Shirley Murphy: Cat on the Money

“Do you always have to look for sand in the milk dish?”

“I don’t always. But you’ve seen kittens… Oh, never mind.” And she turned away crossly.

But Joe licked her ear. “They’re handing out brochures, Dulcie. And the volunteers are talking to people who want to adopt-they’re screening them and explaining the basics. Telling them what a little cat needs to be healthy and safe. I listened to one. She sounded like she knew what she was doing.”

“I hope so,” Dulcie said dourly. “I don’t… Look. Is that Azrael slipping along the roof above the gift shop?”

They watched the black tom disappear within the shadows above the Mink Collar, a jewelry and leather boutique. At the same moment, on the sidewalk below them, Alice Manning came along behind the gathered onlookers; she was dressed in denim shorts and a white pullover. This had to be Alice; the other three were on the float.

But it was Azrael who held Joe and Dulcie’s attention, who sent them racing across the roofs to the end of the block, dropping down to the balcony of the Mink Collar.

Pushing through the open window where Azrael had disappeared, where they could smell his scent, they explored the storage room then trotted down the stairs into the shop, searching beneath the display cases and in the cupboards-then followed his trail to a door that would open to the alley.

It was bolted from within, but a black cat hair clung to the metal. Nothing else in the store seemed to have been touched. The cash drawer beneath the computer was locked.

“Maybe he was casing the place for later,” Joe said. “Maybe he saw us and left while we were crossing the street.”

Dulcie said nothing, stood looking around, lashing her tail with irritation.

They returned to the roofs, silhouetted now against the sinking sun. Below them the parade was ending, the floats gathering at the edge of the beach where the stage had been built and lights strung from poles. The three masked blondes sat on the edge of their float, bantering with the crowd. Some distance away, Alice Manning stood on the sand with her husband, the two of them eating hot dogs. Joe and Dulcie could see, beyond the parade route, several squad cars drifting along the quiet streets. They watched the performers gather, watched families spread out blankets on the sand in front of the stage, their backs to the setting sun and to the crowd that milled around behind them. Soon the entire shore was filled, people shouting the songs from Cats and cheering the black-cat dancers. Joe and Dulcie’s ears rang with the lyrics.

When the look-alikes’ numbers were finished, the three performers stepped down to mix with the audience. One of them headed for the outdoor ladies’ room, carrying a black duffel bag that must have been tucked out of sight on the float.

“Probably went to change clothes,” Dulcie said. “Those leotards look hot.”

But she came out still dressed in skin-fitting black, still carrying the bag. The three women were separated now; as night fell and the jazz band began to play, they were hard to keep track of. Folks began to dance on the blacktop at edge of the beach, and one black-clad blonde moved away through the crowd toward a stand of cypress trees.

“Stay here, Dulcie. Watch the others.” And Joe Grey was gone, following her.

The entertainment was long, with readings, more jazz numbers, and an announcement by a representative of Molena Point Animal Shelter that 27 cats and kittens had been adopted. Dulcie, watching for Joe, began to fidget. Soon she was pacing the shingles, her ears back, her tail twitching, staring away toward the cypress trees and the sea cliffs. It was during a jazz instrumental number that she heard a sharp thunk somewhere behind her, as if the branch of a tree had broken. Nervously she searched the beach and the line of tall cypress that loomed dark in the gathering night. No sign of Joe, no telltale white chest and paws gleaming in the darkness.

As the number ended and a jazz guitarist came on stage, Dulcie saw, five blocks away, two squad cars take off fast, moving south, their lights flashing but no sirens.

Crouched on the shingles, she felt her heart thunder. What had happened? And where was Joe Grey? A siren screamed down the street behind her, and she spun around to see a rescue vehicle careen across Ocean, turning toward the beach. She took off fast across the rooftops. Joe was out there, he had followed that woman exactly where the police were headed. Galloping across ancient mossy shingles and through a half-built second story addition between studs and sawhorses, racing over the slick tile roofs of expensive oceanfront homes, she followed two more police cars to where the emergency vehicle had screamed to a stop.

A black-clad body lay on the sand, sleek in its tight suit, the face very pale. A perfect replay of the corpse at Otter Pine Inn.

Except this victim was a man.

Larry Cruz lay surrounded by police, the paramedics bending over him. His diving fins and mask, his hood and weights lay scattered across the sand. There was a bullet hole in his chest. The medics were doing their best to stop the bleeding and bring him back. As they worked on Larry, Max Harper’s car arrived. Dulcie ducked down, watching the captain step out with Detective Juana Davis, and the familiar routine began. The yellow tape, officers urging people back out of the way. Davis with her camera, her dark, short hair falling over her cheek. Soon the coroner was there to do his chilling work. Dulcie hardly paid attention to the investigation, as she searched beyond the gathering crowd, looking through the darkness for a small speck out on the sand-and for the black-clad woman he had followed.

On the rooftop of the oceanfront cottage, Dulcie was hardly visible, so well did her dark tabby coat blend in with the shingles. Nervously, she watched the police below her working the scene, the curious onlookers-and the black-clad corpse so reminiscent of the corpse in the tearoom.

The coroner knelt over Larry Cruz’s body, studying the bullet hole through the dead man’s diving suit and searching for additional wounds; although the single shot through Larry’s heart must have killed him. Dr. Bern was a thin, button-nosed man; he served as both coroner and medical examiner for the Molena Point PD. She’d heard him say there was no indication of drowning, that the victim had not been hauled out of the sea dead and then shot.

Detective Juana Davis knelt beside him, fingerprinting the dry areas of Larry’s diving mask and fins, and searching the pocket that had been built into his diving suit-an unusual addition, Dulcie thought. Davis found it empty. Dulcie puzzled only briefly over what it might have carried, but her thoughts were on Joe Grey. Shifting from paw to paw, she peered away into the night where Joe had disappeared, perhaps following the killer, and she could not be still.

Dropping from the roof to the top of a fence and then to the sand, she trotted through the forest of human legs and out toward the sea, doubling back and forth until she found a single line of shoe prints broken by a narrow row of pawprints, both tracks so fresh that the sand was still trickling in. Dulcie’s own paws sank deep. The smell of iodine and dead sea creatures filled her nostrils. The double trail led straight for the rocky sea cliff, some quarter mile away. Hurrying, slogging through sand and increasingly worried for Joe, she arrived at the cliff, panting.

Joe’s prints ended where the rocky cliff rose up. The human prints led along a narrow strip of sand between cliff and sea. No breakers surged tonight, only an oily churning as the tide rose.

Racing up the sharp promontory of jutting stone, Dulcie searched the dark escarpment, softly calling Joe’s name. There was no answer, no sound but sea. The bleak stone hill was empty. Padding to the edge, she looked down on the black and roiling sea and on the thin sliver of beach. A woman stood there, a black-clad figure, her face and hair as pale as a winter moon.