Shirley Murphy - Cat Fear No Evil

Arriving at the Garden House, parking in the lot next door, and locking their rented Olds Cutlass, they hurried into the hotel carrying their only luggage: two small duffels, one old and scarred that had rolled with them out of the RV on that fateful night, and a new red canvas bag that they had purchased in a drugstore in Fort Bragg along with extra sweatshirts, socks, underwear, canned fruit, snack food, and half a dozen bottles of water. The two bags contained most of their worldly possessions, except for their CDs and investments. Approaching the door to the hotel, they were both thinking hungrily of pancakes and bacon and coffee when Lucinda, glancing up at the third and top floor of the hotel, stopped, laughing.

"How nice! They allow pets. Or maybe they have a hotel cat." A black cat sat in the window, staring down at them. They glimpsed the animal for only a moment before a woman picked it up, and both disappeared. Pedric looked at her, smiling. If Lucinda had a soft spot for anything in the world it was cats- though particularly their own tortoiseshell Kit, whom they had both missed very much during their travels.

Last night on the phone, the kit had nearly deafened them both, yowling and shouting with joy, so thrilled that they had survived the crash, demanding to know when they would be home and for how long. When Lucinda repeated to her, "For good, Kit. Forever and good," the kit had, as Wilma said, bounced off the walls with excitement. Now Pedric stood holding Lucinda's hand, both watching the high window thinking the cat might reappear, and admiring the hotel's domes and gingerbread and the soaring solarium; and the tall, thin, handsome eighty-year-olds grinned at each other like children. How pleasant to be in the city for a few days before they headed home. For a few moments they stood watching passersby on the street, too, and seeing what shops were nearby and admiring the San Francisco skyline against the blue sky.

But then, turning to approach the solarium lobby, looking through the long, bright windows into the tiled garden room with its lush plants, Pedric drew Lucinda back suddenly.

"Come away quickly." Turning and pulling her away, he hurried her down the street, into the first doorway they came to, into the entry to a used bookshop, a low-ceilinged, shadowed niche where the morning sun had not yet found access. "Give me your cell phone," Pedric said.

"It's in the car," Lucinda said, peering out, pressing forward trying to see. But Pedric pulled her back and inside, through the open door of the bookshop.

The store was small and dim, its shelves arranged with unusual neatness for a used bookstore, and it smelled dust-free and clean. Most of the volumes had leather bindings and looked expensive and in fine condition. The gold lettering on the front window, when they read it slowly backward, informed them that the shop featured California History, for collectors. Frowning, Lucinda peered out through the glass, watching the street and the hotel entry.

"Didn't you see him?" Pedric said. "Look there! Just shutting the trunk of that car! The man who stole the RV."

"It can't be." Lucinda dropped her duffel bag by a stack of books, craning to see out through the crowded display window between the neatly arranged volumes.

On the curb before the hotel, a thin, sandy-haired man was just swinging in through the passenger door of a pale blue Corvette. They could see a woman driving, could see her profile and a tangle of curly black hair. As she pulled away, a dark shape blurred across the back window as if a small dog had jumped up on the ledge behind the seat. Then the car was gone, losing itself in the traffic.

Turning back, Pedric snatched a business card from the counter and noted down the license. Slipping this in his pocket and taking Lucinda's hand, he moved with her deeper into the store, where the proprietor watched them-a short, thirtyish man with a round, smooth face, an unusually short haircut that let his scalp shine through, dark shirt and slacks, and a wrinkled corduroy jacket. When Pedric asked to use the phone, he passed the instrument over the counter at once with a gentle, almost Old World courtesy.

Within minutes, Pedric had called the police, had described the theft of their RV up in Humboldt County so the dispatcher could check police records, and had given them a description of the thief and the car, and its license number. The bookstore owner had turned back to shelving books, but was quietly listening.

A patrol car must have been in the neighborhood because by the time the elderly couple had walked back to the hotel and checked in, a squad car was pulling to the curb. They went out to join the two officers.

A young black woman officer emerged from the driver's side. "I'm Officer Hart." She looked like she was fresh out of college. The older officer, Sean Maconachy, was a ruddy-faced man with graying hair and a sour, closed expression.

"Let's step inside," Maconachy said. "Can you be certain that was the man who kidnapped you?"

"We are certain," Pedric said. "Yesterday evening we filed a complaint with the Humboldt County sheriff. Will that allow you to pick up the car and arrest the man?"

"According to our information," Maconachy said, "the accident happened last Sunday. Nearly a week ago. And you did not file the report until yesterday?"

"It's a long story," Pedric said. "We were afraid to file before. We had escaped the RV before the wreck, but afterward, when the thief wasn't found, we assumed he had escaped too. We didn't know where he might be. We holed up in a motel, afraid he might find us. Afraid, for a while, even to contact the sheriff.

"When the man didn't show, when we felt sure no one was watching the motel, then we called the sheriff's office."

Maconachy nodded. Turning aside, he made a call to the station, putting the blue Corvette on wanted status and asking for a copy of the report. He glanced down the street as if he would like to go after the car himself. But the patrol units in the area would by now have been alerted. Maconachy nodded toward the hotel entry, and Lucinda and Pedric went on inside with the officers.

The interior garden areas were planted with ferns and with the bright blooms of cyclamens, the floor laid with pale travertine, the seating areas furnished with cushioned wicker chairs arranged on Turkish rugs. The clerk behind the desk was Asian and very tall. Lucinda and Pedric, standing with the two officers, gave him a description of the sandy-haired man with the high forehead and prominent nose.

"They checked out just before you came in," the clerk said.. "He wasn't registered but he has been staying with the woman. She registered for two. Clarice Hudson."

The officers looked at Lucinda and Pedric.

"The name means nothing to us," Pedric told them.

Officer Hart took Clarice Hudson's credit card information and home address from the clerk, information that very possibly would turn out to be of no value.

"The woman had a cat," the clerk said. "Big black cat. We welcome pets, it's our specialty, but… well, the cat stayed in the room all right when the maid did it up, but she couldn't work near it; it snarled at her several times. Really a brute. We need to take another look at the rules. Gave me the chills, that cat."

Moving across the lobby with the two officers, Lucinda and Pedric sat with them around a low table in the comfortable wicker chairs, answering questions as the officers recorded what happened on the night their RV was stolen.

"He may have been staying at the same campground," Pedric said. "We would see him walking through, but neither of us noticed him entering or leaving any vehicle. He'd say a distant good morning, or nod. Seemed pleasant enough but preoccupied."

"The night he stole the RV," Lucinda said, "we had gone out to dinner-we always pulled a '94 Saturn behind the rig, for transportation. We went into Russian River, to a place called Jimmie's. We got back to the campground around seven, later than we'd planned. We don't like to drive very far at night."