Shirley Murphy - Cat Fear No Evil

The thought of moving again, of starting life over once more, though in a smaller way, wasn't pleasant. Moving out of her pretty Molena Point house after Jimmie tried to kill her, hiding from him, then later selling the house and furniture, at the same time being involved in his trial and conviction, had been more than traumatic. She had thought that when she moved to the city that would be the last move.

But now again everything was changed. Now, when she returned to the city, she'd be followed once more, the strange man appearing in the shadows, in dark doorways, always with her like some incurable illness.

She had never really thought, until these last weeks, that when someone threatened you, they stole your freedom; that by following you they confined you, hindering your movements, limiting your options.

Heading down the hall for Wilma's bright kitchen, badly wanting coffee, she paused in the dining room, startled.

Was someone here? Someone in the house besides Wilma and herself? What did she sense? What a strange feeling. A sense of something unwelcome, someone who did not belong here.

Stepping into the living room, she found it empty. She moved back down the hall to Wilma's room. That room, too, was empty; the light, bright room with its red stove, its white wicker furniture and flowered chintz, seemed undisturbed. The bath and the open closet were empty. Yet the feeling of a foreign presence, of being watched, persisted.

This was not at all like when Dulcie or the kit watched her, not a friendly and amused little awareness, no sense of camaraderie.

Surely she was imagining this-yet the sensation was so real, she felt goose bumps. Strange that last night talking with Wilma over dinner she'd had the same uncomfortable idea that someone was watching them and listening-though the patrons at the surrounding tables had all been deep in their own conversations, paying no attention to them.

Taking herself in hand, she moved into the bright kitchen where Wilma stood at the stove making pancakes. The first pale light of dawn had begun to brighten the diamond-paned windows. Wilma's homemade orange syrup was warming on the back burner, sending out a heavenly scent to mix with the aroma of pancakes and frying bacon. Wilma, in her yellow daisy-printed sweatshirt and her white hair pinned on top, looked as ragtag as a girl. Wilma moved like a girl, long and lithe despite her sixty-some years.

As Kate poured herself a cup of coffee, Charlie pulled up out front, driving her company van, the old blue Chevy that Clyde had rebuilt and made to look like new. He had fitted the inside of the van with specially designed storage for Charlie's cleaning and repair equipment, all beautifully planned between the two of them, every shelf and cupboard secured so nothing would jar loose and fall as Charlie plied the steep Molena Point hills. Kate wondered, now that Charlie and Max were married, and Charlie's career as an animal artist had taken off, whether Charlie would still run Charlie's Fix-it, Clean-it. Maybe she'd keep the business but turn the management over to one of her employees. As Charlie swung out and headed for the back door, Kate reached for another cup.

Pouring coffee for Charlie as she came in through the laundry, Kate added milk and sugar. Charlie was wearing a pale blue sweatshirt over a thick white turtleneck and fleece pants. Setting a covered bowl that smelled of fresh oranges on the table, she hugged Wilma and Kate. "Cold out. I'm sure it's going to snow." She smelled of horses from having done the morning feeding and cleaning the stalls, chores that she and Max shared equally since they had returned from their honeymoon. One of them got breakfast, she'd told Kate, while the other did the stable work. "There were in fact a few flurries," she said, "as I was getting in the van."

Wilma laughed. "It might snow in the hills but it better not snow on my garden." Snow in Molena Point might happen once every ten years, and then melted at once. Wilma dished the bacon onto a paper towel and handed plates of pancakes to Kate and Charlie, pouring another batch onto the griddle for herself. The two younger women settled at the table feeling cozy and pampered; yet even as they sat comfortably talking and enjoying Wilma's good breakfast, Kate had the feeling of a foreign presence. She looked up at Wilma. "Where's Dulcie? And how come the kit's not out here with her face in the pancakes?" "They're off hunting. Bolted out of here almost before daybreak-as if the mice and rats couldn't wait to be slaughtered." Wilma shrugged. "When I ask Dulcie her hunting secrets she just smiles, and sometimes pats my cheek with a soft paw."

From beneath the buffet, Azrael's view of the kitchen was primarily legs-chair and table legs and human legs: Kate's slim, tanned ankles below her jeans, Charlie's leather paddock boots that smelled of horse even at that distance, Wilma's jogging shoes, scuffed and worn. He grew still and intent when Charlie asked about Kate's search for her family.

He had no idea why being adopted was so traumatic for humans. What difference if your mother took off, and whoever sired you was long gone? Except he did wonder, sometimes, about those cats that had produced him. But Kate was saying, "Every time I go through McCabe's papers, I grow uneasy." The smell of pancakes and bacon was making him drool.

"He was a construction contractor in San Francisco?" Charlie asked.

"Yes, and something of a philosopher. He wrote a regular column for the Chronicle, on all manner of subjects. McCabe and his wife-my grandmother, I guess-died in the 1939 earthquake. Apparently their baby survived, though I have found no birth certificate for her, nothing about her in the city records."

"It must be hard, with your foster home records so incomplete," Charlie offered. "But what led you to McCabe's journals?"

"The adoption agency was finally willing to release what information they had. It wasn't much, just the name McCabe who, they said, might have been my grandfather. I guess, with the earthquake, records were destroyed.

"The Chronicle archives produced some of his columns on microfilm. I found no address for him, no social security number, though that wasn't signed into law until 1935, no bank records, not even his contractor's license, and that is so strange. There were city records destroyed in the earthquake, but… I don't know. It's discouraging.

"I found a few relatives of people who had run the foster homes, but no one could tell me much. The Chronicle offices had nothing else, none of the vital information you'd think would be in their files. But I did find his connection to the San Francisco Cat Museum. Strange, I had visited the museum when I was in art school, studying the paintings and sculpture. Of course I hadn't a clue that the man who designed and built the museum might be my grandfather."

Kate broke a slice of bacon, eating it with her fingers. "It was in the museum that I found his journals, in their archives. And in the journals I found the name of his lawyer.

"The firm was still in the phone book-well you know the rest," she told Charlie. "That old man, the shoddy old office, the box of jewelry at the back of that walk-in safe."

Wilma rose to fill their coffee cups. Beneath the buffet, Azrael crouched, fitting the fragmented pieces together; not much yet, but he knew her parents were not of this world, and that deeply excited him. Then as the conversation turned from Kate's search to the three apartments that she was considering, he began to yawn, his pink mouth gaping wide in his sleek black face. Even the death angel needed an occasional nap.

"There's a big living room," Charlie said, "with a high, beamed ceiling. A small kitchen, and one bedroom at the back. A double garage underneath each unit, a deck along the front with a view of the village and the ocean. And of course Ryan is next door in the studio unit, with her lovely big weimaraner-if you don't mind occasional barking. Rock is a good stand-in for an alarm system, if that's ever needed, and he's a real love."