Shirley Murphy - The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape

But something had awakened Becky, too. Before Sammie started to scream. She was trying to remember what had jerked her to consciousness when she saw that the drapery hung awry. The bottom corner was folded back as if it had been disturbed. Had she left it that way? She didn’t think so.

Slipping out of bed she grabbed her purse and unholstered the loaded Colt revolver, the .38 that Morgan had so carefully taught her to handle. As she moved toward the sitting room, the scents of the garden and of freshly crushed grass were sharp. As if the night breeze had blown in, though she knew she’d left the door locked. The sitting room was empty—unless someone crouched behind a chair or behind the couch. Cocking the .38, she approached the shadowed furniture, shaky with the pounding of her own heart. She stopped suddenly when, behind her, Sammie screamed. Holding the gun down and away, she whirled toward the bedroom.

Sammie’s cry stopped abruptly, turned into a muffled sound of rage. Falon clutched the child against him, Sammie twisting and kicking. Grunting, he jerked her arm behind her so hard she caught her breath—but suddenly Falon stumbled. He struck out at the air as if someone had hit him. There was no one, he swung at empty air. Becky, holding the weapon low, moved to the bedroom. “Drop the child. Do it now.”

He swung Sammie down into her line of fire, nearly dropped the fighting child. Clutching her with one hand, again he swatted at empty air then ducked away. Grabbing Sammie to him, he ran straight past Becky, ignoring the gun, racing for the door. Did he think Becky wouldn’t shoot? She lunged, grabbed him by the shirt to pull him off balance, aimed at his legs away from Sammie, and fired.

He jerked and dropped Sammie. She fled. Falon stumbled out the door ducking, swinging his arms, nearly fell down the shallow steps. He beat at his shoulder and chest as if something clung to him. Becky heard Sammie in the bedroom calling the police. Falon struggled up, pushed his unseen attacker away, and ran through the azaleas and up the hill. Becky fired once at his retreating back, but then he was too near the neighbor’s house. She ran chasing him up to the street but didn’t dare fire again among the many houses. His limping footsteps pounded into the shadows beneath the trees; she heard him stumble again then heard a car door slam, heard the engine start. Tires squealed, and the car careened away. Becky turned and ran, burst into the sitting room.

Sammie stood between the two beds pale and silent, the phone still in her hand. Becky, with four rounds still in the chamber, checked the suite for a second assailant, though she doubted Falon had a partner. She pulled on a robe over her gown and dropped the gun in her pocket, then sat on the bed holding Sammie, waiting for the police. If they didn’t find Falon and lock him up, if they didn’t keep him in jail, he’d be back.

Not tonight, but soon.

Maybe her one sure shot had damaged his leg enough so he’d look for a doctor, someone who would treat him without reporting the shooting. She knew he’d keep coming back, harassing them until he had hurt them both or killed them.

Or until she killed Falon.

Could she have wounded him bad enough to make him stay away? When she looked at the threshold, there was blood on the carpet and on the steps. She was sorry she hadn’t killed him and put an end to it. If she had trained more, she might have been more effective in stopping him without harming Sammie. What training she’d had, Morgan had given her long ago. When the war was over and Morgan was home again, neither of them dreamed that her life and Sammie’s might depend on added training. The world seemed at peace then. They were caught up with being a family again, with being together and being happy. She started when a shadow moved through the bushes toward the French door. She rose, her hand in her pocket on the gun, and stood waiting.

“Police,” a man shouted. His back was to the light, he was only a silhouette, she couldn’t see a uniform. At the same moment she heard Anne call from the top of the stairs, then the figure on the terrace moved into clearer view where the sitting room light struck across his badge and sergeant’s stripes. A tall, thin man with sandy hair.

She told him she was armed, slowly drew the gun, opened the action, and laid it on the dresser. “Come in,” she said dryly.

“Sergeant Krangdon,” he said, entering, glancing at the gun. Anne was coming down the carpeted stairs beside a second officer. The two men searched the suite while two more officers searched for Falon outside, their lights moving among the bushes, circling the garden and the neighbors’ gardens and then up the hill. The sergeant took samples of blood and photographed bloodstains, out to where Falon’s trail disappeared among the mulch and bushes. Anne didn’t stay downstairs long. Seeing that Becky and Sammie were safe, she went up again, as Sergeant Krangdon asked her to do, to avoid disturbing any evidence. Sammie stood huddled against Becky, cold with the aftermath of fear. But something else shone in Sammie’s eyes. She looked up at Becky with a deep and secret amazement. Becky looked back at her, shaken with what she’d seen.

Earlier, after Falon attacked Becky in the parking lot, Sammie had said, Misto couldn’t help you, Mama, the dark was too strong.

If the cat couldn’t help her then—if there was a real ghost cat, Becky thought—why had he been powerful enough tonight to attack Falon? To make Falon pause so she could get in that one telling shot?

Had the difference to do with Sammie? With the fact that Sammie was in danger?

When Sergeant Krangdon returned she watched him unload her gun and bag it for evidence. He didn’t seem concerned that he was leaving her with no protection from Falon. Quietly she answered his questions. Told him how Sammie had awakened screaming, and that she had grabbed the gun from her purse. She showed him where she had stood when she fired. She didn’t tell him who the man was, she didn’t say she knew him, and Sammie remained silent.

“If you could ID him,” Krangdon said, “if you would file a complaint, you can take him to court, put a restraining order on him.”

“How can I? I don’t know him. I can’t identify a man I’ve never seen before.”

If Falon were caught, if he learned that she had identified him, and if he were then released, as he likely would be, he would come after them with even more vengeance. And what did the police have, to hold him? They had only her word against Falon’s. They couldn’t hold him long on that. She had heard of women attacked, brutally beaten, where the story proliferated, in gossip, even in the papers, that they had led the man on, had enticed him. Maybe the day would come when women were treated more fairly, but it hadn’t arrived yet and she wasn’t taking chances.

Most damning of all, Falon’s testimony had helped convict Morgan. If she identified Falon for the break-in, what would the police or the court say? That she’d filed the complaint to get back at Falon? That she had enticed Falon, had set him up?

She thought of calling Quaker Lowe, but maybe she didn’t want to know what he would advise. If she called Lowe now, in front of the police, they’d know there was more to the story, that this hadn’t been a random break-in. She was courteous to Krangdon, cooperative in every other way. When he’d finished the interview he assigned young Officer Bishop to stay on the premises so that Becky and Sammie might get some sleep. He suggested they get a carpenter to install a metal barrier over the French doors. “An open grid,” he said, “that can be locked but will let in air in hot weather. Make sure he installs it so the drapes can be pulled. And,” he said, “you could put better locks on some of the solid doors, replace the thumb locks with dead bolts.”