowed space tucked between two condos.

Joe couldn’t see much from the bag, but they had to be behind Juana’s condo where, upstairs, Maurita was hidden. What was this, a group shelter? Max carried them up the back steps, and knocked softly. Juana let them in at once, shut the door behind them and opened the bag. Reaching in, she stroked the three huddled felines, seeking to calm them. The dark-haired Latina cop looked nearly as square in her pale blue sweats as she did in uniform. Seeing the distress in Courtney’s eyes, she took the calico in her arms. Courtney purred and rubbed against her—but when she saw Buffin snuggled on the couch in Maurita’s lap, she was so glad to see her brother she leaped straight for him, burrowing on the blanket between them, smearing blood across them from her injured paw. Maurita, in her scrubs and a robe, ignored the blood and snuggled Courtney close.

Juana brought salve and bandages; she knelt and began to help Maurita doctor Courtney’s white and calico paws, examining each tiny bone. No shrieks, nothing seemed broken. Maurita found a tissue in her pocket and wiped the heaviest blood from her calico coat, then gently she ran her hands over the rest of Courtney, flexing her legs for injuries, running her hands down her sides while watching the calico’s face for any sign of pain. Maurita’s black hair was tied back in a knot, her bruises and scars were fading. When she looked into the calico’s frightened eyes, she saw the same fear as her own—they stared at each other, the look between them filled with their mutual need for comforting, sharing the distress that would take a long time to heal. Courtney put a gentle, carefully wrapped paw on Maurita’s arm, and the young woman held the calico tighter; she could feel her shivering; they clung close to Buffin, too, his curing strength warming them both.