Shirley Murphy - Cat Seeing Double

From the kitchen they heard a cup rattle as if Ryan had poured the coffee that had, from the smell of it, steamed in the pot for some time. Dallas asked, "When did you see Rupert last?"

"I haven't-hadn't seen him since early July. I caught sight of him here in the village. That startled me, he never came down here. I don't think he saw me. I'd had dinner with Clyde-Clyde Damen. We were coming out of the grill when I saw Rupert at the bar with a tall, sleek blonde. Long, gleaming hair. I didn't see her face but Rupert turned and I saw his profile. I have no idea what he was doing down here, he has no friends in the village that I know of."

"And he didn't see you?"

"I don't think so. I practically dragged Clyde out of there. We… a divorce and lawsuit are not pleasant. Rupert hadn't been very pleasant."

The cats listened to Ryan describe when and how she had found the body, and what she had done afterward, how long it took her to go upstairs and call 911.

"Did you touch the body?"

"I touched his leg. I just… reached out before I thought. I was sure he was dead, the dried blood, and he was so white, but I… something in me had to be sure-that there wasn't life there, that there was nothing I could do. He… he was so cold…"

"And what would you have done if you'd thought he was alive?"

"The same as I did, call the department-unless I'd thought CPR would… I suppose I would have tried that."

"What did you tell the dispatcher?"

"That a man was dead in my garage. And I answered her questions."

"You came upstairs to call?"

"Yes."

"Do you own a gun?"

"Yes."

Behind Ryan's boots, the cats glanced at each other. Of course Dallas knew she owned a gun, but he was committed to asking all the necessary questions. He made her describe the black.38 Smith and Wesson, made her tell him where she kept it, where it had been that morning and where it was at that moment. The cats didn't need to watch him to know he was carefully recording her answers both on tape and in his log- recording not to incriminate but to protect, to have the record straight.

"I forgot to bring my gun upstairs when I got back from San Andreas. Normally I would have put it in my nightstand. It… it's been locked in my truck since I got back, night before last. I… just forgot about it."

"Forgot about it?"

"I don't feel the need, in Molena Point, to keep a gun with me at night the way I… the way one might in an isolated trailer."

"You left it locked in your truck, where?"

"In the glove compartment."

"I'll need your keys."

The cats heard keys jingle. Dallas said, "Are they all here? None have been removed?"

A pause, then, "Yes. All there. Apartment door, garage, truck keys, side lock boxes, glove compartment. Key to the house in San Francisco, which is still officially half mine."

The cats glanced at each other. She was just a bit defensive. But surely she didn't like being questioned this way, even by her uncle, even though she knew it was necessary.

"Last night, what time did you go to bed?"

"The minute you left here. Just before two."

"Did you hear anything during the night, any noises?"

"No."

"Nothing downstairs?"

"No."

"Did you hear gunshots."

"No I didn't. I don't understand why not."

"What is your opinion about that?"

"That whoever killed him used a silencer. Or that he was shot somewhere else and brought here."

"Does that strike you as rather improbable?"

"It's improbable to find Rupert down there, dead in my garage. I only know that I didn't hear shots. And it seemed to me there was very little blood, for a head wound."

Joe Grey frowned, the white strip down his face squeezing into wrinkles. In the dim closet his yellow eyes shone black as obsidian. His whisper was soft. "If those two bullets, that went into the back wall, had been a couple of feet higher they could have come up through the floor directly where Ryan was sleeping."

Dallas said, "Did you see any indication that the body had been moved to that location? Any blood trail? Any drag marks down the drive or in the yard?"

"No. You would have seen them too."

"But there was a tire mark," Dulcie said softly. "A little thin tire mark, like a bike, just at the edge of the drive."

"I didn't see that," Joe hissed. "How could I miss that?"

"You were watching the coroner. I saw Detective Davis photograph the ground there, but the mark was really faint. I thought it went along the drive, maybe to the side door."

"You heard nothing after you went to bed?" Dallas repeated. "You didn't hear a shot fired." The cats pictured Officer Bonner silently observing the detective, witness to the fact that Dallas was detached and objective and didn't lead Ryan's answers.

"I'm sure I'd have waked to gunshots," Ryan said. "Unless there was a silencer."

"And you heard nothing during the night?"

"Not that I remember. I was dead asleep, I was very tired." But the cats glanced at each other. Ryan sounded as if she wanted to tell Dallas something more. As if perhaps later when they were alone, when she was not on record, she would share with him something that was bothering her?

"Those stained-glass windows," Dulcie said softly. "How could the killer have wedged the body in like that? To lift a deadweight, pardon the pun, at that angle and ease the body down between the windows… That would be like standing on your hind legs lifting a dead rabbit as heavy as you, hoisting it way out at an angle and slowly down without dropping it. The killer had to be strong. But why bother? What was the point of leaving the body there?"

"You don't think he was shot there?" Joe said.

"Nor do you," she said, cutting her eyes at him. "Those windows are old and frail. You heard Ryan last night telling Clyde. That glass has to be brittle, and those strips of lead fragile. Those old stained-glass windows in the English Pub, the way if you rub against them, the glass will push loose from the leading? If Rupert had fallen there he'd have smashed those windows to confetti."

Dallas said, "We'll have to take your gun." The cats heard chair legs scrape, then the front door open, heard the officers and Ryan going down the stairs.

Leaping from the bathroom window and down the hill, they were just at the edge of the drive when the officers and Ryan came down; and the medics set down their stretcher, prepared to take Rupert away. Slipping into the bushes, they watched Dallas unlock Ryan's truck door then unlock her glove compartment. Flipping the glove compartment open, he turned to look at her.

"You said your gun was here?"

Ryan stared in past Dallas. She reached, but drew back.

Dallas pulled out a thin folder, and laid it back again. "Empty. I've never known a woman to keep an empty glove compartment."

"I keep stuff in the console, you know that. Except my gun. Where's my gun!"

"You didn't take it upstairs?" he said sternly.

She shook her head, scowling. "No. I didn't."

"Let's go over it again. You got home Friday night around midnight."

"Yes. Unloaded the windows, unloaded a few tools, closed and locked the garage door. Went upstairs and fell into bed, dead for sleep."

"And the next morning-Saturday morning?"

"Got up, made coffee. Came down and finished unloading, hauled my trash bags around the side of the garage. I'd bought a mantel up there, as well as the windows, and some carved molding. I stacked those better, along the back wall, and shook out the tarp and folded it, put it back in the truck bed where I keep it. It had crumbs and Hershey wrappers in it, and was folded differently than I'd left it. I learned Saturday night after the wedding, the Farger boy hitched a ride down from San Andreas without my knowing." All this was for the record, for the tape that was surely running.