Cat Deck the Halls

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  Max just looked at her.

  “She’s better off in my apartment,” Juana said, “with guards on all watches. I know it’s a big-budget item, but there’s no way around a guard, wherever she is, sure not in Children’s Services. Not until we lock up the shooter.”

  Max glanced at the sleeping child, and his thin lined face softened. “We don’t know what she saw. Don’t know what the killer thinks she saw. I don’t like keeping her in your apartment long enough for someone to notice activity there.”

  Joe had been watching the child, wondering if she was really asleep. Now suddenly she stirred, looking up at Davis and Harper and Garza-and then straight across the room into the shadows beneath the credenza, staring again straight into Joe Grey’s eyes.

  Why did she do that? Joe wondered. Don’t do that! Look away from me! She was way too interested in him. Above him, the discussion had ceased, the three officers were all watching her. Then Juana rose and knelt before the credenza, and gently hauled Joe out. He hung limp, didn’t complain as she carried him to the couch and knelt, holding him up to the child and gently stroking him. Joe cut Juana a look. But the child reached out to him, her dark eyes needy. And of course, ham that he was, he slipped into her arms and snuggled against her-and found himself purring like a steam train.

  Dallas and Max chuckled, which made Joe scowl. But the child stroked him and buried her face against his shoulder, and when he looked up at the officers again, they looked only pleased. They looked, in fact, almost admiring-as if Joe’s role in calming the kid was not at all to be laughed at.

  But they looked puzzled, too, and Joe could almost hear the questions churning-questions he didn’t want to think about. Juana said, “She was like that with the cats last night, when we found her. Cuddled up to Joe and that tortoiseshell cat. Maybe,” she said, “she only feels safe around animals.”

  Both officers, being dog men and horsemen, could relate to that. Max said, “We have dogs at the ranch, she might do well up there-isolation could be to our advantage. Or not,” he said, concerned about the lack of security among the open hills and woods and pastures.

  “What about the seniors?” Dallas said. “Those two big dogs are pretty protective, a good early-warning system. Their place would be easier to patrol.”

  “Cora Lee’s good with kids,” Juana said. “Our little girl could hang out with Lori and Dillon while they work on their playhouse for the contest. With a couple of guards…” She looked down at the child snuggled with Joe. “It’s a beautiful big playhouse, big enough for you to really play house in, two stories, a slide, a ladder…And the dogs…A big brown poodle who’ll lick you all over, I bet. And a spotted, firehouse dog…”

  The child looked up at her trustingly with, Joe thought, a spark of anticipation-but a spark that was quickly gone again, drowned by sadness.

  This was a hard call, Joe knew, to adequately protect their small, frightened witness, and yet put her in a friendly and comforting environment where she’d loosen up enough to talk, to tell them what she’d seen. With a six-year-old child, time was of the essence-before the event morphed, in a child’s naturally imaginative mind, into any number of dark and twisted fantasies only loosely based on the facts.

  Max said, “Maybe a couple of hours up there, to be with the other girls and play with the dogs. I’m not sure about overnight. See what the senior ladies say. We can’t jeopardize anyone, nor put the older girls in danger.

  “Take McFarland with you,” he told Juana. “The young lady seems to like him.” Max smiled. “When Cora Lee sees this little girl, she won’t be able to resist.” He buzzed the dispatcher, asked her to get Jimmie McFarland on the radio.

  “I’ll call Cora Lee,” Juana said. “She…” She paused when the dispatcher buzzed through, and Max switched on the phone speaker.

  It wasn’t McFarland, but Officer Sand on the line.

  “I’m bringing in a homeless man, he was asleep in the alley behind Green’s Antiques, an empty billfold shoved under the newspapers he was sleeping on. His shoes are way big for him, look like they could fit my casts, and there appears to be blood on one. Old jogging shoes,” she said with excitement, “waffle soles. Looks like a speck of garden dirt-and some shiny red flecks.

  “Says he lifted them from a Dumpster out on the highway, early this morning, that his own shoes were worn-out and sopping wet. He seems more than usually nervous, looked all around when I cuffed him and put him in the car.”

  “Get him in here,” Max said.

  “Holding cell?”

  “Let’s call him a person of interest. See if you can get any identification, then bring him on back to my office, tell him we just want to talk.” Max clicked off the phone. He was smiling.

  Davis glanced at the child. “You want us out of here?”

  Max shook his head. “First reaction’s worth a lot-her reaction, and his.”

  The child was still stroking Joe. She smelled nice, the cat thought, a sweet little-girl scent. Snuggled up with her, Joe Grey began to feel protective-so protective that he began to wonder if the prisoner would try to hurt her, and he felt his claws tense.

  But what could some old tramp do with four cops guarding the little girl? Still he waited, nervous and alert, until, ten minutes later, Eleanor Sand escorted the ragged, smelly old man into Max’s office.

