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

“How long?” Morgan said. “How long has she been like that?”

“From around noon yesterday,” Becky said. “So sleepy she couldn’t stay awake. If I woke her, she’d just drift off again, she just wanted to lie there on the couch and sleep, she slept most of the afternoon.” Her description struck a chill of fear through Morgan.

“Once when I woke her, she said she felt dizzy, that every time she went to sleep she dropped down, deep down into darkness. So dark, she said, falling down into darkness.”

Morgan went ice-cold. “That . . . That’s how I felt, when I woke in the car. As if I were trapped deep down in some heavy darkness. Even in the patrol car, and here in the cell, moments when I could hardly keep awake, so dull, wiped out.”

They looked at each other, frightened. Filled with Sammie’s perceptions, with her sure and specific cognition. As if Sammie had experienced exactly what Morgan had felt, Morgan’s confusion and dullness, her daddy’s helpless lethargy. Becky shivered and clung to him, a coldness reaching deep inside her like an icy hand.

She said at last, “I called Dr. Bates again, though still Sammie had no fever, no pain. He wanted to put her in the hospital, but I didn’t want that. I wanted her with Mother, I knew she’d take her to the hospital if she needed to. Once she was settled at Mother’s and sound asleep, I went looking for you. I feel sick that I must have passed our car twice and never seen it. The last time, it was just getting light, I must have just missed the police.

“But then,” she said, “the strangest thing. When I got back to Mama’s, Sammie was awake, sitting up and more alert. Mama said she woke cranky, that Sammie complained that her head hurt. Mama gave her another aspirin and called the doctor again. She was ready to take her to the hospital when Sammie came awake, sat up, and looked around her, surprised she was at Mother’s.

“Mama got her to drink some juice and eat a little hot cereal.” Becky looked at him, frowning. “That was . . . That was when Jimson found you. Early this morning, just after sunup? That was when Sammie woke.”

“The sun was in my eyes,” Morgan said. “I thought it was sunset, but then figured out the sun was coming up, that I must have slept all night in the car, I was trying to figure that out when Jimson jerked the door open and dragged me out.”

Becky glanced at Sergeant Trevis. She didn’t like talking about Sammie in front of him, she had no notion what he would make of the conversation. Trevis let them stay close together, let them talk. He was more eager to listen, apparently, than to take Morgan back and separate them.

“By the time I got home to Mama’s and sat down to eat some breakfast, Sammie was brighter, she came to the table and shared some scrambled eggs and toast with me. When the station called to tell me you were here, that you were in jail, it was all I could do not to panic. I asked if you were all right, I didn’t want to say much in front of Sammie, but the minute I got my purse, ready to leave, she had pulled on her sweater and meant to go with me, she was so tense, fidgeting with impatience to be with you, so out of control, so determined and stubborn I had a hard time making her stay behind with Mama. She said she had to talk to you, she had to tell you what she’d dreamed while she was sick. You remember that old man she talked about when she was playing with the airplane she made? The man she called the cowboy.”

“Yes, she’s talked to me about him.”

“She said she had to tell you about him. Somehow, in her mind that dream was connected to your being here. As little as I said, she figured out where you were, she figured out that the prison dream had come true.” Becky looked at Morgan helplessly. “She said this dream of the cowboy was part of what was happening to you, said she had to tell you.” She looked uncomfortably at Sergeant Trevis then turned away, muffling her face against Morgan’s shoulder.

“When I left, she clung to me,” Becky said, “she tried to come with me, she wept and wept, and all I could do was hold her.” Becky was weeping, too. He held her as she had held their child, seeking to heal her, wondering if anything could ever heal her, or heal Sammie, if any power could heal the three of them.

Morgan was hardly aware when Trevis turned and nodded to him, letting him know he must go back to his cell. Becky stepped back, freeing Morgan, wiping at tears again. “Do you have our car keys?” But then she realized the booking officer would have taken everything from Morgan, everything in his pockets.

Trevis said, “We have them, we’ve impounded the car for evidence.”

“Oh. Of course.” She looked at Morgan. “I still have the Parkers’ car. If it’s very long, I’ll use Mama’s old Plymouth. I need to see the attorneys. I want to see Mama’s attorney, too, before I see the others, I want advice from someone we trust.”

“I didn’t rob any bank, Becky. You know I didn’t kill anyone.”

“I know that. But even if the police want to believe you, they have to do it their way.” She looked at Trevis. “I know you’ll find out what happened. Did you find the Coke bottles?”

“No Coke bottles in the car,” Trevis said. “McAffee’s out searching the woods.”

Morgan felt stupidly grateful that they would take the trouble. He’d felt so betrayed by the police, abandoned by the men who were supposed to be his friends. He knew that was foolish, that they had a job to do, but now those few kind words, knowing they were trying to help, lifted his spirits some. He prayed they’d find the bottles, both of them. Only one bottle would have a trace of drugs, if that was what had happened. He knew no other way to explain the yawning cavern of emptiness he’d experienced, that had left his whole being hollow.

“If you find the bottles,” Becky said, “you’ll fingerprint them?”

Trevis nodded, looking put out that she would ask such a dumb question. He cleared his throat, turned, and opened the closed door. Becky hugged Morgan once more, kissed him and then turned away. As Trevis ushered Morgan back to his cell, she was met in the hall by another officer and escorted on out to the front. Morgan glanced back at her once, then was through the door of the lockup, through his barred cell door and locked in again. He lay down on the bunk, sick and grieving. He’d gotten himself into a mess, out of pure stupidity, had brought their lives shattering down around them. Had left Becky to fight, alone, a battle that terrified and perplexed him.

And Becky, outside the courthouse getting in the borrowed car, left the Rome jail wondering how she could keep Sammie from coming with her on her next visit. The child was so stubbornly determined. What would it do to their little girl to see her daddy in jail, after the terror of her nightmare? Yet she knew she couldn’t keep Sammie away, not when she burned with such an urgent need to see Morgan, with what seemed, to Becky, might in fact be a critical part of the wall that fate had built around them.

29

On Lee’s last night at Delgado Ranch he didn’t stay in his cabin, he slept under the stars beneath the willows, near to the gray, his head on the saddle, the saddle blanket over him. He dreamed not of the robbery as he usually would, sorting out, in sleep, the last details; he dreamed of Lucita. He’d had dinner with her and Jake, a painful evening, only Lee knowing this was the last time they’d ever be together, the last time he’d be even this close to Lucita.

She had made chiles rellenos for dinner, she knew they were his favorite, and that, too, bothered him. Almost as if she knew he would be gone in the morning, though of course she couldn’t know. Sitting at the table in their cozy dining room, feeling guilty in his longing for her, and feeling ashamed that he was running out on Jake after Jake had gone to the trouble to get him the job, he told himself that at least he hadn’t turned on Jake—though even now, at this late hour, he felt a pang of greed for the fat Delgado payroll. All evening his conflicting emotions kept him on edge, his remorse, his painful, bittersweet farewell that only Lee himself was aware of—only Lee, and the big yellow tomcat.