Shirley Murphy - Cat Fear No Evil

As the five sat in the front seat, close together, dulcie nosed under the towel, into Wilma's arms, snuggling close to the kit. Around the car, the wind eased off, and the rain turned from fitful gusts to a hard, steady downpour. It seemed to Dulcie that fate had, since early in the year, turned a hard and uncaring countenance on their little extended family. First Captain Harper had been set up as a suspected murderer. Then that terrible bomb that came close to killing everyone at Captain Harper and Charlie's wedding. Then during Charlie's gallery party, that man dying. And now this terrible, senseless accident to Kit's human family. She felt lost and grim, she wanted only to be home with Kit, tucked up in Wilma's bed with hot milk and kitty treats, where nothing more could happen.

When Clyde and Joe slid into their own car and headed home, Joe settled unashamedly against Clyde's leg. He felt more like a pet cat tonight, needful of human caring. Not since his days as a stray kitten, sleeping in San Francisco's alleys, had he felt quite so in need of security and a little petting-it was all very well to have a solid record of murder and burglary convictions to his credit, but sometimes a little mothering of the bachelor variety was a nice change. The thought of Lucinda and Pedric gone, forever and irrefutably gone, had left him feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable.

Glancing down at Joe, Clyde laid his hand on Joe's shoulder and scratched his ear.

They'd been home for half an hour, Clyde had toweled Joe dry and used the hair dryer on him, and Joe was half asleep under the covers when Clyde came upstairs bringing with him an aroma that brought Joe straight up, staring.

Clyde set a tray on the bed, right in front of him. Imported sardines? He had to be dreaming. A whole bevy of those little pastrami-on-rye appetizers that Clyde kept stashed in the freezer, now warm from the microwave? He looked at Clyde and looked back at the brimming tray.

Clyde, who had showered and pulled on a robe, set his hot rum drink on the night table and slid into bed, propping the pillows behind him. "So tuck in. What? You're not hungry?"

Joe laid a paw on Clyde's hand. He gave Clyde a whisker rub, then tucked into the feast with a gusto and lack of manners that, tonight, Clyde didn't mention. If Joe slopped on the covers, Clyde didn't seem to care. With the wonder of Clyde's offering, and with the bodily nourishment as well, a wave of well-being surged all through Joe Grey. He began to feel warm all over, feel safe again; began once more to feel strong and invulnerable.

In the Getz house, the kit slept safe and warm, tucked in the blankets between Wilma and Dulcie, worn out from her grief, escaping into exhausted oblivion. The bedroom smelled of hot milk and hot cocoa and shortbread cookies, and of the wood fire that had burned down now to a few glowing coals. Outside, the rain had abated, but at four a.m. the cold wind still found its fitful way along the wet streets; wind shook drumbeats of water from the oak trees onto rooftops and car hoods-and on the cold and windy streets, others were about, who cared nothing for the windy cold, who cared only for adventure.

A giggle cut the night, then soft but urgent whispers as three girls moved quickly down the narrow alley that opened to the backs of a dozen shops.

Most of Molena Point's alleys were appealing lanes as charming as Jolly's alley, brick-paved byways lined with potted flowers and with the leaded- or stained-glass doorways of tiny backstreet stores. This concrete alley, however, was only a passage hiding garbage cans and bales of collapsed cardboard cartons that awaited the arrival of a sanitation truck. It was closed to passersby with a solid-wood six-foot fence.

The gate wasn't locked. Candy pushed it open and entered the long, trash-lined walkway, followed by Leah and Dillon. They were on their own tonight; Consuela did not shepherd them. Flipping back her blond hair, Candy fitted a key into the lock of Alice's Mirror. The three slipped inside, Candy reaching quickly to cut off the alarm system, just as the shop's owner would do upon entering.

The girls were gone only a few minutes. They emerged loaded down with velvet pants, cashmere sweaters, wool and leather jackets, with plastic bags of scarves and designer billfolds and necklaces. They had known the location and distribution of the stock as well as any store employee might know it. Dillon, swaggering out with the biggest armload of stolen clothes, glanced back as Candy locked the door. She was grinning.

Piling their loot into the trunk and filling the backseat of the car they had left parked at the curb, the three slid into the front seat, the blonde at the wheel, and moved quietly away. Watching the streets for cops, or for a stray and observant pedestrian, they saw no one.

"Cops are all home in bed," Leah announced. "Or drinking coffee at the station."

Dillon giggled. But as the car slid past Wilma Getz's stone cottage and she smelled the smoke of a wood fire, she sobered, studying the house. The sight of that solid and inviting cottage where she had so often been made welcome filled her with a sharp jolt of shame, with a moment of clarity, an ugly look at what she was doing.

In the stone cottage, Wilma was not asleep. She lay in bed in the dark, between the two cats, thinking about Lucinda and Pedric. What had they been doing out on the highway at night? Kit had spoken the truth, the old couple never drove at night. And there could be no emergency that would account for a late-night run. Lucinda had no family and none of Pedric's relatives lived on the West Coast to take him racing to them.

Before the kit slept, she had looked up at Wilma suddenly, her round yellow eyes opening like twin moons, and had said decisively, "They can't be dead! Pedric is so clever. Lucinda and Pedric call themselves survivors. Survivors like me, that's what Lucinda says."

Dulcie and Wilma had exchanged a look.

Yet what Kit had said held some truth-everything Wilma knew about the Greenlaws showed how resourceful they were. She lay thinking about their well-appointed RV, where they always carried extra food, warm clothing, medical supplies, and of course their cell phone. Pedric had fitted out the RV with all manner of innovations to make life easier for them, from a bucket with a tight lid in which they put their laundry and soap and water, letting it bounce and agitate as they traveled, to locked storage compartments that could be opened from either the inside or outside of the vehicle. Pedric had grown up traveling all over the country in similar vehicles, and he was almost obsessed with self-sufficiency.

That did not explain why they were out in the storm at night. It was not as if they had been traveling to a new campsite. They had been at the one site for over a week and according to the registration had not checked out. The sheriff said they had left behind a folding camp table, two canvas chairs, and a large cooler. As she lay thinking, warm between the two cats, she heard a car slide past the house and wondered idly who was out at four in the morning. Maybe a police car.

And as Wilma drifted off again into a depressed and anxious sleep, across the village the hardtop sedan pulled into the garage of a small rental cottage that stood behind a brown-shingled house. The cottage had once been servants' quarters.

The minute the ten-year-old Cadillac sedan entered through the automatic door, the door rolled down behind it. Inside, by the light from the door opener, the three girls unloaded the clothes. Most were still on their hangers, which Leah hung in the oversize metal storage lockers that lined the garage wall. She filled five lockers and snapped on padlocks. Four other units stood unlocked.