How to Catch a Cat (2 page)

Off the California Coast

August 1775

A SPANISH SUPPLY
ship bobbed in the Pacific swells off the California coast. Dual masts of square-shaped sails billowed in the wind, powering the ship forward as its rigging creaked and groaned under the strain.

The
San Carlos
had recently departed the Mexican port of San Blas on a mission to find the ocean entrance to a protected bay that a Spanish land exploration had stumbled upon a few years earlier.

The reported dimensions of the enormous cove didn’t match any of the geographic formations depicted on available maps. The
San Carlos
was searching for an opening that had been missed by several experienced explorers—a passage to a fabled bay many still doubted existed.

It was a journey into uncharted and frequently mischarted territory, undertaken at a time when the full breadth of the Pacific had yet to be appreciated. Most navigators thought East Asia lay almost adjacent to the North American continent and that only a narrow straight separated the two landmasses.

The path ahead lay fraught with danger and uncertainty—for both the boat’s human and feline passengers—but the
San Carlos
was destined to change the course of history.

The discovery of the Golden Gate entrance to the San Francisco Bay would forever alter the settlement and colonization of America’s West Coast.

—

FAR BELOW THE
ship’s whipping sails, a pudgy white cat with orange-tipped ears and tail skidded across the wooden deck. Claws scrambling on the wet floorboards, Rupert chased after his prey, a green parrot with a bright red head and a yellow beak.

The boat dipped behind a swell, causing it to rock into a steep tilt, but Rupert continued his pursuit, smashing into buckets and crates as he barreled down the length of the deck.

He reached the bow and spun around, his fluffy tail swishing through the air. The bird pulled up into a holding pattern, and Rupert sensed he was about to be mocked with a flyby.

Not this time
, Rupert thought with determination. Tensing his muscles, he crouched for an epic leap.

Sure enough, the bird dipped his wings and feinted toward the deck. Rupert launched into the air, his front feet wildly swatting, to no avail.

The parrot swooped upward, easily evading the cat’s swiping paws.

Rupert landed with a wheezing
thump
on the deck.

Cackling with delight, the parrot soared into the sky, his red head bobbing in and out of the sails. He landed on the rim of the crow’s nest and looked down toward the deck, smirking in triumph at another successful ruse.

Rupert regrouped for a second attempt. He hoisted himself onto the rigging of the ship’s forward sail and quickly climbed twenty feet up the main mast.

Intrigued, the bird fluttered off his perch. He flew a tight circle around the pole, taunting his adversary.

Wretched creature
, Rupert thought as he wrapped one paw around the mast and clawed the air with the other.

After a few more dizzying circles, the parrot landed just out of reach, on a webbed netting that stretched beneath the nearest sail.

His frustration mounting, Rupert released the pole and wobbled onto the net.

This was exactly the response the parrot had hoped to elicit. He gripped his toes into the webbing and swung beneath it. For a few short seconds, he eyed the cat’s pudgy belly through the holes in the knotted ropes.

The target was too tempting to resist.

With a loud
squawk
, he bumped his head up through the netting and into the pillow of white fur.

Rupert jumped, startled and offended. He tumbled across the net, swatting at the feathered fiend who had so rudely poked him in the stomach. But in his zeal to catch the bird, he lost his footing and rolled off the webbing.

Luckily, the next lower sail broke his fall.

He bounced onto the top end of the canvas sheet and slid down its length. Flailing wildly, his chunky feet caught the sail’s hem as he slipped off the edge.

He dangled in this undignified position, swinging back and forth, until his person climbed a rope ladder and brought him down to safety.

“Oh, Rupert,” she said with a sigh, cuddling him in her arms. “What am I going to do with you?”

Twittering triumphantly, the parrot landed on the captain’s shoulder.

Chalk up another win for the bird
.

—

A SECOND CAT
with similar coloring but far sleeker physique sat on the deck near the captain’s feet. She watched Rupert’s antics with minimal interest. The game had played out countless times before.

