“Wait,” Dulcie said. “Maybe we don’t want to tell him.” She scrolled down through a number of articles about the red tomcat, pausing at a headline that silenced Kit.
Did Nursing Home Cat Die in Fire?
The remarkable red tabby cat who began, on his own, to visit infirm patients at Green Meadows Nursing Home nearly a year ago has not been seen since a midnight fire burned the complex to the ground . . . “We haven’t seen him since three hours before the fire broke out. . . . He came to us as a stray . . .”
They read it together, crouched on the edge of the desk. At the last words, Kit sat silent, her ears down, her tail hanging over, limp. “What if he is Misto’s son? What if he’s dead? Oh, we can’t tell Misto . . . But he so misses his son. If he is dead . . . Oh, fire is a terrible thing. I don’t understand. All at once, that woman dead in a fire, and now this fire . . .”
Dulcie said, “No speaking cat would get caught in a fire, he’d have gotten out, he’d be too clever to get trapped.” She looked to Joe, begging him to help ease the tortoiseshell’s distress.
“That tom would have saved himself,” Joe said. “If he is Misto’s son or maybe grandson, you can bet he’s smart enough to get out of there, one way or another.” He pressed a paw on Kit’s paw. “He’s somewhere in Oregon, Kit, right now. And you can bet he’s safe.”
“But what if he was hurt in the fire, what if . . . ?” Her yellow eyes blazed at them. “We have to find him, we have to go and find him.”
“Then we have to plan,” Joe said patiently. “Do you know how many miles it is to Eugene? Do you remember how long it took Misto to get here, months, hitching with truckers and tourists? And then, when we get to Eugene, what? How do we find one lone cat in all that city? He could be anywhere.”
“Maybe,” Kit said, “maybe Misto would know where he might have gone. Misto knows Eugene and he—”
Dulcie said, “What if that is Misto’s son? What if he did die in the fire? You want to tell Misto that?”
“We can tell him we think we’ve found his son but not tell him about the fire.”
They both looked at her.
Dulcie sighed. “He’ll want to see the pictures. If we pull up those articles, he’ll read about the nursing home and about the fire. Maybe he’ll try to call them. If the nursing home burned down, does it even have a phone?” Dulcie dropped her ears, giving Kit a stern look. “We can’t tell him, not yet, we need to find out more.”
But, watching Kit, she knew Kit would tell Misto, that they couldn’t stop her. Or, if she didn’t tell him, and as flighty and irresponsible as the tortoiseshell could be, would she take off alone for Oregon in a fit of goodwill and passion and not much common sense?
Or would she and Misto go off together, an old cat too frail to survive a second journey halfway up the California coast and up into Oregon, and the flighty young tortoiseshell? Again, Dulcie looked at Joe for help. They’d backed themselves into a corner. Now, either they distressed Misto by telling him before they knew enough, or they abandoned Kit to her wild and headstrong passions.
“We’ll tell Misto,” Joe said softly. “We’ll show him the pictures. Tell him the whole story. We can’t tell him only half.” Maybe, Joe thought, Misto would show better sense than Kit and wouldn’t go racing off with no plan, no notion where the red tomcat might be.
“There are all kinds of animal rescue groups,” Dulcie said, “Humane Society, SPCA, Animal Friends. Maybe they can find him. Or maybe he’s already chosen a home, maybe he’s already settled in with someone, is rolling in luxury lapping up cream and he has no need of our help.”
“But he’d want to find Misto,” Kit said indignantly, “he’d want to find his father, he doesn’t know where Misto’s gone, he might be worried about his dad, wandering all over Eugene looking for him.”
Joe just looked at her. Kit could get pretty worked up.
“First thing in the morning,” Dulcie said, “I’ll call Eugene. Maybe I can find out if anyone at all saw him after the fire, or saw him escape the fire. Maybe by this time, someone has come forward, called to say he’s all right. If I can’t locate anyone from the nursing home, Wilma can, that’s what she does. She spent her whole career running investigations. Missing humans, missing cats, what’s the difference? Wilma can find out what happened to the red tomcat.”
