Cat Telling Tales (13 page)

Joe hoped Max could keep it that way. Maybe, one way or another, Erik Kraft had used some pull to stifle questions about Billy. When Davis left, the tomcat slipped up the hall and out through the glass door, on the heels of an unhappy young woman who had just paid a stout traffic ticket. Scrambling up the oak tree, he headed fast for the hills and the neighborhood where Dulcie's phone call had so abruptly ended. It was always touchy to break into a house and use a stranger's phone and not be overheard, to get out again fast, before you were discovered.

Even the matter of using their own phones, at home, was stressful. Clyde's and Ryan's, and Wilma's phones all had caller ID blocking, but you never knew when it would fail. After the Damens' phones had done that twice, Clyde did a daily check on the house phones, to be safe. Wilma had researched the possibility of falsifying their numbers, but such a call had to be made through a computer, and that was more than a cat in a hurry could deal with.

No, there had to be a better way. He hadn't really addressed the problem fully, but one idea had promise—he should have checked it out when he had the chance, before he woke to see flames licking at the sky, before all hell broke loose. Annoyed at himself for his procrastination, he headed fast up the hills. Leaping from oak limb to roof and across the chasms of narrow alleys, he could only pray his lady hadn't, while making that call, stepped with all four paws into a tangle of trouble.

15

T
he rough wood siding of Ryan and Clyde's remodel badly needed paint, the roof looked frail even for a cat to walk on, the yard resembled an untended vacant lot given over to stray dogs. The neighborhood, even at midday, seemed dark, the clouds low, the giant cypress trees, originally planted far apart as spindly saplings, now spread their reaching arms over the frail cottages as if to bury them. The Damens had bought their gray board-and-batten shack just after Christmas but so far had done no work at all as Ryan finished up Hanni's remodel, and a new house, pushing their own investment aside. The one-bedroom dwelling was as grim inside as out; Debbie Kraft would have to make do with a good cleaning, provided she was willing. Having pushed into their lives uninvited, demanding bed and board, how could she refuse to work for her shelter?

How, indeed?
Ryan thought as she pulled the king cab onto the cracked drive, waving Debbie in to park beside her. It was over an hour since they'd left home in their two-vehicle parade, she and Clyde trying not to lose their tempers as they detoured for Debbie to buy groceries, again when she insisted they swing by the school Vinnie would be attending, and the nearest day care for Tessa. “So I'll know where these things are,” Debbie said. “Life will be hard enough if I have to get a job, with two children to take care of.” She didn't ask if Ryan and Clyde had time for side trips, or if this particular day care was safe and caring; her concern was that it was convenient, as close as possible to the cottage. “If I have to go to work, I can't be running all over dragging kids, I won't have the time for that.” Even Rock looked disgusted, he'd had enough of Debbie's brassy voice. Ryan had to grin when she thought what Joe would have said. She didn't know where he'd gone, but he'd disappeared in a flash the minute they started loading the car.

Now, the minute Debbie parked, Vinnie piled out, stood scowling at the frame shack, the front door peeling long strips of gray paint, the rusty window screens deeply dented, two of them torn, and a long crack across the corner of the front window.

“I'm not staying here,” Vinnie said. Turning, she stared between the trees, up the hill to where the woods ended, where the houses were larger and well kept, the gardens trimmed and bright with sun, and her gaze fixed on the rambling white brick house with its deep front patio. “I want to stay up
there,
I want to go back
there,
that's—”

“Go unload the car,” Debbie snapped, grabbing her arm.

“Why can't we—”

“Unload the car. Now.”

Ryan and Clyde, glancing at each other, watched the two with interest. Why would the child fix on a strange house, what did she mean, “go back there”? What was that about?

Earlier, stopping at the little village grocery, they had taken the two little girls into the king cab while Debbie went in to do her shopping. Watching the kids gave them an excuse not to accompany her, not to be present at the checkout to watch her fumble over her purse, making excuses that she was short of cash. In the pickup, Vinnie had sat in the front seat between them, sulking, while Tessa crawled into the backseat and snuggled up with Rock. It wasn't long until Vinnie crawled in back, too, crowding her sister. Taking off her shoe, she began to poke it at Rock, jamming the toe into his silky hide so that Rock was forced to either snap at her or scramble away to the far corner. He scrambled, lunging away as Ryan reached over and snatched the shoe.

“You do that again, Vinnie, you'll get this shoe, hard, across your backside.”

