Shirley Murphy: Cat Pay the Devil

Wilma had stayed in the city Saturday, seeing friends. Her plan was to leave for home early this Sunday morning, in time for several hours of shopping at the discount mall in Gilroy-and this morning Jones had walked, mistakenly released when he presented the officer on duty with borrowed identification. Had walked out free, and dangerous.

Pacing the hot shingles, lashing her tail, Dulcie created such turmoil that Joe hissed and growled at her. “Will you stop! She’s all right! She’ll be home before dark. Between the heat and your fussing, you’ll work yourself into a frothing cat fit.”

“But she keeps her gun locked in the glove compartment, she won’t take it in the stores while she’s shopping, and a lot of good that will do her!” Dulcie lashed her tail harder. “Jones is as volatile as a pit bull jabbed with hot pokers. Armed robbery. Seven assaults on guards while he was in prison. Solitary confinement half the time, for fights with other inmates. And in this heat…” The tabby sighed. “You know how a heat wave affects the unstable ones. Three weeks of scorching weather, every nut in the world is on the prod! The papers are full of it-petty thefts turning violent, family arguments escalating into rage and battery. Add all this heat to Jones’s anger, you don’t know what will happen!”

Joe looked at her, and stretched in the sun’s baking heat, and he licked a white paw. But then he rose and nuzzled her ear and said he was sorry-and he had to admit that in hot weather there was always a jump in the crime rate. Ask any cop, Joe saw the reports and arrest sheets on Chief Harper’s desk. Or ask the highway patrol-CHP could tell you about the increase in road rage. And all up and down the coast, the unseasonable heat had escalated silly pranks into acts of hate, prodded simmering resentments into mayhem, exploded friendly arguments and familial conflicts into violence. And now, just two nights ago, a brutal murder in the village.

Both of Chief Max Harper’s detectives and the chief himself were working long hours overtime, as were their street patrols, who yearned for additional men and women on the force. The three cats, intent on their own input into police matters, with their own unique ways of discovering evidence, wished they could lead double lives. Or, given that cats have nine lives anyway, they could use several of those lives now, all at once. This late-afternoon’s nap on the roof was the first time Joe had been still in days, the first time he had not been lying on the dispatcher’s desk listening to radio communications or snooping into apartments or homes where the police did not yet have sufficient evidence to enter. He was idle now, waiting for additional information on the break-in murder to come into the station, just as the detectives were waiting. The village woman, whom everyone knew and liked, had been shot and killed in her bed at three in the morning. She had been alone, her husband on a business trip.

Perhaps she had awakened, surprised the burglar in her bedroom and maybe screamed or in some way alarmed him, and he’d fired at her in panic; the coroner’s report said she had not been molested. The event created unusual fear in the village; suddenly everyone was security conscious. Doors and windows were being kept locked at night despite the killing heat, and all five village locksmiths were working overtime to replace credit card locks and weak window closures that should have been tended to long ago.

After the police left the crime scene, the three cats had slipped into the house through a roof vent and down through the attic trapdoor; they had gone over the scene carefully, searching particularly for scents that the officers couldn’t detect. But they had found nothing suspicious, no smell that did not belong to a cop or to the householders, no tiny overlooked item that the police hadn’t listed and cataloged. Ordinarily Dulcie was as eager as Joe and the tortoiseshell kit to track a killer, but now she couldn’t even keep her mind on the appalling murder. Every fiber of her little cat body resounded with missing Wilma, she knew that Wilma was in danger or was soon to be; now, nervously, she rose. “I’m going home again.”

Joe looked at her with strained patience. But then he gave her a whisker kiss and licked her ear. “Shall I come with you?”

“No. I just want to go home and see.” She was panting with the heat but shivering, too, all at odds with herself. “I’ll be right back. If-if she isn’t there.” And she turned away. But at once, Joe was beside her again.

“Don’t, Dulcie. Don’t be angry. I know you’re worried. I just…” The tomcat’s fierce yellow eyes looked naked for a moment. “I just don’t know what to do about it.” He looked deeply at her. “I could call Clyde, we could go to Gilroy to look for her. But we could miss her on the highway. We could call the station, tell the chief she’s not home yet, but it’s-”

“I know it’s too soon,” Dulcie said. “And I know that every cop is looking for Jones-CHP, the county sheriffs.” California Highway Patrol always provided excellent backup. “I know there’s a warrant out for him. Maybe-maybe she’s pulling into the drive right this minute. Or…” She stared hopefully at Joe. “Or standing in the garden, calling me!” For a moment, she leaned into him. Then she took off across the rooftops, running flat out-and praying hard.

S he’s shopped all day! Dulcie thought, racing home across the roofs. All she ever buys are jeans and sweatshirts; Wilma doesn’t linger over satins and velvets the way I would-so it couldn’t take her this long! Dulcie loved soft, beautiful garments; when she was younger, she’d often stolen silken scarves or nighties, a cashmere sweater or a satin teddy from their good-natured neighbors, had dragged each item home to snuggle on-only to see Wilma return them with an embarrassed apology.

But such luxuries wouldn’t delay Wilma. Dulcie’s tall, silver-haired housemate would have left the city early; she liked to hit the road before work traffic grew heavy, would probably have left before breakfast, planning to stop for a bite on the way or to eat at a favorite restaurant in Gilroy. Now, though the long summer evening was still bright, it was nearly six- twelve hours, Dulcie thought. Oh , she’ll be home by now! Home when I get there! Oh , Wilma , please be sitting on the couch with your shoes off , your packages strewn all over. And she leaped from a tree to the next roof, dropped from the shingles onto a storefront sign, then down to a bench, and finally to the sidewalk, landing lightly between a bed of petunias and a metal news rack. Crouched to sprint across the street and up the block for home, she stopped, staring.

Even in the heat radiating from the sidewalk, suddenly she felt cold all over. She stood facing the news rack and the afternoon edition of the Molena Point Gazette in its metal holder, feeling as sick and weak as if she’d eaten poison.

ESCAPED CONVICT SHOOTS FEDERAL OFFICER

Dulcie couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Didn’t know what to do but stand shivering and staring.

But then common sense took over-if the victim was Wilma, she’d already know, the police would have been to the house, Joe’s housemate would know and would have found her and Joe even on the rooftops. It wasn’t Wilma, couldn’t be Wilma. But then when she scanned down the first column, again her heart pounded with hurt and rage.

The lead article might ordinarily have been of interest only to San Francisco readers, for the shooting had occurred in the city where the victim worked-but it was in the Gazette because he was well known in Molena Point as well. Mandell Bennett was in intensive care in San Francisco General Hospital. He had been found early this afternoon by a coworker, in the underground parking garage of his San Francisco office, lying beside his car. The paper did not identify the shooter, and no suspect had been apprehended. Dulcie stood staring up at the newspaper, unable to move-until a giggle behind her made her spin around.