Кроха - Dedication

“We had two other reports,” Dover said. “Blue Hondas, lone women, but both turned out duds. Until tonight, nearly a week later,” the sheriff said.

“Weather blowing in again, but it wasn’t here yet, just heavy clouds, when Meredith Wilson called us. Said a blue four-door, she couldn’t tell the make, had stopped on the road in front of their mailbox, then turned in, pulled in among a stand of young sourwood trees.

“I sent two deputies. Takes about twenty minutes from the station, and called in four more as backup. Our first car gets there and turns in, the storm is gearing up. Enough wind to cover sound and movement. Meredith and her father could still see Tekla’s car. We told them to stay inside, don’t answer the door, stay away from the windows.

“First patrol car checks in, approaching the house. Next thing, we hear gunfire. Second car pulls up and we get an Officer Down call. We radioed for the medics. Two more cars arrive, deputies surround the place. The officer is lying in the doorway shot in the leg and a wound in his side, his partner kneeling over him applying tourniquets to stop the blood. And Tekla’s sprawled on the steps,” Dover said. “She’s dead, shot through the chest—but not by our men.”

There was a little pause. Dover said, “Meredith Wilson killed her, with her daddy’s favorite handgun.”

They were all silent. Then, “It was later we found the scar on Tekla’s revolver where one of my deputies shot it from her hand. She could well have kept firing, have hit more of us if she’d had the chance.

“So I guess,” Dover said dryly, “besides saving lives, Meredith Wilson saved the California courts some money. Maybe,” he said, “the good Lord handled this one.”

And Joe Grey, face hidden from the chief and the detectives, couldn’t stop smiling.

In Wilma’s living room before the fire, Max and Charlie sat close together on the couch, Ryan and Clyde on cushions before the hearth. Joe and Dulcie lay on Wilma’s lap, in her easy chair. The kittens, for the moment, were blessedly asleep in their pen. The house smelled deliciously of shrimp casserole set in the oven to keep warm. Ryan’s big salad bowl and a basket of French bread waited on the table. Impromptu meals, Wilma thought, were the best. The Greenlaws had brought a berry shortcake; Lucinda sat near Charlie and Max, at the other end of the couch; Pedric chose the padded desk chair, Kit stretched out on the blotter beside him. Pan was home with the Firettis. Kate and Scotty had opted out for their own impromptu supper, they didn’t say where.

Just this morning John Firetti had examined the kittens again, had pronounced them fine and healthy and had doted over the babies. Talking to the kittens and stroking them, he had called the lighter buff boy Buffin, then had looked up guiltily at Dulcie. “It’s just a nickname, it’s not for me to name them.”

Dulcie smiled. “Why shouldn’t you name them? You helped them into the world. Buffin? I like that. Buffin,” she said, “as golden pale as the sea sand. The name has a gentle sound.” She looked up at John. “Misto named Courtney, and he would like this name, too.” She laid a paw on John’s hand and looked down at the tiny baby. “Hello, Buffin.”

“And this other little fellow,” John said, “with the dark shadow on his pale coat? Does he yet have a name?”

“Not yet,” Dulcie said. “I guess Joe and I are waiting . . . for our friends to help. Or maybe,” she said, “maybe we’re waiting for this little boy to name himself.”

And now this evening, this was how it happened when, the friends all moving to the dining table, paused around the cage looking down at the kittens.

“You don’t want common names,” Max said, startling Dulcie—as if they had been talking about just that. She watched the chief nervously.

“They’re Joe’s kittens,” he said, “Joe Grey’s and Dulcie’s.”

Everyone was quiet. What was Max saying, what was he thinking? That the kittens were far more than just special? In the silent room Charlie glanced at Ryan and Clyde, and at Wilma.

But maybe, Dulcie thought, Max meant nothing—his expression was bland, maybe he was just taken with her babies. He had grown to enjoy Joe’s bold and purring interruptions in the office. Now he admired Joe’s kittens; surely that was all he had meant.

Charlie said, “Wilma has already named the girl kitten, she is Courtney.”

“And this morning,” Wilma said, “John Firretti gave me another name . . . maybe not so original, but it fits.” She bent down to stroke the paler boy kitten. “Buffin,” she said. “This is Buffin.”

Charlie said, “I like it, it’s a sturdy name. He is sturdy, look at him.” She leaned down to pet the sand-colored baby. But when she picked up the other kitten, with the gray cloud marking his pale coat, he immediately nipped her and dug his claws in, making her laugh. “This one’s a little wildcat, he’s going to be a handful.” She glanced down at Dulcie and Joe, then at Wilma.

“Striker,” she said. “What about Striker? But Striker as in to protect, not to threaten.”

Behind Max’s back, Dulcie and Joe looked at each other, amused. Yes, a strong name. And a strong, determined kitten. And Joe thought, A good name for a young cop kitten—if that’s what Striker turns out to be.

Wilma looked into Dulcie’s green eyes, then into Joe’s level gaze. “Striker. I like that,” she told Charlie. When she took the kitten from Charlie she received a sharp scratch of her own. She set him down in the pen, tapped him gently on the nose when he tried for another swat. When he drew back, she gently stroked him. He looked up at her uncertainly.

“Hello, Striker,” she said, laughing, and she removed her hand before he thought to lunge again.

When Ryan brought the casserole to the table and everyone gathered, Courtney and her brothers, smelling the warm shrimp, let out lusty mewls. Even kittens with full tummies could bellow demanding cries; but a look and a soft mumble from Dulcie, and soon they quieted.

As they all took their seats, Ryan was saying, “What I don’t get is how Tekla got the jurors’ names. Doesn’t the court seal those, so no one can influence the jurors during the trial or do them harm afterward?”

“It was the jury clerk,” Max said, “a Denise Ripley, she passed the names and addresses to Tekla. They went through high school together. Maybe buddies, maybe not, but Tekla paid her well. Ripley spilled when the chief judge called her in. He got her story—I’m not sure how. Maybe she thought he would only fire her and not prosecute, though I’m sure he didn’t promise that.” Max smiled. “Ripley’s in jail now, under indictment.”

“She got what she deserved,” Charlie said, “and so did Tekla. Meredith Wilson is alive, unharmed. Because of Meredith, maybe so are a couple of deputies. And maybe those jurors, too, who were lucky enough to escape the Bleaks.”

“What would the world be like,” Ryan wondered, “if all the vindictive, blood-hungry people suddenly went up in smoke, vanished into nothing?”

“I’d be out of a job,” Max said, laughing. “I’d be spending my time with Charlie, in a long and satisfying retirement.”

“And pretty soon,” Wilma said, “with no more evil in the world for us to stand against, people would become as weak and ineffective as garden slugs.”

Dulcie thought about that. But in her mind, at that moment, the prospect of an innocent world, of a safe life for her kittens, such a dream would offer more than a few virtues.

It was later in the evening when, yawning, Dulcie watched their friends depart, that she thought a little prayer for them all, for cats, kittens, and humans. Her purr was deep, she was content with life as she and Wilma moved the kittens into their nighttime pen beside Wilma’s bed. Dulcie settled down among them, inundated by pummeling babies who did not want to go to sleep. Soothing her lively youngsters with a gentle paw, she willed herself to forget the last lingering images of Tekla’s brutal assaults, of the suffering that woman had caused.