Shirley Murphy - Murphy_Shirley_Rousseau_Cat_Coming_Home_BookFi

SHE LEFT THE city council meeting never looking in Arlie’s direction. She had debated whether to come, had waited in the shadows of a shop across the street, and then had slipped in among the crowd of locals, taken a seat way in the back. She’d almost turned and left again when she saw the police chief sitting up front in some kind of official capacity. Why would a cop be at a city council meeting? In this little burg? This wasn’t L.A. or New York. Nervously she’d sat down behind a tall man, hoping to be out of Harper’s sight. Though he couldn’t know her, couldn’t have any interest in her, he made her nervous. The speakers from the audience had been entertaining—angry, accusing, just what Arlie wanted. It had come off very well, and she knew he’d be in a good mood later.

When that part of the meeting was finished and the council moved on to other city business, she’d wanted to leave, but couldn’t without attracting attention. She’d wasted an excruciatingly boring hour before she could vanish within the crowd. The streets were growing dark, and the sea wind was cold. Walking up the street, turning right at the first side street, and then left, she headed up the eight blocks to the new motel room she’d checked into—it was a drag to move, but something about the first place had made Arlie nervous. Hurrying through the little lobby and down the hall, into the darkening room, she sat down to wait for him. It had been a successful meeting from his standpoint, a waste of time for her. This had nothing to do with her, except that she enjoyed the drama, she liked seeing Arlie at work.

Her involvement with the invasions had started as a favor, a trade-off that had ended up entangling her more than she liked. Now she was sorry she’d connected up with Arlie; she wouldn’t have if she’d known that he and the Colletto boys knew each other, that Arlie had been in prison with Victor. Talk about coincidence—this was an ugly one.

She’d thought she could spend some time with Arlie in San Francisco, now that he was out on parole, that she could bring back some of the excitement of their weekends in Vegas, and then come on down here alone to the village, take care of her business. But it hadn’t worked that way. Well, she was moving toward what she wanted. But she was being sucked in deeper than she liked by Arlie’s affairs, and away from her own objective. It angered her that he was paying out hard cash for these break-ins but wasn’t paying her, that he figured her help was for old times’ sake.

Whatever compensation she got would be from Maudie. Meanwhile, she had to admit, she liked the excitement of the invasions, getting in and out fast, the quick violence, terrifying those soft little women. The invaders were always the winners, and that was how she liked to play. And now, with David Toola gone, Maudie was just as easy a mark. She’d soon have the papers and, when she was done with Maudie, she’d have the money that was rightfully hers, would be out of California headed wherever she chose.

34

THE OAK TREES outside Maudie’s bedroom windows were barely visible when she woke, the sky deep gray, just beginning to lighten. Rising, she pulled on her warm robe and slippers and headed downstairs, glancing into Benny and Jared’s room to make sure the two slept soundly. She liked her early mornings alone, she liked the solitude. Today she would move into her new studio and she could hardly wait to get started; she wanted to do what she could before Jared came down to help her, wanted to do it her way. She felt like a kid at the prospect of her new work space, was nearly giddy with excitement.

In the kitchen she made a pot of coffee, and while it brewed she stepped into the dark studio, enjoying the clean smell of new lumber and fresh paint. Beyond the bare glass of the floor-to-ceiling windows the twisted oak branches loomed black and remote against the predawn sky. It was still too dark to see if anyone stood among the trees, looking in—but Pearl wouldn’t be prowling this early in the morning, she needn’t be prepared for her at this hour, Pearl was a late sleeper.

She was so anxious to get settled, to stack her bolts of bright fabric neatly on the shelves, to arrange her quilting frames, quilting table, and cutting table, to have them all in place beside her computer and sewing machines. Once she got to work, she’d feel that she was really home.

Working here would be like working right in the garden, she thought, in her own small Eden where her invented patterns would vie in color with cascades of garden flowers. Martin would have liked the new studio, she told herself, trying to put away the heaviness that surrounded every thought of him; he would have approved of their moving back to the village.

Quickly she returned to the kitchen, poured a cup of coffee, and carried it into the chill garage, propping the door open behind her. Setting her cup down on a carton, she pulled the lightweight office cart over to a stack of boxes and began sliding the smaller ones onto it, using her good arm. Jared and Scotty would help later with the heavy ones, and the furniture. She worked for nearly an hour, trying not to think about Martin. Thinking about Benny, and about Pearl, her emotions swinging from sadness to rage, to a cold need to see Pearl punished, to make right this one terrible wrong in the world. Wheeling her loaded cart into the studio, she opened the boxes, began to stack fabric neatly on the shelves, to arrange her spools of thread and small equipment in the new drawers that Scotty had built. When she had put away all she could, she returned the empty boxes to the garage, stacking them in one corner. That was when she realized that some of the packed boxes were missing: two bankers’ boxes containing Caroline’s personal papers and the mementos and photographs that she was saving for Benny. They had been right here just days ago, when she removed the sealed envelope from the kitchen box.

She wondered if Benny might have taken the boxes up to his room. But no, she’d cleaned in there late yesterday, had dusted under the beds and in the closet. Would the child hide them somewhere? Did he think she might throw them out when she moved everything else, that she’d decide she didn’t want to store them? She had said she’d be glad when the garage was cleared out, when she could pull the car in. Did Benny think she’d give Caroline’s things away, after she’d gone to the trouble of packing and moving them three hundred miles from L.A.? But who knew what scenario might occur to a child whose first seven years had been filled broken promises?

No, she thought. Pearl had returned, but when? Had she, not finding the ledger pages, taken the boxes to allow time for a more leisurely search? Maybe she thought Caroline had secreted the papers among her tax files or medical records, where one would have to go through everything to find them? Anger filled her that Caroline’s family photos were gone, and the mementos of Benny’s few short months with his stepmother that the child so valued, as well as Caroline’s marriage certificates, Benny’s father’s enlistment papers, and the official notice of his death. She didn’t like losing Caroline’s tax records, either, which she’d agreed to send on to Caroline’s sister along with a clutter of old family recipes and letters, and copies of a family genealogy that Caroline had saved for her own children, too many heavy items to take on the plane when she had the two children and their suitcases. The bigger cartons, containing the rest of the children’s clothes and books and toys, seemed undisturbed, nearly hidden beneath Maudie’s own cartons. She stood in the cold garage sipping her cooling coffee, feeling both frightened and energized, her hand straying once to the comforting weight hidden in her robe pocket. Now, with the whole village edgy over the invasions, who could fault her if she was prepared to defend herself and protect her grandchild?