The Language of Death (A Darcy Sweet Coy Mystery) (12 page)

The
screech that came out of my mouth at that exact moment sounded less like a lion's roar and more like a cat being scared to death.  Which, basically, is what I was.

That?  No.  That's not where I lost my life.  That comes later.

A crow had fluttered up in my face, right in front of me, rummaging through the dead leaves and flapping his wings.  He was probably looking for worms or other insects to fill his big, fat belly.  I hate crows.  They're like rats with wings, or short ugly chickens, or…or…something else that's just as ugly that I can't think of right now.  Ugly rat chickens.  Yeah.  That's what they are.

This one cawed at me again and then flew off, into the higher branches up above until I lost sight of it. 
I stopped to get my breath and shake my head a few times.  Dumb crow broke my rhythm. 

That's when I heard the voices.

"I told you not to take it," a girl's voice said.  I jumped up in the air again, not screeching this time thank you very much.  My heart was racing, though, and I got to wondering if maybe I might get scared to death out here after all.

Nope.  That's not where I lost my one life either.

I could see two people through the trees.  Standing and talking.  The girl was young, with long blonde hair held back in a ponytail, wearing a long blue dress without sleeves.  There was a man with her, a little older than she was, I guessed, with hair buzzed closed to his scalp and eyes that were hidden behind dark sunglasses. 

The
guy gave me the creeps.

"I took it for us,"
he was saying to the girl.  "It's for our future."

"It doesn't belong to us," the girl insisted.  "You have to take it back."

I could see she had something shiny in her hand that sparkled in the sun.  A ring, by the look of it, with little stones set in place on a gold band.  I think people called those little stones diamonds.  I never understood why people have so much interest in stones.  They're just little pieces of rock.  I could find rocks anywhere.  Look, I'm stepping on some right now.

Those ones on the ring sure were
sparkly, though.

The guy and the girl were still arguing, and the girl tried her best to push the ring into the guy's hand.  He wouldn't take it.  "I stole it for us. 
That ring is worth a lot of money, and it's ours now."

Stole it?  I know enough about humans and how they think to know that stealing is wrong. 
Cats don't steal from each other.  We might take stuff from people's garbage, but that isn't stealing.  If people didn't want that stuff taken, they wouldn't throw it out.

My ears perk up. 
If these two stole a ring from somewhere in town, this could be even more interesting than running through the woods.  I watched them intently to see what they would do next.

The girl shifted her weight from one foot to another, looking nervous, but finally
she put the ring on her finger.  "Fine.  I'll keep it, but I don't like stealing, Pat.  If we're going to be together we need to show everyone we can make it on our own.  So.  Um.  When do you think we can sell it?"

"Tomorrow.
  My cousin lives over in Meadowood."  The guy, Pat, rubbed his hands together.  "He knows a guy runs a pawn shop.  We can get at least two hundred dollars for that.  Plenty for us to run away with.  Enough for a start, anyway."

The girl didn't look as certain.  "My mom's going to be really worried, Pat.  I don't know if I can do this."

Pat, reached out and pulled the girl closer.  "Ginny, we don't have to tell your parents anything.  With that ring we can start a new life far away from here.  I'm glad I stole it."

I waited, and listened, until the picture came clear in my head.  Pat here was trying to convince this girl to run away with him.  He needed money to make that happen, and he was going to sell this diamond ring to get that money.

Only the ring wasn't his.

Most cats I know would have turned and walked away at that point, or kept watching out of plain curiosity.  I'm just not most cats.  This guy had committed a crime against someone. 
That just didn't seem right to me.  Which meant I was going to have to do something about it.

In my life, I've learned one thing for certain. 
A cat's work is never done.

***

There are a few places where people can go to eat in Misty Hollow.  For cats it's a lot simpler. 
We don't have to go out at all.  Our owners put food down for us in our dishes.  Or, like my new friend Tony the alley cat, we just dig around in garbage cans or catch a few mice.

Mmm
.  Fresh mice.

Well.  The restaurant I follow Ginny to doesn't serve fresh mice, of course.  People aren't into that.  This place is called The Dog Shack, and
what it serves is all kinds of hotdogs.  I like hotdogs well enough, but I'm not very fond of the name of this place.  I've heard Darcy say it's going to close in a few weeks.  I can't say I'll be sorry to see any business with the word "dog" in it go away.

Ginny has been upset the whole way here.  Cats can kind of sense people's emotions, sometimes even know what they're thinking.  We all speak human, of course, even though people can't speak cat.  I
n this case I didn't need Ginny to say anything.  I could see how upset she is.  I think running away is this guy Pat's idea.  I'm not sure Ginny wants anything to do with it.

Most places where people are welcome don't want pets around.  No dogs, no cats, nothing like that.  So when Ginny goes in through the front glass doors of the restaurant, I can't follow her any further.  I can see through the doors and the tall front windows but I can't go in.

Not this way.

I'm very good at getting in and out of buildings.  Darcy keeps wondering how I get out of our house and back in again when she locks the doors and
windows up.  I have my ways.  I'm not going to let a little thing like a no pets policy keep me out of The Dog Shack.

Around the back, where it's darker and the garbage is piled high in a metal bin, I find my way in.  The garbage bin works as a stepping stone for me to get up to a high ledge where someone forgot to close a window and just like that, I'm in.

The trickier part is skulking around downstairs in the restaurant without being seen.  It's not all that hard.  There are tables and chairs and other pieces of furniture for me to squeeze behind.  Not to mention, people don't usually look down.  They're preoccupied with their little worlds up above and don't look down here where us cats walk.

