Ninth Life Read online

  SUNDAY

  Chapter 1

  Midnight.

  I sank a little lower in the front seat of my MG and sipped the last of my Scotch-laced coffee. Parked here in the shadows of Murphy’s Auto Repairs, the MG lined up with half a dozen wounded road warriors, I was all but invisible. And bored. I had nothing to do but listen to the creak of Murphy’s rickety sign as it swayed in the wind, and watch the occasional pair of car headlights go past on the road to the airport. And wait. I am not a patient waiter.

  A particularly icy gust of wind swept across the highway from the ocean, and I shivered, zipping my windbreaker higher and jamming my hands into my pockets. Why hadn’t I remembered my gloves? Late October on Vancouver Island is definitely gloves weather. I wiggled my fingers, and the note I had received—the note which had brought me to this desolate stretch of highway—crinkled in my palm. It had come to my home by registered mail two days ago. Written in longhand on a page torn from a yellow lined writing tablet, it read:

  I need to hire you to take delivery of a package. Please meet me at the Donut Stop on Saanich Highway at midnight on Sunday, October 25. Thanks.

  Shrew

  High melodrama indeed! But the note had come accompanied by ten crisp one-hundred-dollar bills, which were now reposing safely in my wallet. If, as the wags say, money talks, then those ten crisp bills positively warbled. For I was broke. I might ordinarily have turned down such a strange proposition, but October had been a rough month. In the course of two weeks, I had to treat myself to a root canal and a rebuilt engine for my MG. Ouch. My savings account was dead empty. So I made an exception to my own First Commandment (Thou Shalt Take No Off-the-Wall Clients) and agreed to this nocturnal rendezvous. However, just to be on the safe side, I parked one establishment down from the Donut Stop, at Murphy’s. This situation was tailor-made for a set-up, and I had no intention of being the settee. I’d let Shrew drive up to the Donut Stop and then decide if I wanted to take this mysterious package.

  “Okay, Shrew,” I muttered. “It’s midnight. I’m freezing my hindquarters off and missing my sleep. Let’s get on with it.”

  But nothing happened. The wind moaned a little louder through the branches of the Garry oaks, Murphy’s sign creaked more ominously, and a tangle of paper cups, hamburger wrappers, and newspapers went scudding across the deserted parking lot in a crazy polka. Somewhere nearby an owl hooted—a mournful, tremulous sound. I turned, checking out the parking lot for gremlins, and saw the bulk of Mount Douglas looming like a mute, hulking beast against the sky. Suddenly I remembered—in a few days it would be Hallowe’en, the night when witches were abroad, speeding along the roads on their errands of mischief. I snorted. In North America, Hallowe’en has become nothing more than a children’s celebration, a meaningless night of freeloading and silly costumes. But Hallowe’en is a Celtic celebration, and in my family, anyhow, Hallowe’en was a very special day. It marked the end of autumn and the beginning of winter, and on the Rhys farm in Wales, huge bonfires called Samhnagen had been lighted year after year for centuries to call the poor shivering ghosts of our family’s dead in from their wanderings.

  Although I had certainly never seen such a bonfire, the idea was oddly appealing. My grandmother Meadhbh (or, in the anglicized version she hated—Maeve) explained it all to me when I was very young. If farmers took pains to move cows and sheep from the summer pastures into the barns where they could be cared for during the winter, should they do any less for the spirits of their beloved departed? No, she stated firmly. Farmers always lit bonfires on the hills to call the newly dead home for one evening of warmth and hospitality before they went on their way to the spirit world. I know Meadhbh was disappointed that we couldn’t have a Samhnagen in the little bungalow where we lived in Ottawa, but life in the modern world was a constant disappointment to her.

  As was I, I reflected. The night she died, she took my hands in hers and made me promise to build her a Samhnagen. Faithless grandchild that I was, I never had.

  While I brooded, watching the night sky, a silver fingernail paring of moon pushed its way out from behind Mount Doug and hung in the sky like a crack in the curtained window of heaven. I was getting morose, thinking of my Grandma and my childhood, and resolved to put such thoughts aside. Where the hell was Shrew, anyhow? I peeled back my sleeve and looked at my watch. Twenty after twelve. Ten more minutes, then I was heading home to a hot bath and my bed.

