Cat Deck the Halls (10 page)

And Clyde, who favored old worn jeans and ragged T-shirts, had made an effort, too. Joe Grey's housemate was turned out in a tan suede sport coat, a black turtleneck, and cream slacks, was newly shaved, and his dark hair freshly cut. As he held Ryan's chair, Dorothy looked up at Ryan questioningly.

“Nothing yet,” Ryan said, sitting down. “We could be in our graves before we get this permit.” As the project's contractor, Ryan was out of patience waiting for city and county permits and the final okay from the historical society. “The planning commission knows you want to have the classrooms ready by spring semester, they know you have four new teachers coming.”

Dorothy nodded. “Without the new space, we'll be really crowded. Well, we'll make do—crowded doesn't really matter, if the kids are excited about what they're learning. Give them an intellectual challenge, show them how to run with it, and they're happy.

“They're looking forward to the new quarters, and to having a real fireplace in the big classroom, but they understand about the Historical Society—they know the old stone house is the only real monument left to Anna Stanhope.”

Lucinda said, “Her studio in the woods must have been lovely then, before her son cut down so many trees and built that big ostentatious mansion—though in the long
run, that turned into a blessing, as if it was always meant to be a children's home.”

“Strange to think,” Charlie said, “about the wild parties and unleashed sex and drugs that went on, when those things were far less common. And now the Stanhope house is a children's refuge from just that kind of ugliness.”

“Those artists did more partying than work,” Gabrielle said, fluffing her fur wrap. “They just played at being artists and writers.”

“Not all of them,” Cora Lee said. “Not Anna Stanhope, she was a serious painter. She must have managed, somehow, to protect her privacy and working time. She was very dedicated, and very fine. She left a huge legacy of work.” Anna Stanhope's paintings appeared in many fine collections and were included in many art histories, the landscapes jewel rich in color, the essence of scenes they saw around them every day in the shifting California light.

“Haven't you ever wondered,” Gabrielle said, “why her son boarded up the house all those years? I'm surprised the city let him.”

“It was his property,” Dorothy said. “He paid the taxes. He wasn't breaking any law if he wanted to close it up. And he did come down from San Francisco sometimes, to check on its condition.”

“To clear out her paintings,” Gabrielle said. “Sold them a few at a time, in that gallery in the city.”

“Maybe he didn't want to flood the market,” Cora Lee suggested. “They've increased so much in value.” Cora Lee's own background as an artist lent her a quiet authority that silenced her housemate. Donnie, caught between his
cousin and his fiancée, kept out of it, silently sipping his drink. Dulcie was watching him, frowning, when her own housemate appeared hurrying up the street to join them.

Earlier in the evening, Dulcie had lain on the bed as Wilma dressed, and the tabby had pawed through Wilma's jewelry box helping to choose which barrette Wilma would wear. They had agreed on an onyx-and-silver creation to clip back Wilma's long silver hair and to complement her soft red jacket and long paisley skirt. Wilma Getz might be in her early sixties, but her tall figure was as slim as a girl's. She walked several miles a day, and since she'd been kidnapped last summer, she worked out more often at the village gym, intending to be in far better shape if another of her old ex-parolees surprised her.

Dulcie watched her swing in through the patio's little iron gate, cross between the crowded tables, and pull out the last chair at the big round table, sneaking a look underneath to see if the cats were there waiting for a bit of supper. Not seeing them, she glanced up to the roof, and hid a little smile.

When the waiter came for their orders, Wilma chose a shrimp bisque and, for dessert, a rich crème brûlé. Both were among Dulcie's favorites. When Wilma ordered two of each, one meal for herself and one to go, Dulcie, above on the roof, hungrily licked her whiskers.

As Wilma sipped her coffee, Ryan looked across the table to the Greenlaws. “When do you want to go over plans for your remodel? I can come by any day, but better if it rains. We're just starting a new house, so it's all outside work, and rain will give me some free time. We've finished both the current remodels—both couples wanted to be settled back
in by Christmas.” She grinned. “They'll have to hustle. We did the best we could, but Christmas is almost on us.”

