Cat Striking Back (20 page)

J
OE WAS HIGH
up the hills making his way through a tangle of fallen oaks when the wind shifted and he smelled the stink of coyote. Slowing to a trot, he scanned the slopes around him. He didn't see the beast, and he caught no glimpse of Dulcie or Kit. The rolling mass of open land remained empty, and he went on warily through the dark, tangled grass.

When he smelled the coyote again it was way too close, somewhere in the black valley just below him. Ducking into a maze of boulders he backed into a hollow between them just as the beast lunged. He backed deeper, pressing down among the granite rocks. The coyote pushed its nose in and began to dig, reckless and fierce. Joe raked him twice. The beast ignored him and kept digging. When Joe struck for its eyes and bit its black nose, it yowled and backed away. He was poised to charge out at it when the coyote spun around and ran.

Slipping out to look, Joe watched it race away with a cluster of cats clinging to its back, raking into its thick coat.
Joe stood up on a boulder, laughing, as the beast went tearing off into the night with its unwelcome passengers. Then Dulcie was there beside him, frantically nosing at him.

“Are you all right?”

“I am now,” he said. They heard the coyote scream, heard dry bushes breaking, saw the beast vanish over the high crest.

Moments later a dozen cats emerged from the night, crowding around them. These were the clowder leaders: white-coated Cotton, tabby Coyote with his tufted ears, and pale Willow of the faded calico coat and green eyes.

“Come on,” Willow said. “That was a yearling pup, three of them are off hunting on their own and it isn't safe.
We
were hunting wood rats for…” She paused uneasily. “To take back to the clowder when we saw him stalking you.”

“Hunting wood rats for who?” Joe said. Only a sick or injured cat didn't hunt on his own. “What's wrong? Where's Kit?”

“She's fine,” Dulcie said.

“Tansy, then?” he asked, thinking guiltily of that scrawny little mite who had led them through the empty houses and then run away so frightened.

“Sage is hurt,” Dulcie said. “I think he found the missing body, I think he found the killer.” She turned, and she and Joe followed the clowder cats up the hills toward the Pamillon mansion, Joe filled with questions that she insisted must wait.

As long as they could remember, the mansion and its acreage had stood abandoned, home for raccoons, deer, the occasional bobcat, but more recently for the wild clowder.
Soon they were crowding in through the fallen front wall of the two-story house, where the parlor, and the nursery above, stood open to the world like a vast stage ready for a theatrical production.

To the wild clowder, this shelter was a palace. The slate roof was sound, the rooms dry enough, and not only did the big house offer protection, but its acreage with all its cellars and outbuildings provided uncounted places for a cat to hide from danger and to hunt the smaller beasts that sustained them.

The parlor's flowered wallpaper was peeling off in long strips, the tables and beds and upholstered furniture sagged with rot, their stuffing pulled out by generations of long-deceased mice and rats. Dulcie led Joe across the cluttered room to the back where, behind a moldering couch, Tansy crouched beside Sage. The young tom lay on a cushion that was little more than cotton stuffing but that looked warm and soft; he was very still, his eyes closed, his breathing quick and shallow. Kit sat nearby, her ears down, her tortoiseshell face grim with worry.

Joe sat down beside Sage, and the clowder cats crowded around, resuming a vigil they had left when they went to hunt. Four cats carried dead wood rats, which they laid beside the couch where their scent might tease Sage's appetite. Outside the broken wall the night darkened as the clouds shifted, and the wind blew cold off the far sea, intruding into the abandoned room, unwelcome and bold.

Joe could smell Sage's distress and fear. “What happened?
Where
did you see the body? What—?”

“Let him rest awhile,” Willow said. “The wind was knocked out of him, maybe some ribs broken. He hurts
here and here,” she said, lifting a careful paw but not touching Sage. She looked up when an orange tomcat slipped in beside them dangling a wood rat from his jaws. When he held it right in Sage's face, Sage's eyes opened and brightened, and he struggled to sit up, wincing as he reached out with a gripping paw and pulled the wood rat to him. He was soon gulping down the welcome meal, his enthusiasm strengthening with each morsel.

When he'd finished he rose and stretched, and clearly he felt stronger. He clawed at the sofa and then limped around the barrier and stood looking across the ruined parlor through the wide vista of broken wall, to the hills below. Far away, the moon hung low above the sea, half hidden by low clouds.

“The pain's not so bad now,” Sage said. “My side doesn't hurt so much.” He looked at Joe Grey, in awe of the older cat, thinking about the time, in the animal hospital, when Joe and Dulcie had let a doctor take their own blood so that he could live.

