Ширли Мерфи - Cat Chase The Moon

“No point to call 911, the cops are here.” Zeb smiled when he caught a glimpse of white hair among the escaping limos. When the chase had passed, they climbed the bank again and walked along the highway, then sat with their backs against a tree, watching. It was there that Joe Grey found them.

Ahead, the limos and gray cars had slammed on their brakes, skidding and sliding into each other as cop cars circled them, cops appearing out of nowhere hazing them together like sharks closing in on their prey. Gray cars, black limos, black-and-white patrol cars all in a tangle, cops with short-barrel shotguns stepping out, ordering drivers out of their cars and facedown on the ground. A shot was fired, and another. And Zebulon ran, back along the berm. He piled into his car and took off rocking along the berm until he was steady again, turning his lights high, reaching over to open the passenger door as Mindy and Joe Grey jumped in. Praying for the first time since Nell died, Zeb fled along the highway as a shot blasted too close to their back window. So far, the cops had paid no attention to them. He floorboarded the car up the road half a mile past the Harper ranch, he was sweating; he swerved into his own turnoff and it was then he realized there was a cat in the car, sitting calmly on Mindy’s lap.

She said, “You saw him when he found us, back there on the berm. You saw him jump in the car, Grandpa.” Zeb glanced at the cat and at Mindy, and said nothing. They heard the distant scream of sirens as CHP officers joined MPPD, speeding down the freeway from the north, these blending with the howl of medics’ units from the village. Zeb skidded up his own drive, around the outside of the fenced house and pasture, and straight for the woods.

“The horses . . .” He spun around in the seat, looking. “Where are the horses?”

“At the Harpers’. I told you.”

“Oh, yes, that was nice of them. Of course I remember.” But in truth, he hadn’t, no more than he’d remembered the cat. Since DeWayne beat on him, things had seemed to get a little mixed up. He turned onto the narrow path through the woods, scraping the top of Thelma’s car against the hanging branches. A quarter mile, and he parked behind the Harpers’ barn, out of sight from the highway. They didn’t need Thelma or Varney coming after them.

Where was Varney? Had he joined DeWayne and his pack of thieves? Zeb had looked for him down on the highway, but in that mess of course he hadn’t seen him.

They got out of the car and headed around the Harpers’ barn and down the long drive. At the gate, halfway to the highway, Charlie Harper and their young hand, Billy, were standing watch in case one of those guys got loose, in case there was a chase. Both of them had shotguns. That much vigilance might seem amusing to Mindy, but Zeb and Joe Grey knew better—and it was Joe Grey, rearing up beside Charlie, looking down at the confusion of cars and cops, of medics and injured men, who saw DeWayne Luther, his white hair catching car lights where he lay on a stretcher, the coroner leaning over him. DeWayne lying death still beside the hearse, pale face caught in a squad car’s headlights. Zeb let out a gasp, and turned away.

But what turned Joe Grey’s stomach was not this dead man, but two police officers on stretchers, new young men that Joe hardly knew. They were being worked on by medics: tourniquets, oxygen tanks, emergency wrappings. Both were already secured in an ambulance, ready to head for the hospital. To see a cop who had been shot upset Joe so badly that he threw up, retching, in the tall grass.

Charlie handed Billy her shotgun, picked Joe up, wiped his mouth with a tissue and kissed him on top of his head, her red hair falling over his eyes. She gave him a gentle hug, put him down again, and reached to Billy for her weapon. They watched the coroner start to wrap DeWayne in a body bag. Zebulon stood looking with no expression on his face. Looking at his oldest son, dead. His son who had beaten him so badly and who had tried to kill that woman he ran with. Zeb opened the gate and started down toward the hearse, down the rest of the long drive, Charlie and Billy walking beside him gently supporting him. Mindy followed, her own face white, as Max Harper started up the drive to them. Down by the hearse the coroner had stopped working, he stood looking up to Max for a sign to proceed or to back off.

Max paused, looking up at Zeb. “Do you want to come down?”

Zeb was silent. He looked at Max for a long time, then shook his head. “After all these years, he deserved what he got. Now, I don’t need to see him chewed up with bullets.” He turned away in the direction of the barn. But then he paused, turned back, took a key from his pocket and handed it to Max.

“Thelma’s Volvo. It’s behind the hay barn, we borrowed it. Shall I take it back?”

“She won’t need it, she’ll be in jail with the rest of them, at least for a while.” Max accepted the key. “We’ll see that it’s impounded.” He looked down at Mindy. “You were headed home, to Zeb’s place?”

She and Zeb nodded.

“Children’s Services gets a whiff of that, you two alone there, and Zeb just out of the hospital, they won’t like it. Thelma may try for dismissal or maybe home confinement on the excuse that she needs to take care of you.”

Mindy looked stricken.

“Do you have anyone?” Max said. “Someone, maybe a relative who can live in, to get the welfare people off your back?”

“We don’t need . . .” Mindy began.

Charlie shook back her red hair, and looked a question at Max. He nodded. She said, “You can stay here, until you find someone.”

Max said, “Varney will be locked up, too. There’ll be no one in that apartment, welfare would be all over you. But if you could be in your own place . . . what about your daughter-in-law?”

Zeb frowned. “You said Thelma was going to jail.”

“Your other daughter-in-law,” Max said. “Maurita told me DeWayne demanded they get married, several years ago. A mark of ownership, she told me bitterly. To keep his partners off her.”

Even Joe Grey didn’t know that. He was so surprised he reared up in the bushes, startling Max. When the chief looked at him, the tomcat could almost read what he was thinking: How did that damn cat get up here in the middle of another crime scene? Why did he rear up just now? Why the hell does he always . . . ?

Charlie said, “The Damens live right behind the plaza, that could certainly explain his presence: the cat hears sounds, car doors closing. He jumped on the wall and saw the limos take off, saw them hit the freeway. He heard the crash and sirens and, with that cat’s annoying curiosity, he raced along the highway, to have a look.”

She looked back at Mindy and Zeb. “I think you two should stay with us until Children’s Services stops nosing around. And,” she said, looking at Max, “do you think Zeb should meet the daughter-in-law he’s never known? That Zeb and Mindy and I should take a run up to . . . where Maurita is staying?”

Max scowled at her. “It’s the middle of the night, Charlie.”

“While we’re gone, Billy can make up their beds.”

Billy nodded, and grinned at Mindy. “And set out some pie and milk?”

The chief gave Charlie that sly, sideways look. “So just why are you going up to see Maurita, at midnight?”

“Someone has to tell her about DeWayne. And you have your hands full. Don’t you think she’ll want to know that DeWayne is no longer a threat? That she’s free, that she doesn’t have to fear him anymore? And that his crew, with this burglary and their long records, will be on their way to prison where they can’t get at her?”

Max considered her with a steady half frown. “You know that’s my job, Charlie. To inform the wife of the deceased.”