Cats have been a favorite subject of fine jewelry from Bast (ancient Egypt) to Laurel Burch (twentieth-century California).
I stared forlornly at the cat pin I had bought at Antique Row before my life went down the toilet. It had shined up nicely but I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to wear it without dredging up memories I hoped someday to forget. Maybe I’d give it to Seleia for helping out. I touched the sleek silver body, the sweet detailed face. Denny had assured me he’d have my cats home as soon as they were released, but when that would be was anyone’s guess. The house was so quiet without their meows, their purrs, their rambunctious play and stampedes across the hardwood floor like a pride of little lions.
Seleia had gone to school. She said she’d drop back by afterward to see how I was but couldn’t stay long because it was Chess Club night. Chess Club? I didn’t know they still had Chess Club. I asked her if it was played on an X-Box. She assured me it was a good, old-fashioned board with little carved men. Apparently Vinnie was a chess champion which explained the draw. She offered to return for the night but I told her not to bother. Fact was, I didn’t want her here. I wasn’t exactly scared for her life or anything, but after Mr. Badass’s threats and the subsequent abuse charge, I couldn’t take any chances. I hadn’t told anyone about the phone call or the intimidation. Was I scared? Sure. But mostly I was confused. Until I was certain the cops could protect me, I had to play it safe.
The phone rang—the normal, boring brrng-brrng of the land line. It took me a minute to get myself up and over to the phone table but I was becoming quicker with the apparatus of my new disability all the time. Luckily the land line was programmed to ring forever before the computer girl took a message.
I reached for it, then wavered. What if it were him again? Fear makes me mad, so I grabbed it from its cradled and barked a gruff greeting into the mouthpiece. There was silence on the other end.
It was him! I knew it! What meanness was he going to threaten me with this time?
I was just about to shout some colorful expletive when I heard the voice of Detective Croft. “Lynley Cannon? Are you alright?”
“Detective, sorry. I thought maybe it was...”
“Was whom?”
“Nobody,” I said quickly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound abrupt.”
“You did not sound abrupt, you sounded afraid.” She paused, but I didn’t take the bait. “Is everything alright?”
Alright as it can be with a broken body and my family ripped from my aching breast, I thought, but there was no use complaining to the hard lady cop. “Fine,” I clipped. “What’s up?”
“I know how upset you were when we did not keep you in the loop before.”
“Did you catch him?” I exclaimed.
“No, not yet, though we are doing everything we can, I assure you. Actually the news is not favorable. We have nothing on your assault. Though several people recall seeing you after the attack, not one noted the attacker himself. As for the home invasion, we took a suspect into custody based on the witness’s identification from our booking photographs, but the man was released last night.”
“There was a witness?”
“Correct. The voyeur—the original suspect that we brought in from the scene.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “Rats.”
“My thoughts exactly. The new suspect seemed a good lead but his lawyer got him pulled—not enough proof of involvement to hold him,” she said sarcastically. “We will be watching him like an owl, though. You can count on it. If he slips up at all, we will have him back, even if it is for jaywalking instead of robbery and aggravated death.”
“Death?”
“Correct. That is the other part of the bad news—last night Daryl Johnson passed away in ICU.”
* * *
The next time my phone rang, I wanted to run the other direction—I just couldn’t take any more—but it was my cell and the display assured me the call was friendly.
“Tell me something good, Frannie, or I’ll hang up this minute!” I yowled in lieu of hello.
“Whoa, don’t shoot the messenger,” she snapped back. “Besides, this is good—very good! Two things: Addison got adopted. I knew you’d want to hear right away.”
“Yay!” I whooped, picturing the sweet old cat I had nursed through his kitty cold. “Do you know who took him?”
“I did the adoption myself,” she announced proudly. “I think it’s a great match. They were an older couple—I mean around our age. (That gets me every time! When did we become our grandparents?) Anyway, they really loved him and all the more because he was fourteen. Dr. Angela told them all about his finicky stomach, and they said sticking to the special diet would be no problem. They looked well-off, able to afford prescription cat food. It was blessed, Lynley, I tell you.”
“Great! I’m so glad. I love Addison. He’s got such a positive personality in spite of his disadvantages.”
“Yes, he does. Sally did her usual brilliant job of counseling them on the ins and outs of a new cat, and she’ll do a follow-up call next week to see how they’re getting along. She told them how much we all cared for him and encouraged them to send us an update once in a while.”
“Oh, I hope they do. I love to hear the success stories. Sometimes they send a picture. It’s so great to see the kitties all settled in their new homes.”
“I bet Addison will pork out a little with regular love and care,” Frannie observed. “He didn’t like shelter life—too noisy and too many other cat smells.”
“He was beginning to calm down while he was here at the house,” I recalled.
“And that surely had a hand in why he was adopted so quickly. Fosters always go fast.”
In all the joy of Addison’s adoption, I had nearly forgotten she had said there were two pieces of good news. “Well, that’s great, but what’s the second thing?”
“It’s the one you’ve been waiting for, Lynley. Your kitties are on their way home as we speak!”