Her brother never caught the bird. He wouldn’t know what to do with it if he did.

Cheeky parrot
, Isabella thought.

But she resisted the urge to assist in her brother’s hunt.

Occasionally a stray pigeon or a passing gull made the mistake of roosting on her boat. Those feathered intruders met a quick end. Petey the Parrot, however, wasn’t meant for meals. The captain had made that quite clear.

Isabella sniffed derisively. The bird didn’t have enough meat on his bones to make him worth her effort—even if he hadn’t been declared off-limits.

She returned her attention to the boat’s helm and the watery path ahead. She couldn’t be distracted by such nonsense; there were far more important tasks on her agenda that afternoon.

It was her job to guide the
San Carlos
safely through the camouflaged entrance to the largest—and still unknown—bay on the Pacific’s West Coast.

Modern-Day San Francisco

THE KNITTING NEEDLE NINJA

AN ELDERLY MAN
with short rounded shoulders hobbled along San Francisco’s waterfront Embarcadero. His pace was stilted and slow, every other step paired with the
thump
of a wooden cane.

Red and white banners lined the route, part of an advertising campaign plastered across the city that promoted the America’s Cup sailboat regatta. The prestigious competition had reached its final day. After months of hoopla and weeks of racing, the two teams representing the United States and New Zealand were tied eight to eight. Whoever took the next race would secure enough points in the “best of seventeen” format to be crowned the champion.

San Franciscans filled the Embarcadero’s wide sidewalk, a stream of newly minted racing enthusiasts anticipating the day’s matchup. Even those who had been blasé about sailing at the start of the event now eagerly joined in the fun.

It was a typical summer morning on the bay—which meant the weather could be anything from sunny and bright to soupy and overcast. Often, a single day would showcase both extremes.

For the moment, the city’s shoreline enjoyed a clear sky, but the wind blowing in from the Pacific carried the sharp edge of a cooling front. The red peaks of the Golden Gate Bridge had begun to feather with fog.

Oscar looked out across the water and cracked a weary smile.

These were perfect conditions for the regatta’s finale—and, he thought as the smile disappeared—for tracking down a serial killer.

Unlike the rest of the pedestrians flocking to the America’s Cup pavilion, Oscar had little interest in the outcome of the pivotal last race.

He was on the trail of a cunning criminal, a woman known throughout the Bay Area as the Knitting Needle Ninja.

—

THE COLORFUL CROWDS
on the Embarcadero walked at a much faster clip than the determined old man. Oscar’s weary eyes scanned each individual and group that strolled by, all the while knowing that the Ninja might pass within inches without his detection.

He gummed his dentures back and forth, reflecting on the Ninja’s bloody history—and her proficiency with disguise.

The Ninja’s crimes had first come to light earlier that year. Revelations that a mayoral intern had been murdered by the former mayor’s long-serving administrative assistant had rocked San Francisco’s City Hall.

The story had quickly captured the morbid fascination of the local news media, and it wasn’t long before an enterprising reporter came up with the alliterative nickname, the Knitting Needle Ninja. The moniker was a reference to the Ninja’s unique method of attack: a pair of knitting needles that had once been used as a weapon of self-defense on the rowdy streets of San Francisco’s Barbary Coast.

The curved metal rods contained a hollow compartment fitted with razor-sharp blades. Unsheathed, the handy implements became a deadly means of stabbing, slicing, or viciously goring an unsuspecting victim.

They were also quite useful for knitting and crochet.

Despite her lengthy killing spree and unusual MO, the Knitting Needle Ninja operated undetected for almost a decade. No one had suspected Mabel, a demure woman in her late sixties, of harboring violent tendencies.

She had arrived for work each day at City Hall, a model of propriety and efficiency. Invariably, she was clad in a heather-gray skirt, soft cotton sweater, and sensible heeled shoes. Her wardrobe rarely varied from these staples.

