Shirley Murphy - Cat in the Dark

Earlier this morning when the two young women had coffee in the kitchen, Charlie had made no effort to be civil, had hardly spoken to Bernine. Wilma hoped that when Mavity arrived, her old friend would ease the atmosphere, that her earthy temperament would soften their various moods. Mavity might be ascerbic, without subtlety or guile, but her very honesty made her comfortable to be near.

As she picked up the coffeepot from the desk and moved across the room to fill Clyde's cup, she watched the cats sniffing the good smells from the kitchen and licking their whiskers. She could just imagine Bernine's sarcasm when the cats were fed from the same menu as the guests.

Clyde lowered the sports page and held out his cup. "Charlie going to stay out in the garage all morning? What's she doing?"

"Unloading her tools and equipment-she'll be in shortly. You could go out and help her."

Clyde sipped his coffee, shook his head, and dug out the editorial section, burying himself again. Bernine watched him, amused. Very likely, Wilma thought, Bernine understood Charlie's temper-and the reason for it-far better than did Clyde.

Dulcie watched Clyde, too, and she wanted to whop him, wished she could chase him out to the garage with Charlie. Didn't he know Charlie was jealous? That she was out there sulking not over the eviction, or simply over Bernine's presence, but over Bernine's proximity to Clyde himself? Males could be so dense.

But you didn't need female perception, or feline perception, to see that Bernine's sophistication and elegant clothes and carefully groomed good looks, coupled with her superior and amused attitude, made big-boned Charlie Getz feel totally inadequate. You didn't need female-cat intelligence to see that Charlie didn't want Bernine anywhere near Clyde Damen.

Scowling at Clyde, she realized that Bernine was watching her, and she turned away, closing her eyes and tucking her nose beneath her paw, praying for patience. Must the woman stare? It was hard enough to avoid Bernine at the library, without being shut in, at home, with that cat hater.

Why were anti-cat people so one-sided? So rigid? So coldly judgmental?

And how strange that the very things Bernine claimed to value in her own life, her independence and self-sufficiency, she couldn't abide in a sweet little cat.

Beside her on the couch, Joe was avoiding Bernine's gaze by restlessly washing, his yellow eyes angrily slitted, his ears flat to his head. He'd been cross and edgy anyway, since last night when they followed the old man and Azrael and lost them. And then the front page of the Gazette this morning hadn't helped, had turned him as bad-tempered as a cornered possum.

The Molena Point Gazette didn't concern itself with news beyond the village. Problems in the world at large could be reported by the San Francisco Chronicle or the Examiner. The Gazette was interested only in local matters, and last night's breakin occupied half the front page, above the fold.

SECOND BURGLARY HITS VILLAGE

A break-in last night at Jewel's Liquors netted the burglars over two thousand dollars from a locked cash register. This is the second such burglary in a week. Police have, at this time, no clue to the identity of the robber.

Police Captain Max Harper told reporters that though the department performed a thorough investigation, they found no mark of forced entry on the doors or on the window casings and no fingerprints. The crime was discovered by the store's owner, Leo Jewel, when he went in early this morning to restock the shelves and prepare a bank deposit. When Jewel opened the register he found only loose change, and loose change had been spilled on the floor.

Captain Harper said the burglar's mode of operation matched that of the Medder's Antiques burglary earlier this week. "It is possible," Harper said, "that the burglar obtained duplicate keys to both stores, and that he picked the cash register's lock."

Leo Jewel told reporters he was certain he had locked both the front and the alley doors. He said that no one else had a key to the store. He had closed up at ten as usual. Captain Harper encourages all store owners to check their door and window locks, to bank their deposits before they close for the night, and to consider installing an alarm system. Harper assured reporters that street patrols had been increased, and that any information supplied by a witness will be held in confidence, that no witness would be identified to the public.

Dulcie wondered if the police had collected any black cat hairs. She wondered what good the stolen money was, to Azrael. So the old man buys him a few cans of tuna. So big deal. But she didn't imagine for a minute that any monetary gain drove Azrael. The black torn, in her opinion, was twisted with power-hunger, took a keen and sadistic pleasure in seeing a human's hard-won earnings stolen-was the kind of creature who got his kicks by making others miserable. For surely a chill meanness emanated from the cat who liked to call himself the Death Angel; he reeked of rank cruelty as distinctive as his tomcat smell.

When the doorbell blared, she jumped nearly out of her skin. As Wilma opened the door, Mavity Flowers emerged from the mist, her kinky gray hair covered by a shabby wool scarf beaded with fog. Beneath her old, damp coat, her attire this morning was the same that she wore for work, an ancient rayon pants uniform, which, Dulcie would guess, she had purchased at the Salvage Shop and which had, before Mavity ever saw it, already endured a lifetime of laundering and bleaching. Mavity varied her three pants uniforms with four uniform dresses, all old and tired but serviceable. She hugged Wilma, her voice typically scratchy.

"Smells like heaven in here. Am I late? What are you cooking?" She pulled off the ragged scarf, shook herself as if to shake away remnants of the fog. "Morning, Clyde. Bernine.

"Had to clear the mops and brooms out of my Bug. Dora and Ralph's plane gets in at eleven. My niece," she told Bernine, "from Georgia. They bring everything but the roof of the house. My poor little car will be loaded. I only hope we make it home, all that luggage and those two big people. I should've rented a trailer."

Dulcie imagined Mavity hauling her portly niece and nephew-in-law in a trailer like steers in a cattle truck, rattling down the freeway. Bernine looked at Mavity and didn't answer. Mavity's minimal attention to social skills and her rigid honesty were not high on Bernine's list. Yet it was those very qualities that had deeply endeared her to Wilma. Mavity's raspy voice echoed precisely her strained temper this morning; she had been volatile ever since her brother arrived two weeks ago.

Greeley Urzey visited his sister every few years, and he liked to have his daughter and her husband fly out from the east to be with him; but it took Mavity only a few days with a houseful of company before she grew short-tempered.

"That house isn't hardly big enough for Greeley and me, and with Dora and Ralph we'll be like sardines. They always have the bedroom, neither one can abide the couch, and they bring enough stuff for a year, suitcases all over. Greeley and me in the sitting room, him on the couch, me on that rickety cot, and Greeley snoring to shake the whole house."

Dulcie and Joe glanced at each other, suppressing a laugh.

"It is a small house," Wilma said kindly, sitting down on the couch beside Dulcie and patting a space for Mavity.

Mavity sat stroking Dulcie, then reached to pet Joe. "You're a nice cat, Joe Grey. I wish all tomcats were as clean and polite."

She looked at Wilma, shaking her head. "Can you believe that Greeley brought a cat with him! A great big, ugly cat. Carried it right on the plane with him. He found it on the streets of Panama; it probably has every disease. My whole house smells of tomcat. I can't believe Greeley would do such a thing-a cat, all that way from Panama. Took it on board, in a cage. Three thousand miles. I didn't think even Greeley could be so stupid.