Shirley Murphy - Cat Cross Their Graves

Except, there was the underhouse, the crawl space, if she could get down there. Tasting the stink of mold and rotting wood, she nosed at the hole where the pipe went through. There was always a way, always. Kit did not take well to defeat; she did not believe in defeat.

She wondered if the gun had been used to kill Patty, and if it held his fingerprints. Wondered, if ballistics had that gun, would they find the proof the law needed to convict that man?

The little hole beneath the sink would take her a long time to dig out and get through. Backing out from under the sink, leaving the envelopes hidden, she stood in the middle of the dark little room looking around her. Leaping to the sink, she tried the bathroom window, but it was as thick with paint as the others. She tried the front door again, leaping up, snatching at the knob that would move the bolt, that was too small to get her claws around. Her paws started bleeding again. If she had more leverage, if she could get up higher…

Stalking a wooden chair, she set her shoulder against it and pushed, heading toward the front door.

The chair didn't slide along the floor, but fell over onto its back. She shoved again, throwing all her weight against its side, edging it slowly across the floor. Its journey was much too loud, a sliding scrunching that made her skin twitch with fear. But at last she had it across. Pushing it against the door, she stood on its side and worked at the knob with both paws. Desperate now, ever more frantic at being closed in, she grew angry enough to try to claw through the wood itself.

When the knob wouldn't move, she gave up at last and returned, defeated, to the bathroom, leaving the overturned chair behind her and her faint, bloody paw prints on the dirty floor. Maybe Fenner wouldn't notice the paw prints.

But he sure would notice the chair. Going back, she tried her best to right it. She pawed and fought until she'd slipped her front paw under, and then her shoulder. It was a light chair; she guessed that was why it had fallen. A small ladderback. Maybe if she…

Crouched with her shoulder beneath it, slowly she reared up, pressing it with her shoulder. When it was as high as she could reach, she grabbed it between the slats and lifted higher. Lifted, rearing up as high as she could. And when she gave it a little push, up it went, rocking back and forth, threatening to fall again.

Catching it in her paws, she steadied it until it stopped rocking and stood as it had before. She gave it a lovely loud purr, and returned to the bathroom, her tail lashing.

She didn't like to think what would happen if the cops were to search this place, after they had the evidence, and found her blood and paw prints. There would be hell to pay-she had no idea how she would explain such a thing to Joe Grey. She licked her paws trying to stop the bleeding, but the damage was already done. Pushing into the tiny bathroom, she immediately felt so caged that she wanted to race out again. It was very hard indeed to press into the dark cupboard beneath the sink.

Clawing at the hole beneath the drain, pawing and tearing the rotted wood away, she could feel the niche where he had tucked the gun. A little space, back on top of a floor joist. She dug and dug, dug at the rotting sides of the hole until her paws were nearly raw. Until, at last, she had a hole big enough to slip through.

Bellying in, she hung halfway through the crumbling wood, peering around into the blackness below her. The underhouse space stretched away to the front of the cottage, and was maybe three times as tall as a cat, tall enough for a large dog to walk around in without crouching-though he would scrape his back on the floor joists and pipes and wires running through. Away in the far walls, three small louvered vents let in faint light through their grids. The space smelled of wet mold and rat droppings.

Hanging farther down inside, her round, furry butt planted on the cabinet floor above, her hind paws braced against the edges of the rotting floor, she stared through the black, cobwebby crawl space to those far bits of dust-filtered sunlight and let loose with her hind paws and dropped down, landing on the sour earth and the scattered bits of rotted wood.

Ears and whiskers back, and carrying her tail low, she padded beneath the cobwebs, brushing over rusty nails and pieces of ragged screening or wire. According to human myth, cats loved dark, hidden places. Well, certainly in her younger days, before she knew better, she'd been drawn to mysterious caves, but not like this place. The caves in her wild dreams led to wonderful underneath realms to be discovered-not to a dark, stinking underhouse strewn with rusty nails. Easing through the black, cobwebby labyrinth of cement supports and cast-iron pipes and hanging electrical wires, she approached the vent that would face the front yard, and stood sniffing in the good, fresh air. She could smell green grass and pine trees, and from somewhere the lingering aroma of someone's breakfast of bacon and hot maple syrup. Rearing up, she hooked her claws in the vent grid and pulled.

She pulled harder. Bracing with her hind paws, she jerked and jerked, backing and fighting until she feared she'd tear a claw out. Giving up at last, and muttering softly, she went to try the vent nearer the drive.

She had no better luck with that vent. Crossing through the darkness and the spider curtains, she tried the last one; she fought until not only her paws but both forelegs hurt, then gave up, backing away, her tail limp and her head hanging. A little whimper of defeat escaped her. She was trapped in this prison of a house. Greedily she sniffed the small wisp of fresh air that filtered in through the dirty grid, the scent of pine trees and green bushes. And, she couldn't help it, staring out at the open, free world that she could no longer reach, the kit howled.

But at last she quieted and turned resolutely away, and headed back to the crawl hole and the bathroom to retrieve the envelopes, to get them out before he returned. What if he came back and reached in again, and happened to flip the oilcloth back? What if he found them?

So? she thought. So? What was he going to think?

She didn't know what he'd think; she couldn't imagine. But he'd tear the place apart looking for whoever had been there.

And, searching, what if he found her paw prints? What would he think then?

Dulcie would say she was losing her grip, would tell her to get hold of herself. What was he supposed to think? That a talking cat had taken his envelopes? She tried very hard to calm her shivering nerves as she hooked her claws in the rotting wood of the hole and crouched to leap up, prepared to retrieve the clippings and pictures. Prepared to get out of there somehow, and tip the cops about Kendall Border and Craig Vernon and Harold Timmons, whoever those men were. Tip the cops that Irving Fenner had indeed been connected to Patty Rose. Irving Fenner, who had watched Patty, and who had shot a bullet hole into each of Patty's pictures-Irving Fenner, who had killed her dear Patty Rose?

Entering the village, Charlie called Wilma on her cell phone, touching the button for her aunt's number. Wilma didn't answer. Turning down Ocean, Charlie watched the streets, among the feet of the locals and tourists, looking for the kit. She saw no one searching for Kit. But then, as she approached the library, she saw a dark little shape in the garden of the shop next door. With a surge of excitement she touched the brakes and pulled over.

But it was Dulcie, there by the building next to the library, not the tortoiseshell kit. Dulcie, prowling along through the front garden as if she was searching for Kit. When the dark tabby turned away, moving down the little lane between the buildings, Charlie didn't call out to her.