  The old fellow entered hesitantly, Eleanor walking behind him. He smelled so ripe and looked so rough that Joe wanted to rise up defensively in front of the child. Instead he slipped off the couch, sensibly out of the way. These officers wanted the little girl’s reaction, not that of a cat; and they wanted the tramp’s first reaction to her, without distraction. And Joe sat down quietly beside the couch, unobtrusive but ready to leap and defend her.

  From the floor beside Dallas ’s chair, Joe studied the old guy. He sure as hell could use a bath. His wrinkled old clothes were worn-out and dirty, his long gray hair tied in a ponytail, his head bald on top and sunburned. Wrinkled cheeks with an inch of stubble. And the smell of unwashed body and clothes was overlaid with the acrid stink of wood smoke as if from innumerable campfires.

  On any cold morning Joe could see, from the treetops and highest roofs of the village, smoke rising down along the Molena River where homeless men slept, building up their campfires to get warm and to make coffee.

  Well, the old guy had his coffee this morning. He was carrying a full Styrofoam cup that Eleanor must have picked up in the squad room.

  He wore no shoes. They would be in the sealed bag that Eleanor had probably dropped off in the evidence room. Padding onto the Persian rug in bare feet, he looked warily at Dallas and the chief and then his eyes widened in surprise at the child on the couch. Everyone was still, watching the two of them.

  The child looked at him without interest. Not frightened, not at all alarmed. Her only reaction was a wrinkled nose, from the smell of the old man. He looked at her, caught sight of Joe, and scowled around at the four officers.

  “Didn’t expect to see no kid in a police station. Sure didn’t expect cops to keep no cat-well, hell, didn’t expect to see no Christmas tree neither, out there in the entry.”

  “You know the girl?” Eleanor said softly.

  He shook his head. “Never seen her.” He looked at Eleanor with the beginnings of alarm, and backed away a step. “How would I know her? Why would I know her? I ain’t done nothing, I never laid eyes on the kid.”

  “Just asking,” Eleanor said quietly. “Where did you get the shoes?”

  “Told you. Dumpster, couple miles out, on the highway. By that tourist café out there.”

  “That’s what you told me. What else did you take from the Dumpster?”

  Joe expected, knowing Eleanor, that she had already sent an officer back to search the Dumpster for anything suspicious, anything with visible blood.

  “That empty billfold is all else I found,” the old man said testily. “Don’t know what good a billfold does me, ain’t got nothing to put in i
t. I thought maybe to sell it.”

  Dallas rose, pushed Joe Grey gently aside, and motioned the old guy to sit down. He filled up the old man’s coffee cup from the pot on the credenza, and then settled on the couch so the child was between him and Davis. Sand stood leaning in the doorway. Joe, anticipating an informative interrogation, slipped back under the credenza.

  The old man, very likely imbuing the leather chair with a permanent stink, looked at Dallas and Eleanor, and raised a bushy eyebrow. “You worried about that kid?”

  No one answered.

  “I might know something about kids-not her, exactly. Other kids-guess she might be one of ’em.”

  The officers waited, silently alert.

  “Something that might be…of interest, as you like to say.”

  “Go on,” Max said.

  “Mighty cold morning,” the old fellow said. “Long time since I’ve had a good hot breakfast.” He watched without expression as Dallas slipped a twenty from his pocket, added a ten, and handed it over. The old guy sighed. “Might be pretty valuable information.”

  Dallas fished out another ten and passed it across. “That’s it. Let’s hear it.”

  “That orphans’ school up toward the hills? That one that movie star owned?”

  “The Patty Rose School,” Dallas said.

  “Big tan mansion with these brown timbers crisscrossing the walls?”

  “We know the place,” Max said.

  “Guy watching them kids up there, I seen him twice standing in the woods peeking out. I, ah…got me a little shelter place up there. Place I can go sometimes, out of the storm. Rain coming bad, I go up there.”

  “Why weren’t you there last night?” Dallas said.

  “Came up the highway last night, headed right into the village to get me something to eat. I don’t go there much, they watch that place. All locked up, but they watch it. Last night, found me a bit of overhang to sleep under.” He looked hard at Dallas. “I wouldn’t want to lose my good shelter, up there. Winter ain’t over yet. That wind and rain, fellow could die of pneumonia.”

  “That stone building?” Max said.

  The old man nodded.

  “We’ll see no one runs you off, at least for a while-if the school finds nothing wrong. No fires inside there. Understand?” Again, the old man nodded. “Can you describe this man?” Max said. “Tell us when and where you saw him?”

  “Up at the school, like I said. Across the street in them woods, watching the front. And then the other time at the side, near the old stone house. Watching the play yard. Kids outside both times. Watching them orphan kids.”

  “What did he look like?” Eleanor prompted.

  “Couldn’t see much, him turned away. Skinny. Skinny head. Big ears. Short hair and them big ears sticking out.”

