Cat Shining Bright

They had no notion, when they arrived, what they would do, how they would get inside, and how they would avoid their dad. They just wanted to know more about what went on last night, to know more about the crimes and what secret clues their pa had found—even if they were heading for trouble.

 

Joe Grey approached MPPD from the south, from the direction of his own house, galloping atop a row of shops, not over the taller courthouse that rose on the north side. One of the new shops smelled of chocolate. He peered over at the fancy little tearoom that Ryan said had good desserts and salads but that, with its flowery décor and frilly curtains, no cop would ever be caught there. There were no lights on, on this street, though lights shone farther away in the village. Only a dim glow here at the back, from the kitchen, as if the chef were cooking on a gas stove, working by lantern light.

At least MPPD was brightly lit, from their emergency generator. Gaining its roof, Joe watched the glass door swing busily back and forth below him as officers entered. This was change of shift, men coming on duty heading for the conference room, for morning count. Each time the door opened it emitted a strong waft of cinnamon to mix with the chocolate scent from down the street. Licking his whiskers, waiting until the foot traffic had all but ceased, he backed down the oak tree and slid inside behind the heels of Detective Juana Davis. He didn’t duck into the holding cell that stood to the right of the door, a small barred room meant for a few minutes’ confinement before an arrestee was taken back to the jail and booked. There was no one in the lobby but Davis, heading back for her office, black uniform, black stockings, black regulation shoes. And, at the front counter, clerk Mabel Farthy, grandmotherly blond, soft and round and always with a smile. When Mabel saw Joe her face lit up. She turned to her desk for a familiar baking dish that she often brought from home. Joe leaped to the counter. Mabel gave him a big hug, then broke a warm cinnamon roll into pieces, onto a paper plate. Joe devoured it as if he hadn’t eaten in days.

Purring for Mabel, he enjoyed a nice ear scratch as she went on about the kittens. “New babies, Joe Grey. Well, not so new anymore. Four months old already, and Charlie says they’re beautiful.” Charlie was often in and out of the station, her freckled, red-haired beauty always turning heads. Though Mabel had no notion the cats could answer her, she talked to them in a long and loving ramble as she fed them whatever treat she’d brought for the officers, and for the cats themselves.

“Two boy kittens as sleek as you,” Mabel said, “but pale as sand. And the girl kitten . . . a little calico. Charlie says she’s a beauty. So, Joe Grey, when do we get to see them? When will you bring your family to the station?”

Not any time soon, Joe thought, feeling a shiver of dismay. He lived in mortal fear of the kittens finding their way to MPPD, slipping in to prowl, all wild energy and curiosity and forgetting they were never to speak to a human or in front of a human, one of them blurting out a question before they realized the blunder they’d made. They can’t come here, Joe thought nervously. The department is used to Dulcie and me, and that’s fine. We keep our mouths shut. But wild, scatterbrained, half-grown kittens wanting to know everything? They don’t need to be anywhere near the station.

At that very moment two of the kittens peered out at their father and Mabel from deep beneath the bunk that occupied the holding cell, their buff coats blending well into the shadows. They were as motionless and silent as stuffed toys. They were thankful for the strong smell of cinnamon and chocolate and the stink of the holding cell itself that they hoped had hidden their own scent from their father as he’d passed by.

They had not come through the front door as Joe had, padding in behind the skirts of the woman detective.

Up on the department’s roof, they had found the open, barred window that looked down into the cell.