Cat in the Dark

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  She was urging the old Chevy up the hill when she saw two cats racing through the tall grass and recognized Joe Grey's tailless gallop and his flashy white markings. Beside him, Dulcie blended into the grassy shadows like a dark little tiger. It still amazed her that they traveled so far. The freedom of their racing flight made her itch for paper and charcoal, and when they vanished into a tangle of Scotch broom, she slowed the van, watching for them to reappear.

  They came out of the bushes suddenly and sat down near the street, regarding her van as she moved slowly by. They looked almost as if they knew the vehicle, as if they were quite aware that she was at the wheel and wondered what she was gawking at.

  She stopped the van and let it idle, to see what they would do.

  They glanced at each other, a strange little look between them, then they rose again and trotted away. Turning their backs, they disappeared into the meadow grass as if dismissing her.

  Driving on, she couldn't rid herself of the notion that Joe and Dulcie had cut her dead. Had not wanted her snooping, had all but told her to mind her own business. Even after she began the Blackburns' repairs she kept seeing the two cats turning to look at her, seeing their impatient, irritated expressions.

  The Blackburn house was a small, handsome Tudor with gray stone walls, brick detailing, and a shake roof. Letting herself in, she did a light weekly cleaning, fixed the sticking latch on the back gate, and put new washers in a dripping faucet. Mrs. Blackburn had left her check on the hall table with a plate of chocolate chip cookies and a note.

  Charlie, Becky made a ton of these for school, and I snagged a few. There's milk in the refrigerator.

  She sat at the Blackburns' kitchen table enjoying the cookies and milk, then put her plate and glass in the dishwasher and headed back for the apartments.

  She arrived just after six. Mavity had left, her VW Bug was gone. She checked the work Pearl Ann had finished, her patches on the back wall of the building so cleverly stippled that, once the wall was painted, no one would ever guess there had been need for repairs. As she headed out again through the patio, she heard a little clicking noise.

  Glancing above her, she saw that Winthrop Jergen's windows were open, the louvered metal shade blowing gently against the molding.

  She wondered if Pearl Ann had missed her appointment and was still there, because Jergen never opened the windows. Strange that both Pearl Ann and Mavity would forget to shut them, considering the angry exchanges they'd had with Jergen. Though she could hardly blame Mavity for forgetting, with the events of the morning.

  Heading up the stairs, she knocked twice and when Jergen didn't answer she let herself in. He didn't much like her having a key, but as long as she contracted to clean for him, both she and Mavity had keys. She thought, when she pushed the door open, that he must be there after all, and she called out to him, because beyond the entry she could see the glow of his computer screen.

  He didn't answer. But she could see a spreadsheet on the screen, long columns of numbers. Her attention focused on the room itself, on the overturned lamp hanging off the desk by its cord, on the toppled swivel chair lying amidst scattered in-boxes and file folders. On Winthrop Jergen lying beside the chair, his blood staining the papers and seeping into the Kirman rug.

  Charlie remained absolutely still. Looking. Trying to take in what she was seeing.

  He lay twisted on his side, his white shirt and pale blue suit blood-soaked. His throat was ripped open in a wide wound like a ragged hank of bleeding meat.

  A cleaning cloth lay beside him in a pool of blood, the kind of plaid mesh cloth that she bought in quantity. Though he couldn't possibly be alive, she knelt and touched his wrist. There was, of course, no pulse. No one could live with that terrible wound, with their throat ripped away. She felt nauseated, could feel the cookies and milk want to come up.

  Stepping carefully around Jergen's body, trying not to be sick, trying to stay out of the blood, she moved to the desk, fished an identical cleaning cloth from her pocket, and used it to pick up the phone.

  But then she quietly laid it down again and grabbed up a heavy postal scale and turned to face the room, appalled at her own stupidity. If the killer was still in the apartment, she had to get out.

  What was she was going to do, fend him off with a postal scale?

  But she had no other weapon.

