Shirley Murphy: Cat Fear No Evil

Lying down on the desk, Dulcie watched as Juana rose to see Helen out. Helen looked pleadingly at Juana; she was very quiet now, very subdued, understanding at last that she had been the unwitting collaborator in a high-powered criminal undertaking. The detective put her arm around Helen. "We'll get to the bottom of this. You did nothing deliberately. Try not to worry."

"I was deliberately stupid," Helen said. "So criminally stupid that I got my partner killed." She looked miserably at Juana. "I have no doubt, now, that his death was not an accident."

She shook her head. "James was not careless, he would not have left the gas on like that. He was not forgetful, not even in the smallest matters." She found a tissue in her pocket and wiped her eyes. "I have been stupid for a very long time." She was crying in earnest, her shoulders shaking.

The expression on Juana Davis's face was a mixture of discomfort, sympathy, and a cop's restrained look of triumph. Taking her arm from around Helen, Juana touched Helen's shoulder, heading her into the hall.

And Dulcie, watching the two women, found it hard to muster much sympathy for Helen Thurwell. All the empathy in the tabby's heart was for Juana Davis as the detective set out on what could be a difficult task, heartbreaking for many more people than Helen Thurwell.

Dulcie knew, from listening to Dallas Garza and Captain Harper, that the crime of identity theft might be uncovered and the culprit apprehended; the perp might even be prosecuted, but the damage done might never be undone, the victims' money might never be recovered.

Streaking between the complex of condo buildings and up the hill behind, through the gardens of expensive estates, Joe drew nearer the black tom but then lost him again among a cluster of smaller homes. Racing past two houses that were still boarded up from the last earthquake, Joe paused in their neglected gardens seeking for Azrael's scent.

There: the black beast appeared suddenly crossing the street while dragging his burden, leaping clear of a car. The cat was slowing and tiring. Swiftly Joe closed on him. He was about to leap and grab Azrael, when behind him a car slid across both lanes and screeched to the curb; Joe caught a glimpse of Lucinda bent over the wheel, and Pedric beside her. The back door opened and Kate slid out.

She caught Joe up, snatching him in mid-stride and kept running, chasing the black tom, clutching Joe to her so hard he could hardly breathe. Ahead of them Azrael was a smear of black swerving away from the street through the bushes and heavily over a fence. Kate, running along the fence, found a gate and fought it open. Crossing the yard clutching Joe, she lost minutes finding the way out.

"Let me go, Kate! You've lost him!"

"No! I can catch him!" She glanced down at him, her blond hair plastered with sweat, her eyes frightened.

"He has the jewels," Joe coughed, half strangled. "Ease up, I can't breathe."

Tightening her grip on the back of his neck, she eased her hand on his chest. He gulped for air. "I didn't know you could run like that. How did you find us? Where's Clyde? Why are you…?"

She didn't answer. Glimpsing Azrael swerving into an alley, she flew after him across someone's patio and through another garden. Lucinda's car was lost beyond the yards and fences. They passed a boarded-up house, then soon another, not derelicts but nice houses; Joe thought they were somewhere in Cow Hollow where there had been a lot of damage in the earthquake. Ahead on the sidewalk, the black tomcat appeared suddenly; he stood panting as if at the end of his strength, the blue bag at his feet. Joe tensed to leap down.

It was here that Lucinda found them and pulled to the curb. Azrael snatched up the bag and disappeared into the bushes, heading for a boarded-up house as Clyde's car swerved in behind Lucinda. Kate dropped Joe and lunged through the bushes after the black tom. The beast bolted up the steps and through a broken window between crookedly nailed boards, dragging the blue evening bag.

The faded Victorian house listed to the left, supported by a scaffolding of rough lumber all along one side. All the windows were secured with boards over the dirty and broken glass. Two boards were nailed across the front door, and there was a chain barrier across the front steps. The trim on the three stories was splintered along one side, and shingles had fallen into the bushes.

Slipping under the chain barrier, Kate was working at the doorknob and pushing at the door. The house must once have been a comfortable home for a big family. Joe wondered why these houses had been let sit for so long. Through the broken window where the black tomcat had gone, Joe could see pale shadows moving. Kate put her shoulder to the door, sent it flying open, ducked under the boards, and disappeared inside.

Warily Joe followed her. He didn't like the place; he didn't like its deep hollow silence. It smelled of something dank and foreign. As he moved up the steps, Clyde thudded up behind him. They entered together, Clyde ducking beneath the boards.

Only a dull light seeped through the dirty, boarded-up windows. They stood for a moment in the gloom, then moved on in, the floor creaking beneath Clyde's feet, the dry dust puffing up beneath Joe's paws-dust that was marked all over with paw prints. Beyond the dim living room, in what appeared to be the dining room, Kate stood facing a tall china cabinet that towered in the darkest corner, a folded mattress leaning up against it amid a tangle of ragged lumber.

Kate stood looking up through the shadows at the black tom. Crouching atop the tall cabinet he stared down at her, his amber eyes narrowing as if waiting for her to speak. The blue suede bag lay between his paws; he loomed over it, fiercely possessive. A split second and he could leap down squarely into her face, clawing and biting; his eyes blazed and threatened, making her tremble.

Around her the house was silent. It stunk of cat. Heaps of trash were piled in the dark corners, papers, wine bottles, beer cans. She thought there would be hoards of mice to feed the pale cats she'd seen slipping away. To her left a broken stairway led partway up to the floor above, where a ragged hole gaped. A pale cat peered down, then was gone, a cat that looked as hard of body as a dog, and with a lean killer's face. Beneath the stairs blackness loomed so dense, so complete that she felt as if the house floated in a void, as if the floor on which she stood had nothing but emptiness beneath. The room was cold, a coldness that went to the bone. Watching the cat, his hints of another world that had so stirred her dreams now filled her with fear. How could she have wanted any such world, how could she want any world to which this beast was drawn?

But she wanted her property back; she was not willing to turn away from what was hers. Moving closer in among the leaning boards, she thought that if she stood on the humped and folded mattress, she could reach the bag and snatch it away.

He watched as she began to climb, his smile slow and amused. And suddenly grabbing the bag in his mouth, he leaped directly past her face. She lunged, snatching the bag from his mouth-and felt claws like knives down her arm. The suede ripped open, too, under her spurting blood. The jewels spilled, falling away to vanish among the boards. Dropping down, she snatched at a bracelet, quickly kneeling among the boards reaching to catch the slithering chain of a locket. Snarling, the black tom came at her-and Joe Grey came flying, toppling boards and knocking Azrael among them. Jewelry scattered and fell between the fighting tomcats, lost in the rubble, hidden beneath falling boards.