Unknown - Cat_shining_bright_Merfi_630007

“They have the whole damn car. Book was … right there in the back.” Again a groan, and he pulled up his legs to ease his belly. Outside, the sirens screamed to a halt. Joe watched Lena unwrap the revolver not touching the metal, keeping only the grip wrapped. She stood a moment, the gun pointed at him, a hungry look on her face.

At last she knelt, moved his hands from his belly, rolled him on his side making him cry out with pain, and slipped the gun in his pocket. She eased the handkerchief out and stuffed it in her own pocket, and she fled down the ladder into the shadowed closet. Left the ladder down for the cops to see, and ran out the back door. Joe could hear her outside crashing through the bushes. Would she vanish, to lose herself in the village? Or did she think Rick would wait for her, farther up the block? Fat chance, the tomcat thought.

But he was wrong. As the cop cars and medics pulled in, Joe was out the back door behind Lena, chasing her through the neighbors’ yards to the next street where he heard a horn toot softly.

There stood the blue Ford, its passenger door open. Lena swung in, they took off fast onto a narrow side street to disappear among the crowded cottages. She hadn’t, in her rage, shot Randall as Joe had guessed she would. Maybe she thought, whatever his pain was, it would do him in. And if he didn’t die, she had left the gun to entrap him, certain proof he’d shot Barbara and Langston.

Was part of her hatred, her disgust for Randall, a mirror reflection of twenty years gone, when her first husband shot her own lover? Frowning over her mixed signals of hatred and maybe regret, Joe sped up a pine to the roofs trying to see which way they were headed, but they were already long gone. Spinning around he raced for home, for a phone, to get the cops on the Ford’s tail. Both passengers were wanted: Lena for helping highjack cars, Rick with at least one warrant out on him, and both of them for helping a killer escape. Fleeing across to his own line of roofs, Joe looked back once to see Max Harper and Detective Garza arrive in a squad car, parking beside the medical van. He didn’t wait to see the medics ease Randall down the attic steps on a stretcher, to see Dallas, wearing gloves, frisk Randall, bag the revolver and hand it to Max—but he could imagine the scene. Racing across the roofs for home, Joe didn’t see Clyde’s truck coming down the street behind him.

24

Clyde, heading home to check on the quarantined animals—not that they would get into trouble, he thought wryly—found patrol cars and the medics’ van blocking the street at Barbara Conley’s corner house. Turning, he went around the block and swung onto his own street again—as a flash of movement across the roofs made him slow, a streak of gray racing for home, white paws flashing, and a hot anger struck Clyde. This was Joe’s idea of quarantine? Not only his tower but a whole block of rooftops and how much farther? What happened to the tomcat’s solemn promise? Whatever was going on at Barbara’s house, that’s where he’d been. Damn cat heard a siren, he took off across the village like a fire horse to a three-alarm blaze. Had he been inside that house, as well, watching, hiding from the cops? What was going on?

Joe had never before broken a promise, that Clyde knew of. He wanted to honk the horn and shout at the racing little liar. Instead, as Joe swerved into his tower, Clyde pulled quietly into the drive. Getting out, he didn’t click the car door shut, he made no sound. Quick and silent, he unlocked the front door, slipped in, pulled off his shoes, and in stocking feet, headed for the stairs. He paused at the bottom, listening. There was silence for a moment, then—who was he talking to? Had he dialed the dispatcher? But why? The cops were already there.

“… Yes,” Joe was saying, “in the attic with him. She called you from there, then she ran out the back.” … Silence, then, “Blue Ford hatchback, Rick Alderson driving. Yes, Rick Alderson. Don’t you have Egan in the lockup? You do have a warrant for Rick?” Another silence, Joe gave the license number, then he must have hung up, Clyde heard him drop to the floor.

By the time Clyde reached the top of the stairs the gray tomcat was curled up on the love seat with Rock, lying against Rock’s chest appearing to be sound asleep, the gray dog’s paws wrapped around him. Clyde stood looking down at them. Rock was asleep, snoring slightly, maybe worn out with playing, because the living room was a shambles. The Weimaraner probably hadn’t stirred when Joe Grey slipped in between his big paws.

Clyde pulled the desk chair around, sat down facing the two animals, fixing his gaze on Joe, staring at him intently.

Joe, feigning sleep, could feel Clyde’s gaze sharp as a laser beam. He daren’t even slit an eye open; the minute he stirred a whisker he’d get a dressing-down that would be the grandfather of all lectures.

But what had he done wrong? His promise was that he’d stay in the house, not go through Rock’s door in the patio; they’d agreed that he could go into his tower. So he had pushed a little in his own mind, for purposes of clarification, reasoning that the roof was part of the house. So what was the big deal? And, where had Clyde seen him? Not racing across the neighbors’ roofs, he hoped. Or worse, coming out of Barbara’s house.

Could he help it if, when one thing led to another, he found himself past his own block and into the extended crime scene? Joe ignored the word “deception.” This was simply good detecting.

When Clyde, admiring the faking ability of the gray tomcat, could stand it no longer he picked Joe up from Rock’s protecting forearms and held him dangling, scowling angrily into Joe’s startled yellow eyes.

“What happened to the quarantine promise?”

“We agreed that the tower was part of our house, so I figured the roof was, too. I said I’d keep away from other cats.”

“How did our roof, Joe, turn into three full blocks of rooftops? You want to explain how that could happen?”

“You are so picky. They’re all laced together with tree branches. Where do you draw the line? And that rat … You know there’s little chance that rat had rabies. A rabid rat would have been nervous and probably would have attacked us all, it wouldn’t have been busy tearing up boxes. It was only a female rat making a nest.”

He looked intently at Clyde. “This was urgent. This was … if I hadn’t called the department they wouldn’t know what kind of car they were driving. Those two are wanted … Rick Alderson for grand theft auto, and Lena … I don’t know what that charge will be.”

Clyde was silent a long moment. “Rick Alderson?”

“Would you mind not dangling me?”

Clyde, despite his anger, gathered Joe over his shoulder, cradling him in a more comfortable position. “So you sneaked into the crime scene. But where did Rick come from? And who called the medics? Who was hurt? What happened in there?”

“Randall Borden. He was in the attic. He apparently escaped from jail. He’s sick, I don’t know what’s wrong. Lena found him, called the meds then she got the hell out. Rick was waiting, in a blue Ford. Bear in mind, Clyde, the police have warrants for both Rick and Lena.”

“You said that. But where did Rick come from?”

“I haven’t a clue. He was just there. Lena called him Rick. When I looked closely I could see a little difference between him and Egan, a tiny difference to the shape of their noses and ears. I think they’re headed for Voletta’s place. We need to get Courtney and Dulcie, and Kit and Pan away from there. At least the boys are safe with the Firettis. We need to get Wilma and Kate out, I don’t feel good about this. Those people are … I thought Lena was going to shoot Randall, going to shoot her own husband.”