Shirley Murphy: Murphy_Shirley_Rousseau_Cat_Coming_Home_BookFi

PEARL DIDN’T SEE, on the roof behind them, the two cats watching, nor would she have paid any attention, she certainly wouldn’t have looked closely enough to see that one of the cats, a dark tortoiseshell, was placing a call on a cell phone. Hurrying away from the house, she didn’t hear the soft female voice that set in motion a BOL on the Jaguar, bringing into action the cruising street patrols—nor did she see the yellow cat stifle a laugh.

The old cat had found it wildly liberating to shout at Pearl; and when his shouts and paw-pounding on the guest room window distracted and unnerved her long enough for Maudie to slip the gun from her robe into her jacket pocket, that was a fine example of feline/human teamwork—even if Maudie didn’t know she’d had help. Now, both cats, following along the roofs above, wanted to whisper a word of encouragement to Maudie as she was forced up the street. All they could do was race after them over the shingles following the dark, sleek car, determined not to lose Maudie.

PUSHING MAUDIE INTO the backseat, Pearl engaged the safety switches and locked the doors. Her eyes felt gritty, she longed to clean up and tend to the wound on her face, try to prevent a disfiguring infection, but she didn’t dare return to Arlie’s house. As she headed up into the hills, she could see a convergence of lights near where the wreck would be, the lights of cop cars reflected up through the trees; when she cracked the window she could hear their radios. She hoped the driver wasn’t dead, that would complicate matters. Hoped they hadn’t found Benny, she didn’t want the kid blabbing. Maybe she shouldn’t have left him, should have gotten him away, hidden him somewhere they’d never find him even with the dog.

But maybe he’d stay away from the cops, maybe he was trying to find his way home, wandering lost up through the black woods. When she was above the wreck, heading higher into the tangle of hills, she watched for a place to park unseen among the darkened houses, maybe near where that canyon ran down. If the cops came nosing around up there, if she had to get away from the car, the canyon could be useful, even though she hated getting torn and scratched again by fallen trees and bushes. Once she had the papers and money, she’d decide what to do with Maudie. Pulling onto a twisting side street, she heard dogs barking somewhere to her right, as if she had disturbed them. But then in a moment someone must have shut them up, the night was still again, and she settled down to wait.

43

ONCE PEARL LEFT him and Benny had come out from his hiding place and hobbled up into the woods, hurrying away from the direction his mother had gone, his leg didn’t hurt so bad. Not as bad as he’d let on, he’d wanted her to think he couldn’t walk much. Circling through the woods, past the metal heap of the white Toyota and the truck, he could see a porch light burning, in the house just above. Avoiding the man and woman who stood by the truck arguing, slipping around them, he couldn’t help the brushy sounds of his bare feet in the wet leaves. He thought they didn’t hear, because they didn’t stop arguing. Twice he stepped on sharp rocks and had to swallow back a yelp, and then a twig poked into his ankle. The woman’s voice was mean, as scratchy as a nail scraping the sidewalk. “Why the hell didn’t you look when you backed out of the damn drive?”

“I did look, dammit. Car came around the corner so fast I couldn’t even shift gears, and you know damn well my horn don’t work.”

“First person sees this mess in the morning, first car comes down the road, the cops’ll be all over it, and you with no insurance. I told you this would happen.”

When he was past them, Benny ran, up through the woods, trying to remember the way he and Grandma took driving down to the village and home again. He thought Grandma’s house was away to the right; he wanted to go that way but the woods were so tangled and black. Who knew what was in there, hidden among the trees? When the road made a sharp bend to the right, the voices grew fainter behind him, but still he hurried uphill, his leg hurting worse. Once, he saw strings of little Christmas lights back in the woods. He guessed they were Christmas lights, hoped they weren’t something else, ghosts or something creepy. He was getting warm from walking, but he was out of breath. Sitting down on a long mound of earth at the side of the road, he yawned, and rubbed his hurting leg. He wasn’t lost, he told himself. The sudden sound of men’s voices made him look up. Had that drunk man followed him? He could see lights moving behind him, now, reflecting up among the trees. Frightened, he slipped behind the berm, out of sight from the road. A man was calling him, calling, “Benny? Benny?” How could he know his name?

The calling went on for a long time, but he was afraid to answer. He could see the light approaching uphill toward him. If he ran, the man would hear him. Quickly he dug down against the berm and pulled some fallen pine branches over himself. As he huddled there, again tears came, but these were tears of fear and of exhaustion and from the pain in his leg. He wouldn’t cry again for his mother, he didn’t have a mother, his connection to Pearl had been torn away, that woman who had hurt him wasn’t his mother. Yawning, he snuggled down beneath the branches, wanting help, but not from a stranger. Curling up trying to stay warm, he closed his eyes just for a minute.

He woke to a soft meow. He opened his eyes to see a cat crouched on the berm looking down at him. He came fully awake. He could see the darker blackness of familiar stripes, the wide, curved stripes across her shoulders, the stripe that blackened half her left ear. “Dulcie?”

She mewed at him and leaped down, and snuggled against his neck, purring. She was warm, cuddled against him; even her purr seemed to warm him. He petted her and talked to her and wished she could tell him how to get home, wished she could lead him home. But she was just a cat, she didn’t know he was lost. He lay there cuddling her, wondering if she was lost, too? Why would she be so far from home, from where he usually saw her? When she rose and moved away, he was afraid she’d leave him, he didn’t want her to go away to hunt and leave him all alone.

WHEN DULCIE HAD arrived at the wreck, there were two patrol cars nosed in facing it, their headlights picking out the tangle of the white Toyota crumpled half on its side against a badly dented king cab pickup. Rearing up until she could see the license plate where it was jammed against a tree, she discovered it was the Toyota from the motel. The tangle of wrecked vehicles spilled across the road and up into the driveway of a dark brown, shingled house, a grim, depressing place crowded on three sides by the dense pine woods. Looking at the wreck, she imagined the truck backing down the drive, the Toyota coming fast up around the curve from below, hitting it broadside; imagined the car spinning the truck around in a lethal dance before it lost its footing, skidded over, and tilted into the tree. She could see no one inside either vehicle. If the three officers on the scene had found anyone, they’d have an ambulance there by now. Or they’d have the coroner. She didn’t want to think about that, hadn’t wanted to think about Benny hurt or dead.

Had an ambulance already come and gone, maybe taking the little boy away? She watched one of the officers move up the stairs to the front door, his flashlight beam raking the face of the house, and Dulcie circled behind the other two uniforms, through the dark to nose around the Toyota.