Shirley Murphy - Cat Pay the Devil

Impossible to stay out of sight, there were uniforms everywhere-except not trampling her flowers, even the rookies knew better than to trash Wilma’s garden. Hitting the front walk of the low stone house, he headed for Officer Brennan, whose large girth guarded the front door. Behind Clyde, two patrol cars took off burning rubber, and a third sped away up the narrow street in the opposite direction.

He started to speak to Brennan, but then he saw Dulcie and Kit at the far end of the house, huddled in shadow beside the back steps, looking small and miserable. Glancing at Brennan, who had turned to speak to someone inside, he hurried across the yard and picked up Dulcie. He reached for Kit, but she gave him a wild look and bolted away, up the nearest oak. Holding Dulcie close, he slipped around the far side of the house looking for privacy where they could talk.

“I called you,” she whispered, climbing to his shoulder. “You didn’t answer…I left messages…” Her face was close to his, her green eyes wide with distress.

“Dispatcher called me,” he said, cuddling her.

“She’s gone,” Dulcie whispered. “She hasn’t come home, but someone…” Her tail lashed against him, her ears laid back in worried anger. “Her packages are here, her overnight bag. Her car’s here. There were two men inside-Cage Jones and someone else,” she said, hissing. “They tore the house apart, they were in the bedroom, we saw them. Searching for something. What could they want? Kit and I watched them going through her things; when they ran out, I heard a car on the next street but couldn’t see it, don’t know what kind or which way it went. I called the station…Ten minutes later I heard it again, fast but quieter…as if they’d doubled back…

“Those men…They’re the only ones who know where she is, who know what happened to her. Your cell phone…I have to call Mabel back, tell her what they look like! I didn’t tell her.” Frantically she pawed at his jacket pockets. “Where-”

“Tell me what they look like, Dulcie. I’ll call. If a cop comes around the corner-”

“How can you? You had no chance to see them, they were gone when you got here. Shove the phone under a bush. Make it snappy.”

Glancing around for uniforms, Clyde punched in 911 for her, knelt, and laid his cell phone deep under a camellia bush among a carpet of dead brown blooms. As she talked, he paced, watching the front yard and the back, but only when he had pocketed the phone again and picked up Dulcie once more did he relax. “You sure she hasn’t been home?” he whispered. “Maybe went out again? If this is a false alarm, Dulcie, if-”

“Came home and what? Tore up her own house? Tipped over the furniture? Trashed her desk?” She stared bleakly into his face. “No one in the world but those two men know where she is. And now they’re gone.”

“She was going to stop in Gilroy,” Clyde said. “She called me early last evening, wanted to know if she could pick up anything for me.”

Dulcie sighed. “She called Lucinda after supper. She sounded fine, then.” The little cat leaned against his cheek, swallowing.

“Dulcie, did she check out of her hotel?”

Dulcie’s eyes widened.

“Come on…” Holding the dark tabby close, he made for the front of the house, up the steps past Brennan, and burst into the living room where Harper was helping Detective Garza lift prints. Both men turned to stare at him, scowling.

“This is a crime scene,” Harper said. “You know better than to come in here. And how did you know? Ten minutes since the call came in.” The tall, thin chief was dressed in his usual frontier shirt and jeans, Dallas Garza in faded jeans, a dark turtleneck, and an ancient tweed sport coat.

“Did she check out?” Clyde asked. “Check out of the Hyatt this morning? The one at the wharf.”

Max just looked at him.

“Did she check out?”

“Seven, sharp.” Max studied Clyde, frowning, stared at the cat in Clyde’s arms, shook his head, and turned away, his leathery face unnaturally drawn. “She’s been home,” Max said. “Or, it looks that way. Overnight bag’s here. Packages. Car in the garage. Either before or after she got home, the place was tossed.” He turned to look hard at Clyde again. Harper and Clyde were as close as brothers, but right now, Max’s head was filled with questions. “Caller wouldn’t identify herself, said the door was unlocked. Said she came in, saw two men in the bedroom, they saw her and ran out.”

“Who called? Couldn’t you-”

Harper shook his head. “No caller ID. Said she was a neighbor.” Max frowned, compounding the wrinkles on his long, thin face. “I’ve never known Wilma to leave a door unlocked. Or the kitchen in a mess like that. Even the way she unpacked…Go back and take a look, see what you think.”

“I don’t know how she unpacks, Max. Call Charlie, Charlie would know.” Wilma’s niece had lived with her aunt for several months; she’d know things about Wilma’s personal habits that even he or Max might not.

“I can’t reach Charlie. She was going to ride with Ryan this evening. Can’t get Ryan, either. They’ll have their phones off.” Since Charlie had finished the manuscript and drawings for her first book, she’d been riding every evening, making up for lost time, sometimes waiting for Max to get home so they could have a gallop over the hills together, but more often going alone or with Ryan, enjoying the horses before she got back to work on new commissions for animal portraits and on her own drawings and prints.

“I heard,” Clyde said uneasily, “that Cage Jones escaped. Doesn’t his sister live in the village?”

Max nodded. “That house Cage and Lilly’s parents left them. Couple of hours ago, the minute we knew Jones had walked, Dallas and Davis picked up a warrant, searched the house. His sister Lilly says she hasn’t seen Cage, didn’t know he’d escaped.” Max shrugged. “Said she doesn’t listen to the news much-now, we’ll double back, have another look. Though it’s not likely Cage would hide her in his own house-if he was fool enough to kidnap a retired federal officer.”

Max turned to Wilma’s desk, stood looking out the front window. “Sure like to talk with the woman who tipped us.” He looked at Clyde, scowling. “Could be our phantom snitch, but I can’t figure how that adds up,” he said irritably. “How the hell can she or her partner always be in the right place at the right time!”

Clyde felt Dulcie’s claws kneading nervously on his arm. Harper’s frustration at the unidentified but accurate tips he’d been receiving for several years was both stressful and comical. Clyde shook his head. “Doesn’t make sense, does it?” he said innocently. “I don’t know, Max. If they weren’t always right, if they hadn’t been a help in so many cases…”

“I’m not sorry to have those two,” Max said. “Even if their seeming clairvoyance does drive me up the wall!”

“Is that what you think? Some kind of…?”

“I don’t know what the hell I think,” Max snapped. He continued to watch Clyde, then shook his head. “Made up my mind not to think about it. Take the information and run with it, not ask questions.” The chief reached to his pocket for a cigarette, something he hadn’t done for a long time. “Sometimes, it’s damned hard not to run those two snitches to ground, or try to. I wish to hell…

“But what’s the good, wishing,” Max said. “I just hope Wilma knows that Jones conned his way out of jail. What kind of shop are they running, releasing a guy on false ID!”

“Not the first time that’s happened,” Clyde said. “And Jones won’t know that Wilma was going to shop in Gilroy. Anyway, the minute he got out, wouldn’t he run? Head for another state?”