Cat Coming Home

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  “Say Caroline knew Pearl was keeping a double set of books,” Dallas said, “she made a copy, put the original back.”

  “But she didn’t report the thefts,” Max said. “As if she meant to blackmail Pearl?”

  “Or she didn’t have time?” Dallas said. “Say Pearl booby-trapped the drawer, slipped a hair across the opening, something so she knew it had been tampered with. She figures it was Caroline, maybe Caroline had been nosing around before that. Pearl kills Martin and Caroline not only out of jealousy, but to stop Caroline from turning over the copies to Beckman or to the law.”

  Ryan was embarrassed to be inadvertently eavesdropping, though she hadn’t heard anything the two men wouldn’t have told her. But Joe Grey smiled with satisfaction as the officers fitted the pieces together—with no clue that they were helping to inform their prime snitch as well.

  Not until Max and Dallas moved away did Joe and Ryan leave their hideaway and return to join their guests. The crowd had doubled, the front door stood open, and the street was lined with cars—not much chance of robbers here, with half the guests in uniform and armed, sitting down only long enough to enjoy the pre-Christmas treats. Sunlight slanted in through the open front door, warming the living room where happy diners sat with their loaded plates on their laps. There was a crowd in the kitchen around the buffet, too, and outside on the back patio where the sun’s heat bounced off the high plaster wall, guests sat elbow to elbow at four long tables enjoying the feast. Joe was winding between pant legs and bare ankles, heading for the living room, when Lucinda and Pedric Greenlaw arrived, Pedric carrying Kit on his shoulder. As the tortoiseshell leaped to the mantel, out of the way of hard shoes, the tall, slim, gray-haired couple stood talking with Clyde. Behind them, Wilma and Dulcie came in, Wilma dressed in jeans and a red blazer with a sprig of holly on her lapel, her white hair done in a braid that circled her head. Dulcie jumped to the mantel, too, beside Kit, and Joe made a flying leap to join them. Clyde headed for the kitchen and soon returned with three small, cat-sized plates loaded with delicacies, which he set before them. Around the cats, there were scattered moments of silence as newcomers bowed their heads in prayers of thanks before they settled down to enjoy their meal. Maybe law enforcement families, Joe thought, were more aware than most of the preciousness of life, more thankful for what they had. When he looked up, Maudie and Benny were just coming in.

  Maudie was dressed in one of her soft-toned quilted smocks over neatly creased slacks. Benny wore his tan chinos and a blue V-necked sweater over a white shirt. The moment they entered, the little boy pressed against his grandmother, staring up at the crowd—but then he saw Rock sitting beside the couch with his head on Kathleen Ray’s lap, and the little boy went straight to the big Weimaraner.

  Rock let Benny grab him in a bear hug that would have angered many dogs, but the Weimaraner only licked Benny’s ear and wagged his short tail. Kathleen moved over on the couch to make room for Maudie; the detective was dressed for surveillance in faded jeans, an old faded T-shirt, and worn jogging shoes. Joe had seen her arrive in an older Ford sedan, one of the unobtrusive cars Max sometimes obtained from Rent-a-Wreck when he wanted his officers to move about the village unnoticed.

  “Are you getting moved in?” Kathleen asked Maudie. “That’s not a job I like.”

  “Actually,” Maudie said, “I’m doing pretty well. Our tree is up, I have most everything put away, and I’m moved into the new studio.”

  “That wasn’t easy, with your hurt shoulder. It’s been, what, eight months since you were shot? That’s another thing that seems to take forever, to recover from a wound like that.”

  “I’ve been using a rolling cart,” Maudie said. “One of those lightweight office models that I can shove the boxes onto.” She smiled. “That’s given my other arm a workout. I’m just glad it wasn’t my right shoulder that was hit.” She looked up when Lori and Cora Lee arrived, along with Mavity Flowers. The other two senior ladies were gone for the holidays, Susan Brittain to her daughter in San Francisco, Gabrielle, always looking for a new beau, off on a cruise to Greece. Lori took Benny’s hand and they headed straight for the kitchen buffet table, Cora Lee following the hungry pair.

  Ryan came to join Maudie and Juana Davis, sitting cross-legged on the floor. “That little boy idolizes Lori. He told me he didn’t know girls could hammer and saw so straight.”