Joe came to stand beside him. “What happened tonight?” he repeated.

Lying down again for a little rest, Sage told Joe about the pit inside the garage and how the man had buried a woman there, how the man saw him looking and went pale and snatched up the hammer and threw it, how the glass had shattered and he was knocked off the lumber pile. As Sage spun the tale, the clowder cats all crowded around, their minds filled with what, to them, was indeed a threatening but fascinating scene. The speaking cats might fear humans, but the strangeness of the human world never
ceased to stir their wonder. There was a link between the two worlds that would forever fascinate them.

“That man left the same smell,” Tansy said. “The same as the man who robbed those houses.”

Joe Grey looked at her with interest, then trotted to the edge of the broken floor and stood looking down toward the remodel tucked among the lower hills. “Ryan will dump gravel in the morning, they'll fill in the pit and then pour the concrete.” He looked around at Dulcie. “We can't let them do that.” And without another word he trotted out through the broken wall and headed away toward the village. As Dulcie and Kit galloped to join him, behind them, Sage rose.

“You're too weak,” Willow said.

“I'll go just a little way,” said Sage. “I want to see…” He turned to look at her. “I'm stronger, I want to go just a short way…” Willow looked at him, puzzled, but she said no more. She and Tansy followed him, unwilling to let him go alone. Soon the whole clowder was moving down the hills, surrounding Sage to shelter him, but filled with curiosity, too, wanting to see this strange grave, this cruel and lonely disposal of a human person.

 

I
T WAS VERY
late when Clyde and Ryan headed upstairs, Clyde still complaining because Joe had raced away into the night. Ryan dropped Snowball gently on the bed and set her cup of cocoa on the nightstand. Crossing to the fireplace, she knelt to light the gas logs. There was a little
pop, and bright flames licked up, silhouetting her slim form through her translucent gown. She rose, turning, her dark hair tumbling across her cheek. She picked up her cell phone from the dresser, and before putting it in the charger she checked her messages.

She looked up at Clyde, frowning. “Gravel won't be there until ten. They're usually more reliable. Scotty said he called the concrete company and delayed that delivery so they wouldn't sit waiting. Damn. I'd hoped we'd be finished by noon.”

“Call Charlie. Maybe, before you go to work, you can help with her phone calls.”

An hour ago, when they'd parted from Charlie, leaving the robbery scene, she'd been trying to reach the four families, to find out what instructions they would have for her once the police had released the scenes. And to find out if anyone else had had keys to any of their doors. She'd had no luck reaching any of the four couples. She'd headed home so irritated, and concerned, that Ryan wondered if she'd be up all night dialing cell phones that had been turned off. What worried Charlie the most was the possibility that one of the few employees who'd left her, or one of the two she'd fired, might have copied her keys on the sly.

But maybe by the time Davis finished canvassing the nearby houses, they'd have some leads. That was a close neighborhood, maybe someone had seen a stranger or a strange car. Everyone for blocks around had to know those four couples were on vacation, and they were inclined to watch out for one another. Ryan dialed Charlie's cell, got a busy signal, and left a message: “My delivery's delayed
for tomorrow morning. If you haven't reached your clients, call me. I'll make some calls for you before I head up to the job.”

Clyde sat down on the edge of the bed, watching Rock and Snowball, the small cat curled up tight against the Weimaraner, happily purring. “Such a sweet and innocent little cat,” Clyde said, reaching to gently stroke Snowball.
“You
don't go chasing off in the middle of the night after burglars.” He wished Joe would learn to stay in at night—and how unrealistic was that?

Ryan finished her cocoa, set her cup on the dresser, and went to brush her teeth. Getting into bed, she slipped her feet carefully around the sleeping animals. “At least everything was insured—except maybe Theresa's paintings. Insurance on pieces of art is ridiculously high.” She looked at him bleakly. “I don't know if I can sleep, worrying about Joe. I've worried before, but not like this. You'd think, after they got themselves locked in that closet, they'd be ready to call it a night.”

“Not those three.” He switched off the lamp and stretched out.

“Did he tell you what, exactly, they were doing? Tell you how they got locked in? Were they tailing the burglar? Why did they let him get so near that he shut them in? And what good to run surveillance,” she said crossly, “if they go off in the night and don't
tell
anyone what they found?”

Clyde sighed, and shook his head. “We just have to live with it.” He drew her close. “Do we have a choice?”