10
It was after three in the morning when Joe left Dulcie and Kit, and headed home. As he trotted along above the village streets, the night sky arced clear and vast around him; below him, the streets themselves were deserted, even the late-night party crowd seemed to have packed it in. He sniffed the wind and knew, though the stars shone diamond bright, that weather was on its way, he could smell a storm gathering, could smell cold weather coming down from the north. The shingles, damp from the ocean air, were only slick now, but soon rain would sluice down the steep peaks, rushing into the gutters. Racing onto his own roof, Joe caught the scents from within, the smell of a strange woman’s perfume, the unfamiliar smells of people he didn’t know and didn’t want to know.
But at least he could hear no voices. Maybe, with luck, they were all asleep, Debbie Kraft and her kids bedded down in the Damens’ guest room, stuffed like sardines among their ragtag belongings. Stepping to the edge of the roof, he looked down at the old battered Suzuki wagon with its thick patina of road dust, its windows smeared with little handprints, and blocked by the jumble of blankets and cardboard cartons that Debbie hadn’t dragged into the house. A skateboard pressed against the glass, and a ragged teddy bear. He could just imagine the smell in the closed car: hamburger wrappers, broken crayons, half-eaten candy bars, the smell of little children shut into a small space for many hours. He imagined the same smells in the rooms below.
Maybe, with great good luck, they’d remain asleep until late morning and he’d be gone again. Or, if the gods really smiled, they’d get up early, collect their possessions, shove everything back in the car, and head on down the coast for some other unfortunate “long-lost” friend.
Or, he thought, Debbie would make up with her sister, after all these silent years, and move on up there to the wooded hills high above the village, where half-hidden and expensive homes stood in self-satisfied privacy. Turning away from the roof’s edge, he pushed into his tower and on through into the house to have a look around, to see how the land lay.
Crouched on the rafter, he peered down into the dark study, and into the master bedroom where Clyde and Ryan sprawled, fast asleep, Rock and little Snowball curled safely across their feet. Both animals flinched when Joe dropped down onto Clyde’s desk. They looked up at him frazzled, their ears at half mast, their coats bristling from the stress of dealing with a small, rude child, their eyes reflecting a frantic unease that left no doubt Vinnie, the older girl, had been at them.
Joe looked at them with pity but turned resolutely away. There was nothing he could do, just now, to ease their misery. Dropping to the floor, he padded down the stairs, his nose twitching with annoyance at the smell of strangers that rose up the steps. Below, he descended into a chaos of abandoned sweaters, grubby dolls, children’s dirty tennis shoes dropped at random down the hall. In the kitchen, a blue plastic cooler stood on the floor dripping water across the tile. The table was strewn with food-crusted paper plates, a package of cupcakes with one bite out of each. Two thermos bottles stood open, smelling of souring milk. He had to guess that Ryan and Clyde, losing patience, had left it all for Debbie to clean up—if she was so inclined.
The guest room door stood open. Despite the fusty smell of sleep, he slipped inside, skirting the two duffel bags, the clothes draped over the rattan and cane chairs and the desk, and the rattan game table. On the handmade Konya rug, an open suitcase lay, revealing a tangle of sweatshirts, big and little, a woman’s lace panties, a makeup case, a grubby white brassiere. The room smelled of the same perfume, of unwashed hair and dirty socks. In the queen-sized bed, Debbie and the two children slept tangled together, the girls snuggled up to their mother, their long pale hair strewn into her dark hair, their arms around her as if, at least in sleep, the little family found solace in one another. Looking at the sheer volume of their belongings, he imagined them camping in his home until Christmas, and he backed out again feeling depressed. The only upside to this woman’s arrival would be whatever he could learn about her dead mother, about Debbie’s relationship with her, and maybe about Hesmerra’s interest in the affairs of Kraft Realty. Hurrying back up to his tower in the black predawn, he burrowed deep beneath the cushions, shut his eyes, and listened to the rising wind, its wail as miserable as he felt.