Cat Under Fire Read online

  Joe said nothing. Dulcie had an answer for everything. There was no diverting her. She was into the case of Janet Jeannot's murder with all four paws. Earlier this summer, when they'd searched for clues to Samuel Beckwhite's killer, they couldn't help being involved; their own lives were threatened. They'd both seen Beckwhite struck down, had heard the thud of the wrench against his head, had seen Beckwhite fall. They had seen the assailant clearly. And the killer, somehow, had known they could inform the police. From the moment the man saw them, he knew they could finger him, and if he could have caught them, he would have snuffed them both.

  They had set out to solve the Beckwhite case because their own lives were at stake, but Janet Jeannot's murder was different.

  Dulcie stared at him deeply, her dark pupils slowly constricting to reveal emerald green as the dawn light increased. "Don't you want to see the real killer caught? You liked Janet; Clyde used to date Janet. You can't want her murderer to go free, gloating all the rest of his life while she lies dead."

  She nuzzled his face, licked his ear. "The first witness this morning is Janet's neighbor, that Elisa Trest. I really do want to hear what she'll say. Come on, Joe. Come on to the courthouse with me."

  He just looked at her.

  She sighed and started down the hill, pushing through the tall grass.

  No point in trying to talk sense to her, she was going to do as she pleased. Grumbling, he trotted down beside her keeping pace, half-angry, half-amused.

  But halfway down the first slope, she said, "There's a strange dog down there; I forgot. I don't see it now, but it followed me earlier, a huge dog."

  "I didn't see any dog when I came up. Except the boxer and the golden, those two cream puffs." Those dogs were no threat-they'd chase a cat for sport but were terrified of claws. If no other cats taught the village dogs proper manners, he and Dulcie did. They'd had some interesting chases over these hills. Though a smart cat never let snapping teeth get too close. Even a playful dog, when excited, could turn innocent play into a killing bite. One mouthful of cat, and a harmless canine could become a killer, tearing and rending before he knew what happened.

  "It was a big brown mutt," she said. "It stayed away from me, behind the bushes, but it watched and followed me. Well, it's probably harmless. After Mrs. Trest testifies I'm going up to Janet's burned studio again, and this time I mean to get inside even if it is boarded up."

  "You can't be serious."

  "Why not? Who knows what I'll find."

  "Come on, Dulcie. You watched the police sort and sift and photograph. We've been up there enough, across that burn. That's the last place I want to spend the day." The burned hills were hell on the paws, and the rank fumes stung their noses and eyes. And of course there was no game up there among the ashes; the creatures that didn't die in the fire, that had escaped, would not return to that barren waste.

  The fire had cut a half-mile swath through the lush green hillside, and had burned seven homes to the ground, leaving only two houses untouched. Dead, black trees stood bare against the sky, and the stink of burning was everywhere. The thought of padding through a half mile of cinders, broken glass, and sharp, twisted metal, did not appeal.

  But the thought of Dulcie's going up there alone was less acceptable. He glanced at her sideways. "Come by the house for me. But you'd better hope we find something to make it worth the trip."

  She gave him a sweet smile, and they moved on down through the tangled gardens, between comfortable little cottages, down across winding, residential streets. They crossed the narrow park that ran above Highway One where the road burrowed through its eight-block tunnel, then turned south two blocks to the wide green strip that divided Ocean Avenue. The parklike median marked the center of the village, running tree-shaded and cool along between the village shops toward the beach. Trotting down the springy, soft turf, they rustled through fallen leaves, scattering them with quick paws.

  The shops weren't open yet, but Joe and Dulcie could smell raw meat from the butcher's, could smell fresh bread and cinnamon buns from the bakery. They basked in the aroma of fresh fish, where a truck was unloading cardboard boxes of halibut and salmon. The workmen saw them looking and hissed at them to chase them away. The cats hissed back and turned their tails. They didn't pause until they reached Joe's street.

  There they touched noses, and Dulcie rubbed her face against his. "I'll come by later," she said, her green eyes catching the light. He watched her trot away toward the jail and courthouse, moving lightly as a little dancer, her tail waving, her curving stripes flashing dark and rich against the pale walls of the galleries and shops.

