Cat Striking Back (18 page)

“I
'M GETTING REALLY
paranoid when Joe isn't in for the night,” Ryan said.

“Shank of the evening,” Clyde said as he turned out the living room lights and they headed upstairs accompanied by Rock and Snowball. “You have to learn to live with it.”

“You don't worry?”

“I worry all the time. I put it on the back burner, like a dull toothache.”

“That is really very encouraging,” she said, moving up the stairs beside him.

In the master bedroom Clyde lit a fire and pushed the sliding doors open between the two rooms so they could enjoy the cheerful blaze from the study. His desk was littered with the car ads he'd placed in various newspapers and magazines, with the “car collectors” columns from various newspapers, and with faxes and notations of phone calls to answer.

Ryan had set up a folding table next to the couch to
serve as a temporary work space. This was stacked with real estate fliers and notes on the dozen pieces of property they were considering. The two of them were so jammed into the small study that neither one could move their chair without disturbing the other. Sitting down to sort through their prospective purchases, she looked up at the newly installed door that led into the new construction, eager to be finished and move into her spacious new studio. The big space was dried in, the roof on, but there was the tile floor still to lay and the rest of the interior to finish; she could hardly wait, she wanted her work space, wanted to get on with the bids on two new jobs plus whatever project she and Clyde decided on. As she considered the real estate material, Rock came to nose at her hand, restless and needy.

The big dog had paced the house since supper, and it was obvious he was looking for Joe, returning again and again to the downstairs cat door to sniff hopefully for any new scent. Now he looked pointedly at Ryan then directed his gaze to the rafters above, to the high and unreachable cat door that led out into Joe's tower.

“Why's he fussing?” Clyde said. “Joe's out at night a lot, Rock never paces like this. Or does he only want a run?”

“He's been with Dad and Lindsey all day, walking. They must have done ten miles, up in the forest.”

“I thought Lindsey didn't like hiking in the rough outdoors.”

“She likes to hike with Dad,” Ryan said, smiling complacently. She was very much in favor of her widowed father's romance. “What she doesn't like is overnight
camping—all the bugs and cooking on the bare ground and no shower.”

“But with an RV—”

“An RV isn't camping. I mean real camping, that's what Dad likes, but that isn't for Lindsey.” She shrugged. “He doesn't care, they do everything else together.”

Lindsey Wolf had only recently come back into Mike Flannery's life after a long absence. He'd been working a cold case for the department, the ten-year-old murder of Lindsey's fiancé. That case soon involved a second murder—it was the cats who'd discovered the body. Without their nosiness, Ryan thought, and without their stubborn efforts to bring that hidden grave to the attention of the law, that victim might never have been found, might have moldered among the Pamillon ruins until the world ended.

But with Joe's involvement in the case, nudging the law to follow his lead, the gray tomcat had been stranded alone in a strange area fifty miles from home. A plight that, by the time they'd found and rescued him, had driven Ryan to tears though she seldom cried.

Now, as she and Clyde worked, silent and preoccupied, Rock at last gave up pacing, climbed up on the leather couch, and flopped down with a huge sigh. He left just enough room for Snowball, curled up at the far end on the afghan. The white cat woke long enough to lick the big dog's nose, then went back to sleep. But as Clyde worked at getting the best prices for his collectors' cars, and Ryan estimated the cost of a major remodel for her favorite of the houses they were considering, both remained tuned to
the roof, listening for the sound of soft feet trotting across the shingles and for the flap of Joe's cat door.

There remained only silence, Joe did not appear on the rafter above their heads yawning and demanding a late snack. It was an hour later that the phone rang, startling them both. Clyde glanced at the caller ID and picked up. Turning on the speaker, he imagined Wilma sitting up in bed with a book in her lap, her white hair loose around her shoulders, a cup of cocoa by her side, a fire burning in the cast-iron wood-burning stove.

Her voice was crisp with tension. “Is Joe home? Have you seen Dulcie or Kit? Lucinda just called, they haven't seen Kit since their walk up in the hills late this afternoon.”

