Had kids set the fire? Students? That would be a first for this village. But he guessed every town had its troublemakers. Watching the red stain in the sky, he couldn't decide whether to take off up the hills to see what was happening, or seek out the mysterious events occurring somewhere on the dim village streets.
The decision took care of itself, quite suddenly.
The tomcat was crouched to leap away, when a figure appeared from the shadows in the neighbors' dark yard, a black-clad figure slipping swiftly through the bushes and around the far side of the house.
Sailing across to the neighbors' roof, Joe stood with his paws in the gutter peering down as the figure moved silently along the drive toward the back, heading for Chichi's door.
As much as he disliked Chichi Barbi, he didn't want to see something ugly happen to her. There she was, watching TV at the front of the house, and had likely heard nothing. Above the raucous canned laughter, what could she hear? The woman was a sitting duck in there.
Slipping along the edge of the roof to follow the intruder, the tomcat had to laugh. Black leggings, black sweatshirt, black hood pulled up, and even black gloves, a character straight out of a cheap movie.
But that didn't make him any less dangerous. Joe watched him slip up the steps into the shadows beside the door. In a moment the door opened, the figure slipped inside, the door closed softly, then all was still.
Trotting across the roof again to the front of the house, he hung out over the gutter looking down through the front window.
Chichi's sharp silhouette hadn't moved; she appeared totally entranced by the insipid sitcom. Backing up and kneading his claws on the shingles, he trotted away to the pine tree between the houses. Leaping onto its trunk, clinging, he backed down to where he could jump into the little lemon tree-slashing his paws again on its wicked thorns. Why the hell did lemon trees have thorns! No cat could avoid them.
Looking into the dark room, trying to spot the intruder, he saw nothing at first but shadows. Nothing moved until… Yes. There. Black within black, slipping stealthily along beside the dresser. For a brief moment, Joe Grey was uncertain what to do. Shout at Chichi through the window to warn her? And jeopardize his own neck? Or wait, bide his time, try to see what the burglar would take, or what he was up to?
If this was only theft, and not the precursor of an attack on Chichi herself, his instinct was to stay put, to watch, and let this come down as it would. Tonight every cop was busy, the intruder had to know that. Joe thought he'd better play it by ear, maybe go for the evidence. With every cop in the department either up at the fire or chasing unseen miscreants through the dark streets, it was, indeed, a hard call.
7
Crouched among the thin, brittle branches, his nose tickling with the sharp smell of lemons, Joe stared in through the dark window watching the housebreaker's stealthy movements. In the inky-black room, he could make out very little even with his superior night vision. But suddenly he was blinded. Light blazed on, right in his eyes. Backing away, nearly falling, his every nerve jumping with shock, he was caught in the brilliance like a deer in a speeder's headlights.
Hunching down, trying to hide his white parts, he had no real cover. Light pooled in through the skinny branches and scruffy leaves. In its glare he couldn't see the intruder's face, the hood was pulled nearly together. Black might be melodramatic, but it was effective. There was a bulge in the intruder's right pocket. A weapon? Skinny guy, even in the oversized black sweatshirt. Opening the dresser drawers, real bold now. What was he looking for? Something in particular, or just any valuables he could find, money, credit cards, jewelry? Or was he putting something in the drawers? He seemed very casual and unhurried.
Either the lock on this back door had been easy to breach, a credit card lock, or the guy was mighty fast with the lock picks. Or Chichi had left it unlocked? Had she forgotten to lock it? Or did this person have a key?
Maybe the new owners hadn't changed the locks, some people just didn't think of those things. Or had Chichi given someone a key? From the front of the house, Joe could still hear dialogue and canned laughter. The way the burglar was bundled in the dark sweatshirt, it was hard to tell whether this was a man or a woman-until suddenly his quarry flipped back the hood, unzipped the sweatshirt, and tossed it on a chair-and Joe gulped back a yowl of surprise.
Chichi. It was Chichi. She smiled lazily, fluffed her frazzled blond hair, and ran her hand down her slim waist, pulling down her tight black T-shirt, showing plenty of cleavage. What was she doing sneaking into her own house under cover of darkness, sliding silently into the darkened room?
And who was out there in the living room watching the tube? Did she have company? Why hadn't he seen someone before? Those two guys who came to see her, neither acted like he was living here. Suspicions formed in Joe's mind faster than he could process them; but they added up to nothing. Zilch.
As Chichi pulled off the tight black jeans and slipped into a red satin robe, he wanted to race around to the front window and have a closer look at that one-person audience. Maybe he could peer under the blind. But he wanted, more, to stay where he was clinging to the skinny branch. He watched her slip a black cloth bag from the pocket of the sweatshirt where it lay on the chair; and she stood looking around the room. It seemed like the kind of waterproof silk bag that expensive raincoats come folded into, for easy travel.
Kneeling, she opened the bottom dresser drawer and reached up underneath, making Joe want to laugh out loud. If she was hiding something, that was the first place a cop-or a burglar-would look.
But then Chichi seemed to realize this, too. She rose, clutching the bag, and stood considering the mattress-another laughable choice. Go ahead, Joe thought, twitching a whisker. The moment you leave, lady, or go to take a shower, I'll be in there slashing through the mattress, and out again with the loot…
But what loot? What did she have in the bag? And could he even get into the place?
Well, hell, he'd never seen a house he couldn't break into.
Kneeling, Chichi slipped the bag between the two mattresses. She didn't shove it very deep, she didn't slit the mattress ticking. Good show, Joe thought, itching to get his paws under there, get his claws into that black silk. For a long moment, she just knelt there. Then, almost as if she'd read his mind, she pulled the bag out again and set it on the bed, as if she meant to hide it somewhere more secure, harder to discover.
But maybe, Joe thought, he wouldn't have to retrieve it. Maybe he'd know what she'd hidden, as soon as he found out what had happened in the village. Chichi's stealthy arrival home while the sirens were still shrieking, plus the unanswered puzzle of who was watching TV, had to add up to trouble.
The thin branch was cutting into his belly, and its thorns had stuck his hind paw so deeply he could smell his own blood. Hurt like hell to back away when, within the bright room, Chichi turned suddenly and approached the window.
She stood looking out, her eyes on a level with his own, which were slitted closed, his white parts hidden in an uncomfortable crouch. Did the bedroom light pick him out like a possum on a leafless branch?
But so what? What difference? So there was a cat in the tree, a neighborhood cat. Clyde Damen's cat, harassing the sleeping birds, maybe snatching baby birds from their nests.
She didn't remain long at the window, but bent down to root around in a suitcase that lay open on a chair beside the dresser. Hadn't she unpacked? She'd been there two weeks. That spoke of a transient, fly-by-night attitude that made Joe smile with satisfaction at his own astute character assessment.
But when she drew from the suitcase a long, sharp-looking bread knife, and looked up directly through the glass, he swallowed back a yelp of surprise and nearly fell out of the tree. Backing away into the tiniest twiggy branches, he lacerated two more paws and bent the limbs so far that he swung and wobbled wildly before he righted himself, nonchalantly licked a paw as if he hadn't seen anything frightening but had just lost his balance, and crept back to a safer perch. Maybe, with the inside light reflecting against the glass, she had only seen her own reflection.