Shirley Murphy - Cat Playing Cupid

"How could I shoot him when I'm scared of guns?"

"How did you know Carson was shot ?"

"Lindsey told me. It was in the paper, for Pete's sake."

"I didn't see that in the paper. And you and Lindsey hardly speak. Why would she tell you anything?" Ray hit her again, and she came storming out of the kitchen. The cats vanished under the couch. Peering out, they saw her grab her purse and slam out of the apartment banging the front door so hard Joe was thankful they hadn't tried racing through.

"Out," Dulcie whispered the moment the room was empty, "Out of here, now!" But even as they fled for the sliding screen, Ray emerged from the kitchen. He saw them and lunged for them, burning to take out his rage on anything that moved-as he grabbed for Dulcie, Joe leaped in his face, digging his claws deep, raking Gibbs's whiskery flesh. He leaped free before Ray could grab him and was out the door beside Dulcie, across the balcony, and up the oak tree. As Ray burst out, they streaked higher among the concealing branches. Ray stood on the balcony swearing, staring up into the tree. At last he turned back inside, slamming the glass slider and pulling the draperies.

H ALF AN HOUR EARLIER,in the sunken patio of the Running Boar, at the table closest to the stone fireplace, Lindsey Wolf and Mike Flannery sat talking softly as they sipped their hot spiced rum. In the early twilight, the patio was darker than the streets above. The fire on the hearth cast a ruddy, dancing glow across the small tables and onto the faces of the half dozen couples who sat enjoying early cocktails.

"It was only a little one-story cottage," Lindsey was saying, "built during the days when the village was a religious retreat. In the old photos I have of it, the roof was really low, mossy, and sagging. Whoever renovated it and added the upstairs made a great attic living space."

"You were lucky," Mike said, "to find a combination office and apartment."

"I was ," she said. "Perfect location, two blocks from Ocean. And the office is just right, with its open beams and fireplace-a far cry from the generic office I rented in L.A. And this one is all mine," she said, her eyes crinkling with pleasure, "bought and nearly half paid for."

She looked into the fire, sipping her toddy, then looked back at him, her hazel eyes dark in the dusky light. "It's good to be back, Mike. Despite all that's happened, despite having to face this pain and ugliness again."

"Why did you leave, Lindsey? You've given me excuses. But why, really?"

She looked at him for a long time. The waiter appeared, then turned away again as if loath to interrupt their intimate exchange.

"To simply say you were all mixed up," Mike said, "that left me pretty uncertain. Mad as hell one minute, ready to fly down there the next minute and demand some straight answers-and then the next minute resolving to put it behind me, to forget you and move on."

"And you did move on," she said softly. "Why did you, Mike, why did you let me go?"

His jaw hardened. "What the hell? You were doing no more than playing hard to get?"

"No, I…I didn't mean…"

"I didn't think you were that childish, Lindsey. I didn't think…" He stopped and turned to look behind him, where she was staring, watching the couple who had come down the five steps from the street. A big, scruffy-haired man in black jeans and black leather jacket, and Ryder, wearing a short, low-cut black dress, her tawny hair fluffed around her shoulders; Mike noticed again how closely Lindsey resembled her sister.

Seeing Lindsey, they paused at the bottom of the short stairs, and the man's voice rose. "What the hell is this, Ryder!" He clutched her shoulder, spun her around, and dragged her back up the short flight. "Christ! Sitting there waiting for us! What did you do, tell her you were coming here?"

"I didn't tell her anything, I didn't know where we were going! I hardly speak to her!" Ryder hissed. She mumbled something more that Mike and Lindsey couldn't make out as Gibbs hurried her away.

Behind them, Lindsey had gone pale. Mike put his arm around her, and she leaned into him. He searched her face sharply.

She shrugged. "Ray never liked me."

"He was your boss, one of your bosses."

"He…came on to me once, pretty roughly. In the file room. I told him if he did that again, I'd tell Carson-and that I'd file charges against him.

"He pretty much left me alone after that."

Mike took her hands to warm them, they were cold and shaking-but whether from distress or from a harsher anger, he couldn't be sure.

B ACKING DOWNthe oak tree to the roof of Gibbs's condo, the cats licked bits of oak bark from between their claws, but Joe couldn't wash away the sour taste of Ray Gibbs's stubbly face.

"I wish," Dulcie said, "you'd slashed his throat, down to the jugular."

Joe smiled, wishing he had, too.

"Gibbs shot Carson Chappell," Dulcie said. "He accused Ryder to make himself look innocent. Is there a gun hidden in there? Or is it buried in that Oregon forest? I guess," she said with distaste, "I guess we'll have to go back and toss the rest of the place."

"Not tonight," Joe said. He wasn't going in again with Gibbs there. And more important was to deliver the box of stationery. He tried to decide where was best to leave it. At the back door of the station? Haul it through the window of Dallas's Blazer and drop it on the seat?

How many pieces of evidence, over the years, had they dragged across the village to deliver to Molena Point PD-each time increasing the unease of Max and his officers over the identity of the unknown snitch? How many times had they made that delivery just hours after someone in the department expressed a need for such evidence? Or after some development that cried out for additional information?

It wasn't half a day, now, since Ryder had brought in the letter-in front of Joe Grey. Then an anonymous someone provides the detectives with a lead to the source of the letter. The cats looked at each other, thinking about that. And they left the condo hauling the black T-shirt over the dark rooftops, taking turns dragging it, moving directly away from Molena Point PD.

Carrying it perilously between them across spreading oak branches above the narrow streets, taking a circuitous route above the dimmest streets to avoid being seen from below, they at last backed down a pine tree in Wilma Getz's garden and, with difficulty, were just able to force the package through Dulcie's cat door, into the laundry.

They could hear Wilma in the kitchen, at the sink, could hear the water running. Dragging their prize through, they dropped it by the kitchen table.

"What?" Wilma said, turning from the sink where she was washing salad greens. She eyed with suspicion the wad of black T-shirt, lying like something dead on her clean blue linoleum. "What?" she repeated.

The cats looked up at her innocently.

"What?" she said a third time, not liking their wide-eyed stares.

"Evidence," Joe said. "We need to leave it here for a while."

"What evidence? Evidence to what? What have you two stolen now? Who's going to break in here looking for it?"

Joe said, "You can't steal evidence. Evidence, by its very nature, is-"

Wilma wiped her hands on her apron, her look stern, her eyes never leaving Joe. Dulcie was silent, watching the two of them, thinking that over the years Wilma had grown as acerbic as Clyde-though she knew very well that, in the end, Wilma would join them in hiding the box of stationery.

The upshot was that Wilma put the black package in a shoe box and hid it at the back of her closet until the cats chose a more opportune time to deliver it to the law. Then, returning to the kitchen, she fixed them a snack of crackers, Havarti cheese, and deli turkey. "I have," she said as she added a plate for herself and poured a cup of tea, "I have something to tell you."