Shirley Murphy - Cat Spitting Mad

It was not the squad car she's expected, but Clyde's roadster, flashing down the lane butter-yellow, stirring in her a picture of the night Clyde had escorted her to the opening of her first art exhibit-not a one-man show, but her work prominently featured among that of five local artists. What a lovely evening, and how caring Clyde had been, dressing up for her, polishing the antique car until it gleamed, timing their arrival to pull up grandly before a crowded gallery, handing her out as if she were a movie star.

Behind Clyde's bright antique convertible, a black-and-white turned in from the road. Clyde was coming up the steps as it parked. The instant she released Hestig, the big pup rushed at Clyde, leaping and whining. Officer Wendell got out of his unit and stood in the yard, asking if she was all right, then went in to search the house. Wendell seemed even more rigid than usual, less friendly. He was always a quiet man. Thin and sour, not a lot of laughs. Maybe the murder had sickened him-or maybe just a sour mood. Wendell had taken a severe demotion recently, after getting into some kind of trouble over a woman. Charlie didn't know what had happened. She knew that Max wasn't easy on his men.

Clyde put his arm around her and drew her into the house. "Any coffee?" He looked tired. His dark hair stood in peaks, his T-shirt hung limp with sweat. His voice was hoarse the way it got when he was upset or out of sorts.

She poured the last of Harper's breakfast coffee into a mug and stuck it in the microwave. "Redwing came home." She pointed out toward the fence where she'd found the mare huddled. She'd never thought of a horse being huddled, but Redwing had been.

Another squad car arrived. Detective Davis and Lieutenant Brennan got out. Both had cameras. Usually, Davis did the photography. Davis waved her out, nodding toward the stable, her short, dark hair catching the light.

As Charlie hurried out, Lieutenant Brennan began to photograph the stable yard, his strobe light picking out every ripple in the soft earth, every hoofprint. Charlie showed him where she had led the mare to the stable and then crossed from the stable beside the pup. Brennan nodded curtly. She guessed murder of a woman and young girl was not business as usual to these officers.

She hadn't known the Marners well. Helen was divorced; she and her daughter had been in the village maybe a year, having moved up from LA about the same time that Charlie herself moved down from San Francisco to stay with her aunt Wilma.

Stepping into the stable alleyway, she pointed out to Juana Davis which saddle and bridle belonged to the mare, answered Davis's questions about where she'd found the mare and in what condition, where she had moved within the stable, how she had handled the tack. Her footprints showed clearly where she had crossed the alleyway from the mare's stall to the feed room and to the dogs' stall.

"Nice stable," Davis said. "You spend much time here?"

"Yes, since we started training the pups. Not before that." She didn't let her expression change, would not let herself bristle or take offense.

But cops could be like that. Blunt and nosy.

The stable was cozy-two rows of four box stalls running parallel, separated by a covered alleyway, and with a sliding door at each end. It had originally been a two-stall barn, which Harper had enlarged.

When Davis, making careful notes, had all the information she needed from Charlie, Charlie headed back to the house. She could see in through the bay window; Clyde was standing at the sink, filling the coffeepot. She paused a moment in the yard to watch him-his dark, rumpled hair, his sweaty T-shirt across his heavy shoulders, his jaw set into lines of anger and resolve. She could imagine him up on the mountain searching for the riders, then looking at the torn bodies, and suddenly she wanted to hold him, to ease his distress and her own. Suddenly she felt a great tenderness for Clyde. Quietly she went in, shutting the screen door behind her.

ONE INSTANT the kit was there beside Joe and Dulcie, under the folded convertible top, and the next minute she was gone, vanished in the night. The minute Clyde parked in the stable yard, the three cats had leaped out and slipped beneath the car-except that then the kit wasn't with them.

"Why does she do that?" Dulcie hissed. "She has to be exhausted, wandering the hills for three days. Has to be hungry- but now she's off again, with cars and riders everywhere. She makes me crazy. What possesses her?"

"She won't be found if she doesn't want to be. Let her go, Dulcie."

"I haven't any choice," she said crossly. But Joe was right. Looking for the kit, in the black night, would be like trying to catch a hummingbird in a cyclone.

They watched from beneath the car as Lieutenant Brennan photographed the yard. They watched Charlie cross from the house to the stable behind Detective Davis, and return some ten minutes later. They could see, in through the bay window, part of the kitchen where Clyde stood doing something at the sink, and soon they could smell coffee brewing, a cozy aroma filling them with visions of home and hearth fires. They remained under the Chevy roadster for perhaps an hour watching Brennan at work, watching Charlie and Clyde sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee. When they heard a horse coming down the lane, they slipped out to see Captain Harper, on a very tired Bucky, the gelding eating up the road with his distinctive running walk, even though his head hung. Dismounting in the yard, Harper paused for a moment to speak with Brennan.

"The Eagle Scouts and several more riding groups will be out at first light. Three groups of hikers will work along the sea cliffs, and we have kayakers out. A Civil Air Patrol unit is standing by to make a series of passes over the hills and take photographs. Not much chance she'll be seen from the air, but with telephoto lenses and observation with binoculars, they might turn up something."

As Harper moved away, leading Bucky to the stable, Joe and Dulcie slipped through the shadows into the alleyway behind him, and into the feed room, to vanish among the bins of grain. They could see through to the stable yard. Beside the fence, Detective Kathleen Ray knelt beneath powerful lights, sifting sand where the mare had stood, looking for any small bits of evidence, a lost button, even a few threads from the killer's clothes.

In the alleyway, they watched Detective Davis dust the mare's bridle and saddle and broken girth for prints. When Harper loosened Bucky's cinch and eased the saddle off, the gelding sighed deeply. Gently Harper sponged Bucky and rubbed him down, his brown eyes distant and hard, the lines of his thin face etched deep. The cats could guess what he was thinking-that Dillon's disappearance was his fault, that it was his fault Dillon had ever begun to ride.

Dillon's mother had never let her have riding lessons, until Max Harper said he'd teach her, until Harper took a liking to the child and said she could ride Redwing. The Thurwells had thought Dillon would be safe with the chief of police-and Harper had taken good care of her. Harper had told Clyde once that Dillon was the spunkiest little girl he knew. Told Clyde that if he and Redwing could help get Dillon through her teen years without mishap, that was all he asked.

Harper was cleaning Bucky's feet, lifting Bucky's left front hoof, when he paused, frowning.

"Davis, give me more light. Shine your torch here."

The gelding stood patiently, resting his left front hoof in Harper's hand, leaning his head on Harper's shoulder. Harper looked up at Davis. "We'll need shots of this."

"Looks like a stone cut, right across the metal." She adjusted her camera. Her lights flashed and flashed again, taking half a dozen shots.