Рита Браун - Claws And Effect

When they passed, the dog came over to the cats. She sniffed the wall as high up as she reached. "Yes, here. Human hands."

"Let's push it," Murphy said and the three leaned against the square stone.

A smooth, soft sliding sound rewarded their efforts, then a soft clink surprised them. The floor opened up. One big slate stone slid under another one, revealing a ladder. It was dark as pitch down there.

"Tucker, you stay here. Pewter, you with me?" Murphy climbed down the ladder.

Wordlessly, Pewter followed. Once down there their eyes adjusted.

"It's a bunch of machines." Pewter was puzzled.

"Yeah, those drip things. They don't look broken up."

"Get out of there. Someone's coming!" Tucker yelled.

The two cats shot up the ladder, the three animals leaned against the stone in the wall, and the slate rolled back into place.

Breathlessly they listened as the steps came closer.

"Behind this carton." They crouched behind a tumbled-down carton as Jordan Ivanic walked into the room and threw a switch. He plucked a carton off the top of the neat pile, turned, hit the switch off, and left.

"Let's get out of here before we're trapped," Pewter whispered.

"You know, I think you're right," Mrs. Murphy agreed.

They hurried down the corridor, pushed open the stairwell door, ran back up one flight of stairs, and dashed out onto the loading dock. They jumped off and ran the whole way back to the post office, bursting through the animals' door.

"Where have you been?" Harry noted the time at four-thirty.

"You'll never guess what we found," Pewter breathlessly told her.

"She won't get it." Tucker sat down.

"It's just as well. The last thing we want is Harry back in that hospital." Murphy wondered what to do next.

30

"What is this?" Mim pushed a letter across the counter.

Mrs. Murphy, with quick reflexes, smacked her paw down on the 8'' x 11'' white sheet of paper before it skidded off onto the floor. "Got it."

Pewter, also on the counter, peered down at the typewritten page. She read aloud,

Meet me. I will be the next victim. I need your help to escape. Why you? You are the only person rich enough not to be corrupted. Put a notice for a lost dog named Bristol on the post office bulletin board if you will help me. I will get back to you with when and where."

Harry slid the paper from underneath the tiger's paw.

"Well?" Miranda walked over to read over her shoulder.

"Well, this is a crackpot of the first water." Miranda pushed her glasses back up on her head. "I'm calling the sheriff." She flipped up the divider.

"Wait. Let's talk about this for a minute," Harry said.

"This could be the killer playing some kind of weird game." Mim headed for the phone.

"Sit down, Mim. You've had a shock." Miranda propelled her to the table.

"Shock? Seismic." The thin, beautifully dressed woman sank into the wooden kitchen chair at the back table.

"This letter is from someone who knows our community, knows it well." Miranda searched her mind for some explanation but could come up with nothing.

Harry noticed the time, eight-thirty in the morning. She had a habit of checking clocks when she'd walk or drive by, then she'd check her wristwatch, her father's old watch. Ran like a top. Mim usually preceded everyone else into the post office in the morning. Like Harry and Miranda she was an early riser and early risers find each other just as night owls do. She tiptoed around Mim, knowing how hard Larry's death had hit her.

"Trap." Tucker found the letter irritating.

"Possibly." Mrs. Murphy twitched the fur along her spine.

"Flea?" Pewter innocently asked.

"In February?" Mrs. Murphy shot her a dirty look.

"We spend much of our time indoors. They could be laying eggs in the carpet, the eggs hatch, and you know the rest of the story."

"You're getting some kind of thrill out of this. Besides, if I had fleas you'd have them, too." The tiger swatted at the gray cat.

"Not me." Pewter smiled, revealing her white fangs. "I'm allergic to fleas."

"Doesn't mean you don't get them, Pewter, it means once you do get them you also get scabs all over." Tucker giggled. "Then Mother has to wash and powder you and it's a big mess."

"She hides the powder until she's grabbed you." Mrs. Murphy relished Pewter's discomfort at bath time. "First the sink, a little warm water, baby shampoo, lots of lather. My what a pretty cat you are in soapsuds. Then a rinsing. A second soaping. More rinsing. A dip with medicated junk. Drying with a towel. You look like a rock star with your spiky do. Pewter, the Queen of Hip-Hop."

"I don't listen to hip-hop." The rotund gray kitty sniffed.

"You hip-hop. You shake one hind leg, then the other. Real disco." Murphy howled with laughter.

"You know." Tucker, on the floor, paced as the humans discussed the letter. "What if this plea is like Mom with the flea powder? What's hidden?"

Murphy leapt down to sit next to her friend. "But we know what's hidden."

Pewter put her front paws on the wood, then slowly slid down. "Not exactly, Murphy. We know those machines, those IVAC units are under the basement floor but maybe that was the only place to store them. So we don't really know what's hidden and we don't know what this letter is hiding."

"Why Mim? Why not Sheriff Shaw?" Tucker frowned, confused.

"Because the writer is tainted somehow. The sheriff would pose a danger. Mim's powerful but not the law." Mrs. Murphy leaned into Tucker. She often sat tight with the dog or slept with her, her head curled up next to Tucker's head.

"Put up the notice. Put one up in the supermarket, too." Harry put her hands together, making a steeple with her forefingers. "Everyone will see it. That we know. Then do like the letter requests: wait for directions."

"Without calling Sheriff Shaw!" Mim was incredulous.

"Well-don't you think he'll want to keep you under watch? It would be clumsy. The letter writer would notice."

"Are you suggesting I be bait?" Mim slapped her hand on the table.

"No."

"What are you suggesting, Harry?" Miranda folded her arms across her chest.

"That we wait for directions."

"We? You don't know when and where I might receive these directions. I could be hustled into a car and no one would know."

"She's right," Miranda agreed.

"Yeah." Harry sighed. "Instant meeting. Just add danger."

"My point exactly. Harry, let the professionals deal with this." Mim got up and dialed Sheriff Shaw.

"I still think we should try the missing-dog notice by ourselves," Harry said to Miranda, who shook her head no as Mim read the letter over the phone to Rick Shaw.

"Now that Larry Johnson's been killed, Mother won't rest. She wants to find the killer probably worse than Rick Shaw and Coop." Murphy worried. "I don't know if we can keep her away from the hospital."