  Warily she moved into the bedroom, checking the closet, then the bath. Finding those spaces empty, she approached the kitchen, knowing she should run, get out-knowing this was crazy, that this could not be happening. It was bright afternoon in a village as respectable and civilized as a cup of afternoon tea. Through Jergen's front windows, the low sun gleamed gently, sending sparkles across the calm sea and across the village rooftops; this was Molena Point, tame and quiet, not New York or L.A. with their news of bloody daytime murders.

  Finding the kitchen empty, she returned to Jergen's desk, and using the cleaning rag to pick up the phone, she called 911.

  But even as she dialed, she wondered if she'd locked the front door behind her. And, waiting for the dispatcher, she laid down the receiver and fled to the door and locked it.

  She returned to the desk to hear the dispatcher shouting, "Hello? Hello?"

  Standing over Jergen's body, holding the phone in the dustrag, she began to shiver. The metallic smell of blood and the smell of other bodily releases sickened her. She gave the address and stood staring down at Jergen's bloody face and bloody, torn throat, unable to hang up or to look away.

  The only dead people she had encountered in her twenty-eight years were those from whom all signs of violence or distress had been gently wiped away, bodies thoughtfully groomed and arranged in the clean satin lining of expensive caskets-an elderly neighbor when she was twelve, her mother's cousin Marie two years later. Her father, when she was eighteen, and her mother when she was in art school. All the deceased were dressed in their Sunday best, their hands calmly folded over their demure chests, her mother's gold wedding band gleaming on her pale finger.

  In the room's silence, the faint hum of the computer was like a thin voice whispering to her. Moving past the end of the desk and the two low file cabinets, she saw, for the first time, what appeared to be the murder weapon; though for a long moment she looked at it uncomprehending.

  On the rug beside the file cabinets lay the metal divider from an ice cube tray. Blood covered its protruding aluminum handle and had run down into the little squares turning them as red as if someone had ejected a double line of red ice cubes-blood ice cubes. There should be a little wooden stick in each like the frozen orange-juice suckers that mothers made to keep their kids from eating junk.

  Sirens screamed, coming up the hill. She backed away from the bloody kitchen utensil and moved unsteadily to the wide window beyond the couch. Standing at the glass, she watched the emergency vehicle careen into the lane, followed by two squad cars, watched two medics jump out loaded with an oxygen tank and black bags-as if her report of death had been faulty, as if the caller might have misjudged the condition of the victim. As if Winthrop Jergen still had a chance at life. Behind the medics, Max Harper swung out of his police unit, and two more uniformed officers from the other squad car double-timed through the patio as she hurried to unlock the door.

  21

  HIGH UP THE HILLS, a narrow hunting trail led beneath a tangle of toyon bushes, a track no wider than a cat's shoulders, and along the path in a spill of sunshine, Joe and Dulcie crouched feasting on a fat mouse, the last of five sweet morsels they had caught within the hour skittering among the roots and leaves. Above the cats, the toyon's hollylike berries were hard and green, having just emerged from their summer blossoms; the afternoon was warm and still, the only sound was the twittering of some sparrows pottering among the upper leaves.

  Suddenly sirens screamed, blasting up from the village.

  Rearing tall so they could see down the hills, the cats watched an ambulance careen up the winding streets followed b
y two police units, and skid into the dead-end street below Clyde's apartments-and they took off down the hills, Joe with visions of Clyde falling off the roof, Dulcie's sudden fear involving the power saws. Bolting down the slopes, charging through bushes and tall grass and across the last street, they scorched past the hot rubber stink of the ambulance and squad cars and into the patio.

  Men's voices from above them, from Winthrop Jergen's open windows. The police radio. Max Harper's quick commands-and the faint but unmistakable smell of human blood. Racing under the stairs and up the inner wall, they slipped beneath Jergen's sink and pushed the cabinet door open.

  The smell of blood, of death.

  Slinking across the linoleum, they crouched at the edge of the living room. The instant the uniforms' backs were turned, they bolted under the cherry credenza, peering out at Winthrop Jergen's sprawled body. The smell of his shaving lotion mixed strangely with the stench of death.

