Cat Laughing Last

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  Dulcie looked abashed. "I tried, Joe. I thought it would be a snap, that I could sit on the dispatcher's counter and watch the interrogation on her monitor, but I should have known better. Garza just took them into his office. And shut the door. Practically in my face. I lay down on my back against the door playing with my tail, but I got only part of it. Those doors are thick, maybe bulletproof. Garza asked about their leaving New York, about their movements just before their flight. Vivi sounded surprised, but then she got really mad."

  Joe smiled. "Sounds like Adele McElroy did talk to the New York detectives. But why would Garza ask questions and alert Vivi? If there is anything to my theory, they'll pack up and skip."

  "My thought exactly. But I really didn't hear enough to make sense of it. Garza drove them back to their cottage himself.

  "But he put a tail on them," she said, grinning. "So maybe that's his idea, too, to catch them skipping."

  "Who did he send?"

  "Davis. She's good, but I can find out more than she can. I can look in the windows to see if they're packing, and I can slip inside."

  "Watch yourself, Dulcie. Don't forget Elliott has that 'target pistol' as he calls it."

  "I don't think he'll use that again." She gave him a whisker kiss, and left him, leaping into the pine tree and scrambling backward down the rough trunk carrying the empty Styrofoam dish in its paper bag. She dropped it beside the steps of Prey's landlord, next to the trash can.

  Prey had turned the light off; only the glow of the TV remained. Across his windows the evening sky reflected in a glut of slow-moving clouds. Joe could smell rain. He hoped it would hold off. Even under the two-foot overhang, a sudden downpour would splash up from the shingles, drenching him and playing hell with Clyde's cell phone.

  He watched Prey pop another beer, sitting on the bed leaning against the pillows. Playing with the remote, Prey began to channel-hop, producing a staccato of jolting squawks and flashing light. As the evening deepened, the pine tree that rose beside the roof turned from separate green needles to a black and shapeless mass, and the house walls darkened to nondescript shadows blending with the ragged bushes. Only the pale sidewalk directly below retained its sharp edges, the concrete empty now except for a scattering of dead leaves skittering in the wind. Stretching out, Joe rested his chin on the metal roof gutter, looking down, half dozing, his bored gaze fixed on Prey.

  He stiffened.

  Something dark was sliding among the bushes; a figure was approaching Prey's windows noiselessly from the street, Joe caught a glimpse of jeans and a dark shirt. Was it the rookie that Garza had sent to tail Prey? Had he pulled a heavier shirt on over his pale T-shirt, and put on a black cap? The man moved along beside the shrubs below the window, making no sound at all.

  At nearly the same moment, Prey flicked the overhead light on again. As the harsh glow struck the bushes like a searchlight, the guy ducked away. Joe picked him out of the blackest shadows, crouching, watching the window above him. He looked bigger than the young cop. Inside the room, the glow of the single bulb shattered across the dresser's oval mirror, picking out Prey as he opened a third beer, the scar across his forehead angry in the artificial light. Staring at himself in the mirror, he moved to the bathroom and rinsed out a washcloth.

  Returning to the TV, he lay down and folded the cool compress across the healing wound. Outside the window the silent watcher waited. Above the dark treetops, the clouds lowered and extended, cutting away the last of the fading daylight, casting the village into darkness. The watcher moved closer, peering in through the glass.

  Snap, his shoe broke a dead twig. He crouched, frozen, as Prey swung up from the bed and switched off the light.

  Prey stood for some time peering out, picking nervously at the scar, glancing behind him around the room.

  When he pulled the blind, Joe could hear him moving, could hear drawers opening. Nipping across the roof, Joe dropped to the branch outside the bathroom window.

  In the lighted bathroom, Prey was sweeping razor and toiletries into his jacket pockets, along with a pair of socks that he snatched from the shower rod where apparently he had hung his laundry. When he left the bathroom, Joe slid the window open. In a moment he heard Prey punch the phone, and listened to him ordering a cab.

  Leaping back across branches to his own roof, Joe pawed at Clyde's phone, hitting the on button and the redial, the way he had set it up. In seconds he was speaking to the dispatcher.

  "Augor Prey is getting ready to split, packing clothes and shaving gear in his jacket. He just called a cab."

