Shirley Murphy: Cat Spitting Mad

The sky had cleared above them, enough so he could see through the treetops a sliver of rising moon, its thin light seeping in hoary patterns between the black pine limbs.

"I saw more," the kit said softly.

Joe paused, his paw lifted. "What did you see? Did you see the person who killed them?"

"I heard the screams. I ran to see. Two horses bolted right at me and swerved away down the mountain. No riders, reins flying. Then a girl came racing, leaning over her horse, and a man riding after her, trying to catch her. He grabbed at her horse. They were deep in the trees. I couldn't see what happened. They disappeared over the hill. The man was swearing."

"What did he look like?"

"He looked like Police Captain Harper."

"What do you mean, he looked like Captain Harper?"

"He was tall and thin and had a cowboy hat like Captain Harper, pulled down, and a thin face and a jacket like the captain wears. A denim jacket. I could smell the girl's fear. I ran and ran; I didn't go back until just now, when I found you. I came back in the dark when I heard you. I don't…"

"Listen," Joe said. Voices came from far down the hills, calling, calling, moving up toward them. "Ruthie! Ruthie Marner! Dillon! Helen! Helen Marner! Dillon! Dillon Thurwell!"

And below them, all across the bare slopes, lights came rising up and they could hear horses-a snort, the rattle of a bit, a hoof striking stone. Up the hills they came, their torches sweeping the slopes and shining down into the ravines. And down beyond the horses and hikers, cars moved along a winding road shining spotlights among the far, scattered houses. The red bubble of a police car rose up over the crest, then two more red-lit units searching for the Marners and for Dillon-searching too late for the Marners. Drawing slowly up the hills toward that grisly scene.

DILLON! DILLON THURWELL! Ruthie! Ruthie Marner!" The night hills rang with shouts, and swam with careening lights that faded and smeared where scarves of fog crept up the little valleys. "Dillon! Dillon Thurwell!" Max Harper's voice cut through the others, tense and imperative. "Dillon! Answer me! Dillon, sing out! Whistle! Dillon!"

And up the hills above the searchers, Joe Grey stood on a rock beside the bleeding bodies, wanting to shout, too, wanting to halt the cries and bring the searchers swarming to where the murdered women lay, wanting to shout, Here! They're here! Ruthie and Helen are here. Here, below the broken pine!

Right.

He could do that.

Shout as loud as a cat can shout, bring the riders galloping to take one look at the murder scene and fan out again searching for the killer, their horses trashing every bit of the evidence in their urgent haste-to say nothing of trampling three fleeing cats.

He had to draw the searchers without alarming them into tearing up the surround.

Slipping behind the rock where he wouldn't be seen, rearing tall behind the boulder to nearly thirty inches of sleek gray fur, Joe Grey yowled.

Opened wide and let it out, yowled-howled-caterwauled-bellowed-ululated and belly-coughed like a banshee screaming its rage and venom into the black, cold night.

Every light swung up. Torchlight illuminated the cats' boulder as if its edges were on fire. Captain Harper pushed Bucky fast up the hill, the tall, thin officer pulling his rifle from the scabbard as the big buckskin ran sliding on the rocks. A rifle!

Joe knew that the men of Molena Point PD carried rifles in their squad cars, along with a short, handy shotgun and an array of far more amazing equipment. He'd never thought about an officer carrying a rifle on horseback. He guessed that in the wild mountains to which these foothills led, in the rugged coastal range, a rifle might come in handy-there had been times, up in these hills, when he'd wished a cat could use a firearm.

"There!" Harper shouted. "By the boulders-under the broken pine!"

Every beam centered on the rocks and on the angled tree behind them, and on the two bodies sprawled across the dust-pale bridle path. Lights scoured the boulder where the cats had been.

Crouching higher up the hill, they watched Harper's buckskin gelding top the rise at a gallop and, behind Harper, riders flowing up like a stampede in a TV western, the pounding of their hooves shaking the earth. Crouched close together, the cats shivered with nervous excitement.

Harper held up a hand. The riders pulled up their horses in a ragged semicircle, some fifty feet below the bodies-a ring of mounted men and women, their flashlights and torches bathing the corpses in a brilliance as violent as if the light of final judgment shone down suddenly upon Helen and Ruthie Marner.

Around the grisly honor guard, the night was still.

A bit rattled. A horse snorted nervously, perhaps at the smell of blood.

Max Harper holstered his rifle and dismounted, swinging down from the saddle to approach the bodies alone. Leaving Bucky ground-tied, he stepped with care to avoid trampling any footprint or hoofprint. His long, thin face was white, the dry wrinkles deeply etched, his dark eyes flat and hard as he looked down on Helen and Ruthie, then looked away into the night, shining his light up into the forest.

When he did not see a third body among the rocks and trees, he clicked on his radio.

"Better have the ambulance up here. And the coroner." He called in his two detectives from the squad cars below, then knelt to check for vital signs, though there could be none. Dulcie and Joe swallowed, knowing the pain with which Harper must be viewing the scene.

Before he rose, he examined the ground directly around the bodies; the cats knew he'd be committing to memory every mark or disturbance, studying every footprint and hoofprint, every detail of the position of the bodies, memorizing the way the blood was pooled, seeing each tiniest fragment of evidence-though all such facts would be duly recorded by his detectives in extensive notes and photographs.

Joe didn't like leaving their prints at the scene-he could only hope they looked like the tracks of a squirrel or fox, though surely Harper knew the difference. Crouching, Harper studied the earth for a long time, then, rising, he looked away again into the night, shaking his head as if dismissing that wild cry that had summoned him. Maybe he thought it had come from some small, wild beast drawn there by the smell of blood, stopping to yowl a hunting cry, leaving its prints, fleeing at the approach of the searchers.

It was as good a scenario as any. They didn't need Harper to be unduly aware of cats at the scene; they knew that too painfully from past encounters.

Harper, shining his torch across the ground in ever-widening arcs, turned at last, singling out Officer Wendell.

"Call Murdoc Ranch, Wendell. See if the Marner horses have come home. See if they've seen Dillon-or if Dillon's mare is there." And again he swung his torch up into the black forest, searching for a redheaded little girl whom Max Harper cared for just as he would love his own child. His light swam over the boulder beneath which the cats crouched. But if he saw them at all, they'd be no more than mottled brown leaves and rotted gray branches, their eyes tight closed, Joe's white markings concealed behind the kit and Dulcie.

And soon, below them, the familiar routine began. Officers emerged from their squad cars on the narrow road a quarter mile below. Detective Ray and Detective Davis hurried up the hill, the two women loaded with cameras and equipment bags, Davis to shoot roll after roll of film of the victims and the surround while Ray made notes and drew a diagram of body positions. Borrowing Bucky, Davis took many pictures from horseback, to gain the higher angle. The cats thought the team would likely work all night, sifting the earth, bagging and labeling minute bits of evidence, making casts of footprints and hoofprints.