Shirley Murphy - Murphy_Shirley_Rousseau_Cat_Coming_Home_BookFi

When, that morning crossing the prison yard on his way to breakfast, Jack overheard Colletto and his two pals talking about Molena Point and Max Harper, he’d caught the name Dorriss and paused. When Colletto glanced around and saw Jack listening, he’d come at Jack. Colletto had been thick with Marlin Dorriss in prison, before Dorriss was released. Dorriss, too, was a vindictive man, and he had no love for Harper, who’d ruined his smooth thieving operation.

Jack didn’t know what Dorriss and Colletto might be planning, but the conversation ate at him. Dorriss, on the outside and with moneyed friends, could set up any number of ugly operations to get back at Harper.

And if Colletto was in some way part of it, Lori might become a victim just to entertain him. Colletto, already hating Jack and blaming Jack because he was now in trouble with prison authorities, would sure as hell encourage Dorriss to rough her up, or worse.

He knew Molena Point PD would watch out for Lori, he had to count on that. But with Harper, Dorriss’s agenda could be anything. The man was a cool, manipulative liar, liked to think of himself as a high roller, a charming fellow who knew how to pull strings, how to get things done and be well paid for it. He’d hire someone to do any dirty work involved, though he might enjoy roughing up a few people, too. Seemed strange he was close with the Collettos; they had no high-toned connections, no power. He was probably paying them to do the grunt work; Victor’s younger brother, Kent, would be good for that. If Dorriss did plan some retribution against Max Harper, that bothered him. Max had been a good friend, he was a good man, Jack didn’t want to see some scum try to take him down.

And they’d better leave Lori alone. She’d had enough ugliness in her life. She was fearful and worried about him in prison, and before that, before he was sent up, even then he’d caused her pain, he hadn’t really been there for her. Then, he’d been the one who was afraid, afraid for Lori, terrified for her. What kind of example was that? Her mother dead, and only a weak, fearful father. No one strong enough to understand and support her. That was hard on a young girl, he understood that now. And here, in prison, he was less than useless.

The night Jack found his brother, Hal, standing over those children’s graves, holding a dead child carelessly under his arm like a bag of flour, and a shovel in his other hand, the rage that hit him hadn’t abated until he’d killed Hal. Until long after he’d buried him beside those pitiful little graves and shoved weeds and overgrown geraniums back over the raw earth. Nothing in the world could shake him as he’d been shaken the night he killed his brother.

That was when the battles at home began, when he and Natalie began to argue over Lori’s safety. Natalie thought he was being overprotective. He never had told her the truth of it, hadn’t wanted to make her a party to Hal’s murder.

Then when he realized his brother’s partner, Irving Fenner, was still out there killing other children, he was wild with fear again. That was when he began to lock Lori in the house, wouldn’t let her go out even in the daytime, not even to school. He wouldn’t tell Natalie why, he didn’t want to terrify her, too, and that was his biggest mistake; their fighting grew worse until Natalie took Lori and left him, managed to get away to the East Coast where he could never find them. Since he didn’t have the money for a private detective nor was he sure he could trust one, he decided it was best for Lori if he didn’t know where she was, if he made no contact that could be traced. Lori was six when Natalie ran off with her, and Jack didn’t see her again for five years. After Natalie died, Lori was flown back from North Carolina in the care of a social worker. And the nightmare started all over again; Jack, filled with fear for her because the killer was still out there, hid her away, boarded up the windows, locked her in the house. He’d known no other way, he couldn’t go to the law. As much as he respected Max Harper, Harper would have to bring Children’s Services into it, and that was all Fenner would need. He’d find Lori before the cops had enough on him to arrest him and take him off the streets, and Fenner would kill her.

But by then, Lori was older and she soon figured a way to get out of the house. She ran, found a cavelike hiding place that no one knew about. Even so, Fenner at last spotted her on the street, when the child ventured out for a few moments like a little animal coming up for food and air. Fenner followed her, Jack discovered him stalking her, and in a rictor of renewed fear he hadn’t waited for the cops, he’d killed Fenner just as he’d killed Hal. Only this time, he didn’t hide the body. He was too tired, he had ended the nightmare that threatened Lori, it was over, he was willing to take the lumps. When Max Harper found him with Fenner’s body and arrested him, no other cop could have been more fair, could have treated him straighter than Max did. It was Max who helped him through the legalities of placing Lori with Cora Lee French and the senior ladies, and in selecting an attorney to draw up a trust for Lori that included the income from the sale of their house and of his half of the electrical company that he and his partner had established before Lori was born.

Now, Harper himself could be facing trouble, and Jack would like to give him a heads-up. In the hospital, with the guard right there in his face, he hadn’t been able to say anything to Cora Lee or Lori. But now that he was back in prison, all he needed was a few seconds in the visiting room, with the guards’ attention diverted. If a guard overheard him talking about criminal plans on the outside, and told the warden, Warden Deaver would be required to pass that on to Molena Point PD. That was too many people knowing. As much as Jack respected the warden, he didn’t trust all the guards or every cop, not even among Harper’s own officers.

How was he going to give Lori or Cora Lee any message for Harper, in a secure visiting cubicle, able to speak only through a monitored phone? He lay there worrying until he wore himself out. And then, drifting off, he got to thinking for some reason about that stray cat. Prison cat. Wondering if, when he got out of this bed and back among the prison population, back to his gardening job, he’d see that cat again. Strange he’d think about that.

He hadn’t had a pet since he was a kid, hadn’t had time when he was grown. And he’d never paid much attention to the cats that hung around outside the prison. Living on mice and gophers, he guessed, and on handouts from the inmates and some of the guards. He’d paid little attention except for the big yellow tomcat that had followed him and made up with him. Came trotting over every time it saw him working outside, hung around the whole time he was digging weeds and trimming bushes. He’d liked stroking it and scratching its ears. Tomcat could purr like a buzz saw. There was something about the simple honesty of an animal, unlike the deceptive layers of most humans, that eased him. When he imagined a world without animals in it, without Lori’s beloved horses, without the birds that scavenged the prison yard, the friendly dogs all over Molena Point, the rabbits around the prison he saw leaping across the fields, the shy cats slipping away, he thought that such a world would be cold, and one-dimensional, that a world made up only of humans would be far more discouraging, even, than the prison that was now his home.

LORI COULDN’T STAY awake as she and Cora Lee drove through the dark midnight hours. Tired from a long morning’s work at the cottage, then school, and then riding Smokey with Charlie Harper, she fell asleep before they were out of the village onto the highway. She slept all the way to Soledad, woke when Cora Lee pulled off the freeway to park in a long line of cars beside the six-lane. She imagined, inside the cars in front of them, unseen people dozing cramped and uncomfortable, waiting for morning to enter the prison, each with his own sad story. The night was still except for an occasional bump or click from within another car. She knew the noises were only sleepers shifting position, but they sounded stealthy, made her uneasy. The dark emptiness of the night, among so many strangers who could be convicts themselves, made her glad the doors were locked and that Cora Lee had her phone and her pepper spray. The night had turned cold, the wind from the freeway forcing icy fingers in around the closed windows, the glass cold against her hand. She yawned, pulled her coat collar up, and despite her fear she curled up against the door, dropping once more into sleep.