  The lamps were all lit, every light burning except the lamp that hung over the edge of the desk. The toppled swivel chair and scattered papers and files were all soaked with Jergen's blood. As the medics rose and moved away, the cats got a good look at Jergen, his throat ripped as brutally as if a leopard or tiger had been at him-but this was not a hunting kill, this was the result of human malice.

  As the photographer got to work, the flashing strobe lights nearly blinded the cats, forcing them to squeeze their eyes shut. The after-flashes, the blazing white reverse-images of Jergen's body, were as eerie as if his light-propelled spirit kept flashing back, trying to rejoin his corpse.

  Beyond the windows, clouds had begun to gather, dimming the late afternoon. The tangle of officers' feet moving carefully across the Kirman rug, skirting around the body, Charlie sitting quietly on the couch out of the way, and the familiar forensics routines filled the cats' vision and minds as the photographer shot his last roll and Officer Kathleen Ray began to collect evidence, her dark hair swinging around her shoulders. The first item she bagged, lifting it carefully from the floor beyond the file cabinets, held the cats' complete attention.

  A device from the freezer, the thing that held the ice cubes, but covered with blood, dripping blood, its handle sticking up like a bloody knife, making them see too vividly a human hand jabbing and jabbing that blunt instrument into Jergen's soft flesh.

  The cats' own bloodthirst was normal; it was the way God had made them. They were hunters, they killed for food and to train their young-well maybe sometimes for sport. But this violent act by some unknown human had nothing to do with hunting-for a human to brutally maim one of their own kind out of rage or sadism or greed was, to Joe and Dulcie, a shocking degradation of the human condition. To imagine that vicious abandon in a human deeply distressed Dulcie; she did not like thinking about humans in that way.

  Pushing closer to Joe, she watched Officer Ray's familiar procedures, the tweezers, the tedious routine of picking up each fleck of evidence, the bagging and labeling, and slowly the thoroughness of her actions began to ease Dulcie. She imagined the intricacies of the laboratory studies that would follow, the carefully established methods, and a sense of rightness filled her.

  Then the fingerprinting began, the black powder, the lifting tape, the fingerprint cards, all carefully thought out and calming, techniques that were the result of a wonderful human intelligence.

  Humans might be sense-challenged, without a cat's balance and keen hearing and superior sense of touch, to say nothing of the cat's night vision, but the human's inventiveness and mental skills made up for those failures-people might be capable of brutality, in a shocking short circuit of the human spirit, but the best of mankind were still wonderful to observe.

  And, she thought, what are we-what are Joe and I, that we can understand the achievements of humankind?

  By the time the forensics team had finished, night had closed around the apartment, the black windows reflecting the blaze of lights within, turning the room stark and grim. The coroner arrived, completed his examination and bagged the body, and slid it onto a stretcher. As the paramedics carried it out, Officer Ray collected the last bits of evidence from where the corpse had lain. No one had touched the computer, except to lift fingerprints from the keyboard and monitor. The screen still glowed pale green, etching into the delicate glass the image of a financial spreadsheet.

  Max Harper had sent Officer Wendell over to Mavity's cottage to take her down to the station, and patrol units were looking for Pearl Ann. Harper sat with Charlie on the couch, questioning her. "Did you see Mavity and Pearl Ann come up here to clean?"

  "Pearl Ann was up here. I could see her through Jergen's bathroom window, probably repairing the towel rack. Mavity was headed for the stairs when I left, carrying her cleaning things. But, no, I didn't see Mavity enter the apartment."

  "What time was that?"

  "Around three-fifteen, I think. I got to the Blackburns' about three-thirty. I usually take Mavity with me; she cleans while I do the repairs. But today-Jergen had asked for some extras, so I sent her up to help Pearl Ann."

  "What sort of extras?"

