But why the knife? What made her pick it up and peer out so intently?
And what, in the next instant, made her draw the shade?
Maybe she'd heard something, the soft hush of his scrabbling among the brittle branches; maybe that was all. There was no reason for her, even if she'd seen him, to feel threatened. By a cat? Why would she?
Annoyed at his own cowardice, Joe dropped from the lemon tree and sped for the front of the house. Rearing up with his paws on the sill, he peered through beneath the shade, stretching and tilting his head, his nose pressed against the cold glass.
Studying the dim room in the TV's flickering light, Joe laughed softly. Little Chichi had some artistic flair, some talent as a sculptor.
Maybe she had worked in department store window display, or maybe on stage sets. Or maybe she was simply talented. She had created a very lifelike silhouette using a mop and several other common household items.
The mop formed the body; it was one of those old-fashioned mops with twisted rags on a stick; these were the woman's tresses, tangled like Chichi's blond coiffure. The figure wore a blue sweat suit, artfully padded out in just the right places. The head itself was made of wadded and pasted newspapers. A small table lamp behind the figure gave off the weak glow that helped, with the flicker of the TV, to silhouette her against the shade. The creative dummy was, at the moment, being treated to an old rerun of Lassie, a series Joe found particularly disgusting.
It was one thing to see animal stories that were obviously imaginary takeoffs, like Alice in Wonderland, or the Narnia series, or The Lion King. Children knew this was make-believe, and they loved it. It was quite another matter to subject children to animal tales that purported to present impossible animal behavior as real life. The things Lassie understood and did were not at all how dogs really acted or thought, and yet the series wasn't presented as fantasy The result, in Joe's opinion, was generations of children who hadn't a clue how to train and deal with their new Christmas puppies or kittens, and generations of parents who were just as ignorant.
When Joe compared those tawdry stories to the very real and wonderful feats of well-trained police and drug dogs, and of herding and search-and-rescue dogs, Lassie's idiocy came off as dangerously and foolishly misleading. No wonder children grew up knowing nothing about the animals with whom they shared the earth.
Clyde would once have said he was grossly opinionated. But Clyde's views on the subject had undergone some serious changes, and were now pretty much the same as Joe's own. As for Joe and Dulcie and Kit's situation, the cats themselves understood that they were far beyond the pale. That no sensible adult could easily believe that a cat could talk, and for this they were eternally grateful.
Continuing to admire Chichi's display-window handiwork, he wondered if this figure had been here before Clyde went off to dinner. Clyde and Ryan must have walked right by it, passing this window as they headed for Lupe's Playa. Clyde, seeing what he thought was Chichi in there, should have wondered at seeing her so shortly afterward walking into Lupe's.
But maybe not. It was only a few blocks. Or maybe she'd had this figure all set up within the darkened room, had watched through the front window until Clyde and Ryan left the house walking up toward the village, and then had turned on the lamp and TV, and had slipped out of the house to follow them.
But why? To establish an alibi to her whereabouts, tonight? But dinner was a long time before whatever came down in the village. How could her appearance at Lupe's afford her a tight alibi?
Maybe she'd wanted to get friendly with the Molena Point cops, make nice to Harper and Garza. She'd tried hard enough to get herself invited to join them. To gain their goodwill, while at the same time establishing an alibi. Fat chance, with cops. Anyway, that really didn't wash. How would she know Clyde was having dinner with Max and Dallas?
Unless Clyde had told her? Quite possible. She often came knocking; maybe earlier this evening he'd used dinner as an excuse to get rid of her. Or maybe, seeing Ryan arrive and the two of them go off, Chichi took a chance and followed?
Whatever, they'd all left the restaurant long before the sirens started. She'd had plenty of time to take care of whatever business involved the little black bag.
Filled with questions, he considered waiting until her lights went out and she was in bed asleep, then find a way inside; try to wriggle under the mattress without waking her.
Right. And end up backed into a corner by that businesslike bread knife.
But again, he was only a cat. She shouldn't be overly alarmed by his presence; when she saw him in the yard or on his own porch, she looked at him with distaste, but not with fear; she didn't go pale and back away as a real ailurophobe would be likely to do, exhibiting shortness of breath and possible heart palpitations. A person like that, you really couldn't con them with purrs, with face rubs against a stockinged ankle. And long ago, in San Francisco, she'd played up to him big time.
Now, probably the worst Chichi would do if she found him in her room would be fling open the back door and chase him out into the night.
Right. With the bread knife.
Dulcie would say his plan was more than stupid, she'd call him totally insane, say he'd abandoned the last shred of his previously astute feline mind. Maybe he'd wait until tomorrow, take the sensible route, lay low until Chichi walked into the village early, as she often did, carrying her big canvas tote.
Leaving Chichi's front window, scorching up the pine tree to his own roof, he shouldered into his tower and through his cat door, dropped down to Clyde's desk, and went straight to Snowball in the big leather chair.
She was awake, looking small and lonely, just a frightened wisp of white fluff. Charlie had said once that cats, when they were sick or hurt or afraid or grieving, seemed to shrink to half their size, to collapse right in on themselves. Slipping up into the chair beside Snowball, he began to lick her ear and to talk gently to her.
Of the three household cats, Snowball had been the first to get used to his human speech. Her initial shock hadn't lasted long, and then she'd been more fascinated than appalled.
"It's all right, Snowball," he told her now. "Rube will be all right, he's in good hands now, he's not in pain now." But even as he said it, Joe shuddered. What did he mean, he'll be fine? What did that mean, in good hands now? What did that mean, not in pain now?
He didn't want to think what those expressions might really mean.
Giving the grieving little cat a gentle wash, he sat with her snuggled close, waiting until she dozed again, tired out with missing Rube. Only then did Joe leave her. Leaping from desk to rafter and through to the roofs, he headed fast for the center of the village, his gaze focused on the reflection of slow-moving car lights and handheld spotlights that now glanced skyward, bouncing against the edges of the roof gutters and flickering along the undersides of the oaks. Cops with spotlights, moving fast and silent.
He approached the scene expecting any second to hear sirens blast; but none did. Just the silent racing lights and the whisper of voices that, from a distance, only a cat could hear; and then, soon, the muted static of police radios turned low. As he neared the scene he could make out more clearly the soft resonance of the cops' voices, the voices of men he knew. There were no sirens, no staccato sounds of men running, no cars taking off with squealing tires; no more shots fired.