Shirley Murphy - Cat Breaking Free

"I don't have your key! I just came in! How could I have it! Get some stuff to clean yourself up!"

Luis hit her a glancing blow across the face. She didn't flinch, didn't step back. Stood staring at him until he backed off, then she turned and stormed out of the room. They heard the front door open and slam. Dulcie wondered if Chichi would wait outside for Maria, for her car. Or if she was so mad she'd go off without it, and come for it later. She stared at the bars trapping them, and out at the two men. Joe looked sick, his ears down, his short tail tucked under, his whiskers limp. She couldn't bear the pain and defeat in his eyes, she wanted to nuzzle him, but she would make no such show of emotion in front of this human scum. The five cats were pressed so hard against one another that Coyote and Cotton were pushed into the dirty sandbox, and Willow stood with three paws in the water dish. It wouldn't be long, they'd be hissing and striking each other, frantic with their confinement. Closing her eyes, she tried to calm herself, to get centered, to not give herself to defeat. She was so miserable she hardly heard the sound of a car in the drive, or Chichi and Maria's voices, or the car pull away again. All she could think of was their frantic need to be out of there, to be free.

It was noon when Charlie finished looking over the new job, near where she'd seen the brown pickup. She had reset the hinges on the sagging gate, checked on the work of the two new cleaning girls, and told them she was pleased. One of the girls had horses and needed to work to take care of them. She was a lean, strong young woman, more than used to hard work. An employee Charlie would like to keep. The young man who was doing the yard was a musician, a bass player working to support his music, which was not yet supporting him. He did the gardening wearing heavy gloves to protect his hands. He'd last until he got a regular gig, then he'd leave her. That was the trouble with owning this kind of company-or maybe any small business, these days. That, and all the forms she had to fill out, all the details and red tape. To say nothing of the insurance rates! She thought again about selling the business.

Her best, most dependable employees were, like Mavity Flowers, past middle age. Up in their years and settled in; but the sort of folk who truly liked cleaning houses. There were not many of those anymore. All the young people wanted top-flight jobs the minute they were out of school; no climbing the ladder for them, they deserved to start at the top-or thought they did.

She hadn't grown up like that, she'd done all kinds of odd jobs to get through art school. Had come out of school glad to find any beginning art job. Her first year, she'd washed brushes in a small commercial-art studio, then done rough layouts for wastebasket designs and frozen-lemonade cans, work far more tedious than scrubbing floors. She'd had no chance to design anything. When she was "promoted" to painting finished art for a set of willow-ware canisters and metal kitchen items, that was the most tedious of all. All those tiny Crosshatch lines and little details nearly drove her mad. She still couldn't stand willow ware. But she'd paid the rent, that was what mattered. Today, a kid coming out of art school expected to step right in doing layouts for major magazine advertising, or to be offered a top position with some prestigious interior design studio in New York or San Francisco. Few got the chance. If those kids, when they were still in grammar school or high school, had had to work at menial jobs every summer, they'd take a different view. And that made her smile. Opinions like that, bemoaning the lack of work ethic in the young, sure as heck showed her age.

Well, maybe not being a kid anymore wasn't a bad thing, maybe what she knew now, about the world, served her better than the feel-good illogic of her youth. Turning into the courthouse parking lot, she swung into the red zone before the glass doors of the police station to wait for Max. Strange that he'd called her to have lunch, he seldom had time to do that. He'd said only that he and Dallas needed to get away from the shop.

She and Max had been married for not yet a year, but she'd learned a lot about being a cop's wife-how to hold back her questions, curb her curiosity, wait and bide her time until Max was ready to share with her. That was not always easy, it was not in her nature to be patient.

It hadn't been easy, either, to keep her fear for him at bay. Nor, she thought, amused, to learn to make dinners that would hold for hours.

Parked beneath the sprawling oak before the door of the PD, she sat enjoying the gardens that flanked the courthouse. Molena Point PD occupied a one-story wing at the south end of the two-story courthouse, a handsome Mediterranean complex with red tile roofs, deep windows, and flowering shrubs bright against the pale stucco walls. An island of garden filled the center of the parking area, which was shaded by live oaks. The huge tree under which she sat served not only for shade over the station door, but also as a quick route to the roof for the department's three feline snitches. To the roof and to the small, high window that looked down into the holding cell, into the temporary lockup where arrestees were confined until they were booked and taken back to the jail or were led off to the interrogation room for questioning.

Joe and Dulcie and Kit could easily spy through the holding cell window, or slide the window open and drop through the bars down into the cell-then slip out through the barred door to the dispatcher's desk. Though on most occasions it was easier for the cats to simply claw at the glass front doors until the dispatcher, usually Mabel Farthy, came out from her electronic world and let them in. Mabel hadn't a clue she was admitting the department's secret informants.

Charlie was idly watching the parking lot when a white Neon pulled in, not twenty feet away. Chichi Barbi got out, dressed in tight black jeans, a low-cut pink sweater, and high heels. She stood leaning against the car, watching the street. Charlie pulled her sun visor down, hoping not to be noticed; she watched as a black Alpha Romeo turned off the side street, pulling in to park beside Chichi. Well!

Ryan hadn't mentioned that Roman Slayter and Chichi were connected. Maybe she didn't know. Chichi was from San Francisco, and Roman was, she thought, from L.A. Chichi stood leaning against his car, leaning down talking with him. They knew each other well enough to argue. Charlie's windows were down, but with the breeze rattling the oak leaves it was hard to hear much.

Roman said something that sounded like, Not in front of the station, for Christ's sake! Chichi's answer was lost, but her reply made Roman laugh. She turned away to her own car, and in a moment they were both gone, the black Alpha Romeo following Chichi's Neon out between the bright gardens, surely headed somewhere together. When she turned back, Max and Dallas were coming out of the station.

"Been waiting long?" Max swung in beside her. Dallas got in the back. "Clyde and Ryan are meeting us," Max said. "Tony's okay?"

"More than okay. What's the occasion? What are we celebrating? You make a reservation?"

"Of course I made a reservation." He put his arm around her and blew in her ear, dangerously hindering her driving. "Have you forgotten this is our six-month anniversary?"

Charlie blushed. She loved it when he was this romantic. He was so down-to-earth, so much of the time a hard-nosed cop, that such moments were special.

"Well it almost is," he said. "Close enough to celebrate. There's a parking place, guy ready to pull out."

She waited for an SUV to leave, then slipped into the space. The meter maid was just leaving, she had just missed them.

Tony's was a popular lunch place for the locals, a high-ceilinged structure of heavy timbers and glass, decorated with ferns and other lush plants in huge ceramic pots. Medleys of ferns in baskets hung from the rafters. The dining room seemed as much a garden as did the patio beyond. They followed the waiter to a table in the back patio where Ryan and Clyde waited, Rock stretched out under the table at their feet. Several other dogs lay beneath the tables, all on their best behavior, seeming hardly to notice one another. Restaurant dogs, Charlie thought, would make a nice series of drawings. They had ordered and were talking about the Harpers' new addition, when Charlie glanced across the patio into the restaurant, and saw Chichi and Roman Slayter being seated.