Turning on an old CD of Dean Martin, settling before the fire thinking about making a sandwich, he rose when a car pulled up the drive. Quietly he moved into the shadowed kitchen.
The knock on the back door was light and hasty. A woman’s voice called out, “Wilma?” He smiled at Ryan’s voice, she knew Wilma wasn’t there but didn’t want anyone out in the dark to know it. Hand on his holstered gun he stepped into the laundry.
“It’s Ryan,” she called out. “I brought you a steak. We grilled, and …”
He turned on the outside light. Gun cocked in case she was followed, he opened the door, stepping aside nearly behind it.
She was alone. If Wilma were here, and had answered, the music would have covered her voice. “Did you get my call?” she said softly. “I left you a message.” Ryan handed him a plate covered with foil, it smelled like heaven. He set it on the laundry counter and looked at his phone.
He’d left it off; he felt his face color with embarrassment. She grinned at him. “Have a good evening, my steak’s getting cold,” and she was gone, backing out in her king cab.
He locked the door, turned his phone on, uncovered the warm plate with its thick, rare filet, fries, and a salad. He knew there was an apricot pie in the kitchen. This, Jimmie thought, wasn’t a bad gig, for overtime work.
Up the hills evening darkened with the same cloud-shifting wind, but not a gale wind like the night of the car thefts. Kate’s mind was on McFarland at Wilma’s house waiting for the stalker, as was Scotty’s as they sat at the little kitchen table, eating a supper of bean soup and corn bread. Wind fingered at the windows, and across the way at Voletta’s, wind made shadows dance across the dark bedroom glass. The whole front of the house was dark, and there was only a faint light at the back. Had Lena gone out, leaving her aunt alone? She was here to take care of Voletta, not go chasing around. Kate couldn’t see Lena’s car, though if she’d parked up close to the back porch it wouldn’t be visible. Voletta’s old muddy pickup stood farther from the house. As she reached to slice more cornbread, a pair of dimmed car lights came up the back road from the direction of the village and freeway.
The car pulled out of sight close behind the house. They couldn’t see Lena get out but they heard her voice as the driver’s door slammed. Two more doors closed and they heard men’s voices.
“Lena has a boyfriend?” Scotty said. “Or maybe two?”
“She arrived alone, I didn’t see anyone. Voletta didn’t mention anyone.” Soon the living room lights came on, then the lights of all three bedrooms.
“You can see more of the house from the mansion,” Scotty said. “From where we’re working. I saw the shadow of a man down there today, he was careful to keep out of sight.”
“I guess,” Kate said, “we shouldn’t be judgmental, when we’re living …”—she flushed—“conjugally.”
“Only until you agree to marry me,” he said softly. “What is it, Kate? What’s the secret? You divorced your husband years ago. You told me there’s been no one else. Why can’t you tell me what’s wrong? Am I not the right man, am I a one-night stand?” He looked at her deeply. “I don’t think so. And Kate, nothing can be so bad that I couldn’t overlook it. I’m a very forgiving guy.”
Leaning over, he lightly kissed her forehead. The wind rustled harder against the windows. Their supper was getting cold. Across the little hill, the lights soon went off in all three bedrooms and the living room. The kitchen lights had been turned up brightly, lighting the trees beyond; and as the clouds moved on, freeing the moonlight, Scotty looked up at the mansion. In the open-walled upstairs nursery, a movement drew their attention.
“The ferals,” Kate said softly. Three pale shapes were crouched at the edge of the floor where the wall had fallen away. Willow, Sage, and Tansy? They, too, were looking down watching Voletta Nestor’s house.
“I’ve seen them watching before,” Kate said. “At night when the moon’s bright it’s not hard to see their pale coloring. Since you’ve started work, they don’t come down here much, only early in the evening or maybe late at night. I don’t think they hunt down below Voletta’s, her goats and that donkey chase them.”
“Why do the cats watch her?” Scotty said. “What are they curious about?”
“Maybe the kitchen lights, watching the movement behind the curtains. Cats are fascinated by movement.”
“They’re strange little cats,” Scotty said lightly. “Sometimes they watch us at work. Always shy, half hidden, but not as if they’re afraid.” He put his arm around her. “What will happen tonight, at Wilma’s? Will the stalker try again, and take her bait? Or go after Wilma herself, thinking that she’s there? What is the connection between them? I hope McFarland nails him and hauls him off to jail.” Beyond the windows, the clouds scattered southwest, opening up the moonstruck night over the village, over the Damens’ house.
In the Damen patio, warm in sweaters and jackets, their table pulled up close to the hot barbecue, Wilma, Ryan, and Clyde, and slim, elderly Lucinda and Pedric Greenlaw, were wondering the same. Would McFarland trap Rick Alderson or whoever the prowler was, land him in jail and keep Wilma safe? Was this young man connected to the murder scene, and maybe to the car thefts? Joe Grey and Dulcie, Kit and Pan and young Courtney crowded on one end of the table enjoying their share of steak and fries. Only Dulcie ate a little salad. Courtney, having never had filet mignon, gobbled the sliced steak with greedy delight. Never could she remember, in her dreams of other lives, a meal like this, the meat crisp on the outside, rare within, and more flavorful and tender than any scraps of boiled pork or Irish mutton. She knew she had enjoyed grand feasts as well as leavings, somewhere and sometime; but she had enjoyed nothing like this steak dinner right here and right now. She caught Kit laughing at her, the tortoiseshell’s yellow eyes teasing her for her greed. She didn’t care, she hissed smartly back, and returned to her supper.
Clyde was saying, “Last time they hit Sonoma, five cars stolen, twenty more left on the streets robbed or trashed or both.” He looked at Joe Grey. “Max said the Sonoma sheriff has found the five cars, and has two drivers locked up.”
“So?” Joe said. “Sonoma is working car heists. MPPD is also working two murders and now a break and enter. Give our guys a little credit.”
Ryan said, “What about the Styrofoam? How can something as innocuous as scraps of Styrofoam offer a link the police can prove? Seems to me that’s circumstantial.”
“It’s a good start,” Clyde said. “If those flecks did come from a stolen car, and then were in Wilma’s house, and in Barbara Conley’s house … If Max can find that car …” He looked at Kit and Pan. “The car you saw in the garage that night.”
Kit said, “The wind blew away the dust on the drive so clean it blew away the tire marks. But there were tiny pieces of packing, wind blew those so hard into the bushes it was like someone pressed them there, stuck tight.”
Joe said, “Pretty strong coincidence.”
“And you don’t even believe in coincidence,” Wilma said, scratching Joe’s ears. “I hope,” she said, “if the thieves come back to work this area, I hope Scotty will stay on at the shelter. I don’t like to think of Kate up there alone.”
Ryan pushed back her short, dark hair, her green eyes watching Wilma. “With Scotty restoring the mansion, working there all day, it’s easy enough for him to stay.” She smiled. “Kate says he’s grown really interested that the ferals sneak down sometimes to hide and watch them work.”