A miracle -- and cruel fate

First, the good news.

Meet Miss Kitty:

We are just finishing our interview with shelter director John Tobin when Andrew’s phone rings. It’s Mike Stuckey, our editor in Redmond, Wash., telling us that Horace Troullier, the Slidell animal control officer, just called to say he thinks they caught Miss Kitty.

We can hardly believe our ears but are exchanging high-fives without knowing any facts, wanting very badly for the news to be true.

We try to call Troullier, but our cell phones aren’t working. Fortunately, Tobin has an unrivaled communications system in this neck of the woods and radios Covington animal control to get them to contact Troullier on our behalf. A few minutes pass before we hear the response blare out of the radio: “Horace has that cat, Miss Kitty.”

Stunned almost to speechlessness, we babble our goodbyes to Tobin and set off for the Red Cross shelter in Evans Creek, where we met Harris on Monday, which fortuitously was only about 20 miles from Covington.

We decide during our drive not to tell Bill about the discovery initially, not wanting to get his hopes up in case it turns out to be the wrong cat. Instead we’ll simply say that we’ve contacted some animal rescue experts and that they’re looking for the 17-year-old brown and gray cat. Then, we’ll drive to Slidell and figure out the best way to make a positive identification.

Now the bad news:

We walk in the shelter and tell one of the volunteers there that we’re looking for Harris and watch her face plunge. Slowly, she says that Bill, who has chronic kidney failure, has been taken away for medical treatment. She says she’d like to tell us more, but the Health Information Privacy Act bars the release of such medical information.

Moments later, we find another person at the shelter who tells us what happened: Just hours after Bill told us his heart-rending story and pleaded for help finding his cat, he collapsed and had what appeared to be a seizure. A doctor at the shelter declared that Bill was in need of immediate hospitalization and bundled him into his car and drove away.

The person providing the account didn’t know where the doctor took Bill, and the Red Cross personnel at the shelter said they couldn’t provide that information, again citing HIPAA.

I know that often cats look similar, but read on:

“I’m shaking I’m so excited. I’m about to throw up,” Wackerbauer says as we walk up.

Troullier says they found the cat in the trap they set at Harris’ condominium when they returned Thursday morning.

“She jumped out of the truck first, but I beat her to the scene,” said Troullier, declaring it the most exciting moment he’s had on the job.

We squat down to see into the cage they are hovering over and there, scrunched in the back, is a sleepy-looking long-haired cat with yellow-colored eyes looking calmly to the left. Its coloring is a mix of brown and gray, not in patches like a calico but intermixed over most of her body.

Troullier says the cat is an adult female though her age is hard ascertain.

Still, the cat fits Harris’ description to a T, and Troullier says he has no doubts.

“That’s Miss Kitty,” he says. “It’s just got to be.”

Are you weeping yet? If not, you've got a heart of Goddamn stone.

Thanks to MSNBC's Mike Brunker, who's been covering this story that illustrates the unspoken dimension of the tragedy in the Gulf coast states.

To paraphrase Red at the end of The Shawshank Redemption:

I hope this really is Miss Kitty.

I hope Bill Harris is going to be OK.

I hope they manage to find him.

I hope he's reunited with Miss Kitty.

I hope Miss Kitty lives another 10 years.

I hope.....