Shirley Murphy - The Cat, the Devil, and Lee Fontana

In less than an hour she woke Sammie. She had to cajole her to hold the thermometer between closed lips. The minute she removed the little glass vial, Sammie was asleep again. The gauge read 96.0. When she finally reached Dr. Bates he was at the hospital with an urgent stroke case, he said he’d be there as soon as he could.

James Bates had been their family physician for three generations, he still took care of Becky’s mother, took care of all of them. He listened again to Sammie’s symptoms, said again that there was some kind of summer flu going around, said if Sammie got worse, to bring her to him at the hospital.

Looking at the clock, Becky realized it was way past time for Morgan to be home. Usually he called when he was late, so she figured he’d be along soon. She set the chicken and rice casserole on the back of the stove, and examined Sammie again for insect bites, even more carefully this time. The child didn’t want to wake, didn’t want to be bothered. When she did speak, her voice was so blurred it was nearly incoherent. The time was past seven, and still Morgan wasn’t home.

Morgan did sometimes work late when a customer was in a hurry for his car, but he always called to let her know. Sharply concerned now, she phoned the shop. The phone rang eight times, ten, but no answer. Ten minutes later she called again, in between pacing with worry. Again, no answer. When it was fully dark and Morgan still wasn’t home, she phoned again, let it ring and ring and then she borrowed her neighbors’ car, bundled Sammie up, called Dr. Bates to tell him where she’d be. Sammie was only half conscious as she carried her to the car, covered her well, and drove first to the shop.

The office and bays were dark, the bay doors closed and locked tight, the parking area dark and empty, both Morgan and Albert Weiss, the new mechanic, were gone. She cruised a ten-block area looking for Morgan’s car. When she didn’t find it she drove home again but Morgan wasn’t there. She carried Sammie inside, tucked her up on the couch again, and looked in the phone book for Albert’s number.

There was no Albert Weiss listed. She called the operator, told her it was an emergency, but she had no listing for him, either. Becky sat at the dining table, her hands trembling. She phoned her neighbors. They said they wouldn’t need the car until morning, that she could keep it all night if she needed to. The Parkers were an elderly couple, both in ill health, and she couldn’t ask them to keep Sammie. She bundled Sammie back in the car and headed for her mother’s, she meant to leave Sammie with Caroline, the doctor could see her there. Or if Sammie got worse, Caroline would take her to the hospital. Both Becky and Caroline preferred to keep her at home, both were a little wary of hospitals, though for no particular reason. Once Sammie was settled, Becky intended to go look for Morgan, to drive every street in Rome and every surrounding farm road until she found his car. She didn’t imagine that he was out drinking or with another woman, she knew him better than that. Something had happened to him, and when she thought about Brad Falon newly back in town, a sick, almost prophetic fear touched her.

Approaching her mother’s sprawling white house, she was eased by Caroline’s welcoming lights. Maybe Morgan was here, maybe he had stopped by for something. Her own birthday was only a few weeks away, maybe they were planning a surprise and had lost track of the time.

But Morgan’s car wasn’t there. She parked in the drive, got out, carried Sammie across the lawn and up the front steps. When Caroline answered the bell and saw Becky’s face, she took Sammie from her. Settling the child on the couch, she sat close beside her easing Sammie onto her lap as Becky described Sammie’s sleepiness, her low temperature, and then her worry over Morgan. Caroline took charge as she always did, and soon Becky was out the door again, shaky with concern for Sammie, and frightened for Morgan, driving the dark streets of the small town looking for him, looking for their old blue Dodge.

Lee, alone in the pickup following the drilling truck, was pleased by the silence after the noisy, busy day. The sun was gone behind the western hills, the glaring desert softened, now, into deeper shades, the dry gulches and low mountains catching streaks of gold in the last light. He spotted a coyote slipping along a wash, just its ears, a flash of its back, and the tip of its tail, maybe hunting alone, or maybe not. In the quiet he thought about James Dawson, and smiled. Both Lee and Dawson born the same year, Dawson with no one nearby to tend his grave or to care about him, maybe no one to know he was dead, a lonely old man lying in that little cemetery just waiting for someone to come along and take notice of him, to revive and resurrect him.

When, ahead, he saw Ellson’s truck buck into low gear for a long incline, Lee slowed to keep the distance, noting the gravel road that led off to the right following the slope of the rock-strewn mountain, marked with a faded wooden sign that read JAMESFARM. Somewhere down that road, not too far, should be the airstrip. Beyond a scraggly patch of tamarisk trees, he glimpsed an old barn, lopsided and about ready to collapse; but maybe it would hold up for a while longer.

He was going to need a car or truck and, as he scanned the upper slopes of the mountain, he knew he’d need a horse; that meant a trailer, too. And he sure as hell needed a gun. Easing his foot on the pedal, he swallowed back a tickle in his chest. He’d better not screw up this time or they’d lock the door on him for good. He followed Ellson’s taillights, heated with the growing excitement that a new job always stirred.

As evening settled in around them, Jake’s headlights came on and Lee switched on his own lights, their beams driving the last desert shadows into falling night, then soon into blackness. And, in the shadowed cab of the truck, Lee knew suddenly that he was not alone, he felt a cold presence nothing like the comforting nearness of the ghost cat. In the dark cab he turned to look at the seat beside him, and his hands tensed on the wheel. A woman sat beside him, her full, dark skirt swirled around silk-clad ankles, her black hair blending into the shadows, her face unseen. For an instant he thought it was Lucita, then knew that it was not. This was a thin-faced woman, a hard and lethal beauty. Watching her, Lee swerved the truck so badly that he had to fight frantically to right it, jerking the wheel, trying to keep his eyes on the road.

“Relax, Fontana,” she said softly, “I did not mean to frighten you.”

“What the hell did you think you’d do?” The timbre of that voice, even in the tones of a woman, resonated with the cold chill Lee knew too well. “Why would you appear as a woman? How do you do that, turn yourself into a woman?” If the dark spirit had to torment him he’d rather it did so as a man, or what would pass for a man.

She smiled. “You have a new project, Fontana, and that is good. Very good.”

“What the hell do you want? Get out and leave me alone.”

When she touched his arm, he shivered. “But in choosing this new plan, Lee, you have abandoned the Delgado undertaking.” She waited, watching him. “Think about this. Why not take on both challenges? That would be a real triumph.”

“Get the hell out of here, go haunt someone else.”

“You could do that, Lee, you could lift both the post office money and the Delgado payroll. Think of what they’d add up to. A real fortune, a success that would make you famous across the country, you’d be in more history books than your grandpappy.”

“Why the hell would I want to be famous, and have every cop in the U.S. after me?” The truck went into a rut again, too near the edge, and he gave his attention to his driving.