  Maudie laughed. “Benny loves having someone besides an old woman for company, and Lori’s good with him. He’s enamored of Rock, too … I thought, for his birthday—it’s just two days before Christmas—I’d go out to the pound, see if they have a really nice young dog. What do you think?”

  “I think that’s a great idea,” Ryan said. “Your backyard’s already fenced, with a lawn where a boy and a dog can play. Or you might decide to take Benny with you, let him pick out his own dog?” She went silent as Benny, Lori, and Cora Lee returned with loaded plates. All three sat down on the floor beside Ryan to enjoy their supper, Cora Lee nearly as supple as the children.

  “The nativity pageant starts at four,” Cora Lee said. She looked up at Maudie. “You are coming, you won’t mind the crowd?”

  “I’m a bit under the weather,” Maudie said. “My shoulder’s hurting, but nothing to worry about.”

  “We can take Benny,” Cora Lee offered. “See the pageant, take a wagon ride, then I’ll bring him home.” She reached to pat Maudie’s hand. “No one would dare bother him with us, in that crowd.”

  “I could pick him up here,” Maudie said, glancing at Ryan. “If that would be all right? It would be closer for Cora Lee.”

  “That’s fine,” Ryan said. “Rock will be happy of the company.” Her glance said, No one will bother him here, either, in front of half the department. Soon Maudie had risen and hurried away, down the street to her car. Padding out to the porch, Joe watched her with interest, thinking about her returning to her empty house alone. He had turned back inside when Kit streaked past him out the front door and up the nearest pine and took off, heading for Maudie’s. As if she didn’t want to see Maudie go home alone, with so much activity in the village inviting mischief in the quieter neighborhoods.

  Or did Kit not want Misto to face an emergency alone? Or, fascinated as she was by the grandfatherly cat, was she simply using Maudie’s departure as an excuse to share Misto’s vigil and perhaps learn more about him?

  36

  MAUDIE’S CAR STOOD in the drive and a soft light burned in her upstairs bedroom, but from up the street where Kit and Misto crouched on the Damen cottage roof, they couldn’t see the front door of the Tudor bungalow. The cell phone lay beside them, next to Misto’s plate, which he had licked sparkling clean. Above the mottled oak branches, heavy gray clouds were blowing in, leaving only patches of darkening blue as evening closed around them—but it wouldn’t rain for the Nativity play, the air didn’t smell of rain.

  Lights would be bright down in the village, every house sparkling with decorations, the shopping plaza ablaze with hundreds of tiny lights for the pageant. Kit imagined folk crowded along the plaza’s upstairs balconies, against the shop windows below, and lined up all around the big, enclosed garden where the Nativity drama would be played out. She imagined Benny and Lori afterward, riding all over the village in a horse-drawn buggy. Kit had ridden on the back of a horse once, sitting in front of Charlie, but never in a wagon with a driver snapping his whip.

  Beside her, Misto yawned. “Don’t go to sleep,” she told him. “You were asleep when I got here.” He’d been tucked beneath the overhanging branches in a bed of fallen leaves, had pawed the oak leaves up around himself to keep warm, and had been snoring.

  “I wasn’t asleep, I was resting, I didn’t miss a thing. House has been silent as a deserted rat hole, no one there but Maudie. All the windows dark until she got home, nothing moving in the yard, no one on the street, no cars cruising.” As they watched, the bedroom light went out, and in a few minutes a faint light came on in the kitchen.r />
  “If there had been someone,” Kit said, “would you have used the phone?”

  He laid his ears back. “Of course I would. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Have you ever talked to a human?”

  Misto gave her a devilish smile. “Not so they knew. When I was a kitten, I liked to sneak up behind someone, say something rude, then run like hell. I’d be gone when they swung around, I’d watch from up a tree. They’d look and look, but saw no one.” The yellow cat licked his paw, laughing. “I thought that was funny until I got older and saw what a chance I was taking—not just for me, but for all of us. After that, I didn’t play those games anymore.”

