Catwalk (22 page)

forty-five

Alberta stepped toward the
mess that once was the clean and tidy feral cat shelter.

“Wait,” I said. “Don't touch a thing. Call the police. I'll get some photos while you do that.”

She looked at me and nodded, her face very pale. She held a hand to her chest and said, “The cats.”

“I'll look around. Come here,” I said, looping an arm around her shoulders and guiding her to a golf cart parked up against the club house wall. A piece of paper was taped to the seat. Rain and ice had obliterated most of the writing, but I made out enough to know the thing was out of commission. It still had seats, though, so I sat Alberta behind the wheel. “Call the police.” I was worried about her, but short of taking her home, I couldn't think of anything to do better than keep her occupied. Besides, I knew she wouldn't leave until I checked on the cats. The question was, where should I look? They weren't likely to shout “here we are” after what must have been a traumatic experience.

I clicked off a series of shots, recording the damage from all sides. I had never used the video function on my camera, but this seemed like a good time to give it a trial run. I panned across the entire scene, slowly taking in the surrounding structures, the edge of the golf course, and houses in the distance. I walked slowly toward a clump of naked forsythia, thinking that if any cats were around, they would be hunkered down in whatever hidey holes they could find, watching.

It took me two trips around the sprawl of yellow-brown branches
before I saw anything remotely feline, but finally I spotted a tuft of black fur fluttering from the sharp end of a broken twig. A minute movement caught my attention, and I stared into the tangled branches and debris toward the center of the shrubs.
There
. Once I saw the cat, I couldn't
not
see him, but I marveled at the camouflage that made that first awareness so elusive.

“Hi, kitty,” I said very softly. “Are you okay?” The cat was a big gray tabby. One ear was missing its tip, marking it as a trapped, neutered, and released member of the colony. “Did you see who made that mess over there?” I knelt, sinking my knee into a mat of cold, wet leaves. “Where are all your friends?”

The cat didn't come to me, but seemed to relax. I raised my camera, took a couple of photos, and slowly panned the underbrush in hopes that my viewfinder would show me something I hadn't noticed. It did. Another cat, a black-and-gold tortoiseshell, was tucked into a nest of branches about five feet from the tabby. “Pretty girl,” I said. “Everything will be okay.” She looked like she had her doubts. I checked the whole sprawling mass of vegetation again, but those were apparently the only cats holed up there at the moment.

I walked all around the club house and peered under the shrubbery and planters, earning some semi-hostile stares from a group of well-coiffed older women on their way to the front door. No cats. I was almost back to where I had left Alberta when I noticed someone watching. The sweatshirt was different—mustard yellow instead of navy—but I was sure it was the same person who had been watching me at the pond. He, or she, was too far away for me to get a good view, so I raised my camera and
click click clicked
. I expected him to turn away, but for a long moment there was no reaction. Then the figure raised one languid arm, gave me the finger, and walked away.
That was interesting
. I'd be able to see who it was soon enough, I thought.

The weather hadn't been bad for November when I started out from home, but the wind was beginning to pick up and the temperature was dropping. Low, blue-gray clouds had arrived in the past half hour, casting a cold shadow, and I started to shiver. I would
check in with Alberta and then run back to my van for my warmer coat, thankful that I had thought to grab it on my way out of the house. I capped my lens and hustled around to the back of the club house.

Alberta was right where I'd left her, talking on the phone. She hung up when I reached her and said, “I've called the press.”

“What?”

“It's time to get the public on our side. People will be outraged about this,” she swept an arm toward the vandalized cat colony and
almost toppled out of the golf cart. “I know people. I called my con
tacts at the
News-Sentinel
and
Journal-Gazette
, two radio stations, and Channel 15 News. Someone will come, and these people,” she tipped her head toward the club house, “won't like negative publicity.” She wriggled forward on her seat and stepped out of the cart.

“Did you call the police?” I asked, hoping they would at least get there before a mob of reporters, if reporters actually found this newsworthy. I crossed my arms and tried to suppress the goose bumps and shakes the cold wind was giving me.

“They're on their way. And I called Homer, too.”

Homer Hutchinson. It always took me a second thought to put the first name with the man.
Can't hurt
, I thought. Even if he wasn't on the vandalism case, he might nudge someone to give it careful attention. Then again, this wasn't like the attack on Alberta's house.

A knife of wind sliced through my sweatshirt and I felt as if my torso were turning to ice. I told Alberta that I really was chilled and had to go for my warmer coat. Cradling my lens to keep my camera from bouncing, I ran around the club house and all the way back to Alberta's driveway, where I jumped into my van and set my camera into the case on the passenger seat. I would warm up and go back, I thought. Alberta wore a ski jacket, mittens, a mad-bomber hat, and yellow rain boots, and she had been tucked into the lee of the building while I was out in the wind, poorly dressed. She'd be fine until I got back.

