Even after all the passing years, John Firetti remembered the little yellow tom kitten who, he’d suspected even then, would one day realize that he could speak. When the kitten disappeared from the shore where Firetti fed the strays, he had searched for weeks for him. “I put ads in the paper for a lost yellow kitten,” he told Misto, “but they came to nothing. I hoped someone had adopted you, but I worried, wondered if you were with someone kind, if they were treating you well. I thought whoever took you might be strangers, tourists. I watched in case you should find your way back, and fretted about you for a very long time.”
“I did find my way back,” Misto said, laughing. “Though it took a while. I’ve wandered a long way and lived many places.” He looked at John Firetti eagerly, as if he might like to share his adventures with the doctor, as if he might enjoy settling in with a human friend for a little while; and John looked back at him with such excitement and wonder that both Ryan and Clyde had to hide a grin. Joe Grey watched the two of them with interest. Maybe, he thought, Misto’s tales might be worth a listen. Who knew what wild scenes the old cat could paint of close calls, of adventures and escapes among the human world.
There in the clinic, Dr. Firetti checked Misto over, then invited them across the way to his cottage, Clyde and Ryan for a cup of coffee. Mary Firetti settled Misto on a blanket on the flowered couch while Joe prowled the house, forever nosy, and John Firetti laid another log on the fire. Mary Firetti was a slim woman, her soft brown hair done up in a bun at the back, her denim jumper, over a white T-shirt, loose and comfortable, her leather sandals low-heeled and sensible. When she carried in the coffee tray, she set down a bowl of cream for Misto and one for Joe Grey. “Will you stay with us a while?” she asked Misto. Her direct address to him startled the yellow cat; he looked at her with alarm, then looked up at John.
“It’s all right,” John said. “Mary’s kept the secret just as I have.”
Misto looked at Mary for a long time, then stuck his nose in the cream. Yes, he would like to stay for a while. Mary seemed a warm, comfortable person, the Firetti cottage smelled of lavender and of cats, and he thought he quite liked the cozy household.
BENNY’S BIRTHDAY SUPPER featured an array of potluck casseroles and salads, many brought by their guests, and the chocolate birthday cake Maudie had made the night before, after Benny slept. Chocolate icing with Benny’s name and HAPPY BIRTHDAY in red and green writing as fancy as Maudie’s quilts. Around the cake was piled a mountain of gifts which, soon after supper, Benny tore open, scattering the wrappers and revealing bright and intriguing books he’d yet to read, board games he’d never played, more gifts than he could ever remember receiving, though Martin had done his best to please his little boy. Dulcie and Kit curled up beside him on the floor as he pored over the books, the lady cats snuggling close; around them the conversation swung comfortably from Christmas Day plans, to the depositions of Marlin Dorriss and Jared Colletto and the warrant out on Kent Colletto, to Pearl’s embezzlement. Her ledger had not been found, but the copies of her alternate set of books had been sent to the LAPD. Though she would never face a judge in this life, the information would help Beckman Heavy Equipment straighten out their clients’ accounts. The stolen money, if LAPD could uncover any hidden bank accounts in Pearl’s name, might help make up the funds that the firm had refunded to their wronged clients.
As a fresh pot of coffee brewed, and second pieces of birthday cake were cut, a heated discussion ensued as to who would bring what dishes for Christmas Day at the Harpers’ ranch. Soon that morphed into the last two church concerts and the Christmas play at Lori’s school where she had wanted to play Mary, but yet was relieved that she hadn’t been chosen; Lori and Cora Lee planned another visit to her pa at Soledad, the morning of Christmas Eve; and no one mentioned Benny’s soon-to-be Christmas present, not a word, this was a gift Benny knew nothing about. The rescued German shepherd was, at that moment, playing with the Harpers’ two dogs up at the ranch, an eight-month-old pup that his owner couldn’t afford to keep, who needed training and patience but needed, most of all, a little boy to love him.
The day after Pearl was shot, when Dallas and Kathleen searched the Colletto garage, they found a bag of three pairs of fish-scented running shoes. Having presented Carlene Colletto with a warrant and searched the house, they found, hidden among Jared’s last-semester school papers, ticket stubs for a round-trip flight to the Ontario airport in Southern California, under another name, but on the date that Martin and Caroline Toola were shot. The Orange County Sheriff’s Office was still checking rental cars out of Ontario in that name, though it was unlikely Jared’s prints would have remained in the car undisturbed all these months. The fake ID and credit card did not turn up, Jared had hidden them well or destroyed them.
Carlene Colletto had at first refused to let the detectives in. She read the warrant with the judge’s signature twice, scowling, then had called the judge. When Judge Bryant’s secretary assured her there was a legitimate warrant and she was obliged to honor it, Carlene had followed the detectives closely as they searched, crowding them, peering over their shoulders. “The boys can’t have been part of those invasions. Jared was furious that they were happening right here in our little village, he was as disgusted with you police as everyone else.” Carlene didn’t seem to get it, didn’t want to get it; her comments netted her a smile from Dallas, a haughty but amused look from Kathleen Ray.
It was the morning after Benny’s birthday that Dallas, taking a run up to the fishing wharves, to the used-car lot where Jared and Kent had worked, found the dented brown pickup. The lot was tucked between a seafood restaurant and a tool repair, next to the wharves. There were three corrugated-tin storage sheds at the back, and the truck was in the center shed. The prints of both young men were on the dash, the door handles, and the steering wheel. The scent of long-dead fish was ground into the floor mats. A long scrape of black paint decorated the truck’s left front and back fenders. Dallas photographed the vehicle inside and out, made casts of the tires, locked the shed, and strung crime-scene tape around it, effectively impounding the truck until the case was resolved.
As for Misto, he might have missed Benny’s party but he wasted no time settling in with the Firettis, enjoying a welcome rest and Mary’s succulent meals. The Firettis couldn’t get enough of his stories, of his life among the coastal fishermen, of his travels with a long-haul trucker—of passing friendships that had all been conducted in silence on Misto’s part except for an array of meows as he passed himself off as just another friendly, stray tomcat.
But soon after Christmas, the yellow cat would begin to remember other adventures, events he couldn’t account for. He would wake from a nap experiencing a moment as bright as if it had just occurred, but a scene that did not come from his wanderings. He would remember running down cobbled streets that smelled of open sewers, remember hunting birds on rooftops made of straw thatch, times and places he was sure he’d never known, not in this life. The dreams frightened him, but they needled his curiosity, too, and opened a whole new world for Misto. He didn’t know where the tales would lead but surely they fascinated his new human family—and they fired Dulcie and Kit to a frenzy of questions. Only Joe Grey scoffed. The tales of Misto’s travels might be fine, but the gray tomcat didn’t hold with this kind of story, with a cat remembering earlier lives, if indeed there was such a phenomenon. Dulcie laughed and cut her green eyes at him, and held to her own view of what Misto’s dreams revealed about feline pasts.