Shirley Murphy - Cat to the Dogs

Besides the infrared photos that Harper had taken the night he went down Hellhag Canyon, and some casts of partial footprints that Detective Ray had made, the department had one fingerprint, which Detective Ray had lifted from the engine near the brake line.

The department, contacting Landrum Antique Cars in L.A., had learned that the Corvette had been purchased only a few days before, a cash sale to a Raul Torres. "Torres," Harper said, "gave them a Portland, Oregon, address that turned out to be a vacant lot. Very likely the name is just as fake. We're waiting for the fingerprint ID. State lab's weeks behind as usual, even for a possible murder investigation."

The information should have cheered Joe; he remained dour and silent.

Clyde's poker games had been one of his best sources of information. Four or five cops playing stud poker could do a lot of talking. Clyde was the only civilian, but Harper trusted him like another cop. Maybe, Joe thought, that was why Clyde felt embarrassed to let him sit in. If Joe was lying on the poker table nibbling at the chips and dip, Clyde could hardly halt the conversation, could hardly tell Harper and his officers not to talk in front of the cat.

"So what the hell," Joe said softly but angrily, as the poker game resumed. "All I've ever done is help Harper. Without the evidence you and I turned up, several of those no-goodniks sitting in state prison right now would be out on the street, to say nothing of Troy Hoke cooling his heels for murder in the federal pen."

Dulcie curled closer to Joe and licked his ear. She had never seen him and Clyde at such odds.

But it was when Harper mentioned Lucinda Greenlaw that Dulcie's own temper flared.

"Your neighbor," Harper said. "In the old Victorian house behind you. You know her very well?"

"Lucinda? Not really," Clyde said. "Wilma sees her pretty often."

"She's an early-morning walker," Harper said.

"I don't really know. What's the interest?"

"Houseful of relatives right now gathered for Shamas's funeral. Pretty loud bunch, I'm told."

"They don't bother me. I don't hear them."

"Had a talk with Lucinda yesterday," Harper said. "Asked her to come down to the station, give me a few minutes away from the family." There was a pause. The cats could smell cigarette smoke.

"She walks on Hellhag Hill a lot. I asked her if she'd happened to be up there the morning that Corvette went over into Hellhag Canyon."

"And?" Clyde said shortly.

"Said she hadn't been, that she'd stayed home that day. You… didn't happen to notice her that morning? Happen to see her go out?"

"What the hell, Max? No, I didn't happen to notice. What is this? What time are you talking about?"

"Around six-thirty. The 911 call came in, from someone in the trailer park, about that time."

"At six-thirty I'm in the shower," Clyde said testily. "Or just getting out of bed. Not staring out my back window at the neighbors."

Harper said no more. The talk from that point was limited to poker. The game ended early. The cats, dropping down from the heat duct, slipped out through the vent, forcing the pups aside, and headed for the open hills.

They hunted most of the night, until the first gray of dawn streaked the sky. Joe's mood brightened once they'd killed a big buck rabbit and shared it. Settling back to wash blood and rabbit fur from his paws, he said, "Do you think she might have seen something that morning? Maybe saw one of Shamas's relatives down there, around the canyon, and didn't want to tell Harper?"

Dulcie shrugged. "I don't think she cares enough about any of Shamas's relatives to protect them-well, maybe she cares about Pedric and Newlon. But would she lie for them?"

Joe looked at her intently.

"What are you thinking? That's stretching it, Joe, to look for a connection between the Greenlaws and that wreck''

"Why does she walk so early?"

Her green eyes widened. "You're as bad as Harper. She likes to be alone. You're a cat, you should understand that kind of need." She rose. "Fog's blowing in. She'll walk this morning. Come see for yourself." And she spun away at a dead run across the hills, perhaps running from a nudge of unease, from the faint discomfort that Joe's questions stirred.

Down two valleys and across open hills they ran, through a little orchard and a pasture and up Hellhag Hill-to find Lucinda already there. They paused when they saw her, and went on quietly through the tall, concealing grass, watching Lucinda climb through the drifting fog to the outcropping of boulders where she liked to sit.

Dropping her small blanket and her jacket, she moved on beyond the rocks some twenty feet to a stand of broom bushes. There, producing a package from her canvas tote, she arranged its contents on an aluminum pie plate; the cats caught the scent of roast beef, probably leftovers from last night's supper. Setting the plate among the bushes, she pushed it deep enough in so it was sheltered, but she would be able to see it.

"The wild cats," Dulcie whispered. "They'll come through the bushes from deeper in."

Among the boulders, Lucinda made herself comfortable on her folded blanket. Quietly turning, she looked up behind her in the direction of the trailer park. The cats didn't think she could see the trailers from that angle, nor could the occupants see her. There was no one else on the hill, yet she scanned the empty slopes expectantly, looking across the grassy rises and down toward the sea.

"She's watching for the wild cats," Dulcie whispered-but she wasn't sure. Lucinda seemed unusually tense, to be watching only for the cats she fed.

"Why do you follow her, Dulcie?"

"I don't know. Sometimes… sometimes when she's here on the hills, she seems almost to be listening." She glanced at Joe. "Almost as if she hears some sound, something-"

"What kind of sound?" he said irritably.

"Some… something… stirring within the hill."

Joe scowled and flattened his ears; he didn't like that kind of talk. She said no more, not mentioning that one day she had seen Lucinda lie down in the grass and press her ear to the earth.

Maybe Lucinda had only been feeling the beat of the sea throbbing through the hill? Could Lucinda feel that vibration, as a cat could? Or had she simply been resting, comforted by the earth's solid warmth?

It had seemed a very personal moment. Dulcie had felt embarrassed watching her.

"Maybe she thinks she hears the ghost," Joe said.

"Maybe." The local yarns that had given Hellhag Hill its name described a crazy old man, living a hundred years ago in a shanty atop Hellhag Hill, who spent his rime throwing clods at trespassers, and who had been stoned, in turn, by a band of village boys; two days later he had died from the wounds to his head and chest. The story said that his spirit had entered inside the hill, and, even to the present day, he haunted the cave that yawned higher up Hellhag Hill-an angry and possessive ghost drawing the winds to him and screaming out at strangers; sometimes you could hear his shouts and curses.

Early-morning joggers claimed to have seen the ghost, but in the coastal fog one could imagine seeing anything. Tourists came to look for the hag, and spun wonderful stories to take home.

Lucinda waited patiently, they supposed for any small sign of the stray cats approaching the food she had left. The shy animals didn't show themselves. Only when she rose at last and headed back, the hill now bright with sun, did the strays come out.

They appeared swiftly behind her, thin, wary, dark-faced cats crowding around the pie plate, snatching up the old lady's offerings. Dulcie and Joe remained very still, watching them. The fog had blown away, the ragged cliffs below emerging dark and wild, the sea black and heaving, the narrow ribbon of highway glistening wet- only the crest of the hill seemed to be warmed by the rising sun. A scream startled Joe and Dulcie. They leaped for shelter. The strays vanished. Lucinda, halfway across the hill, stopped and turned, looking below her.