Shirley Murphy - Cat Spitting Mad

He supposed the Thurwells had to blame someone. Supposed that to blame Harper was only human. But Harper had taken such pains with Dillon, had taught the little girl a valuable discipline.

The Thurwells were good to Dillon, but, as Dulcie pointed out, they didn't seem to see the need a growing child has for some direction in her life. Harper knew about that kind of need. He had given Dillon the goals she'd hungered for, had fostered the skills and the strength of mind that could keep her from going off suddenly on some tangent when she hit her teens. Dulcie said you didn't have to be a human to recognize that universal need.

When Garza had rewound the Thurwell tape, he played Harper's statement to Detective Davis, and as the tape ran, he made detailed notes on a large yellow pad.

The detective played back interviews with various personnel at the ranch where the Marners kept their horses, and with the manager and the three waitresses who had been on duty at Cafe Mundo the day of the murder. There was nothing in their answers to conflict with Harper's statement.

Garza played, three times, his interview with the witness who claimed to have seen Harper following the three riders up the mountain, directly after lunch. The man was a tourist staying in the village, a William Green. He said he had been out biking, that he had recognized Harper because Green had lost his car keys the week before, and had gone into the station to identify them after a foot patrol found them, that Captain Harper had come in while he was signing for his keys, and he'd heard an officer call him by name.

Fishy, Joe Grey thought.

Green was very sure about his details. Joe felt easier when Garza made a note to check out the man's home address and background.

At twelve-fifteen, Garza called it a night. Kate and Hanni had come in around ten and gone downstairs to bed. Switching off the desk lamp, Garza turned suddenly toward the fireplace, looking directly at Joe.

"For all the attention you've given me tonight, tomcat, I'd say you were some kind of snitch."

Joe's belly did a flip-flop. He purred hard and tried to look stupid. He could feel his paws sweating.

Garza grinned. "Working for Max Harper? And does that mean you're working for the killer?" Garza's eyes were as black as obsidian, totally unrevealing. Joe regarded him as coolly as he could manage, considering he had a bellyful of hop-frogs.

"Instead of spying on me, you might make yourself useful. This cottage has been shut up for months. It has to be crawling with mice."

Garza tousled Joe's head as he would rough up a big dog, and headed for the bedroom.

Well, maybe it was only Garza's way. Joe had heard him tease Hanni with the same dry wit, and had seen him ruffle her head, too.

Retiring to the window seat, he curled up, listening to the night sounds through the slightly open, locked-in-place window. The small clock on the kitchen pass-through said 12:19. An occasional car passed on the street below, and later a party of raccoons began to squabble, chittering and hissing, and he heard a garbage can go over. He woke and dozed, and when next he looked at the clock, its illuminated face said 4:40. Something had waked him. His head raised, his ears sharp, he lay listening.

The sound of footsteps reached him softly from up beyond the kitchen windows, and the rustle of bushes, sounds so faint that only a cat would hear.

Dropping to the carpet, he sprang to the pass-through and padded silently across the kitchen counter. Keeping to the shadows behind the bread box, he peered out beside the curtain into the night.

A man stood among the bushes on the hill, a dark shadow nearly hidden among the black masses of foliage and trees, a thin, tall man, looking down into the house.

Was he stoop-shouldered like Lee Wark? Through the glass, Joe could catch no scent, but the look of the man made him choke back a stifled mewl, his voice as tremulous as a terrified kitten. In panic, he dropped to the floor, crouching behind the refrigerator, and stared up at the window, half expecting the man to slide it open and climb in. He was ashamed to admit the fear that swept him; he was scared down to his tomcat paws.

But was it the Welshman? The shadow blended so well into the overgrown gardens that he really couldn't see much. And now, his nose filled with the stink of dust from the refrigerator's motor housing, he couldn't have smelled Wark if the man had stood on top of him.

Leaping to the counter, he peered out again, but the figure was gone. He could see only the crowding houses and massed bushes, could detect no human shape within the indecipherable tangles of the night.

Pacing the house, he worried until dawn, prowling in and out of bedrooms, making the round of partly open, locked windows both on the main level and downstairs. Twice he imagined he could smell Wark, but the next instant could smell nothing but pine trees and the lingering stink of raccoons.

If that was Wark, had he come here looking for Kate? Joe began to worry about Dulcie and the kit; he wondered if they were out hunting, in the night alone. At 5:00, pacing and fretting, he leaped to Garza's desk, pushed the phone off its cradle onto Garza's blotter, and made a whispered call, watching Garza's closed bedroom door.

Wilma answered sleepily, a curt and irritable "Yes?"

"I think Lee Wark may be in the neighborhood, prowling around the Garza place, but now he's gone. Watch out for him. Are they there? Tell Dulcie she needs to be careful."

"They're here. I'll see to it." Wilma asked no questions, wasted no time getting up to speed. Thank God for a few sensible humans.

Beyond the closed bedroom door, he heard the detective stir. Pawing the phone into its cradle, he fled for the window seat, had just curled up when the bedroom door creaked open and light spilled out-and Joe was gently snoring.

Maybe he'd been wrong, maybe it wasn't Wark out there. Could it have been Stubby Baker? Could Baker be interested in Garza's notes and tapes? Baker was tall and slim like Wark, and about the same height. He was straighter and broader of shoulder, but in the shadows, might he have appeared hunched?

By 5:20 Garza had showered, made coffee, and was frying eggs and bacon. Joe, strolling through the kitchen, yowled loudly at the back door.

"At least you're housebroken." The detective gave him a noncommittal cop stare and opened the kitchen door.

From the garden, Joe glanced up at the window, expecting to see Garza's dark Latin eyes looking out, watching him, but the lighted glass remained blank. He found, beneath the window, the waffle prints of a man's jogging shoes incised into the damp earth; large shoes, certainly larger than Clyde's size 10s. Carefully prowling, he studied each area of bare soil, tracking the prints clear around the house, pausing where the man had stood looking into the downstairs bedroom windows.

Surely neither Kate nor Hanni had been awakened and seen him. They'd have called the department-or come upstairs to wake Dallas. Presumably, Dallas was the only one with a firearm. Heading around the house again, he pawed at the kitchen door, bellowing a deep yowl.

Kate opened the door. He stepped in, sniffing the aromas of breakfast. Kate and Hanni were showered and dressed, all polished and smelling of Ivory soap. Hanni sat at the kitchen table across from Garza, drinking coffee as Garza ate his fried eggs and bacon and sourdough toast. The detective glanced down at Joe absently but didn't offer to share.

Evidently no one had pointed out to Garza, and he probably didn't know, that any ordinary cat, moved to a new house, would be kept in for a couple of weeks so he would become oriented and not run away.

When no one offered him a fried egg, Joe fixed his gaze on Kate, licking his whiskers.