Cat Shining Bright

The tomcat still wasn’t willing to risk calling in, risk placing the snitch so close to his own home. Leave it, he thought, but it wasn’t like Joe Grey to do that.

He arrived home on his own roof to find Ryan, her uncle Scotty, and two of their carpenters clearing away the fallen tree. They had cut the heavy trunk into sections, had removed all but the spreading top that was still tangled in Joe’s tower windows. Corners of one window stuck out at an alarming angle. Another of the shattered panes had given way, scattering more diamond-bright fragments across the dark shingles. Ryan knelt beside the tower carefully cutting small branches, pulling them free of the structure.

At the curb, Manuel and Fernando were stacking the cut lengths of the tree into a truck bed. Joe stood looking at his beaten-up tower, his belly feeling hollow. He’d never realized how much the destruction of his cozy, private aerie would shake him. Staring at what was left of his private digs, his ears were back, his growl was fierce and yet dismally sad.

Below him, Officers McFarland and Crowley were going over the wrecked car, lifting prints. Dallas Garza was working inside the front seat also taking prints and dusting with a small brush for lint, fabric fragments, human hairs. Just up the street a tow car waited to haul the wreck to the department’s impound yard for further inspection. Joe guessed Clyde had gone on to work, concerned about damage to his automotive shop, to the windows and the tile roof. As Joe stood looking at his tower, Ryan tossed an armload of branches down to the lawn below, then came to sit beside him. Her short, dark, windblown hair was full of eucalyptus leaves, her green eyes more angry than sad.

“It’s all right,” she said, smiling down at him, smoothing her hand down his back the way he liked. “It will be all right, we’ll soon have it good as new.”

He couldn’t talk, couldn’t answer her, with the men working so near them. But she could talk to him, holding him, speaking softly without anyone paying attention, women talked to their cats all the time, and even tomcats endured cuddling.

“We’ll order the new windows as soon as we’ve finished clearing out,” she said. “I need to see what else is needed. Meantime, with the plastic and duct tape, you’ll be as snug as your kittens in their quilt.”

Joe wasn’t sure he’d ever feel snug again. Life seemed to have gone totally off center: the destruction of his tower, and Dulcie so moody at home, tied down with the kittens—even if she did love them more than life itself; and now, the threat of that man watching Wilma’s house.

If that guy came after her and there was a dustup in the house itself, even if Wilma was armed, Dulcie and the kittens would be in danger—his family was too vulnerable there, as was Wilma herself. Though she was armed and well trained, still she was alone. Despite the many dangers Joe had known, working behind the scenes snitching for the cops, life seemed now more perilous than he could ever remember—maybe his sudden sense of threat and concern since the kittens arrived had changed the way he viewed the world, maybe he was suddenly not so wild and devil-may-care anymore. From the moment he’d looked down at those tender babies, and had realized his full responsibilities, Joe Grey’s every thought seemed heavier and more serious.

Quietly, he snuggled closer to Ryan.

“It will be all right,” she repeated, scratching his ears. And almost as if she could read his thoughts, “The kittens and Dulcie are fine and safe with Wilma, you know that.”

Yes, Joe thought. But Ryan didn’t know yet, and he couldn’t tell her now, about Wilma’s prowler; not with an audience busy below them.

“And these car break-ins,” she said softly, “are no different from any other village crime—most of which you’ve helped to solve.” Tenderly she scratched under his chin. “You and the cops will get to the bottom of these thefts. Your tower will be fixed before you can sneeze, and everything will be fine. The world, Joe, is just making its bumpy rounds, that’s all.” She kissed him on the forehead, set him down on the shingles, and got back to work.