Shirley Murphy - Cat Fear No Evil

The cats weren't sure whether Helen was some sort of witness, or a suspect. Though of course Garza would want to question her, she was Quinn's sales partner. Dulcie looked around the study, mentally yawning. Quinn's house was dullsville.

One would think a real-estate agent would have a lovely home, maybe small and modest but certainly designed with character and imagination. James Quinn's residence looked as if Quinn, who was a widower, cared little about his surroundings. As if the living room were no more than a wide passageway to the bedroom or kitchen but otherwise of no use. The furniture was old and cheap, the colors faded almost to extinction; there were no pictures on the walls, no books or flowers or framed photographs on the end tables. She imagined Quinn bringing home a bag of takeout for his supper, eating it alone in the kitchen or on the couch as he watched TV on the relic set, imagined him coming into his study to do a little paperwork, then off to bed.

Maybe his social life and nice meals, whatever elegance he might enjoy, centered around the golf course. Certainly Quinn had nice clothes, certainly he dressed very well; she had seen him around the village. Whether dressed for work showing houses or for the one sport in which he indulged, he always looked well turned out.

Quinn's study was just as dull as the rest of the house, furnished with scarred and mismatched furniture and cheap plywood bookshelves. Helen stood looking down at Quinn's battered oak desk, which was strewn with folders and papers lying every which way atop a black leather briefcase.

"He never kept his papers like this, in such a mess. James might not be… have been much for a pretty house," she said almost as if she'd read Dulcie's thoughts, "but he was a neatnik when it came to work."

Helen Thurwell was a few inches shorter than Garza. Her cropped, dark brown hair was straight and shining, her black suit neatly tailored. She wore flat black shoes, simple gold earrings, and she still wore her thick gold wedding band. Dulcie watched her cover that now, with the cotton gloves that Dallas Garza handed her.

"We've fingerprinted and photographed," Garza said. "Even with the gloves, please handle the papers by the edges.

I'd like you to go through them, tell me if anything looks strange, or if you think anything is missing."

Watching the detective, Helen was quiet for a long moment. "As if someone… As if this wasn't an accident?"

"Until we learn otherwise," Garza said shortly.

"I'll have to sort them into some kind of order."

Garza nodded.

Standing at the desk, Helen began sorting through Quinn's papers, arranging them into stacks, each atop one of the empty file folders that were mixed in with loose sheets. "He was always so neat, he never made this kind of mess. Each sale has its file with several pockets for offers and counteroffers, for miscellaneous notes, for the inspection and related work. He… he used to tease me about my haphazard ways." She compared several sheets, stood thinking a moment, then put the papers in their proper files. When she had finished, she moved away from the desk, turning toward the window. The cats could see her face now, her dark eyes filled with distress. She looked up at Garza.

"I see nothing missing, all the clients we were working with are here. Their files seem complete. His field book is here and doesn't look tampered with. The only thing that's strange, outside of the mess, is a notebook seems to be missing. Not part of our work but a small personal notebook. Maybe it's somewhere else in the house. I don't know what it was for, I'm sure it didn't have to do with business. It wasn't anything that the rest of us kept."

Helen shook her head. "I didn't see it often, and he never shared it with me. Occasionally I would see him making an entry, but it seemed a private thing. A small brown notebook maybe three by five inches. Sometimes he carried it in his coat pocket. Reddish brown covers… what do they call it? Deal? A slick mottled brown, sort of like dark brown parchment, but heavier. Black cloth tape binding. The kind of notebook you'd get in any drugstore or office supply."

"Did you ever see the entries?"

"No. When I came in he was usually just putting it away. Not hiding it, but as if he'd finished whatever he wrote there. Possibly something to do with his clients' personal likes and dislikes, that was my guess. Not about what they wanted in a house, that we kept in a mutual binder. But maybe for little gifts, you know? What kind of flowers or candy. We send a little gift when a sale is completed.

"And yet that does seem strange," Helen said, "to take that much care with those routine presents. He usually let me handle that."

She looked with desolation at Garza. "James was a very matter-of-fact guy, not a lot of imagination. Honest-a good person to work with." But as she said this, her face colored and she turned away.

Watching from the shadows, the kit put out a paw as if to comfort her, then quickly drew it back out of sight. Dulcie considered Helen with interest. Had mentioning James Quinn's honesty embarrassed her because of her own cheating? Why else would she blush like that?

When Detective Garza and Helen had left the house, the cats trotted to the far end of the living room and leaped to the sill of an open window, ready to follow them out. But, hitting the sill, they saw who was out there and dropped again to the floor. Dillon Thurwell stood in the shadows not six feet from them.

Unwilling to miss anything, the two cats hopped up onto an end table that stood behind the dusty draperies. Crowding together, they could just see out where Dillon and three of her girlfriends were giggling and whispering rude remarks-as if they had been there for some time watching the coroner and ogling the dead man, as if they had seen Quinn taken away to the morgue and found the tragedy highly amusing. In the morning light, Dillon's red hair shone like copper against the dark hair of two companions, and against the long, pale locks of the one blonde. The girls were dressed in low-cut sleeveless T-shirts that showed their bellies. Their remarks about the pitiful dead man were filled with rude humor.

Dillon seemed so cold and hard, Dulcie thought sadly, compared to the young girl she knew. Last year, Dillon had been among the first to suspect the murders of those poor old people at Casa Capri Retirement Home. Acting with more compassion and more responsibility than most of the adults involved, and far more creatively, she had helped to uncover the crimes. Then this last winter during the Marner murders, when Dillon was kidnapped by the killer, she had again kept her head better than many adults would have, defying her captor, and quick to move when Charlie and the cats helped her escape.

Now Dillon seemed not at all in charge of herself, as if suddenly she was letting others totally rule her. She was no longer someone Dulcie wanted to be near, no longer a person whom a cat would love, whom a cat would go to. Dillon Thurwell seemed now ready to explode into an emotional hurricane.

And one of Dillon's friends greatly puzzled Dulcie. Consuela Benton was not a classmate, but was several years older, a beautiful Latina, her long, black, curly hair rippling in a cloud around her slim face. She must be at least eighteen, to Dillon's fourteen. In every way she seemed a world apart from the other three.

Consuela's lipstick was nearly black. She wore such heavy eyeliner that she looked more like a vampire than a human girl. Why would an older girl like this bother with younger children? What did she gain from their company? Dillon and her friends, even with their attempts at sophisticated dress and cool makeup, compared to Consuela, were like scruffy kittens next to a battle-hardened alley cat.