“What about now, tonight?” Lucinda said eagerly, glancing at Pedric.

The old man nodded. “Sooner the better. But if you're starting a new job…”

“Just for a look?” Lucinda said. “A general idea, maybe enough to give us a rough estimate?”

“Enough,” Ryan said, “so I can draw a rough plan of the space and some tentative sketches, and can suggest some materials you could look at. The only thing that will hold me up is when we get the permit for the children's home. Then it will be all-out, until it's finished.”

“I still say,” Gabrielle said darkly, “it's the public-school children who were allowed to transfer up there that has the city so riled and reluctant to issue the permit. I don't see why those children did that.”

“Because the school is better,” Wilma said shortly. “Because those kids were bored out of their minds in public school.”

Gabrielle huffed impatiently, as if Wilma knew nothing about children or about learning.

The small exodus of students from public school up to Patty Rose had created a deep anger among some of the village teachers. Both Lori and Dillon had transferred, both girls rebelling when Lori was told by her principal that she was not allowed to attend the school of her choice. Lori Reed did not take well to being told that she could not do what she longed to do—not without a logical reason, not by strangers, certainly not by a county bureaucracy. “What do they mean, I
can't
?” Lori had ranted. “When did this coun
try turn into a slave state!” The girls said that a few teachers were so dull, they put everyone to sleep, that they weren't learning anything, that all they did was follow workbooks like robots, so why shouldn't they turn to a school that challenged them? Dillon's parents and Cora Lee had fought the school officials for months to make that happen.

“Our remodel,” Lucinda was telling Ryan, “is pretty straightforward, if we can turn the half bath into a small kitchen. And it's all inside work, so maybe you could work on rainy days when you can't be on the new job.”

“The way the weather's been,” Ryan said, “an inside job for rainy days will be a big help, if you can live with the delays. It could be a very long delay, for the Orphans' Home, and that could be frustrating for you.” That was the biggest complaint Ryan heard about contractors, that they would juggle several jobs at once, pull men back and forth, and prolong all the work. Some clients were demanding penalty agreements from contractors, a hundred dollars a day off the bill, for not meeting the finish date.

“We don't mind delays,” Pedric said. “One thing, though. First day you have free, could you take a look at the plumbing? There seems to be a leak somewhere. Sometimes for short periods we hear water running, but then it stops. We've checked inside and out, but we can find nothing.”

“Could you come tonight?” Lucinda said again, eagerly.

Ryan glanced at her watch. “It isn't too late for you?”

“Ordinarily, it might be,” Lucinda said, laughing. “I think, tonight, we're too energized, our heads too full of the ballet, to go right to bed, even to read. And too full of ideas for the apartment.”

Ryan nodded, glancing at Clyde. “We'll meet you up at your place, then.”

Above them on the roof, the kit moved nervously. She wanted to be home before Ryan got there and they all went downstairs to those empty rooms.

Kit, too, had puzzled over the strange behavior of the water pipes. And prowling the backyard, she'd thought she caught the scent of a stranger. Though sometimes the neighbors crossed there, coming down from the street above rather than going around the block, so she couldn't be sure—but now suddenly as she thought about her old folks and Ryan and Clyde entering those dark rooms, a shock of unease gripped the tortoiseshell cat. And her fear sent her spinning away toward home, racing across the rooftops, wanting to have a look before her humans entered that empty downstairs apartment.

R
ACING HOME OVER
night-dark rooftops, Kit crossed high above the many-colored Christmas lights of the shop-lined streets, leaping from peak to peak and then spanning above the shadowed streets on spreading oak limbs. At last on her own block she scrambled down a pine trunk into a dense cover of dry needles, and raced through a tangle of gardens toward home, stopping only when her own house towered high over her, its plaster walls pale in the night, its two stories of decks looking down over the village. From the front, the Greenlaw house faced the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, and appeared to be one story. But here at the back, on the downhill side, the windows and decks of the main floor and the daylight basement looked out over the lower street to the far, tree-shaded cottages and shops of the village.