H
E WAS SWEATING
as he headed for the highway. He couldn't stop seeing that cat watching him through the window. What had made it stare in at him so intently and then stare straight down at her grave, almost as if it
knew
what he was doing? He thought about that big gray cat watching him, too, while he was packing up the last of the books. He couldn't figure how it had gotten in there. Why had it and those other two followed him to the next house? Evil devils, all of them. Evil.

Well, he'd taken care of them. With any luck, they wouldn't be found in that closet for weeks—found dead from thirst and starvation. He smiled, thinking of them locked in and slowly dying, and a chill of pleasure filled him, a sharp and satisfied lust.

But then he couldn't get his breath. He had to find the inhaler. He felt all his pockets again, felt around on the car seat.
Had
he left it on the table by her grave, where he was headed? If he'd left it in one of those houses…Oh,
God. When those cleaning people found the paintings gone, found the furniture and rugs cleaned out, the books and paperweights, there'd be cops all over those rooms. He couldn't let them find the inhaler with his prints on it. Couldn't…

He had to get hold of himself. He searched his pockets yet again, squirming up in the seat as he drove. Found his handkerchief that she'd always ironed and folded just so. His pocketknife, the gloves he'd used. The four sets of keys, which he would dispose of somewhere along the highway, toss them off the cliff into the Pacific. But no inhaler.

But even if they found it, found anything of his, what would it matter? He was a neighbor, a friend, he was in and out of those houses all the time. The cops could find his fingerprints—which they wouldn't because of the gloves—and it wouldn't make any difference. And yet, heading for the remodel, he knew he'd feel easier not to have left it in one of the houses. Before he searched the remodel, he knew he had to go back to the houses he'd robbed, even if he had to leave the RV sitting right there all loaded up…Oh Christ…

But he'd feel better when it was done, when he'd found it. Winding along the hillside roads, back onto the residential streets, half of him knew he was being paranoid—the neighborhood was quiet and dark, everyone was asleep, there was nothing to worry about. This wouldn't take long, and he'd feel easier, maybe it
was
there somewhere. Swinging into a U-turn he headed along the hillside street above his street, where he could look down there before he approached. Or maybe he could park up there, walk down
the hill, find the inhaler, and then hit the highway, and not have to go back near her grave.

Head for the city, make contact with the fence, collect his money, and then across the Golden Gate and on up the coast, just another tourist in his beat-up old RV. Drive slow and easy up through the little lumber towns, on into Oregon and then inland to eastern Washington for a while before he headed home—returning alone and devastated from their vacation, where she'd left him. Had taken her bags and walked out on him, cleaned out their bank account, and caught a plane to the East Coast.

He'd take care of the electronic deposits on her laptop, transfer the funds to her household account. He didn't know yet how he'd manage withdrawals from that account, he'd figure that out later. He'd tell people she had a lover, that he'd been so shocked and hurt, heartbroken. And then to find they'd been robbed, that would nearly destroy him.

Calling the cops about the robbery, he'd wonder aloud if she had come back and cleaned out her treasures, stashed them somewhere before she caught her plane. He wouldn't be certain this was a burglary until he learned that the other houses had been robbed. Then he and his neighbors would share their misery.

Winding along the hill's steep crest on the dark and narrow street a block above his, he was rehearsing the poignant scene with his neighbors when a tire blew. The RV lurched, the steering wheel jerked in his hands, and the suddenly unwieldy vehicle headed for the drop. There was no guardrail. It was all he could do to pull the RV over onto the opposite side, against the rising hill.

He got out, shaken, looked along the dark, empty street where it was too steep for houses. The three houses high up on the cliff were dark. He walked over to the edge, looked down the steep drop to his own street, below…Quickly, he stepped back.

The street was filled with lights. Car lights, lights on in all the houses. More cars approaching, cop cars. He could hear men's voices and the distant mutter of police radios. What the hell was this?

Had someone seen the RV enter or leave one of the garages and, unable to mind their own business, called the cops? The garage door openers had been
her
idea. Over the past year, using one excuse or another to be in each garage alone for a few minutes, borrowing tools or a dab of paint, he'd used the electronic duplicator she'd purchased through a special catalog to program duplicate garage door openers. It had worked like a charm.

Two more police cars arrived, pulling up in front of the brightly lit houses. He could see half a dozen uniforms searching the yards, their flashlight beams cutting into the shadows of trees and bushes. Their predatory search panicked him. Helplessly watching, wanting only to get away, he turned nervously to attend to the flat tire.

He didn't want to use the flashlight, not with all those cops down there, one of them was sure to look up the hill, and they'd be on him like a bunch of damned commandos. He hadn't changed a tire in years. He found the spare under the floor in the back, just inside the door, but it took him a while to figure out how to release it. She'd tripped up there, not to have gone over the manual with him. In all the five years they'd had the RV, parked in that rented
garage or off on short trips, the tires had never even gone soft on them, and they'd sure never had a flat.

