Shirley Murphy - Murphy_Shirley_Rousseau_Cat_Coming_Home_BookFi

Ryan said, “This Arlie Risso? This newcomer in the village who’s been complaining about the invasions?”

Charlie nodded. “I’ve heard the name.”

“He moved here about a month ago,” Ryan said. “I think he bought a house; he was in Haller’s Building Supply a couple of days ago when I picked up a lumber order, he was buying some replacement hardware. He’s been here less than a month, he said. He was complaining loudly about the invasions, going on to George Haller. When I heard him bitching, I moved away among the aisles where I could listen. He said he meant to be at the city council meeting, see what excuse the police have for ‘this rash of crimes,’ as he calls it.” She looked at Joe. “Black hair, neat little black beard. Well built, maybe in his sixties. Sounds like he’s going to raise hell at the meeting.”

“We’ll be there,” Clyde said with interest.

Charlie said, “Not me, I don’t want it to look as if the chief needs his wife for backup. But I’d sure like to be a fly on the wall.”

“The meeting is when?” Joe said in an offhand manner.

They all looked at him. Clyde said, “No way,” and helped himself to the last pancake.

“Why shouldn’t he go?” Ryan said. “He goes everywhere else.”

Clyde scowled at her. “Have you ever been to a council meeting?”

Ryan shook her head.

“The room’s too open, there’s nowhere for a cat to hide. Space under the pews is open, and only a bare wall at the back. I can just see the mayor dragging Joe out by his furry neck.”

“You don’t have to be so graphic,” Joe snapped. Though he knew the room didn’t lend itself well to feline surveillance. He thought about the windowsills, but those skinny strips were way too narrow even for a cat to cling to. He could perch on a branch outside with his ear to the glass, except that the meetings started at four-thirty, and it would still be light out. He’d be seen from within like one of those paper cutout cats decorating grade-school windows for Halloween. He was wondering how to bring this off when Ryan caught his eye as she reached for the bacon, gave him a quick look of complicity.

Joe licked a last smear of kippers from his whiskers, hiding a smile, and before the discussion could go further he dropped to the floor and headed for the living room and his well-clawed easy chair. Ryan would smuggle him in, and not by his furry neck. Yawning, Joe curled up on the ragged chair, thankful once again that Clyde had married a woman of such keen imagination and sly complicity, a woman more than willing to bend the rules for a deserving accomplice.

31

IT WAS LATER that morning that Joe dropped to the roof of Ryan and Clyde’s little cottage amid the drumbeat of hammering from the yard below—and landed facing the yellow tomcat. They hissed at each other and bristled, but without much ferocity, only with the usual rush of tomcat one-upmanship, that sudden and heady surge of adrenaline that made the yellow cat lash his tail and give Joe a ritual snarl. Below them, Ryan and Clyde were building wooden forms, getting ready to pour the foundation for the new sunroom. When Joe padded around onto the small wing that extended behind the cottage, he could see that they had the big header in for the glass sliders. A roll of heavy plastic lay nearby, ready to cover the new opening against unexpected gusts of passing rain. He didn’t see the two Latino laborers; he thought they were working another job, preparing for yet another remodel. Ryan was right, this would be a busy month for her, the joys of the holidays sandwiched in between bouts of heavy labor; and that was the way she liked it. She never complained, so Joe guessed the construction work must be for Ryan as heady as restoring rusty old cars was for Clyde or, for Joe, offering up to MPPD a nice piece of evidence to fit into their investigation.

When he looked over at Kit and Dulcie, he had to laugh at the feathers stuck to Kit’s mottled face where she’d just finished off an unwary starling. Beside him, the yellow cat had relaxed his wary stance, and the four of them lounged companionably, watching Clyde drive stakes for the forms. They watched Lori Reed came out the side door, hauling pieces of carpet taller than she was. Dragging her burden into the narrow side yard, she heaved the heavy bundles into a green metal Dumpster that seemed nearly as big as the house. Her brown hair was tucked up under a baseball cap. She wore shorts, boots, a faded T-shirt, leather work gloves, and a cloth mask tied over her nose and mouth against the dust from the ancient rug.

“Her pa’s going back to prison tomorrow,” Dulcie said softly as Joe rolled over, close beside her. “To the prison infirmary.” Her fur, baked from the sun, smelled clean and sweet. Over the noise of the hammers, the three talked in little cat whispers. “That’s a visiting day,” Dulcie said. “Lori and Cora Lee will leave at midnight tonight, to be in line in the morning.”

The yellow tom flicked an ear. “A long wait for tired families, wives and kids in line for hours, and then only a few short minutes for their visit. And a long wait, too,” he said dryly, “for the prisoners’ scuzzy partners, on the outside, to pass on their coded information. Their plans for whatever’s coming down out here, beyond the prison walls.”

From within the house, Benny appeared, also wearing a mask. He went straight to Rock, to lean companionably against the patient Weimaraner. Lori, having apparently hauled out the last of the carpet, went to kneel beside them, putting her arm around Benny. “You can help me sweep, if you like. There are two brooms.” Looking pleased, Benny nodded and rose, and the two disappeared inside again. In a moment the cats could hear their brooms swishing across the bare wood subfloor. Joe looked at the yellow tomcat.

“There was a man in prison,” Joe said. “Kit said his name was Arlie something? What did he look like?”

“He’s been out a couple of months,” Misto said. “A handsome man, maybe in his fifties, close as I could tell. Square build, very white hair. Clean shaven, soft-spoken, and— urbane is the word. The others laughed at him, called him ‘the gentleman.’ But not to his face; he could be mean, you could see the rage surge up in him. They didn’t mess with Arlie, even the prison gangs left him alone.”

“And the man you were watching in the motel,” Joe said, “could he be the same?”

Misto flicked his whiskers. “His hair was black, and a black beard. I couldn’t pick up his scent, nothing but shaving lotion, and her perfume. He’s built the same, voice the same. Not hard to grow a beard, then dye his hair and beard.”

“Did you follow him here,” Dulcie said. “Is that why you came?”

The yellow cat smiled. “Not exactly. It’s what he said that brought me here. Arlie and Tommie McCord talked about the village. Prison talk, McCord going on about the burglaries he’d pulled here. And Arlie describing the fine house he’d once owned on the shore when he lived here. Bragging talk. But I thought I’d seen that house, a vague memory of concrete slabs with glass in between. ‘Modern,’ he called it. The memory of that house was like a dream, I didn’t know then where I’d seen it.

“He talked about beautiful women sunbathing on the beach, and then about cats, said there were too many cats on the shore around his house, cats hiding in caves in the cliffs. Said they were disgusting, that the village should get rid of them. That had McCord listening, all right, and laughing, a strange, mean laugh. But it sounded so like the muddy shore I remembered, that house, and the shore where the sea will come up to cover all the sand, and there’s a little fishing dock. When he told about a man who came to feed the cats, that was a jolt. I was sure I remembered him.” Misto looked at them with excitement. “I was a kitten in that place, I’m sure of it. I think I was born there.”