Cat Striking Back (16 page)

O
N THE HIGH
narrow balcony of the Longley house, Kit was trying to claw open the bathroom window when lights flashed along the street below and paused, hitting the edge of the roof as a car pulled into the driveway. The intrusion so startled Kit that she aborted her leap to the window, dropping back to the balcony. Crouching, she jumped higher, hit the roof snatching at the gutter, pulling herself onto the shingles. Joe, Dulcie, and Tansy followed, their hind paws clawing at empty air as they scrabbled up beside her and they trotted to the edge to peer over.

A dark brown recreation vehicle stood below, a compact RV with two camp chairs tied on top. They heard the electric garage door open. The RV pulled in, and the door rolled down again. The cats, directly above, could not see into the cab.

“Is that the Longleys?” Dulcie said. “They just
left
for their vacation. What, did they rent an RV? Has something happened to bring them back?”

“Maybe they gave some friend the key,” Joe said doubtfully.

“They would have told Charlie,” Dulcie said. “And she would have told us, she knew we were coming here.” She cut a look at Joe. “Shall we go in anyway?”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“We could just crack the bathroom window open and listen, find out if it
is
the Longleys. If they come upstairs, we'll hear them talking and we—”

Joe shrugged, and turned, and slipped back across the roof walking softly as he headed for the trellis. They dare not gallop, even a crow hopping on the shingles would be heard from within, in a series of little drumbeats. They were about to drop down to the balcony and try the high window when another pair of lights came up the street, and a second car paused in front of the house. They heard a police radio, and the reflection of a spotlight glanced up through the trees as its bright beam swept the yard.

Slipping back across the roof, the cats looked down on a black-and-white. It stood at the curb, portly Officer Brennan sitting behind the wheel, shining his torch along the house, across the doors and windows. Did he know there was someone here who might not belong? Brennan got out and dutifully circled the house, shining his light up and down so it glanced along the edges of the roof. Then he eased himself back into his car, looking bored. As if he had found nothing out of order, as if this was only a routine check. That angered Dulcie, that he'd found nothing amiss. “He's just going to leave?” she said angrily, her tail lashing, her ears flat.

“How would he know?” Joe said. “Even Brennan can't see through walls.”

Starting his engine, Brennan headed down the street, pulling up at the Waterman house. The cats watched him go through the same routine there. He was simply doing a vacation check, possibly at Charlie's request. When he headed for the Chapmans', they returned to the balcony and its high window.

“Are we going in, or what?” Dulcie said impatiently. “We can't learn anything out here.”

“In,” Tansy said boldly. “I know places to hide.”

“So they see us? We're only cats,” Kit said, forgetting times past when such a discovery of unexplained feline entry had led to disaster—when one such incident had frazzled her little cat nerves so badly that she remained jumpy for weeks, flinching at every shadow.

Dulcie looked at Joe. When Joe shrugged, and nodded, the tabby leaped to the little window, her claws in the sill, her hind legs braced against the house. It was an awkward angle, but more swiftly than her companions expected she dug her claws into the window frame, gave one hard jerk, and was surprised to see the glass slide open beneath her paws.

They crowded onto the sill, dropped to the tile counter, and slipped softly down onto the bathroom rug. The bathroom door was cracked open. Crouched in the chill little room, they could hear from downstairs hard footsteps cross the wooden floor, heard someone walking back and forth, back and forth, as if slowly pacing. Then came the scraping of metal against metal, then several little
thunk
s, then a click, as if a door had been opened.

“Stay here,” Joe said. “Wait here.” And he was out of the bathroom and down the hall before Dulcie could stop him.

The three lady cats followed, to see him disappear down the curved stairs. Pausing on the top step, they tried to see where he'd gone. Dulcie's and Kit's dark coats were nearly invisible on the dark runner, but pale little Tansy shone as bright as the moonlight that was shining in through the high windows. The curved stairway led down to a wide entry, where a cream-colored Chinese rug shone against the dark parquet floor. Arches opened into two adjoining rooms, flanking a carved settee that stood against the wall. Joe appeared beneath the settee, and paused in the entrance to the living room where moonlight brightened a wall of bookshelves and glass-fronted cupboards. A man stood there, his back to them, opening the glass door of a cupboard, a tall man dressed in jeans and a dark windbreaker.

As he began removing the books within, Joe slipped up behind him and vanished beneath a spindly leather love seat that was stacked with empty cardboard boxes. The door on the other side of the fireplace stood open as well. These shelves were empty, and on a chair nearby, a carton marked VODKA was neatly filled with small, round, glass objects nestled among folds of bubble wrap.

