Cat Telling Tales (28 page)

“Gold coins,” Pan whispered, his words barely a breath. “He had cylinders like that in Eugene, I watched him count out the coins, each one as bright as the sun.”

As Erik tucked this fortune into the suitcase and locked it, Kit crept out from beneath the bed and hid among the black folds of quilt. She watched him turn off the laptop and unplug it, watched him wind the cord and slip it into a side pocket of the computer case, watched him zip the case and set it atop the suitcase. As he returned to the bathroom to lock and conceal the safe, the cats were a blur. They leaped on the suitcase, dragged the laptop off and to the door, and they were out of there, their hearts hammering as they fought the door open and hauled the laptop through, their teeth deep in the leather case. They dragged it across the patio, noisily across the scatter of gravel, and out of sight beneath the patio wall. Kit was ready to race away with it, when Pan set down his end and vanished under the wall again into the terrace. She peered under.

Kraft was still in the bathroom, she could see his moving shadow. She watched Pan take a roofing pebble in his mouth, leap to the glass door, and push the pebble down into the bottom track, wedging it in just where the door would shut, a tiny black pebble that might never be noticed within the creases of the dark metal track.

Pan returned from beneath the wall, saying nothing. He picked up his end of the laptop, and they carried it between them, their teeth firmly in its padded case. They dragged it across the roofs and up a sharp peak, and down again within a sheltered niche where three roofs joined—down into a dark and shingled crevice not easily accessible to a human, only to someone smaller and more agile. Sliding the laptop into deep darkness, they scrambled out again and ran. Erik Kraft wasn't likely to climb up those peaks and look down.

They raced down the stairs and up the street into the shadows of a narrow alley, and there they waited for Kraft to appear. “He'll think it fell on the floor,” Pan said. “Black laptop, black carpet, black folds of comforter. Take him a minute to realize it isn't there. When he sees the slider open . . .” He went still, listening. They heard the glass door open, heard Kraft race across the terrace, heard the patio table rattle as he scrambled over the wall. They didn't run. Backing deeper among the shadows, they wanted to see what he would do, listened to his footsteps pounding across the roof and down, watched from their dark recess as he raced up the sidewalk stopping strangers, asking questions, looking for an escaping thief. Watched him peer into parked cars, race from one little alley to the next, stop to stare in through the doors of closed shops.

“When he gives up,” Kit said, smiling, “when he knows he won't find it, what's he going to do? Call the cops? File a report for one stolen laptop, that's ripe with evidence?”

Pan gave her a satisfied look as they followed Kraft around the corner, watched him double-time up the front stairs.

“He'll grab his bag and be out of there,” Kit said. “We need to see his car, get his license,
then
we call the station.” She turned to look at Pan, her green eyes widening. “The pebble!” she said. “
That's
what the pebble was for? So we can get back inside.”

31

L
ooking down from the balcony to the crowded room, Joe cut a look at Dulcie. How easy to drop down onto the buffet table, right between the sliced turkey and the salmon mousse, grab a few bites before anyone even noticed.

“Don't even think about it,” Dulcie said. Misto smiled, the older cat, too, envisioning a grand leap into the heart of the feast—what a stir they'd make in the crowded room.

People were still arriving, eager for the auction, and Joe thought about all the money CatFriends would raise tonight, to pay for cat food and medicine. Out through the tall windows on the patio, the rescue cats themselves, safe in their cages, were drawing as much attention as the treasures to be bid upon. They were of every color, every disposition. Some rubbed against the bars or reached out a friendly paw to whoever spoke to them. Only a few backed off, keeping their distance, still distrustful since their own humans had abandoned them. Sammie Miller's two black-and-white cats snuggled together on a blue blanket looking up hopefully when anyone approached. Twenty-five unadopted strays, from the sixty-two cats that CatFriends had trapped and placed in foster homes. Those who didn't find homes tonight were destined to become permanent members of their adopters' families—but they didn't know that. They looked out through the bars at a conflicted and perplexing world: They were imprisoned, but they were safe. Surrounded by kind hands and gentle voices, but yet crowded by too many strangers pressing against their cages. Frightened or friendly, they didn't know what was happening to them. “Maybe,” Dulcie said, “they'll all find new homes tonight.”