  "Will you repeat your message?"

  "Prey's ready to skip. Tell Detective Garza, now! I don't know where the tail is. There's a guy watching him, but I don't think it's your man." Joe watched Prey lift the mattress, shouldering it up high enough to reach clear to the middle, deeper than Joe had been able to search without smothering himself. "Well, I'll be damned," Joe said. "I think-tell Garza that I think Prey has the letters."

  He watched Prey carefully stuff a little packet wrapped in clear plastic, into his inside pocket. It looked like letters; he thought he could see a ribbon wrapped around the small bundle.

  Garza came on the line. He was as matter-of-fact as Harper had been lately. As if maybe Harper had talked to him about this snitch, had told him this informant was eccentric but reliable. "Is Prey's car still there?"

  "It's there," Joe said. "He's called a cab. Guess he means to leave the car, and leave his bag in the room, just walk away as if he's coming back. He's armed. If that is your man right outside Prey's window, he's too close for you to risk your calling him."

  "There is no officer on duty."

  "You've had a tail on him all day."

  Garza hesitated as if not sure how much to trust this stranger.

  "That officer is back at the station," he said at last. "We have not sent a replacement. You say someone is watching Prey?" Garza's voice was sharp.

  Joe leaned over the gutter, peering down. The guy was still there. "You have no tail on him now?"

  "No tail. If you'd give me your name…"

  Joe watched the squarely built, darkly dressed figure, caught a glimpse of a pock-marked cheek.

  "That's Richard Casselrod," he hissed suddenly. "Casselrod's tailing him-black sweatshirt, black cap and shoes."

  Prey left his room and in a moment came out the back door of the house, looked around him, and quickly crossed the side yard.

  "He's making for the back street," Joe said softly. "He's standing in the shadows of a cypress tree. I can hardly see him under the low branches. Casselrod's following him, moving in behind him."

  Casselrod made not a sound. Nor did Garza. The phone sounded like it had gone dead.

  "Are you there?" Joe whispered.

  No one answered; Garza was gone. Joe watched a cab turn into the street, its lights reflecting across darkened house windows. As Prey started toward the taxi, Casselrod lurched out of the night and grabbed him, swinging Prey around and shoving a gun in his face.

  Jerking Prey's jacket back over his shoulders to confine his arms, Casselrod took Prey's own gun. Joe watched him pat Prey down and remove the plastic-wrapped packet from Prey's shirt pocket.

  Holding his gun on Prey, Casselrod backed toward the cab. At the same moment, police cars moved in from both corners, parking diagonally to block the narrow street. Detective Garza swung out, followed by three uniforms. They grabbed Prey, and Garza was on Casselrod. Kicking him toward the cab so he went off-balance, Garza swung him around, taking his gun and forcing him against the vehicle.

  Within seconds, Prey and Casselrod had been searched and cuffed and secured in the backseat of a squad car. Garza had their guns, and he had the plastic-wrapped package. Joe Grey sat on the roof smiling with satisfaction as the black-and-whites pulled away, taking the two to their new accommodations. He hoped MPPD could offer them a long, extended visit.

  27

  The setting moon painted a line of brilliant light
along the clouds' ragged edges, a display so spectacular that up on the hills the two cats paused from devouring their freshly killed rabbit and sat looking toward the heavens, held by that burning stitchery.

  It was only a few hours since Augor Prey and Richard Casselrod had been arrested, a positive event in an ongoing scenario that seemed, to Joe Grey and Dulcie, far more nebulous than the clouds shifting above them. The department had Prey's.38 revolver. By tonight or tomorrow the ballistics report should be in. With that thought to cheer them, the cats fell to again, sharing their warm, bloody kill.

  They ate in silence, making a leisurely meal, then washed up, licking gore from their whiskers. Around them the tall grass shivered in the predawn wind. What concerned the cats at the moment was that Vivi and Elliott had been released.

  They had no idea on what grounds Garza had picked up the Traynors and brought them in for questioning; but the thought that they were free again was not encouraging. They had no notion, either, what Adele McElroy might have learned from NYPD about the Traynors.

