Shirley Murphy - Cat Playing Cupid

"You can't be hungry. It's a wonder you're still alive. I hope Clyde doesn't start feeding Rock like that, sneaking him rich snacks." Strange, he thought, that the tomcat was in such good shape, his sleek silver body muscled and lean. He gave Joe a small snack of cold steak that Clyde had left, watched Joe gobble it, then carried his coffee down the hall to the guest room, the cat and dog crowded at his heels.

Opening his briefcase he flipped through the files and laid the Carson Chappell folder on the night table. As per Clyde 's instructions, he told Joe and Rock they could sleep on the bed-a useless gesture, considering that the two were already tucked up together hogging most of the king-size mattress, Joe Grey stretched out across the big dog's front legs. At Mike's voice, the cat looked up at him with bold yellow eyes, keenly assessing him, then closed his eyes and tucked his head under.

Ready for sleep, Mike thought, watching the tomcat. And he pulled off his shoes and shirt, preparing for bed, looking forward to a cozy evening tucked up by the fire accompanied by the sleeping dog and cat as he went over the Carson Chappell file.

T HE MOMENT MIKEwent into the bathroom to brush his teeth, Joe Grey's eyes were wide open again, his attention fixed on the Chappell cold file as keenly as if he'd spotted a rat lumbering across the white sheets. Hungering to get at the information, he debated whether to try for a look while Mike was out of the room.

Right. Mike comes out and catches him pawing through the file, and then what? Could he pretend to be sniffing the scent of mouse in the department's archived papers? Well, sure, that would explain a cat's interest.

He waited impatiently until Mike returned, wearing navy pajama bottoms and a short robe; he watched the tall, lanky Scots Irishman light the gas logs in the stone fireplace, set the glass screen in place, and then slide into bed, propping the pillows behind him. Then Joe, making a show of stretching and yawning, sauntered up the bed to Mike's pillow. Yawning again, he curled up beside Mike purring with such sudden affection that Flannery did a double take, frowning down at him.

"What's with you? You miss Clyde already? Is that why you're not out roaming the streets? You're lonesome? Well, dogs get lonely, so I guess cats do, too." And Mike spent a few moments scratching Joe's ears.

But soon, still absently stroking Joe, he was scanning the Chappell file-and Joe, sprawled among the pillows near Mike's left ear, was just as eagerly soaking up additional details of Carson Chappell's disappearance and of Lindsey's search for him.

But as Joe read, he watched Mike, too, and was slyly amused.

Where the original report discussed Lindsey and Carson's relationship, Mike's expression changed from interest to what surely resembled jealousy. In the ten-year-old report, Lindsey had assured the interviewing detective that she and Chappell were very much in love and that he would never have left her. They had planned a honeymoon in the Bahamas, they'd had their plane tickets and hotel reservations and had intended to go directly from the church to the airport. They had planned, on their return, to move into a cottage in the village, on which Carson had made a sizable down payment-they had intended to move their furniture and other belongings in two days before the wedding, the day that Chappell was due home from camping. Lindsey said they had wanted, when they arrived back, to be already comfortably settled in their new home.

In the short quotations that had been included among the dry sentences of the case file, it wasn't hard to read Lindsey's shock when Carson didn't return; Joe could detect nothing contrived or uneasy in her recorded answers, though without the sound of her voice, the intonations, and the facial expressions, it was difficult to make such an assessment. It wasn't hard, though, to imagine a bride-to-be's growing despair when there was no word from the intended bridegroom.

At that time, neither Lindsey nor the police had found the plane tickets, not in Chappell's apartment nor in his office, these had disappeared as surely as had his passport.

Halfway through, Mike set aside the file and sat quietly staring into the fire, a deep and preoccupied look, almost a dreaming look, that Joe studied with interest. Was Flannery keener on finding Chappell? Or on rekindling his relationship with Lindsey?

But that was unfair. Maybe Mike wasn't sure, himself, where his conflicted emotions wanted to lead him.

Only when Rock stirred in his sleep and turned over did Mike come back to the present, reach for the steno pad, and begin making notes. Joe, easing higher up on the pillow, positioned himself where he could read them clearly. Mike glanced at him, frowning, but didn't push him away.

Most of Mike's notations were questions, or lines of investigation that he meant to pursue, and many were the same questions Joe had. When at last he put down the pen and sat staring at the fire again, Joe wished he could read this guy's mind, wished he could follow Mike's thoughts and not just the words on the paper.

But soon the tomcat's own thoughts turned back to that one perplexing connection, to the unlikely coincidence of the two bodies coming to light in the same week. Why did he keep imagining a relationship between them? There was nothing to hint at that, except the timing of the two discoveries.

Or was there some clue in the file, or in something he'd overheard, that he didn't know he was aware of? Some minute detail, caught in his memory, that kept him returning to that improbable conjecture?

No one knew, yet, even if that was Chappell up there in Oregon. Only Lindsey Wolf seemed convinced. And, the tomcat thought, why was she so sure? Did Lindsey know something that was not in the report, and that she might not have told the law?

But why would she hold back information, when she seemed so committed to finding Chappell?

Was she, in some way, covering up her own guilt? Certain that Oregon would identify Chappell, and trying to establish her own innocence?

Dulcie would tell him he was chasing smoke, batting at shadows, that he was way off, on this one-but he couldn't leave it alone. His gut feeling was that there was a relationship between the bodies, and that maybe Lindsey knew that.

Or was he as batty as if he'd been bingeing on catnip?

He watched Mike open the file again and flip to several handwritten pages tucked at the back: three pages of notes on plain white paper, and a yellow, lined sheet with different handwriting. Having to shift against Mike's shoulder again to see around his arm, Joe pretended to scratch his ear.

"You better not have fleas," Mike said absently, knowing that Clyde had the animals on medication against such small, unwanted passengers. The white pages were dated six years ago, the yellow one three years later. That one was signed by Officer Kathleen Ray. That would be about the time Kathleen had come to work at Molena Point PD, Joe thought, not long after he, himself, started hanging around the department when he'd first discovered he could talk and could read and, most alarming, that he was thinking like a human-and, more alarming still, was thinking like a cop.

Mike shifted position again. And again Joe craned to see the file, wondering what Lindsey might have told Kathleen, who was a kind, sympathetic person, that she wouldn't share with a male officer. But as he read Kathleen's notes, he had to remind himself that Lindsey wasn't under suspicion here, that she was the one who had filed the missing-person report.

Lindsey had repeated to Kathleen the gossip about Carson having had several women on the side while Lindsey and he were engaged, including Lindsey's sister, Ryder. Kathleen's interviews with Lindsey's friends had produced the same comments. When Kathleen asked Lindsey about the wife of Carson 's partner having left her husband, Lindsey said she doubted there was any connection.