  Down the hill, a second, brighter light came on in the kitchen and they could smell coffee brewing. The windows were still bare of shades, but from this angle they couldn’t see directly in, could only see Maudie when she moved close to the glass. When the brighter light went out again, and a light blazed on in the studio, they trotted over the roofs to the house next door to Maudie, where they could look down directly inside.

  The new room was a storm of color, the shelves stacked with squares of rainbow bright cloth. On the far wall hung three quilts, their patterns so intricate and vivid they took Kit’s breath away. One in autumn colors, one a winter pattern in shades of gray and soft blues, with twiggy branches woven across; and the third quilt shouted of Christmas. Its many shades of red and green and brown picked out partridges, pear trees, maids a-singing—such a happy scene it made Kit laugh.

  “She invents the pictures,” Kit said. “Then cuts out little pieces of cloth and sews them together, to bring her dream alive.” Kit knew about dreams. “Quilts like music,” she said. “Quilts that tell stories.”

  The tomcat looked and looked, then turned to Kit, his thin tail twitching. “That’s what it means to be human,” he said softly. “A cat might dream, but without human hands, what can we do? Not even a speaking cat could bring to life a work of art or an invention. We can never make our dreams into something that will please others.”

  Kit considered Misto, his scarred ears and shoulder, his big, scarred paws with the one crooked claw that must have been torn and healed wrong. She imagined how he must have looked as a little yellow kitten there on the shore, and then how he’d looked grown-up and handsome, his wide shoulders hard with muscle, a fine young tomcat—but now he was frail and old, old enough to be her great-great-great-grandfather. What had he seen in his long life, this cat who had, clearly, once been a muscled brawler and bold adventurer, but who was a dreamer, too?

  Below, Maudie took something from her pocket and laid it on the worktable beneath a fold of cloth, then began to select squares of fabric and lay them out into a pattern. Though she was working in the lighted room with no shades or draperies at the windows she didn’t seem nervous. When shadows stirred outside she glanced up briefly, saw only tree shadows blowing in the wind, and turned back to laying out quilting pieces in an intricate Christmas tree design.

  But soon something did startle her, jerking her gaze up to the garden. Her hands stilled; then she slipped one hand beneath the fold of cloth, revealing for an instant, a dark revolver.

  She was still for a long time, looking out into the night. At last she slid the gun back into her pocket, picked up her empty coffee cup, and moved away into the kitchen.

  “Well,” Kit said with surprise. “Maybe Maudie doesn’t need so much protection, after all.”

  Misto smiled. “That soft little grandmother. She isn’t as helpless as everyone thought. Maybe,” he said, “if we need to use the cell phone, it’ll be to help some unfortunate burglar.”

  STANDING IN THE doorway to the kitchen, Maudie looked back through the darkened studio and out to the garden. She’d be glad when the shades had arrived and been put up; she knew she was vulnerable in the lighted room where anyone could look in, anyone could fire through the glass, killing her as easily as they’d killed Martin and Caroline. Though she didn’t think that would happen; she thought the shooter had another agenda. She thought she wouldn’t be in danger until Pearl had what she wanted.

  Moving into the kitchen, she turned that light off and stood at the sink, looking out toward the street. The sky was heavy with clouds blending into night. As she moved on through the kitchen and up the dark stairs, a belated shiver of fear made her pull her smock closer. As if someone was here, in the house with her. As if now, this night, was the moment. Only at the top did she flip on a light. She circled through the two bedrooms and bath, but there was no one, the upstairs rooms were empty. Going back downstairs to the kitchen, she sat at the table, in the dark, waiting. If Pearl let herself in with the stolen key, Maudie was trusting her instincts to take over, trusting that Pearl’s own actions would tell her what to do.

  She waited nearly an hour, listening, watching the dark glass. There was no sound outside, and nothing stirred in the house. When at last, both relieved and disappointed, she turned the kitchen lights back on, she turned the TV on in the dark living room, too, to make the house seem occupied while she was gone, while she went to pick up Benny.

  She had so hoped Pearl would slip in unannounced, would come while she was alone. Once Benny was home again, and maybe Jared, it would be too late for what she planned. Picking up her coat that she’d dropped on a kitchen chair, moving to the sink to make sure she’d unplugged the coffeepot, she pulled the coat on and transferred the .38 Special to its deep pocket. As she headed for the front door she heard a car pull into the drive. She paused, listening.

