Shirley Murphy: Cat Pay the Devil

Mabel Farthy never lost her cool, the amply built older blonde was totally in control in any emergency as she juggled radio, phones, fax, computers, and officers milling around her counter. But not so now. Her voice shook and she was swearing. She stood gripping the chief’s arm, upset indeed, as, from the shadows of the hall, Joe listened to Dulcie’s frightened voice on the phone and tried to play catch-up, his every muscle tense with alarm.

An hour earlier he had been lounging on the desk in Detective Dallas Garza’s office as Dallas and the chief discussed a second break-in killing, another woman murdered in her bed. Joe had come into the station, on the heels of Detective Garza, to see what new information might be forthcoming on the first death, and now they’d been discussing a second one. What was coming down here? Some de-ranged burglar who wasn’t satisfied simply to steal and get out, but who got his thrills in other ways? The coroner had already told them that the first victim hadn’t been sexually molested-just sadistically blown away. And as the officers began to put this second killing together, they waited for autopsy and fingerprint reports on the first one, for which they had two sets of prints besides those of the dead woman and her husband. But there had been workmen in the house, a carpenter and a plumber repairing a bathroom, and the officers expected the prints would turn out to be theirs. Now, with a second, similar case, questions had multiplied like jackrabbits. Joe had lain curled up in Dallas’s in-box, sharply alert beneath shuttered eyes, watching Dallas lean back in his desk chair, put his feet up on the blotter, and flip open a file.

The square-faced Latino detective’s usual sunny smile had vanished. “Marital trouble in both cases. Five domestics at the Tucker address since the first of the year, four at the Keatings’. Linda Tucker was a shy little thing, real quiet and reclusive. But Elaine Keating…”

“Right,” Harper had said. “She was bad news.”

“Three of those call-outs, Linda pressed charges for battery, and was told how to get help and find shelter. Didn’t do much good. She took him right back.”

The detective had sipped his coffee, reaching to stroke Joe Grey, giving Joe a look of amazement-whether amazement that the cat hung around the department, or surprise at his own friendly feelings toward a feline, Joe wasn’t sure. For a dog man, Dallas Garza was coming right along, and that made the tomcat smile. Dallas had, when Joe first met him, considered cats about as appealing as gutter rats.

“We could have a kinky burglar,” Harper had said, “or a copycat murderer. Common knowledge Tucker was sleeping around. Maybe his wife threatened to walk.”

In that case, Joe thought, she didn’t handle the problem very well. Even a cat could have told her that a battered woman should keep her plans to herself, get her own affairs in order, put her money where the man couldn’t reach it, and then quietly get out. Follow her escape plan and lay low, not telegraph her intentions. No different from a sensible cat quietly stealing away from a pack of coyotes, no disturbance, no movement through the grass to give himself away, just gone. And this sure would be true if a woman had children to get out safely-or pets. It hurt Joe deep down when a fleeing wife, in her haste and terror, left a dog or a cat behind. The poor creature was nearly always abused; most abusers would do that to get back at a woman.

“Elaine Keating had some money of her own,” Max said. “A small inheritance she kept in a separate account. Trouble was, she put his name on the account.”

Dallas shook his head. “If this is a copycat murder, I hope to hell it doesn’t start a rash of wife killings.” The detective studied the gray tomcat sprawled across his papers. “What does he find so fascinating? We don’t have mice in here.”

Harper shrugged. “This is one of the coolest buildings in the village, with these thick adobe walls.”

“And in the winter?”

“One of the warmest.” Max stared at Joe. “His visits couldn’t be because Mabel feeds him, hides away little snacks for the cats?”

“Then why isn’t he on Mabel’s desk instead of mine?”

“Likes your company,” Harper said. “If we get an article or two in the paper, to head these guys off…Help them remember we keep a list of wife abusers from past reports…” Harper rose to refill his coffee cup from the pot on the credenza.

“And maybe enlighten the abused wives,” Dallas said. He scratched Joe Grey’s ear. “Put those women on alert-without inviting a lawsuit. I’ll call Jim Barker, he’s a good reporter.”

“Who would sue us? We won’t be printing their names.” But Harper grinned. These days, some people would try to sue the cops over a traffic ticket.

The chief rose and moved away down the hall on some errand, and in a minute Joe heard him going downstairs, where the emergency center and shooting ranges were located. Dallas had picked up the phone and was making a date with Barker for a private lunch; but when the detective turned on his computer and started filling in tedious travel sheets, Joe leaped down and trotted along to Harper’s empty office, which was darker and quieter; he never had liked the click of computer keys.

Now, an hour later, having been awakened by Mabel’s shout from the dispatcher’s cubicle, he listened, alarmed, to the canned female voice from Mabel’s speakerphone-Dulcie’s voice, talking to both Mabel and then to Harper when she knew the speaker was on.

“…isn’t in the house, I’m sure. But the house has been ransacked…”

“How do you know this?”

“I…The door was unlocked. I thought I’d glimpsed her car go in the garage, so I knocked. When she didn’t answer, I tried the garage door. It was locked, but I smelled a whiff of exhaust, like she had just gotten home. I thought it strange that she didn’t answer, and knocked again. When she still didn’t come, I got worried. That’s when I tried the back door.

“It was unlocked, and I stepped into the kitchen. I was about to call out when I saw the house was all messed up, furniture overturned; then I heard men’s voices from the back. But I didn’t hear Wilma. I ran out, called you on my cell. I saw two men run out…One was-”

The line went suddenly dead. Dulcie had hung up or bolted away. Harper snatched the phone, shouting, “Give me your name. You’re Wilma’s neighbor? Where…? Your address…?”

He turned away at last, came pounding down the hall past Joe, shouting at Garza; the detective swung out of his office, and as the two headed for the back door and a patrol unit, Joe slipped up the hall to the front, where Mabel was dispatching squad cars-she paused long enough to punch in a phone number. Her voice, sharp with dismay, was obliterated as three police units sped away from the station. When they’d gone, she was saying, “…in Wilma’s house. Two men. They ran, but…All right, but be careful. You tell anyone I called you, Clyde, you’re dead meat!” She listened, then, “You’d better cover for me, or the chief’ll have my hide.” Silence. Then, “Said she was a neighbor. Hung up before she identified herself. I…Max would fire me, I swear he would.”

Joe was strung tight as four more officers hurried up the hall and out the front door; he streaked out behind them, leaped scrambling up the overhanging oak to the roof and headed for Wilma’s house. Racing across hot shingles and tiles, he forgot the two murders and the disquieting prospect that they might not be the last. Dulcie needed him, and Wilma needed them both-and he guessed Clyde, too, could use a little support. Wilma was like Clyde’s older sister, the only family Clyde had.

Sailing across space and into an oak that bridged the narrow street, Joe scrambled up it to a higher roof. Max Harper was nearly as close to Wilma as was Clyde; they’d both known Wilma since they were boys, the two kids spending hours in Wilma’s kitchen eating peanut butter and bacon sandwiches, awed by the beautiful blond graduate student, talking with Wilma about life in a way neither boy could talk with his parents.