Shirley Murphy - Cat Striking Back

How could she love such a thing?

She’d looked at him, shocked. He’d said she startled him, coming in with a cat. He’d said he was allergic to them, that he’d never told her. She’d looked so dismayed that he said he’d always been allergic, but only if he got close, only if he petted them, that otherwise they didn’t bother him at all.

She’d kept the cat away from him, and he’d never let on how he hated it. He was good at that, that was what made them such a good team: He could be whatever the situation called for-on the outside.

Later he was glad he’d accepted the cat, the animal seemed to settle her down, to keep her from her nervous times. She’d had a succession of cats, and all these years he’d tolerated them, had grown skilled at acting natural around them, had never let her see how he detested them. But the cats always knew, her cats wouldn’t go near him.

Now when he looked down the street again, the cat on the roof had disappeared. He went on around his house to the back, slipped in through the side door, and locked it. He threw the cold cooked eggs in the sink, ran the garbage disposal, put the dirty skillet in the dishwasher so as not to leave anything for the housekeeping people to wonder about. Snatching up her purse and bag from the front entry, he went through the house to the garage, shoved them in the backseat of the car. At the last minute he went back to the kitchen, got the bag of wet shoes and clothes, dropped it on the floor of the backseat.

He had to reconnect the automatic door opener so the housekeeping service wouldn’t wonder about that either. That Harper woman ran a hands-on business, she was in and out of all the houses her people maintained, the nosy bitch. It would be just like her to try to open up the garage for some reason, maybe to vacuum out the cobwebs, and he sure didn’t want the police chief’s wife to start asking questions.

Hitting the remote, he winced as the door rumbled up then rumbled down again behind him. By now, some neighbor was sure to be up. What if they heard the door, and remembered it later? Well, it couldn’t be helped, he thought nervously.

He meant to head up into the hills again where, in full daylight, it would be easier to find a place to bury her. But then, changing his mind, he went on up his street to the dead end, pulled off into the woods, and walked back down the lower road to see if the detective was still there, nosing around. He’d rest easier when she left, when he was sure she’d found nothing, then he’d head for the hills, find the right place. Lay low until it got dark and he could bury her. Then he could get on with their plan.

IT WAS NEARLY noon when Charlie Harper locked her small SUV and let herself in the front door of the Chapman house. Pausing on the threshold, the tall redhead brushed a scattering of straw from her faded jeans, a remnant from some last-minute stable chores at home. She stood for a moment looking around the big, square living room, trying to see, in daylight, anything strange that she might have missed last night, among the Chapmans’ usual clutter. The bright room was inviting, with its creamy crown molding and cheerful, flowered couch and chairs arranged around the pale stone fireplace. Deep bay windows flanked the front door, and at the back, long glass sliders faced the deck-complete with pry marks, now, on the outside molding. Of all the houses that Charlie’s Fix-it, Clean-it cared for, the homes on this street seemed to her particularly welcoming. Maybe, she thought, amused, that was because they all had resident cats to greet a friend or visitor.

She didn’t do the cleaning for her company any longer, but she still saw to her clients’ special needs and she always enjoyed caring for their pets while they were gone on business or vacation. Shrugging off her jacket, she wanted to head straight through to the laundry to make sure that Mango was inside and that she and her kittens were all right. Instead she stood listening, alert for the tiniest sound from the kitchen or from the rooms down the hall. The fact that Mango had gotten out continued to worry her. She knew that her crew hadn’t been in the house since the Chapmans left last night, and even if they had, they were all totally reliable. Most of her fifteen crew members weren’t just employees, they were her friends whom she trusted to be responsible.

The silence in the house was complete, not as if someone waited unseen, but with a sense of emptiness that convinced her she was alone. But still, as she turned from the entry to walk through the bright rooms, she carried a small canister of pepper spray concealed in her palm.

She saw nothing out of place. Theresa’s clutter looked pretty much as it had last night, rumpled bedspread dragging on the floor at one corner and the pillows scattered across it, clothes piled on a chair, spilling to the floor. She checked the guest room, which looked a little better, checked the window locks, found them all secure.

But the cat had gotten out somehow. Mango herself hadn’t closed the laundry window behind her as she made her escape, sweet Mango was just an ordinary cat, not like Joe and Dulcie and Kit, who could have managed such a feat.

She had inspected the house carefully last night after the phone call that brought her down the hills to the village. Before entering she’d put on gloves in case something did come up missing and she’d need to call the department, though she didn’t want to do that. She’d examined the scars on the glass door sliding mechanism, examined the closed laundry-room window, noted the crumbs and glass rings on the kitchen table. There was always plenty at the Chapmans’ for her girls to clean up, she’d thought, smiling. After she’d been through the house last night, she’d called her crew, had told them not to clean there until she notified them.

In case there had been a break-in, with items missing that she didn’t realize among the clutter, her reputation, but more important, Max’s reputation and that of Molena Point PD, were at stake. If one of her residential charges was burglarized, the few anticop types among the citizens of Molena Point would be thrilled, would be busy at once using the newspaper and word of mouth to smear the department, to put the law in as bad a light as their creative zeal could invent.

She wouldn’t let that happen, she thought stubbornly. But she’d be glad when she sold the business and put an end to the worry-she’d built her cleaning and repair business from nothing and she was proud of what she’d made, but not proud enough to keep on with it at Max’s expense.

She’d started with just enough money to buy an ancient RV, some used tools, and the bare essentials of cleaning equipment. Now, three years later, the service was so busy that often, when she couldn’t get additional, reliable employees, she had to turn away prospective new customers. After a couple of failed jobs earlier in her life, the experience of building the business had made her feel strong and independent for the first time, had assured her that, even after the false starts, she was capable of constructing a solid venue with which to support herself. So it wasn’t easy, now, to put her successful baby on the market.

But the stress was getting to her. She always felt on guard, she was always aware of something possibly going awry that could put Max and the department in a bad light-and, too, now that she was finally doing the kind of artwork she’d always longed to do, and had discovered the joy of writing and illustrating her own books, as well, she hungered for more unbroken time.

She had just signed a new book contract, she needed time for that work, and Charlie’s Fix-it, Clean-it had morphed from a milestone of personal triumph to what she had begun to think of as a millstone weighing her down.