* * *
For the first few days after that joyful reunion, I wouldn’t let the cats out of my sight. Well, not literally because no one can keep exact track of six free-roaming felines in a house as big as mine, but I came as close as humanly possible. I can’t tell you how many times I went running—or in my case, hobbling—around looking for Little or Red or Fluffs, only to find them in some new haunt, blinking out at me innocently as if to say, What’s all the fuss? I know exactly where I am.
Dirty Harry was miffed that he’d lost his outdoor privileges. I tried to explain about the danger and Mr. Badass, but he couldn’t see the problem. I finally had to fall back on the rude and unsatisfactory statement that our mothers used on us: “Because I said so.”
During that time, I was always looking over my shoulder, jumping at every little sound. I had heart failure whenever the phone or the doorbell rang. I lay in bed at night, meditating on my death—and not in the Buddhist way but the scared American paranoid way that leaves you cold and breathless and empty.
And every time I was beginning to get a handle on things, there would be another interview or another debriefing, and I would instantly be back to that fear place again.
I had finally, sheepishly told Detective Croft about the phone call and the threats. I got what I deserved when she admonished me for impeding an ongoing investigation and risking danger to myself and others—she didn’t mention the cats, but it was implied, at least that’s the way I took it. Thankfully once she said her piece, she got on with it, adding the new details to the scant list of clues.
It had been established that the break-in and the attack in the park were related, and they had everything to do with the Cats’ Eyes diamonds. Everybody was doing their utmost to find both perps and stones, and I would have loved to have helped, but once I’d ’fessed up to the forewarning phone call, there was nothing more to add. Contact with the police dwindled, then petered out altogether.
Somewhere in the midst of that taxing time, I had a birthday, bringing me one year nearer the big six-oh. I ignored it completely and commanded that no one around me speak of it: not a card; not a gift bag; not a single note of the traditional Happy Birthday To You.
My leg healed without any surprises and the cast was removed in early June. I felt like I had wings once it was off, though the doctor told me not to go out dancing for at least another month. The same went for jogging, high-jumping, and rock-climbing, which I could easily promise since I did none of them in the first place. I returned to an abridged version of my yoga program and the senior walk in the park, but the doc assured me both were good for my rehabilitation.
June is beautiful in Portland, once the Rose Festival gets out of the way. The annual celebration of our city flower is well-known for its rain, since by the grace of Murphy, most of the activities which included three elaborate parades were held outdoors. But that was past and now the sun could shine its little heart out, at least until the Fourth of July, another holiday seemingly doomed to drizzle in the lush Pacific Northwest.
Frannie and I were sitting in my back yard in the leafy shade of the fig tree. We wore summer frocks and sandals, indulged in lemonade and iced shortbread cookies, and all was right with the world. I had nearly finished the cat fence—or I should say Seleia and a group of her friends had nearly finished the fence, since they were doing the work while I ‘supervised’ from my lawn chair. I was letting Dirty Harry out again but still only during the day when I was there to watch over him. He couldn’t stray without preforming a series of jumps that would have been a piece of cake for Little or Red, but Harry was large, elderly, and somewhat arthritic: the chance of him sproinging himself five feet in the air for the great escape was unlikely if not impossible.
Times like this, I found myself forgetting the Incident, as I’d dubbed my terrible experience. “Life is good,” I commented as I took a sip of my frosty cold drink, then clinked it down on the glass-topped table.
“It’s fantastic to hear you say that,” Frannie commented. “It’s been a long time coming.”
I sighed. “I know, but somewhere along the way I got sick of waiting for the trap to snap. Besides, what good will it do to worry about things than may never happen?”
Frannie gave a little chuckle. “That’s very Zen of you.”
“I think so,” I boasted. “But that’s not going to get the FOF Annual Benefit Show and Sale planned, now is it?”
“I suppose not.” She picked up the yellow lined pad and a flamboyant green pen. I noticed it matched today’s choice in nail polish. “Where do we start?”
I considered. “How about a recap of what we’ve already got? Then we can fill in where things are a little thin. Let’s start with the show. So far we have music—,”
“Benny and the Vets, the all-veterinarian band.” She wrote it at the top of the blank page.
“And Trudie, the animal care tech, is going to sing. Show tunes, I think. Something from the musical, Cats.”
Frannie added Trudie to the list. “My, we are a talented bunch, aren’t we?”
“We sure are.”
“Ginger, one of the new volunteers, is getting her friend from the Comedy Club to do part of his act.”
“Oh, is that a for sure?”
“I think so. Sounded like it last time I talked to her.”
“Know his name?”
“Not yet. I’ll just put down ‘Ginger’s friend’ for now.”
“And don’t forget Mr. Marcus, the emcee. He’s a comedy act in himself. He’s going to be doing the auction too.”
“He’s always good.” Frannie examined her handiwork. “Looks like a show to me!”
“It’s getting there. I’d still like to see some dancing. Dancing’s the hot thing these days, what with the Dancing with the Stars craze.”
“I don’t watch it.”