  "Clean the refrigerator, fix the towel rack that had pulled out of the bathroom wall, and repair a leak in the shower. He said he had a late afternoon appointment up the coast, wanted the work done while he was out. Mavity was going to do the refrigerator while Pearl Ann took care of the repairs."

  "And did you see his car, before you left for the Blackburns'?"

  "I wouldn't have; he keeps it in the garage. I thought he was gone. I…"

  "What?"

  "I think he must have been gone. Or-or already dead. Pearl Ann had the windows open, and he would never have allowed that."

  "You didn't see his car when you came back from the Blackburn place?"

  "No. Isn't it in the garage?"

  "There's a black Mercedes convertible parked down the street. We passed it, coming up. I've sent Brennan to check the registration and to check the garage."

  Officer Ray came out of the master suite to say that the towel rod had been reset and that there was fresh caulking around the bottom of the shower and between some of the tile. Soon Lieutenant Brennan returned. The garage was empty. He had run the plates on the black Mercedes parked down the street. It belonged to Jergen. Harper returned his attention to Charlie.

  "What time did you get back from the Blackburns'? Were the two women still here?"

  "Around six-thirty. They were both gone. I came up to close the windows, and he-I found him."

  "You realize I have to consider you a suspect, Charlie, along with Mavity and Pearl Ann."

  "That's your job," she said quietly.

  "Was anyone else in the building when you left? Clyde or any other workers?"

  "No, just Mavity and Pearl Ann. Clyde hadn't planned to come up. He had a busy schedule at the shop."

  "Do you have an address for Pearl Ann?"

  "It's that old brick office building down on Valley, across from the mission."

  "The Davidson Building?"

  "Yes. She rents a room above those pokey little offices. But she'll be on her way to San Francisco by now; she planned to spend the weekend."

  "How long have you known about her weekend plans?"

  "For weeks. She was really excited-she grew up somewhere on the east coast and she's never seen San Francisco."

  "How long has she been in Molena Point? How long has she lived at the Davidson Building?"

  "Four months, more or less-to both questions. Said she moved in there the day after she arrived."

  "She picked a great place to settle."

  "She's very frugal with money. I think she doesn't have much."

  "How long has she worked for you?"

  "The whole four months."

  "Married?"

  "No, she's single. And she's a good worker."

  "What kind of car?"

  "She doesn't have a car-she walks to work."

  "What brought her to the west coast? Where does she come from?" />
  "Arkansas maybe, or Tennessee, I'm not sure. She told me she wanted to get as far away from her overbearing family as she could."

  "How old is she?"

  "Twenty-seven."

  Harper made some notes. "Did you and Mavity talk about the sheaf of statements we found in Dora Sleuder's luggage? Did she give you any idea why Dora might have them?"

  "We didn't talk, no." She looked at him questioningly.

  "Did Mavity keep a gun?"

  "No. She's afraid of guns." She looked at Harper, frowning. "But that-that terrible wound… Mavity couldn't… A gun couldn't cause that?"

  "So far as you know, she did not have a gun?"

  "Well, she might. She told me once that her husband kept a gun, that after he died she was afraid to touch it. She asked Greeley to lock it away for her in a strongbox at the back of her closet. She said her husband had always kept a strongbox, a little cash laid by at home in case of some emergency."

  Beneath the credenza, the cats tried to follow Harper's line of thought. Was he guessing that Jergen's throat could have been torn after a bullet entered and killed him, perhaps to confuse the police?

  The cats remained hidden until Harper had sealed Jergen's apartment and Brennan had secured the stairs with crime scene tape. When everyone had gone, Dulcie leaped to the desk.

  Though the officers hadn't touched the computer, Captain Harper had called the FBI in San Francisco, arranging for a computer specialist to examine the files. The file on the screen said BARNER TAX-FREE INCOME FUND and was in Winthrop Jergen's name.

  "How much will the Bureau agent find," Dulcie said, "if he doesn't have Jergen's code? And, more important, if he doesn't have Pearl Ann's code?" She sat down beside the phone. Lifting a paw, she knocked the receiver off.