  A pair of headlights turned into the little Donut Stop parking lot, and I sat up straight. At last. With a protesting squeal of tires, a dark-colored VW Bug roared into the lot and stopped, motor idling.

  I slipped out the driver’s door of the MG, keeping the bulk of Murphy’s clients between me and the VW, and crept through the shadows until I was behind Shrew’s car. A battered Honda Civic and ten feet of asphalt were now all that lay between us. Finally the VW’s driver rolled down the window and a curly, blonde head emerged. The driver was clearly taking a good look around.

  As was I. If this was a setup, it was too clever for me. I had checked things out pretty thoroughly earlier, and was as sure as I could be that there wasn’t another soul anywhere. Still, I patted the bulk of my .357 as I straightened up from the shadows and walked up to the driver’s side of the VW, nice and slow. As I had intended, the driver saw me. The blonde head swiveled as I approached and a voice called to me over the roar of the idling motor. The voice belonged to a young woman. A frightened young woman.

  “Are you Caitlin?”

  “Yeah,” I called back. “Who are you?”

  “Shrew,” she said. She looked back nervously over her shoulder. “It’s no good. They’re onto me,” she called, her voice breaking. Frightened? Amend that to terrified. “I’m going to throw some things in the dumpster by the highway. Get them when it’s clear. I’ll call you later. And don’t come after me. Just do what I ask. Please.”

  “But—”

  The screech of tires cut me off. Fairly leaping off the asphalt, the little Bug went careening out of the parking lot, and as it passed the large metal dumpster, I saw a flash of white as Shrew tossed something in. For my part, I beat a hasty retreat back to Murphy’s and crouched down behind the battered Honda Civic. Not a moment too soon, either. A big, late-model American car—a Buick Century or an Olds Cutlass by its lines—rocketed into the Donut Stop, slowed for a heartbeat or two, then hurtled toward the exit driveway. I had one fleeting glimpse of two male profiles—one bearded and sharp-featured, one bushy-haired and blunt-featured—as the car shot past. I squinted, and was barely able to make out the first three letters of the license plate—BRY. Then, with a shower of sparks from a low-slung muffler, the bigger car disappeared into the darkness toward Victoria.

  I dithered for a moment, tempted to follow, but recalled what the young woman had said. Who was I to argue? After all—I had been hired to retrieve the package. Nothing more.

  Still, I crouched behind the Civic in the shadows, hesitating. Even though no one had popped out of the bushes, I still didn’t like this one bit. Packages that can’t be delivered in the light of day, by UPS or Federal Express or even the postal service, usually have nasty, embarrassing, or incriminating contents. I had already decided that if the package contained drugs or money, this was a game I did not want to play. Frightened or not, Shrew would have to find someone else.

  I walked over to my car, took the flashlight out of the glove compartment, and headed for the highway. A cold finger of wind found its way down my collar, and my teeth began to chatter and I hurried over to the dumpster. Shining my light into its depths, I discovered to my dismay that it was far from empty.

  A layer of garbage—bagged and unbagged—lay two feet deep on the floor. I clamped my nostrils shut and tried to bre
athe through my mouth. Then, quickly, before I had a chance to change my mind, I heaved a leg up and over and let myself down into the smelly depths. Things I refused to imagine squished underfoot, and I resolutely told myself not to think about maggots. Or rats. The package Shrew had tossed in was right in the corner, and seemed to be a coarsely woven cotton sack. I bent and picked it up with my free hand, and as my fingers closed over the drawstring, something inside seemed to squirm.

  “Jesus Christ!” I exclaimed, dropping the drawstring and leaping backward. Shining the flashlight on the sack, I saw that it was indeed squirming. “Oh, shit,” I whispered. Now what? I swallowed, gingerly reached for the drawstring, and pulled the sack toward me. It was heavier than I expected—maybe five pounds. And now I had no choice but to pick it up. Holding the sack at arm’s length, I waded through the garbage back to the side of the dumpster, then dropped my load outside. Vaulting out, I landed on the asphalt beside it. Fortunately it wasn’t squirming. I felt encouraged. Maybe it hadn’t squirmed at all. Maybe it had been my imagination. I shone the light on it, and to my dismay, the sack gave a convulsive heave.