They watched him fill three small grocery boxes with books and stack them one on top of the other. Picking up the cardboard tower, he headed away through the second arch. They heard his retreating footsteps but heard no door open, heard him step from the hardwood onto a
nearly soundless surface. Then there was a little scraping sound such as hard shoes might make on concrete. He was in the garage? Even from the top of the stairs they could detect a cold-cement smell creeping up. Joe had vanished, the shadows beneath the love seat were empty.

They heard a car door open, then a sliding sound, as if the man was shoving his boxes into the RV. Dulcie looked helplessly for Joe. The living room had grown darker as clouds floated across the moon. Kit said, “So many books. Can they
all
be worth stealing?”

“And those little glass balls,” Tansy said, “with tiny little people in them, naked and doing private things. What did you call them? Who would pay money for those?” Again she dropped her ears. If a cat could blush, Tansy's pale little face would be pink with embarrassment.

They were about to creep down the stairs when they heard the man returning fast, nearly running. Tansy crouched. Kit hissed, her ears back. There was a
bang,
the man shouted in triumph, and Joe came racing in through the arch, the man behind him—he grabbed a heavy ashtray and threw it as Joe dove into the alcove beneath the stairs.

“Go!” Dulcie hissed at Kit and Tansy. “Get out, both of you!” She slapped at them, driving them up the stairs toward the bathroom, and she flew down to join Joe. But Kit didn't leave; she came galloping down alone and pushed close behind Dulcie. Together they bolted beneath the stairs beside Joe.

Joe wasn't there. The dusty space was empty. Dulcie pressed into the darkest empty corner to make sure, then
crouched close to Kit, peering out into the living room.

The tall windows had darkened, the moon nearly hidden, the man only a dark, prowling shadow, looking for Joe, kicking into the blackness beneath the furniture.

Why? Why was he so angry? They were only cats.

Terrified for Joe, Dulcie glanced in the direction of the garage. Where else would the tomcat go but to follow the stolen boxes? Perhaps, she thought, chilled, he meant to slip into the RV and ride with the thief to his destination? “Come on,” she whispered, slipping from under the stairs. The two cats, flashing behind the man's feet, silently fled for the garage.

The door stood just ajar, the chill air smelling of concrete. They slipped through, dove beneath a workbench, and crouched against the wall, looking out, looking for Joe, and watching the door nervously. The garage was softly lighted by an electric torch that stood on top the workbench, its glow spilling down around them but leaving them in shadow. Both the big overhead door and the pedestrian door to the yard were tightly shut. There were no windows. The walls were smoothly finished and painted white. The usual garage clutter must be hidden within the row of white storage cabinets that lined the far wall. On the other side of the brown RV stood a tan BMW hatchback, most likely the Longleys' second car.

Kit said, “Do you think Tansy got away safe? That she'll get home all right, all alone in the night?”

“Maybe she'll stay close until we come out,” Dulcie said, more to ease Kit than because she believed it. Beside
her, Kit reared up to look at the lower workbench shelf that ran just above their heads. An assortment of tools was arranged neatly at one end: two hammers, four wrenches, and a dozen screwdrivers of various sizes. All were dusty. The rest of the shelf was taken over by a row of clear plastic containers filled with different size nails. Kit studied the contents of each, from tiny little brads to huge spikes. Focusing on a particular mess of black nails with extra-wide heads, the tortoiseshell smiled. And as Dulcie slipped out to investigate the pedestrian door that should lead out to the side yard, Kit busied herself trying, with stubborn claws, to loosen the lid.

“Door's bolted at the top,” Dulcie said softly from across the garage. Kit didn't answer, she was too busy. Why was anything plastic so hard to manage? She heard Dulcie jumping against the far wall, trying to reach the bolt of the side door, and listened to the tabby's little grunt each time she fell back. When the plastic lid popped up, Kit whacked it to the floor, carefully put a paw in, and began clawing out nails.

The nails were heavy, and they wanted to stick in her pads. The points hurt even more when, with a little pile of nails on the shelf before her, she put her nose against them and pawed them into her mouth. Damn things stung her tender mouth like bees. Dropping down to the cement floor, she managed not to swallow any.

When Dulcie returned, defeated by the high bolt—Joe was the master at slipping hard-to-manage bolts—she did a double take at Kit's protruding cheeks. She watched in silence as Kit circled beneath the RV, spitting out a
few nails beneath each tire. Seeing what the tortoiseshell was up to, Dulcie smiled and slipped under to help her.

