Кроха - Dedication

“They have the gun,” Max said, amused. “The dog did find it, but he couldn’t get his nose under.” Max was silent, then, “We lifted a couple of pretty good prints, good match for Tekla’s. We’ve sent the gun to the lab.”

Once again Joe smiled to hear that Max was confiding in him. This whole situation was different from past cases. But there was something else that he hadn’t yet told Max. “There’s a second gun in Tekla’s suitcase. A big, stainless steel revolver. I couldn’t get a good look to tell what make.”

But it was the automatic that was the real evidence. If the riflings on it matched the bullet that killed Ben, they’d have the Bleaks cold. Have evidence far more telling than a notebook and phone and torn pieces from a mouse nest.

And yet now, even after Max had thanked him and they’d ended the call, Joe had an edgy, “something waiting in the background” feeling, as if something were yet to happen. He looked down at Snowball, who was deeply asleep again. He listened to the hollowness of the empty house. He stared away to the east of the village where Ocean Avenue met Highway One, where the Bleaks would have escaped—and suddenly he was out of there, leaping nervously from the desk to the rafter.

With a sudden sure sense of what was wrong, he was through his tower onto the shingles, streaking away across the roofs of the village plaza and the cottages and shops beyond. Heading not toward the tangle of highways where the Bleaks would be speeding, where no cat could ever catch them. Heading for Firetti’s Veterinary Clinic, led strongly now by the same urgency that had called Dulcie and had summoned Kit.

In the Firetti bedroom, the old cat didn’t sleep. He was not, this day, feeling exhausted; he was not drugged by medication. He had had no pain shots since the night before, nor did he want them. His body was in a transition that he knew well.

Though he was weak, he had put his failing aside, had found a new temporary strength. He sat tall on the bed, snuggled all around by his furry entourage, by Kit and Pan and Dulcie, and now Joe Grey as the tomcat slipped in across the room and up on the bed to join them. In Joe’s eyes there was sadness, there was hurt at what was to come.

The cats heard Wilma’s and Mary’s voices from the living room, but the two women didn’t enter. They heard the fire crackle to life and sensed its warmth. The old cat looked at each of them and smiled. He put a paw on the paw of his son Pan, his constant companion these last days. He looked at Kit. “You found shoes,” he said, smiling. “You hauled all that evidence across the yards and hid it for Captain Harper to find.”

Kit beamed.

He looked at Joe and the old cat shook his head. “That Rottweiler could have eaten you in one gulp, tomcat.”

Joe’s eyes widened. The venerable cat’s omniscience unnerved him.

“You did well, Joe Grey. But you’ll soon be a father.” He gave Joe a stern look but said no more. Smiling at Joe, he turned to Dulcie.

“You have another poem in your head, my dear. So much goes on, within. Even as you nurture your kittens, that clear voice nudges you. Those words want life, too. Your verses want to taketheir place in this world. Will you tell us this one?”

“A little of it,” Dulcie shyly. “Just a little . . .”

Duchess of the garbage can

Queen of the alley

Lolling under dustbins

Rolling fat and jolly

No thin beggar, never shy

This lady dines most royally

Fine salami, leftover Brie

Scraps of salmon from the sea

She is beautifully obese

Who feasts on kippers and roast geese

Queen of the garbage can

Duchess of the alley

Accepting largesse with greed

Rolling fat and jolly.

Her words made Misto laugh. “Your children will grow up on poetry,” he told her. “Poetry and,” he said, looking at Joe Grey, “maybe on cop work, too.”

The old cat settled back, and he told them a final tale. He held close his guardians of love. They waited together for his final moment, for the instant when he would step away from them into his next great journey. Misto painted for them, now, realms he would again travel; he gave them views down upon the earth, deep into ancient lands as if those times were again alive. He showed Joe and Dulcie moments from their kittens’ own pasts, each experience a tangle of puzzles.

Slyly Misto showed Joe Grey the tomcat’s past lives that Joe did not remember and didn’t want to remember. At Joe’s dismay, Misto laughed.

To Joe, those faraway moments, if they had ever really existed, were gone and done, not part of life here and now. Life was in the moment and that was as it should be.

But for Dulcie and Kit and Pan, the glimpses Misto gave them into kinder realms beyond earthly evil, that promise was a valued gift, and the cats reached their paws close around him. They held Misto, snuggled with him as he dozed in a light and easy sleep. It was later in the small hours of morning that they woke.

28

Misto died before dawn. It was just after four, the witching hour, the hour when restless human sleepers wake filled with unsettling thoughts, when restless felines rise and stretch bright eyed and hit the bedroom floor or the cold ground, ready to prowl, that secret and exciting hour that all cats welcome, knowing adventure waits.

Misto woke fully from last night’s gentle sleep. Beside him, Pan and Kit and Joe and Dulcie still slept, deep under, curled close around him. Misto smiled at the dear cats, guardians of his frail body and of his restless spirit. John and Mary lay on the bed dozing near them, but when Misto woke, they woke. All four cats woke, startled.

It was time.

Misto lifted his head and looked at John; his look said the pain had returned and it was very bad. His look said that now he wanted help. It was time.

John Firetti rose, and with care and tenderness he prepared the shot that would bring a cessation of pain, that would bring peace. Tenderly he administered the medication and, leaning down, he kissed Misto’s forehead and ears. Mary leaned close over the other cats, kissing Misto’s face.

In seconds he was gone.

Now, in this world, Misto slept deep and forever, but beyond this world a brightness glowed. They all could see it, they watched Misto’s spirit rise up, they could feel his passing, they saw his golden form as delicate as gauze above them. He was, for a moment, a clear light above them, and then he was gone. To another place.

They sat with him for some time. No one moved or spoke. From far away they felt his spirit caress them, and an echo of his thoughts drifted back to them: Do not grieve, I am with you. You have lives to live, wrongs to right before you complete your journey. You have kittens to raise,his voice said with a smile, before you move on to the next adventure.

As dawn began to color the sky, John and Mary rose. They fetched the little casket that John had prepared, with its carved designs of flowers and trees and its silk liner. They laid Misto within, and John said a prayer for him.

In the living room Wilma rose from the couch where she had dozed. They carried Misto in his small casket to his resting place, which Mary had prepared in the garden. The morning was chill, barely light, the sky streaked with trails of dark clouds and the first hints of sunrise shining through; it was the kind of morning Misto liked best.

The humans knelt. John uncovered the grave he had dug, set among its five granite boulders. The cats crept close and sat quietly. It was then that Kate appeared and, behind her, silent and close together, came Ryan and Clyde, and Charlie. Ryan took Wilma’s hand. Both wiped away tears.

John laid Misto’s casket in the flower-lined grave between the granite boulders. They patted the earth down, each hand and each paw adding a benediction.