Finished eating, she set the empty plate and glass on the night table and tucked down under the covers. Joe watched her roll herself in the blankets, trembling with sobs, and pull one blanket over her head. The moon was starting to brighten the eastern treetops and the tops of the hills. He waited a long time until she swallowed back the last gulp of crying and began slowly, slowly to ease into the calmer breathing of sleep.
Only when he was sure she slept did he leave the cypress tree, moving away through its branches to the springy limbs of a small pine and across to his own roof, to his private tower. There he slid through its open window, looked out once more at Mindy, then burrowed among his scattered pillows where there was only peace: no crying, hurt child, no hateful human mothers. He could just see, in Mindy’s shadowed room, the child cocooned in her blankets. Curling down among his cushions in his own safe place, Joe positioned himself so he could keep an eye on her. Yawning, he wondered what would happen at Zebulon Luther’s house when Nevin slipped in—or marched boldly in—to retrieve his bank statements, wondered if Zeb would be there, if he’d gotten Mindy’s message? Or had he left it unnoticed on the recorder?
If Nevin got there first, as mad as he was, how cruel could he get with his own father? And Joe wondered if he should go down to Clyde’s desk and call Harper.
Or was their argument only a family hassle that would end up amounting to nothing? Even if Nevin did leave, would he have cooled down before he got to Zeb’s place? Joe avoided vague tips to the law that could turn into nothing. That would only make Harper unsure of the reliability of his snitch. Yawning, meaning to think about it for a minute as he watched Mindy, he was soon sound asleep.
He must have been asleep when she left, he woke to see the moon shining straight in onto her bed, onto a mound of covers thrown back. Her shoes and sweater were gone. Her school backpack that had been leaning against the bed was no longer there. That’s when Joe leaped from his tower into the house onto his rafter, down to the king-sized bed, and pawed at Ryan’s face.
“Mindy’s gone. Run away . . . clothes, backpack.”
But Clyde was already up and dressed. Ryan rolled out of bed, pulling on sweats. “Mindy’s not the only one.”
“What?” Joe said. “What else . . . ?”
“That woman,” Clyde said, “who was nearly buried, the woman Max moved to the care home . . . she slipped out of the home when Buffin was asleep. Buffin woke and couldn’t find her. He couldn’t shout for the nurses. He leaped to the phone and called the Firettis then followed her trail straight out the front door. She must have known where they hid the keys. Mary and John and Buffin are out looking for her and so are the cops. We . . . But no one’s looking for the kid. A child alone, right now she’s more important.” He grabbed his jacket. “Come on, Joe, get a move on before she hits the highway.”
Dulcie and Courtney prowled the antiques shop touching a soft paw to the old, delicate pieces, guessing at their age and origin; though some were already tagged, telling which century each hand-shaped, hand-glazed porcelain piece came from, each handwoven tapestry or rug. They curled up at last in a delicate Queen Anne love seat, on a cashmere throw. Mother and daughter were whispering to each other ancient tales when the door at the top of the stairs opened. Dulcie vanished behind an ancient cast-iron stove. Courtney pretended to be comfortably dozing, snoring just a little in a ladylike manner.
Two men came down the stairs, softly talking: Ulrich Seaver and, yes, Joe’s new neighbor Nevin Luther. They turned right, toward the workroom and the outside door that led to the alley. The cats heard the soft tick-tick as Seaver turned the dial of a huge iron safe as tall as the men. Nevin handed him a package, a bulging brown envelope. Seaver pulled on a pair of cotton gloves, opened it, and removed a stack of money, fanning out hundred-dollar bills like shuffling decks of cards.
He didn’t count it; maybe he could guess about how much. Closing the envelope, leaning deep into the safe, he concealed the money beneath a stack of envelopes and papers far at the back, and locked the safe again.
Nevin said, “I’ll pick this up in a few days, once I have some accounts set up; maybe leave some of it here. What about that cat, what are you going to do with it now? They’ve put out a reward for it, there’re signs all over the village, a thousand dollars. No cat is worth . . .”
Seaver said, “I’m getting it up to the city pronto. I have a fellow up there building a nice big cage, three stories, little beds so she can change around, a scratching post, everything fancy for the looks of it, and everything a cat would want. She’ll be happy there. You can’t train a cat that isn’t happy. It’s a nice enough cat—but its color and markings, that’s what we’ve been searching for, you’ve seen the antique pictures, the old tapestries. The training, the tricks, that’ll be the icing on the cake.”
Courtney, pretending to sleep, thought she was going to throw up. A three-story cage—everything a cat would want. A cage, and he said she’d be happy there.
The hell she would. And you, Seaver, you don’t know the half of what we found, and saw, tonight.
She and Dulcie had not only enjoyed the wonders of the gallery, they had searched behind furniture, searched the shop’s hidden crevices, pried and prowled not knowing exactly what they were looking for—until they found a prize that had them both smiling; and Courtney meant to find more.
In an elegantly carved rolltop desk with dozens of little drawers inside, they had found one drawer which, when they pulled it all the way out, revealed an opening behind, a cherrywood cubicle filled with something furry and dark that made them draw back, claws raised.
But then they relaxed. Dulcie reached a paw in, and smiled. Courtney took a good sniff, and laughed softly.
The shelf held a man’s neatly trimmed beard and mustache, all in one piece, with some sort of sticky stuff on the back. That didn’t taste good when they licked it off their paws. Beneath this, neatly folded, was a navy blue cap and, when they pulled it out, long, dark hair hung down, shaggy hair the same color as the mustache. This was the library prowler’s disguise.
This was a find they could take to Harper. But, “No, don’t take it,” Dulcie said, “to move it is to contaminate evidence. But we can tell him where it is. The disguise of the man in the library.”
“And tomorrow,” Courtney said, lashing her calico tail, “tomorrow I really start to search. First, her side of the bedroom, the missing woman. Tomorrow, while I’m alone upstairs, I’ll find more clues for Max Harper, and then we’ll call him. Tomorrow maybe I’ll find out who this woman is who was almost buried alive.”
“If it’s the same woman,” Dulcie said. “And pray to the great cat god you don’t get yourself into big trouble.” She licked her child’s calico ear, reminding herself that Courtney was nearly grown and that she was strong and clever. They finished the shrimp and kibble that Seaver had put down for Courtney, and curled up for another little nap.
Lucinda and Pedric had finished supper, Lucinda setting aside an ample helping of hot beef stew for Kit and Pan. Its scent embraced the neighbors’ yards and drifted across the rooftops as the two cats raced along the oak branch and in through the cat door in the dining room window, Kit already telling their housemates about finding Courtney; she was halfway through her story as she flew to the table so she had to start over again. “Slowly,” said Pan and Lucinda and Pedric together. She tried, she told the whole tale of Joe Grey finding Courtney, of their secret entry into the antiques store to get her out, jimmying the powder room window; but she forgot to tell it slowly, her monologue raced faster and faster . . . “and Courtney was so willful and stubborn she wouldn’t leave. After we all got out the window safely, she leaped back in and sassed Joe but refused to come out, she means to stay there until she finds out who that woman is, if she’s his wife and if he tried to kill her and bury her alive and . . .”