Shirley Murphy: Cat to the Dogs

Harper moved slowly, studying each crevice until, ahead, a flash shone out between the stones as icy white as snow gleaming in the torchlight.

Before Harper touched the bag, he slipped on a pair of thin gloves. Carefully lifting out a letter, he held it by a corner, bright in the beam.

In a moment, as he read, that lopsided grin lit Harper's dour face, that smug, predatory smile that made Joe Grey smile, too.

Glancing around the cave, Harper bundled the bag inside his jacket. Instead of leaving, he moved deeper in, swinging his torch so the cave floor was washed in moving rivers of light. Joe could hear loose stones crunching under the captain's shoes. He remained still until Harper turned back, his beam seeking the mouth of the cave again.

Harper stopped before a narrow shelf. Joe heard him suck in his breath.

"Well, I'll be damned," Harper said softly.

Sliding closer, Joe reared up to look, cursing the great cat god who had given him white markings. If Harper flashed the torch in his direction, his white parts would shine like neon.

And even when he stood on his hind paws, he couldn't see what Harper had found; Harper's broad-shouldered, uniformed back blocked Joe's view. Slipping close behind Harper's heels, he peered around the captain's trouser legs.

Harper, bending over the stone shelf, was studying two small, dark objects. Barely touching them, he lifted one, placing it in a paper evidence bag. The billfold was thick and bulging, made of dark, greasy leather.

The black plastic tubing smelled like ether-laced pancake syrup. As Harper bagged it, and his light swung around, Joe slid into blackness, lowering his face over his paws and chest.

He didn't move until the light swung away, leaving a pool of night behind it. He looked out covertly at Harper.

Harper was grinning as if he'd just won the lottery. Folding the tops of the evidence bags and tucking them into his jacket beside the bulge of Fulman's letters, he was still smiling as he headed back for the entrance. Joe hurried out behind him, as pleased as Harper-but deeply puzzled.

There had been nothing on that shelf when he and Dulcie dragged the plastic bag into the cave. He remembered pausing there. The shelf had been empty. And certainly they couldn't have passed the stink of brake fluid without smelling it.

Stopping in the shadows of the cave's entrance, Joe watched Harper descend Hellhag Hill to his police unit.

Had Fulman hidden those objects in the cave, maybe been afraid to throw them in the ocean, afraid they'd wash up on the shore again, or someone would fish them out? Maybe Fulman didn't want to take time to bury them, and was wary of dumping them in some trash can-you read about that stuff, some homeless guy finding the evidence in a trash can.

So Fulman had stashed the brake line and the billfold in the cave?

But not in plain sight, not on that shelf.

Frowning, Joe stood up on his hind paws studying the dark, grassy hillside around him. Turning, he stared back at the mouth of the cave.

He trotted in again, listening and scenting out, studying the velvet dark. When nothing stirred, he hurried deeper in, forgetting his fear, sniffing along the cave walls, sniffing at the ledge where Harper had found the evidence.

Nosing at the stone shelf, he smelled not only Harper's familiar tobacco and gun-oil scent, and the sharp whiff of brake fluid, but, besides these, a yeasty, sweet kitten smell.

Looking deep into the cave, Joe Grey called to her.

There was no answering mew, no small voice coming out of the dark.

He was greatly amused and impressed that the kit had found those items. But where did she find them? And how did she know they were important?

What fascinating worlds of thought, Joe wondered, ran in that small, wild mind?

Again he called to her. Why was she so shy? When a third time he called and nothing stirred, when the blackness of the cave lay around him empty and still, he pressed back toward the cave's mouth, hungering for open space.

And there she was.

A small silhouette, black as soot, against the starry sky. A tiny being stretching as tall as she could against the sky's jeweled glow.

"Hello, Kit."

The kit purred.

He sat down beside her, at the cave's mouth. "What did you do back there, Kit?"

The kit's eyes widened, she cringed away from him.

"It's all right," Joe said. "You did just fine. Are you hungry?"

"Always hungry," said the kit.

He wanted to know where she had found the evidence and why she had put it on the ledge. He guessed his questions would wait. "Come on, I'll show you something to please you."

The kit followed him slowly at first, slinking along behind. Joe felt protective of her; he wanted to pat and wash her-and was deeply embarrassed at such maternal thoughts. Joe Grey, macho tomcat, wanting to mother some scruffy little hank of cat fur.

"Come on, Kit. Don't dawdle." He turned to wait for her. The kit was so small and thin, but so bright-eyed and alive. Her gaze at him was as brilliant as stars exploding. She galloped up and trotted happily beside him, her head high, her long, bushy tail waving.

Down into the village they wandered. Joe Grey couldn't hurry her. She had to stop at every new scent, had to look into every shop window, examine every tiny patch of garden.

"I was here before," she said. "When I rode that dog. I jumped off and ran. This is not like big-city streets. Not like the alleys where I was before."

She stood up to peer in through the glass at a display of brightly painted pottery, yearning toward it, lifting a paw as if to touch it, much as Dulcie would do. She stopped to sniff a hundred smells, and to pat a hundred shadows.

Down the oak-shaded, flower-decked streets she and Joe Grey walked, dawdling, creating endless delays, until they arrived at last at the small, brick-paved alley behind George Jolly's Deli.

Despite the late hour, a light burned in the deli kitchen, and Joe could hear cooking sounds, a spoon scraping a bowl; George Jolly was working late preparing his delicious salads and marinades and sandwich spreads.

Jolly must have just set out fresh plates for the village cats; the nicely presented feast had not yet been sampled. No other cat was present.

The kit said, "This is not for cats to eat."

"This is for cats to eat."

The kit smelled each individual serving-salmon, caviar, an assortment of cheeses.

"Go on, Kit. You're not hungry?"

The kit gave him a questioning look, then set to gulping and smacking, sucking up the feast with a fine, robust greed.

She came up for air with cheese on her nose and chopped egg in her whiskers.

And now, her first hunger sated, she looked around her at the little shops that faced the alley, admiring their mullioned doors and stained-glass windows. Her round eyes widened at a bright red-and-blue rocking horse, at the little potted trees beside the shop doors, at the decorative wrought-iron lamps that lit either end of the cozy alley, at the tall jasmine vine heavy with yellow blossoms. She smiled. Then she ate again, rumbling and shaking with purrs.

Dulcie found them there, Joe Grey washing his whiskers and guarding the sleeping kit. The kit lay sprawled on the bricks, softly snoring, her little stomach distended, her face smeared with chopped egg, one paw twitching now and then as if, in dream, she still pawed at the delectable morsels of salmon and sliced Brie.

"Guess what she did," Joe said, as proud as a parent.

"Made a pig of herself."

"Besides that. Something-incredible. She found the brake line and the billfold. Harper has them."

"She didn't!" Dulcie began to wash the kit's face. "Oh, she is clever."

The kit woke, yawning.

"Did you really find those things, Kit? How did you know…?"