Shirley Murphy - Cat Striking Back

They were talking about the roof. Soon the three came out again, forcing him to melt back deeper into the stickery shadows. They stood turned away from him, looking up at the tile roof.

The redheaded man must be the foreman. He said the new tiles would be delivered by the end of the week. That made the woman frown. “First of the week is supposed to be clear, between rains. Can’t they get them here Tuesday? I’ll give them a call Monday morning.” The way she talked, you’d think she was the boss on the job. Well, you wouldn’t catch him working for a woman.

But when she said, “If the gravel and cement are on schedule, we can pour before lunch. This’ll be finished easily, Monday afternoon,” a nervous excitement filled him. They were going to dump gravel in the hole and then pour cement, and he had to have a look in there, had to see what could be her grave.

He wondered how they could get a gravel truck in under that low roof. Maybe they’d have to dump it on the driveway and wheelbarrow it in? Seemed like that would take all day. He hoped not. If this was the place he wanted, then he wanted to see it done quickly, before they discovered anything amiss. He wanted to be finished with it so he could head on up the coast.

Head up the coast alone, he thought with a sudden jolt. His hands began to sweat, and he wiped them on his jeans, tried to concentrate on the business at hand.

The man and woman got back in the roadster and headed away, down the hills. Inside the garage the others kept working, and he settled in among the cypress trees for a long wait, listening to the digging and thinking about her, thinking about the jobs they’d pulled-feeling shaky again.

It was maybe an hour later when two Latino men appeared from the garage and got into the smaller pickup. The redheaded man came out, swung into the bigger pickup and activated the garage door to close it. As the two trucks took off down the hill, he realized that fog was rolling in, it hung low and dense over the village already hiding the rooftops and the sea beyond.

He waited awhile after they’d gone, then returned to the car. He fetched a few small tools from the glove compartment, leaving the shovel on the floor of the backseat, and went down to have a look. Moving around the side of the garage to try the pedestrian door, he crossed the line of fresh dirt where they’d dug along that side. Maybe they’d buried a pipe there. Pausing, he looked up the hill that rose just a few feet from the side of the garage. Maybe they’d laid a pipe to carry away the runoff, as if a deluge of water came down here during heavy rains. Was that the reason for the drain in the garage, to carry away the runoff from the hill? Curious, he walked around to the back of the house where the hill dropped steeply away.

He was surprised to find another whole floor down there. A daylight basement visible only as you went around the side. It had large windows facing the drop, a smaller window on the side where he stood. When he pressed his face to the glass he saw that the room was finished inside, a big room, plastered and painted white.

But along the bottom of the walls ran a brown stain maybe two feet high where muddy water had come in. And the carpet had been taken up, too, he could see the tack holes in the water-stained, warped plywood. This lower floor had flooded bad, so that was what the drain was about. He wondered what would happen if the drain didn’t work, if the house flooded again after all this added cost and labor. Wondered who would pay for that. Well, he guessed the woman contractor would, if that’s what she was. If it didn’t flood, he guessed she’d make a nice piece of cash off this one.

He wondered what would happen to the body if the drain flooded. But with rock and cement holding it down, what could happen? And, he thought hopefully, maybe the contractor knew what she was doing after all.

Returning to the side door of the garage, he fished out his lock picks and got to work. It took him maybe ten minutes, finessing the tumblers, to slide back the bolt and slip inside, locking the door behind him. He stood looking at the drain.

Damned hole was big enough to bury an army. It spanned the width of the double garage just inside the rear wall, running some twenty feet. It was maybe three feet wide and deeper than a man was tall. If this was a drain, there’d been a hell of a flood here. Why would anyone waste their time on a house that flooded like that?

But with prices what they were on the California coast, maybe this made sense. The dirt at the bottom of the pit was roughly raked, and a series of four-inch-wide plastic pipes had been laid the full length, disappearing into the earth at either end. He imagined them running underground, connecting to drainpipes that would stick out of the lower hill to dump the runoff. The whole thing seemed like a huge project, more than the heaviest rain could ever require.

There was a window in the opposite wall, over the connections for a washer and dryer. He could as well have come in through there; the window might have been easier to jimmy. But it was not as private, being visible from the street. He saw that he needn’t have brought the shovel. They had left all their tools, shovels, rakes. Two electric saws sat on the littered worktable along with empty drink cans, packs of gum, and a wadded-up lunch bag. Down in the pit, an extension ladder had been left in place. Already set up for him, he thought, smiling.

This was exactly what he’d been looking for; he could have spent the rest of the night searching the empty hills and found nothing anywhere nearly as good. These people had dug her grave for him, and now, once he’d finished his part of the project, once the gravel was in and the concrete poured, the body would never be found. She’d have not only a grave but a gigantic and tamper-proof crypt, which, he assured himself, not even a flood would disturb.

Moving to the garage window, he looked out at the empty street and on down the hills where the fog was growing thicker, climbing up past him now into the valleys above. He liked the fog, had always felt safe moving silently through the heavy mist. By nightfall the whole area would be socked in, muffling the sounds of his digging. No cars appeared on the narrow roads, no movement except far down the hill, where an elderly couple was walking along with canes. Most likely they’d soon turn back toward the village or move on to one of the far houses, wherever they came from. With the fog closing in, as evening fell it would be cold, too. The couple sat down on a low stone wall and a small dog jumped up beside them. Strange-looking dog. He watched it uneasily-it moved like a cat. But of course cats didn’t go for walks. Turning away from the window, he fetched a pair of coveralls a workman had left hanging on a nail in the wall, folded them inside out to avoid the mud, and, using them as a pillow, he sat down on the cold cement floor opposite the window. Making himself as comfortable as he could, with his back to the wall, he settled in to wait for full dark, congratulating himself that soon she’d be tucked away where no one, no one, would find her.

His story that she’d left him while they were on vacation, that they’d had a fight and she’d just taken off, who’d know the difference? They had no children, no close relatives, no one who’d have reason to disbelieve him or to start checking, to follow up on what he told them. By the time anyone noticed a smell in the garage or along the downstairs wall, if anyone ever did, he’d be long gone where no one would find him. Looking across at the fog-shrouded window, he took comfort from the weight of the mist against the glass. It made him feel hidden where nothing could find him, nothing could slip up on him.