Shirley Murphy - Cat Pay the Devil

“There was no paintbrush. Milner said she’d probably taken a little on a tissue, then flushed it, that she didn’t like to clean paintbrushes. Looks like it could have been dabbed on with a tissue.”

A bit of paint surely amounted to nothing, had nothing to do with the murder, but the officers’ interest brought Joe alert. Maybe he’d have a look, himself, at that garage.

“I left the door unlocked, put one of our locks on it, in case we want in again.”

The tomcat, rising, yawning as if he’d had enough of their boring voices, sauntered away into the hall; he slipped out of the PD on the heels of a sleazy attorney with a beard and a battered briefcase, some crook’s mouthpiece; he headed for the Milner house, making no attempt to gather his two accomplices. Dulcie would be snug at home with Wilma; and Kit needed Lucinda and Pedric just now. As bold and brash as the tortoiseshell was, she was tender inside and easily upset by the rough treatment of those she loved.

It was three in the morning when Greeley, crouched down behind Lilly’s sofa, listened to the front door open, and close, and a woman’s soft step head for the kitchen. Too light a step for Lilly, and anyway, she ought to be asleep upstairs. He stayed where he was when the light went on in the kitchen.

He had tossed most of the main floor, had been deciding whether to slip on upstairs when he’d heard the key in the door. He hated to give up the search now. The thought of walking away from that kind of money galled him, even if he did have that much already salted away. It had been tiresome, the effort it took to open three puny checking accounts, getting fake social security numbers and drivers’ licenses, just so he qualified for three safe-deposit boxes. But he didn’t trust nowhere else short of a bank box, nowhere the IRS wouldn’t come nosing, before he got the cash out of the country.

Two million in Mexico’d buy all he ever wanted, a little place down the coast where it was warm and the living was easy-and buy a knife in your back in a damn minute, too, if anyone knew what you had. And, the way customs was now, it would be hard to get that kind of money down across the border. Feds in your way, no matter what you did.

He could smell coffee from the kitchen, and toast. Who the hell could this be? She had a key, he’d heard it in the lock. Rising from behind the couch, he slipped down the hall, stopping in the shadows. She hadn’t heard him. She was sitting at the table, a cup in her hand. Young and skinny and pale as a ghost.

“Violet?”

She stared up at him, frightened.

“You’re Violet?” He went on in, sat down across from her. He’d known her when she was a teenager, just as fleshless and bony then. Hadn’t seen her since she’d married Eddie Sears, still in her teens-likely to escape living with Lilly and Cage. Probably it wasn’t no better with Eddie.

Had she been here last night, when he’d searched the basement? Might she have watched him? Woman looked like she could slip around silent as a ghost and you’d never know she was there. He looked at her for a long time. She pointed to the coffeepot.

“There’s plenty,” she said softly. “I thought Lilly might be up.”

“I didn’t know you were living here.”

“I’m not. Well, maybe I am now. From this morning. Is Lilly still asleep?” She didn’t seem interested in who he was. Maybe she knew, though, maybe she remembered him from years back. But she sure didn’t seem interested in what he was doing there, now.

“I expect she’s still asleep,” he said. “She let me have a room last night; the motels was all full.” He rose and poured a cup of coffee. Perching on the edge of his chair, he blew on it and drank it quickly. He wanted to ask what she was doing there; she made him real uneasy. But then, later, when he found out Eddie was in jail, and Cage in the hospital, he guessed she’d had nowhere else to go.

Nervously finishing his coffee, he rose again. “Have to be getting on. Tell Lilly thank you.” He went to get his jacket, and within minutes was relieved to be out the front door and away.

Checking into the Seaview Bed and Breakfast, he couldn’t get the rate down even on a Monday morning. Whole damn village was the same, take all a man’s money and ask for more. Now, with Cage in the hospital, he didn’t want to leave Molena Point. He didn’t give a damn if Cage cashed it in, but no one except Cage could tell him where the stash had been, and who else might have taken it, if Wilma hadn’t. Only thing he could do was wait till Cage got out of the hospital and away from that police guard-if he didn’t die-and then follow him when he went looking.

One thing sure, Cage’d come out of that hospital mean as snakes with his face all shot up, the kind of mean that he’d kill you if you sneezed wrong. And, Greeley thought, smiling, that Charlie Harper who’d shot him, she’d be smart to get out of town before Cage found her.

T he house next door to where Peggy Milner was murdered was a charmingly remodeled cottage that had only recently been a shack with an uncertain future. In this village where folks would pay a million for a teardown, the expense of such a renovation was not unusual. The disturbance of the remodeling had sent droves of mice out into the neighborhood, and Joe and Dulcie and Kit had had their share.

The resulting small, cream-toned retreat was now far more appealing than the two-story gray box that loomed beside it, where Peggy Milner had drawn her last breath. The garden had been redesigned to feature low-maintenance lavender and Mexican sage. A narrow side yard was enclosed by a woven-wire fence four feet high topped with a two-by-four crosspiece, meant to confine the Bleans’ small terrier when they were in residence. The yard within stunk sharply of dog. Joe, coming up the block, had already endured the sour stink of the neighbors’ garbage cans clustered on the street along with plastic recycling boxes of newspapers and cans and bottles, a miasma of rotten food, wet baby diapers, cleaning liquids, and wet paint.

He had circled the Milner house, making sure there wasn’t a uniform or two standing guard, had strolled casually beneath the yellow crime tape, looking up at the windows. When he saw no movement within, he moved on to the Blean house. He circled it, too, though he wasn’t interested in getting inside. It was the garage Joe wanted, where Peggy Milner and her husband had had key access.

Leaping to the top of the low fence pondering possible methods of entry, Joe gave a whiskery grin. Right there in the dog yard was just what the tomcat wanted: a small doggy door installed next to the narrow, pedestrian door. Smiling, he had dropped down into the dog yard when he realized that the little door would likely be blocked from inside by one of those sliding panels that people installed when they planned to be away, to prevent the entry of raccoons or skunks-or inquisitive tomcats.

He nosed at the plastic flap, expecting it to stop against a hard surface. Wondering if he could claw that sliding panel to the top of its metal tracks and push in under it, he nearly fell through when the flap gave freely. Quick as a flash, he slipped inside.

The Bleans’ garage was nearly empty. It was light and pristine, the white walls finished as nicely as the inside of a house. He caught the scent of fresh paint, from the can that Peggy Milner had recently opened. The space was lit by a long row of high windows looking out on the dog yard. Beneath these stood a small white workbench. No tools hung on the wall behind it. No gardening tools adorned the other walls, and there were none of those tall storage cabinets that people installed to hide clutter. He found, when he leaped atop the workbench, a neat row of small garden implements laid out beside a rolled-up hose that was still in its package. He dropped down again to consider the shelf underneath.