Кроха - Dedication

Yet what he’d told them of those past lives was linked to facts in the present, to photographs of a long-ago child Misto had known, to the cache of hidden money the cats had found, to so much that was very real, that they could do no less than believe him. But now, as the old cat grew thinner and his life faded, now when Misto asked for his son, Pan, they knew he was reaching his last days. The old cat was weak, indeed, if he had forgotten that just a few days earlier, before Misto grew ill, Pan had left the village. That the red tom would already be too far away from Molena Point for anyone to ever find him—Pan and tortoiseshell Kit were off on an adventure of which they had only dreamed; they had set out for a world where perhaps no sensible feline would venture. They wandered, now, on a journey they would not have begun had they guessed that Pan’s father soon would die.

If, when they departed, Misto had already divined his own illness, he didn’t tell Pan. He had wanted them to pursue their journey free and happy, perhaps the greatest adventure, in this world, that any cat could know.

But then later Misto, caught in the haze of pain medication, would forget they were away, traveling, and would ask for Pan. And then, remembering, the old cat would drop his ears, embarrassed. But then he would look at Dulcie and remember she was expecting kittens and the old cat would smile. In illness, his moods and the clarity of his thinking swung alarmingly, frightening Dulcie, and saddening Joe Grey.

Now on the foggy rooftops Joe and Dulcie dropped down from a high peak to a shingled slope, moving on toward Ocean Avenue, toward the village’s main street. Pausing sometimes, they looked idly into the second-floor windows of scattered penthouses where residents had left their shades up. Folks glancing out while showering or brushing their teeth knew there was nobody up on the roofs to see them—only gliding seagulls, and a pair of prowling cats peering in. They had no idea how their morning rituals amused the two feline observers. But at last the pair moved on, watching the streets and listening—and suddenly they leaped to the roof’s edge.

Paws in the roof gutter, they cocked their ears to a sound barely heard. They caught an elusive aroma drifting on the mist. Every sense alert, they stood seeking through the fog, keen to spot the attacker, hoping they might alert some unwary would-be victim.

But it was only a dowdy woman walking her three leashed beagles, only the hush of her footsteps and of their paws and the faint jingling of their collars.

So far neither the cats nor the cops had any clue to the street prowler. He left footprints that the police photographed or picked up electronically or captured in casts, but they had nothing to match them to. They’d detained no suspect, had found no matching footprints from another crime scene, no shoes tossed into a Dumpster, yet the prints at each attack were different.

Even more puzzling to the cats, the attacker left no scent for them to follow. Always some mélange of competing smells got in their way: diesel exhaust, the heavy aroma of fresh bread and cakes from a nearby bakery, the stink of marigolds crushed underfoot, the overlying exhaust of a vanished car in which the guy might have fled. “Maybe,” Joe had said bitterly, “he can levitate like some would-be comic-book hero.”

Whether the assaults exploded out of cruelty or were born of some unknown reason, or were a sick prank with no real purpose at all, no one yet knew. Nor had the attacker left a clue at any scene, no dropped possession, not even trace evidence of hairs or fabric particles, no lost button; the perp seemed as ghostly as if, indeed, he had materialized from some phantom life.

Nor was there ever a loiterer nearby to be questioned as a witness. With each incident, the cats’ frustration grew apace with that of the detectives, the patience of both sets of sleuths wearing thin. The cats’ usual pleasure at offering Molena Point PD a telling clue, the officers’ stoic reception of mysteriously proffered information, all came to nothing. There was no information. Meanwhile lone senior citizens were being injured and frightened. Those older folks who had not been attacked, but who read the local paper, listened to the news, and gossiped among their friends, grew more wary and angry. One of the victims had been in a wheelchair, two walking with canes, folks out to take care of a few errands, get a little air. Each one was knocked down, wheelchair or cane cast aside. And the perp was gone, vanished, leaving the victim to the mercy of whoever might happen along and find them; but none of the marks was robbed.

When the assaults first began, MPPD had put on extra patrols: more squad cars cruising, officers on foot dressed in street clothes. Vacation leaves were postponed, overtime was increased. Of the seven who were accosted, one lady was a ninety-two-year-old music teacher living in a retirement home. A frail, retired banker, Ogden Welder, was fatally injured, the assailant gone before anyone heard his cries; Welder died in the hospital two days later.

No arrests and no witnesses. Only when someone heard shouts for help and arrived to find a frail person, frightened and angry, sprawled on the cement among spilled packages, was anyone aware of the crime. As more officers of MPPD worked the streets, their response to drug crimes, traffic accidents, shoplifting, and domestics demanded additional personnel that Max Harper didn’t have. Like every police department in the state they were understaffed, their budget stretched too thin for adequate overtime. There was plenty of city money for beautification and tourism promotion, but never enough for law enforcement—money for the politicians, but not enough to protect those who voted them in. Max Harper’s men and women grew ever more frustrated.

