Cat Shining Bright

But the village had been struck, the thieves had been there twice, weeks apart and many weeks after the kittens were born. Both times in the small and darkest hours, the gang working fast, vanishing into the night in stolen cars. Then they had doubled back north, striking small towns that thought they had missed the attacks: Santa Rosa, Bodega Bay, San Anselmo, Ukiah, Mendocino. Molena Point PD remained on alert waiting for their return. Both the cops and Joe Grey found it interesting that in only a few cases were the perps able to steal the cars they broke into. Maybe only one of them carried the latest electronic equipment to unlock the ignition, or maybe the device they used worked only on certain makes. Joe slipped into Max’s office every day, leaping to the chief’s desk, picking up details that were not in the paper about the heists up the coast.

In the gang’s first descent on Molena Point they had stolen only three cars but had broken into twelve more, gleaning a fine array of cameras, clothes, money that some fool had hidden in the lining of a beverage holder, three pairs of binoculars, and a handgun tucked into a briefcase under the driver’s seat. The car owner reporting the stolen gun had been cited for not having a permit and for not properly securing his weapon. By the time Joe Grey and Kit and Pan arrived on the rooftops, the streets were black, clouds covered the thin moon, all was silent and the perps had apparently fled.

The second round of thefts was up in the hills beyond Wilma’s cottage. A houseguest had awakened hearing glass shatter, had looked out his bedroom window to the drive where two men were breaking into his new Audi. Grabbing the bedside phone, he had dialed 911.

The dispatcher sent out the call and then had called the chief at home. Max had risen, dressing hastily. Behind him, Charlie sat up in bed, pushed back her red hair, and tried to come awake, watching him pull on his boots. “What’s happened? Another car heist?”

Max nodded. “Up on Light Street. They broke into an Audi but couldn’t get it started, and burglarized five other cars.”

“They’ll be all over that neighborhood.”

“So will we,” Max said, belting on his holstered gun. Heading out, he didn’t imagine that his call from the dispatcher threw Charlie, too, into high gear. The minute his truck skidded up the drive, throwing gravel, Charlie called the Damen household to alert Joe Grey.

In the Damen master bedroom, Clyde snatched up the ringing phone, listened, then shouted grumbling up at Joe in his rooftop tower. “It’s Charlie. Are you there?” Hearing Joe yowl an answer, he laid down the phone and immediately dropped back into sleep. Beside him Ryan lay half awake, her short dark hair tumbled across the pillow. Above them, Joe Grey pushed in through his cat door onto a rafter, leaped down to Clyde’s study onto the desk, talked with Charlie on the extension, and was out of there, grabbing a small leather pouch in his teeth, leaping to the rafter, out through his tower, and racing across the rooftops. At the same time, at the Harper ranch, Charlie was calling the Greenlaws. By 2 a.m. tortoiseshell Kit and red tabby Pan had hit the roofs, too, heading for Light Street. Spotting the red lights of two cop cars and following them, they soon saw Joe Grey on a nearby peak, carrying his small cell phone in its leather pouch. Separating, the cats roamed the roofs watching the dark streets just as, below, the law was searching. They could see two cops attending to the Audi, taking prints, their flashlights and strobe cameras flashing off broken glass.

By three o’clock the cats had spotted and called in five other cars with broken windows. They could only imagine what contents might be missing. In the dense night they had barely seen two dark-clad men running, vanishing among the houses; one tall and heavily muscled, the other tall and thin. Not much for the cops to go on but Joe made the call, sliding out the phone, its pouch wet with cat drool. They watched three officers melt into the bushes, searching, but they never found the men. From the roofs, the cats watched patrol cars slide along the streets, spotlights flashing in among the houses, while other officers on foot prowled the tangled yards. Cats and cops found no one. There was no sound but the quiet passing of patrol vehicles.