They pawed at each nail until they made it stand upright just beneath the tire. They had nearly finished when they heard footsteps approaching, loud on the hardwood floor. They dove back beneath the workbench as he came down the two concrete steps carrying another stack of boxes; they stared out at his feet as he set the boxes on the bench. They watched him return to the door, heard him lock it. This was the last load, then? Now they couldn't get back inside to find Joe, and Dulcie began to fidget, watching the man nervously.

They still couldn't see his face, unless they came out where he could see them, where they'd be center stage beneath the torchlight. He was putting the boxes in through the RV's side door when they heard a car out front and the voice of a police radio. Had Brennan come back? The man froze. He glanced at the electric torch but daren't extinguish it now in case it shone out beneath the overhead door. He didn't move as the brighter light of the cop's torch skated along the thin crack—but then the crack darkened again. There was a long silence, as if the officer outside was waiting and watching. Had the soft light within the garage alerted him? Or was this, again, only routine? Or was this Brennan's supper break? The cats imagined him sitting in his unit eating a giant burger and sipping from a Styrofoam cup of coffee.

But then at last the unit backed out of the drive and moved on, its purring engine growing softer as it headed up the street. At once, the thief moved to the big garage door and stood with his ear against it, listening. He waited
there for some time, but there was only silence from the street. Finally he loaded the last box and silently closed the door of the RV. Slipping into the driver's seat, he activated the electric door with a remote that, at some point, he must have stolen. As he backed out, Dulcie and Kit, feeling the cold night air on their noses, longed for the freedom of the open night. The breeze was like a whisper urging them to run—but Dulcie thought of Joe and she didn't move, she thought only of getting back in the house. Maybe he was hurt, injured by the heavy ashtray the man had thrown. The door started down.

“We can get back in quicker from outside,” Kit said. The door was halfway down. “Run!” Kit said. “Run now!”

Dulcie came to life. They fled beneath the closing door, jumping high over the red light that marked the electric eye. The door slammed behind them as they dove into the bushes.

Kit said, “We never saw his face.” In the shadowy living room they'd seen only his back. From beneath the workbench they'd seen his wrinkled brown running shoes, his dark jeans, and a glimpse of his green windbreaker.

“What did he smell of?” Dulcie said. She'd memorized his smell as he stood close above them, his personal male scent overlaid with something she should know but couldn't identify. Something akin to catnip, only different. When they were certain the RV was gone, they fled around the house to the back. Dulcie bolted up the trellis and in through the bathroom window, frantic to find Joe, but Kit stopped on the balcony behind her, mewling softly to summon Tansy. She listened, then mewled again. She
looked down at the yard, studying the dark and crowded bushes. “Tansy?”

There was no answer and no pale movement among the shadows. She looked away toward the hills, worried that the scruffy little cat had gone on through the night alone. Praying that if Tansy was headed home, she would be wary and cautious and safe.

W
HEN
D
ULCIE
H
AD
hissed at Tansy to run, Tansy obeyed as fast as her thin little legs would carry her. The sight of that man chasing Joe jarred to life every terrified kittenhood memory of such cruel men and sent her streaking away up the stairs and into the bathroom, leaping out the window and scrambling backward down the trellis, catching hanks of fur on the thorns. At the bottom she stood shivering, looking out into the night and watching the darkest shadows. She waited a long time for Kit to follow her, and all the while Dulcie's words rang in her head,
Go! Get out, both of you!
And the stink of that man's anger clung to her. As she listened for the other cats to emerge from the house, her heart pounded with fear for them. But she was too afraid to go back. There was only silence from the house behind her. When after a very long time Kit didn't come, when no one came, she fled for the far hills and home, running blindly up through the dark village—until she realized she was lost, was crossing un-
familiar streets through neighborhoods that she had never seen. She was lost and her sense of direction seemed to have abandoned her.

She stood on an empty sidewalk on an unknown street among houses she was sure she had never seen. She listened. She sniffed the scents of this strange place, trying to smell something familiar, trying to find her direction.

At last her pounding heart eased. At last, reclaiming her good cat sense and determination, she scrambled up the nearest pine tree to the nearest roof where she could see better.

Well, of course! There were the hills, black humps like the backs of huge animals, their familiar curves caught in faintest moonlight against the night sky. There were the hills and there was home, and she ran leaping from roof to roof until the houses stood too far apart, then she scrambled down to the gardens. And away she went, racing through weedy grass and up into the open hills, racing for the ruin's jagged and protective walls that rose like a palace against the blowing clouds.

