Shirley Murphy - Cat Pay the Devil

“He knows that. Davis has gone up there. This afternoon, someone was in Wilma’s house, searched it, left it a mess. Captain has an APB out for her, all the law-enforcement agencies across the state. I think the captain and Detective Garza are still at the house. You didn’t talk with her today, haven’t heard from her? Any messages, anything that could help?”

“I haven’t seen or talked with her since…since last Thursday,” Mavity said, thinking back. She was so distraught that, when at last she’d left Mabel, she’d found it hard to drive home, had to concentrate hard on what she was doing. And at home, after she’d told Susan and Cora Lee and Gabrielle, and despite the fact that she’d filed the complaint against Greeley, she’d gone down to ask if he might have seen Wilma. Not that he’d care if Wilma was in trouble, not after she’d booted him out of her own house last year, Greeley dead drunk and dragging that horrible black tomcat in there to torment Mavity, herself. Greeley barging in and embarrassing her when she’d just come out of the hospital and Wilma was taking care of her. And then Wilma telling him to leave, Mavity thought, smiling. No, Greeley had no love for Wilma Getz. But still, he might have taken a phone message and not bothered to pass it on, or might have glimpsed her on the street. She knew she’d have to ask him.

She’d heard him on the back deck of the downstairs apartment, had found him sitting in the chaise swilling beer, the radio on, singing along with it, out of tune and loud enough so everyone in the neighborhood could hear him. Coming onto the deck, she saw him toss his empty beer can down into the canyon-with how many others?

Strange thing was, when she’d told him Wilma was missing, the news upset him more than she’d imagined. The old man stopped guzzling and came alert, and right away started asking questions about what she’d been doing in San Francisco. But Mavity got the feeling he already knew the answers. And when she told him about Cage Jones escaping from jail, Greeley had got real nervous. But again, as if he already knew and wanted to see what she knew.

Well, the escape had been in the afternoon paper. Mabel had shown her the clipping before she left the station. She wondered why Greeley had asked her those questions. And what was he so fidgety about? Nothing made sense, Greeley didn’t make sense-but then, with the amount of booze he drank, what did she expect?

Greeley and Cage Jones had grown up together, went to school together in the village. She didn’t know if they’d stayed in touch; she didn’t know much about Greeley’s business, all those years down in Central America. She had wondered where he got the money to buy himself that fancy PT Cruiser, just three days ago. She’d asked him, “How you going to make the payments, Greeley? You plan to get a job?”

“Paid cash for the car,” Greeley said, laughing an openmouthed laugh at her. “Got a deal on it. I always did like a green car.”

“Where, Greeley? Where did you get the money?”

“Savings. Not that it’s any of your business.” Greeley had never in his life had any savings; he spent it so fast the money might be programmed to dissolve.

After he bought the car and she’d asked about the money, he started drinking even more and got louder and worse tempered, and that was when she’d gone down and talked with Mabel and had been so relieved when Mabel said she’d send out a patrol officer, get Greeley out before the neighbors started calling in complaints about him. Mabel had said it wouldn’t hurt Greeley to spend the night in a cell, that the captain kept a nice clean jail, and she’d sent Mavity back down the hall to that nice young Officer McFarland who’d helped her with the restraining order. Mavity had left the department feeling guilty that she’d really done it, but feeling a whole lot relieved, too.

T he village streets were filled with heavy evening traffic, the blaze of moving headlights blinding and confusing the white tomcat. He had been on these streets only once before, and then it was midnight, the town silent and empty as he and Willow and Coyote had followed Kit from that cage to freedom. Kit had told them how she crossed when there was heavy traffic, by trotting close behind humans. But now Cotton couldn’t bring himself to do that. The sidewalks were alive with people, their hurrying feet threatened to trample him even as he hid in the shadows of steps and alleyways.

Scrambling up a vine to the rooftops, he felt safer, alone at last. How did Joe Grey and Kit and Dulcie stand the human mobs? Breathing with relief the fresher air of the warm, open roofs, Cotton felt his pounding heart slow; he stopped panting and looked around him across the angled peaks, trying to get his bearings.

Far ahead rose a familiar collection of metal chimneys and the railing of a penthouse veranda that seemed familiar, as if Kit had led them that way. He recognized the tall tower, too, with the clock in it, he had seen that from the window of Kit’s tree house. Looking away to the northeast, slowly the night of their escape came back to him.

Crowded into that smelly cage, he and Willow and Coyote had nearly lost hope. Then Joe Grey and Dulcie had been captured, too, and jammed in there with them, five cats crammed in, and their rage building dangerously. But at last Kit and Joe Grey’s human had found and freed them: Clyde Damen cut off the lock, and they had exploded out of there and out the window, running with terror-and then with wild, incredible joy, running and running, following the tortoiseshell kit. She’d led them to a flower-decked alley, to a plate of delicious food that had been set out just for cats. He and Willow and Coyote had thought it was some kind of trap, but Kit swore it was not, and she had eaten and eaten, and when at last they tried, too, she drew back so they would have the rest. Cotton licked his whiskers, remembering the taste of the fine salmon and cheeses. They had filled themselves right up, and then Kit led them to her tree house, where they had curled up safe and warm. That had been their first deep, deep sleep since they were trapped, not jerking awake with fear at every sound.

Now, taking his bearings from the clock tower, Cotton reared up to search the rooftops and the islands of trees; and it was then he glimpsed a little peaked roof, too small for a regular house. It rose high among the oaks beside a big house. He raced ahead eagerly between chimneys and balconies and across girding branches: raced to find the kit, to find help for the two women who knew about cats like them, who were not afraid to talk to cats. What cat would ever have thought that he, Cotton, would launch himself on such a terrifying journey in order to save two humans?

Max Harper was thankful he’d hired Karen Packard. She’d taken over the stables and yard as efficiently as a far more seasoned investigator. Her careful, intelligent presence helped very much to ease his wrenching pain over Charlie’s abduction, as the slim, dark-haired young rookie took prints in the stable and house, and now in the alleyway of the stable poured casts of the intruders’ footprints. Karen was thirty-six, a tall, fine-boned woman with long dark hair and caring green eyes. She’d done some clothes modeling to work her way through the law-enforcement program at San Jose State. She’d told him, when he hired her, she’d rather dig ditches than do one more modeling job; she didn’t like the atmosphere, didn’t like the people, didn’t like their values and the meaningless glitz. You couldn’t put it more clearly than that, Max thought with a crooked little smile. Now, Karen pursued every aspect of her job-investigation, paperwork, surveillance-with an eager, single-minded commitment that would not be understood in that world of what she considered to be high rollers.