American Curls Read Free

have afforded to make a donation, but noooo, dump and run.”
    Cindy felt something like a giant fist squeeze her chest, making it hard to breathe. She could force out only a couple of words. “Country clubber?”
    “Yeah, yesterday morning, before we opened. I came in early, saw her hustling away. Blonde in a tennis outfit.”
    Cindy managed another few words. “Was she driving?”
    “Sure. Shiny new car, red and white.”
    “A Beemer?” Devon’s red convertible had a white ragtop.
    “Heck, I don’t know one car from another. Show me a dog, I know dogs.”
    It was ridiculous anyway. How would Devon have gotten hold of Queenie and the kittens? And what for? And why wouldn’t she have said something? It was all nonsense. Cindy turned back to patting the little tabby and her adorable fluffy kittens…
    “So you know this mama cat?” the manager asked.
    Intent on the kittens, Cindy didn’t answer. One kitten, two, three, four, five… “Where’s the sixth one?” she demanded.
    “She came with five. Phone’s ringing.” The woman ran to answer it.
    Cindy closed her eyes a moment, visualizing Queenie’s litter. Two tabbies, gray, like Queenie. Two spotted kittens. A black one with a white tuxedo bib. And the pure white one with the funny-looking fur.
    She opened her eyes. It was the white kitten that was gone.
    It had died in the cold, probably. Or Queenie had somehow lost track of it and left it behind. Or it could have been dropped out of the box. Any number of things could have happened to it, and there was no use wondering about it, was there?
    * * *
    At nine o’clock that night, wearing a black top and black slacks, Cindy approached Devon’s stately residence on foot, having parked her rusting Pinto on the next cul-de-sac over. Just as Mrs. Heckmaster lived in the best old section of town, Devon lived in the best new one, in a modernistic dwelling about the size of a Gold’s Gym. Getting in would be no problem. Mrs. Heckmaster had keys, and Cindy had appropriated them. On the keychain was a laminated card with the numbers for the security system. And this was Devon’s night for modern dance class. Cindy foresaw no difficulties.
    Just the same, she sweated as she unlocked a back door, silenced the alarm system, and slipped into the house through the garage.
    She listened, and heard only a meow. She clicked on her flashlight and found herself in an immaculate back hallway the size of some people’s apartments, with several cats padding to meet her. Why in the world—oh. Duh, they were American Curls, that was why their ears were inside out. Stupid looking, but they couldn’t help it. Cindy whispered to them, “Where’s the kitten, guys?”
    She had tried to tell the detectives about her suspicions, but had succeeded only in making them look at her as if she had sprouted several extra heads. Jerks.
    Silently, like the cats, Cindy padded to the first door and cautiously opened it. Just a storage room. Okay, onward to the next door… Bingo. Cindy surveyed Devon’s luxurious cattery, thickly carpeted, with scratching posts and climbing apparatus and a row of frilled, curtained cages for cat shows. From one of them sounded a meow as tiny as the piping of a nestling wren.
    Cindy smiled, folded to her knees, opened the cage door and reached in past the porcelain litter pan to the miniature canopied bed. From atop a silk pillow she lifted the kitten.
    “Well, hi, little fellow,” she whispered, holding him in her lap as she shone the flashlight on him. He gazed back at her with unblinking blue eyes beneath white JonBenet curls—curls! Cindy gasped. All over the kitten’s petite body, the new hair was growing out in long, soft curls worthy of Barbie at her prime, curls that made even Cindy’s chapped hands itch for a comb and some ribbons and barrettes.
    “Oh,” she whispered, “you angel .” With snowy little-girl curls, Shirley Temple curls, fashion-model movie-star all-American curls. “ Pretty