Кроха - Dedication

But no. Watching Dulcie and their three beautiful kittens, Joe Grey knew only wonder.

Only when Dulcie lifted her eyes to him did he see for an instant the female’s equally primitive response, the inborn ferocity of a mother cat to protect her young. But then her look softened, her gaze matched his own contentment. They looked at each other and at their babies, and they knew they had made a fine family. Three kittens so beautiful that Joe couldn’t resist slipping carefully down next to the box, next to the door where he could reach his nose in, could breathe in their sweet kitten scent.

“Courtney,” Dulcie said, licking the swirl-marked calico female. Joe thought about names for the two boys but nothing seemed to fit; the two pale buff kittens were still so small, how could one know what kind of cats they would be?

Lucinda and Pedric and Kate slipped into the bedroom, having removed their shoes. They looked down into the box at the three tiny kittens and pronounced them the most beautiful babies ever born. Charlie was enchanted by them. She came again the next morning wearing freshly laundered jeans and shirt, removing her shoes outside the back door, washing her hands at the kitchen sink. Not until the kittens had their several shots would the “germ vigil,” as Wilma called it, ease off and the little family be free from isolation. John Firetti, indeed, worried over the rare little newborns.

Now everyone, humans and cats, would wait impatiently the two weeks or more for the kittens’ eyes and ears to open, for their curiosity to brighten. Wait for them to crowd to the door of their kitten box, peering out, for the boy kittens to reach for the wider world. Courtney needed no encouragement; she was already pawing at every new stir of air, mewling at every small change that occurred around her.

The next days, while the friends waited to hear more than kittenish meows, to know if the kittenswould speak, Joe Grey prowled restlessly between his new family and MPPD: a doting father, but still a nervous hunter, as alert as were the police for some clue to Tekla’s next move, for law enforcement somewhere on the East Coast to pick up her trail, to arrest and confine her.

35

Tekla’s left arm and side hurt bad from where the car had hit the tree. Maybe she was only bruised, or maybe she’d cracked a rib. Fighting the “borrowed” Honda back to the narrow dirt road, getting it on solid ground again and easing out of there in the wind and blowing rain, she slipped the loaded revolver from her purse into her jacket pocket. She was still nervous over the automatic’s disappearing, back in Molena Point. She and Sam had fought all the way across the country about that, too. Either Sam or Arnold was lying, or both were. Why would Sam move the gun? To use it as evidence, to prove that she’d killed Ben Stonewell? If the cops picked them up, did he mean to turn it over, with her prints on it, get himself off the hook?

There’d been no one else in the house to take it after she’d put it in her suitcase. Had he stashed it in the garage somewhere? If he had, sure as hell, the cops would find it. She didn’t understand what he was up to, and that scared her. She’d wondered if, that night in that first out-of-the-way motel, somehow a maid had slipped in, gone through their bags, and taken the gun. That didn’t seem likely; they’d left only long enough for a quick burger, and she’d locked her bag. The other gun, the Magnum that was now in her pocket, hadn’t been taken.

But all across the country, Sam had been losing his nerve. Whining, getting cold feet, not wanting to go on with this, wanting to leave the last jurors they could reach. Just let them go free, after all his earlier talk about getting even. His malingering had delayed them, too, pulling off the highway early, sleeping in late, not wanting to get started.

After she shot Ben, she’d wiped off her prints, but then she’d handled the gun briefly again when she packed it. That missing gun scared her bad. What the hell had Sam done?

When the tornado hit, she’d been lucky to get out of there, the whole room caved in around her. Lucky to find her purse with the Magnum safe inside. The .357 was heavy, but with the automatic gone, it would have to do. With that mess back there, the twisting wind picking up the roof, she knew Sam and Arnold were dead. How could she go to look when the fallen roof covered the entire dock, when everything it had hit was underwater. All she could do was run.

She was terrified when she found their car outside the room smashed beyond use, the wall of the building crushing it. She was lucky to nearly fall over that dead woman, that’s what saved her. Rooting around under the woman’s body where she could see a leather strap, digging out the woman’s purse, that was luck, finding those car keys. Beeping the car, hoping it wasn’t crushed, she’d found it and gotten out of there fast. You had to live right to have luck like that—but then on the dark dirt road when she hit that tree, skidded off the road, she thought she was done for. Jammed in tight against the steering wheel, she’d hurt bad. Cops with their lights and sirens careening by in the dark never even saw her, not that she wanted to be found.

