Martha Grimes - The Black Cat

This was getting to be a bit tangled. “So it did happen at the cat hospital.”

Again she shook her head. “No. That was another time. Whoever killed her should go to jail and so should Sally.”

“For how long?” That was an intelligent question.

“Forever. That’s how long Morris will be gone. I have her picture. Here-” From a pocket of her too-long skirt she pulled out a snapshot, much creased, and handed it over.

The cat was bunched up on a table outside in the garden. The eyes, caught in the glare, were like white flames in the black face. The cat was all black. Of course, he thought, the pub cat, the Black Cat.

“Anyway, that’s not the only way it could’ve been done. And don’t forget the ‘kidnapped’ part, either.”

There was no end to the cat’s dreadful fate.

“Why would someone kidnap your cat?”

“Kidnapped or murdered.” Her eyes looked feverish with this knowledge of thievery and murder.

Melrose hoped his smile wasn’t too superior. “As for the murder, what you really mean is your cat was in an accident. Car ran into him or something?”

Again the pained eye squinch, the head shake. “No, I mean murdered.” She was holding a soft stuffed animal, an unidentified primate of some sort, and now squashed it as if to demonstrate what mischief a pair of strangling hands might get up to. “Just like that lady they found.” Her head tilted back. “Out there.”

Ah! That explained it. She was extrapolating, extending the murder horizon to take in her cat. Just what a child might do. “But why would someone intentionally murder your cat?”

“Maybe because Morris saw what happened. I want a policeman.” She stopped kneading her stuffed animal and dropped her sad eyes. “He got away.”

Melrose was having difficulty following her constant shift of gears. “But then the cat must be alive somewhere.” No letup of the staring eyes. “When did this happen?”

“Last night. Morris must’ve seen what happened on Saturday night and the murderer took her.”

“Morris is a female?” He frowned.

The cat’s gender was clearly not the point here. More was expected of this grown man. When she looked at him, Melrose knew just how one must have felt trying to get by the Sphinx without knowing the answer to that damned riddle.

Looking not a little Sphinx-like herself, she walked off to the bar and then behind it. Melrose watched her, or, rather, the top of her head, as she was too short to be seen on the other side. She rummaged, moved along, and rummaged some more until she found what she wanted; whereupon she marched back and solemnly handed over a chunky, cheap mobile phone. “I can’t get anybody else to do it. Call the police.”

Just then a band of sunlight struck the door now opening, as if God had tossed down this spear of light to make sure men would listen to the little girl, God’s minister for Truth and Justice.

Melrose smiled and put down the phone. To the child he said, “It seems you’ve come to the right place.”

Fate rarely returns from holiday. Coincidence seldom lives up to its name, but today, they did. Richard Jury walked in.

“Over here,” Melrose called, as if the pub were teeming with customers and he were looking over a sea of faces.

“Sorry I’m late,” said Jury. Then to the girl, “Hello.” He stood there, very tall, looking down at her, very small, and closed the gap between them. “I like that monkey. I used to have one, but mine was blue.” He removed his coat and sat down. “My name’s Richard.”

With hardly a blink, she took in the blue monkey, as if all monkeys were blue, save for hers, which earned it a doubtful look. “My name’s Dora. Do you have a cat?” She moved closer.

“No, but there’s one where I work.”

Melrose was a bit miffed. She hadn’t asked him if he had a cat. He did have a goat. “I have quite a good goat. Her name’s Aghast.”

They both looked at Melrose. What was he doing here?

Then away. Jury said, “I’ll bet you have a cat. I saw one go by when I came in. A black cat in a huge hurry.”

“That’s not Morris. Sally wants me to think it is, but it’s not.”

“Did something happen to Morris?”

“Yes. I need a policeman.”

“I’m a policeman.”

Her mouth dropped open. She suddenly looked alight, as if a bulb inside her had switched on.

“So sit down here”-Jury pulled out a chair-“and tell me about it.”

Dora was only too pleased to wrench herself up beside him, holding tight to the monkey.

It was a long story, longer than the one she had told Melrose, to whom she’d told only the salient facts. Salient fact, actually: Morris was either kidnapped or murdered.

With Jury, she was not so stingy. Children seldom were. Melrose checked his watch occasionally, in case the Ancient Mariner wanted to know the time.

She got round to Morris’s replacement. “Anyone could tell that one’s not Morris. Morris loves to lie and nap. The other one just runs around all the time.”

At that moment, the outside door opened and several customers walked in. Then the blond woman, Sally Hawkins, whom Jury had talked to on the Monday night, emerged from an arched opening and went behind the bar. The customers all looked at each other as if they were wondering what beer was, while Dora continued to talk about her missing cat, Morris, and insisting the black cat who’d just crisscrossed the pub was not the real Morris.

“It’s a fake.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Melrose, “seems like a perfectly serviceable black cat.”

Both Jury and Dora stared at him.

“Can you find him?” Her small face was a study in worry.

Jury appeared to be considering this. He said, “I think so.” Then, seeing Melrose tapping his watch, said, “I’d like a beer.”

“I’ll get it,” Dora chimed. “What kind?”

Jury inclined his head toward Melrose ’s pint. “Whatever he’s drinking.”

“Guinness,” said Melrose.

Dora flew to the bar.

The black cat, Morris Two, who’d come back in from the nowhere he seemed to inhabit, flew after her.

“Are we still going to Bletchley Park?” asked Melrose. This had been the reason for their meeting here.

“I don’t see why not. It’s only a half hour away. We can take the A 5.” It was Sir Oswald Maples that had got Jury interested in the code-breaking machines. “We can leave when we’re done here.”

Sally Hawkins, having served the group at the bar, listened to Dora’s order and drew the beer. She stood hands on hips, waiting for the top on the Guinness to settle, then knifed the surface and carried the pint to the table.

Dora’s disappointment at not being allowed to serve Jury was evident. She set about getting crisps.

The blonde was still pretty in middle age and would have been prettier still had she a more pleasant temperament.

“Has Dora been telling you that story about her cat?” She set down the pints.

“Yes. What happened?”

She lowered her voice. Perhaps she could feel Dora behind her. “Nothing happened. She’s got it in her mind that Morris isn’t Morris. I honestly don’t know what to do about her.”

And why, wondered Jury, are you bothering to tell us this?

Dora, several feet behind her, clamped her lips shut and, looking at Jury and Plant, slowly shook her head back and forth, back and forth. When the blond woman turned and saw her, Dora smiled and held up the crisps. “It’s salt-and-vinegar ones.” She distributed the crisps and left again on another mission.

“Anything else, gentlemen?” asked Sally Hawkins. They shook their heads, and with her tray under her arm, Sally left.

“Is she the owner?”