  "If this comes down the way I think," Joe said, "Vivi and Elliott could split any minute-get edgy and pack a bag the way Prey did, and they're gone. Well, Harper and Garza will be expecting that." But still, he began to pace, looking restlessly down the hills toward the Traynor cottage.

  "Relax," she said complacently. "You know Harper has an officer in place. And they weren't packing earlier. I watched until they went to bed."

  "A tail won't know until they get in the car and take off."

  "So, the law will pick them up." She licked blood from her paw. But then she rose, with a little half-smile. "You're not going to rest until we have a look." And she took off down the hills. Galloping through the forest of tall grass, the two cats could not be seen-only the thrashing line of their flight wildly tossing the grass heads.

  Dropping down off the hill, they raced beneath a rail fence and through a garden that had been decimated by grazing deer, its roses nibbled away until only ragged fragments of petals remained, scattered like potato chips. Down through the village gardens they sped, as the courthouse clock struck five, then swiftly across empty side streets. Approaching the Traynor cottage, they passed the department's surveillance car, an old blue Plymouth Rent-A-Wreck parked four doors away, its engine and tires still warm, the smell of coffee perfuming the air around it, though no driver was visible.

  The Traynors' black Lincoln was gone. The house was dark. Scorching up the oak tree to the high living-room windows, they looked down through the glass.

  "They haven't moved out," Dulcie said. "Vivi wouldn't leave that tangerine satin robe, it's too gorgeous. She wears it every morning." The room was its usual mess, the robe tumbled across a chair under Vivi's red sweater, a pair of sandals tossed on the coffee table next to an empty cup and a torrid-looking paperback romance, the heroine with enough cleavage to hide a sheep dog.

  Dropping to a lower branch, they looked into the study.

  The computer still reigned on the desk like a small electronic god. The stack of research was still on the shelf. Only the new chapter was missing; there were no freshly printed white pages aligned neatly beside the blotter. The cats waited for what seemed hours, and no sign of the Traynors. The sun was pushing above the hills when Charlie's old Chevy van pulled into the drive, its bright blue paint glistening, its rebuilt engine purring. Last year Clyde had completely rebuilt the engine and fixed the rusting body, pounding out dents, applying filler and primer, then expertly sanding before it was painted-a labor not of love but in return for Charlie's carpentry work on the neglected apartment building that Clyde had purchased. Their exchange of work had been a fair trade all around.

  They watched Charlie swing out of the van, hauling her caddy of cleaning supplies to the back door, to disappear inside. Soon they heard her loading the dishwasher, then opening cupboards.

  But soon the study light came on, and she wheeled the vacuum in. Standing at the desk, she bent to try the drawers, her kinky red hair falling loose from its ribbon. Was she looking for the manuscript? All the drawers were locked.

  "If the Traynors have skipped," Joe said, "maybe they mailed the manuscript to Elliott's agent, maybe hoping when they surface again the second half of the advance will be waiting?"

  Dulcie sneezed. "Could they really believe that?"

  When Charlie hastily turned on the computer, the cats hurried along the branch where they could see the screen, watching her bring up chapter 1 of Twilight Silver, then move to the final pages. They were so fascinated that when a mockingbird flitted boldly past their noses, they hardly noticed its rude taunting.

  Taking a floppy disk from her pocket, Charlie put it in the computer and went through the steps to make a copy.

  Glancing out toward the drive, she dropped the disk in her pocket, then went through the little ritual of shutting down the machine. "Nice timing," Joe said. The computer was chuckling its closing noises when the Lincoln turned into the drive.

  Vivi got out of the car alone; Elliott wasn't with her.

  "He's not in the house?" Dulcie said, glancing through the study door to the empty hall.

  The moment the car turned in, Charlie snatched up Traynor's research from the bookshelf and slipped it into the waistband of her jeans, tucking it out of sight under her sweatshirt. By the time Vivi crossed the drive and turned her key in the back door, Charlie was vacuuming the hall. And the cats learned nothing more until that night when Charlie and Harper, Dallas Garza and his niece showed up at Clyde's for sandwiches and a few hands of poker.