The auction would not be a silent affair with a prim sorting out of written offers, this would be a lively free-for-all of bidding, led by a volunteer auctioneer who had driven down for the occasion from Sacramento: a friend of Max Harper's who presided over all manner of auctions including the horse sales, which was where Max and Charlie had met him. Among the prizes to be auctioned, besides various valuable maintenance services and luxurious vacation weekends, and Charlie's drawings, and the decorative rugs and furniture, the bright blue ocean kayak stood upended in one corner of the gallery, crowded by handsome brass lanterns and other select items for the boat lover, a set of state-of-the-art golf clubs, a Stübben English saddle, a carved Western saddle, both saddles on racks, both valued at several thousand, and a locked glass case displaying ten pieces of diamond and emerald jewelry, all donations from various local shops for the abandoned cats. Joe had already spotted a number of MPPD officers among the crowd, all out of uniform, all enjoying the party but watchful, in the event unknown visitors were tempted by the high value of the jewelry and sports equipment.

As the three cats watched the auctioneer take his place on the podium, and the mayor join him to say a few words, they didn't imagine that, away among the dark rooftops Kit and Pan had narrowly escaped an angry and desperate Erik Kraft—with evidence enough to put Kraft in the hands of the county DA and of federal authorities as well.

A
s Kraft raced up the front stairs to retrieve his suitcase, Kit and Pan crouched near the entrance to the underground parking garage waiting in the shadows to see the make of his car and his license number. Kraft was gone maybe ten minutes, then came hurrying down, two steps at a time, carrying the black suitcase, his black leather jacket slung over one shoulder barely hiding a shoulder holster and the butt of a handgun. Moving swiftly down the ramp, he disappeared into the parking garage. They heard a car door open and slam, an engine start, and in a minute a black, two-door Audi sped up the incline, Kraft's profile sharp against the garage lights. Kit took one look at the California license plate and would remember it for life. The minute his car roared off, they raced around to the back steps and up to his condo, worried that he'd found the pebble and dislodged it, and locked the slider. Or, in his hurry, had he abandoned the faulty door and locked only the front door? Why bother with an apparently broken latch, when he must have taken everything of importance with him anyway? The money, the little cylinders of gold, the real estate papers or contracts? Up the back stairs they streaked, under the wall, and with frantic paws they scrabbled at the glass door.

Together they slid it open and bolted inside, Kit laughing at the resourcefulness of the red tomcat, and leaped to the bed beside the phone. Pan had never had so much fun. Nothing he'd ever done, from comforting the nursing home patients, to the edgy thrill of hitching rides with strangers, could equal the excitement of facing human evil head-on, of attacking this man who seemed so eager to turn humans' lives to ruin.

It took Kit only a few minutes to make the call. By the time they fled the condo again, racing down the back stairs and around to the front, Kathleen was already pulling to the curb, Max in her car beside her. Two black-and-whites pulled up behind them, and on the side street two more police units moved swiftly past, heading in the direction of Highway One. They imagined more patrol cars setting out to comb the area, skimming the night as silent as sharks. Kit had told Max about the laptop and its counterfeit messages from Alain, she told him about the safe, the money, the holstered gun. The call had been a long one, never before had a snitch told an officer so much, or had stayed on the line to answer his questions. She couldn't explain why she did that, why she didn't back off.

“You
took
the laptop, from his apartment?” Max had said. “You broke in and—”

“I didn't break in, I walked in. The back slider was wide open.” Her paws were cold with unease, she wanted to race away but she wanted, more, to keep talking.

“You went over the wall into his private patio?”

“Well, yes. I looked over, and saw the door was open.”

“What were you doing on the roof?”

“I went up the stairs, I knew the back of his condo was there and I was curious. I looked over, saw the door open, saw the lighted computer screen. Saw there were messages on it, and when I saw they were signed Alain, dated long after she left the village, I thought you might want it.” Now, her paws were sweating. “He was all packed and ready to leave. I thought, if I didn't take it, he might erase those messages before you ever saw them.”

There was a little silence, as if he'd expected her to hang up. She said, “When he found the laptop missing he burst through the door looking for me, he came after me. I didn't want him to catch me with it, he's bigger, he'd have taken it. I hid it on the roofs, got rid of it where I didn't think he'd find it. Then I ran, tried to lead him away from it, down the back stairs. It's there now,” she said, and described the hidden well between the precipitous roofs. “It's waiting for you to get it.” And she'd hung up then, worrying that, because the laptop was stolen, maybe that would taint the evidence it contained. What did the law say about that? Had she and Pan, in their hurry to retrieve the evidence, only destroyed it themselves?

But what other choice did they have? Once he was on the freeway, the minute he saw the first cop after him, he'd erase everything, Alain's messages, whatever financial dealings were there. There'd be nothing left, all the proof vanished like smoke sucked away on the wind.

