Unknown - Cat_shining_bright_Merfi_630007

Ryan said, as Wilma sat down at the table and poured the coffee, “I’m still nervous about the breakin. That was no casual burglary, not after his following and watching you. You have nothing of huge value, not like the mansions up in the hills or along the shore.”

“Janet Jeannot’s painting,” Joe Grey said, leaping to the table. “Janet’s landscape hanging right there over Wilma’s fireplace.”

Ryan nodded. “That painting of the village is worth a nice sum. But it isn’t as if you own a whole collection of expensive art, or a houseful of priceless silver and antiques. Besides Janet’s landscape there are only the few pieces of jewelry Kate has given you. They’re worth a lot. But even if he’d seen you wearing them, how would he know they were real? And,” she said, putting sugar and cream on the table, “if he was looking for jewelry, why would he look in your desk? He—Oh,” she said, looking at Wilma, then at Joe Grey. The tomcat’s yellow eyes were smugly slanted, waiting for Ryan to catch up.

“Oh,” she said again, “the Bewick book? But how could he know about that? Anyway, it’s gone now,” she said sadly. “There’s nothing but ashes.”

It was the feral cats who had first discovered an old and sturdy, handmade wooden box buried among the ruins beneath a tilted foundation. They had led Wilma and Charlie Harper there to find, within, an ancient and valuable volume, hand printed on thick parchment pages. Old, handmade type, hand set, and printed by some early, manual process. The illustrations were woodcuts, hand carved, hand printed. The volume had been produced by artist and writer Thomas Bewick in 1862.

Of the few original copies that remained, most were owned by collectors, each worth at least several thousand dollars. But this one single copy had an added chapter at the back, where Bewick had written about the cats he had encountered in his travels. Wilma and Charlie had been so excited to find such a treasure; but they were shocked when they read that chapter. Why had Bewick written this?

Later when Wilma researched through all the collectors’ and libraries’ lists of ancient books, through all the sources she could find, there was no hint of this unique, single volume. She didn’t understand why Bewick had produced that copy. He had to know how dangerous any printed word was for the safety of the cats he had so admired—someone who loved the speaking cats should be committed to keeping their secret. Had Bewick let his urge to tell such a wondrous tale, to produce just the one volume with its beautiful woodcuts, override his concern for the cats themselves?

The book, she thought, hidden there in the Pamillon estate, had to have belonged to someone in the Pamillon family. Had they all known the secret, or had only a few? If the wrong person read those words, they might well go searching for the rare cats, meaning to exhibit them, to show them on TV, make fortunes from the innocent creatures.

Fortunately, that seemed not the case with this family—the Pamillons might have been strange in many ways, but the person who had hidden the book had apparently remained silent. One old aunt, who had died recently, had known all her life the truth about the feral band that lived in the ruins but she had said no word, Wilma was certain of that.

There were a few men in prison who knew; no one could say how they found out, but they had cruelly trapped several of the feral band. Charlie had freed the leader of the clowder, and Clyde had helped to release the others from their crowded cage.

The day that Wilma and Charlie found the book and brought it home, Wilma had locked it in her desk; but soon she had moved it to her safe-deposit box, adding Charlie’s and Ryan’s names and giving them keys. Then, not long afterward, for the future safety of the cats, but their hearts nearly breaking, the three women had burned the rare volume. They had felt sickened, standing around Wilma’s fireplace watching the flames devour a treasure singular and precious.

Now, in the kitchen, Ryan said, “How could this Rick Alderson, who is not Rick Alderson, how could he know about the book—if that’s what he was after?” She looked at Joe Grey. “Do you know something we don’t, tomcat, with that sly look? Or are you only guessing that’s what he’s looking for?”

Joe lifted his paw, snagging a slice of cranberry bread. “I wish I knew more, I wish I could put it together—but that’s the only thing Wilma did have of great value,” he said, licking crumbs from his whiskers.

“And who is this guy,” Joe said, “if not Rick Alderson? He’s apparently part of the car thieves, and he could be the beauty salon killer. How does Wilma fit in, how does the book fit in? Could he know about it from someone who’d been in Soledad Prison?” Nothing Joe had picked up, snooping on Max’s desk and listening among the officers, had touched on rare books or the theft of books. But, he thought, if the Bewick book was what this guy was after, even if it had been destroyed, could it be used to trap him? Quietly enjoying his snack, Joe began to put together a plan. “Maybe …” he said. “Maybe if—”

A sound from above silenced him, a rocking and sliding noise, a rhythmic thumping from Ryan’s studio. They all looked up, listening—until a crash directly overhead sent Joe and Wilma and Ryan flying away from the table. A thunder so loud they thought the ceiling would fall sent them racing for the stairs. Between their feet the little white cat bolted down headed for the kitchen and safety. From above, Rock’s thundering bark filled the master bedroom and studio, an angry, puzzled challenge.

Then, as suddenly, silence.

An empty, guilty silence.

Racing upstairs they found, at the top of the steps in Clyde’s study, nothing at all amiss. Ryan moved to her right into the big master bedroom. The doors to the dressing room and bath were closed. She looked in both but everything was in order; the entire room was undisturbed, even the space under the bed.

They headed for her studio.

Sunlight blazed in through the glass walls that framed the oak and pine trees. Sun shone on Ryan’s beautiful, hand-carved drafting table, picking out the ornate curves of its metal stand and its sleek oak top. The table lay on its side, the big, movable drafting surface wrenched away from the intricate metal stand, the floor dented where the table had crashed and broken.

Three pairs of blue eyes peered out from among the wreckage, two innocent buff faces and Courtney’s calico face serious with guilt. The kittens were too chagrined to even run away.

Dulcie, her ears back, her striped tail lashing, hauled Buffin out from beneath the curved metal legs, her teeth in the nape of his neck. Holding him down with one paw, she nosed at him, looking him over. “Where are you hurt?”

Buffin shook his head. “Not hurt.”

“Get up, then. Walk quietly over to the daybed, get up on it and stay there.” She watched him walk, saw he wasn’t limping. Turning, she bore down on Striker. “Are you hurt? Oh, Striker! Your paw is bleeding through the bandage.”

Ryan grabbed some scrap paper from the wastebasket, laid it on the floor. Dulcie said, “Come out from under there and sit right here, put your paw on that. Now, Courtney. Are you all right?”

Courtney nodded, her ears and tail down. She wouldn’t look at her mother.

“Then you can tell me what happened,” Ryan said as she grabbed a roll of paper towels for Striker.

“Rocking,” Courtney said guiltily, her eyes still cast down. “We were rocking. We … we loosened those bolts just a little …” She indicated the handles that held the drafting table at whatever angle Ryan chose. “And we jumped on it and it rocked and rocked and it was such fun that we rocked harder …” Now she looked up, her eyes bright. “Rocked harder still, all three of us back and forth, and …” She looked down again with shame.