  I estimated the distance between the dumpster and the trunk of my car to be about fifty feet. I could be there in five or six seconds. Grabbing the sack by the drawstring, I held it as far away from my body as I could. Then I hustled myself over to my car, fishing the keys out of my pocket as I went. I opened the trunk lid, heaved the bag inside, and was just preparing to slam the lid down when I heard a sound. From the sack.

  “Maair,” a voice said mournfully, hopelessly.

  “What?” I asked in amazement.

  “Meeeaair,” it reiterated, with a great deal more feeling this time.

  “No,” I said, my numb fingers wrestling with the sack’s drawstring. “It can’t be.”

  But it was. As soon as I had loosened the drawstring, a head popped out. A cat’s head. A small, striped tabby head, which swiveled in the direction of my voice. But there was something terribly wrong. I bent closer, an atavistic dread gripping me. What in hell had happened to its eyes? With a cry, I stuffed the cat back into the sack, slammed the trunk, leaped into my car, and burned rubber out of the parking lot and onto the highway.

  Chapter 2

  I stood in the cold wind, the cat in the sack clutched in one arm, and pounded on Gray Ng’s front door.

  “Be home,” I prayed, my teeth chattering. “And please hurry up.”

  A light went on somewhere inside, and I heard footsteps. I knew I was being inspected through the little peephole in the massive oak door, and I stepped back a little to let the porch light shine on me. I heard locks being turned, and finally the door opened.

  Gray stood there in jeans and a navy sweatshirt. Her two enormous brindled Great Danes—the girls—flanked her. “Caitlin,” she said, as pleasantly as though I had dropped in for afternoon tea. “Come in.”

  “I’m sorry to wake you,” I said as she closed and locked the door behind me.

  “Oh, you didn’t,” she said matter-of-factly. “I wasn’t asleep. I was working on a report for a client.” She smiled, motioning me into the living room. “Animal psychologists and detectives have at least one thing in common—late hours.”

  “I’m certainly glad of that,” I told her. “At this hour of the night I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go with this.”

  “What do you have there?” she asked.

  I looked over at the girls sitting alertly by Gray’s armchair, and visions of a cat and dog circus flitted through my mind. One of the girls yawned, showing a remarkable array of sharp white teeth. “Humor me on this one,” I told her. “Let’s go into the bathroom.”

  Gray’s eyes followed mine to the girls. “Very well,” she said, amusement in her voice.

  In the bathroom, once I had made certain that the door was firmly closed, I set the sack down on the countertop. “I think you’d better take it from here.”

  Gray untied the sack and looked inside. I heard the forceful exhalation of her breath, but other than that, she gave no reaction. She gently lifted the cat out of the sack, stood him on the counter, and kneeled down so they were on eye level. Or would have been if the cat could have seen anything. In the bright light of the bathroom, I could see that the little cat was a classic brown tabby, with a wonderful dark M on his forehead. I could also see the dried residue of some whitish substance that had oozed out from between his eyelids, and some wet, sticky-looking, greenish-yellow gelatinous stuff that looked like pus. Both eyes were gummed shut. I felt like throwing up. Gray petted him, and the cat relaxed visibly, finally sitting on the counter with his feet tucked neatly underneath him. Unbelievably, he began to purr. His head drooped a little, and he sighed gustily.

  Gray straightened up. “Jeoffrey,” she said definitively.

  The cat raised his head to the sound of her voice.

  She reached down and petted him again, and he resumed his rumbling purr.

  “We can leave him here for a few moments,” she told me. “I want to move him to one of the large cages in my back room. Come on. You can make coffee for us while I get his cage ready.”

  In Gray’s tiny, neat kitchen, I ground the coffee and turned on the gas underneath the kettle, not doubting for a moment that Gray now knew the cat’s name was Jeoffrey. How did she know? Well of course, he’d told her. I might have doubted anyone else, but not Gray. After all, how many people did I know who had been fired from their jobs as veterinary assistants for being witches? As I recalled, her boss had called her “a damned Asian witch.” Well at least he had been two-thirds accurate.