Kit thought later maybe she'd talked so long to Max because, without any explanation at all, their stealing of the laptop and hiding it on the roof, slipping it into that little niche that most humans would never notice, was too far out, too strange. Would create one more uneasy scenario to puzzle Max Harper, make him wonder just what kind of snitch would choose a hiding place that only a pigeon or roof rat might be aware of.

After they'd called Max, and had watched the police deploy after Kraft's car, they watched Max Harper and Kathleen head for the back stairs, watched Kathleen climb in over the steep roofs and retrieve the laptop. Watched her and Max head for her car, saw them grin at each other as they locked the laptop safely in the trunk. As their car turned up toward the freeway, the cats heard gunfire. One shot, two more, and they seemed very close. They had no way to know what was happening, they could only pray Kraft had been taken without any cops getting hurt. Kit debated whether to race for the station where they could hear the calls coming in, could follow the action via police radio. But there would be cops at the auction with their radios. When Charlie heard sirens and gunshots, wouldn't she get the news right away? And when Kit thought of the delicious buffet waiting, hunger won, she leaped away across the roofs for the gallery, Pan beside her, Kit worrying about her human friends, and both cats famished for supper.

32

G
alloping over the rooftops for the gallery, Kit and Pan could hear the auctioneer's quick staccato and then in a minute other voices and laughter rising up, as if the auctioning had finished. Kit imagined folks heading for the buffet, and the good smells drew her on, making her lick her whiskers. But running full tilt, Pan stopped suddenly and doubled back, looking down and across the street.

Debbie's car was parked below, in front of the village Laundromat. The windows were open and little Tessa was looking out, both children were there, but not Debbie. They scanned the street and looked in through the Laundromat windows but didn't see her, and Kit flattened her ears, lashing her fluffy tail. “What kind of mother leaves her kids alone at night, on the street, in an unlocked car?”

“Debbie does,” Pan said. “She has them sit up in front so if anyone bothers them, they can blow the horn.”

“Fat lot of good that would do.”

Pan crouched over the roof gutter looking down at Tessa, his expression so filled with longing that Kit reached out a paw, touched his paw gently. “You want to go down there?” she said softly. “We could—”

“I can't let Tessa see me. She'd never stop talking, telling her mother I'd followed them, begging her to look for me. And Vinnie? She catches one glimpse, who knows what trouble she'd make, asking how I got here. That kid won't leave anything alone, we don't need that kind of attention. ”

“Maybe, though . . .” Kit said, “maybe at night you could slip into the cottage to see Tessa? Wait until she's asleep, until they're all asleep, then talk to her the way you did before?”

“How do you know that?”

“Debbie told the Damens. She laughed at Tessa, made fun of her, said a talking cat was impossible, but Tessa wouldn't back down. She said that in the night, in the dark, you told her your true name. Joe heard it all, he told me and Dulcie. He said it was all he could do not to claw Debbie. No wonder Tessa never talks, when her mother is so sarcastic.”

“I wish she hadn't told,” Pan said quietly. “I did whisper to her, how else could she have named me? She's so small, and . . . dear,” he said, looking embarrassed. “Debbie doesn't deserve her.” He looked at Kit, flicking his ears. “Maybe . . .
Is
there some way I could visit her, get her to keep the secret?”

“If you
could
talk to her at night again, maybe you could help her. Show her how to survive that woman. I could be the lookout,” Kit said. “I could watch Debbie and Vinnie, make sure they don't wake and hear you, make sure that Debbie, if she's still up, doesn't come sneaking in.”

Pan smiled. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe we could do that.” His amber eyes were so deep, his look so close and real it made her tremble. “Late in the night,” he said softly, “when the house is dark, maybe we can help her, maybe together we can.”

C
harlie found all five cats in the bookstore, out of the way of the workers who were cleaning up the last of the buffet, folding up the big table and the metal chairs, putting the little café tables back in their usual places. On a bookstore table, Kit and Pan crouched before their empty plates waiting for news, licking the last smears of salmon mousse from their whiskers. Dulcie and Misto sat above them on a bookshelf, as Joe Grey paced back and forth along the shelves, the five cats waiting impatiently to know if Kraft had been caught. They'd heard no more shots, no more sirens, the night was silent, but somewhere out in the dark, officers might still be in danger.

Charlie sat down at the table beside Kit and Pan and flipped open her cell phone, pretending to make a call, to key in a number that never rang at the other end. She said softly,
“They got him.”
The cats came to full attention, Joe Grey paused on the bookshelf and lay down just above her, and on the table Kit rolled over, handily drawing closer. All ears were up, all tails very still.

