Shirley Murphy: Cat to the Dogs

"I was surprised it took so little effort, five or six blows, and the smaller patch of concrete fell right out. When I shined my light in, there was a big canvas bag.

"I didn't understand why he hadn't put some kind of screw-plug in the foundation, maybe that looked like a cleanout for ashes, something he didn't need to cement over each time. I suppose he thought a workman might believe it was a cleanout and try to use it, or that someone else might find it and be curious.

"Well, I didn't like reaching into that dark place, but I could feel the drawstring. I got it open, and I could feel money, that greasy feel of money and the right size. The bag was filled with packets of money. My heart was pounding, I didn't know if it was from excitement or if I was scared stiff.

"When I pulled out a packet, I had a whole fistful of hundred-dollar bills! Counting those bills made me feel a little faint. I kept twenty of them and stuffed the packet back into the bag. I was afraid to take more.

"He'd left the box of patching cement in the garage." Lucinda laughed. "It had directions printed on it just like a box of biscuit mix.

"Well, from that time on, when I wanted extra money, that's where I got it. When Shamas never caught on, I grew bolder, took enough to set up a new bank account in my name, in a bank Shamas didn't use, as far as I knew. I had the statements sent to a post office box-I guess I did learn something from Shamas.

"I always knew when he put cash in the bag. I could hear him down there tapping-he would leave the radio or TV on in the living room to mask the sound. And he would either have just arrived home from a trip, or have come directly from the post office or from UPS.

"Well, then Shamas died and Dirken was here poking around. I took all the money out of the bag, put some in my account, but most of it in a pillow slip. Left the empty bag in there for Dirken to find-my little private joke."

Lucinda smiled. "With Dirken sneaking around telling me those silly stories about how the house had dry rot, I found his backbreaking work with the pick and hammer most entertaining."

Dulcie, too, was highly entertained. She wanted to cheer for Lucinda. Well, she thought, the funeral had come off all right. The Greenlaw clan hadn't turned the mass into a loud and abandoned display, or turned the rosary into a dirge of unseemly weeping. Nor was there any unchurchly music at the gravesite, such as the marching band Dirken had favored tramping through the cemetery tootling on horns and beating drums; the mass and burial ceremonies had been restrained and tasteful.

If a number of ushers of severe countenance stood in strategic locations about the church and cemetery, scowling at any show of wildly unleashed emotions, that fact may or may not have contributed to the solemnity that prevailed among the worshipers. If those ushers looked like cops in civilian attire, that, too, may have added to the sober atmosphere, as did Captain Max Harper's presence, where he sat at the back of the church. The Greenlaws, every one, moved through the ceremony as quietly as a gathering of nuns, their bowed heads and clasped hands a solemn credit to Shamas and Newlon Greenlaw.

The Church of the Mission of Exaltation of Molena Pinos, with its lovely eighteenth-century Spanish architecture-its heavy beams and antique stained-glass windows, its hand-decorated adobe walls and whitewashed plank ceilings painted with garlands of age-faded red roses, its thick clay floors-and its ancient traditions, embraced the Greenlaws in their parting ceremony as generously as it had embraced, over the centuries, any number of murderers, confidence men, and horse thieves, whenever such deaths occurred among the general populace.

Cara Ray Crisp did not attend Shamas's funeral; nor did Sam Fulman. One could only imagine Cara Ray there among the mourners, dressed in the form-fitting little black dress that she had bought for the occasion, her eyes cast down with maidenly grief.

In point of fact, Cara Ray, like Sam himself, spent the hours of Shamas's leave-taking sitting on a hard steel bench behind the bars of Molena Point City Jail, Cara Ray attired in a gray wraparound dress two sizes too big for her, and prison-made tennis shoes without stockings, and Sam sporting a regulation prison jumpsuit dyed bright orange.

And while the funeral and wake might have been circumspect, the party that followed was another matter. Held in the dining room of the Seaside Hotel, just up the coast, flowing with rich food, Irish whiskey, and loud with Irish music, and paid for with moneys contributed unknowingly by shopkeepers and car dealers across the U.S., the party would have made Shamas proud.

Though Shamas's ghost, if he had attended this parting event, would have been chagrined at the triumph apparent in the eyes of his grieving widow, would have been shocked at Lucinda's high color and contented smile. Shamas's ghost would have boiled like swirling smoke at the sight of Lucinda and Pedric Greenlaw standing close together, their eyes meeting warmly, their hands lightly touching.

Nor would Shamas have liked the ceremony that occurred three weeks later, on the crest of Hellhag Hill.

Not that Lucinda cared what Shamas would think, any more than she cared if the whole village gossiped about her for making such a commitment so soon after her husband's death, and so very late in her life.

This was her and Pedric's private moment. People could say what they liked. This was a union that carried no load of past expectations, and none of the face-saving that she had tried to maintain while Shamas was alive. The slate, in short, was wiped clean. Lucinda didn't give a damn.

Max Harper, avoiding the wake, did attend with pleasure the gathering atop Hellhag Hill-as did Wilma Getz, Clyde Damen, Charlie Getz, and the three cats.

Only the pups were not invited. They had been confined in a box stall in Max Harper's stable, where they couldn't tear up anything but the stable walls.

The wedding was held on a bright Saturday afternoon three weeks after Shamas's funeral. Now was the time for the Dixieland band and champagne and laughter. The party delectables were catered by George Jolly. The ceremony was performed by a local justice of the peace, a jovial man fond of unorthodox weddings, Dixieland music, and cats; the site of the ceremony was the small, grassy plateau just below Hellhag Cave. The nuptials were simple, and brief. The moment Pedric kissed the bride, the band burst out with a marching number that accompanied the guests as they climbed the steep hill to the reception, held on what had been the site of the Moonwatch Trailer Park.

The trailers were gone; the ledge was empty save for one green vehicle of some age, standing at the edge, with a view down Hellhag Hill to the sea.

On the abandoned concrete trailer pads between the brick walkways, small tables and umbrellas had been set up, surrounding George Jolly's sumptuous buffet table and the bar. The bride and groom sat at a table with Wilma and Clyde, and Charlie and Max Harper. On the table next to them, the three cats took their ease, Joe and Dulcie nibbling from their own party plates, the darkly mottled kit sitting up straight and wide-eyed, watching every amazing activity, hearing every astounding word, looking this way and that, her ears flicking in a dozen directions, trying to take it all in.

From George Jolly's alley, the kit had gone home with Dulcie. She liked living in a house. She liked life within warm rooms where one was allowed to sleep on soft furniture. She liked the wonderful smells and the surprising, whisker-licking food. She liked this new, loving relationship with humans.

Everything was new and wonderful and amazing to the small, ragged kit. There were no cold winds to bite her. No snarling, cold-hearted cats to haze and snipe at her, to slap her and drive her away from some small nest she had tried to make her own.