Cat Bearing Gifts (21 page)

27

K
IT WAS SO
warm inside the backpack she couldn't help but squirm, she had to poke her nose out for one breath of cool air. She ducked back when Emmylou appeared in the doorway. What was she doing here? “Come sit,” Ryan said, moving Kit's leather pack off the love seat, setting it on the floor. “Have you come to see Pedric?”

Emmylou crossed the room with a soft scuffing sound, and sat down. “Pedric Greenlaw's here? Oh, my. What happened? What's wrong?”

By the time Ryan had explained about the wreck, Kit had crawled halfway out of the backpack again, listening. Ryan explained how Kit had run off from the wrecked Lincoln, which was the natural thing for a frightened cat to do, and how they had gone to search for her.

“Poor little thing,” Emmylou said. “How lucky that you found her, up in those dark woods. She must have been terrified.”

I was terrified
.
And ready to bloody those damned coyotes.

“She came to us,” Ryan said. “She had the good sense to do that.”

Well, of course I did.

“And you spent the rest of the night at the hospital up there? You must be dead for sleep. And they're here, now, in the hospital? Pedric and Lucinda?”

“Pedric is,” Ryan said. “They brought him down in an ambulance. They'll be moving him over to the other wing for a few days, but Lucinda's at home. Our friend from San Francisco is staying with her. Lucinda's happy to
be
home, and so is their little cat.”

“I'm sure of that,” Emmylou said. “Cats don't take well to that kind of stress. But now they're both safe in their own place, and that will help to heal them.” Emmylou had a special fondness for the concept of
home,
for a safe haven of one's own, having recently lived homeless in her old car, and before that in a wind-riddled, one-room shack from which she had been evicted. Her work on her snug house, as she remodeled, was thoughtful and loving. Was, in its own way, deeply restorative to the lone woman, a home at last that no one could take from her.

But,
Kit thought
, we're not all home, Pedric's not home yet. And I feel like I've spent half my life in hospitals hiding under the covers having to be quiet and still and my very fur smells of hospital. Pedric has to feel just as trapped, all the bandages, the needles stuck in his arm, the nurses doing things to him he'd rather do for himself. We're not all home yet, we're not all three of us back together yet.
The brush of a footstep in the hall, the silence as it paused startled her. She rose up out of the leather pack, to look.

Beyond the open door a shadow shifted where someone stood listening, his shadow half hidden by the big floppy leaves of the schefflera plant that hid, as well, most of the hallway. Emmylou was saying, “. . . squatters. Two sleeping bags, empty cans of beans, beer cans, trash. They left a mess. Well, this man that I've come to visit, he was in there in his sleeping bag on the floor, and he was hurt real bad. I don't know what happened but he was all alone, moaning and bleeding, the minute I saw him I hurried down to my place and called the ambulance.”

Listening to Emmylou, trying to make sense of what she was saying, Kit watched the shadow shift again, and when she breathed deeply she picked up the sweet smell of sugar and cinnamon, and then . . . What? What was that she smelled?

Pedric? The faintest scent of Pedric? But then even stronger, over Pedric's scent and the smell of sugary cinnamon, came a familiar odor that made her swallow back a growl. It was all she could do not to bolt out of the bag and leap at him, slash him as she had up on the mountain when he'd hurt Lucinda. Why was that man here at the hospital? The same hospital where Pedric was. What did he want, what did he mean to do?

“Well, to make a long story short,” Emmylou was saying, “the hurt man is Sammie's little brother, Birely. Can you believe it? Her homeless brother who came around once or twice a year. Birely who never admitted to being among the homeless, who called himself a hobo. Whenever he showed up, she'd take him a sandwich or a hot supper from the deli. Sometimes I went with her, we'd sit under the Valley Road bridge, the three of us like homeless folks, having our picnic.”

“Was Birely here for her funeral? I don't . . .”

“No,” Emmylou said. “He probably didn't know she'd died, until now. Came back all these months later, after Sammie was buried, came up to the property but didn't tell me he was here. Broke into that stone shack with one of his cronies. How long have they been there, and I didn't have a clue? Not until I heard some noises up there last night, and went up to see and there was Birely, lying there only half alive.”