“They spotted the Audi headed north just before the off-ramp to the hospital. When he saw two patrol cars coming up fast behind him, and a CHP cutting across the median from the southbound lanes, he swerved up the ramp, doubled back southbound, weaving in and out. Cut a right at Carpenter, grazed two oncoming cars, headed up into the residential. A Realtor must know those little winding streets like the back of his hand, he must have been convinced he could lose them up there. It didn't work,” she said, grinning. “They forced him over, he fired once at Brennan. McFarland took him down with two shots. He struggled out of the car bleeding, his hands up, and didn't fight anymore.”

Kit was so pleased she almost laughed out loud.

No wonder we heard the shots,
Joe thought.
Those hilly streets, they're only a few blocks from here, just up past the gallery.

“He's all tucked away in the hospital,” Charlie said. “Private room with a guard, regular VIP treatment. Max has talked with the DA, there's enough evidence for an arraignment, he was really pleased to have the laptop.” She reached to pet Kit, and shyly to stroke the top of Pan's head. “Kathleen made copies of everything on it, the fake messages from Alain, all kinds of real estate transactions on a dozen different letterheads. From what they've found so far, those are all fake. They searched the condo, got a lock man up there to open the wall safe but of course it was empty. Max has the cash, maybe a hundred thousand and I don't know how much in gold. They're still lifting prints in the condo.”

Well,
Kit thought, the whole department had been busy. In the time it took the party to break up, and her and Pan to demolish their big plate of seafood, turkey, salmon mousse, and three desserts, everyone at the department had been hard at work, she imagined the computers and phones and fax machine just humming away. Never overly modest, tonight Kit felt pretty smug.

“The murders are in our jurisdiction,” Charlie said, “but the real estate swindles reach way beyond California. Oregon, three Midwestern states, North Carolina and Virginia. Max is turning copies of that evidence over to the FBI, everything on the laptop, and the papers from Hesmerra's tin box. I expect our county DA will charge Kraft with multiple counts of real estate fraud, as well as two counts of murder—the investigation of Hesmerra's death is still under way.” She glanced up as Billy came across the room. “See you next week,” she said, pretending to end the call.

Billy had been helping with the cleanup, with moving tables and folding up cages; he'd worked willingly all evening at various tasks, but now as he approached, his expression wasn't happy, and he looked at Charlie forlornly. Away behind him, Perry and Esther Fowler stood watching.

He stepped close to the table, speaking softly. “They said . . . My aunt Esther said a person from Children's Services will be at school tomorrow morning. To talk to me. To make arrangements for my placement . . .” He looked down, his voice faltering.

“Placement?” Charlie said, trying not to shout. “What placement?”

“To tell me what institution or foster home they're going to put me in.”

“The hell they are,” Charlie said, scowling past him at the Fowlers. “They're not taking you anywhere. Who are they sending, did you get a name? Did they say what time?” She looked up as Ryan came to join them, passing the Fowlers without speaking.

Billy said, “They didn't say a name. Said first period, around nine.” The boy's face was white, he was trying hard not to cry.

“Max and I will be there,” Charlie said, her voice low and measured with anger. “You're not going anywhere, you're staying with us. For as long as you like.” She looked up at Ryan. “If the Fowlers won't cooperate, if they won't sign the legal papers to let you live with us, I'm sure Debbie will.”

“Debbie will,” Ryan said. “Or she'll be out on the street looking for a roof over
her
head.”

Billy tried to grin at them, but still he was pale and uncertain. Ryan hugged him, and Charlie said, “It will be all right, we'll take care of it. Go on out and help Clyde with the rest of the tables.”

The boy walked silently past the Fowlers hardly looking at them. He didn't stop, though they tried to question him. Watching him, Joe hoped a signature from Debbie would be sufficient. He wondered what other leverage Max would have, maybe with Perry Fowler, as well as his hold over Erik Kraft.

There'd been no mention of Fowler's involvement in Kraft's embezzlements, but Joe thought maybe Fowler wasn't clean, maybe he and Esther had known all along, and looked the other way. If that was the case, Max might have plenty of information to use to help Billy.

He guessed the truth would come out when Max and Kathleen had all the loose ends wrapped up. Detectives Garza and Davis were, at this point, pretty much out of the loop. Dallas had started working another case, a domestic violence that had flared up noisily, night before last. And Juana was at home tonight, fasting, preparing for an early morning surgery. She had decided to go ahead with the knee replacement; Ryan had said Officer Brennan would be taking her to the hospital.

