Cat Shining Bright

Instead he headed up the side street, stopping again at each parked car, whether at the curb or in a driveway. He tried each car door to see if it was unlocked, then tried the various tools he carried; moonlight caught at a long slim blade, at several keys that, she guessed, might have been shaved, at other tools that bulged from his pockets. He avoided some of the newest cars with their sophisticated alarm systems. He carried a duffel bag—if he did get a car open but couldn’t start it, he rummaged through, stole whatever he wanted, dropped it in the bag, and left.

Strange, though. He seemed to have stolen the BMW with no trouble. He’d had keys to the garage and house, though he didn’t act like he lived there, he was too sneaky as he entered and then slipped away. And now, up the side street another man appeared, a tall, slim shadow moving within patches of blowing moonlight; he stood beside a sleek new sports car, looking down at his hands—operating some device. It didn’t take long, he had the door open, and slid into the driver’s seat. A few more minutes, he started the engine and drove away, cool as you please, turning right at the next corner. They’d seen only two men, but this was a larger gang than that. Where are the others? And why does this one have more sophisticated equipment than the other?

All summer Kit and Pan and Joe Grey had prowled the rooftops at two and three in the morning watching for the car thieves. Often they had seen plainclothes officers in the shadows of the streets below, and several arrests were made; but the thieves must have had replacements. They would work Molena Point for several nights, then would move north. A few days in one place, then gone again to another town, their movements so evenly spaced that their operation became a guessing game for local TV and small-town papers: Which town would be next?

Molena Point was only a mile square, the streets so crowded with cottages, the yards so dense with bushes and fences and giant trees—and no streetlights to pick out a prowler—that it was hard for cops, or even cats, to spot a thief. Sometimes, if there was moonlight, the cats got a license number or a make and model. More times clouds covered the moon, or the break-in was accomplished in black alleys between buildings or in the thick shadows of sprawling cypress branches. The first week the cats had worked this gig, they had reported five cars with dark-clothed men prowling around them, but by the time they reached a phone the vehicles were gone.

The next time, Joe Grey carried the small old cell phone with its fake registration, thanks to Clyde, his human housemate. Because of Joe’s calls, a number of stolen cars were apprehended, and arrests were made—but still the thefts continued.

Below Kit, the heavy man had stopped and began working on a car door. Even in the windy dark, she could see it was an older Jeep sedan. Before she knew it he’d popped the lock. He slid right in, and soon, through the sound of the wind, she heard the engine start.

He moved the car ahead slowly, driving without lights, turning left in the direction of Joe Grey’s house—maybe meaning to heist the Damens’ vehicles? Had Joe come home? Was he in his tower out of the worst of the blow, waiting for her and Pan to come bolting in out of the storm? Would he see the Jeep? She had to smile, that Joe had been so much more careful of his own safety since the kittens came. The responsibility of the three babies had made him, not less brave, but far more watchful for his own safety. Now, was he up there watching the Jeep approach? As Kit scrambled down a little pepper tree to cross the street to Joe’s house, the wind shook the small tree so hard she thought its limbs would break—the next instant, a tree did break. Not the lacy pepper tree but a tall eucalyptus that spread across the narrow street: there was a giant splintering screech as a reaching branch cracked, the main trunk split, and the tree came crashing down filling the street and covering Joe Grey’s roof, its upper branches hiding his tower, its heavy trunk twisted across the Jeep’s hood.

The man inside moved fast; killing the engine, he swung the door open. Kit bolted from the pepper tree across the fallen eucalyptus onto Joe’s roof. She heard the perp running up the street, the pounding of his shoes soon lost in the roar of wind.