Shirley Murphy - Cat Under Fire

She reared up to look at the paintings, then hopped up into the rack between them, looked closely at a big landscape.

Yes, it was Janet's, a splashy study of the Baytowne wharves, stormy sky, crashing sea. She pushed the painting back, to reveal the next, looked up at blowing white cumulus and red rooftops. She wanted to shout, turn flips. Pushing several more canvases to lean against their mates, she feasted on blowing trees, reflective shop windows, a view uphill of dark roofs against seething cloud, the rich colors dulled in the darkness, but the movement and bold shapes were unmistakably Janet's.

They counted forty-six paintings.

"Then Stamps and Varnie didn't take any, they're all here." She frowned. "But the way they talked, they must know where the canvases are hidden."

"Maybe they plan to come back when things die down, maybe with bolt cutters."

"Why would they think the paintings would still be here? That Mahl-if he wasn't caught-wouldn't move them?"

"I don't know, Dulcie. I guess that's why Stamps said, 'Get ours while we can, and get out.' Mahl had nerve," he said, "stashing them nearly on top of the murder scene."

"Maybe he thought this was the last place anyone would look, maybe…"

"Shhh. Listen." He backed away from the door.

Footsteps approached down the wide alley beyond the communal door.

Metal rattled as the outer door rolled up. They leaped to the top of the crates, to the top of the standing paintings balancing on their edges. They were poised to spring up to the top of the wall when lights blazed on, the bare bulb on the wall of their unit nearly blinding them. And the yellow glare above, washing across the ceiling, told them the lights in all the units had come on, ignited by a master switch.

Footsteps entered the inner corridor, sending them flying to the top of the wall and away toward the back, through light as bright as day.

Below them from the hall the old man shouted, "Come out of there. You're in the complex illegally." His voice was raspy, very loud for such a small man. "Come out now, or I call the cops." He began to pound on doors. "You won't be arrested if you come out now."

"How can he think anyone's here?" Dulcie whispered. "The doors are locked from outside."

"The empty ones wouldn't be locked."

"But…"

They heard him open one of the lockers, then another, heard him rattling padlocks; and warily they moved away again, along the top of the wall. "Let's get out," Dulcie said softly.

"Be still. He'll be gone in a minute. If we go out the vent now…"

"What if he has keys?"

"He can't see us; he'd have to climb to see us. And what if he did?"

She shivered.

"We're cats, Dulcie. He'd just chase us out. I've never seen you so jumpy."

She leaned against him. "I've never been afraid quite like this. I don't know why."

"Nerves," he said unhelpfully. But then, as they crouched atop the wall, the lights went out and the footsteps headed away again. The outer door rattled as it was pulled down and they heard the padlock snap closed.

Alone again in the warm dark they relaxed, basking in the heat from the roof, feeling their thudding hearts slow, breathing more easily.

"He didn't waste any time getting out," Joe said. Stretching, he trotted away around the top of the wall, heading toward the vent. There he waited, listening. Dulcie followed. They heard a light scuffing along the alley as if the old man was shuffling away, but then silence, as if he had stopped.

"He's up to something," Joe said.

She moved to look out through the vent, but he pulled her back.

"Now who's acting nervous?"

"Keep your voice down. He didn't walk away- unless he took his shoes off."

"We could go out the back vent." But suddenly from below came the hush of tires on concrete, the soft rolling sound of a car pulling down between the buildings.

The engine stopped. They heard a second car, then the static of a police radio.

"He called the cops," Joe said incredulously. "Before he ever came out here, he called the cops."

"That crash, when I knocked the crate off. He called them then. Who knows how long he was standing out there-who knows what he heard."

They listened to car doors opening, men's voices mixed with the harsh radio voices. Again the outer door rattled up, and the overhead lights flared on like a gigantic third degree. Quickly they slipped away along the top of the wall toward the back. They heard the cops enter the little hall, hard shoes on concrete.

"Police. Come out now."

Doors were flung open as officers checked the empty lockers. Locks rattled. But then at last, silence. A softer voice. "There's no one in here, sir. The locks and hasps are all in place, nothing looks tampered with. You must have…"

"I heard someone talking. Not my imagination. Maybe they got locked in from outside. Maybe someone's sleeping in here, got locked in… "

"If there's anyone trapped here, they're mighty quiet about it."

The footfalls receded, the men's voices became fainter. But the lights remained on, and the officers left the outer door open. The cats listened to a long silence broken only by the rasping crackle of the police radio.

Joe said, "They're waiting for something. Or planning something."

Dulcie had started on toward the back when a new sound froze them. The scrape of wood on concrete. Then a little click. They crept up to the front, to look.

Below them in the hall the watchman had set up a wooden stepladder, and an officer was climbing. They backed away and ran, heading for the back vent.

They were crouched by the vent when the officer rose above the wall of the first locker. Tilting his head sideways, pressing his forehead against a rafter, he managed to look over into the first little room, peering down through the six-inch gap.

"This one's empty, some furniture but nothing to hide under."

The minute he vanished again, presumably to move the ladder, they clawed a hole in the screen and pressed through. Poised on the sill, they stared down at the concrete walk nine feet below. They leaped together, landed hard, jolting every bone. And they ran, skirting along beside the fence. They were crouched to swarm up the six feet of chain link when Joe stopped and turned back.

"What?" She remained poised to leap.

"Idea," he said, briefly trotting away around the far end of the building. She followed him, puzzled and excited, toward the alley where the patrol cars were parked. When Joe was silent, some wild plan was unfolding.

He crouched at the corner, listening to the police radio. Carefully he peered around, down the alley toward the patrol cars.

"They're still inside. Come on."

She sped beside him toward the two squad cars. The drivers' doors stood open, maybe to give quick access to the radios. They slipped beneath the first car.

"Keep watch," he said, and slid up into the driver's seat, sleek and quick, a vanishing shadow.

She pictured him inside, stepping delicately among the cops' field books and gloves and radio equipment, then she heard him talking, his voice soft.

But when he pressed the button t o talk, the voices and static were silent. Those cops would hear him, they'd come charging out. She crouched shivering beneath the car's open door, ready to hiss at Joe, ready to run like hell.

But the caretaker's raspy voice filled the air, steady and loud, as he told the three officers some long involved story. No one glanced toward the squad car.

Joe went silent, slid out and from the patrol car, a swift shadow, and they streaked away up the alley. Around the corner they sat down and made themselves comfortable beside the wall, to wait.

The third patrol car parked beside Mahl's locker. Not ten minutes had passed. They watched Captain Harper emerge. He was not in uniform but dressed in jeans and a Western shirt. Detective Marritt was with him, fully in uniform, his expression sour. As the two men moved inside, the cats approached, slipping down the alley close to the wall, crouching just outside the big open door, to listen.