The shadow had moved closer, pressing against the door, Kit could see the flap of his jacket now, through the crack between the wall and the open door. His smell came stronger again, hiding Pedric's scent. Emmylou said, “Days earlier, I
had
wondered, when Misto started watching the place, sitting in the yard, looking up there. And then when I saw your Joe Grey and little tabby Dulcie up there, saw them come down off the windowsill as if they'd been inside. I thought, then, there were rats up there, there are wood rats all over these hills. I decided they were hunting in there, and I thought no more about it.”

In the shadow of the love seat, when Ryan turned away, Kit slipped on out of the backpack, to the floor. Ryan said, “When he learned Sammie had died, why didn't he come to you? Was he too shy, did he move in there out of loneliness but was too shy to let you know he was there? But then,” she said, “what happened? How did he get hurt?” Behind her Kit fled belly down across the dark tile floor and into the shadows of the potted schefflera tree. “Last night,” Ryan said, “when you called the ambulance, why didn't you ask for the police, too?”

“Those two hadn't
hurt
anything,” Emmylou said. “They were trespassing, but nothing more. My concern was all for Birely.”

“Emmylou, you don't know anything about the other man, or, in fact, about Birely . . .”

“Oh, Birely isn't mean, just irresponsible. Maybe a little dim. Sammie always tried to take care of him. She was nine when Birely was born. She said he was always shy and rather slow, that the other kids teased and harried him. Their parents did their best to see he wasn't bullied and to teach him to fend for himself, but then their father was killed. Birely was seven, Sammie sixteen. After that, I guess they all had a hard time.

“When Sammie died she left me everything she had, the house and the money. She asked me to take care of him if I could, so of course I feel responsible for him, I couldn't betray Sammie, I have to help Birely.”

“She left you money? I hope enough to pay the taxes and insurance.”

Emmylou smiled. “Oh, my, yes. She . . .” She glanced down the room at the three women, but they were still talking all at once, as frantically energized as sparrows on a pile of bread crumbs. “She left money hidden in the house,” Emmylou said softly. “Quite a lot of money.”

“I'm glad of that,” Ryan said. “That helps with the refurbishing, too. I hope you have it safe in the bank, now. But, Emmylou, if Birely's friend knew he was hurt, why didn't
he
get Birely to the ER? He just went off and left him? Doesn't that tell you something?”

Kit, hidden among the leaves of the schefflera, wasn't six inches from the man who'd hurt Pedric and Lucinda, who'd gone into their empty house and trashed it. He looked different now, smooth shaven, with short, neater hair—having left his pigtail scattered across their bathroom floor, she thought, twitching a whisker. He was wearing Pedric's sport coat, the missing tweed sport coat, and Pedric's missing Rockports that, when she sniffed them through the crack, still smelled of the Molena Point hills, of bruised grass and damp leaves. He had used Lucinda and Pedric's house key to steal Pedric's clothes, and now he was here at the hospital. Come to visit his hurt partner? Or to nose around Pedric's room? For what reason?

Emmylou said, “Maybe Birely's partner didn't have any money to take him to the hospital, maybe he left Birely to go for medicine, to help him the only way he could, maybe—”

“You know better than that, Emmylou. Medicine, for a smashed nose? Everyone knows you can check yourself into the ER with no money, that, by law, they can't refuse to treat you. Where
is
this friend, who couldn't bother to bring Birely here?”

The man beyond the door had turned away, moved silently, heading down the hall toward the ICU. Silently Kit followed him. Bellying out from under the schefflera and out the door, she hoped no doctor or nurse came along the hall and made a fuss, called security to chase that cat out of the hospital. Behind her the voices faded as Kit streaked across an intersecting hallway close behind the man's heels. The floors were no longer dark so he blended in; the linoleum was white now, against her black-and-brown coat as she followed him into the big, open expanse of the Intensive Care Unit.

I
N THE WAITING
room, Ryan knew she should be returning to the ICU, to see if Pedric was back in his bed. She imagined Kit sound asleep in her backpack, worn out from last night's excitement. Emmylou was saying, “I read Sammie's letter over and over. I kept it for only a few days and then I burned it. I was afraid someone might find it, and find the money. Sammie had invested some of it, and she did all right, enough to live on, and to work only when she wanted to. She kept most of the original money at home, she said her uncle'd taught her never to trust banks.

