Shirley Murphy - Cat Fear No Evil

Rearing up, Joe could see nothing inside. Before he could leap up for a better look he heard Dorriss coming. Diving under the bed he watched Dorriss's black oxfords cross the room, heard him slam the safe closed, heard the little clicks as he turned the dial to lock it.

Joe watched Dorriss return to the dressing room, then came out from under the bed again and began to check out the room.

The tops of the carved night tables were empty. These roughly made chests with their dull unpolished wood looked handmade and expensive, perhaps pieces that Dorriss had imported from South America.

Rearing up, he could see two dark, flat items on the dresser. Leaping up and miscalculating, he hit the small plastic folder, sliding so hard he nearly went over the edge. He froze, listening, sure that Dorriss had heard him.

When the sounds of packing continued, he guessed not. Examining the folder, he found it was a little loose-leaf booklet designed to hold a dozen or so photos of one's dog or cat or baby, depending on the holder's preference, each photo protected within a clear little pocket.

These pockets held credit cards.

Laying a silent paw on the slick plastic, Joe felt far more elated than if he'd discovered a warren of fat rabbits. Studying the cards, he found examples from half a dozen credit card companies, each card issued in a different name. Behind each card in the same little pocket was a white file card containing an address and phone number, social security number, birth dates, and a woman's name. A mother's maiden name, that universal code for certain identification? And, best of all, a driver's license issued to the cardholder, each one bearing Marlin Dorriss's photograph. Joe was so pumped he wanted to shout and yowl.

But even this prodigious find was not the most interesting.

Next to the credit card folder lay what might be the real kicker, the veritable gold mine. For a moment he just stared. Then he started to grin; he could feel his whiskers tickling his ears. Right here beneath his paw was the ringer. The first-prize trophy. He heard again Dulcie's description: a small notebook with a mottled reddish-brown cover and a black cloth binding.

The notebook still smelled faintly of gas, of whatever substance PG &E put into their natural gas supplies so users would know if there was a leak in the line. Joe was reaching a paw to flip through the pages when he heard Dorriss coming back again, the scuff of his shoes on the dark hardwood. Joe had only time to leap from the dresser to the top of the armoire, where he crouched as flat as a pancake hoping he was out of sight. But then when Doris approached the dresser, he couldn't resist, he slipped to the edge to watch.

Picking up the notebook, Dorriss flipped through it as if reading random passages; the expression on his face was one of deep rage. Glowering at the open notebook, he ripped it in half. Ripped it again, then tore each half straight through the offending pages.

Scooping up the stack of torn pages, he moved to the fireplace. From the top of the armoire Joe stared down at Dorriss, his heart doing flips. As sure as queens have kittens, he's going to burn those pages.

Dropping to the bed behind Dorriss and slipping silently to the rug, Joe began to stalk the man. He wanted that notebook, he wanted those little mysterious pages that could be, that his cop-sense told him were, hard and valuable evidence to the death of James Quinn.

The five freshly cut oak logs in the fireplace were artfully crisscrossed over the gas jet. Marlin Dorriss, dropping the torn pieces of the notebook on the raised hearth, turned to find a match or, more likely, Joe thought, some sort of mechanical starter. As he reached into a small carved chest that stood at the other end of the hearth, Joe slipped silently behind him.

Closing his teeth on the wadded remains of the notebook he was gone, a gray streak disappearing under the leather love seat. It wasn't the best place to hide but it was the closest. If Dorriss came poking, Joe hoped to slip out at the far end. Once concealed, he carefully spit out the pages so as not to drool on the evidence, and crept to the edge of the love seat where he could see his adversary. He hoped he had all the bits of paper. The notebook cover still lay on the hearth, the slick brown cardboard bent and twisted, victim of Dorriss's rage.

Dorriss turned, reaching for the notebook. He stared at the hearth and searched the carpet and into the fireplace, frowning and puzzled. He stared around the room, then moved swiftly to the dressing room and bath, looking for an intruder. Joe could hear him banging the glass shower door and the closet doors. The next minute he flew into the study then out again and down the hall, Joe heard him swerve into the first bedroom. Not under the bed! Oh please God don't let him look under the bed and find the bills! Cat God, human God, I don't care. This is a bona fide feline supplication. Please, please, please don't let him look under that bed.

But why would he look there? The guest beds sat low to the floor. The frames that held the box springs were no more than six inches high, not enough space for a burglar to hide-at least, not for the kind of burglar Dorriss would have in mind. Joe heard the closet in that room slide open, then Dorriss was in the hall again searching the other bedrooms, banging open closet doors. Immediately Joe fled for the guest room and under the bed.

Fighting open the metal clasp, he shoved the notebook pages in. Laboriously, with an impatient paw, he managed to fasten the flap again. Next time around, he'd like to have opposing thumbs. Down the hall, Dorriss was making more and more noise, searching, then pounding down the stairs apparently to search the rest of the house-but he'd be back. Slipping out from under the bed, leaving his burden for the moment, Joe scrambled up to the sill.

There was no breath of air behind the closed shutters; no window was open. Balanced on the sill, he challenged a shutter's latch with frantic claws. But when he'd fought it open, the window behind it was not only closed, but locked. From the stairs, he heard Dorriss coming.

The lock was a paw-bruiser, invented by designers who had no respect for feline needs. He heard Dorriss turn into the study, heard him opening the desk drawers-maybe wondering what else the thief might have taken. Joe's paws began to sweat, slipping on the metal lock-and he began to wonder.

If, as unlikely as it seemed, the downstairs glass door had been left open for one black tomcat, if against all odds the opportunistic Azrael had somehow partnered up with Marlin Dorriss, Dorriss might well be knowledgeable enough to be looking for more than a human thief. Frantic, Joe could hear him shuffling papers.

By the time he got the lock open and slid the glass back, he was a bundle of nerves, and his paw felt fractured. Dragging the heavy brown envelope up to the sill, he balanced it against the glass. As he pulled the shutter closed behind him, he heard Dorriss coming out of the study, heard Dorriss pause at the door as if looking in. Joe wondered if his gray fur made a dark smear behind the closed white louvers? Or if the shutter humped out of line where he crouched? He wondered if cats were subject to sudden coronary occlusion? He was ready to leap out into space clutching the envelope, calculating how best to negotiate the twisting angles to the lower roof, when the phone rang.

Thank you, great cat god or whoever.

Dorriss let it ring twice, but then he crossed the hall to answer. Joe knew he should jump at once, but for an instant he remained still, listening.

"I can't talk now," Dorriss was saying, "there's someone in the house." Joe heard a sharp metallic snap, as when a bullet is jacked into the chamber of an automatic.