Shirley Murphy - Murphy_Shirley_Rousseau_Cat_Coming_Home_BookFi

She reported the injured woman to June, and gave her street directions. Molena Point cottages had no house numbers. Hitting the speaker button again to break the connection, she padded soundlessly back through the house and across the roofs to the invaded house, where she hid herself at the base of the chimney in the blackest shadows. As she waited for the patrol cars she’d summoned, the words of the invaders echoed in her head … can’t untie herself … How bad did you hurt her? She thought about the smooth-talking man who sounded so familiar and so cold, and she hoped the poor woman would be all right. That man was someone from the past, she thought, her ears back and her tail switching. But she couldn’t think who, she couldn’t give him a name or think when or where she’d seen him, only that he frightened her.

23

PULLED FROM SOUND sleep, Dulcie sat straight up on the desk and peered out the front window where sirens cut through the night, echoing from the center of the village. She’d been so deeply asleep, waiting for Wilma to get home from playing poker at the Damens’, had fallen asleep after she answered Wilma’s phone call. Another blast ripped the night, whooping then dying, and she imagined squad cars gathered around another violent and destructive store break-in.

If that was where the cops were gathered, would another kind of crime have occurred as well, blocks away, and in silence? If the pattern ran true to form, there would be no 911 call for help. That victim, unable to reach a phone or cry out, would suffer alone, perhaps for how many hours before someone found her and an alarm went out. Springing off the desk, she fled for her cat door.

Despite the squad cars converged in the center of the village, she knew that doubled patrols would be searching the dark streets, watching for another, silent crime, shining their spotlights among the cottages and into dark gardens, looking for a running figure. Darkly clad officers would be walking the streets hoping to locate a victim who was unable to alert them, too injured to cry out and be heard. At times like this, Dulcie thought, the village seemed too big, too impersonal and dark; no way one small cat could hope to find a lone victim—but she could try. Scrambling up to the roofs, she raced for the middle of town first, guided by the burst of exploding lights.

The street was filled with cop cars. Across from the roof where she paused, the plate-glass windows of the Blue Bistro Café had been broken out, and two cops were busy stringing crime tape, a bright yellow ribbon above the sidewalk and back between the buildings. Beyond the broken glass, she could see inside where Dallas Garza was taking pictures, photographing broken tables and chairs, the damaged front counter and smashed wine bottles. The smell of spilled wine was so sharp it made her nose twitch. She could see another convergence of lights several blocks away, reflected against the sky—a second break-in. She watched the action for some time, saw Arnold Pence, the restaurant owner, skid his gray VW in among the police cars, pile out and run to the restaurant, his bedroom slippers crunching on broken glass, his heavy leather jacket flapping open over his striped pajamas. As the thin, gray-haired man argued with a young officer, demanding to be allowed inside, Dulcie reared up, looking away over the rooftops to the dark, residential parts of the village. How could anyone find the other, silent crime that was sure to have happened somewhere among the dark houses? She was pacing uncertainly when, over the tangle of police radios and men’s voices, came the wail of more sirens, distant sirens somewhere to the south. Had a victim called in?

She stood a moment, pinpointing the location, then fled toward Ocean Avenue, coming down only to streak across the two northbound lanes, across the grassy median and then the southbound lanes, and up to the roofs again, guided by her fix on the dying wails. She ran until lights shone ahead reflecting up through the trees, leading her on as surely as an airport beam must summon a lone pilot. Galloping up the last peak, she leaped to the roof of a house stage-lit by the headlamps of squad cars and Harper’s truck and an EMT van. Running along the edge of the roof, staring down at them, she nearly plowed into Kit.

“The sirens woke you?” Kit whispered, amused by Dulcie’s startled squeak.

“I was waiting for Wilma. They hit a restaurant in the village, maybe two. Cops all over, Dallas is at the scene.” She frowned at Kit. “You called the dispatcher? How did you know?”

“I was following someone,” Kit said shyly.

Dulcie pricked her ears, but said no more. Crouching shoulder to shoulder, they watched two medics emerge from the house carrying a stretcher. The woman beneath the blanket was so frail she hardly made a lump. Her face was bruised and swollen, and caked with blood; even from the roof, they could smell its metallic bitterness. The two white-coated medics eased her into the ambulance, got in behind her and pulled the doors closed. The third member of the team slipped behind the wheel and the van pulled away. As it headed for Molena Point Hospital, another squad car pulled to the curb, and Detective Kathleen Ray got out.

The tall, slim young woman was dressed in navy sweats, her long dark hair rumpled as if she’d just rolled out of bed, pulled on her clothes, and taken off. Stepping to the trunk of the black-and-white, she fetched a brown leather satchel that the cats knew contained evidence bags, some small tools, cameras, and fingerprint equipment. She turned as Max came out the front door, they spoke in low voices, then Max stepped into his truck. As he pulled away, a gray shadow slipped out of the house behind Kathleen and disappeared into the bushes. Not until Kathleen went inside did the leaves of a pittosporum rattle and part. Joe looked up at them and clawed his way up a spindly pine tree to the roof, giving Dulcie a warm nudge.

“The woman lives alone,” he said. “Nannette Garver. They beat her up pretty bad. She doesn’t know who called it in, her phone is dead, they cut the cord.” He looked at Kit. “Did you call the station? From where? How did you know?”

“From the house next door,” Kit said. “I found a window open, but before that, I saw them, I saw the men, and maybe a woman, I’m not sure. I heard them talking, I think I recognized one man’s voice, and one was driving the same pickup that nearly hit Maudie. There were three darkly dressed men, a black car like a limo. It was the driver who sounded familiar and …”

“Slow down, Kit!” they both said.

She tried to go slower. But only at the very last did she tell them about the yellow tomcat and how he had led her there. “As if he knew there’d be an invasion,” she said. “How did he know? Oh my, he’s like us, but he’s very old, so old he’s white around the muzzle but when those men left he followed them, chased the black car and all three were wearing stockings over their faces and—”

“Kit!” Dulcie mewed.

“Slow down,” Joe snapped.

Kit stopped for breath, staring at the two of them. “Could the thin one have been Kent Colletto? The one who drove the truck? Kent looked so superior at dinner when they talked about the invasions. Could he have left the house after we did, after we looked in the garage? It was so dark I couldn’t see his face.”

“Kent has a juvenile record,” Joe said. “He …” He stopped speaking, lifted his head, sniffing the shifting breeze and then scanning the rooftops. Catching the tomcat’s lingering scent, he rose and trotted across the shingles, pausing where the scent clung heavily among overhanging leaves, where the tom must have lingered, watching them and listening.