  Glancing across at the bookstore, he could see the clock in its window. Seven-thirty. She'd go to the jail first, climb the big oak tree to the third-floor windowsill, and lie looking in at Rob Lake, maybe share his breakfast-he liked to feed her little bits of sausage and egg through the wide-mesh barrier. She'd hang around listening to him play on her sympathy until court convened at nine.

  Turning away to his left, toward home, he raced across the grassy median to the northbound lane, gauged the slow-moving cars, and leaped across between them.

  At least if Dulcie had to solve puzzles, the murder of Janet Jeannot was better than agonizing over the mystery of their own pasts. They'd done enough of that this summer. Their sudden onslaught of uncatlike thoughts, and their ability to speak human words had been a shocker. When Joe had first experienced his new and alarming talent, he had tried to remain cool and laidback. Scared as he was, he'd attempted to handle the matter with some restraint. But not Dulcie. She had exploded into her new life with wild eagerness, embracing her sudden new talents with hot feline passion. Wanting to learn everything about the world all at once, trying to make sense of the entire universe, she'd just about driven him crazy. Even watching TV had become a challenge as she soaked up information

  Ever since she had been a kitten, Dulcie had watched TV with her elderly housemate. Curled cozily on Wilma Getz's lap, she had basked in the music and motion of the programs, and in the incomprehensible but fascinating voices. Then suddenly this summer, when she had begun to understand human words, she'd fixed her attention on the programs, eagerly lapping up the smallest detail. Sitting rigid on Wilma's lap, like a little furry scholar, she had soaked up the daunting new experiences and ideas as if, her entire life, she had been waiting for this moment to learn and discover.

  Good thing Wilma has some taste in what she watches. Though even Dulcie had better sense than to shape her total view of the world from TV.

  Leaving Ocean behind him, Joe sped down the sidewalk the three blocks to his own front yard, to the small white Cape Cod that he shared with his own human housemate. Joe and Clyde's cottage, snuggled comfortably beneath the sheltering oaks, was a somewhat decrepit structure, mossy around the foundation, and with a green-tinged, mossy roof, the shingles loose where a reaching branch had been at them. Clyde grumbled hugely about having to replace a few shingles, though he wouldn't dream of trimming the trees. Nor did he do much else to pretty up the property, except mow the ragged grass. But the worn old place was home, cozy and safe.

  Clyde Damen was thirty-eight, once married, before Joe's time. He was stocky and dark-haired. He liked professional boxing, liked all competitive sports. He worked out with weights regularly, an activity which he performed with much grunting in the spare bedroom, lying sandwiched between his battered desk and the guest bed. He loved his beer and his women; though he had grown far more selective, these last couple of years, in choosing the latter. Joe never could figure what women saw in Clyde, but they were always there, laughing, drinking beer with him, cooking his suppers.

  Clyde had rescued Joe from the gutter as a half-grown kitten, where he lay fevered from a broken, infected tail. That was in San Francisco, and not in the best section of the city. One might say that Joe had been born on the wrong side of Market Street. Clyde had been driving up Mission when he saw Joe lying in the gutter. He said later Joe ha
d looked like a bit of trash, and then like maybe a dead rat, but something had made him stop short, squealing his brakes.

  Getting out, he had crouched over Joe, had touched him tentatively, then carefully examined him for broken bones.

  When he found only the tail broken, he had gathered Joe up and taken him to the vet, then home to his small Sutter Street apartment. There Clyde had cared for him like a baby, had doctored him, spoon-fed him, and given him pills, talking baby talk to him. They had not been parted since.

  They had moved from San Francisco to Molena Point a year later, and it was in the village, back in the summer, that Joe's strange metamorphosis occurred. Clyde had been surprisingly stoic about the matter.

  Trotting across the ragged grass that Clyde euphemistically called a lawn, Joe leaped up the concrete steps and slid in through his cat door, wincing, as he always did, when the plastic flap dropped against his back If humans can go to the moon, can't they invent a more comfortable cat door? What's with human priorities?

