Shirley Murphy: Murphy_Shirley_Rousseau_Cat_Coming_Home_BookFi

The child sat at the kitchen table with a blanket wrapped around him. Lori had pulled her chair close beside him, and there was a big mug of cocoa on the table in front of him. There was a fresh bandage on his face, and one on his right arm. Rock reared up, softly keening and licking Benny’s face; and when the big dog cut a look at Ryan, his yellow eyes were filled with such pride that Ryan pressed her fist to her mouth and couldn’t speak; Rock’s doggy excitement at his accomplishment was so great that Clyde and Dallas, too, seemed choked with emotion.

From atop the little planning desk tucked beside the refrigerator, Dulcie looked on, purring extravagantly, her own triumph nearly as great as Rock’s. Joe didn’t know the details, but from the look on his lady’s face, Benny Toola had enjoyed two miracles tonight. One when an “untrained” dog successfully tracked and found him. The other when he must have been led through the cold night to safety by an “ordinary house cat,” a miracle that most humans would find impossible to believe. A rescue that, even to the hard-nosed tomcat, proved there might, indeed, be a touch of magic in the world. A special Christmas blessing, perhaps, that Dulcie had found Benny in the dark night, searching all alone, and that the child, lost and afraid, had been willing to follow her.

But Joe wasn’t the only one focused on Dulcie. When he looked at Dallas, the detective was frowning at the purring tabby, as if puzzled that Wilma’s cat was up there so far from home. Benny saw him looking. “Dulcie brought me,” he blurted out. “She was in the woods, a man was calling me and I saw lights and I didn’t know who that was. I ran, and then Dulcie was there, and she brought me here.”

“She must have been hunting,” Ryan said. “I’ve seen her over there on that road. Maybe she heard the police, saw the lights, and that frightened her just as it scared Benny.”

Dallas watched Ryan, puzzled and silent—maybe not really wanting to know what this was about.

“A miracle that they met up,” Ryan said. “Maybe, since she knows the seniors’ house, maybe she thought of this as a place of safety …” Ryan knew she was talking too much, but she couldn’t seem to stop. She didn’t like the skeptical look on Dallas’s face. He’d started to reply, his scowl stern, when his cell phone rang.

Picking up, the detective listened, then turned and stepped into the entry hall where he could talk in private. Silently Joe followed him, slipping into the shadows to listen.

“She’s where?” Dallas said. “How could you know that? Who is this? Where are you? Are you certain she has Maudie?”

I‘M SURE,” KIT said. “She pushed Maudie in the backseat of a maroon Jaguar, her hands tied behind her. I followed them up where you are. I saw you with that dog. She didn’t stop anywhere, she couldn’t have let Maudie out. She’s parked up in those trees, in the darkest shadows.”

Kit’s heart was pounding when she clicked off the speaker on the phone by Lori’s empty bed, after calling Dallas’s cell phone. She listened to Lori’s voice and Dallas’s voice from the kitchen below, heard him ask a question, heard Ryan answer. There was silence for a few minutes, then she heard the front door open. When she peered out through Lori’s window, Dallas and Rock were on the porch, Rock straining at the leash, staring up the dark hill, his ears up, his whole body quivering. Soon they would head up there. Kit didn’t know whether to follow them as they closed in on Pearl, or go down to poor Misto, who was crouched beneath the back deck, waiting for her.

Having clawed through the bathroom window, then slipped into Lori’s room, having found Lori’s bed empty and heard her voice downstairs, she’d made the call to Dallas, all the while worried about Misto. The old cat was worn out from running, tired and sore, and he’d been breathing hard when she left him. Now, still hearing Lori’s and Cora Lee’s voices from the kitchen, she fought the lock on Lori’s window, pawed it open, and slipped out onto the roof. Peering down, she listened as Dallas spoke on his cell phone, talking with Max. She watched Rock pull on the lead, staring up into the night, fixed intently on Pearl’s hidden car. She knew Dallas was waiting for backup. She wanted badly to follow when they closed in on Pearl’s car. Instead she dropped off the roof onto Cora Lee’s hood, then to the drive, and streaked around to the back and beneath the deck, where Misto lay curled up, breathing raggedly.

45

THE MAROON JAGUAR sat high up the hill sheltered among a dark overhang of cypress branches, well hidden from the houses below. Weeks ago, Pearl had driven up here with Arlie when he was looking for a house. He’d taken one look at the neighborhood and pronounced it a wilderness, too far from the amenities as he called them, too removed from his lifestyle. Didn’t that make her laugh. What about his lifestyle while he was in prison? Though the area was so out of the way she wondered if the cops even bothered to patrol here.

The street ended in a cul-de-sac, but a narrower road led away down the far side of the hill, and she had parked facing that for a quick exit. The night around her was clear, but a fog was creeping up from the scrubby canyon, making it look like a pale river. She could escape down in there if she needed to, though the idea of climbing down among that tangle of weeds and trees didn’t really appeal; she’d done enough of that, earlier in the night.

Down the hill, despite fingers of fog, light from a thin moon picked out faintly the shapes of the large old houses. All were dark except for a faint glow from behind one, maybe a low-watt security light. The time was two forty-five. In the rearview mirror she watched Maudie, ready to stop her if she struggled with her bonds again; she’d already slapped her once for doing that. Maudie kept glancing down at the street below as if imagining that someone in one of those houses would wake and come to rescue her. When a couple of dogs started barking, Pearl studied the yards, but it was too dark to see where they were or what they were barking at. Only when a brighter light came on from behind one of the houses did she reach to switch on the ignition.

But then she paused. Maybe it was nothing, maybe the barking dogs had awakened someone, maybe they’d shut up and the light would go out again. This was too good a shelter to leave, she didn’t want to move. Settling back, she thought about where she’d go once she had the bonds and ledger pages and with no loose ends left behind. No good to get involved with a casino anywhere, too easy for the cops to track her through the gambling industry. Unless she left the country, worked a casino in the Bahamas or maybe the West Indies. Behind her, Maudie had settled down, too, as if giving up her hopeful vigil. When the dogs barked again, Pearl thought shadows moved in the yard before the lighted house and she strained to see—but maybe the dogs were loose or tied out there, surely it was just the dogs, milling around.

It was maybe ten minutes later when lights blazed in the front windows and the front door opened, emitting a river of light. A man stepped out with a big dog on a leash. Was that the detective? Garza? With the light at his back she couldn’t be sure. His build was the same as the Latino: square shoulders, short-clipped hair that looked dark. But what would he be doing here? He’d gone off with that Ryan Flannery and the cursed tracking dog—tracking Benny. Was that the tracking dog? But Benny wouldn’t be up here, the dog couldn’t have tracked him here, the kid couldn’t climb all the way up here from the wreck, that whiny, limping kid. If he’d gone anywhere it would be downhill toward the village, if he could walk even that far. He’d be scared silly to climb up here alone, through the black woods.