Shirley Murphy - Cat Under Fire

"It was five in the morning. Why would an old woman be looking out her window at five in the morning?"

"Old people don't sleep well, they're up at all hours. Wilma wakes up in the middle of the night and reads. I have to burrow under the covers."

Her green eyes widened. "Maybe I can find out; maybe I can hang out there for a while. Play up to the old lady."

"Why not? You could do that. Get her to confide in you-tell her you're a talking cat, that you'd like to interview her. Like to ask her a few questions. Maybe you could borrow a press card, say you work for the Gazette."

"I could play lost kitty. Hungry lost kitty. Little old ladies are suckers for that stuff."

Silently he looked at her.

"It's worth a try. What harm?"

"That old woman might hate cats. Maybe she poisons cats."

"If she hates cats, I'll leave. If she puts poison out, I won't eat it. Do you think I can't smell poison?"

"Sometimes, Dulcie…" But he sighed. What was the use?

She smiled and returned to the journal. "Why does Janet say this about Sicily Aronson, that Sicily is admirably calculating? What does she…?"

A sudden noise from the street startled them, the sound of a car door opening. They sprang to the window, looking down at the street.

A black Cadillac had parked at the curb. The driver's door was open, and, as they watched, a large woman began to extricate herself from beneath the steering wheel. Dulcie's eyes widened. "Beverly. That's Beverly Jeannot, has to be. Why would she come up here?"

"Why not? It's her house now. You know Janet left her the house."

"But the police tape is still up. I thought no one was supposed to come inside. I wonder if Captain Harper knows she's up here."

"Dulcie, it's her house. Don't you think she has a right to come in?"

Behind the Cadillac a pale cream Mercedes of antique vintage pulled up. Dulcie stared, her tail twitching with surprise. They could see the driver's red hair massed like a flame. "Where did Charlie get a pretty car like that? She can hardly afford a cup of coffee."

"That's Clyde's old Mercedes, the one he rebuilt. He must have loaned it to her. Maybe her old bus died. It wouldn't take much."

Charlie swung out of the Mercedes as Beverly emerged from the Cadillac. Beverly Jeannot was an overstuffed, soft-looking woman with large jowls, a wide stubby nose, and short brown hair set into such perfect marcel waves she might just have come from a 1920s beauty salon.

She was done up in something long and floating and color coordinated, all in shades of pink and burgundy, with high-heeled burgundy shoes and a natty little burgundy handbag. Her overdone outfit made a sharp contrast to Charlie's skinny jeans and faded yellow sweatshirt. The two women were as different as a jelly donut and a gnawed chicken bone. Charlie carried a clipboard, a claw hammer, and a wrecking bar.

As the mismatched pair started up the hill, moving out of sight along the far side of the house, Dulcie stared at the books scattered on the bed. There was no way to get them back on the shelves-that would take forever. She leaped to the bed, pawed the cubbyhole closed, and nosed Janet's diary to the floor; leaping down she pushed it under the bed. They slid under behind it, dragging it deeper beneath the fallen sheets as footsteps rang on the entry deck. They could hear the soft mumble of voices, then a wrenching screech as Charlie began to pull nails, releasing the boarded-over front door.

There were two thuds as Charlie leaned the plywood sheets against the house, then the soft, metallic click of the lock turning.

As Beverly Jeannot's high heels struck across the living room tiles, the cats backed into the far corner, pulling Janet's diary with them, shoving it under a fold of quilt. And, tucked warm beneath the quilt beside the leather-bound book, Joe found himself listening intently, surprised at his own sharp curiosity.

For the first time since Janet's death, his interest in her killer was intense, predatory. Determined. Now, suddenly, he meant to find out who killed Janet.

Maybe it was his immediate, instinctive dislike of Beverly Jeannot.

Or maybe his concern grew from the strong sense of Janet surrounding them, her scent, her pictures, her words-her deepest feelings shared.

Beverly stepped up onto Janet's deck, pulling her skirts around her, staying well away from the fallen, burned oak tree that had smashed half the deck and the rail. Looking helplessly at the plywood that had been nailed over the front door, she waited for Charlie to provide access.

Hiding an irritated smile, Charlie began to pull nails, wondering what Beverly would do if she had to get into Janet's apartment without assistance. She hoped she could work for this woman without, somewhere along the way, losing control of her temper. Their first meeting, three days before, had been strained.

Because she didn't yet have an office in which to talk with Beverly, she'd suggested meeting for coffee at the Bakery. Beverly kept the appointment, but let her know right off that meeting in a public restaurant was not the way in which she liked to conduct business. Charlie didn't know how much privacy Beverly required to discuss repair and janitorial services. Beverly had looked a mile down her nose at the little tables on the Bakery's charming covered porch; though when their tea was served she tied right into the pastries, devouring the apricot crescent rolls greedily.

Charlie pulled the last nails, slipped the two sheets of plywood out from under the police tape, and leaned them against the house. She didn't have to like Beverly Jeannot in order to work for her, and this was the biggest cleaning and repair job she'd bid on. Following Beverly up along the side of the house from the street below, she had hastily assessed the exterior damage. The smoke-stained siding would need pressure scrubbing, and that would mean covering the windows. She'd have to rent a pressure washer. It was too early on in the game to buy one- that would put her in debt for a year. The pump alone ran around eleven hundred, and the spray washer was probably more. A total of two to three thousand bucks.

Her profit from this job would go a long way toward paying for that kind of equipment-if she didn't lose her temper and blow it. Though it was more than Beverly's attitude that made her uncomfortable about this bid. She wasn't looking forward to cleaning the house where Janet Jeannot had been killed so brutally. She'd been a fan of Janet's, had admired Janet's work for years. She wasn't sure how she was going to feel, working there, where Janet had been murdered.

But that was childish, she was being childish. She couldn't help Janet; she couldn't change anything.

When she was still in art school, she had sometimes seen Janet at a gallery opening or a museum reception among a group of well-known painters. She had never had the nerve to approach the artist. Why should Janet Jeannot care that some gangling art student idolized her work?

But now she wished she had spoken to her. She hadn't learned until she moved to Molena Point three weeks ago, what a down-to-earth person Janet had been. Maybe a word of admiration, even from an art student, would have meant a little something.

Of course when she told Beverly, over coffee that day, how much she had admired Janet, she received only a haughty sniff. As if a common cleaning and repair person couldn't possibly distinguish an exciting painting from the Sunday comics. Now, following Beverly inside, she wondered if Beverly herself had appreciated Janet's work. Stepping over the burned threshold, Beverly gathered her skirts around her giving a little disgusted huff at the sour smell.