Shirley Murphy - Cat Playing Cupid

"Get him to drink all he can," Dr. Firetti told them as he lifted Sage into Wilma's carrier, onto a soft blanket. "You shouldn't have a problem getting him to eat, he's hungry as a wolf. Aren't you, Sage?" He looked seriously at Charlie. "Max doesn't know about the cats?"

"He doesn't need to know," Charlie said. "Later, when Sage comes up to us, we'll be careful only to talk when we're sure Max is gone. Sage will have a nice bed in my studio, and another in our bedroom at night. I'll tell Max he's a stray I've seen hanging around, that I found him hurt."

"And how will you explain that you didn't ever tell him about this stray, when you tell Max about every animal that comes around the ranch, the wild fox you like to draw, the skunk…You've drawn them all, and Max has seen them all."

"I'll think of something. Preoccupation with the wedding…Mind on a new book…"

Firetti nodded but looked unconvinced. Cops didn't buy easily into even the most reasonable alibis.

"I have Sage on antibiotics," he said. "He doesn't mind taking pills if you put a dab of butter on them; he's a good patient." He glanced toward the closed door. "Of course the staff doesn't know. They say he's an amazing patient, that he does just what they want." He winked at Sage, and doctor and patient exchanged a long and trusting look. Then Firetti laid out the medicines they were to take home, and went over the times and doses.

"I want to see him every day for a while. I'll stop by the house, Wilma, if that's all right-Sage can tell me how he feels, and I'll change the bandages." That was more than all right with Wilma. They set a time for his visits, and within half an hour the three were headed for Wilma's house, Sage's carrier strapped into Wilma's car, Charlie following in her red Blazer.

W ILMA HAD SETup a bed for Sage near her desk in the living room where she and Dulcie liked to sit by the fire at night; she had covered the blue velvet chair with a puffy comforter, and had taped several sturdy boxes together to form a wide, shallow set of steps from the rug to the chair. Behind an end table was a sandbox, and on the floor beside Sage's chair was a plastic tray big enough to hold his water and kibble bowls. They entered the house through the back door, into Wilma's bright blue-and-white kitchen. A welcoming committee awaited them-Joe and Dulcie and Kit looked up from a plastic bowl where they had been enjoying leftovers from last night's dinner, and the three followed Wilma through to the living room where she set down the carrier.

As she and Charlie settled Sage in his new bed, Kit leaped up and curled carefully beside him on the soft comforter, staying away from his cast. Wilma headed for the kitchen, and soon the house smelled of fresh coffee, warm milk, and warming cinnamon buns, soon Charlie carried a tray through to the living room, setting it on the coffee table. "You're taking the week off?" she asked her aunt as Wilma poured the coffee.

Wilma nodded. "I plan to do my taxes-last minute, as usual, with Sage to keep me company. We'll have a cozy fire in the hearth, and I have the CD set up with Dulcie's favorite music, which maybe Sage will like."

"And my bandages off soon?" Sage asked shyly.

"As soon as the doctor allows," Wilma told him. "Meanwhile, all the steak and custard you can eat." She pushed back her long silver hair where it had escaped its ponytail. "You're our guest, Sage. You mustn't be shy about asking for what you want."

"Or shy about getting spoiled," Dulcie said. "A few days with Wilma and you won't want to go back to the clowder."

Sage looked uncertainly at Dulcie. The young cat was still trying to get used to the idea of feline/human conversations, was still trying to decide just how one behaved among humans.

And he was still trying to get used to being shut within solid walls. Confined in a man-made structure, it seemed to Sage that a part of him must have gone missing. The open hills, the wind, the shadowed woods had all been taken from him, had left him feeling incomplete and small.

Kit, lying close to him, watched him intently, her round yellow eyes just inches from his, gazing at him as if trying to see into his very soul, as if trying to know the young tom's deepest thoughts. That unnerved Sage, but excited him.

"You'll stay here with me," Wilma told Sage, "until I go back to work, then you'll go to Charlie's house, at the ranch, and that's nearer your own hills and woods." She looked at Charlie. "First day I get back, I start training the new reference librarian."

Charlie looked so alarmed that the cats came alert, watching her. "You're not planning to quit? The new librarian isn't taking your job?"

Dulcie looked at her housemate in amazement. She'd heard nothing of this. If Wilma quit her job as a reference librarian, she'd have to give up her library office where the cat door opened from among the bushes outside, the door that let Dulcie into the closed library at night.

No more midnight prowling among the books? No more pulling books from the shelves, dragging them up onto a table where she could read alone and unseen? No more nighttime adventures into exotic lands and distant times?

"I'm not quitting," Wilma said quickly. "Only cutting back. And we do need more help. The new librarian will be full-time, and that will give us more actual hours, even with the reduced schedule I've set for myself." Wilma didn't have to work, she had an adequate federal retirement pension from her first career as a probation officer.

Still, Charlie looked uneasy. "You're not…You're feeling all right?"

"I'm feeling fine. Don't fuss," Wilma scolded. "I'm not sick, there's nothing wrong with me, there are simply some other things I'd like to do. How could I quit? How could I give up my library key?" Wilma said, mirroring Dulcie's thoughts. "How could I give up my office, and Dulcie's cat door? Who knows, I might even start riding again."

"Are you serious? You can ride Redwing all you want, she really needs the exercise. If…"

Charlie paused, watching Joe. On the desk, the tomcat sat at rigid attention, studying Wilma and then turning his gaze on Charlie, watching the two of them so fixedly that Charlie shivered. Joe's yellow eyes were far too intent and calculating. Whatever he had in mind, he made Charlie feel like a cornered mouse.

"This is perfect," Joe said softly, turning to watch Wilma. "Are you serious about riding again?"

Wilma looked at him warily.

"This couldn't be better," Joe purred. "This fits right in with our plans."

"What plans?" Charlie and Wilma said together.

A slow smile spread over the tomcat's face, sending both women into a paroxysm of suspicion. "What?" Wilma said. "What's in that sneaky cat mind, that you think you can get me to do?"

A T LEAST CHARLIE'S acting sensibly, Joe thought as he leaped from a pine tree to the tiles of the courthouse roof- a lot more sensibly than Dulcie.

Dropping down onto the lower roof of Molena Point PD and then into the branches of the ancient oak that sheltered its front door, he stretched out along a branch, thinking about his plan.

"You're a fair poker player," Charlie had said when he'd told her what he had in mind. "Wilma and I get the book, which is too heavy for you to carry down the hills without tearing the pages, and you see that the department finds the body without involving me or involving you cats."

"That's it," Joe had said, smoothing his whiskers with a white-tipped paw. "I can talk with Ryan myself if you'd like, to put things in motion. But I'd have to wait until they get back, I don't think she's up to talking with me on the phone yet-she's still getting used to face-to-face discussion." Joe and Dulcie had been sitting on Wilma's desk as, on the blue velvet couch, Charlie and Wilma finished their coffee and cinnamon buns and, in the easy chair, Kit napped, curled up on the comforter with Sage.