  PEARL HAD LET herself into the house unseen before Maudie and the boy left. They’d been all dressed up, Maudie carrying a huge cooler out to her car, awkward with her lame arm. She’d heard, the last time she slipped into the house, enough to know where they were headed. Supper with a bunch of cops. Wasn’t that just like Maudie.

  In the empty house she’d searched at her leisure, searched as thoroughly as she had the other times, but she hadn’t found the ledger pages. Later, she’d watched Maudie return alone, apparently leaving the kid at the holiday party. She had stood in the hall closet listening while Maudie moved around upstairs, then came down to the kitchen, where she made coffee and carried a cup into the studio. As Maudie busied herself there, Pearl had slipped through the house behind her meaning to enter the studio and confront her. But, crossing the softly lit kitchen, she’d heard voices from somewhere out in the night, someone too near the house, and a thrill of danger had held her still, listening.

  Earlier, even before she’d entered the house, even as she’d approached the property coming up the hill from behind, through the neighbors’ backyards, tearing her windbreaker on a tangle of thorny holly bushes, she’d felt watched. A strange sensation, a feeling she’d seldom experienced. Arlie said she had nerves of steel. Arlie would be along soon, on his own mission, but now, unsuccessful in her search, she was beginning to feel pushed. She wondered again if she’d been foolish to link up with Arlie. It wasn’t smart to let herself be sidetracked by his agenda, all for the little bit of help he’d given her—and maybe because she’d wanted to recapture those Vegas weekends, she thought, smiling.

  The voice came again, an old man. The other was a woman, soft and indistinct, not loud enough to make out the words. The voices seemed to be coming from above, some trick of the wind, she supposed. She stood trying to think where she hadn’t searched, what she’d missed—if Maudie did have the ledger pages. If she did, did she mean to give them to the cops? Or would the old woman try to blackmail her? But for what? To stop her in case she tried to take custody of Benny? Who would want the kid?

  That had been a shocker, going into the office that morning to find the ledger had been disturbed, finding proof it had been copied. No one could have done that but Caroline, she was sure that only Caroline had any suspicions about the way she did her work.

  Not only had she rigged the lock to the hidden compartment each night before she left work, fixing two hairs across it, she’d sprinkled talcum powder i
n the seams of the ledger pages, too. The day she found the lock disturbed and found traces of talc in the seam of the office copier between the glass and the metal rim, she’d almost panicked. Had stuffed the ledger in her carryall and was nervous the rest of the day. Weeks later, after the funeral, she’d told Mr. Beckman she was leaving, that a month’s leave wasn’t enough, that she needed to get away from the city. With the office shorthanded, the quarterly taxes already paid, and the way she’d juggled the expenses from one client’s account to another, she’d gambled that no one would find the discrepancies for many months.

  But Beckman Equipment couldn’t remain ignorant forever of the glitches in their cash flow. Paying one client’s bill in arrears with part of a subsequent client’s payment, and in the process skimming off cash for herself, left balances owing that did not bear close scrutiny. The minute Beckman hired a full-time bookkeeper again, the missing money would come to light and they’d go to the cops. And LAPD would pull the file on her and talk to the homicide division, follow up on the connection between her and Maudie. She still wasn’t sure what Maudie had told them about the night of the shooting. Wasn’t sure what the woman had seen, or what the kid had seen. Though who would believe a kid testifying against his own mother?

  But now she’d get it sorted out. Having taken her time going through the rooms, using a small flashlight as the late afternoon light dimmed, she was puzzled as to what hiding places she could have missed. Convinced the pages weren’t among Caroline’s other things that she’d left in the garage, she’d searched all the rooms, under chair cushions, under and between mattresses, had gone through every drawer and cupboard, had rifled Maudie’s desk again thoroughly. She had even examined the Christmas tree and searched beneath its quilted skirting. There were no wrapped packages, yet. No doubt Maudie would pile gifts on the kid later. Upstairs there were just the two bedrooms, the bath, a small storeroom, and a narrow linen closet. She’d gone through them all with care. The kid’s bed was littered with sissy toys, that ratty teddy bear and other stuffed animals the boy had clung to since he was a baby, girly toys unbecoming to a boy.