At the first assault, the cats’ anger had flared. At the second one, on a lone, helpless citizen, their rage revved high. Slipping into Molena Point PD they had lounged in Chief Harper’s bookcase, innocently reading field reports over his shoulder—though there hadn’t been much that they didn’t already know, that they hadn’t read in the paper, heard on the news, or heard from Joe’s housemate. Clyde Damen had grown up with Max Harper. Often over dinner or playing poker Max shared information that he knew—or thought he knew—would never go any farther than the Damens’ kitchen table. There, as the cards were shuffled and poker chips tossed into the pot, no one paid attention to the gray tomcat and maybe Dulcie, too, curled up in the easy chair quietly napping. Who would notice the twitch of an ear, the flip of a tail at some interesting new detail of the street crimes? Joe Grey’s own housemates were as secretive, regarding the tomcat’s spying, as was Joe himself.

Now, at the edge of the roof, the cats alerted again at the sudden swish of tires approaching down the fog-wet street. They watched an unmarked white van slip into view, but it was maybe only the delivery truck of some small company bringing produce or bakery goods to one of the restaurants. Farther on, a lone runner trotted by heading for the beach; there were always runners, lean men or women, tanned and seemingly carefree. Soon, from the shore, a dog barked. A flock of gulls rose screaming, and then silence again; when they heard nothing more they lay down at the roof’s edge and had a leisurely wash.

“I wish,” Dulcie said, “Kit and Pan were home. Surveillance would be easier with four of us. Besides, I miss them,” she said, giving Joe a green-eyed look.

“Just wish them home safe,” Joe said crossly. He didn’t approve of the flighty tortoiseshell and the red tomcat chasing off into a world that Joe himself could hardly believe in, a world Kit called magical. Except he had to believe there was such a place, when their human friend Kate Osborne had gone there. Kate told startling tales, and had brought back enough jewels and artifacts to convince even Joe himself—and to make him even more nervous thinking of Kit and Pan venturing down into those vast caverns beneath the earth. They had been gone only a few days, and still the thought of that journey made his fur crawl.

That land had fascinated tortoiseshell Kit even when she was very young, listening to a band of feral cats tell their stories. Only later when she was older had thoughts of those hidden caverns begun to frighten her. But Pan had no fear; he had traveled the length of California and Oregon on his own, a hobo cat, staying out of danger. Now, learning of the Netherworld, he had burned to see that farthest, most enticing realm of all.

Kit, half longing to go and half afraid, had given in, to please him. And, because her two human housemates had longed to be off on their own adventure. Lucinda and Pedric would never have followed their own dream, of an Alaska cruise, if it meant leaving their beloved companion alone at home. The little speaking cat was their treasure beyond all other joys. Kit knew that. She knew Alaska beckoned to her two housemates. But only if she herself journeyed away from Molina Point would her old couple feel free to take the leisurely, small-ship cruise they longed for. Lucinda and Pedric weren’t getting any younger. “If you don’t go now,” she’d told them, perhaps with more honesty than finesse, “you may never go at all.”

Kit had given Lucinda a soft purr. “Ryan’s father and his new wife are keen to go with you—it will be an easier trip with another couple. Mike and Lindsey are quiet and steady, and—”

“And they are younger and stronger than we are,” Lucinda said, laughing. “You needn’t say it, they’ll take good care of us. They’ll be good companions to investigate the little ports and scattered villages.”

Kit smiled, and nosed at Lucinda. “You will take your adventure, and Pan and I will take ours. That is what life is about. And then,” she said, purring, “we’ll be home together again. Oh, my! To tell each other all the wonders we saw!”

It was just a few days ago that they had said their teary good-byes. That Lucinda and Pedric, Mike and Lindsey boarded their plane for Vancouver—and Kit and Pan crossed the village up into the hills and joined the waiting group of feral, speaking cats who had lingered, waiting for them. Waiting to set out together down into the Netherworld; and none of the speaking cats, not even Pan himself, had any notion that Pan’s father would soon lie ill.

Now, this foggy morning, Joe and Dulcie, left without enough cat power for efficient surveillance, were about to separate, each to watch the streets alone, when a siren’s whoop and the wail of the medics’ van brought them sharply alert. As the roar of the engines headed fast for Ocean Avenue, they glimpsed the van and two squad cars make a skidding turn onto the divided main street and vanish beyond the buildings. The cats marked where the sound of the engines died, heard vehicle doors flung open and men running, and they fled over the roofs toward the action.

2

Old Merle Rodin said later, it was his wristwatch that put him in the hospital. His wife wasn’t home at the time. He was alone, dressed in old denim pants, a faded denim shirt and suspenders, working in his shop when he tore his watchband on the corner of the vise. The soft leather was worn ragged anyway and had been ready to tear. And then, as he was cleaning up from painting the wooden chairs, he spilled turpentine on the band and he knew the wet leather would tear worse. He didn’t want to lose the watch, it was the only kind he could read anymore, the new ones were all dots and squiggles. This was a good, reliable Swiss Army with big black numbers so a person could tell the time. Big dial, plain and no-nonsense. He left the watch loose on his wrist, finished cleaning up the workbench, got in his car and drove the few blocks into the village to get the band replaced.