Shirley Murphy: Murphy_Shirley_Rousseau_Cat_Telling_Tales_BookFi

There’d been no mention of Fowler’s involvement in Kraft’s embezzlements, but Joe thought maybe Fowler wasn’t clean, maybe he and Esther had known all along, and looked the other way. If that was the case, Max might have plenty of information to use to help Billy.

He guessed the truth would come out when Max and Kathleen had all the loose ends wrapped up. Detectives Garza and Davis were, at this point, pretty much out of the loop. Dallas had started working another case, a domestic violence that had flared up noisily, night before last. And Juana was at home tonight, fasting, preparing for an early morning surgery. She had decided to go ahead with the knee replacement; Ryan had said Officer Brennan would be taking her to the hospital.

Joe thought about his strong and reliable friend having to deal with the pain of surgery and then with a mechanical knee, and he prayed that all went well. Charlie’d said Juana had taken her young cat over to the Firettis, to board, where he’d likely be spoiled just the way Juana spoiled him. Joe thought maybe Misto would play nursemaid, and spoil the little cat, too.

Out in the patio, as Billy helped Clyde arrange the tables, he watched a young couple leaving with their carrier, their new kitty peering out. Every cat had been spoken for, and those folks that the volunteers knew well had taken their cats with them. Others, not so well known, would wait while CatFriends checked them out, talked with their veterinarians, even visited their homes. Charlie said they weren’t going to rescue and doctor and nurture a cat, then not make sure it would be well cared for. Billy looked in at George Jolly’s two black-and-white adoptees, who waited in their carrier on a table near the kitchen. One reached out a paw to him, while the other rolled over for a tummy rub.

Charlie had told him the last one of George Jolly’s three elderly cats had, shortly before Christmas, been put down by Dr. Firetti because of painful liver failure. Charlie said Jolly was now, at last, ready for new housemates. When she described Jolly’s house, Billy knew the cats would like it. There were high shelves and all kinds of climbing places, and out in back, a lush garden, Charlie said, with an escape-proof fence. He guessed Sammie Miller’s two cats were, for sure, going to a happy home.

But his own cats had lucked out, too, Billy thought, with a whole hay barn full of mice to hunt. He didn’t know what made him think about Zandler just then. Except that the landlord had groused about his cats, said they were dirty. Well they were cleaner than that old man. He thought about Zandler prowling the burned house, and wondered again if Gran’s money was still hidden there—or if Zandler, or someone else, had found it. Maybe he’d never know, but he sure meant to keep looking.

As the remaining volunteers gathered for a good-night celebration, the scent of fresh coffee filled the patio and George Jolly brought out the anniversary cake he’d baked, setting it before the Damens: a three-layered confection iced in white, decorated with a red Valentine heart and a border of running cats. Everyone toasted the newlyweds, and toasted each other at the success of the auction. They had raised over forty thousand dollars, and every last stray had a new home, a more productive night than any of CatFriends had dreamed.

Charlie and Billy left soon after the boisterous toasts ended, Billy yawning, full of good food, sated with too many people talking all at once—and worried about tomorrow. Wondering if his friends could, indeed, stand up to the power of the county authority that meant to take him away. Now, tired and discouraged, he wanted only to climb into his bed, in his cozy stall, among his own furry family.

As Kit and Pedric and Lucinda left the party, Kit looked back over her shoulder hoping Pan would decide to come with them, but he didn’t, he only gave her a conspiratorial smile, and hopped into the Firetti van beside Misto. Wilma and Dulcie were leaving, too. Wilma, having done a background check on Emmylou Warren, had thought of asking her home with them, but Emmylou had already vanished; she hadn’t stayed long, a silent observer at the edge of the party, then had slipped out again into the night as was her way.

“Where will she go?” Wilma said, turning the car heater up as she and Dulcie headed home. “Keep on sleeping in her old car, among all the bags and boxes?”

“Or maybe off to look for Birely?” Dulcie said. “To tell him his sister has died?”

“How would she ever find him? Oh, but she has his cell phone number.” She glanced down at Dulcie. “What about Sammie’s house, now the police have released it? You suppose she left it to Birely?”

“What would he do with it?” Kit said. “A wanderer like Birely, settle down in one place? I don’t think so. Trapped by a roof and four walls? He’d be about as happy as a feral cat shut in a box.”

“I guess,” Wilma said. “Maybe she left the house to Emmylou, if she was Sammie’s only friend. That would be nice” She looked down at Dulcie and scratched the tabby’s ears. “You cats did all right,” she said. “Cats and cops together.”

Joe arrived home yawning, endured Rock’s wet licks across his face, gave Snowball a few licks of his own, and then was up into his tower stretched out among his cushions, staring up at the stars.

“Sleep tight,” Ryan called up to him.

“You did good,” Clyde said, “you all did.”

“Didn’t do bad yourselves,” Joe told them, thinking of their welcome help. And he slept, as did each of the cats, each warmed by their own private mystery: Joe Grey with dreams he hadn’t wanted, but wasn’t able to forget. Misto filled with visions of his lost past and, maybe, visions of what was yet to be. Dulcie awash in poetry whose source she could never have explained. And Kit, her wild dreams now given over, so suddenly, to an amazement of romance.

And Pan? What did Pan dream? Of past lives, as his daddy did? Of medieval times long vanished? Or did he dream of one tortoiseshell lady? Or, perhaps, dream equally of both, and with equal fascination?

But as the cats dreamed, each reaching out into realms they could not fully define, Wilma Getz dreamed, too. As Dulcie snuggled beside her beneath the quilt, Wilma slept wrapped in her own sense of miracle. Before leaving for the auction this evening, she had switched on her computer and found Dulcie’s last, finished poem, and didn’t that make her smile. The tabby’s sudden creative flare was, to Wilma, the greatest joy of all. The transformation of the thieving kitten she had adopted so long ago, to this most surprising and talented of cats, still left her marveling. Now, more than ever, left her nearly purring, herself, with excitement. And they slept, side by side, Dulcie and her human, dreaming, to the echo of Dulcie’s poems.

All along the cliff top blowing

She stalks her prey in grasses growing

Forest tall and thick above her

Quick and silent feline hunter

Queen of the high sea meadow

Mouse creeps very close to edge

She snatches it from narrow ledge

Sparrow tardy in his flight

Will never see another night

He’s gone to feed the queen

Through dark to early morn she’ll roam

Waves crash below

Gulls scream above her

Scolding as the wild queen passes

Through the swaying summer grasses

Queen of the high sea meadow

About the Author

SHIRLEY ROUSSEAU MURPHY has received nine national Cat Writers’ Association Awards for best novel of the year, two Cat Writers’ President’s Awards, the “World’s Best Cat Litter-ary Award” for the Joe Grey books, and five Council of Authors and Journalists Awards for previous books. She and her husband live in Carmel, California, where they serve as full-time household help for two demanding feline ladies.