  He crossed the living room, passing the dining room that Clyde seldom used. The instant he pawed open the kitchen door, the menagerie hit him like a kamikaze attack, the two big dogs pranced around, stepping on his toes, slobbering in his face, the three cats preening and pushing at him, inanely waving their tails.

  The scent of fresh coffee filled the kitchen, and he could hear Clyde in the shower. Fending off the friendly, stupid dogs, he leaped up to the kitchen table. The old Lab and the elderly golden stood on their hind legs, staring at him, then at last resumed their pacing, waiting for Clyde to come out and fix their breakfasts. The three cats wound around the table legs, mewling as if Joe himself might open their cat food. The cats had treated him with great deference since the change in his life.

  He gave them a patronizing stare and turned his back. They knew they weren't allowed on the table. And, while they didn't often mind Clyde, they minded him. The poor things never had figured out why, suddenly, he was so alarmingly different, but they respected that difference. Well hell, I hardly know, myself, what's happened to me and Dulcie.

  All he and Dulcie knew was that their species seemed to go very far back into history, into Egypt and into the medieval Celtic villages. Clyde and Wilma had done enough research to turn up some spectacular and unsettling implications. In the Molena Point Library, they had found references to Irish burial mounds with doors opening down into them, doors carved with pictures of cats. Had found, in Egyptian and Celtic and Italian history, tales of people vanishing and cats suddenly appearing instead, tales that made Joe's whiskers bristle with unease.

  He liked his new talents fine; he didn't need to go into some elusive background. He was what he was. A talking cat. Brighter than many humans, clever and talented. He didn't need all the hyperbole.

  But Dulcie seemed fascinated that somewhere there were others like themselves, and she was intrigued by the further talents that they might yet discover in themselves-matters on which he would rather not speculate.

  Now, atop the kitchen table, he sat down on the morning paper, reading quickly. The whole front page was given over to Rob Lake's trial. There might be famine, flood, and war in the rest of the world, millions dying, but you'd never see it in the Molena Point Gazette, not until this trial was resolved and Rob Lake was either convicted or released.

  DAY THREE. AMES CALLS FOR DELAY. EVIDENCE SHAKY.

  So the evidence was shaky. So, big deal. Couldn't the local reporters find anything else to write about?

  But, he thought uneasily, what if Dulcie's right? What if Lake didn't kill Janet? Could be, if Dulcie keeps poking around looking for the real killer, she's going to get herself hurt.

  Despite Dulcie's human perceptions, she was still a cat, small and delicate, heartbreakingly vulnerable. If she made too many waves, if she exhibited her strange talents too openly, she could end up in deep trouble.

  Already one man in Molena Point had realized they weren't normal cats and had tried to kill them. And maybe other people knew.

  Worrying about Dulcie, wishing she'd come to her senses, he sighed and stretched full-length across the newspaper. So who can reason with her? She's going to keep on pressing until someone hurts her-or until she solves the damned murder.

  2

  The Molena Point jail stood across a narrow alley from the police department and courthouse. Its ancient brick structure was well past its prime but solid as the proverbial brick outhouse, and Police Captain Harper fought each attempt to condemn the jail and tear it down. Its proximity to the station was convenient for new bookings and court case confinements, so his officers did not have to transport prisoners to and from the county lockup. The property, however, in the center of the village, was so valuable for commercial purposes that every year there was a battle. So far, Harper had prevailed. The back of the jail faced the police parking lot behind the station, and was shaded by a gnarled oak, its branches caressing the barred jailhouse windows.

  Three stories above the alley, Dulcie crouched in the knotted, twisted tree, gazing intently across empty space to the window of Rob Lake's cell. On the brick windowsill two dozen pigeons strutted, dirtying the bars, eyeing her, and cooing inanely in their conviction that no cat could reach them across empty space. Peabrains. Can't they remember I've leaped that chasm every day for a week?

  Gathering herself, fixing her attention on the narrow brick sill, she tightened down, flexed her haunches, lashed her tail, and sailed across. Pigeons exploded away loud as a clap of thunder.

