Joe gave Clyde a hard look. “You’re saying I’m not sweet and cuddly?”
“Sweet as syrup,” Clyde said, cuffing him on the shoulder. “Who wouldn’t love to steal a mean-looking tomcat with teeth like rapiers?”
But the idea of a cat thief was too bizarre. “Why would anyone steal a cat?” Joe said. “If that guy knew we could speak, he’d have snatched us all up long ago. And why come to the library for an ordinary cat, there are cats all over the village, neighborhood cats wandering everywhere. As far as cuddly, little children are the cuddly ones. Little kids are kidnapped all the time.”
But then he was sorry he’d said that, the thought of what happened to those kids made his paws go cold and his stomach queasy—and Clyde looked at Joe a long time. He said, “And there sure as hell aren’t cats like Courtney all over the village, with her picture in half the history books. What about those books he was poring over, what was that about? All McFarland said when he looked later, after the guy had put the books back, was that they were from the shelves on ancient art.”
Dulcie said, “The watcher looked a lot like the bank robber that pregnant woman described. Dark rumpled clothes, long black hair, wrinkled cap, old worn-out coat. It could be the same guy . . . And he stole a bundle of money.”
Clyde shook his head. “How would a robbery fit in with his prowling the library, watching cats and children?” He glanced at the Greenlaws and at Wilma. “I think the cats would be smart to stay in tonight.”
Before anyone could argue, Ryan said, “Dinner,” loud enough to stop a barrage of hot feline arguments. She had set out the cats’ plates in grand style on the kitchen counter, each with a blue place mat, each with a nice serving of Wilma’s tamale pie, garlic bread, Ryan’s fresh green salad, and half a strawberry tart. No one paid much attention to the sirens from up the hill at the shopping center, such wails were common from the smaller fire station that served the valley—fire trucks and maybe an ambulance headed to one of the fancy older folks’ communities: elderly people living together, many with no real family and too often needing medical help. Dulcie looked at Joe, feeling suddenly sad for those lonely folks—and feeling sad for herself and for Joe, now that their kittens were nearly full grown, the boys already off on their own and Courtney so wild with adventure that she would be leaving home soon. Dulcie looked at Joe. “I miss the boys.”
Joe rubbed his head against hers. “So do I, but they’re growing up, they’re doing what they want to do. Buffin has settled in, like a miracle, to what he was meant to be.”
He twitched a whisker. “And doesn’t that make John Firetti happy. It’s like having a new hospital assistant, only better. And for now, Striker’s happy there, too. Now, our two kittens are all the doctor and Mary have to comfort them, since Misto died.”
Dulcie smiled, her ears up again. “Maybe we haven’t lost Striker, maybe he’ll hang around the cop shop more than you guess.”
Courtney exchanged a glance with Kit, a look of understanding. Courtney did miss her brothers—but perhaps only a little, now that she had her mama and Wilma all to herself, the three of them had the house to themselves, and she, the one remaining kitten, had things pretty much as she wanted.
But Striker and Buffin, the two stars in the Firetti household, had what they wanted, too. They got to wander the hospital, they got to go to the shore every morning and evening to watch John and Mary feed the wild ferals.
Courtney got to do that sometimes, running on the shore among the wild beach cats, leaving her own pawprints in the wet sand. But, she thought, whatwill my grown-up life be like? Buffin has found his place, he healed that little dog and sent him home happy, and he’s healed more.Dr. Firetti says he has a rare talent. And Striker, all claws and teeth, he wants to chase the bad guys like our daddy. But there’s something more, too, for Striker. Some other talent, I can sense it; but no one knows yet what that is.
But what will I do with my life? This right-now-today life? And she thought, even this very village sometimes brings back such strange memories. Brings back long-past times, Medieval times that, when I wake, I can’t stop wondering about.
In the library she would look at her own pictures in ancient books, see herself in woven tapestries, yet when she tried to remember more about those long-ago ages, she knew that right now in this life, something maybe even more exciting waited for her, that a wonderful adventure waited, she could sense it like a bright glow all around her. She thought about that mystery all through dinner.
Afterward, when the cats and humans gathered in the living room by the fire, no one turned on the TV or a radio, no one knew there had been another robbery, another theft of money that had been headed for deposit in the bank. No one knew that the victim was dead.
Max Harper was still in the hospital with the woman from the grave when a second call came through from the dispatcher to his cell phone. Though the rescue units and his officers were careful not to pass information on to the news media, the local paper would have this one soon enough.
The caller wasn’t his regular snitch, wasn’t the familiar voice he was used to. Though the man’s style was the same, passing on the information quickly, and immediately hanging up. And, like Max’s usual snitch, his phone was untraceable. Likely an ancient cell phone with no GPS. The voice was that of an old man, shaky, frightened, and distraught. This disturbed him. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with another mangled body, this one decidedly dead. For one of the few times in his life Max Harper called in one of the detectives to work the case with the attending coroner—Jane Cameron might be young and beautiful, but she was a tough investigator, she had just been promoted in rank, and she didn’t get sick at the sight of a gory corpse.
The old man grew more and more upset as he drove the back way to Highway One and up past the turnoff to the Harpers’ ranch. There was no one outside in the pastures to see him drive by and head up his own lane for home.
Having left the scene as the sirens came screaming, he had felt steady enough then, filled with a sense that he’d done the right thing. That he might have saved Jon Jaarel’s life.
Could there have been any life left in the man after that brutal attack? What if it was murder, what if Nevin had killed him?
That was when his stomach really started to churn, when he began to feel pale and sick. Nevin, his own son . . . Over the years he’d known when Nevin was in trouble, and had tried to ignore it; and he had tried to keep the boy’s earlier troublemaking from Nell.
As he approached his empty house, evening began to close down around him. He couldn’t stop thinking about Jon Jaarel, injured and bloodied. The hardworking restaurant owner was a kind, steady man. Zeb prayed that he was alive yet was pretty sure he wasn’t. The old man was filled with a hollow emptiness, with futility at the brutal ways of his own boys, his own family.