Кроха - Dedication

When the assaults first began, MPPD had put on extra patrols: more squad cars cruising, officers on foot dressed in street clothes. Vacation leaves were postponed, overtime was increased. Of the seven who were accosted, one lady was a ninety-two-year-old music teacher living in a retirement home. A frail, retired banker, Ogden Welder, was fatally injured, the assailant gone before anyone heard his cries; Welder died in the hospital two days later.

No arrests and no witnesses. Only when someone heard shouts for help and arrived to find a frail person, frightened and angry, sprawled on the cement among spilled packages, was anyone aware of the crime. As more officers of MPPD worked the streets, their response to drug crimes, traffic accidents, shoplifting, and domestics demanded additional personnel that Max Harper didn’t have. Like every police department in the state they were understaffed, their budget stretched too thin for adequate overtime. There was plenty of city money for beautification and tourism promotion, but never enough for law enforcement—money for the politicians, but not enough to protect those who voted them in. Max Harper’s men and women grew ever more frustrated.

At the first assault, the cats’ anger had flared. At the second one, on a lone, helpless citizen, their rage revved high. Slipping into Molena Point PD they had lounged in Chief Harper’s bookcase, innocently reading field reports over his shoulder—though there hadn’t been much that they didn’t already know, that they hadn’t read in the paper, heard on the news, or heard from Joe’s housemate. Clyde Damen had grown up with Max Harper. Often over dinner or playing poker Max shared information that he knew—or thought he knew—would never go any farther than the Damens’ kitchen table. There, as the cards were shuffled and poker chips tossed into the pot, no one paid attention to the gray tomcat and maybe Dulcie, too, curled up in the easy chair quietly napping. Who would notice the twitch of an ear, the flip of a tail at some interesting new detail of the street crimes? Joe Grey’s own housemates were as secretive, regarding the tomcat’s spying, as was Joe himself.

Now, at the edge of the roof, the cats alerted again at the sudden swish of tires approaching down the fog-wet street. They watched an unmarked white van slip into view, but it was maybe only the delivery truck of some small company bringing produce or bakery goods to one of the restaurants. Farther on, a lone runner trotted by heading for the beach; there were always runners, lean men or women, tanned and seemingly carefree. Soon, from the shore, a dog barked. A flock of gulls rose screaming, and then silence again; when they heard nothing more they lay down at the roof’s edge and had a leisurely wash.

“I wish,” Dulcie said, “Kit and Pan were home. Surveillance would be easier with four of us. Besides, I miss them,” she said, giving Joe a green-eyed look.

“Just wish them home safe,” Joe said crossly. He didn’t approve of the flighty tortoiseshell and the red tomcat chasing off into a world that Joe himself could hardly believe in, a world Kit called magical. Except he had to believe there was such a place, when their human friend Kate Osborne had gone there. Kate told startling tales, and had brought back enough jewels and artifacts to convince even Joe himself—and to make him even more nervous thinking of Kit and Pan venturing down into those vast caverns beneath the earth. They had been gone only a few days, and still the thought of that journey made his fur crawl.

That land had fascinated tortoiseshell Kit even when she was very young, listening to a band of feral cats tell their stories. Only later when she was older had thoughts of those hidden caverns begun to frighten her. But Pan had no fear; he had traveled the length of California and Oregon on his own, a hobo cat, staying out of danger. Now, learning of the Netherworld, he had burned to see that farthest, most enticing realm of all.

Kit, half longing to go and half afraid, had given in, to please him. And, because her two human housemates had longed to be off on their own adventure. Lucinda and Pedric would never have followed their own dream, of an Alaska cruise, if it meant leaving their beloved companion alone at home. The little speaking cat was their treasure beyond all other joys. Kit knew that. She knew Alaska beckoned to her two housemates. But only if she herself journeyed away from Molina Point would her old couple feel free to take the leisurely, small-ship cruise they longed for. Lucinda and Pedric weren’t getting any younger. “If you don’t go now,” she’d told them, perhaps with more honesty than finesse, “you may never go at all.”

Kit had given Lucinda a soft purr. “Ryan’s father and his new wife are keen to go with you—it will be an easier trip with another couple. Mike and Lindsey are quiet and steady, and—”

“And they are younger and stronger than we are,” Lucinda said, laughing. “You needn’t say it, they’ll take good care of us. They’ll be good companions to investigate the little ports and scattered villages.”

Kit smiled, and nosed at Lucinda. “You will take your adventure, and Pan and I will take ours. That is what life is about. And then,” she said, purring, “we’ll be home together again. Oh, my! To tell each other all the wonders we saw!”

It was just a few days ago that they had said their teary good-byes. That Lucinda and Pedric, Mike and Lindsey boarded their plane for Vancouver—and Kit and Pan crossed the village up into the hills and joined the waiting group of feral, speaking cats who had lingered, waiting for them. Waiting to set out together down into the Netherworld; and none of the speaking cats, not even Pan himself, had any notion that Pan’s father would soon lie ill.

Now, this foggy morning, Joe and Dulcie, left without enough cat power for efficient surveillance, were about to separate, each to watch the streets alone, when a siren’s whoop and the wail of the medics’ van brought them sharply alert. As the roar of the engines headed fast for Ocean Avenue, they glimpsed the van and two squad cars make a skidding turn onto the divided main street and vanish beyond the buildings. The cats marked where the sound of the engines died, heard vehicle doors flung open and men running, and they fled over the roofs toward the action.

2

Old Merle Rodin said later, it was his wristwatch that put him in the hospital. His wife wasn’t home at the time. He was alone, dressed in old denim pants, a faded denim shirt and suspenders, working in his shop when he tore his watchband on the corner of the vise. The soft leather was worn ragged anyway and had been ready to tear. And then, as he was cleaning up from painting the wooden chairs, he spilled turpentine on the band and he knew the wet leather would tear worse. He didn’t want to lose the watch, it was the only kind he could read anymore, the new ones were all dots and squiggles. This was a good, reliable Swiss Army with big black numbers so a person could tell the time. Big dial, plain and no-nonsense. He left the watch loose on his wrist, finished cleaning up the workbench, got in his car and drove the few blocks into the village to get the band replaced.

He parked in a handicapped spot in front of the Village Inn. He eased out, pulled his crutches out, locked the car, and swung along the narrow walk that led behind the hotel to the little courtyard, to the row of small shops tucked in around a patch of garden, heading for the jeweler’s door. There were miniature courts all over the village with their little, half-hidden vendors. Each retreat was, to a tourist, a new and exciting discovery; that’s one of the reasons visitors came to Molena Point, for this kind of special charm.

He didn’t like his reflection flicking along the fog-dim windows. His white beard and crutches, his hobbling walk made him look older than he was; some days he felt old, but he didn’t like to see it.