  Moving along the sill between pigeon droppings, she pressed against the bars and wire mesh. The high degree of security amused her. Max Harper took no chances with his prisoners. Below her in the dim cell, Rob sat hunched on his unmade bunk, his head in his hands, unaware of her. Hadn't even glanced up at the explosion of pigeon wings. He'd made no effort to clean himself up for the day, his brown hair was rumpled from sleep, his face stubbly, his prison blues wrinkled. His bedsheet and dingy blanket were in a tangle, his pillow fallen to the floor.

  He was a young man, nice enough looking, though his soft face was perhaps a bit weak, a bit sullen. Maybe his very weakness drew her, stirred her pity-my maternal instincts, Joe says-and kept her coming back. He always seemed so happy to see her, as if she was perhaps the only visitor he had, besides his attorney.

  And who could warm to that attorney? Deonne Baron might be a good defense lawyer, but she was abrupt and cold, and spoke with a harsh, precise voice that gave Dulcie a cat-sized headache. She could hardly bear to listen to Baron in court, had developed a deep, snarling dislike of the woman.

  Now, she stared down into the cell at Rob's bent head, and mewled softly.

  He looked up and grinned. The desolation, which showed for only an instant, left his face. He rose and came to the window, reaching up to press his fingers through the wire mesh and pet her. "Glad you're here, cat. I was getting the sweats real bad; the walls were closing in." He looked her over, reached a finger to rub her ear. "I don't know why, cat, but you always make me feel better. Somehow you take away the trapped feeling."

  He frowned, scratched his stubbled cheek. "Another day in court. More endless testimony. And for what? They all think I killed her."

  He looked at her deeply. "Why do you come here, cat? I'm sure glad you do, but hell, I don't even feed you, except a few scraps, sometimes. And I can't really pet you very well through all this metal. What brings you here, kitty? My sweet jailhouse smell?" He pressed his hand harder against the wire, seeking her warmth. She pressed back, rubbing her face against the cold wire, then winding back and forth on the narrow ledge, looking in at him inquiringly. Usually an inquiring look would get him to talk; this was how she had gotten him to tell her how he felt about Janet. He had sworn to her that he didn't kill Janet. And why would he lie to a cat?

  Joe said maybe Rob was a pathological liar, maybe he'd rather lie than tell the truth, even to a cat, that maybe he lied to himself, too. Or maybe he liked to practice his lies on her,
polishing them for his next court appearance.

  But Joe was wrong. Rob Lake did not kill Janet.

  She knew he felt trapped, trapped in the tiny cell, and trapped most of all by a legal system that should have protected him. Rob seemed, as the trial progressed, to grow more and more despondent. As if the whole world was against him, as if he didn't have a chance. And when he talked about Janet, Dulcie knew he had loved her, that he couldn't have hurt her.

  Janet's death had shaken the whole village. The young artist had been such a bright part of Molena Point life, and so beautiful, her long pale hair, her slim build and easy stride, her cheerful, unassuming presence. She didn't fuss over her looks-she never wore makeup, and she usually dressed in old, worn jeans, which often had a welding burn or a paint stain. Of all their local artists, Molena Point had loved Janet best, and had loved her paintings best. Her big, splashy interpretations of the wind-driven rocky coves, her tiny cottages tucked between the huge and windy hills, were subjects which, treated by a lesser painter, would have been trite, but to which Janet brought a powerful vibrancy and magic. Dulcie had been deeply touched by her work. The transition Janet accomplished, turning an ordinary bit of the world into something new and wondrous, seemed to mirror exactly the transition in Dulcie's own life-from ordinary cat self into a world exploding with vistas and possibilities she'd never before guessed at.

  She missed Janet, missed seeing her around the village, missed her casual visits to Wilma's when she would pop by for a cup of coffee and a few minutes of comfortable talk. The day of the fire, after Janet's body had been taken away, Dulcie came home and crept under the couch into the quiet dark and curled down into a little ball, her nose pressed to her flank, her tail tight around herself. No one but Wilma or Joe could understand how a cat could grieve for a human.