“After he left the states, Sammie thought he was afraid to write or call, afraid that might put the Mexican Guardia on his trail, afraid of being extradited back to the U.S. He must have been a tough old guy; he was one of the last legendary train robbers, a man right out of the Old West, and he was a real hero to Sammie. She prayed he'd come back, but he didn't, not until she was nearly thirty. Came back to California to die.

“She was living up in the Salinas Valley then, working as a bookkeeper, when the uncle showed up again. He was real sick, lung disease. He was bone thin and weak, and could hardly breathe, she was surprised he had made it up from Mexico, came by train all the way. She got him into the hospital,” Emmylou said, “but he only lasted a week, lying there white and helpless, she said, and then he was gone. Dead from emphysema and pneumonia.

“Her letter was with her will. I was surprised she had a lawyer, she lived such a simple life, was so reclusive.” Emmylou laughed. “Like me, I guess. Well, the lawyer gave me the sealed letter, and the newly recorded deed in my name, a check for what little she had in the bank, and the letter he'd sent her with the money some years before he died.”

“That's why you were tearing into the walls,” Ryan said, “that's why you're remodeling, looking for the money. Oh, my God, Emmylou. What if there'd been a fire?”

“It was wrapped in sheets of asbestos,” Emmylou said, “some kind of insulation, maybe what they used to use in houses before the laws got so strict.”

Ryan closed her eyes, imagining packets of old, frail treasury bills, wrapped in asbestos that probably wouldn't help much if those ancient, dry studs went up in a hungry blaze. She wondered if, in those simpler days when every crime was more newsworthy, that robbery had been in the California papers. She wondered if the case was still open, perhaps, was still on the books after all these many years—and if the feds would still like to get their hands on those old bills? It was only after Emmylou had left, and Ryan reached down to pick up her backpack and head for the ICU, only when she felt the pack swing up too light, light and empty, that she panicked.

28

M
AKING SURE HE
had the rubber glove, Vic patted the syringe, safe in his pocket. At the door to the ICU he tried to look casual, walked on in past the chrome coffee machine, scanning the glass-fronted cubicles. His plan was to use patient Michael Emory as his cover, pretend to be visiting him. The nurse had said he was being moved over there from the ER. With luck he'd be there already and maybe asleep, sick people slept a lot. If the wife wasn't in there he could sit in there himself, like a visitor, could watch Birely's room from there until the coast was clear. It would take only a second to do Birely, bend the tube, inject the air, and get the hell out—and talk about luck! There she
was,
that Mrs. Emory, coming out of number 15, the same small dumpy woman with the round, wrinkled face and yellowed fuzzy hair. Congratulating himself on his perfect timing, he watched her leave Emory's room pulling the canvas curtain halfway across as if maybe Emory
was
sleeping. As she passed the nurses' station and moved on out the double doors he stepped over to the coffee urn, filled a white foam cup with coffee, added sugar and cream. Carrying this, he headed on around the nurses' station to the other side. If anyone questioned him, he was here to visit with Michael Emory. He smiled and nodded when one or another of the nurses glanced up at him. They were all busy, no one paid much attention to him, busy doing their routine chores of one kind or another, oblivious to Vic's purpose there.

S
TALKING THE MAN
was an exercise in fast judgment and heart-thumping panic. Kit made it down the hall and around the corner into the ICU having to dodge only twice into open doorways, where she barely missed being seen. Slipping behind his heels into the ICU, she was engulfed by the smell of alcohol, adhesive tape, disinfectants, and human urine. The ward was brightly lighted, and on the white linoleum she stood out like a raven on a white bedsheet. There was not one dim recess near her in which to hide, to camouflage her dark coat, not one shadow except, yards away, where the occasional cart or wheeled cupboard was parked against the open nurses' counter. Twice she dodged behind rolling electrical equipment that looked like it could shock her straight into cat heaven.

If this man was visiting his wounded friend, wasn't it a little late? Why would he care about Birely after leaving him to suffer and maybe die all alone? Her sense of Birely, after listening to Emmylou, had softened, had left her feeling only sorry for Sammie's pitiful brother. It wasn't Birely who had hurt Pedric and Lucinda and stolen their car, it was Birely's visitor.

