Shirley Murphy - Murphy_Shirley_Rousseau_Cat_Coming_Home_BookFi

The two cats, peering over the edge of the roof, could see it, too. A faint trail of grass clippings led across the porch from within the house. When Maudie turned on the inside light, two trails of clippings led up the stairs for as far as the cats could see, one on each side of the steps. In the entry, one trail turned away toward the kitchen, one followed Jared out onto the porch where he now stood. And when the cats looked back at Jared, they saw bits of grass clinging to the elastic cuffs of his sweatpants, to his damp running shoes and to his dangling shoestrings.

An officer came up from Alfreda’s house, and together he and Harper loaded Jared into a squad car. Same drill with the leg irons, same ducking of Jared’s head to clear the door. Maudie stood very still in the doorway, simply watching. As the two squad cars took off with their prisoners, heading for the station followed by another black-and-white, Detective Ray’s old rental Ford pulled up in front of Maudie’s house. Kathleen, dressed in jeans and sweatshirt, was carrying an evidence bag. She spoke with Maudie and Max Harper briefly and then began taking photographs of the two trails of grass, one coming down the stairs and out to the porch, the other leading away to the studio. On the roof, Kit gave Misto a quizzical look.

“That’s one we were wrong about,” she said. “Jared Colletto. Well, he was quick on his feet, you have to give him that. Slipped out of the house after Maudie went to bed? Was down there, closing in on Alfreda’s house, when the cops grabbed Risso?”

“He had to be one of the three the cops chased,” Misto said. “He veered away behind Maudie’s house, where we couldn’t see him, into the studio and upstairs again.”

“Threw on his robe,” Kit said, “and came down yawning, with not a thought to the grass clippings. Jared Colletto,” she repeated, and she felt sad that someone she’d almost trusted had turned out to be all deception and lies.

38

FROM MAUDIE’S ROOF, Kit and Misto continued to watch Alfreda’s house, where Detective Garza was lifting prints from the front door and surround. It was nearly an hour since Marlin Dorriss and Jared had been taken away in a patrol car, Jared wearing his robe and sweatpants and a pair of bedroom slippers, his grass-covered jogging shoes having been bagged as evidence. They’d watched Dallas collect and bag fibers caught on the Meier house’s door molding, and photograph and make casts of five footprints incised in the garden earth along the edge of the lawn. They’d watched Maudie go down the hill and disappear within Alfreda’s house, apparently to commiserate with the frightened woman.

Most of the officers had departed, leaving behind a barrier of yellow crime-scene tape surrounding the house and yard. Detective Ray had finished photographing the grassy trails that entered Maudie’s house and out again, and had gone upstairs to the guest room. They could see her through the window, examining Jared’s clothes and duffel and photographing with sharp flashes of strobe light. Kit didn’t know what Kathleen could take into possession without a court order, but she guessed Maudie’s house was part of the scene now, too, and she could confiscate any evidence. Ever curious, Kit padded along the narrow lip of roof beneath the window to look in, squeezing her eyes closed when the light flashed. Benny was sound asleep, as deep under as a kitten tucked against its mama. The little boy had burrowed beneath the covers, head and all, cutting out the noise and the painful flashes; all one could really see was a lump of quilt and blanket. Had he slept like this all through the chase, even through the bellow of the bullhorn? He didn’t stir at Kathleen’s intrusion, though Kit herself squeezed her eyes closed at each lift of the camera to avoid the fierce blazes of the strobe light. Kit returned to the garage roof squinting and shaking her head.

Out on the street, before Alfreda’s house, Officer Brennan had settled down in his patrol car as if to stay and keep watch; Kit could smell the coffee from his thermos and the faint scent of cinnamon as he unwrapped what was probably a sweet roll. Dallas was packing up to leave, putting his equipment in the trunk, when his cell phone buzzed. When he flipped on the speaker, Max’s voice crackled with a tinny sound. “Arlie’s all tucked away—one more alias to add to Dorriss’s file. That tip made all the difference, put us right on the scene.”

Dallas laughed. “Not just to mop up, this time.” Kit guessed it must have been frustrating, one invasion after another and not one fingerprint except the victim’s own, or that of a neighbor or service person, and no match to the fibers and debris they’d bagged and logged in. “Now,” Dallas said, “with Jared and Dorriss off the street and a BOL out on Kent, we’re getting somewhere. Maybe the two in jail will ID the fourth guy—or maybe that will turn out to be the woman.”

Kit thought it might. The figure that had vanished so fast, even before Arlie was arrested, was tall and thin and might indeed have been the woman.

Kit had already phoned and awakened Clyde to tell Joe the news. And to brag a little, to say that it was their call, hers and Misto’s, that had brought the cops on time. From the brightness of Misto’s eyes and the way he lashed his tail, it was clear he liked this new twist to his life. She bet he’d never dreamed of working alongside a bunch of cops, that he’d never imagined such an exciting interaction with humans. Now he looked almost like a young cat, his smile as excited as that of a frolicking kitten.

ALFREDA MEIERS WAS so upset after the attempted invasion and all the fuss with the police, so nervous that two men had escaped and might return, that after Detective Garza took her statement, she wanted only to lock herself in the house and rest. But even before Detective Garza departed, Maudie Toola came down the hill and invited her up to her house for a cup of tea and a slice of pie, offering to make up the couch in her living room, on this night when both women needed company. Alfreda went back with her for the tea and pie, carefully locking the doors behind her. She felt almost comfortable, with Officer Brennan on guard, sitting there in his squad car. She told Maudie she would visit for a little while, try to calm her nerves, then would go on home. Not that she could sleep, but she could lie down, prop a chair against the bedroom door, get a little rest. She didn’t know what those men would have done to her; she didn’t want to think about that. She and Maudie hurried up the street and into Maudie’s house, looking back to see Brennan nod and wave to them.

Maudie settled Alfreda at the kitchen table and put the kettle on, then went to make doubly sure the studio door was properly locked. She found the grass trail through the studio disturbed as if someone had walked through it. But Detective Kathleen Ray had photographed the damp lawn clippings, so maybe she’d scattered the grassy trail, hadn’t been careful—though that did seem odd. Detective Ray seemed exceptionally careful in how she went about her work.

In the kitchen she laid out cups and plates, sugar and silverware on a tray. Neither of them took milk. She left Alfreda cutting the pecan pie that she and Benny had made, and went to light the gas log in the living room and draw up the little tea table she liked to use, opening out its two small leaves. She didn’t remember leaving the table standing out so far from the cupboard door; she preferred it snugged against the closet that was meant for the storage of firewood, and which she didn’t use. She’d thought of asking Ryan to convert the space into bookshelves, and maybe she’d do that. Maybe Benny had been playing in there, she thought as she hurried upstairs to check on the child.