Рита Браун - Cat On The Scent

Archie got up, heading for the door. Ridley ran after him. “Arch! Come on, Arch. I'm trying to help.”

“Help? You accuse me of betraying the public's confidence!”

“I don't want you to lose what you've worked so hard to get. Come on, sit down.”

Archie rejoined him. “I am not on the take.”

“Okay.” Ridley paused. “Hey, did you hear that Tommy Van Allen is missing?”

“He's not missing. He's probably in Santa Fe or Buenos Aires, for God's sake. That is the most self-indulgent man I've ever met.”

“Rick Shaw called me. They're treating it as a missing-persons case. His plane is missing, too.”

“I'm glad we never pitched in and bought that twin engine. I don't know how I could have fallen for that.”

“It was fun . . . our flying club, but I don't get the power charge from flying that you guys do.”

“At least you could afford it.” Archie absentmindedly polished the brass bands on the rifle.

“Tommy and I already knew how to fly, of course, courtesy of the U.S. Air Force. And H. Vane learned in the RAF. Maybe being up in the air again reminded me too much of my service days or maybe I really am up in the air. It was too close for comfort.”

“Blair sure learned quickly. I thought a pretty guy like that would chicken out. I'd rather he had dropped out instead of you.”

“I can't warm to that guy.” Ridley offered Archie a beer. He passed. “He's not cold-blooded but he's not hot-blooded either. Like last fall, when he had that affairette with Sarah Vane-Tempest—”

Arch interrupted, “He did not.”

“The hell he didn't. They were discreet about it, that's all.”

“I can't believe she'd go to bed with Blair Bainbridge,” Archie said with disgust.

“Didn't last long. Maybe he got bored with her or she got bored with him. Then, too, I wouldn't want H. Vane breathing down my neck.”

“What's H. Vane expect, marrying a woman half his age?”

Ridley walked to the fridge. “Drink a beer, buddy, you look peaked.”

“Huh? Okay.” Archie took the cold beer, peeling back the pop-top. “I know I've been irritable. Too much work, Ridley. Just too much. My wife complains that she never sees me and since she only complains when she does see me, I don't want to go home.” He drank a long, slow swallow. “Being a county commissioner can sometimes, well, let me put it this way—if there's a buffoon, an asshole, or a certifiable psycho, not only will I meet them campaigning they'll show up in my office. And this reservoir stuff brings them all out of the woodwork.”

“Forget about it for a night. I'll make popcorn. We can tell lies about the women we've conquered.”

“Sounds good to me.” Archie drained the beer can, got up, and fetched another.

9

The rain stopped Wednesday morning. That evening after supper, Mrs. Murphy gathered Pewter and Tucker on the screened-in porch.

“Four miles is too far in the muck. Let's wait a few more days,” Pewter whined.

“For all we know, the plane will be gone by then.” Mrs. Murphy sniffed the wind, a light breeze out of the west. “I'm heading out.”

“I'll go with you.” Tucker's big ears moved forward.

“I'm staying home.” Pewter sat down.

“Chicken,” the dog teased her.

“I'm not chicken. I don't feel like getting dirty, especially since I've just given myself a bath.”

“Well, let's go.” Murphy opened the screen door, Tucker immediately behind her. The door flapped twice. Pewter watched them bound over the meadow by the barn. She felt a pang of missing out but not enough to follow. She walked back inside, deciding to curl up on the 1930s chair with the mohair throw. She liked to snuggle in the mohair but wished Harry were wealthy enough to afford cashmere. Pewter craved luxury.

Reaching the first creek dividing Harry's property from Blair Bainbridge's, the cat and dog were stopped by high water.

“Ugly.” Tucker paced the bank.

“Let's go up to the beaver dam.”

“If it's standing.”

“Hasn't been that much water. Come on.”

“I hate those beavers.” Tucker did, too.

“We'll be across before they know it.”

A quarter of a mile upstream the log-and-sapling lodge dominated the creek along with the sturdy dam the beavers had constructed.

Carefully, Mrs. Murphy put one paw on the dam. She tested its sturdiness, then sped across, small splashes of water in her wake.

Tucker whined but followed. Her progress wasn't as graceful but she made it. They were halfway across Blair's easternmost meadow before the beavers emerged from their lodge to inspect their dam.

Lights at Blair's place caught their attention. A white Land Rover was parked in the driveway.

“Wonder what Archie's doing at Blair's?”

Mrs. Murphy kept moving. “Trying to borrow the Porsche.”

They laughed until they reached the ridge, about seven hundred feet above sea level. They paused at the top, which bristled with rock outcroppings. Although only four miles across, the terrain was rugged in parts.

After catching her breath, Mrs. Murphy nudged Tucker. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

They swept down the ridge, skirting the thorn creepers and the underbrush, where they startled rabbits and one lurking fox. Mrs. Murphy hoped the bobcat was hunting somewhere else tonight.

The last creek had an upturned tree fallen over it. Mrs. Murphy danced across it. Tucker chose to swim the creek.

The abandoned buildings of the Urquhart farm shone silver in the moonlight, the slate roofs sparkling as though obsidian.

The doors to the barn were shut.

The two animals circled the barn, searching for burrows, preferably uninhabited. Mrs. Murphy looked up.

The Dutch door of a stall was partially open, flapping in the gentle breeze.

“I'll try it.” Mrs. Murphy squatted down, paused a second, then sprang upward, reaching the slight opening before the top door banged back again. She dropped to the old hay on the stall floor.

Walking over to the big doors, she pulled with her paw just enough to create a crack. Tucker wedged her nose in and both cat and dog pushed. The big door creaked back on its overhead track just enough for the powerful dog to push herself inside.

Tucker stopped. Tommy Van Allen's plane was still parked in the middle of the vast center aisle. “I'll be.”

“You sniff around the plane,” Mrs. Murphy ordered. “I'll get in the cockpit.”

The tiger unleashed her claws, vaulting at a stall post. She shimmied up, reaching a massive cross beam, and walked along the top of it until the white plane was directly underneath, ten feet below.

“That's a big drop, Murphy.”

“I know.” Murphy stared down at the wing, backed up a bit, then jumped off the beam. She hit the wing with a thud, sliding a little in the process, leaving red clay marks to disturb the pristine whiteness.

“You okay?” the dog called.

“Yes, but it's slick.” The cat tiptoed to the edge of the cockpit. She easily opened the door, as the handle was large and turned down, and the door was slightly ajar. Then she hopped inside, leaving the door hanging wide open. The odor of old leather filled her nostrils.

“See anything?” Tucker called up.

“Lots of dials and a throttle.”

“Blood?”

“No, squeaky-clean.”

Tucker, somewhat disappointed, returned to the task of sniffing around the plane. The odor of gas killed other scents.

Mrs. Murphy poked at knobs, put one eye close to the throttle to see if anything had fallen into the slidpath. She hopped around, unwittingly leaving muddy paw prints as a signature.