Shirley Murphy - Cat On The Edge

"So? How come you're relaying the message?" But he'd felt a chill begin. "What happened?"

Harper reached into his uniform pocket for a pack of cigarettes, and shook one out, and gave him a level look. "Beckwhite's dead. He was killed last night." Harper watched him carefully, at the same time seeing every movement within the shop where three mechanics were laying out tools preparing for their morning's work.

His first thought, a trite reaction, was that Beckwhite couldn't be dead, that he'd seen Beckwhite only yesterday. No, any minute now Beckwhite would come strolling into the shop from the showroom, carrying a paper cup of coffee from the machine, his close-cropped military haircut catching a gleam from the overhead lights, his grin self-satisfied even at this early hour. No, Samuel Beckwhite wasn't dead.

"George Jolly found his body this morning, in the alley behind the deli. He'd been hit on the head, his skull cracked." Harper struck a match and cupped his hand around the flame, though there was no wind. He blew smoke out through the opposite window. "No sign of anything that Beckwhite could have hit his head against. And it was too hard a blow for that. The coroner's looking at it. He's been dead since eight or nine last night."

It had taken him a while to respond. "Has-has someone told his wife? Told Sheril?"

Harper nodded. "I went on up there." He got a funny look on his face, but said nothing more.

The shock of Beckwhite's death had left the agency staff confused, had thrown the conduct of day-to-day business into chaos. The murder had been all over the papers, local and San Francisco.

And the murder, for various reasons, had left him feeling uneasy. That unease was heightened considerably when, yesterday morning as he was looking for Joe Cat, he discovered that someone had tried to break into the house through the living room window.

When he saw the splintered wood, he had barged outdoors in his shorts and found a larger hole on that side, ragged and broken as if gouged by a tire iron or by a large screwdriver.

He had hurried back inside, staring around the living room. Nothing was gone-TV and VCR were there, CD player, all the electronic equipment. And then, because Joe Cat wasn't nearby yowling for his breakfast, he grew concerned for all the animals. He headed for the kitchen; but when he flung open the kitchen door, the dogs were rarin' to go, charging past him straight for the living room. Leaping at the window, roaring and snarling, they had put on an amazing surge of adrenaline for two fat old farts.

The window was so freshly splintered that it still smelled like new lumber. He had found no other damage to the outside of the house, and no sign that anyone had gotten inside. When he checked the study, nothing was amiss. The one item that concerned him was still on the desk, the small notebook lay in plain sight beside his checkbook. He had stuffed it under some papers, intending to hide it later.

The attempted burglary, just after Beckwhite's death, had disturbed him enough to make him load the.38 snub nose he kept for traveling, and slip it into his night table. He could not help equating the burglary in some way with Beckwhite's murder.

He'd known Samuel Beckwhite for six years; they were business associates though he did not work for Beckwhite. He rented the big repair shop portion of the agency in exchange for maintenance and repair on the agency's foreign cars, and he serviced the vehicles belonging to the agency's regular customers. A friend from his high school days, Jimmie Osborne, had brought him and Beckwhite together originally, suggesting the business arrangement. Jimmie was agency manager; he had worked for Beckwhite since a year after Jimmie and Kate were married.

He never could figure out why Kate had married Jimmie. Golden-haired Kate Anderson had been some catch for sour, humorless Jimmie Osborne.

Standing in the kitchen waiting for the coffee water to suck up into the machine, he finally realized he hadn't turned on the coffeemaker. He flipped the switch, the red light came on, and the machine gasped a pneumatic wheeze. He yawned and adjusted his binding shorts. He hadn't slept well. Every little noise had brought him up listening for the scrape of claws or the slap of the cat door.

And of course the early phone call jerking him from sleep, and that rasping voice, hadn't helped.

I am your cat… It's me, Joe Grey.

Forget it. Get your mind off it.

He removed the glass carafe and poured a cup of coffee, but the machine hadn't quite finished. In insolent defiance at his meddling it dribbled coffee down onto the heating unit. The animals kept pushing at him, wanting breakfast.

He wondered who would eventually take over at the shop, or if Beckwhite's would be sold.

Jimmie Osborne was next in command, though Sheril Beckwhite, of course, was the new owner. Since Beckwhite's death, the office was chaotic. No one seemed able to carry on efficiently. There were endless glitches in the paperwork, unnecessary rewriting of sales contracts. And the relationship between Sheril and Jimmie didn't add to agency morale. Who could have confidence in Jimmie's managerial functions when they were conducted mostly in bed?

Everyone knew about the affair. He'd wondered whether Beckwhite had known. He felt sure that Kate didn't know. Kate wouldn't dream that Jimmie would cheat on her.

He wouldn't have remained friends with Jimmie, except for Kate. He and Jimmie had had little in common, even in high school. But he enjoyed Kate, saw things in Kate that Jimmie didn't see or didn't care to see. She was wry and funny, and he liked her comfortable empathy for animals. She really loved his two old dogs and the cats, and she shared with him a kind of warped, animal-centered humor that bored Jimmie. He and Kate always had a good time together, while Jimmie yawned.

He would never overstep the bonds of friendship with the Osbornes, he had never touched Kate. But she was beautiful and fun to be with, and without Jimmie their relationship might have evolved into a good deal more.

It surprised him sometimes that Jimmie put up with their evenings together, with their potluck barbecues and casual spaghetti dinners; and with the animals, particularly the cats. Jimmie said he was allergic to animals, but he never sneezed. The animals avoided him, though, all but Joe Cat.

Joe always went straight to Osborne the minute they arrived, rubbing against his pant legs, methodically covering Jimmie's freshly cleaned slacks with gray and white hairs. And Joe liked to sit on the couch beside Jimmie. He would remain close as Jimmie fidgeted. But before Jimmie got up the nerve to shove him off he would leap on the coffee table, deliberately spilling Jimmie's drink.

Cats loved to do that stuff-they found high amusement in tormenting those who disliked or feared them. And Kate watched Joe's pranks with a little secret laugh. Though she would never deliberately hurt Jimmie.

Given Kate's beauty and charm and her obvious enjoyment of life, he thought it incredible that Jimmie would pursue this affair with Sheril Beckwhite. Some men couldn't deal comfortably with the blessings of a beautiful wife; they had to find a cheap stand-in, someone flawed to make them look better by comparison.

He had known about the affair for months. He'd been surprised when Jimmie called him four times this week, looking for Kate, saying she hadn't been home. He was surprised that Jimmie would care enough to call anyone. He hoped Kate had finally left Jimmie, and not just gone down to Santa Barbara as she sometimes did, to get away.

Kate deserved better than Jimmie Osborne, her blond good looks and blithe spirit and her bright outlook were wasted on Jimmie. He thought sometimes that Kate's perceptive, almost fey qualities frightened Jimmie.