Ginny is certainly preoccupied.  I can see her, sitting in one of the green plastic chairs at a round, white table.  She's holding her hand up to admire the ring, turning it this way and that way, smiling at it.  Humans and their diamonds, I think to myself again.

Then she takes it off, staring at it closer.  With a long, slow sigh, she sets the ring down on the table in front of her.  She doesn't want to do this.  I can tell.  I can sense her uncertainty.  She wants to give the ring back, even if she thinks it's pretty.  When she doesn't pick the ring back up, I see my chance.

Claws slipping on the
white and green linoleum, I jet across the floor, jump up onto Ginny's lap, up onto the table, grab the ring in my mouth, and race off again.  Ha!  That's how we do—

I turned to look back at Ginny with a triumphant little grin just before I ran full tilt into the glass doors of the restaurant.  I'd forgotten they were
even there.  Glass, from top to bottom.  I mean, who builds doors like this?  My vision turns black with little pinprick stars and for the life of me I feel like I'm going to pass out and die.

Nope. 
This isn't how it happened either.  I still have all nine of my lives.  At least for now.

Blinking, clearing my head, I hear Ginny hollering after me.  She's getting up
from her seat, and now other people are getting up, and I am in deep, deep trouble.  Ears flattened back against my head I look this way and that way trying to find a way out that doesn't involve me getting caught.

When my gaze passes across the doors,
time freezes.  Standing on the other side of the glass, staring at me, is the most beautiful cat I've ever seen.  She's all gray except for the white tips of her ears, with silky fur and a long tail.  Her big, expressive eyes are the color of clear blue water.  She's looking at me now like I'm crazy, and I suppose I probably seemed insane, banging into glass doors while holding a diamond ring in my mouth.  I've never been so embarrassed in all my nine lives.

Looking back, I should have proposed to her. 
Right there and right then.  When I meet her again later I'll wish that I had.  I mean, I had the ring already.  Hard to think of those things when you're running for your life, though.

Promising myself that I will find her
again I get my feet working and scramble back across a sea of grabbing hands.  Everyone in the restaurant is trying to stop me, but I'm just too quick.

Actually, it would be closer to the truth to say I was just plain lucky.  Chairs crashed over and people screamed and food flew every which way, and
in the chaos I made it back up into the attic where all the cardboard boxes of cups and plastic forks were stored.  The window I came in through is right there.  Just like that, I'm gone again.

Panting, excited with my success, I jump out the window and aim for the soft garbage down below.

And miss.

Ow
. 

Ow
, ow, ow.

If you ever jump down onto the edge of a metal garbage bin, you'll know what I mean. 
Just…ow.

But n
o, I didn't lose a life there, either.  Stay with me.  The story isn't over yet.

***

Ring still in my mouth, paws sore and head ringing, I pad out to the front corner of the restaurant where I can see Ginny standing on the sidewal
k, upset and worried and wringing her hands as she paced back and forth.  I stopped there, and watched.

The cat I saw before is gone now, leaving me
wondering who she was and how I would find her again.  She must have just arrived in town.  I've never noticed her before, and believe me, I would have noticed her.

I don't have time to find her now.  Ginny is still pacing, waiting for something.

It doesn't take very long for Pat to show up.  Ginny must have called him on her cell phone.  Sometimes I wish cats had cell phones, but then I think…where would we carry them?

"Where is it?" Pat
asks Ginny immediately.

"I told you," she answers him, "the crazy cat took it!  It's gone!"

Pat's face is pinched with anger.  The shoelace in his left sneaker is undone, like he had rushed here without time to stop and tie it.  Now that he doesn't have his glasses on I can see the blazing green color of his eyes.  This is not a nice man.  "Ginny, we need that ring!"

"Will you keep it down?" Ginny hisses.  "Look, I didn't want to do this in the first place.  Just…just forget it.  I'm staying here with my folks.  When you can earn enough money t
o support us without stealing, then we can talk about getting back together.  I can't be with a man who steals for me!"

There are tears in her eyes as she
runs away, but I can tell she isn't crying because she's sad.  She's relieved.  Relieved to be dumping Pat.

Can't blame her.
  The guy smells like rotten fish.  I kid you not.  Sour and icky and, well, yuck.

He stands there on the sidewalk, calling after her, his hands balled into fists. 
When she doesn't come back he kicks at a paper hotdog basket with the Dog Shack logo on it, and then stalks away.  I decide to follow him.  It's time to see who this ring belongs to and I have a feeling Pat will lead me right there.

"Caw!"

Turning quickly at the sound, I find a crow standing right behind me.  This isn't the crow I saw in the woods.  This is Corvin.  He and I are acquaintances, you might say.  He lives with some of his family in the park at the town center, and he's always getting in the way.  Like now.

"What
ya got there?" Corvin asks in that screeching voice of his.  "It's sparkly, real sparkly.  Is it mine?"

"Are
oo stherious?" I ask, the ring in the way of my words.  "No, iss not yourths!"

"What?"

"I sthaid, iss not yourths!"

"Oh," he says, obviously disappointed.  "Is it yours then? 
Yours?"

"Uh, no."
  Oh, for the love of catnip, why am I explaining this to a crow?  "Corvin, I gotha go."

"'Kay,"
Corvin says, twisting his head sideways.  "Come back when you have something that can be mine!  Mine!"

***

It takes me a moment to catch back up to Pat.  I thought at first that
Corvin had made me lose him, but then I see him again, that loose shoelace flopping along with every footstep.  I hang back, all stealthy like, and soon enough he leads me to a very nice house with an immaculately trimmed lawn.  It's narrow and tall and painted in beige and white, and with the molding and the heart shapes that are cut into the shutters, it looks for all the world like a gingerbread house.