When he released the spare and bounced it, it was soft, too. It took him awhile to find the hand pump. He was almost convinced there wasn't one, until at last he found it down in the well where the tire had been housed, jammed way to hell down under the bracket for the jack and other tire tools.

He got the tire pumped up, his heart pounding, his breath short. After two tries, he got the jack set, lying under the RV so he'd be sure to get it right under the axle. He'd started to jack up the vehicle when he remembered he hadn't set the brake, or loosened the lugs before taking the weight off. He had to ease the wheel down again, set the brake, then start over, and that angered him.

When he removed the nuts, he nearly lost them before he thought to put them in his pocket. He hadn't changed a tire since he was in his teens. The one time more recently that her car had had a flat, he'd called AAA, had let the emergency road crew do it. Tires didn't go flat now like they had years ago.

He was sweating and nervous when he finished, anxious to get away. When he looked over the edge, the cops were still all over the place. He thought he saw the chief of police, Harper. And the woman who ran the cleaning service, that was his wife. Regular family affair. He could see that woman detective, too. For an instant he felt a belly-wrenching fear that somehow they knew he was up there watching them. But that was stupid. He was tired, that was all. Worn out from changing the tire, breathing hard. He needed that inhaler. Turning away, he checked
the lug nuts again, but they were tight. He'd screwed them on hastily in the dark, wanting to rest. It had taken the last of his breath to get them all good and tight.

Shoving the wheel he'd removed into the back of the RV and laying the tools beside it, he carefully eased the door closed so it made hardly a click. His hands shaking, he got in, started the engine, and headed slowly up the dark street using only his parking lights. Squinting through the windshield at the sheer drop, he saw again in uncomfortable memory that pale cat staring in the window at him, watching him bury her, watching him lay her down in the grave and clumsily scoop earth over her, shovel by slow shovelful. He couldn't stop thinking that the cat knew he had killed her.

When he was around the first bend, he switched on the headlights. Driving slowly across the hills, his thoughts were filled with the inhaler that he seemed to see clearly now, sitting on that contractor's worktable among the hammers and screwdrivers. Driving the dark and winding residential road toward the freeway, he turned right at the top of the hill, crossed over the freeway, and headed for the empty remodel.

This time, he parked right in front of the place, right beside the dirt pile. He'd be there only a minute. The houses below were all dark, not one light; he'd just pick the lock, get the inhaler, and he'd be out again and gone.

Letting himself in, he searched the table, then the dirty floor under the table. The inhaler wasn't there. He stood at the edge of the pit shining the flashlight's beam back and forth across the raw earth, but he picked out only the black drainpipe and the boot prints. He turned
to search the rest of the garage, along the wall where he'd sat on the floor, everywhere he'd been; once in a while he glanced up at the broken window, thinking about that cat, hoping he'd killed it.

The window remained empty, the cold air scudding in. He didn't find the inhaler. The cat didn't appear again. At last, trying to figure out where he could have left it, he locked up again and headed for the RV, taking a moment to circle the yard to see if he might somehow have dropped it there. Cupping his hand around the flashlight, directing only a thin beam onto the ground, he approached the broken window. Across the lumber and on the earth around it, shards of broken glass blazed up at him, scattered among deep paw prints. For an instant, he lifted his beam to the window.

As his light hit the sharp teeth of glass, the pale cat exploded out of the blackness straight into his face, its eyes ablaze, its pale fur standing out like licks of white flame. It landed in his face, raking and biting him. He stumbled backward and fell, and a second cat was on him, cats all over him in a tangle clawing him, so many cats their weight held him down. They screamed and raked him and the pale cat was right in his face. The dark cat with a white stripe down its nose was at him, too, so fierce he was terrified they'd blind him. Blood ran into his eyes. Wild with terror, he drove them off enough to stagger up and run, cats clinging to his back and shoulders and throat. As he knocked them away, he could swear he heard a voice say, “Leave him, let him go.” He spun around to see who was there, saw no one in the blackness. He'd dropped the flashlight, its beam shining uselessly along the ground
picking out shards of glass. The cats had drawn back but they crouched on the lumber pile as if to leap again. He ran and stumbled and nearly fell again as he made for the RV. Flinging open the door, he bolted in, slammed and locked it, leaned against it, shaking.

Someone was out there, someone had spoken, but he'd seen no one. Fearing a witness, he started the engine and took off with a squeal of tires, heading for the highway.