Shirley Murphy - Cat Deck the Halls

No, she’d never find those letters where he’d stashed them. Kicking himself for letting his guard down, later he stumbled through the cell door, shoved by the fat cop, stood surveying the filthy bunk as he heard the lock click behind him. He should have run. Should have burned the letters…Should, should, should…All his careful planning down the drain. And, sitting down alone in his cell, James Kuda put his head in his hands, trying to figure how he was going to get out of this one.

I N THE BOOKSTORE, the cats, at the first sign of trouble before the pseudo Donnie French was arrested, had leaped to the top of a bookshelf where they could see what was happening and were out of the way of fast-moving feet. Joe and Dulcie were as surprised as their human friends at what was happening. Only Kit looked smug, watching the action with a cool little smile twitching her whiskers. Dulcie and Joe looked hard at her.

“You better tell us,” Joe said, trying not to smile. “What have you done, this time?”

“I got the killer arrested,” Kit said, failing to look modest. But too much was happening below them for her to explain. As the killer was cuffed and Gabrielle tried to interfere and then headed for the door, it was Charlie who stopped her, grabbing her shoulder, spinning her around and snatching her keys.

“Leave it, Gabrielle.” Charlie’s green eyes blazed, her cheeks were flushed and her red hair was all coming loose. “Let the police sort it out. Let it be, until you’re calmer.”

“Those cops are making a huge mistake,” Gabrielle snapped. “All they want is another statistic, someone to arrest! I won’t see Donnie locked in that dirty jail! If Harper does that…The police can be sued, and I intend to talk to the mayor. And to get a lawyer in the morning.”

It was then that Max stepped in, took Gabrielle quietly aside, and asked her when she had last checked the balances of her savings accounts and CDs. Her rage at Harper exploded. She tried to hit him, and screamed insults in his face. Max held her wrists until she calmed. “Listen to me, Gabrielle. Did he use your computer? Didn’t you tell Charlie he made some repairs and loaded some programs for you?”

Gabrielle didn’t answer. Her sullen rage would not let her look at Max.

“Didn’t you tell Charlie that Donnie was a wizard with the computer, that there was nothing he couldn’t fix, that he had straightened out your online problems and made some of your programs easier to manage?”

Gabrielle was white and still.

“Go home, Gabrielle. Check your online accounts before you come charging into the station saying things you might regret.”

Gabrielle looked at Max, pulled away from him, and sat down at an empty table, glaring sullenly. Max turned away and left for the station, pausing to kiss Charlie. “I won’t be long. With Dallas in the hospital, I need to-”

“What happened?” Charlie said. “How bad is he?”

He looked down at her. “It’s a shoulder wound. He was chasing the three who hurt Ryan.”

“I didn’t…I talked with Mabel. But maybe she didn’t want to tell me, just before the party?”

“Shot him twice in the shoulder, but they missed the bone. He’s out of surgery and in the room next to Ryan’s. They have a guard at their doors.” He kissed her again. “I won’t be long. Are you going to take Cora Lee home?”

She nodded. “She’ll want to call Donnie’s sister-in-law, in Texas.”

“I’ll swing by there when I’m finished; we can leave your car, and ride home together.”

And as Sicily pitched in to try to resurrect the party, to try to ease folks and cheer them, Charlie returned to Cora Lee, who sat alone in a far corner quietly weeping for her murdered cousin.

L EAVING THE GALLERY after James Kuda was arrested, Detectives Davis and Sand headed for Juana’s condo with the distraught and frightened little girl. In the apartment, Juana turned on the lights and lit a fire while Eleanor gave the child a quick warm bath and put her into pajamas. She sat on the couch holding her, a warm quilt tucked around them. Juana made cocoa, put Christmas cookies on a plate, and carried the tray in by the fire; though she was concerned about their small charge, she was so encouraged that the child could speak and that her spirit had rallied. As horrifying as the sight of the killer had been, this little girl had stood up to him. Healthy anger, Juana thought, had wonderful curative powers as the child fought her way out of a grim darkness. This little girl didn’t shrink for long, when she faced the man who’d shot her daddy, she was mad as hell, and that, in Juana’s book, was healthy progress.

The child, now warm and cozy under the quilt, snuggled up to Eleanor, and gulped down her cocoa and cookies as if she were starving; when Juana took the empty mug from her, to refill it, she reached up suddenly to her.

“What?” Juana said. “You want the mug back?”

A shake of the head. No .

“You want to get up again?”

Another shake. “No,” she whispered. Her white little face was still blotched from crying, and her expression was so needy. “Corlie,” she said. “My name is Corlie.”

“Thank you,” Juana said, sitting down beside them. “That’s very special, to know your name. And do you have a last name?”

“My name is Corlie Lee French,” she said in such a soft whisper that the detective could barely hear.

“Corlie Lee French,” Juana said. “I like that.”

“That man…” she whispered, looking bleakly at the officers.

“Did you know him?” Juana said softly.

“He was my daddy’s friend!” she said in a fast, shivering breath, and hid her face against Eleanor. Eleanor was quiet, holding her-until suddenly a car light blazed across the top of the drawn draperies, and remained there, unmoving.

Tucking the child down on the couch beneath the quilt, the officers rose and moved to the drawn draperies, standing at either side to look out through the crack where draperies met wall. Though Donnie/James Kuda was headed for jail, they didn’t know whether someone else might be involved. They didn’t know yet whether the Wickens were part of this, or whether the two cases were unconnected.

Earlier in the evening, when the snitch had called her, Juana had turned out the lights and then called the department, quickly putting officers in place. Looking down at the street from the darkened window, she had seen the man standing in the shadows just as the snitch had described, a dark presence beneath a tangle of vine against the black windows of a closed shop. She had seen no one else on the street, until a shadow came slipping along an alley.

But the shadow was one of their own, an officer she’d just put in place. She saw, one street over, another darkly clad officer move into position. Satisfied but wary, she had watched until, half an hour later, the dark figure against the building gave up his vigil, maybe deciding Juana was in for the night. She had watched him step out from beneath the vine and slip away up the street, and had listened on the police radio as the two officers followed on foot to where he got into a tan pickup a block away. She had watched the officers’ unmarked car move out a block behind him. And then, on a secure line, she had set the rest of the plan in place.

Soon the officers tailing the pickup had a make on the truck’s plates, giving a recent transfer of title to one Donnie French. Cora Lee’s cousin Donnie, just as the snitch had said. Thinking, then, that this man was the real Donnie French, she had felt a wave of bitter dismay for Cora Lee, who had been so very happy to rejoin her family.

Hoping that Donnie thought she and the child were tucked in for the night, and hoping that he was headed for Charlie’s opening, she had helped little Corlie dress, telling her it was a game. “We’ll get dressed in the dark. Can you do that?”