Vinnie had stared at her defiantly, while four-year-old Tessa moved closer to Rock, smoothing her hand gently down his sleek shoulder. The Weimaraner nosed at her with infinite patience, though her small hand must surely have tickled. As Tessa stroked his satiny warmth, a little smile bloomed on the child's face. Only when Vinnie began talking about Hesmerra's death did Tessa's face crumple. “Our grandmother burned to death,” Vinnie said, standing up on the seat watching with satisfaction as Tessa's tears welled up.

“Your gran did not burn to death,” Ryan said. “Your grandmother was already in heaven when the fire started. The fire didn't hurt her at all.”

“There's no such thing as heaven. How do you know she was dead?”

“I read the coroner's report. The doctor who did the death investigation.”

Vinnie smiled wickedly. “That's where they cut your body open, take out all your insides, and cut them up in little pieces.”

Tessa went white. Clyde looked like he could happily take the coroner's knife to Vinnie.
What can you expect?
Ryan thought
. Look how Debbie was about Hesmerra's death, hard as nails. Her own mother.
She reached back and took Tessa's hand. “Your grandmother is in heaven. When she died, she left her body behind. She flew right out of that body, she doesn't need it anymore, she's an angel now, and she can fly free.” This might be unorthodox, might seem trite to an adult, but it was what four-year-old Tessa needed to hear—and it was infinitely effective. Tessa clutched Ryan's hand, looking up at her, her brown eyes trusting, wanting very much to believe her.

“Do you know how a caterpillar makes its little nest?” Ryan said.

The child nodded. “A cocoon. They showed us in Sunshine School.”

“That's right, it wraps itself all in silk and goes to sleep. And do you know what happens when it wakes up?”

Tessa wiped at her tears.

“When it crawls out of its silk nest, it's no longer a caterpillar. It has turned into a beautiful butterfly, as beautiful as a princess. It spreads its wings and flies away on the soft wind.” Ryan stroked Tessa's hair. “For a person to be dead is just the same. When your gran died, she slept for a little while all warm and safe just like the butterfly. She woke up in a most beautiful place, and she had turned into a lovely young woman, even more beautiful than when she was young, in this world.” Ryan didn't dare look at Clyde; she could feel him raise an eyebrow. She only knew that she believed what she said, she believed something like that happened—and that right now, Tessa needed to believe it, she needed not to dwell on her sister's ugly interpretation.

“Mama doesn't want a funeral,” Vinnie told them. “She said—”

“That's enough, Vinnie.”

“If there's a funeral she has to see Aunt Esther. Mama says no one can choose what kind of sister or relatives they get.”

Ryan sighed. “I'm sure that's true. If Tessa could choose her sister, she'd surely choose a kinder and more caring child than you.”

Vinnie glared, and turned away scowling, fiddling with the button on her sweater. She looked up again only when Debbie passed by the pickup wheeling a grocery cart full of bulging paper bags, heading for her car. Clyde put his hand on the door meaning to get out and help her, but Ryan stopped him with a scowl. She didn't enjoy being cruel, but if you gave Debbie an inch, she was all over you. They watched her cram the bags into her car, into the spaces the children had left when they changed cars. The meal choices Ryan could see sticking up looked to be all boxes of crackers, cookies, and quick-fix meals full of unpronounceable chemicals. No sign of fresh fruits or vegetables, the items that would ordinarily be on top. When the car was loaded, Ryan headed for the day-care center where Debbie meant to park Tessa while Vinnie was in school. Their two vehicles paused before the one-story redwood complex only long enough for Debbie to take a look, then they led her on up the hill eight blocks to the rambling elementary with its dark-shingled roofs. Location, close proximity to where she'd be living, was apparently far more important to Debbie than the safety and quality of either establishment. Ryan had pointed out where the school bus stopped, and then headed on up to the cottage.

Two centuries earlier, this hill had been open grazing land, part of the vast open ranges inhabited by longhorn cattle, and by deer, cougar, and grizzly bear. When civilization overtook the wild, when the land was broken up and cross-fenced into smaller ranches, and then later into farms, this hill had become pasture for dairy cows. In the nineteen thirties, several small adjoining hillside farms were bought up by a retired civil engineer who thought to construct a community of vacation cottages and rent them out. He built the little houses solidly enough, but without any discernible imagination. As he grew older he had sold off many of the cottages as second homes or income rentals. Some of the buyers added porches, second-floor bedrooms, walled patios. In subsequent years the houses were turned over again and again as the market inflated. Everyone made a profit as real estate prices soared. Then suddenly, under changed federal laws, mortgages were easier to obtain: One hardly needed a down payment or any collateral at all. A buying frenzy began among families with little or no savings. Soon the new owners were maxing out their credit cards on new cars, a motorcycle, an RV or fast boat, trusting the government to bail them out when they let their mortgage payments slide. There was always tomorrow, they and the government were in this together, Uncle Sam would help them out. Thus was the beginning of the financial landslide, repeated a million times over combined with more complicated economic manipulations, at government level, until the bottom fell out, the stock market dropped, businesses began to close, folks lost their investments and lost their jobs.