The soft pad of a nurse's approaching footsteps sent her behind a stainless steel machine with a cord hanging down like a noose. Next to it against the counter stood three rolling storage cabinets, polished steel carts with doors and drawers, with who knew what inside them? Towels and warm blankets? Or lethal and radiating medications that could sear a cat's very liver at this close range? The carts stood on casters, four inches off the floor, leaving narrow, bone-bruising spaces beneath. Flattening herself, she crept under.

Squeezed against the cool linoleum floor, concealed within the cupboard's shadow, she peered out at the man in Pedric's sport coat. He stood with his back to her looking in through a partially open glass door, the canvas curtain drawn halfway across. She watched him move on in, to disappear inside. Whatever he was up to, his body language and his nervous smell made the fur along her back stand stiff.

But this wasn't Pedric's room, his was around the corner near the double doors, she'd seen it earlier from Ryan's backpack. Relieved but curious, she looked both ways as if crossing a busy street, and slipped behind him across the wide walkway to the open glass door. She crouched there frantic to hide herself before a nurse spotted her, but she was afraid to push inside where
he'd
see her.

The canvas curtain didn't reach the floor; whoever had designed the flimsy barrier hadn't envisioned anyone interested enough to peer underneath from a four-inch vantage. When she looked under, his back was to her. She crawled under and crouched against the glass beneath the curtain's edge.

The patient was either asleep or unconscious. He lay unmoving, his eyes closed, his nose covered with a thick white bandage. A thin plastic tube snaked out of each nostril, she could hear him breathing through them. The man she'd followed stood over him. She had to force her tail to be still, not switch with anger. He stood looking down at the tube that ran from a vein in Birely's wrist up to the hanging jar that was the IV dispenser. He reached to examine the tube and then looked up at the screen, watching its moving graph and changing numbers. When he fished a syringe from his pocket, she shivered at the long needle.

He took the IV hose in his other hand and bent it double, stopping the flow of liquid. She watched him lay the needle along the tube as if preparing to stick it in—for what purpose? All Emmylou's sympathy for Birely hit her, and all her own hatred of the man who had hurt her humans. She leaped screaming at him, landed on his shoulder clawing hard.

He hit and grabbed at her trying to pull her off, then swung around as if to run. She clawed down the side of his face, down his neck. When he raised the needle to jab her she dropped off and dove under the bed, up onto its heavy metal stand. He leaned over, looking. He kicked at her, swearing. Even as she dodged away, she saw him drop the needle, straighten up, and draw back his fist over the patient.

His fist struck straight down with all his weight, into Birely's stomach. Birely screamed a gurgling cry and then was still. Bells went off on the monitor, the graph of Birely's heartbeat went flat, the gauges blinking in distress. An alarm shrieked from the nurses' station. Birely's attacker was gone, racing away, dodging nurses who came running. He shouldered through them shouting, “Help, someone help . . . Get a doctor, call the doctor.” Pointing and shouting, he fled through the open double doors and vanished. Kit flew through behind him, flicking her tail away as they swung closed.

Racing past the surprised clerk at the admittance desk, she could see him out beyond the glass doors running through the dim parking garage, nearly trampling three children coming in with their heavily pregnant mother. His running feet echoed on the concrete, heading for an old brown station wagon. Debbie's car? Puzzled, she raced for it. The instant he jerked the door open she streaked behind him into the back, into the dark tangle of Coke cans, mashed food, and little stray shoes. As he started the car, grinding the engine, she barely heard, behind them, a little child's voice, “A cat, Mama . . . a cat chasing . . .” He took off with a squeal of rubber, the concrete roof passing over them, but at the entrance he slowed, easing sedately out of the covered parking into daylight.

Turning left on the tree-lined highway, she knew he was headed toward the freeway. She braced into the right turn, up onto the south on-ramp as if heading back toward the village. She heard no siren behind them, and there'd been no one in the parking lot to note his frantic flight, no one she'd seen except the woman and three children. She couldn't believe he'd escaped past the running nurses without alarming any of them. Couldn't they see what he'd done? Crouched behind him among the litter of toys, she scared herself thinking she could have been crushed in the slamming ICU door and then in the slamming car door. She scared herself even worse, knowing she was alone with this man whom she'd twice attacked and bloodied, who might do any terrible thing to her if he got his hands on her.