Cat Shout for Joy Read Online Free PDF Page A

Here a drunk could be temporarily confined or prisoners held for a short period while waiting to be booked. Beyond the holding cell was an austere seating area: seven folding metal chairs, no coffee table strewn with magazines, no potted plants to cheer the nervous visitor. Civilians waited here for their appointment with an officer or detective, perhaps to offer information, to identify stolen items, to pore through a gallery of mug shots, or to file a bad-­tempered complaint against some unruly neighbor. To the left of the waiting area ran the long reception desk on which, over the years, Joe and Dulcie had enjoyed Mabel Farthy’s gentle petting and ear rubs, her one-­sided conversations and, most of all, her homemade treats. Mabel liked to cook; she often brought a freshly baked cake or cookies for the officers, and always the cats got their share. Mable could laugh and hold her own with the men she worked with; everyone loved her. Her replacement, Evijean Simpson, didn’t know how to smile.
    Evijean didn’t bring treats for man or beast, she had no rapport with even the kindest officers, and certainly she had no fellow feeling for a cat. She didn’t want stray animals, as she described Joe and Dulcie, to be slipping in contaminating the station with fleas and cat fur.
    Evijean was so short that, from the cats’ angle on the floor of the holding cell, she was barely visible behind the tall counter. They could see little more than the top of her head, her pale hair pulled back in a bun with ragged ends sticking out. She seemed hardly a presence at all as she moved about among the state-­of-­the-art radios and electronics. The cats watched until she turned away to stack papers into the copier; then they slid out through the cell bars, made a fast dash to the base of the counter below her line of sight. From there, a stealthy creep down the hall to the half-­open door of the chief’s office, where they crouched listening.
    At first they heard only Max’s voice, but then Charlie laughed. Comfortable husband-­and-­wife talk followed, implying no one else was present. Pushing inside, they saw the two were not alone.
    Max Harper was in uniform this morning, not his usual lean western shirt and jeans. He sat at his desk alternately going through a stack of files and entering information on the computer. Charlie sat at one end of the leather couch texting on her phone, though such electronic preoccupation was not Charlie’s habit. Her kinky red hair was freshly brushed, smoothed back in a ponytail. Her jeans and pink sweatshirt smelled of fresh hay and clean horses. She wore dangly gold earrings this morning, and had changed her work boots for a pair of handsome leather sandals, which meant that she and Max were probably headed out to lunch.
    Detective Dallas Garza occupied one of the leather chairs, reading a report, his tweed sports coat thrown over the other chair, his polo shirt open at the collar. His smooth, tan face was clean-­shaven, his short black hair neatly trimmed. He glanced up at Joe and Dulcie, his dark Latino eyes amused, as usual, at how the cats made themselves at home. Only occasionally did Dallas watch them with an uncertain frown.
    Though no one in the department knew the cats could speak, they all knew, well, the phone voices of their phantom snitches. Max and the detectives had learned to trust implicitly those anonymous called-­in tips; they took the information and ran with it, put that intelligence to good use. No one imagined the informants were their sleek, four-­pawed visitors, the department’s favorite freeloaders.
    So far, the relationship between officers and cats was comfortable and efficient. During the cats’ anonymous messages, no officer in the department cross-­examined the caller or asked his name. They’d learned to trust the information they were given. If the cats dragged a stolen clue to the station and left it,