Shirley Murphy - Cat Cross Their Graves

She stopped at the doorway, looking in. The room was dim, the draperies still drawn. Lucinda hated closed draperies during daylight. The two lumps beneath the covers didn't move. Alarmed, Kit leaped up.

But the minute she hit the bed, Lucinda woke with a cry.

"Kit! Oh, Kit!" The old woman grabbed her, hugging her so hard that Kit couldn't breathe. Pedric woke and threw his arms around them both. "Oh, my, " Lucinda said. "Oh! So good to have you home. To hold you safe! Where were you? We were all so worried. Where have you been?"

"I found something," Kit told her. "And then I got trapped in the bathroom and I was afraid he'd come back and find me and I…"

Lucinda laughed. "Slow down. You're not making sense." The old lady set Kit down on the bed, and rose, pulling on her robe. "Come on, let's make some coffee, Kit, and warm milk, while Pedric gets dressed."

Sitting on a kitchen chair at the tiny table, in the little bar/kitchen, lapping up warm milk and devouring leftover steak, she told about the man. Listening to the shower running and knowing she would have to tell it all again, and not caring, she told Lucinda about the pictures, the gun, the tied-up child. With the smell of coffee filling the apartment, and Lucinda dressed in her quilted robe with yellow buttercups on it, Kit told her all about the man who had killed Patty and how she'd followed his trail and lost it and found it again, and about the pictures of Patty with the holes in them and how she'd called Captain Harper. When she'd finished, Lucinda hugged and hugged her.

"It was a courageous thing to do, Kit. To chase him like that, to keep on until you found him and then to slip into that cottage behind him. Oh, I do love you." She held Kit away. "And I do worry so about you. It was a courageous, dangerous, foolish thing to do. I'm so very glad you and the child are safe. Without that child…" Lucinda wiped at her eyes. "Without the two of you together, neither one alone might have left that place."

Kit felt very warm, deeply content. Tucking her face down in the crook of Lucinda's arm, she pressed against the old lady purring so hard that her reverberating body shook them both. But after a while, Lucinda got up and laid some logs in the fireplace and lit the starter, then carried her coffee to the window seat. Picking up the phone, she called Charlie. "I hope they're awake," she told Kit as the phone rang.

Kit crawled into her lap, listened to three rings, and then Charlie picked up.

"She's home," Lucinda said. "The kit's home."

"Oh, Lucinda. I'm so glad. Tell… Tell Pedric I worried all night about her." Lucinda grinned down at Kit. Max must be right there, listening, not guessing at the disguised message meant for Kit. Charlie sounded as if she'd just woken up. They talked for only a few minutes, then Lucinda went out to the veranda to fetch the morning paper.

She spread it out on the coffee table as Kit lay across her lap yawning, watching the fire blaze up. Very soon now, Captain Harper would have the evidence that she hoped would fry Irving Fenner, fry him good. It was lovely here in their beautiful suite-so different from life when she was a kitten, before she knew that humans' houses were wonderful, when she'd thought that all of life, for a cat, was dirty alleys, mean dogs, broken glass, jagged, empty tin cans, and mean boys with rocks. When she was little, running with that wild clowder of feral cats, she had thought every cat in the world grew up on the street scared and hungry and cold. That was the way life was. The big cats took the only warm sleeping places, and snarled and slashed when you tried to eat. She'd stayed with that wild band because they were the only cats like her, the only speaking cats she knew of. She'd stayed because she was little and alone and they were better protection than nothing. She'd run with them until they found their way to Hellhag Hill. But there she'd discovered Lucinda and Pedric, and life was suddenly all different. Now, as Lucinda read the paper, Kit snuggled closer. "What?" she said, looking up at the thin old lady. "What's so fascinating?"

Lucinda turned the paper so Kit could see. The expression on her face was both sad and fascinated. "You'd better have a look, Kit. I knew this yesterday, but until now, I didn't… Not until you told me about the little girl did I think there might be… more to the story." Lucinda picked Kit up and held her on her knee so she could see the page better.

Old Graves Found in Village Garden

The graves of two young children have been discovered in the village, the first yesterday morning by Cora Lee French as she dug in the backyard of the home she shares with three other Molena Point women…

Kit read the article, and read it again. Yesterday while she was trapped in that house, Captain Harper and the detectives were all looking at the graves of those poor children. Surely Joe Grey and Dulcie were there, they would have been right in the middle. The article said that no one knew who the children were. It didn't say they'd been murdered, but why else would someone bury them in secret? She looked up at Lucinda. "You knew all about this, while you were out hunting for me, you knew all about the dead children. Could the same man have done it, that Irving Fenner?"

"The man who we think killed Patty? But these bodies aren't new, Kit, they've lain there a long time. Well," she said, "I guess anything's possible."

"How could humans murder little children? That man will burn in hell, Lucinda," Kit said, with no doubt in her mind.

Lucinda stroked Kit until Kit felt a little easier. "You don't think," Lucinda said, "that that killer should be forgiven?"

"No," the kit said, hissing. "I don't imagine that." She looked up intently at Lucinda, at the old woman's wrinkled face and lively blue eyes. "No, Lucinda, I don't think that. Nor do you and Pedric."

"When Patty's daughter ran," Dallas said, "could you tell me more about that?" The tearoom fire had burned low, the pastry plate was empty save for one lone cinnamon roll, the coffee in its thermos getting cold.

"Because Marlie had testified against Craig and Irving Fenner," Dorothy said, "Patty was afraid for her. She got Marlie out of the country, had a driver take her to Vegas. Marlie flew out of there under an assumed name, headed for Canada, for Calgary, where Patty's secretary had arranged for a new car to be waiting, and an apartment and a job. Marlie went to work as a secretary.

"Craig was in prison and would likely be executed. And Irving Fenner was in custody, awaiting trial. But Fenner was so enraged by Patty and Marlie's testimonies, and so vindictive. Patty was convinced he would send someone to find Marlie and try to kill her. Patty didn't worry too much about herself, she always had people around her.

"Everything was fine for about a year. Marlie stayed in Canada, working. Fenner was convicted and serving time. Then one night, when Marlie had taken a weekend to drive to Alberta, her car went over a cliff in the rain. She died in the wreck.

"Some people said she'd committed suicide, that she hadn't been able to deal with life after Craig killed Conner. Patty knew different, she knew her daughter. She was certain that Irving Fenner had had Marlie killed.

"It could never be proved. No witnesses, no evidence that would hold up. When Fenner was released, Patty was more angry that he was free than afraid of him. Her friends convinced her to hire a bodyguard. She finally did; she kept him for about a year, then gave it up. Convinced herself that Fenner had left the state. Another of the group was already out, Harold Timmons. She heard rumors that he stayed in California, but she never found out where."