Fleeing for home, she wondered why she had ever gone among humans? This always happened, this violence from humans. Her mouth and nose still reeked of the smell of that man, the smell of human rage. On she raced, her senses sharply alert for predators. She was passing the house with dirt piled in its yard when she smelled something other than a predator. She smelled death.

Human death?

She froze in place, looking all around. Why would there be a dead person here? She was frowning, studying the house when she saw something pale stir on the
hill above, a small, feeble movement. She crouched warily, looking. She reared up, stretching tall, scenting the air, and it was then that she smelled him. She ran straight up the hill to him, streaked up through the grass and crouched beside him, her paws going cold. “Sage? Oh, Sage.”

He didn't move or speak, he lay unnaturally hunched. But he was alive, his eyes looked into hers, filled with pain. When she snuggled carefully beside him, touching him with her nose, he pressed against her shivering, his body rigid and tight.

“What?” she said softly. “What happened?” She looked around into the night, but she saw nothing, now, that could have attacked him. She could smell no coyote or other animal, and certainly no human—except for the stench of a dead person that came from the house below.

Above them a raft of clouds blew past, again freeing the fickle moon, and down the hill, the house and the pale drive and the walks brightened. The dirt pile lit up along its side and the tiled roof became a tangle of curved shadows. The smell of death sickened her, and then the wind came straight at her and she smelled that man, too. The man she had run from. How could he be there when he was down in the village in that house?

“A human hurt you…did this to you?”

“He's gone,” Sage said. “A long time ago.”

“What did he do…what happened?”

“He threw a hard tool at me, a hammer. Threw it through the window where I was watching him. It came through straight at me, broke the glass, I wasn't quick enough.”

“Why did he?” She licked his face. “What did you do to make him so mad? To make him hurt you?”

Sage rose stiffly and started down the hill, limping badly.

“Stay still, you'll hurt yourself more.”

Ignoring her, he headed for the house, every line of his body showing pain and anger. She followed him until, approaching the garage, the smell of death hit her so hard she turned away, gagging.

“Come where the window is,” he said impatiently. “Mind the glass. Come where we can see in.” Crawling painfully up onto the stack of lumber, trying to avoid the jagged shards, he put his paws on the sill, looking in between knives of glass. She hopped up beside him.

“See that ditch?”

She looked at the deep fissure. “Why is there a ditch there?” She looked at the dirty concrete floor where earth had been hauled out, at the muddy footprints.

“There's a dead woman down there. That man went down in the ditch and dug the hole deeper, then he brought her in his car and carried her down the ladder and covered her up with dirt.” Sage turned to look at her, the pupils of his eyes huge and dark—with fear, with anger. “That's not how humans bury their dead. Even I know that. This was sneaky, stealthy. When he saw me watching, he went white and grabbed the hammer and threw it.”

Tansy looked back at him, surprised not so much by what the man had done—humans would do anything—but because, maybe for the first time in his life, Sage was paying attention to something outside the clowder; he was enraged by something that was not a part of
their
world. From Sage's standpoint, the hiding of a dead human would have nothing to do with a cat's proper business—until the
man had hurt him. She guessed that made it his business.

She said, “I saw him earlier, in the village. He was stealing from a house, we watched him. He threw something at Joe Grey and chased him.”

Sage's eyes widened. “Did he hurt Joe?”

“I don't know,” she said, looking down in shame. “I ran…I should have gone back. But I must go back,” she said. “I have to see if they're all right, I have to tell them that he came here and that he buried someone. Why would he bury a woman? Unless…Did he kill her? That is a crime in the human world, humans will want to find him and punish him. We—”

But now Sage turned reluctant. “This has nothing to do with us. This is not a matter for cats.”

“Then why did you show me?”

“Because he hurt me. I'm going home where it's safe.”

She sat looking at him. “You spent weeks among humans when you were hurt before. Humans cared for you, they pampered you, gave you nice things to eat, made soft beds for you—humans saved your life, Sage!”

“Come on, Tansy.” He eased down from the sill and off the lumber pile with a grunt of pain. “We need to go. This is human business.” Expecting her to follow, he limped away, heading up the hill.

Tansy did follow. She dare not let him travel home alone when he was nearly helpless—yet she was ashamed to let him stop her from what she must do. If they didn't tell the village cats what Sage had seen, maybe no human would ever know that a dead woman lay there hidden in that ditch. Somewhere, a woman was missing. And no one would ever learn where she had gone.