Strange that once she’d left the destroyed motel, had passed maybe half a mile of wrecked cottages and fallen trees stacked like broken toothpicks, that was the end of the damage. Nothing more had been hit. That’s where the road turned away from the lake and climbed. Was that how these tornadoes worked? Ran along between the hills, hit in just the low places?

Now, using the penlight in her purse and the local map, she followed the back roads to the next small town. It hadn’t been hit, either, just a little wind damage, an awning torn. Dinky little burg, one dumpy motel right out of some old movie. She checked into a room, she had no choice. She hurt real bad and it was too dark to move on with what she meant to do. She couldn’t afford to get stuck on those back roads at night, lost trying to get away afterward.

At the front desk she paid with cash. The bearded fat man didn’t blink an eye, just gave her change. The room was ancient. Scarred wood furniture, worn-out bedspread, limp drapes. She finished the bag of chips she’d bought at the last gas station. Her side felt like fire. Was it going to keep getting worse?

She took four Tylenols, didn’t undress, just fell into bed. She slept most of the night. She woke before dawn, sick with hurting. When she stripped and looked in the mirror her whole side was purple, a vast, tender bruise. Sure as hell her ribs were cracked, maybe broken. She didn’t need this, she didn’t want to move on Meredith Wilson in this condition.

Picking up the phone, she cajoled the bearded, overweight rube at the front desk into sending her up some breakfast. What she got was stale cold cereal with milk that was about to go sour, and a cup of lukewarm coffee. She ate, took four more pain pills, crawled back in bed and slept.

She stayed in the fusty room a week, hurting bad, sure her ribs were broken. She didn’t want to see some doctor. Toward the end of the week the pain began to ease, and the bruises were fading. She lived on stale cereal and stale cheese sandwiches. On the eighth day she hauled herself out of bed, sick of the place, sick of the food. It was late morning, later than she’d meant to start, but she couldn’t stand waiting any longer. Making sure she had the map, she headed out, paid the rest of her bill with cash. She stopped at a burger place for takeout, first hot food she’d had in a week.

None of the narrow back roads were marked, most of them dirt with patches of gravel, walled in by thick timber tangled with bushes and vines. She had to guess which road, none were marked. Only once in a while did a small, faded sign appear, but with names she couldn’t find on the local map. Twice she came to dead ends and had to turn around. It was early yet, but the woods were growing dim; this was taking longer than she’d planned. She didn’t want to get on toward evening out here, get lost in the pitch-dark. She wanted to find the woman, do what she came for, and get back to civilization.

Meredith Wilson was the first of the jurors who had left the city after the two accidents. She didn’t know whether it was because of the accidents. Her friend from the court, who’d gotten the sealed jury list for her, said for sure the Wilson woman was going back to Georgia to be with her sick father; Meredith Wilson had told her all about it. A jury clerk could get real friendly with the jury, bringing them sandwiches and coffee and all. Her friend Denise Ripley, they went way back, they’d been in high school together, in the city. Denise had worked for the Clerk of the Court for years—she had not only given Tekla the jury list and their addresses, she’d passed along other useful information, including several people headed for Molena Point, maybe for a few days’ getaway after the stress of the trial.

She’d found out more about those people, first in the city itself, talking to their neighbors, checking mailboxes. That’s why it took so long from the time Herbert was sentenced and sent to San Quentin until she went into action. Took time, finding out how best to get at each of those righteous jurors who had sentenced her son to die—die for a pitiful weakness that Herbert himself couldn’t help and that no one knew how to cure.

On these narrow dirt roads trying to follow the map, it seemed like she’d been driving forever; and now the road itself was beginning to darken as the sun dropped behind the trees. The sky was clouding over again, too. She didn’t like this. But she was too far now to turn back.

When she came to the next fork, she could see a small sign. When she brightened the headlights, a thrill touched her: the hand-carved letters read wilson. This was it. She wasn’t lost. Far ahead through the pine woods, scruffy open fields still held evening light. She turned off the headlights, moved on up the dirt road. She could smell the stink of chicken houses, smell them before she saw them. Bumping along, she came to the turnoff that led, maybe a quarter mile, to the long rows of corrugated metal buildings rusted and sour with chicken dirt. A cottage stood between the road and the metal structures, its two front windows faintly lit, enough to light her way—a raw wooden shack with a weedy vegetable garden along one side. A wide front porch ran across the front, complete with rocking chairs. She could smell woodsmoke and could smell meat frying. Before turning into the long dirt drive she paused at the mailbox.

