Shirley Murphy - Cat Fear No Evil

He crumpled and fell suddenly, dropping the tray, scattering glasses in a spray of champagne, landing hard across Charlie, hurting her leg as she fought to steady him and herself. It happened so fast she couldn't hold him. His weight twisted them both as he slid from her grip to the floor, pulling her with him; she went down in a tangle of sprayed wine and breaking glass.

He lay white and still beneath her. He had made no sound as he fell, no cry of distress or pain. As Charlie untangled herself and felt for a pulse, Max was beside her pulling her away, his lean, lined cop's face frightened, his demeanor stern and quick. "Get back, Charlie. Get away from him. Now."

Charlie struggled up, her gold sheath soaked with wine, and she slid fast behind the desk as Max's officers herded everyone back. Max knelt beside the tall, liveried man feeling for a pulse, feeling the carotid artery, turning back the man's eyelids. Around them the din of voices had stopped as suddenly as if a tape had been turned off, the crowded room so still that the running footsteps of the two officers who had moved to secure the front of the building echoed like thunder. Detective Garza's voice was a shout as he called on the police radio for paramedics. Charlie watched the scene numbly. The client she had been talking with had disappeared into the crowd. As sirens came screaming from a few blocks away, Max performed CPR, and his officers secured the front and back doors. The gallery windows blazed with whirling red lights. Sirens still screamed as two medics pushed through the crowd to crouch over the waiter. As Max rose, the look on his face told her the man was dead.

Anne Roche had been right there. Had she been involved, in some inexplicable manner? She stood now with the rest of the crowd waiting to be questioned.

After a long interval of feverish work with CPR, oxygen, and electric shock, the medics rose. Max nodded. The younger medic spoke into his radio, calling for the coroner. Max reached for Charlie, taking her hand. As she moved away with him, she felt cold, disoriented. Looking up at Max, she had to question the forces that were at work here.

This was the second disaster to occur during a ceremony of special meaning to her and Max. The first had been their wedding, when she and Max, along with most of the Molena Point PD and half the village had narrowly escaped being killed at the hands of a bomber.

Before that, Max had been set up as the prime suspect in a double murder, had been cleverly and almost successfully framed. And now… another calamity at a celebration involving Captain and Mrs. Max Harper.

Was there some pattern at work beyond her understanding?

Some mysterious force that invited such ugly occurrences? But that was rubbish, she didn't believe in cosmic forces ruling one's life; and certainly such an idea would anger Max. Free souls ruled their own lives. Both she and Max believed that. Despite what Max called her "artistic temperament," she prided herself on being totally centered in fact and reality-except of course for the one fact in her life that was beyond reality, the one aspect of her life that was so strange that Max would never believe it. The one amazement that she could never share with him, the secret she could never reveal to the person she loved most in all the world.

Glancing above her to the balcony, she looked into the eyes of the three cats, their noses pressed out through the rail, chins resting on their paws. Joe's sleek gray coat gleamed like polished pewter, marked with white paws, nose, and chest. Dulcie's dark tabby stripes shone rich as chocolate. The kit's fluffy black-and-brown fur was, as usual, every which way, her yellow eyes blazing with curiosity, her long fluffy tail lashing and twitching. The three cats watched Charlie knowingly, three serious feline gazes. And while Joe Grey stared boldly at her, and Dulcie narrowed her green eyes, the kit opened her pink mouth in a way that made Charlie's heart stop, made her slap her hands over her own mouth in pantomime so the kit wouldn't forget herself and speak.

But of course the kit didn't speak. Slyly she looked down at Charlie, amused by her panic. And the cats turned to watch the newly arrived coroner at work, three pairs of eyes burning with conjecture, three wily feline minds where a hundred questions burned, where theories would be forming as to the cause of the waiter's death.

Before the waiter fell, the three cats had seen no one very near to him except Charlie and her client. The moment he fell, the cats had searched the crowd for any action that might be missed from the floor below, a furtive movement, some sophisticated and silent weapon being hidden in purse or coat pocket. But it was already too late: by the time the man fell they would surely have missed some vital piece of evidence.

It deeply angered Joe that he had been looking directly at the victim and had seen nothing. As soon as the man dropped, Joe had studied him, seeking anything awry that might, the next instant, vanish. Had there been an ice pick in the ribs? A silenced shot? Or did the waiter die from some poison that did not cause last-minute pain or spasms? Apparently neither cops nor coroner had found any such indication. The guy had gone down like a rock, as if he'd been shot. But neither police or coroner had found a wound.

The man worked for George Jolly's deli, which had catered the party; the cats had seen him in there serving behind the counter. They were well acquainted with the deli, and with the charming brick alley that ran behind its back door, where George Jolly set out his daily snacks for the local cats. Jolly's alley was the most popular feline haunt in the village, although villagers and tourists as well enjoyed its potted trees and flowers, its cozy benches and little out-of-the way shops. Mr. Jolly wasn't present to help serve tonight. The two other waiters had knelt over their coworker after he fell, until detectives ordered them away.

Joe glanced at the kit, who crouched beside him. The young tortoiseshell was leaning so far out between the rails that Dulcie grabbed a mouthful of black-and-brown fur and hauled her back to safety.

"You want to drop down in the middle of those cops and medics?"

The kit smiled at Dulcie and edged over again, watching everything at once. For a cat who had not so long ago been terrified of humanity, who had sought only to escape mankind, the kit had turned into a brazen little people-watching sleuth. If Kit had a fault, it was her excesses. Too much curiosity, too much passion in wanting to know everything all at once. As the three cats peered over, Max Harper looked up suddenly to the balcony. He looked surprised to see them, then frowned.

Joe turned away to hide a smile. Harper could look so suspicious. What were they doing? Just hanging out to watch the party. The whole gallery knew they were up there, they'd been camped on the balcony all evening. Wilma had brought them up a plate loaded with party food, and they had received dozens of admiring looks, to say nothing of typical remarks from the guests: Oh, the cute kitties… they look just like their portraits, aren't they darling… That tomcat, he looks just as much a brute as in Charlie's drawings, I wouldn't want to cross that one…

Joe looked down at Max Harper as dully as he could manage, scratched an imaginary flea, and yawned. With effort he remained a dull blob until at last Harper turned away.

Only when all the guests had been questioned and names and addresses recorded and folks were allowed to leave, only then did the cats abandon the balcony and trot down the spiral stairs. While the police remained to finish their work, Charlie's little group headed for the door, anticipating late-dinner reservations. Max would be along when he could. He and Detective Garza stood in the center of the gallery with a dozen officers, both quietly giving orders. It would be hours before anyone knew whether this had been a natural death or murder. Until that question was resolved, the department would treat the Aronson Gallery as the scene of a murder.