My fingers were so cold that I fumbled my keys and they disappeared under the seat. “D-d-dammit,” I said through chattering teeth. I got out and bent down to look under the seat. It was dark under there, and at first I couldn't see much. Then an empty potato chip bag and a couple of gas receipts. Something shiny. I reached for it, thinking it was a key, and my fingers closed over my long-lost watch. I stared at it and said, “S-s-so there you are,” and shoved it into my jeans pocket. My keys had somehow fallen out of reach under the back of my seat.

By the time I closed the back side door and climbed in again behind the wheel, I was shivering nonstop and had to try a couple of times before I hit the ignition slot with the key. I turned the heat up full blast but it came out cold, then lukewarm. I pulled my down jacket from the back seat and draped it over myself like a blanket. It was cold, but I hoped my now nonstop shivering would generate some heat that the down-filled nylon would trap for me.
I wish I had a nice warm cat in my lap and a dog stretched out beside me,
I thought.
Or a nice warm Tom.

The heat finally kicked in, but my body still shook and my teeth clackety-clacked. Still, I thought I could manage a conversation. I
punched Tom's speed dial number, almost hearing his voice through the ringing. Then I did hear his voice. Or, more accurately, his voice
mail message. In spite of the heat now blasting out of all the vents, I felt a new chill well up from somewhere deep and lonely.

forty-six

My van took about
five minutes to crank up the heat, and I sat
there for another five, letting the heat blast out of the vents until my feet and my cheeks were warm and I had mostly stopped shivering.

I shut off the engine and reluctantly stepped from the warm van into the cold, damp wind. I tried to pull my down jacket on over my hoody, but couldn't make it work. Maybe I was just tired, but the jacket sleeves didn't want to slide over the sweatshirt. “Dammit,” I said. I really wanted the hood to keep my head warm. I fished around the back of the van on the off chance that I might have left a hat in there, but no luck. I tried once more to urge the sleeves to just get along, but no dice. I threw the jacket onto the front seat and pulled off my hoody. All that remained between me and the wind was my long-sleeved t-shirt and my undies. I may as well have been nekkid. By the time I got my down jacket zipped up to my chin, I was shivering again.

I jumped up and down and fished around in the pockets again. One thin knit glove. “Better than nothing,” I mumbled, pulling it on. At least my right hand would be moderately warm.
Good thing you aren't caught in a blizzard,
said a voice in my head.
Nag, nag, nag.

I jogged back to where I had left Alberta, and by the time I got there my body was a little warmer. My face was another story. My cheeks felt as if someone were giving me a facial with one of those hand-held vegetable shredders, and I was afraid I had icicles hanging from my nose. I had no tissue, so I gave up, blew my nose into my glove, pulled it inside out, and shoved it deep into my pocket.

“Elegant,” said Alberta. I looked at her to see if she was serious, and as soon as my eyes met hers we both started to laugh. It was one of those tension-breaking, ridiculous laugh fests that shift the universe a hair, and by the time we stopped, I felt that I—we—would get through this convergence of crises. Somehow.

“Oh, man,” I said, wiping my eyes with my jacket sleeve. A question had occurred to me on my jog back from the car, and I asked, “Alberta, who actually owns this land?” I gestured toward the piece of ground where the bales and crates were scattered.

“Community association,” she said.

“And you have permission for the cat colony to be here?”

“Sure,” she said.

“Really?” I didn't entirely believe her. “I thought a lot of the homeowners opposed the TNR program, and cats?”

“Some do,” she said. “My friend Sally is vice-president of the homeowners' association. And she's passionate about the cats. She drummed up a lot of support, and they took a vote about allowing this set-up through the winter. Then we'll reassess.”

I had more questions, but Hutchinson and two uniformed officers appeared from around the corner of the building. Hutchinson waved but walked with the officers to the perimeter of the damage. I heard one of them let out a long whistle. After they had taken a good look, Hutchinson and one of the others, a young woman with dark hair and ice-blue eyes, walked over to us.

“Ladies,” said Hutchinson, nodding. “This is Officer Lindemann. She has a few questions.”

“Are you on this case, Homer?” asked Alberta.

Hutchinson shook his head. “Not officially, but I asked my lieutenant to let me take a look because this might be linked to the other vandalism on your house.” He looked me up and down and said, “You look cold.”

“Freezing,” I said, and realized my body was shaking again, although not so violently as before. “I can't seem to warm up.”