The name and numbers were nearly invisible. robert clive wilson. She pulled along the rutted drive to a small stand of red-leaved trees. She decided the ground was hard enough that she wouldn’t get stuck. Carefully she backed into the shadows between the spindly trunks. She didn’t get out of the car but sat waiting for full dark. Finding the house cheered her, had put her back in charge again. She sat watching the windows as darkness closed in, feeling the car rock when the wind picked up. She’d say she was looking for a Timmie Lee Baker. Any name would do, she’d say she was lost. She could repeat road names from the map and from the few nearly illegible signs; that was all she needed to get her foot in the door. When it was dark enough and with the wind pushing at her back, she stepped out of the car, the loaded .357 heavy in her jacket pocket as she approached the house.

36

Late-evening sun shone through Wilma’s dining room windows into the large new cat cage she had set up there. The bedroom quarters had grown too small for full-time use. Now Dulcie and the kittens, and Joe Grey, too, had room to sprawl for a nap in the sunshine. The ringing phone woke Joe.

The babies didn’t stir, they slept deeply, their tummies extended and full. Nor did Dulcie wake, worn out from the kittens crawling over her in their attempts at rough-and-tumble. The babies’ eyes were open and their tiny ears unfurled. It was less than two weeks and Joe was proud of them; John Firetti called them precocious and waited eagerly for their first words. They all waited, trying to think how to keep them from talking at the wrong time, in front of the wrong people.

Wilma answered the phone on the second ring. Joe heard her desk chair squeak.

“Oh, yes, I’d love that. What can I do?” By the smile in her voice he could tell it was Charlie, she had a special tone for her niece. “Are you sure? Is Max . . . ?” She was quiet, then, “Yes, that sounds fine.” Hanging up, she looked across into the dining room. “Charlie’s on her way over with a shrimp casserole, a last-minute potluck. Ryan and Clyde are bringing a salad. Max will be along, he’s at the station waiting . . .” She paused, watching Joe. “Waiting for a callback from Georgia.”

Joe came to full attention.

She said, “Looks like they’ve got Tekla!”

He leaped out of the pen and headed for the cat door. Wilma watched him disappear. She couldn’tnot have told him, nor would she have stopped him.

Joe, racing from peak to peak, was hardly aware of clouds darkening toward evening. Almost thundering over the roofs, he hit the courthouse tiles, raced their length and dropped down the oak tree to the station. He slid in through the glass door behind a pair of teenage girls. Across the lobby, Detective Davis was headed down the hall toward Max’s office. Joe fled past the counter, hoping to avoid Evijean, but a familiar voice stopped him.

“Yes, sir, Captain. I’m still waiting, I’ll put it straight through.” Mabel Farthy’s voice—Mabel was back. There she was, his blond, pillow-soft friend standing at the counter beside sour-faced Evijean Simpson, a stack of papers and files between them. Was Mabel catching up on the cases at hand? Was this Evijean’s last day? He was torn between racing to Max’s office or leaping to the counter.

He leaped—Mabel grabbed him up in a warm and smothering hug. “Oh, my. Look at you. Where’s Dulcie? But Davis said she had kittens? Oh, my! Imagine. Kittens! You’re a father, Joe Grey, and don’t you look proud.”

He tried not to look too proud. He rubbed his face against her shoulder; he nuzzled her face and smiled. She petted him until Evijean cleared her throat loudly. When Mabel turned to frown at Evijean, Joe slipped from her arms, dropped from the counter and fled. He didn’t want to get Mabel in an argument with Evijean on her first day back.

Life was good, leave it that way. Evijean would soon be history.

Slipping into Max’s office, he hoped that somewhere on the East Coast, Tekla was resting her heels in the cooler, and that would top off the day.

Juana and Dallas sat on the leather couch, sipping fresh coffee and looking pleased. Max lounged behind his desk, his feet up on the blotter, waiting for Mabel to put his call through. Whatever was coming down, all three were smiling. Joe flopped down on the deep Persian rug and tried not to look curious. He rolled luxuriously, then had a little wash. Nothing so distracted a human from a cat’s true intention as to watch the cat bathe. A little cat spit, a busy tongue licking across sleek fur, and most people would relax as if hypnotized. Maybe they could feel the comforting massage in their own being, a kind of reflex contentment. He looked at Max, at ease behind the desk, and a sense filled Joe that indeed all was right with the world. Slipping up on the couch beside Juana, he waited, as the officers waited, until the phone’s open speaker came to life—until Mabel said, “Sheriff Dover is on, Captain Harper.” The call from Georgia law enforcement was not from the GBI as Joe had expected, but the deep, slow voice of Pickens County Sheriff Jimmie Roy Dover.