“They’re not after a child. You heard Betty Wicken, she told Ralph to lay off the kids, to stay away from the school.”
But Dulcie laid back her ears. “What if we’re wrong? What if we missed something, and they do take a child? I’m going home, to call Harper.”
Kit said, “My house…”
Dulcie shook her head. “Lucinda and Pedric have had enough involvement. Let’s don’t make more waves.” And she crouched to leap away.
Joe stopped her, pushing belligerently in front of her. “Just listen. They’re not going to steal a child. This isn’t about kidnapping, you heard them. I think they’re after something in the old studio.” He looked at her intently. “If Max puts a tail on them, if they spot a cop before they make their move, maybe no one will ever know what they’re after.”
“You don’t give Harper much credit.”
“The department is working a murder case, Dulcie. They’re looking for a vanished body, and trying to keep on top of shoplifting and increased holiday thefts. And Harper has officers on double shift to protect the little girl. Plus three officers off for the holidays, and extra patrols around the school. If he sends a uniform up to tail the Wickens, it may have to be a rookie. And if the Wickens make the rookie, they’ll dump the van and take off-maybe never be found.”
Dulcie quieted. Joe looked intently at her. “The department only stretches so far. And think about this. If the snitch tells Harper that the van was hidden in the Wickens’ garage-and where else would they hide it?-that puts the Greenlaws right on the spot again.
“Don’t you think,” Joe said, “that Lucinda has been involved enough, for the moment? She brings Harper the pot shards with, presumably, fingerprints on them. She leaves. Then, in a little while, Harper gets an anonymous call that there just happens to be a blue van like Charlie’s, right there below Lucinda’s house? Where,” he asked, “does that leave Lucinda?”
“With egg on her face,” Dulcie said contritely. “With snitch written all over her.”
“Is that what you want?”
The kit looked from one to the other. “Joe’s right, I don’t want to drag Lucinda in again. We just need to be up there when the Wickens get there with the van, we just need to watch them. Meantime,” she said, “Lori and Dillon are going to load up the playhouse and I’m going to watch.” And Kit took off for the seniors’ house, meaning, this once, to keep her mouth shut and not tell the law what she knew.
Dulcie watched her go flying through the leaves, and then turned quietly for home. She knew that Joe was right. Or, she hoped he was.
Joe Grey watched them both, twitching an ear, then he laid back his own ears, spun around, and headed fast for the department-to see what he could learn, what new information might have come in. And to put to rest the niggling and edgy voice that said, Is this the right decision? You sure you want to withhold that information from the chief?
27
A SQUAD CAR STOOD in the seniors’ drive, its wheels and hood radiating a gentle warmth. As if it had arrived maybe half an hour earlier, Kit thought. The big white Chevy was parked just to the left of the garage, at an angle that left the closed garage doors clear-and that provided, unknown to the cop who had parked it, swift feline access to the hood, to the top of the car, and onto the garage roof. Three leaps, and Kit looked down from the flat, tarred roof at her own paw prints embossed delicately into the squad car’s thin coating of dust-then she padded across the warm tar paper to peer in through Cora Lee’s windows, into her friend’s sunny, bright bedroom.
The little girl was there, with Officer Eleanor Sand. Kit, twitching her tail with interest, studied the child curled up on the rug before the tall bookcases among a pile of cushions. Cora Lee sat on the floor beside her, an open book in her lap. Eleanor Sand sat on the window seat-looking directly out the window at Kit. The tall, lovely blonde showed surprise for only an instant, and then amusement, at the sight of a cat on the roof. Kit looked back at her uncertainly-then the two big dogs were leaping to the window seat beside Sand, wagging their tails and pressing their noses to the pane inches from Kit’s nose. Everyone was staring at Kit; she didn’t know whether to be embarrassed at being caught snooping or to play it up and let herself strut a little. Because she was certainly, at the moment, onstage.
But then Cora Lee, laughing, rose and opened the window. Kit stepped in, and the dogs were all over her, slurping and soaking her fur. Cora Lee settled them down, so they backed off, only wagging and grinning. She closed the window and sat down on the floor again, as lithe as a dancer. But the child reached from the cushions, wanting Kit. Her black hair was rumpled, her dark eyes huge. Dodging the dogs, Kit leaped down into the pillows and stepped into her arms, and together they snuggled down in the warm nest.
Gently Cora Lee pulled a lap blanket over the two of them, took up the book again, and, in a dialect that Kit had never heard from her Creole friend, continued the Christmas story. The bright jacket said Ole Saint Nick.
Cuz dere on de by-you [Cora Lee read],
W’en I stretch ma’ neck stiff
Dere’s eight alligator
A pullin’ de skiff.
The pictures, when Cora Lee held them for the little girl to see, showed not winter snow, but a sultry river among swampy trees; not reindeer and sled and Santa in a red coat, but the alligators hitched to a little square boat that was filled with bags of gifts. Santa was dressed in brown, but he had a real white, bushy Santa Claus beard; and the child seemed quite comfortable with the change from reindeer to alligators. Halfway through, Cora Lee paused to look up at Eleanor.
“Our family told a similar Christmas story in Cajun dialect when Donnie and I were little. This book wasn’t published then, but we loved our family version, we heard it several times every Christmas. I was around twenty when this book came out, and I wrote to the author for this signed first edition.”
“It’s charming,” Sand said. “I’ve never heard it, but the Cajun way of telling makes me feel happy. Interesting,” she added, “that our young friend picked it from among all your picture books.”
Cora Lee, being an artist, had a handsome collection of picture books, and she could hardly resist buying the most beautiful ones that came out each year. She had followed with excitement the progress of Charlie’s book; though it was not a picture book, it had many illustrations, and Cora Lee had predicted after seeing the first sketches and reading the first rough draft that it would have deep appeal to readers of all ages.
Kit hoped so. Charlie’s book was her story, it was based on her own kittenhood, on that frightened and lonely time when she had no one to love her, no one to care if she lived or died.
When Cora Lee had finished reading the rhythmic Cajun phrases, the child reached up for the book. Hugging it to her possessively, she tucked it beneath the blanket beside Kit, and held both the book and Kit close. This little girl might be mute, Kit thought, but she surely made her feelings known.
“I wish Donnie were here to share it,” Cora Lee said. “When we were kids, he always read aloud with such pleasure.” Automatically she glanced toward the window, though she could not have seen his car from upstairs. Kit had not seen it when she arrived; there was only Cora Lee’s car at the other side of the drive, and the squad car-though when she’d crossed the drive she’d padded over a cold patch of concrete that the thin winter sun hadn’t yet warmed, where a car or maybe Donnie’s old pickup had recently stood.
There was no blue van parked in the drive today, so Mavity must be off in the real van, on a cleaning job. Kit had seen Mavity’s ancient VW parked around the side of the garage where Mavity kept it-so as not to offend the neighbors, she said. She said her old car looked like a rusting hulk up on blocks in the yard of some backcountry shack.