Shirley Murphy - Cat Pay the Devil

“Of course, if it’s something he’s brought across the border, carried up from Panama, that makes it a federal offense, with an even longer prison term-for Cage, and for you, if you knew about it.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Lilly snapped. “An innocent woman, alone. No one would put an old woman in prison. What a foolish thing to say.”

“Norma Green went to federal prison when she was eighty-seven, for passing forged checks. Eileen Clifton was sixty-eight. Sentenced to twenty years by the feds for taking her kidnapped granddaughter across a state line. Her granddaughter ! Anything that goes across a state line…”

Kit’s ears were back, her yellow eyes narrowed with disbelief; Dulcie swallowed back a hiss of disgust.

“Them federal judges are sticklers for the law, Lilly. Don’t make no difference, your age. If you know that he’s hidden something here, you’re aiding and abetting. Them judges will see you do federal time, sure as hell is filled with brimstone. Well, I’d just hate to see them even book you, even take you off to the local jail…” And Greeley kept laying it on, about how bad the prisons were, about the sexual bullies and prison gang wars. It was hard to know what Lilly was thinking, with that sour poker face. When Dulcie could stand it no longer, she cut her eyes at Kit and they slipped out from behind the chair into the shadows of the hall.

Trotting swiftly through the shadows from one room to the next, they didn’t look for whatever Greeley was after, they wanted only to find Wilma; poking into closets, they prowled a room used for sewing, two unused bedrooms, a dark room dedicated to storing boxes and other junk, and a large linen closet, skillfully and silently sliding open closet doors, poking their noses behind the brittle shower curtain of a second bath-all to the background of Greeley’s wheedling and Lilly’s sour, one-line refusals. And even as they inspected each depressing room for Wilma, it was hard not to keep an eye out for whatever Greeley had come here to find.

Slipping up the stairs from the hall to inspect the second floor, they made quick work of the four other bedrooms, the last of which was redolent with Lilly’s lilac scent, Lilly’s clothes and shoes in the closet. Nowhere was there the faintest scent of Wilma, no hint that she had been in this house.

They found Cage’s room, though, and he had been there recently-same sour male smell as in Wilma’s house. Cage had, within the last few weeks, slept in the front bedroom; a few of his clothes hung in the nearly empty closet.

Interesting that Lilly had said no word, when Greeley claimed that Cage had sent him for his clothes. But still, nothing really made sense; Dulcie hated when things didn’t add up.

They tossed Cage’s room more thoroughly than the others, though Wilma certainly hadn’t been in there; they found nothing valuable that Greeley might want. Heading back down the stairs to the first floor, the drone of Greeley’s voice met them, accompanied by a faint clicking. And when they peered around from the hall, they saw that Lilly was knitting-having grown totally bored with Greeley’s wheedling-her needles flying through some project fashioned in pink yarn, she was so engrossed she seemed hardly to notice Greeley.

Some women knit when they’re nervous, when they need a calming diversion. Some knit when they’re angry. As the cats watched the needles flying and the rows of pink stitches building, Lilly seemed to grow calmer. Greeley, apparently running out of hot air, sat watching her, stone faced, then at last he rose.

“I’m sorry to have troubled you,” he said stiffly. “I hope, Lilly, you are doing what’s best for your own welfare.”

The cats smiled as Lilly hustled him out the door; behind her back, they fled for the kitchen; and there they waited crouched on the worn linoleum until they heard her return to her knitting, sighing with relief to be rid of him, her needles once more clicking away madly. They prowled the kitchen, pausing to sniff thoroughly at a door that smelled strongly of musty basement and of gas and oil from the garage.

Could Wilma be down there, so securely confined that Lilly felt no need to go downstairs and check on her? Could she be drugged, or so hurt that she could not escape? In her terror, Dulcie leaped and snatched at the doorknob, clawing and swinging, making too much noise. She couldn’t see if the separate dead bolt was locked. But, fighting the door, she heard the knitting stop, heard the hush of Lilly’s footsteps on the carpet. Frantically, both cats fought and kicked-until Lilly entered the kitchen, then they slid behind the refrigerator, a tight squeeze, the motor hot against their fur.

They listened as Lilly opened a cupboard, apparently getting herself a little snack; they could smell vanilla cookies, could hear her munching. When, rattling the package, she headed for the living room again, they followed on her heels. Dulcie’s mind was on the basement, on the windows at the back of the house where the cliff dropped away and the daylight-basement looked out at the ravine. And, slipping past the living room as Lilly again bent over her knitting, they made for the bathroom. Onto the counter, and then they were up and out the window, leaving tabby and tortoiseshell fur caught in the torn screen. Ignoring the trellis, they broke their fall among the bushes and fled for the back of the house. Only there did they pause to lick their paws, bruised from the doorknob, and their bare tender skin where the screen had pulled out hanks of fur.

“Will it ever grow back?” mewled Kit who, six months ago, couldn’t have cared less how she looked. Now she sounded as foolish as the vainest house cat.

“It will,” Dulcie said dryly, studying the basement windows and, for a quick escape, the grassy canyon that dropped away below them.

The canyon was far narrower here than where it fell away behind the seniors’ house. Pine and eucalyptus trees grew up its sides, climbing to within a few feet of the basement, casting their shadows across the dirty basement windows. There were no screens.

Each cat leaped to a low sill and began to work at a slider, trying to jimmy its old brass lock. It took maybe ten minutes and made way too much noise, too many choruses of dry scraping, before Kit’s lock gave way; under her insistent claws and then her pressing shoulder, the bottom half rose up with a loud, wrenching screech that turned the cats rigid. They expected any minute to hear the door in the kitchen fly open and Lilly come rushing down the stairs.

When they decided she hadn’t heard them, they leaped into the basement, into a mildew-smelling, clutter-filled storage room behind the garage. They could see, up front, past a row of deep, built-in cupboards, an old Packard that was just the kind of car Clyde would covet, a vintage model badly wanting Clyde Damen’s loving restoration. Dulcie stood very still, scenting for Wilma, but not daring to call to her. Kit pressed close, her round yellow eyes big with unease in the shadowy, musty space; then at last they began to search, going first to the oversized cupboards.

W ith her hands tied, Wilma couldn’t reach to rip away the blindfold. She couldn’t move, tied to the chair; tilting it back and forth, she was able to rock along crablike, jerking across the rough wooden floor, the chair legs banging. Feeling out with her toes, for barriers, she soon found a wall. Getting the chair turned, she rocked along beside it until she came to what felt like a heavy wooden dresser. Yes, she could feel the corner with her arm, and then the drawer handles.

Bending her head against the top drawer, she wriggled and worked until she caught the blindfold on the handle. She pulled and fought until she had jerked it and it slipped down around her throat-her release from darkness left her heart pounding. The thin light of evening filtered in through dusty windows. She looked warily around her.