3

NOW AS JOE carried his gift across the rooftops, the sun had slipped away again and the smell of rain filled the morning. Leaping to the sill of the Chapmans’ laundry-room window, clinging with sharp claws to the ledge, Joe slid the glass back with one armored paw. Moving inside, he clawed the window closed again behind him, dropped to the counter and then to the floor, the mice swinging. When he looked up at the female in the box, among her kittens, expecting her to be charmed by his mousy present, she laid back her ears and glared and hissed at him.

Before approaching, to drop the mice at her feet, he turned to the closed door that led to the kitchen. Pawing at the throw rug that lay before it, he pushed it into the crack, hoping to keep the mice from escaping into the rest of the house.

There was little he could do about the washer and dryer. Nothing was as frustrating as having a mouse escape beneath a washing machine, where you could see its beady little eyes peering out but it was safe from your reaching paw.

He scanned the room, and with a stroke of genius he leaped to the counter, knocked the plastic dishpan off, pushed it across the room with his shoulder, depositing his little gifts in the deep receptacle. The whole time, the yellow cat growled and hissed. Pausing beyond the reach of her claws, he stood for a moment staring down into the dishpan where the mice crouched, confused and dazed. He hoped the little beasts would remain sufficiently stunned not to jump out before Mango could snatch them up.

He expected her to eat most of them-Dulcie said she needed more than kibble when she was nursing kits. But he hoped she’d save a couple, to start training the kittens. Dulcie had laughed at that, had said those kits were too young to train, that to give them a mouse would be like buying a tricycle for a human baby. But Joe wasn’t so sure. That one tom kitten, who had clawed so boldly at the back door, seemed plenty aggressive despite his tender age.

Joe thought about his own kittenhood. He could hardly remember his mama, she had died or run off shortly after he was weaned, long before she was able to teach him much of anything. Certainly she hadn’t taught him to hunt. He’d had to figure that out for himself, had to teach himself how to catch a mouse in San Francisco’s mean alleys, how to avoid the bigger stray cats, how to avoid the city’s wharf rats that would kill and eat a kitten-had had to figure out, alone, how to stay safe and keep from starving.

With these matters sharply in mind, he felt strongly that kittens should be introduced early to the basic skills of life. The hunting and survival skills, mastered when one was young, would never be forgotten. Without those talents, life was twice as hard and one might never grow into a strong and self-sufficient adult-might never grow up at all.

Watching the yellow female, Joe backed away from the dishpan hoping she would approach. She twitched her nose at the mousy scent but didn’t move, she was too wary of a tomcat near her kittens. Only when he turned away, to press against the door that led to the kitchen, did she step out of the box and approach the dishpan to peer in-as the mice scurried around the dishpan scrabbling at the slick plastic walls, her ears came up and her eyes widened. Staying between Joe and the kittens, she reached a paw in with keen interest. Smiling, Joe left her to them. Pushing open the door to the kitchen, he slid through fast and shut it behind him, leaving the bunched rug in place and leaving mama to her feast. Hopefully, inviting a first session of training for the little tomcat.

Now, with access to the rest of the house, what he wanted was a phone so he could reach the dispatcher before the rains began, washing clean the swimming pool. The kitchen was done all in white, white cabinets, a white tile floor, a small oak breakfast table with white pads on the chairs, and a deep bay window above the sink. When he reared up to scan the tops of the counters, he spotted the wall phone hanging just to the right of the window-hanging in plain sight of anyone walking up the drive.

Warily he leaped up and looked out, making sure he didn’t have an audience. Knocking the receiver off, he eased its fall with a quick paw and punched in 911. He was crouched low, his nose to the speaker, when the window brightened above him and he looked up to see the clouds blowing more swiftly, revealing a widening hole of blue sky-maybe the rain would hold off. Sniffing the air, he was unable to make out much in the closed room. He flinched, startled, when the dispatcher picked up.

“Police,” the rookie said crisply, the young man obviously prepared for any manner of disastrous emergency call.

“Detective Garza or Davis,” Joe said, wishing his favorite dispatcher had been on duty. “There’s been a murder,” he said quickly. “Evidence of a murder.” Mabel Farthy would have put him straight through without wasting time with needless questions.

But the sensible rookie did the same, he switched Joe straight to Davis. Joe could tell by the hollow sound that he’d left the line open so he could jot down names and locations-though he would be aware of this address if the Chapmans’ phone didn’t block caller ID.

Detective Davis came on the line. As Joe relayed his message to her, he pictured the middle-aged, squarely built woman sitting at her desk, severe in her dark uniform, her dark Latin eyes unreadable, photographs of her two sons in police uniforms tucked away on the bookshelves behind her among stacks of notebooks and files. He told Davis about the drag marks and the footprints in the pool and up the drive, about the splatters of blood, and the dark glasses lying in the tall grass, silver-framed glasses that he thought were a woman’s.

Davis didn’t ask his name, she didn’t ask who he was or where he was now. Juana Davis knew his voice, and she knew her questions wouldn’t be answered. Like Detective Garza and the chief and most of the other officers, she had moved on beyond questioning the identity of this particular snitch.

She said, “Did you see anyone on the street or in the neighborhood?”

“No one,” he said. “And no strange cars, only those that belong in the neighborhood. All of them cold, cold engines, cold tires.”

“Anything unusual about the empty house? Anyone at the windows?”

“Nothing that I saw,” Joe said. “The footprints end halfway up the drive. If the rain gets here before you do, it’ll all be washed away.” Wanting her to hurry, he reared up and pressed the disconnect button. As he clumsily took the cord of the phone in his teeth and lifted and pushed it back into place, he hoped Davis was already heading for her squad car. Beyond the window, dark and light sky alternated as a high, fast wind played hopscotch with the water-filled clouds, scudding them to hide the lifting sun and then allowing brightness to bathe the village in a skirmish of shadow and light.

Dropping down to the floor, he slipped back into the laundry room, shutting the door behind him. Mango was still in the dishpan. The little yellow tom kitten had left his nest and was standing up with his paws on the edge of the pan, trying to look in, his blue eyes bright and one small paw lifted.

Springing to the laundry-room window, Joe slid it open, hurried through, and closed it again behind him; he headed across the rooftops toward the empty house, his pace faster now that he was relieved of the heavy mice-and though he endured another stab of pity for the poor little beasts, he enjoyed far more the bold and predatory wildness so evident in that tiny kitten.

Now as he raced over the rooftops, the air smelled heavier with rain and the sky grew darker again above him. Come on, Davis. Be there. Hurry up, before it starts to pour. He glimpsed a man two blocks over, looked like the same energetic runner he’d seen before, walking now but still moving swiftly, swinging his arms. The gossiping women were not in sight. Probably they’d finished their walk and were cozied up at home, in one kitchen or the other, enjoying coffee and fattening sweet rolls, effectively undoing whatever weight-loss program they might be pursuing.