She was a diligent employee, rigorously professional and deeply loyal to her boss. Never once had she showed up tardy or unprepared. She occasionally mingled with the administrative staff for the board of supervisors, but she shared few personal details with her colleagues.

No one knew much about her private life—other than, of course, her penchant for knitting.

The homicidal aspect of her favorite hobby had slipped under everyone’s radar.

Up until her last kill, Mabel had been careful to select prey who were unlikely to be missed. Her targets were generally low-level interns that she hired specifically for the job of becoming her next victim. The deceased bodies were neatly dismembered and disposed of in out-of-the-way locations, the remains often left to decompose in secluded tracts of public forest.

Any concerned friends or loved ones of the victims had concluded that the missing person had voluntarily left town.

City Hall’s myriad employees and elected officials had merely shrugged off the disappearances and continued on about their business. Political interns were a transient group. Mabel seemed to go through a lot of them, but no one ever guessed the reason why.

Until she hired Spider Jones.

—

JUST OUT OF
high school, Spider was an inquisitive young man, killing time, so to speak, while retaking his college admissions exams. With his skinny jeans and high-top canvas sneakers, Mabel might have initially pegged him as a wayward youth.

If so, she had greatly misjudged his character. Raised by a single mother, he was firmly grounded, committed to his family, and looking forward to his academic future.

Innately curious about the world, Spider had pedaled his bike up and down San Francisco’s steep streets. A daredevil on wheels, he had explored almost every corner of the city. He had also nosed through City Hall’s basement archives—and the files secured in Mabel’s desk. Sadly, it was the last activity that had proved most dangerous to his well-being.

Late one night, Mabel overheard Spider planning to share a secret he’d uncovered in his file snooping. She erroneously concluded that Spider was about to divulge her connection to the missing interns. Panicked, she lured Spider to City Hall’s ceremonial rotunda, a decorative cove on the building’s second floor.

The poor lad never knew what hit him. The Ninja attacked him from behind, reaching around his torso to stab him in the chest with her curved needle knife.

—

OSCAR DISCOVERED THE
gruesome scene seconds too late to help the hapless intern. Spider’s spirit had already left his blood-soaked body.

But the former antique dealer had recognized the killer’s handiwork and quickly connected the weapon to its owner.

Not wanting to draw police attention to himself—as he had been declared legally dead a few years earlier—Oscar revealed the identity of Spider’s murderer through a painting. In a replica of one of Coit Tower’s famous WPA murals depicting scenes from early nineteenth-century San Francisco, Oscar inserted an image of Mabel, wielding her unique weapons against the slain intern.

That, combined with the discovery of a pair of bloody knitting needles taped beneath the center drawer of the mayor’s office desk, had blown open the case.

—

ONCE THE SECRET
was revealed, the Knitting Needle Ninja became an overnight sensation. Instantly infamous, her grandmotherly face was plastered across every available news outlet, along with the grisly details of her crimes.

With the verified body count still rising, Mabel was now listed as one of San Francisco’s most prolific serial killers—in a town that had some competition for the title. The number of kills attributed to her handiwork had topped two dozen and was expected to climb as more missing interns were identified.

While citizens initially expressed shock and horror at the hideous nature of the crimes, over the course of the ensuing months, the Ninja had become a macabre celebrity.

T-shirts, sweatshirts, and mugs appeared in the tourist shops at Fisherman’s Wharf. Ninja jewelry was displayed across the fold-out tables of the vendors who set up daily outside the Ferry Building.

In May, a number of runners had dressed up as Nanny Ninjas for the annual Bay to Breakers footrace (and citywide street party). She’d been spoofed on late-night television and mocked in countless newspaper columns and online blogs.

But despite the humorous publicity, the Ninja was still a dangerous—and deranged—criminal.

Oscar would forever feel responsible for her slayings.

He had sold the woman her first set of dagger-fitted needles.