  Harper and Garza were in a gala mood, their expressions as smug as Joe had ever seen. Clyde looked at them patiently, waiting for whatever big news they were holding back. When the officers said nothing but simply began to count out chips and shuffle cards, Clyde glanced at Joe, as frustrated as the tomcat. Couldn't people just come out and say what was going on with them, couldn't they simply tell a person why they were grinning? Ryan and Charlie remained expressionless, waiting to see what would develop.

  The kitchen smelled of salami and onions, and echoed with the clink of poker chips. Harper dealt, fanning the cards with a thin, practiced hand. The cats, to keep a low profile, retreated to the laundry and cozied down on the bottom bunk next to Rube. The old Lab was sound asleep, softly snoring. Harper said, "That's a nice car, that Lincoln the Traynors drive. I understand they picked it up from the Ford dealer when they got off the plane, ordered it months ago, before they left New York."

  Clyde looked at Harper, puzzled. "Are we supposed to be impressed?"

  Harper shrugged. "I don't know. You wouldn't expect a multi-million-copy best-selling author to drive a ten-year-old Mazda."

  Joe couldn't figure out where this was leading. Apparently, neither could Clyde, and he was not amused. He sat staring at his cards, scowling darkly. Well, he'd been touchy all week. Joe knew that he'd called Kate several times and that he kept leaving messages but she hadn't returned his calls. At one point, worried about Kate, Clyde had called the designer's studio where she worked. She was there, they told him, but very busy.

  At the poker table, Clyde said, "If Traynor's so rich, why did he opt for a Lincoln instead of a Jag or BMW?"

  "You mean, why didn't he buy from Beckwhite's?" Harper said, laughing. "What, you're getting a percentage from the showroom now? I'll take two cards."

  Clyde flipped cards around the table. "Second-rate car. And a wife young enough to be his granddaughter."

  Ryan and Charlie were silent, glancing at each other.

  "Forty years younger," Garza said, his square, Latino face not changing expression. "He and Vivi were-have been married three years." Garza slid two chips to the center. "His fifth wife. But the first time around for her-first time for a legal relationship." He glanced at Harper again, the faint gleam of humor sparking between them.

  Joe stretched and curled up with his chin on Rube's golden flank. Beside him, Dulcie closed her eyes. They listened with keen interest; they'd neve
r before heard Harper and Garza amuse themselves at Clyde's expense.

  When Harper raised the bet, Garza slid two chips to the center. "Vivi's first marriage," Harper said, "after a long line of live-ins and one-night stands. She's been busy for a girl of twenty-five. Apparently she's lived off rich men since she was fifteen."

  Garza said, "I wonder if Elliott knew, when he married her, that she would be his last."

  Clyde came to full alert. And in the laundry, Joe's and Dulcie's ears cocked sharply forward.

  Clyde watched Garza raise the bet, then folded. Garza took the pot. No one said anything more, the table was silent, Harper and Garza stonefaced and ungiving. Joe wondered if a cat could expire from unfulfilled curiosity.

  The poker players ran three more hands, talking only in monosyllables. "Raise you two." "Three cards." "I fold." Twice Clyde glanced across the kitchen at Joe, at first with the same unfulfilled curiosity, a moment of mutual sympathy-before he gave Joe that none-of-your-business, why-don't-you-go-out-and-play-like-a-normal-cat look that made Joe hunker down harder against Rube, stubbornly waiting for Harper's punch line.

  28

  Harper raked in the largest pot of the night, stacking his chips in neat rows. "That would have been tight," he said, "keeping a twenty-four-hour surveillance on the Traynors, pulling men off patrol."

  Garza nodded. "Better off in custody. New York is sending Vivi's case file?"

  Clyde stared at his cards and said nothing. And from the bunk in the laundry, Joe and Dulcie watched with slitted eyes, pretending to be asleep.

  Harper said, "Homicide put it in the mail this morning. No wonder Traynor's agent was upset."

  "All right," Clyde said, "that's enough. Let's hear it."

  "If not for Traynor's agent," Garza said, ignoring Clyde, "hassling NYPD, they might never have identified the body."

  Joe had sat up, staring at the two cops so intently that Dulcie nudged him. He lay down again, tense with interest. At the poker table, Charlie and Ryan were quiet, watching Harper feed the story to Clyde piece by puzzling piece, the captain loving every excruciating minute.