Lucinda and Pedric had bought the house for its view of the village and the open green hills beyond. The real-estate ads had said it provided, as well, “a glimpse of the sea,” but Pedric said you'd throw your neck out trying to
see the ocean from that vantage. Their plan was to convert the downstairs rooms to a separate apartment so that at some future time they could have a live-in, personal caretaker. But one of the biggest selling points was not a part of the house at all.

On the west side of the house stood five old twisted oak trees, and tucked among their highest branches, half hidden, was a sturdy tree house. It had been built for the previous owner's children—and it was now Kit's own. A private retreat that Kit considered nearly as elegant as Joe Grey's rooftop tower, a shingled aerie that she could reach from the dining-room window across a thick oak branch or, of course, up the trunk from the garden below. The day they moved in, Pedric had installed a cat door in the bottom of the dining-room window.

Tonight the old couple had left lights on in the dining and living rooms, and Kit, approaching the warmth and smells of home, began to purr a happy rumble—but suddenly she froze, listening.

That sound. The pipes again. Water running in the house. And this time, in the night's silence, without competing neighborhood noises, she knew that it came from the downstairs bath.

Slipping in among the bushes beside the lower floor, she could hear someone there, all right, in the unoccupied downstairs bathroom. Someone moving softly about, an intruder where no human should be. She approached the lower deck stealthily, and across it to the sliding-glass door that served as the outside entry.

The downstairs was dark. She could see down the hall, but no light burned, not even a flashlight. Crouching on the
little entry deck, she was peering through the glass doors into the black interior of the empty family room when, inside, someone coughed. Kit backed away into the shadows.

She waited for some time, but hearing nothing more, she slipped closer and reared up against the glass. A cold wind nipped at her backside, ruffling her fur and tugging at her tail, carrying with it the smell of a new storm, smell of rain approaching, smell of ozone. Pressing her nose to the cold surface, she tried to see in.

She could discern no one inside, no movement down the dark central hall. Examining the lock, she didn't think it had been broken or tampered with, she could see no scars or scratches on it, nothing bent, no screws removed. And no one could have come down from upstairs. Months before, one of Ryan's carpenters had sealed off the inner stairway with timbers and plywood, so there was no access. The only way in was here, through this six-foot glass door, which was reached from the upper level by the outside stairs to this deck.

Quickly she circled the lower floor, slipping along among the bushes and flowers close to the wall, moving back and looking up at each window to see if it might have been jimmied. In the dark, she could see no damage, they all looked securely locked. No fresh scratches, no tool marks. Coming around to the narrower, front deck, she hopped up there and reared tall to examine the front windows.

Here, along the front, there were no sliding-glass doors, as one would expect to open onto a deck, only windows. Below her, as she padded along, the lights of the village sparkled and shifted between the deck's rails. Overhead the stars were fast disappearing as storm clouds gathered, car
rying the serious smell of rain—then suddenly she caught a human smell, the smell of a woman.

The fact that the intruder was a woman made little difference, a woman could be just as violent as a man, just as cruel to a small cat. Pausing beneath the window where the scent came strongest, she could see tool marks there, all right. Scars on the molding and a tiny slit where the lower half of the double-hung window had been left open a crack. The woman's scent was strong—cheap bath powder, cheaper hair spray, and female perspiration.

On silent paws Kit leaped to the sill. Pushed up the glass and slipped under, into the long dark family room.

Padding across the big, empty room to the dark hallway, she looked down its length, considering the open doors. On her left were two small bedrooms that she knew had a bath between. On the right, a half bath next to the family room, and behind it the blocked-off stair leading up to the main level. At the back, the original laundry room. Lucinda had installed a new washer and dryer upstairs. There was no sound now. The woman's scent led up the hall.

