Cat Telling Tales by Shirley Rousseau Murphy Read Free Book Online

The one on Ocean, behind the Mercedes agency.”
    â€œFiretti’s Clinic?”
    â€œYes, that’s it. Ask them, they’ll tell you.”
    â€œWhich doctor?”
    â€œI don’t remember. Dr. Firetti, I guess.”
    â€œThat clinic has only one doctor. I’m John Firetti.”
    She looked at John a long time, her face crumpling, a dampness welling in her brown eyes. “You were going to take them somewhere that would put them down.”
    â€œI wouldn’t take them to a shelter that kills unwanted cats. But these kittens aren’t ferals, they shouldn’t be abandoned and on their own.”
    â€œYou’d take care of them?” she said, not believing him.
    â€œOf course I would.”
    â€œYou’d keep them safe, and I can come for them when I find another place? I lost my job, I couldn’t pay my rent, I have no place to keep them.”
    How many abandoned strays, Joe wondered, was John Firetti already sheltering at the clinic? Actually, the woman looked worse off than the kittens, half starved, badly used by the world.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” John said. “How do you manage, living in your car?”
    â€œI’m Emmylou Warren. I was renting a shack on the Zandler property, there along the river, one of the old workers’ cabins. I lost my job bagging groceries. Well,” she said crossly, “my neighbor could have let me stay with her until I found a place, even if she does have only the one room.” Her anger made Joe uneasy, or maybe it was her mention of workers’ cabins along the river, though he couldn’t think why. Dropping to the ground, he caught Misto’s eye, then glanced away toward her car; both cats were of one mind as they slipped away through the shadows of the darkening street to where the nose of the Chevy stuck out among the bushes.
    The windows were open. The interior of the battered Chevy smelled of banana skins, crackers, damp clothes, and still smelled of the two young cats. When Joe leaped in through the back window, he sank alarmingly among a mass of bulging plastic bags and folded blankets. Misto followed, scrambling over the sill, descending carefully down among the clutter.
    Beneath the bags and blankets were cardboard boxes of canned goods, paperback books, and pots and pans. Stretching up to peer out the back window, making sure Emmylou wasn’t headed their way, Joe dropped down again among the detritus, sniffing at the tied plastic bags, pawing into the boxes. He didn’t know what he was looking for. He wanted to know more about the woman, to know why she made him uneasy. “She’s living in her car, all right. Her blankets could stand a good washing.” Pawing into a box among paper plates and kitchen utensils, he unearthed a padded brown envelope, the kind lined with bubble wrap. There was something hard inside, making it bulge. No address on the envelope, no writing at all. It wasn’t sealed. He peered in, reached in with an inquisitive paw. At the same moment Misto hissed like a den of snakes and Emmylou’s thin shadow came soundlessly along the side of the car, approaching the driver’s door. The cats exploded through the opposite window, hit the sidewalk in a gray and yellow tangle, scorched into the bushes as Emmylou opened her door.
    They listened to her start the engine, watched her pull away. She had no clue they’d been in the car—but what would she care, they were only cats. Behind her, another pair of headlights blazed on and the white van came down the street, moving slowly as John Firetti looked for them. When his lights flashed in their eyes he pulled to the curb, reached over and opened the passenger door.
    â€œWhat was that about?” he said softly, having apparently watched them toss the car. The cats padded out of the bushes grinning with embarrassment, and Misto hopped up into the van. They both looked down at Joe.
    â€œHeaded