  It was only this past year that Gray had taken my suggestion and opened her animal psychology practice. She’d been talking to the animals for years, I told her, so why not try to make some money at it? Now three local vets referred their behavior problems to Gray. She had had clients as diverse as a Burmese python who persistently, and too enthusiastically, constricted its owner’s lover; a Scottie who went berserk and bit ankles whenever anyone walked over a certain floorboard; and a lilac point Siamese cat who routinely hid her owner’s brokerage statements.

  Gray appeared at my elbow as I was pouring the coffee into mugs. “Come,” she said. “We’ll go in the back and sit with Jeoffrey. He needs to hear friendly human voices.”

  “The girls?” I inquired warily.

  “They’re already there,” she said.

  And indeed they were, I saw as we went down the hall and into the back bedroom Gray kept for her resident clients. There were two large floor-to-ceiling cages in the room, each containing an old armchair, a litter pan, a raised platform with water and kibble dishes, a carpeted cat tree, and a high ledge. The doors which led to the outside runs were closed at this hour of the night. In front of one of the cages lay the girls, and just inside, on a mat, lay Jeoffrey, pressed as close to the big dogs as the mesh would allow. Gray took a seat at her desk and pulled a yellow writing tablet out of a drawer. I sat at the side of the desk in an easy chair sipping my coffee. Gray pressed a button on the stereo beside her desk, and a dissonant, yet strangely pleasant music filled the room.

  “Kitaro,” she said. “Cats like New Age music. This is the ‘Silk Road,’ I believe.” She looked up at me for just a moment; I saw the pain in her eyes, the flip side of her gift.

  Something from one of my university literature courses flitted through my mind: If we had keen vision and feeling, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heartbeat, and we should die of the roar that lies on the other side of silence. I always wondered if Gray heard that roar.

  Her eyes as flat and opaque as a seal’s, Gray looked off into a distance only she could see, and in that moment I knew as surely as I have ever known anything that I sat in the presence of a very old soul. For that instant I believed in reincarnation, and I almost understood what my friend was. Then I blinked, and the instant was gone. Gray was just a small Vietnamese woman in a worn navy sweatshirt, writing by lamplight. And I an over-
imaginative fool.

  “I’ll have a vet come and check the cat in the morning,” she said. “I’ll do what I can for him in the meantime. Also, he has a badly infected sore on his arm. I’ll get the vet to take care of that, too.” She sat back in her chair and looked at me. “So how did you acquire him?”

  I took a deep breath, and told her as much of the story as I knew. Ruefully, I had to admit it wasn’t much. “I’m not sure what comes next,” I said. “I guess Shrew will call me and I’ll hand him over.”

  Gray put down her pen and shook her head. “It won’t be that easy, I fear.”

  “Oh?”

  “Surely you know that Jeoffrey is a pawn in someone’s game.”

  I sighed. “I’m trying not to think about it. Whatever’s going on is no business of mine.”

  “Ah,” Gray said meaningfully.

  I refused to rise to the bait. I yawned, despite the coffee. “Gray, if I don’t go home to bed, I’m going to pass out and slide under your desk.” I handed over one of my crisp hundred-dollar bills. “This is an installment on his—on Jeoffrey’s—care.” I stood up, stretching. “Thanks for helping.”

  Gray walked me to the front door. The girls, I noted, had decided to stay behind with Jeoffrey. “Caitlin,” Gray said, stepping out onto the porch with me. “You must take care with this one.”

  I turned to look at her, surprised. Gray never gave me advice. “Well, okay,” I assured her, too startled to ask for elucidation.

  “Good,” she said, nodding as if we had sealed a bargain. “Very good. Now go home.”

  I pulled into my driveway just after two a.m., parked, and simply sat there, unable to summon up the energy to move. It was late, and my drive through the darkness to Gray’s with the cat in the sack crying in the trunk had exhausted my store of emotional energy. What would become of the cat, I wondered. Worse yet, what had happened to it? To Jeoffrey, if that was indeed its name. I didn’t want to think about it, but I found I couldn’t help myself. Who would mistreat an animal so?