Joe thought about his strong and reliable friend having to deal with the pain of surgery and then with a mechanical knee, and he prayed that all went well. Charlie'd said Juana had taken her young cat over to the Firettis, to board, where he'd likely be spoiled just the way Juana spoiled him. Joe thought maybe Misto would play nursemaid, and spoil the little cat, too.

O
ut in the patio, as Billy helped Clyde arrange the tables, he watched a young couple leaving with their carrier, their new kitty peering out. Every cat had been spoken for, and those folks that the volunteers knew well had taken their cats with them. Others, not so well known, would wait while CatFriends checked them out, talked with their veterinarians, even visited their homes. Charlie said they weren't going to rescue and doctor and nurture a cat, then not make sure it would be well cared for. Billy looked in at George Jolly's two black-and-white adoptees, who waited in their carrier on a table near the kitchen. One reached out a paw to him, while the other rolled over for a tummy rub.

Charlie had told him the last one of George Jolly's three elderly cats had, shortly before Christmas, been put down by Dr. Firetti because of painful liver failure. Charlie said Jolly was now, at last, ready for new housemates. When she described Jolly's house, Billy knew the cats would like it. There were high shelves and all kinds of climbing places, and out in back, a lush garden, Charlie said, with an escape-proof fence. He guessed Sammie Miller's two cats were, for sure, going to a happy home.

But his own cats had lucked out, too, Billy thought, with a whole hay barn full of mice to hunt. He didn't know what made him think about Zandler just then. Except that the landlord had groused about his cats, said they were dirty. Well they were cleaner than that old man. He thought about Zandler prowling the burned house, and wondered again if Gran's money
was
still hidden there—or if Zandler, or someone else, had found it. Maybe he'd never know, but he sure meant to keep looking.

A
s the remaining volunteers gathered for a good-night celebration, the scent of fresh coffee filled the patio and George Jolly brought out the anniversary cake he'd baked, setting it before the Damens: a three-layered confection iced in white, decorated with a red Valentine heart and a border of running cats. Everyone toasted the newlyweds, and toasted each other at the success of the auction. They had raised over forty thousand dollars, and every last stray had a new home, a more productive night than any of CatFriends had dreamed.

Charlie and Billy left soon after the boisterous toasts ended, Billy yawning, full of good food, sated with too many people talking all at once—and worried about tomorrow. Wondering if his friends could, indeed, stand up to the power of the county authority that meant to take him away. Now, tired and discouraged, he wanted only to climb into his bed, in his cozy stall, among his own furry family.

As Kit and Pedric and Lucinda left the party, Kit looked back over her shoulder hoping Pan would decide to come with them, but he didn't, he only gave her a conspiratorial smile, and hopped into the Firetti van beside Misto. Wilma and Dulcie were leaving, too. Wilma, having done a background check on Emmylou Warren, had thought of asking her home with them, but Emmylou had already vanished; she hadn't stayed long, a silent observer at the edge of the party, then had slipped out again into the night as was her way.

“Where will she go?” Wilma said, turning the car heater up as she and Dulcie headed home. “Keep on sleeping in her old car, among all the bags and boxes?”

“Or maybe off to look for Birely?” Dulcie said. “To tell him his sister has died?”

“How would she ever find him? Oh, but she has his cell phone number.” She glanced down at Dulcie. “What about Sammie's house, now the police have released it? You suppose she left it to Birely?”

“What would he do with it?” Kit said. “A wanderer like Birely, settle down in one place? I don't think so. Trapped by a roof and four walls? He'd be about as happy as a feral cat shut in a box.”

“I guess,” Wilma said. “Maybe she left the house to Emmylou, if she
was
Sammie's only friend. That would be nice” She looked down at Dulcie and scratched the tabby's ears. “You cats did all right,” she said. “Cats and cops together.”

J
oe arrived home yawning, endured Rock's wet licks across his face, gave Snowball a few licks of his own, and then was up into his tower stretched out among his cushions, staring up at the stars.

“Sleep tight,” Ryan called up to him.

“You did good,” Clyde said, “you all did.”

“Didn't do bad yourselves,” Joe told them, thinking of their welcome help. And he slept, as did each of the cats, each warmed by their own private mystery: Joe Grey with dreams he hadn't wanted, but wasn't able to forget. Misto filled with visions of his lost past and, maybe, visions of what was yet to be. Dulcie awash in poetry whose source she could never have explained. And Kit, her wild dreams now given over, so suddenly, to an amazement of romance.