Shirley Murphy: Cat Seeing Double

Tall and straight in his dark uniform, Max Harper was not encumbered with the cop's full equipment, with flashlight, handcuffs, mace, the regulation array of weapons and tools; only his loaded automatic hung at his hip. His gaze down the long green aisle where the bride would approach was more than usually watchful; and along the outer limits of the crowd, his uniformed officers stood at attention in wary surveillance. This was what the world had come to, even for an event as simple as a village wedding-particularly for such an event. Harper's nerves were raw with concern for Charlie.

She stood a block away at the other end of the grassy path waiting, apparently demurely, between her aunt Wilma and Dallas Garza, her red hair bright in the candlelight, her hands steady on the bridal bouquet of white and yellow daisies-she had chosen his favorite flowers. No stain of blood shone on her white linen dress or on Wilma's blue gown, as if the two women had diligently sponged away the slightest hint of trouble.

Charlie did not look up along the grassy path at him but glanced repeatedly to the street watching for Clyde's arrival. Max got the impression that the moment the best man's yellow roadster appeared, at one of the side-street barriers, she meant to sprint down the lane double-time and get on with the wedding, before another bomb rent apart their world.

But then when Clyde's car did race into view, parking in the red before the sawhorses, Max saw Charlie laugh. He couldn't see what she found amusing, but among the guests who had turned to look, several people smiled.

Only when Clyde and Ryan came across the street, did he catch a flash of movement along the ground- three small racing shadows almost immediately gone again from view, among the wedding guests. He wasn't sure whether to laugh, or to swear at Clyde. Buddies they were, but there were limits. Watching his best man push through to take his place, Max fixed him with a look that would intimidate the coldest felon.

Clyde's sly grin told him that indeed cats were among the wedding guests; and the faintest scrambling sound behind Max told him those guests were now above his head, in the branches of the eucalyptus tree- doing what? Cats did not attend weddings, cats did not know about weddings. Max looked down the long grassy aisle to Charlie, needing her commonsense response to such matters. This business of weirdly behaving cats left him out of his element, off-center and shaky, as nothing else could do.

The instant Clyde parked, the three cats had leaped out of the open convertible and streaked across the empty eastbound lane hoping not to be noticed on the dark street. Slipping into the crowd, swerving between shoes and pant cuffs and silk-clad ankles they stormed up the far side of the giant eucalyptus. Concealing themselves among its leafy branches, they looked down on the crowd below, massed in the falling evening among the sheltering trees.

"Oh," Dulcie whispered. "Oh," said the kit. The faces of the villagers were lighted from beneath by candles and torches like the faces of children carrying votive candles in solemn procession. The scene put Dulcie in mind of some ancient woodland wedding performed in a simpler time, perhaps a Celtic ceremony in a far and magical past.

The minute Clyde took his place beside the groom, Wilma began her measured walk up the grassy aisle, her step dictated not by wedding music, for there was none, but by the rhythm of the sea that broke some blocks away on the sandy shore, the surf's eternal hush deep and sustaining. Behind Wilma, the bride approached on the arm of Dallas Garza between the flickering lights, her dress gleaming white. "She'll have sponged it," Dulcie whispered.

Some of the wedding guests sported bandages; but only Cora Lee French was in the hospital. "For observation," Clyde had said. Cora Lee's lack of a spleen after her attack and surgery last spring prompted her doctor to keep close watch on her. Very likely, the cats thought, Cora Lee was fully prepared to enjoy the wedding secondhand from her friends' eager descriptions and from the plates of wedding cake and party food that would be carried over to the hospital.

As Charlie, Wilma, and Dallas took their places, Dulcie felt a tear slide down her whiskers. The ceremony was simple. At, "who gives this bride to be wed?" when Detective Garza led Charlie forward to stand beside Captain Harper, Joe Grey muttered a little prayer that in all the confusion Clyde hadn't lost the rings. Only when Clyde slipped his hand in his coat pocket and the ring boxes appeared, did the cats relax, watching with fascination as the traditional words to love and to cherish formed a deep and solemn promise. Dulcie's eyes were indeed misty. Looking down through the branches, the cats watched Max Harper place the gold band on Charlie's finger. As Charlie slipped Max's ring on, another tear slid down Dulcie's nose, a tear that no ordinary cat could shed. Joe looked at her intently. "What's to cry about? This is the start of their new life."

"A tomcat wouldn't understand. All females cry at weddings, it's in the genes."

But in truth all three cats were touched by this human ritual. The kit snuffled into her whiskers; and as the villagers gathered around the bride and groom kissing and hugging them, the cats moved higher up the great tree, easing out along a wide branch through the softly rustling foliage, where they had a wider view of the village street. As Max and Charlie mingled with their friends, and someone's CD player brought alive the forties swing that Charlie and Max loved, Ryan and her Uncle Dallas left the party hurrying in the direction of the police station.

"To have a look at the boy," Joe said. "To see if Ryan does know him."

"That seems so strange," Dulcie replied, "to think that she saw him all that far away, in San Andreas."

Earlier, at the bombed church, coming down from the roof and allowing Clyde to carry them to the car, they had crowded gratefully onto Ryan's lap, even Joe Grey with no show of macho independence.

"Do you mind holding them? I think they're scared."

"We're all scared. They can comfort me." Ryan had hugged the cats, crushing them gently together; they had ridden the few blocks to the wedding like three furry prizes she might have won at some carnival booth, three rag animals held tight by a fearful little girl. "Does anyone know the boy?" Ryan said. "Know who he is?"

Clyde turned to look at her. "Detective Davis thought she recognized him. I got the impression Garza might know him, but he wasn't saying much."

"I might know him. Or he's a dead ringer for one of the boys hanging around the trailer, in San Andreas."

"That would be pretty strange. I got the feeling he's local, that he might be involved with that last bust Harper made, that meth lab up the valley. I think the guy they sent up had a kid."

"I think it's the same boy, Clyde."

He looked over at her. "Was there an old man with him, up there?"

She shook her head. "I saw only the boy. Tell me again how you knew about the bomb, what made you run shouting for everyone to get out. Through a phone call ?"

"I'd gone into the church with my phone in my suit pocket, and someone said it made a lump. I went back to the car to leave it. When it rang I wasn't going to answer, I don't know what made me pick up. It was a woman, whispering. Said there was a bomb, that a boy on the roof had the trigger, a garage-door opener." Clyde shrugged. "You know the rest. I didn't dare not believe her."

Clyde was, Joe thought, improving his lying skills. At least he had, apparently, convinced Ryan.

Now, below the cats, the bride and groom drifted away among a tangle of friends, heading for the party tables. Only Wilma remained beneath the eucalyptus tree lingering in the grassy circle. Looking up, she spoke softly-anyone who knew Wilma Getz knew that it was not unusual to hear her talk to her cats.