Cat Shining Bright

Within minutes they were all gathered on or beside the desk as Wilma, comfortable in the wicker desk chair, called Tay’s Rare Bookstore, in the village. Yes, they still had the copy she had inquired about several weeks ago, one of the original editions of Bewick’s memoir. Despite the cost she put it on her credit card and asked them to wrap it in plain brown paper. When she’d hung up, she called Charlie.

 

An hour later, Charlie had cut her long red hair nearly a foot shorter. Feeling naked and regretful she left the house, cranked up the old green pickup they used around the ranch. Heading for the village, she parked in front of the art supply as a minivan moved out. She entered the store wearing a cap, not one curl of red hair showing, her dark glasses propped across the crown.

She spent perhaps fifteen minutes choosing her purchases. Leaving them there to be wrapped, she slipped out through the storeroom’s back door to the narrow alley that ran through from the art store past the backs of a deli and an upscale camera shop, to the rear of Russell Tay’s bookstore; passing trash cans lined along one wall, she slipped in through the unlocked back door.

She moved from the storeroom into the shop, into the smell of old books. She found Russell at the counter, slim, white haired, the lines in his face solemn and patient. He had set the book aside, concealed in brown paper as Wilma had requested. She tucked it into her oversized purse; they talked for only a few minutes, about the weather, the windstorm, and El Niño, then she hurried out the back again.

She knew she was being watched.

Coming down the alley she had glimpsed Dulcie peering over directly above her; and on the roof across the narrow side street she could barely see Joe Grey in a mass of overhanging pine branches, could see only the narrow white strip down his nose, his white chest and paws—and the gleam of his yellow eyes as he watched the street below him.

At the far end of the group of shops, Pan and Courtney crouched at separate corners, Pan above the alley, Courtney above the street looking very full of herself because of this important mission. The calico was as much the drama queen as Kit, giddily proud to be performing a glamorous job while her two brothers lounged in a cage in John Firetti’s hospital, even if they were being spoiled.

Charlie caught sight of Kit last of all, up in the pine tree that hung out over the street where, from its branches, she could see both ways down the sidewalk, could see every passing shopper.

Hurrying back down the alley, her package in her carryall, Charlie was startled when a heavily muscled man turned the corner, coming straight toward her—he fit too closely Kit and Pan’s rough description of the man they’d seen at Barbara Conley’s house on that windy night.

But no, this was not the same man. This fellow was lame, limping along. He passed her paying no attention as she slipped back into the artist’s supply.

Above her, the cats, having watched her progress, crouched together now on the roof of the art supply watching her load her packages in the passenger seat of the old pickup and set her big carryall on the floor. That’s where the book would be, a book like the one Wilma had burned—or almost like it, Courtney thought. How strange and complicated was human life. As Charlie drove away, Courtney snuggled up to her daddy, and knew that his anger about the drafting table was gone. She thought about Charlie going on with Joe’s plans and hoped . . . No, she knew his scheme would work just fine—as sure as hiding cheese to lure a mouse.

 

From the art shop Charlie drove to the bank. Taking off her cap, shaking out her red hair, she found a clerk free and went straight to Wilma’s safe-deposit box. She signed their card, used her own key, removed the metal drawer and carried it into a small, locked cubicle.

Removing the book-sized package from the metal box she unwrapped the age-stained white paper, then the disintegrating piece of ancient leather wrap, revealing a small and empty, carved chest. Opening this, smelling the lingering scent of the old book that was no longer there, she unwrapped the brown paper from the book she had just picked up. Same title, same binding, same dated first edition. Placing this in the chest she wrapped it up again in the frail leather and then the brown paper.