Shirley Murphy - Cat Seeing Double

She had covered the concrete floor, which was broken into three different levels following the rising hill, with big, handmade Mexican tiles the color of pale sandstone. Only the sunken sitting area was to be carpeted, with the rug that Hanni had designed, a thick, deep wool as brightly multicolored as Hanni's sweater, a rug to lie on reading, to sink into, to make love on. Hanni had ordered the handmade confection about the time Ryan started work on the house. The Landeaus had waited months for that rug, using a temporary brown shag that could be discarded when the new one arrived. And now that area was wet? The shag rug wet? She looked intently at Hanni. "The skylight did not leak. Marianna must have been down. What did she spill? Sullivan's blood?"

"Be nice, Ryan. You don't have to like the woman to do right by her professionally."

"I am doing right by her professionally. The skylight didn't leak."

She had a satisfactory enough business relationship with Marianna Landeau but she wasn't fond of her. Hanni jokingly said she was jealous of Marianna's beauty, but it was more than that. Marianna was a difficult woman to warm to. The pale-haired ex-model of nearly six feet-fine-boned, slim-waisted, as broad-shouldered as a Swedish masseuse-was as cold as an arctic sea. Marianna dressed in silks with tangles of gold jewelry, and wound her flaxen hair in an elegant chignon so perfect that no ordinary woman could have mastered its construction on a day-to-day basis. Over the years that Ryan had worked with the Landeaus on their San Francisco house, she had never seen Marianna really smile, had never heard her laugh with pleasure, only with sarcasm. Marianna Landeau was beautiful ice, a client who paid on time, but a woman Ryan didn't understand and didn't care to know better.

Hanni gave the dog a pat. "It must have been awful this morning." She waited quietly, watching Ryan, hoping that Ryan might unburden herself. Ryan scowled at her, and they sat not speaking. The dog sighed and stretched out. Hanni said, "What are you going to name him?"

"Why would I name him? The kids called him Rock."

When Hanni reached to unbuckle the dog's collar, Ryan said, "No ID on that, I just bought that collar. I have to get moving, Hanni. I told Dallas I'd be over before the juvenile authorities get there-I can meet you at the cottage in an hour or so."

Hanni hugged the dog, and rose, one easy twist from flat on the ground to her full five-six, a movement like a dancer, the result of her passion for yoga. When Hanni got up, the big dog rose with equal grace and started to follow her. Ryan grabbed his collar. He gave her a sly sideways glance and sat down quietly beside her. It did cross her mind that they were both con artists.

"See you in an hour," Hanni said and headed for her Mercedes where a New Orleans trumpet was entertaining the neighborhood of cottages that edged the small park.

"Hour and a half," Ryan called, picking up her trash. Walking back with Rock to the truck, the dog turned puppyish, dancing around her, his tongue lolling. Loading him up, she headed for the police station wondering again if she was doing the right thing to approach Curtis Farger, if this was a smart move, trying to out-con that deceitful boy.

The parking lot of Molena Point courthouse was shaded by sprawling oak trees that rose from islands of flowering shrubs. The building, set well back from the street, was of Mediterranean style with deep porticos, white stucco walls, and tile paving. The police department occupied a long wing at the south end that ran out to meet the sidewalk. Recently, Captain Harper had remodeled the department to afford increased privacy and heightened security. The jail was in a separate building, at the back, across the small, fenced parking lot reserved for police cars. Within the station itself one holding cell was maintained, opening to the right of the locked and bulletproof glass entry. The seven-by-eight concrete room had an iron bunk, a toilet and sink and one tiny window high in the east wall secured by bars and shaded by an oak's dark foliage. The oak's three thick trunks angled up from the garden as gently as staircases. Joe Grey and Dulcie were set to race across the garden and up into the branches that covered the cell window, when whispers from above them in the tree sent them swerving away again, to crouch among the bushes.

A man clung high above, among the dark leaves, his shoes and pant cuffs just visible, his balance on the slanting trunk seeming unsteady. He wore high-topped, laced shoes, old man's shoes. Moving to a better vantage, the cats could see one gnarled hand reaching out to grip at the bars for support as he peered down through the little window. It must have been hard for the old boy to climb up, they could imagine him teetering, grabbing the surrounding limbs.

If this was Gramps Farger, he had plenty of nerve to come right to the station when every cop in the state was looking for him-or maybe he thought this was the last place they'd look. Joe wanted to shout and alert the department. His second, more studied response, was to shut up and listen.

The old man's faint quarrelsome whispers and the boy's hissing replies through the open window were so soft that even from within the police department, maybe no one would hear them, not even the dispatcher from her electronic cubicle; the whispers would be easily drowned among the noise of her radios and phones.

Slipping closer, where they could hear better, the cats began to smile.

"Them big mucky-mucks don't care," the old man rasped. "The way you muffed this one, Curtis, I'm sorry you showed up at all. You should've stayed in them mountains. Well, the deed's done-you blew it, big-time. Your pa sure ain't gonna be pleased."

The kid's reply slurred angrily against the rumble of a car engine starting in the parking lot. And not for the first time, Joe wished he had one of those tiny tape recorders, wished he was wired for sound.

"Your uncle ain't gonna like it neither. You know Hurlie don't tolerate sloppy work. And your ma…"

"None of her business."

"Them cops're gonna ask you plenty. You see you don't mention Hurlie or them San Andreas people. You don't tell no one you was up there. Pay attention, Curtis. You don't know nothing about where Hurlie is, you don't know nothing about where your old gramps is. You understand me?"

"What you think I'm gonna do," the kid snapped. "Why would I tell the cops anything?"

Apparently, Joe thought, the old man didn't know that Curtis had hitched a ride with Detective Garza's niece. What a joke. Maybe Curtis himself didn't know who she was.

"Keep your voice down. Don't matter I'm your grampa, I cut no slack if you mess up again."

"Mess up! That rabid damn cat near killed me. You don't give a damn about me, you don't give a damn if I die!"

"You ain't gonna die. From a cat scratch? And you sure as hell didn't see me over at that church, no matter what they ask." The old man peered down into the cell. "I'm out of here, Curtis. Meantime, you keep your mouth shut." And Gramps started shakily down the tree snatching at branches, putting his unsteady feet in all the wrong places. Nearly falling, stumbling down the last few feet he tumbled into the geraniums so close to Joe and Dulcie that they spun around, melting deeper into the bushes.

The old man rose, apparently none the worse for the spill, and turned toward the parking lot. The cats followed him out across the blacktop, staying under parked cars when they could, slipping along in the river of his scent, which was so overripe they could have trailed him blindfolded. This old codger needed a bath, big-time. A Laundromat wouldn't hurt, either. Pausing beneath a plumbing repair truck, they looked ahead for an old pickup, as the kit had described, for some rusted-out junker. The old man was passing a black Jaguar convertible when he whipped out a key.