“Well, that isn't—”

“Pedric's worried, too, and he seldom worries. Lucinda said they were somewhere below Ryan's remodel when Kit met up with a new cat, one of the ferals. She said the two went racing off toward the village. She'd thought that when it got dark, Kit might bring the little thing home, not let her go back alone to the hills, but…Clyde, a clowder cat has never come to the village like that, except when there's trouble, when there's some urgent need.

“The Greenlaws haven't seen either cat since, and I haven't seen Dulcie or Joe since Charlie came by, around noon. Have they gone up among the ferals in the middle of the night? I can hear coyotes and they sound pretty close.”

“I expect they're all right,” Clyde said reassuringly, trying not to telegraph his concern. “Ryan's here, the speaker's on. Have you called Charlie?”

“I was about to. It's so foolish to worry, but…”

Ryan moved closer to the phone, leaning into the speaker. “It gets no better, does it? Over time, you don't worry less?”

“I still worry,” Wilma said reluctantly.

“Call Charlie,” Ryan said. “Then call us back.”

“Yes,” Wilma said, and hung up.

They waited, Clyde uneasily shuffling papers. Rock had left the couch and resumed pacing, with that quizzical Weimaraner frown on his face that made Ryan even more uneasy. Why were they all so tense? The cats were gone many nights, hunting. Joe would come in, in the small hours, and hop on the bed, nosing at her, his cold muzzle smelling of raw mouse—she was getting used to that. Now, watching her good dog worry and wondering what he sensed, she felt like pacing, too. When Rock looked at her again, the worry on his face even sharper, she went into the bedroom, turned off the gas logs, and stepped into the closet to change her slippers for jogging shoes. She had pulled on a sweater and was getting Clyde's coat when the phone rang.

Clyde switched on the speaker. Charlie said, “I'm in the car. This afternoon, before we chased that guy, Joe and Dulcie were really focused on the vacation houses, asking a lot of questions. I think…I have keys. You want to meet me there?”

“Yes,” Clyde said. “We're on our way.”

Ryan tucked the afghan around Snowball and turned off the desk lamp. Clyde turned on the stairway lights and they hurried down. Grabbing Rock's leash that hung by the front door, they headed for the roadster, which was
handier on the narrow streets; with the top down they could better watch the yards and rooftops. Ryan wondered if they were being foolish, were overreacting. On the seat behind her, Rock paced from one side of the car to the other, staring into the night and up at the rooftops, sniffing the wind with such intensity that he made her even more nervous.

T
HE NIGHT WAS
still, and the sky was clear, now, above the Harper ranch, the stars glinting where, an hour earlier, rain clouds had threatened. The silence was broken only by the rhythm of the sea away beyond the pastures and below the cliffs, and by the distant singing of coyotes in the hills to the north. In the barn the horses dozed. In the house only one lamp burned, near the flickering hearth fire. Max Harper sat in his favorite chair watching the flames, an open book on the table beside him, the two big dogs sprawled on the hearthrug. Charlie's chair was empty but still warm, her half-empty cup of tea forgotten beside the mystery novel she'd been reading. Before she'd rushed away, setting the phone down beside her book, the world had been perfect, just the two of them in their own corner of the universe, a rare evening when Max had gotten home early for a leisurely dinner and a night, he'd hoped, without interruption.

Frowning, he picked up his book again and poured
the rest of his beer into the glass, his movements spare and deliberate. He stretched his lean frame, easing his feet nearer the fire, careful not to disturb the two fawn-colored half Danes. He was a tall man, lean, with the leathery look of a horseman, his face pleasantly lined from the sun. He'd be coming up on retirement soon—unless the city council extended his time past their usual retirement age for law enforcement. He'd been chief of Molena Point PD for over fifteen years, good years, all of them. Sometimes he looked forward to retirement, sometimes he didn't like the empty feeling it gave him; it even scared him a little, though he'd never tell Charlie that.

He didn't look forward to what went with retirement, to getting old. As long as he could do the ranch work, was healthy and could do the things he liked, age didn't matter, it was the going downhill that could scare a guy. He didn't like to see it in the men he knew, and he wasn't going to like it in himself.

