Cat Shining Bright

It was only when Ryan had cleared the last branches from his tower; when Manuel and Fernando had gone to dump the logs and detritus from the cut tree; when Officers McFarland and Crowley had left; when Dallas had finished fingerprinting and photographing the car and had gone in the house to clean up; when the tow truck had hauled the wrecked car off to hold for additional evidence; and Scotty had left in his truck to get shingles and lumber and order Joe’s and Voletta’s windows, only then could Joe say a word. Before Ryan began to sweep up broken glass, they sat side by side on the roof in a comfortable two-way conversation as they looked out at the village. Most of the power was still off. A strip of shop windows was lit where one power line had been repaired. Joe told her about the man watching Wilma’s house.

“Wilma doesn’t need this,” she said angrily, her green eyes flashing, her Irish-Latino temper blazing. “We’ll know more once Max has done some checking. Maybe this is the killer’s son, but why go after Wilma after all these years, if he hated his father? It was Wilma who helped put the man away, he ought to thank her. Maybe,” she said, “he’s just curious. Maybe he just wants to learn more about his father?” She sighed. “You don’t always know what’s in people’s heads when they look back at their past.

“Well, I know one thing,” she said, scratching his back, “the night’s events and the storm have left us all feeling ragged and out of sorts.”

“Even that cranky old woman Voletta had to get into the act,” Joe said with very little pity, “had to roust Scotty out, drag him out in the storm.”

Ryan nodded. “Kate is trying to get hold of her niece, Lena. She needs someone with her until her wounds start to heal. Lena comes down every few weeks to see her aunt anyway, she lives somewhere up the coast. I think there’s a husband and son. Remember, Kate contacted Lena when she was trying to buy that five acres from Voletta, and the old woman refused to sell?” Voletta Nestor’s five acres lay just below the mansion and below the land where Ryan had built the new cat shelter. CatFriends had wanted it for parking and for extra space if they needed to expand.

“That was too bad,” Ryan said. “But it’s her property, she can do what she wants with it.”

“She was lucky Scotty was up there in the middle of the night,” Joe said innocently, “to take her to the ER.”

Ryan gave him a look. He didn’t need to get nosy. Kate and Scotty’s sudden, low-key romance was none of his business.

“It’s lucky Scotty was there,” Ryan said. “Kate could have helped her, but there’s no way she would have left the shelter cats alone in that storm, she said they were all nervous.” She tipped up his chin to look at him. “Kate said Scotty was very good with them. They moved all the feral cats that were in the screened runs out of the wind, into the infirmary and offices. She said they spent hours calming individual cats, talking to them and soothing them.”

“I just meant—”

“I know what you meant. Let it be, Joe, and wish them happiness.”

She looked into his yellow eyes. “But it is worrisome. If they do become a serious twosome, if they were to marry, Kate would have the same problem as Charlie Harper. Keeping the secret of you cats from her husband. It’s hard to conceal a lie, even for a good cause, and keep a marriage honest and happy.

“Though Max Harper,” Ryan said, “would be more disbelieving than Scotty would, if he came face-to-face with the truth.”

“You mean if I spoke to Max?”

“Don’t even think it,” she said, laughing. “You are kidding?”

“Why would I spoil a good thing? Why would I give the chief nightmares? And where would that put Charlie? She’d have to admit she’d lied or she’d have to play stupid, and Charlie Harper is anything but stupid.”

She just sat looking at him. “After all these years, the way Max has grown to like you, you wouldn’t speak to him, you wouldn’t give away your secret?”

The tomcat laid a paw on her hand. “I’m not about to do that—my problem is, can we keep the kittens quiet?”

Ryan sighed, and hugged him, and prayed that he and Dulcie could keep those youngsters in line. “I wonder about the clowder cats last night, I wonder how they fared, up at the ruins? Kate told me she’d walk over this morning and try to find them.”

“There’s plenty of solid shelter,” Joe said. “They know every inch of the mansion, they know the cellars, the safe places that won’t crack or fall. But what about Dr. Firetti’s sun dome? That big kennel space is half the hospital.” The solarium had been built to join two small cottages together, to form the large veterinarian complex.