“Neither do I—I’m boycotting that station since they canceled my soap opera after forty-one years on the air—but we may be the only two people in America who don’t.”
“Dancing,” Frannie wrote, then put a big curly question mark behind it.
“Okay, that’s about all we can do for now. Let’s move on to the auction.”
“Everybody’s gathering donations, anything from a massage to pet sitting to original works of art. I don’t know who’s going to be in charge. You’re doing the rummage sale, though. Right?”
I nodded. “This year I’m going for quality versus quantity. All the really good stuff will be set out on nice table coverings with prices to match and pretty cards to remind the buyers that the entire amount goes for the cats. The not-so-nice stuff I figure I’ll sell by the box. It’s easier for the cashiers that way.”
“Good idea. They won’t need to add up an interminable list of five- and ten-cent items.”
“Nothing under a dollar, or maybe even five dollars.” I smiled. “It is for a good cause, you know.”
“You bet it is!”
“More lemonade?” I asked.
“Sure, but let me get it.”
Before I could reply, she was up and halfway across the lawn with our glasses. “Thanks,” I called as she slipped into the cool dark of the house.
With Frannie gone, I sat back and studied my garden. I hadn’t been able to keep it up the way I liked to because of my leg, and it showed in the weedy edges, but at least it was all green and some of the weeds were really very pretty. The grass was cut, thanks to a helpful neighbor, and the geraniums that ringed the narrow stone patio were beginning to open their generous brick and coral blossoms. The little water feature, actually an extremely low-tech contraption of black plastic, sand, pebbles, and a hose, was gurgling away. The birds liked to drink from it, as did Harry. He was there now, his pink tongue lapping deep into the cool. His black back glistened with brown highlights and his white ruff and petticoat gleamed like the sun itself.
As if he knew I was watching him, he turned and gave me his enigmatic green stare. Then he peered back at the stream. For a few moments, he contemplated. Cocking his head to get a different view, he very carefully reached a paw into the water. Instantly he pulled it out again and shook it off, offended by the wetness, but apparently what he wanted was more important than a doused paw. Deliberately he reached back in, this time hitting his mark. Slowly he drew something out, then with a deft move, flung it across the patio as he chased close behind.
It skittered to a stop a few feet in front of me.
I looked down at the sparkly brown stone.
My breath caught, and suddenly I was back there again, back in the murky turmoil I had tried so hard to forget. I snatched up Harry with one hand and the stone with the other and started for the house.
“Frannie!” I cried out.
There was no answer.
The panic button in my head went off again and again. “Frannie? I think we got a problem!”
I stopped dead in the kitchen door. Frannie was splayed out on the Marmoleum, her fingers still clutching a broken tumbler and a dark red stain expanding from underneath her blonde hair.
Harry squirmed.
The diamond felt cold in my hand.
Something moved in the shadows. Without thought, I pivoted and ran—right into the clutch of Mr. Badass himself.
I screamed and let Harry drop; he’d have a better chance on his own. Before I knew what had happened, I was face down in the grass.
I’d forgotten about the stone until my fingers were savagely pried apart and it was wrenched from my grip. “Okay,” I grunted into the lawn. “You got what you came for, now go away and leave us alone.” It was a futile gesture of bravado for two reasons, the least of them being that my words were all but unintelligible with my mouth full of dirt. The other, I didn’t want to contemplate because it was all balled up in the fact that I had seen what he looked like. After what they’d done to Frannie, I had little hope of them departing like gentlemen now.
A booted foot came down on the back of my neck, driving my face farther into the grass. Would I ever feel the same about the fresh scent of newly-mowed lawn? I seriously doubted it.
Maybe if I’d been younger, if I didn’t have that bad back and hadn’t been recovering from a fractured leg, I could have reached around in some prehensile karate move, gripped his ankle and flung him to the ground. But I was old and feeling older every minute. As the heel of his boot ground down between my shoulder blades, I knew I was completely helpless. It was a feeling no one should ever have to experience, because it never quite goes away again.
Badass began to speak to his partner in the shadows, but the throbbing in my ears was so loud I could barely make it out. I could tell they were arguing, though, by the intonation as well as the liberal use of blasphemes. Words I caught clearly were stupid, dimwit, and screw-up. Badass was doing most of the talking and I got the impression that the upset had to do with Frannie and me. I heard something about not leaving witnesses. I hadn’t known my heart could beat any faster, but it did.
The foot let up a little and I wondered if he were getting ready to stomp my head into oblivion, the obvious solution to the witness problem. Instead, he pulled me roughly to my knees.
“You’re coming with us,” he growled.
Yanking me the rest of the way up to a teetering stand, he whirled me around and shoved me toward his partner. Surprised, the stocky man caught me in a mock-embrace.
“My brother will take care of you, since he prefers action to stealth.”
Brother Badass quickly rallied to his new assignment. I saw the baton coming up over me, and the moment before the blackout, the old Beatles tune tinkled teasingly through my mind:
Bang Bang Maxwell’s silver hammer came down on his head; Bang Bang Maxwell’s silver hammer made sure he was dead...