Was she waiting there in the dark for Lucinda and Pedric to get home? But why wait down here, if she meant to rob them? Had she thought, breaking in, that she could get up to the main level from inside and burglarize the house while they were out? When she found the stair blocked off, she would have had to change her plans.

So, what did she mean to do now?

But Clyde and Ryan were with the old couple, and those two hot-tempered, younger folk would handle the housebreaker.

Except, what if she had a gun? Neither Clyde nor Ryan, out on a date, was likely to be armed, Kit thought, amused.

How dangerous was this person? Or was she only some homeless woman taking shelter from the winter cold? Kit imagined her luxuriating in a hot shower, to get warm. Would there be, in one of the two small bedrooms, a thin, dusty bedroll or a pad of old newspapers or maybe old discarded clothes and food wrappers? Moving silently, tensed to spring away, Kit had started up the dark hall when she heard the Greenlaw car, on the street above, turn in to the drive. And behind her, light bloomed through the glass door as the outdoor security lights came on. Ahead, down the hall, there was no sound. She heard the garage door rise up on its metal track, heard the car pull in—she heard movement near her again as the woman slipped softly across the front bedroom. Above Kit, the car doors opened and slammed, then the garage door rumbled closed.

At the end of the hall, a figure appeared, a dark silhouette. The woman stood looking, and then started toward Kit.

I am only a shadow,
Kit told herself.
A smudge of darkness, black on black to human eyes.
She heard, above her, the door open from the garage into the kitchen. She heard Lucinda and Pedric cross the kitchen to the living room—and out on the street, two more car doors slammed. The woman had paused again, as if listening. More light bloomed through the glass sliders as additional yard lights went on. She heard the upstairs front door open, then Ryan's voice, then Clyde. Someone closed the front door and locked it, she heard the dead bolt slide home, then multiple footsteps came along the stone walk above, and down the wooden stairs. The
woman had vanished into the far bedroom, stirring about in a flurry.
She's going to run,
Kit thought, ducking into a corner.
This way, down the hall? Or out a front window?
But the narrow deck along the front was a full story above the ground.

She's trapped
, Kit thought. And like any trapped creature, this could make her more dangerous. Kit had to warn her old couple. She spun around, racing back down the hall. Beyond the glass, Clyde and Pedric were talking as Lucinda fit her key into the lock. As the lock clicked open and Pedric slid the door back, Kit flew at them, streaking through the open door, leaping at Lucinda, mewling and crying in Lucinda's arms, her tail lashing, her claws going in, in a way she never did, and desperately flinging herself at Lucinda's ear, whispering—she'd hardly gotten a word out when footsteps pounded down the hall and the woman bolted straight at them.

From Lucinda's shoulder, Kit leaped desperately into the intruder's face. The woman screamed and grabbed Kit and flung her violently aside and bolted past Lucinda, nearly knocking her down.

Pedric and Ryan caught Lucinda between them as Clyde dove at the dark-clad woman. She tripped him and was past him and out the open glass door, racing down the lower stairs to the backyard, her dark coat flapping, Clyde hard on her heels, and Ryan close behind, as she crashed away though the woods; she was thin, very fast.

Lucinda picked up Kit and held her, burying her face in Kit's fur. “Are you hurt? Did she hurt you?”

“No,” Kit whispered.

Pedric, when he saw that Lucinda and Kit were all right, followed Clyde and Ryan, running after the woman.

Alone with Lucinda, Kit nuzzled her face. “I heard the water running down here and then I smelled her and I came in to see and then you got home and I couldn't shout out to you because Ryan would hear, and I let that woman…Oh, she could have killed you. Oh, Lucinda…”

“It's all right, Kit. You did warn me. Hush now, hush.”

“I saw her face in the light for an instant,” Kit whispered. “Thin. Bony, like a starving stray. Big nose. Thin legs in tight black jeans, and that dark, floppy coat. Dark hair. And I smelled her.”

Kit would not forget the woman's scent, she would retain that precise identification as unerringly as the AFIS retained the record of a perp's fingerprints, or as the lab would record the DNA of a felon or of some unfortunate victim.