He wished Charlie hadn't had to go out. She'd hurried away frowning and so tense, jingling her car keys, her jacket over her shoulder. He hadn't liked her urgent need to hurry down to the village for what he thought was no sensible reason. The phone call from her aunt still puzzled him.

Answering the phone, Charlie had moved away with it so as not to be talking in his ear. “They haven't?” she said. “None of them? But they often…” A pause, then, “They are? They did?” She'd glanced across at him. “It's possible. The way they…Yes, I have keys. I'll go right down….”

Another pause. “Yes, please do. No. I'll bet you're in
bed, reading. No, stay there, there's no need. It's cold out. Yes, that'll be fine. Tell them I'll see them there.”

Hanging up, she'd said only that Wilma thought her cat and maybe Clyde's and the Greenlaws' cats were locked in one of the empty houses. She didn't say how Wilma would know that, and it didn't make sense to go racing down there. Those cats could be anywhere, they wandered all over the village, no one could keep track of them. And why did she have to race down there in the middle of the night? If a cat got shut in somewhere, it would be fine until morning.

She'd said vaguely that someone in the neighborhood had heard a cat crying in one of the empty houses, as if it was shut in. But that could be any cat, most of the families in that neighborhood had cats. Why the hell would it be Clyde's or Wilma's cat?

Well, hell,
he thought more reasonably, Charlie's concern hadn't been so much for the missing cats as for her aunt Wilma, who was inclined to worry over that tabby cat. It was nearly midnight. If Wilma was still awake, then most likely she was worrying. And when Wilma worried, Charlie worried. That, plus her concern for her clients' empty houses, was hard on Charlie though she'd never admit it. He'd be glad when she sold her business, he hoped that would take the pressure off. There was always something, a broken waterline, the resultant damage to attend to, a leaky roof…Now that her books had found a growing market, Charlie's Fix-it, Clean-it was becoming more headache than pleasure, its many disruptions offering more stress than she needed.

Well, he guessed he was being cranky for no reason,
out of sorts because a couple of cats had dragged her away on the one evening in weeks that he'd been able to come home early. But he had to smile, too, at her going down there to roust out a couple of cats. He'd grown to like those cats, and he sure wished them no harm. He'd gotten used to having them around the station, particularly Joe Grey, taking over like he owned the place, bumming Mabel's lunch, sleeping on his desk. If that cat wanted to nap on a court order, you had to remove him bodily—independent as hell, and mule stubborn.

Looking into the fire, watching the big dogs twitch in their sleep, he thought again about retirement, about being home with Charlie, riding together, cooking together, working on the place. And while Charlie was writing, maybe he'd take a stab at writing his own book. He'd thought about it some. Something related to law enforcement, maybe a few suggestions for civilians on how to keep themselves safe in an increasingly dangerous world.

Or maybe they'd buy a few more horses, get some classes going for the local kids, get them away from TV and video games and too much computer time—help them
do
things rather than sitting around letting the spectator media numb their minds. Get them outdoors and make them responsible for a horse, help them see how strong they could be and how satisfying it was to become proactive in shaping their own lives.

The ringing phone brought him back. Glancing at the caller ID, he picked up.

“We've had a break-in,” Charlie said. “I called the station, told Officer Baker I'd call you. Davis is on her way. You don't need to come, I just wanted to—”

“I'm on my way,” Max said. “I don't need to tell you—”

“Not to touch anything,” she said impatiently. “They didn't ransack the house, but Theresa's miniature paintings are missing, and I'm worried about the other houses, Frances Becker's beautiful antiques and Rita Waterman's jewelry.”

“You're still in the Chapmans'? Get out, Charlie. Get out now. And stay out. Keep your phone on, don't hang up.”

“I'm already out, I just—”

The phone went dead. Scowling, he rang the station, told the dispatcher to get two more cars over there. Quickly he turned off the fire and raced for the door, snatching up his jacket and hardware, was out the door and swinging into his pickup, heading down the hills.