It seemed like something weird happened with those cats every week or two. You could have dogs, and no problem, but cats . . . Though he knew that wasn’t true, dogs could get into almost as much trouble; except these cats always seemed too closely involved with some village crime.
And still, as he puzzled over the cats and the calico kitten, most of his mind was on the snitch’s call last evening, that gravelly old man’s voice; and on the crushed body. Though that guy hadn’t been his regular snitch, not with that rusty voice, he had had the same brief way of passing on information; he had given Max the same kind of short, curt facts as his own snitch would—describing the robbery, describing the murder that Kathleen and the coroner were now investigating.
It was amazing that someone as delicate and beautiful as Kathleen Ray could deal with the gory coroner’s job with no trouble, no pallor and shakes, no throwing up on the job. That was why Dr. Bern liked working with her.
Charlie, on her way to hang posters, found Joe and Wilma on Ocean Avenue searching between the shops; she pulled over and parked. She could see others, cat and human, looking for the calico and softly calling her. Wilma, Charlie’s tall, gray-haired aunt, picked Joe up and slipped into the passenger seat of Charlie’s car. They sat for a few moments, Charlie combing out her short, tangled red hair, she and Wilma getting their stories straight on what they had told Max, or what they would tell him.
Charlie had wanted to leave out the part about a man stealing Courtney. She didn’t know what kind of city council brouhaha that would cause, what kind of position that would put Max in if his officers went pounding on doors and searching the shops for a cat; though she didn’t think Max would ever suggest that. All she wanted was a story that Max would believe, and that might encourage his men to keep an eye out for Courtney without puzzling questions. Courtney had been stolen, in Charlie’s mind the pictures and tapestries of her had prompted the theft, there was no other way to look at the kidnapping.
As full daylight crept into the village, the cats’ human friends were all out nailing or taping up Charlie’s posters, and of course still searching for Courtney, walking the little courtyards between buildings, peering under porches, under and over fences, among huge pots of flowering trees and bushes, looking down occasional alleys that held only grubby garbage cans. Had the small calico escaped from her captor, or did she lie somewhere hurt, or worse?
And while everyone looked for her, Courtney was just as fiercely searching for a way out. In the chill morning, when Seaver went downstairs to ready the shop for opening, she prowled the apartment once again from window to window, seeking a loose latch, for a way to freedom. She had awakened on the couch edgy and frightened, and knowing she was done with dreaming of Seaver’s bright and impossible future—she was cold and frightened one moment, excited the next; and she began again to wonder where his missing wife had gone. Perhaps she wasn’t the woman in the grave? Maybe he hadn’t tried to kill her? Whatever he’d done with her, and whatever plans he had for Courtney herself, she wanted only to be out of there.
Putting aside thoughts of grand gallery exhibits and the TV shows he’d promised featuring her, still she prowled the apartment pawing at the locks, her ears down, her calico tail lashing. Peering out the tall glass windows she could see her mama and daddy and the other cats down on the streets with her human friends, all looking for her. She wanted to wrap her paws around every one of them, she wanted to be held, wanted to be loved by those she trusted, she wanted to be safe.
The way the windows were set into deep stone sills, though she could see down, it would be hard for anyone below to get a glimpse of her up here. She watched Joe Grey scramble to the roofs searching the windows of other apartments, but even when she stood up tall, looking across, and scratching down the glass, there were too many reflections, slants of first sunlight bouncing off other buildings so he must not see her at all. His ears flat, he backed down the oak tree again, she watched him pause beside another newsstand and rear up to read the front page of the Gazette that had just been put in the rack. Could that be about her? But soon he went racing away once more, heading for the courthouse, for MPPD.
8
Joe Grey entered through the bulletproof glass doors of MPPD on the heels of two garbagemen marching a dirty-faced young boy between them. Their truck was parked in the red zone. The taller, better-groomed city servant held a young calico cat close against his shoulder, held her tight but gently. Joe, only glimpsing her, thought for a second it was Courtney but then saw that it was not. He felt further dismay when he realized that his office friend, blond, plump Mabel Farthy, was not at the dispatcher’s desk with her welcoming smile. Instead, sour-faced EvaJean Simpson scowled at the calico, at the dirty, fighting boy being dragged through the door, and at the garbagemen. She gave Joe himself a poisonous stare.
The real surprise was that the waiting room was half full of calico cats, each in a battered carrier, the cages lined up in the far corner between the long counter and the window. Joe pushed in behind the garbagemen and fighting kid and ducked under a folding chair, searching through the bars of each cage for Courtney.
She wasn’t there, no one looked back at him with eager amber eyes, no one yowled out to her daddy.
Where had these cats come from? Had they been collected by sticky-fingered little thieves like that kid, after reading Charlie’s posters? Clean, healthy neighborhood cats maybe snatched from their own front porches, each “rescuer” eager for his thousand dollars.
Money they’ll never see, Joe thought, extending his claws.
He was only partly hidden in the chair’s shadow. In a minute EvaJean would see him and make a royal fuss—once she was finished dressing down the garbagemen. “That cat does not belong here. Look at the poster, at the phone numbers. Call them, call the shelter, call those rescue people. All this fuss over a cat. This is a police department, not an animal pound.”
The man with the cat fetched an empty cage from those stacked to one side. He put the cat gently in, gave her a last pet, and set the cage with the others.
EvaJean said, “I suppose you want to book that boy. People don’t realize . . .”
“We don’t need to book him. Just take his name and address and file a complaint. We already gave him a talking-to that ought to cool him for a while. If he pulls something like this again, you can take care of him.”
“I don’t take care of little boys, or cats. I want him and those cats out of here.”
The glass door opened and Charlie Harper came in. She nodded curtly to EvaJean and began collecting the cats in their cages. The two men helped her carry the calicos out to her SUV where she had backed into the red zone and opened the rear door. She carried in some extra cages, for further contributions.
“Where will you take them?” said the shorter, unshaven man.
“To the vet, to be checked for an identification. You know, those implanted chips. If we can’t find all the owners, we’ll take those cats to our shelter.” She glanced under the chair at Joe Grey, her green eyes laughing as he left the shadows and walked boldly past EvaJean’s counter, following Charlie as she headed for the hall and Max’s office.