Shirley Murphy - Cat Cross Their Graves

"You can't spare me this afternoon? Call it my lunch break."

Ryan laughed. "I can spare you. It comes out more even, for framing, with just Scotty and me, and Dillon doing the odd jobs."

Finishing her coffee, Charlie rinsed her cup and headed for her soon-to-be studio. Ryan and Charlie and Max had planned the renovation together, the three of them taking their time, paying attention to how the sun would slant into the new great room with its high rafters and stone fireplace, how much more view down the falling hills the raised floor would allow. Standing in the front yard on ladders, they had made sure how much of the sea and the village rooftops would be visible.

While the old living room became a large new master suite, their present bedroom would be Max's study. The two smaller bedrooms would become Charlie's spacious studio, and she could hardly wait. The renovation might seem wild to some, but to Charlie and Max and Ryan, it made perfect sense. By the time the phone rang at eleven-thirty, Charlie had finished the tear out and, with help from Scotty, had finished putting up the new drywall. She was drunk with the big new space; she wanted to whirl around shouting and swinging her arms, she could hardly wait to cut through the wall for the large new windows with their north light; but that would have to wait until the weather settled. Hurrying into the kitchen, she picked up the call.

"It's Wilma. We haven't found Kit, no one's seen her. I just…"

Wilma didn't sound at all like herself. "She disappeared before… right after the murder. I didn't tell you last night, I thought…" Charlie's aunt, a tall, capable, no-nonsense former parole officer, was not given to a shaky voice and tears. "We're headed out to look again, Lucinda and I. Pedric is already out, after just a few hours' sleep."

"I can join you. I-"

"No. I just… wanted you to watch for her as you head down to the seniors'. Dulcie and Joe aren't nearly as concerned as we are. They say she's been gone before."

"The last time, she turned up in the middle of a double murder," Charlie said. "I'll look out for her, and leave my cell phone on. Call me if I can join you." Charlie didn't like to see her aunt so upset. Those three cats were so dear, so very special. And Kit was so damned headstrong. How could Joe and Dulcie not worry? And how did you look for one small cat, if she didn't want to be found?

In the mudroom she pulled on a pair of rubber boots, then hurried out to her van. Her cleaning crews didn't need it today; when they did, she had to use Max's old wreck that he'd kept for emergencies and which, they agreed, laughing, was an emergency in itself. Heading down toward the village, she drove slowly, watching the roadside and the hills, searching for that dark little hurrying tattercoat. Praying the kit was on her way home, praying she was all right. Several times she stopped to scan the trees, looking for a dark lump perched among the branches. Below her, the hills glowed brilliant green against the indigo sea. The grass, fed by the heavy rains, had sprung up tall and lush, as vibrant as living emerald. The horses could think of nothing but that tender new growth, all they wanted to do was race out and gorge on it.

Between the hills and sea, the white shore stretched away scattered with black boulders, and down to her right, the village rooftops shone with shafts of sunlight striking between dark smears of cypress and pine. Could Patty Rose, wherever she was now, still glimpse this lovely land? Might Patty from her ethereal realm crave a last look at the dimension she had left behind?

Or did she no longer care, now that she moved in a far more fascinating realm?

Or was Patty simply gone? Was there nothing more?

Charlie didn't believe that.

Coming into the village, slowing among the cottages, she watched the streets and rooftops for Kit, trying not to let Wilma's distress eat at her. Maybe Joe and Dulcie were right, that Kit would show up in her own time, sassy and wondering what all the fuss was about.

But it wasn't only the missing kit that made her edgy about the cats. She was puzzled by Joe and Dulcie, too. For nearly two weeks, they had been acting so strangely. Wilma said Dulcie had hardly been home, that when she was home, she was silent and remote. Or nervous and completely distracted. And Clyde said Joe was cross as a tiger, that the tomcat was so bad tempered he sometimes wouldn't talk at all, would just hiss at Clyde and stalk away.

Clyde thought Joe's anger was because of Dulcie's preoccupation; and Clyde, with Joe's grouchy silence, had become just as bad tempered himself. A pair of surly housemates snarling at each other and at their friends-until last night. Then all minor concerns, it seemed to Charlie, had been put into proper perspective.

And as she'd descended the winter hills, Charlie had had the feeling that it all was connected: the kit's disappearance, Dulcie's secrecy, and Joe's distress somehow all linked together-and that those puzzling situations had a bearing on Patty's murder. She had no idea how that could be, but she couldn't shake the thought.

Crouched in the dark cabinet beneath the bathroom sink, Kit listened. Irving Fenner, having brushed his teeth and presumably shaved, seemed to have crouched down himself, just outside the cabinet door. She heard the faint hush of fabric against the sink cabinet as he knelt, imagined him reaching for the door. Two unlike creatures facing each other on either side of the thin wood barrier. He was totally still. Her heart pounded so hard it shook her whole body.

She heard his hand brush the door. The door creaked, and the left-hand side swung out as she slid, silent and fast, behind the other door. He had to hear her heart pounding, had to smell her fear as she pressed into the corner, into the deepest dark.

He reached in as she watched through slitted eyes. His hand passed just inches from her face. He reached back, thrust his hand straight back to the drainpipe that hung down in a rusty gooseneck curve. His face was so close to her she could have shredded it. She was deeply tempted. He was half turned away, a perfect target, his forehead and shoulder pressed against the edge of the cabinet, so close that she had to draw back to keep from touching him. His arm smelled sour, of old sweat, of soap caught in the swarthy hairs, of sleep. Reaching down, he slipped his hand into the hole where the pipe went through, where the black wood had rotted. Forced his hand down inside, his hairy wrist knocking off additional flecks of soft wood, some falling away beneath the house.

Leaning in, feeling around inside the hole, he drew out a package. It was about the size of a shoe, a strangely shaped package wrapped in brown paper. Its smell nearly made her cry out. Gun oil. The package smelled of gun oil, the same smell as Captain Harper's regulation automatic and as the guns the detectives carried. The same smell as the.38 that Wilma kept in her night table against a possible but unpleasant contact with some bitter ex-parolee; the gun that Wilma took up to the range once a month so she wouldn't be out of practice, then cleaned with gun oil at her little workbench in the garage, a tawny, nose-twitching scent. Kit remained stone still as he backed out with the package and shoved the cabinet door closed.

She listened to his footsteps cross the room. Listened as the front door opened and then closed. Listened to his footsteps on the gravel, then the car door open and slam, and the car start and pull away. What was all the coming and going? Her paws were slick with sweat. Her heart pounded like trapped birds flapping in her chest; she felt too weak to run away and too terrified to remain where she was. She was trapped in this house and there might be no way out.