“You can go in a minute,” said Officer Lindeman. “I need you to answer a few questions first.”

My teeth started to chatter, but I clamped them together and answered her questions—when had we found the damage, were any animals hurt, had we touched anything, and so on. I told her I had taken photos and she gave me her email address so I could send them, promising to print any she wanted once she had seen the digital versions.

When she was gone, I started again to excuse myself, but Hutchinson asked Alberta, “How are the kitties?”

“Doing great,” she said. “You must come see them.”

Hutchinson looked at me, his eyes sparkling. “Their eyes are open now, you know.”

Who couldn't smile back at such news delivered with such wonder? I wondered whether my lips were blue. The police had just finished marking the area off limits when a small gaggle of people appeared. They were talking in friendly tones but walking toward us as if in a race. Reporters. I decided it really was time to make myself scarce before they trapped me there and I froze to death.

The wind was in my face all the way back to my van. I tried to run, but my eyes teared so much that I couldn't see, so I walked with my head down and shoulders hunched. My hair whipped around so wildly I thought it might just blow away. At least without my camera I could keep my hands stowed in my pockets.
Note to self: Winter is coming. Soon. Outfit your car.

Something was flapping in the wind. I could hear it as I crossed Alberta's side yard and approached the driveway. Had I not noticed a flag out here? But when I was a few feet from my van and finally looked up, I saw it. A big sheet of poster board flapped crazily from its duct-tape anchor on my windshield. “What the
…
?” I grabbed the near edge and pulled, but whoever taped the thing to my van meant it to stay there, at least for a while. I needed better leverage.

I opened the back of my van and looked for something I could stand on. My grooming box would have been perfect—big and sturdy—but I had taken it to the garage to tidy Jay's coat up before the agility trial. The only thing I could find was the small plastic tackle box I used to hold a few basic tools—hammer, pair of screwdrivers, pliers. It would have to do.

It didn't do at all. I could barely fit both feet on it, and as soon as I leaned over the windshield, the stupid box tipped out from under me. If I could get into Alberta's garage
…
I tried the front door, hoping it would be open. No luck. When I turned away from the front porch, the little creep who had been stalking me was standing between the two houses across the street, sporting the navy hoody this time. “I hope you freeze your noogies off,” I muttered.

The poster board smacked flat against my windshield and I saw that there was writing on it, albeit faint and hard to see. Pencil, maybe. I grabbed the bottom corner and yanked. The tape held to the glass, but I managed to tear off about two-thirds of the sheet. I had to play with the angle to get the light just right on the graphite before I could read it. “Take you're camera and go.”
You're a moron
, I thought,
and your spelling sucks
. Any inclination I may have had to laugh went up in smoke when I read the next line, written near the bottom of the sheet. It said, “Remember: the fire next time.”

“What's that?”

I think I might have sailed right over my van if I'd had any for
ward momentum, I jumped so high. The voice was right behind me.

“Sorry,” said Hutchinson. “Sorry.” He reached for the poster board in my hand. “What is that?” I handed it to him and he said, “That's the same as the note to Alberta. ‘The fire next time.' I don't like this at all.”

“Hutch, don't make a big deal, but if you look across the street, the guy who's been watching me is over there, between the houses.” Honestly, I wanted him to make a big deal. I wanted him to catch the guy and find out why he—or she—was following me around, and whether the stalking and this threat were connected.

“There's no one there now,” he said. He was right. I wondered whether he thought I was making this up, but he said, “I'll take a look around.”

The warming effects of the adrenaline had worn off, and my shivering came back at a whole new level. Hutchinson said, “Get in and start the van and warm up.”

“But I can't drive …”

“Get in. I'll get that crap off your windshield.”

He was back in five minutes with a step stool, a can of adhesive remover, and a putty knife. I stepped out of the van and asked where he got all that.

“I keep a lot of stuff in my trunk. You never know when you'll need it.”

My motto exactly.

I watched him work from inside my warm vehicle and tried to think, but I was too tired and too cold. The same four thoughts played over and over.

I want my normal, boring life back.

I want to talk to Tom.

I want to curl up on the couch with my dog, cat, and a hot toddy.

I don't ever want to talk to Tom again.
How could he
…
?

Hutchinson got the tape and most of the adhesive off and signaled me to open the window. “It's not perfect, but you can see to drive.” He held the bottle of remover toward me. “You want this?”

“Thanks, I think I have some.”

“Okay, then.” He stepped back from the van. “See you.”

Traffic was light and I made it home in record time. Leo was perched on his favorite length of windowsill, and when I pulled into the driveway, Jay popped up behind him on the couch. Home. All I wanted was a quiet evening at home.