Shirley Murphy - Cat Pay the Devil

It didn’t. He propelled himself over and out, and there was not a sound. In a nanosecond he was across the lot, between parked cars, slipping into Liz Claiborne’s, padding in on the heels of a hurrying shopper. Ducking behind a rack of dresses, immediately his nose filled with the smells of new cashmere sweaters and women’s perfume, unwelcome indeed as he sought the one scent of importance.

D ulcie and Kit left the Jones house running shoulder to shoulder, smug with information but deeply disappointed that none of it was about Wilma; they had found no scent of her, no hint that she’d ever been in Cage’s house. The only place they hadn’t been able to search was the attic; though after they left the basement, they’d tried. There was no way to get up into that under-roof space without going back in the house and trying to drag a chair under the trapdoor, which would have brought Lilly quicker than fleas to a stray hound. Leaving the attic without searching it worried Dulcie. A prisoner could die under that roof, it would be hot as blazes in there.

They had, before they approached the roof, thoroughly searched the jumbled basement, swinging open musty cupboards, peering behind tangles of old furniture and stacks of cardboard cartons. How many years of discards were dumped in that crowded space? Old clothes, a dressmaker’s dummy, a treadle sewing machine, a gigantic water-fall dresser, an abandoned refrigerator (with failing hearts, they looked inside; nothing but mold). Boxes of rusty tools: crowbar and wrenches, screwdrivers and hammers tossed in with cans of rusting nails.

In the garage, they had searched the old car, too. Looked like it had seldom been driven. Tires half flat, dust on every surface. They’d leaped in through its open windows, which, they supposed, Lilly left down to prevent the mildew that had taken hold anyway, along with a hidden nest of mice that smelled as rich as steak, and the thick gossamer homes of several generations of spiders. There was no human scent. Jumping out again, they had returned to the other end of the basement; they were crouched to escape through the basement window when Kit turned aside to paw at the loose linoleum in a closet they had earlier investigated, the one where the door wouldn’t close. Pawing and scrabbling, suddenly she lowered her ears and lashed her tail with excitement. Dulcie pushed close, to see.

Raking the linoleum up against the wall with surprising strength, Kit skinnied underneath. “Look here! And someone’s been here!” They could both smell it: The linoleum and concrete smelled of Cage Jones.

Sunk into the concrete floor beneath its grimy linoleum covering was a metal safe. A very old safe, rusting but sturdy and heavy. Cage had come down here recently, had surely pulled the linoleum back and handled the safe, and had probably opened it. The finger smears through its coat of dust smelled of Cage, and the dust around the dial was streaked, as if he had spun it; there were also smears along the edge of the lid, as if he had lifted it. What had he kept there? Was this what Greeley was looking for?

They had tried for a long time to open the safe, without luck; as superior as was a cat’s hearing, Dulcie and Kit were not artful at sorting out the tumbler sounds and then spinning the dial accordingly. That was Greeley Urzey’s forte, it was Greeley who was skilled at safecracking. For that old man, this would be the work of but a minute. They could catch no scent of what the safe might contain, or have contained, could smell nothing but the metal itself, and dust, and Cage’s stink. No odor of old musty money, nothing like the way bills smelled that had been hidden for a very long time-they knew that nose-twitching smell; some of Lucinda Greenlaw’s little fortune had once smelled like that from being hidden for many years.

Nor was there any hint of other musty paper in the safe, such as secreted bonds or stock certificates; aside from Cage’s scent, only the sharp metal smell. Turning away, they had let the linoleum spring back and were pressing it into place, wondering if they should try to paw dust over it, when a noise sent them out of the closet and streaking for the window. Even as they leaped to the sill, behind them the door to the stairs flew open.

They heard Lilly gasp as they exploded out onto a pine tree. Scrambling up its far side, claws digging into the bark, they climbed as fast as a pair of terrified squirrels. Behind them they heard Lilly’s footsteps cross the gritty floor.

They had peered around to see her approaching the open window, and had drawn back. For a long moment, she stood looking out. There was no sound. And then, as if perhaps fearful that a burglar had been there and might return, Lilly slammed the window shut. They heard her attempt to lock it.

“That,” Kit whispered, “doesn’t make any sense. If she thinks there was a person inside, how does she know he isn’t still there? How does she know he won’t step out of a cupboard and mug her?”

Lilly tried for some time to lock the window, then fetched the rusty hammer and jammed it in above the lower pane of the double-hung window so it wouldn’t open.

“What if she saw us?” Kit breathed.

“So? We’re cats! What if she did? Come on!”

Scrambling to the roof they had peered over, checking the vents again, but none was loose. Padding across the scorching shingles listening for sounds from the attic space below their paws, they called Wilma, called her name over and over, at first quietly and then louder than was safe. Only silence greeted them. If Wilma were gagged as well as bound, she could give no answer-unless she could knock, kick out with a bound foot, make some noise. They tried for a very long time but could detect no sound at all beneath the hot shingles. They gave up at last, licked their scorched paws, and abandoned the roof, praying Wilma wasn’t down there. Leaping into the pine they backed down its rough trunk and dropped to the ground, into thick dry pine needles. Dulcie, shaking needles from her fur, glanced toward the far end of the house-and there was Greeley, standing in the next yard watching them, looking straight at them, an evil smile on his wizened face, a leer as cruel as the devil masks upstairs. The cats fled straight down the steep wall of the canyon. Leaping down through tangled grass and weeds, tumbling and sliding to the canyon floor, they ran, their hearts pounding. Not until they were two blocks away and well concealed within the canyon’s bushes did they stop and look back to the cliff-side houses.

He was still there, in the Jones’s backyard, looking straight down at them, staring directly toward the bush where they crouched, his piercing, knowing look filled with rage.

“What’s wrong with him?” Dulcie asked. “What does he think?”

“He thinks,” Kit said, gulping air, “he thinks we found whatever he’s looking for? Found it in that basement?” The two cats looked at each other, and shivered and crouched lower. They remained there, as still as rabbits gone to ground, waiting for Greeley Urzey to turn away.

They were still waiting when along the street high above them a police unit flashed quietly between the houses and stopped in front of the Jones house. Greeley saw it, and slipped back into the shadows.

As Dallas Garza and Officer Crowley stepped out of the squad car, the two cats slipped up the cliff again, keeping out of sight, up a eucalyptus tree to the roof, where they crouched, peering over as Dallas rang the bell. They heard its harsh ring, heard faint sounds from the basement, then an inner door close, heard footsteps on the wooden basement stairs as Lilly came up to answer.

Lilly Jones hadn’t seemed pleased to find the detective at the door. “You just searched my house, you were here not two hours ago. You went all through it. Why would you search again? Let me see your warrant.”