When the default on home loans mounted, homes were repossessed and the occupants left the area. Folks who had kept cash and real assets at hand began to buy up abandoned, repossessed homes. Ryan and Clyde bought three cottages with cash from the sales of the antique cars Clyde had so lovingly restored. They meant to improve their purchases, wait for the market to pick up again, make a good profit, and leave something nice in the place of neglected and empty dwellings.

Erik Kraft was one of the first and heaviest buyers, making purchases all over the village. Though he had made no discernible improvements in the shabbier places, he had already turned over nearly half of them at a profit. He'd give a place a rough mowing and trimming and, in the worst cases, a coat of cheap paint. Ironic, Ryan thought, that Erik's estranged wife would be living—practically in poverty, as she put it—in the very area where Erik must already have made a couple of million dollars' worth of clear profit.

But the saddest victims of the downturn, Ryan thought, were the abandoned pets left behind like broken toys for trash pickup, innocent animals who had become victims of a vast financial war. So far CatFriends, her volunteer group, had taken in nine dogs and trapped twenty-three abandoned cats, settling them all in volunteer foster homes until new and permanent homes could be found. Ryan wasn't sure how many creatures the local Animal Friends group had saved, as well, but the two organizations tried to help each other. Yet even with the work of over two dozen volunteers, the police continued to field complaints about stray cats.

Calls came in not only about abandoned animals around the empty homes, but about the cottages themselves. Often, lights came on late at night in empty, unoccupied houses, then soon went dark again. Rented houses had half a dozen decrepit cars parked in the drive and on the street, and many had trash piled up in the yards. And then, of course, there was the meth house, bulging black trash bags stacked in the side yard, to be hauled away in the small hours. That was why the department had been alerted, the black plastic bags smelling strongly of chemicals. Strangest of all, perhaps, was a
FOR SALE
sign going up in the weedy yard of a decrepit cottage, soon to come down again as if the house had been sold, but then to be replaced a week later. Another
FOR SALE
sign. Another apparent sale, then soon another sign, in a seemingly endless two-step.

Ryan's sister, Hanni, had bought one of the cottages early on, before the blight was apparent, and had at once set about restoring it, contracting with Ryan to do the heavy professional work; Hanni was an interior designer, not a builder. When events in the neighborhood began to make her nervous, still she moved ahead. Now, the renovation was almost finished, waiting for the interior hardware and window shutters, while Ryan and Clyde hadn't yet begun on their own remodel. At least now their shabby investment would have an occupant. When Ryan pushed the front door open the cold, damp wind caught it, slamming it against the wall. She stepped aside so Debbie could enter, directly into the living room.

Standing in the open doorway, you could see right on into the bedroom and the tiny bath beyond, and with a full view of the kitchen to the left. There was no furniture, only a very old refrigerator in the corner of the little kitchen and an ancient gas cook stove that Ryan had been assured by her plumber wouldn't blow up or asphyxiate anyone. If the house had any virtue it was the high, raftered ceiling and strong beams, the surprisingly solid construction. This was its one redeeming feature—plus the location and price, she thought, hearing again Joe Grey's caustic remarks about their obsessive bargain hunting.

As Clyde joined her on the tiny porch, putting his arm around her, Vinnie crowded in past them, scuffing her shoes across the dusty gray linoleum that floored all the rooms. She peered with disgust into the small, dim bedroom and ancient kitchen. “I'm not staying here, we can't live
here
.” Moving to the grimy window, she stood looking up the hill. “There's real beds up there, we—”

“We have our sleeping bags,” Debbie snapped. “Bring in your toys and shoes.”

“But I don't—”

“Now!” Debbie said, her glare silencing the child. Clyde had started to speak when, above them, a hard thump hit the roof. They all four stepped back, as if the ceiling might give way. Next minute, a scrambling of claws shook the cypress tree beside the house, and Joe Grey leaped down to the hood of the king cab. While Debbie's attention was diverted, Vinnie raced out across the yard and was gone, running up the street, her long blond hair whipped by the cold wind, her fists clenched. Behind her Tessa appeared from nowhere, racing after her. Debbie ran after them, yelling as if they were runaway dogs escaped from their leashes. Ryan pressed her face against Clyde's shoulder, trying hard not to laugh.