Shirley Murphy - Cat in the Dark

Dulcie and Joe exchanged a look.

"I didn't think," Charlie said, "that your brother knew anyone in the village."

"Greeley went in there because the cat kept going in, made itself right at home. They got to know each other, being as they've both lived in Latin America. It's nice Greeley has found a friend here. Well, she does keep those awful voodoo things…"

Mavity stirred sugar into her tea. "I'm sorry Greeley wouldn't come with us tonight. Said he just wanted to walk through the village, enjoy the shops one more time. I've never known Greeley to be so taken with a place."

The cats, imagining Greeley gazing casually into one of the village's exclusive shops while Azrael slipped down through its skylight, rose quickly and, feigning a stretch and a yawn, they beat it out of the patio and across the street, heading fast down the hill.

Watching them, Charlie rose, too, and slipped away.

Standing under the arch, she saw them disappear down the slope, watched their invisible trail shivering the grass as they hurried unseen toward the village.

They had certainly left suddenly.

But they were cats. Cats were filled with sudden whims.

Except, she didn't think their hasty departure was any whim.

From somewhere below she heard faint voices. The girl's laugh sounded exactly like the female voice she'd heard the night she watched Joe and Dulcie on the rooftops.

She shook her head, annoyed at her wild imaginings. Molena Point was a small village, one was bound to hear familiar voices- probably from one of the houses below her.

But she felt chilled, light-headed.

Hugging herself to steady her shaken nerves, she was gripped by an insight that, until this moment, she would not have let herself consider.

An insane thought.

But she knew it wasn't insane.

A footstep scuffed behind her, and Clyde stepped out from the shadows. He put his arm around her, stood hugging her close, the two of them looking down the hills. After a moment, she turned in the moonlight to look squarely at him.

She wanted to say, I've suspected for a long time. She wanted to say, I know about the cats. I didn't know how to think about such a thing.

But what if she was wrong?

Leaning her head against his shoulder, she felt giddy, disconnected. She recalled the night she'd walked home from dinner and saw Joe and Dulcie racing across the roofs so beautiful and free- the night she heard those same voices.

And suddenly she began to laugh. She collapsed against Clyde laughing, tears streaming. What if she was right, what if it was true? She couldn't stop laughing, he had to shake her to make her stop. Holding her shoulders, he looked down at her intently. He said nothing.

After a while, as they stood gazing down the empty hill, he said, "Were you really jealous of Bernine?"

"Who told you that?"

"A friend." He took her face in his hands. "So foolish- Bernine Sage is all glitz. There's nothing there, nothing real. She's nothing like you. What's to be jealous of?" He kissed her, standing on the moonlit hill, and whispered against her neck, "My friend tells me I'm not romantic enough-that it takes more than a few car repairs to an old VW van to please a lady."

Charlie smiled and kissed him back. It was a long time later when she said, "Doesn't your friend know how to mind her own business?"

"Oh, meddling is her business. That's how she gets her kicks." He held her tight.

Down the hills, not as far away as Charlie and Clyde imagined, the cats stood rearing among the tall grass, looking up the hill and watching the couple's hugging silhouette, and they smiled. Humans-so simple. So predictable.

Then Joe dropped down to all fours. "So what will it be? We find Greeley and blow the whistle on those two thieves-and maybe open a real can of worms for Harper? Or we find them, try to talk them out of this one last burglary?"

"Or we let it go?" Dulcie offered. "Let this hand play without us?" She went silent, thinking of dark Azrael: Satan metamorphosed. Beast of evil.

Portender of death? Was he really that-really a voodoo cat? A bearer of dark, twisted fate?

"When we charged out of the patio just now," Joe said, "hot to nail Greeley-that was a paw-jerk reaction." He waited to see the effect of his words, his eyes huge and dark in the moonlight.

She said, "I don't think we can stop them. Why would Greeley listen to us? And if we call the station…"

If Greeley was arrested and went to jail, and Azrael stayed on with Sue Marble, they might never see the last of his criminal proclivity, of his cruel nature.

She studied the village rooftops, the moonlit mosaic of shops and chimneys and oaks, so rich and peaceful. And she thought of Azrael moving in with Ms. Marble and all her voodoo trappings, and she wondered. Was there, unknown to Sue, evil power among those idols? A wickedness that Azrael could manipulate?

Joe said, "Greeley's all that Mavity has. It would break her heart to see him arrested."

"Maybe they'll go back to the jungle," she said, "if we let them go. If we don't interfere. Maybe they'll go where they belong- back to the jungle's dark ways."

Joe considered this. "Maybe," he said, and twitched a whisker. "And good riddance to el gato diablo." He looked down at Dulcie, and winked. And where moonlight washed the tall grass, their silhouettes twined together: one silhouette, purring.

SHIRLEY ROUSSEAU MURPHYhas received seven national Cat Writers’ Association Awards for best novel of the year, two Cat Writers’ President’s Awards, the “World’s Best Cat Litter-ary Award” in 2006 for the Joe Grey Books, and five Council of Authors and Journalists Awards for previous books. She and her husband live in Carmel, California, where they serve as full-time household help for two demanding feline ladies.

www.joegrey.com

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