  “And he was watching the children?” Dallas said. “For how long? What did he do while he was watching them?”

  “Long time, maybe half an hour or better. First time, just stood there looking and done nothing much. Stood kinda limp, hands down on his crotch. Next time, he had a camera, taking pictures. Long thing on the front of the camera like a telescope, taking pictures of them kids.”

  “When was this?” Max said.

  “Maybe…over a week. Maybe two weeks. Just after one of them bad storms-the storm before last, I think. Cold. Sure looked nice and warm in that big school, firelight through the windows and all them colored lights on that big Christmas tree, and the smells…Smell of baking, of gingerbread and spices,” the old man said longingly.

  Joe watched the old fellow for a moment with a keen sense of camaraderie. Homeless men, the tomcat thought uneasily, like homeless cats, out in the storm without shelter. He might hassle Clyde unmercifully over the quality of his meals and his own shelter, but in truth Joe was mighty thankful for his home. His kittenhood, trying to survive alone in San Francisco ’s alleys, had been no picnic-he still didn’t like the garbage stink of Dumpsters.

  Joe remained at the PD until the old man ran out of things to tell the officers, until Eleanor put the old fellow back in her squad car, to drop him at the hole-in-the-wall café where he wanted to have breakfast.

  She told Max she’d pay the restaurant bill for him before she left. Joe thought the old man wasn’t a drinker, at least he hadn’t smelled of booze, but Max wanted to be sure he ate, and didn’t slip out again to buy wine. Strange old man, Joe thought. Somehow a cut above most homeless, some of whom would kill a man just for the thrill.

  Joe watched Juana gather up the child to take her to the seniors’ house, where McFarland would meet them; and the tomcat left the station wondering where Dulcie had gotten to and thinking about a little snack in the alley behind Jolly’s Deli-a gourmet experience that was, always, a far cry from anything remotely connected to Dumpsters.

  10

  C ORA LEE FRENCH had been up since well before daylight on this cold winter morning. She had always been an early riser; her housemates teased her that she wanted the newspaper on the doorstep when her bare feet first swung out of bed. But this morning, even after she’d showered and dressed and put her breakfast on the table, the paper still wasn’t at the front door.

  Over a solitary breakfast of instant oatmeal, and then three Christmas cookies with her last cup of coffee, she had, out of desperation, read yesterday’s classified section. Breakfast didn’t taste right without something to read, and by the time she’d finished eating, she knew more than she wanted about how hard it was to get skilled help, how high real-estate prices and rents were climbing, and how many small animals were coldly given away to strangers, via the want ads, as casually as one would donate one’s unwanted clothes. She left the house wondering what had happened to the sober responsibility that had infused the training of her own generation.

  Getting old, she thought, amused at herself. Old and cranky.

  The interior of her car was bone-chilling cold, the wet windshield soon fogged over. Waiting, with the wipers swinging, for the engine to warm the interior and clear the glass, she glanced at her shopping list, which included half a dozen last-minute Christmas errands she’d put off in deference to choir rehearsals; then she headed down the hill to the village, the oaks and pines dripping, the dropping street and the rooftops below her shining from the rain.

  The grocery would be open, but she’d have to wait for the shops, even with their earlier holiday schedules. Banker’s hours, she thought, and laughed at herself again because she wanted all the stores to open up at dawn-she couldn’t help it if she was a morning person.

  Though when she was doing a play or concert, like the upcoming Christmas pageant, she would be a night person, too, for a while, enjoying afternoon naps when necessary to provide sufficient sleep. You can sleep when you’re dead, Cora Lee believed. That was one of Donnie’s favorite sayings. Even when they were kids, he’d said that, quoting his own father. Now, with Donnie’s reemergence into her life, Cora Lee was interested to note that they both still used that expression.

  Happy-go-lucky Donnie French. He’d been the closest thing to a brother she’d had. Inseparable playmates when they were small, blue-eyed, golden-haired Donnie, and her own dusky, black-haired coloring caused folks, even on New Orleans ’s streets, to turn and stare at them. Donnie, suddenly back in her life. What a wonderful Christmas present for them both.

  As she left her car, heading into the market, the air was filled with the scent of pine from the cut trees stacked outside the door. Red and green decorations hung within, festooning the tops of the shelves beneath gold garlands. The store was filled with popular Christmas tunes and with the spicy smells from the bakery. This time of year she missed having family and children of her own. Her husband dead for so many years, and they’d never had children. But now she had family again, real family, besides her housemates and her close friends.

  She and Donnie had been a pair when they were kids, Cora Lee the dusky tomboy, Donnie the sweetly smiling blond charmer-but Donnie was always the
bolder and more adventurous, the wilder troublemaker. A pair of scoundrels. Well, they’d never gotten into serious trouble, just pranks and dares, and foolish acts of poor judgment. And Donnie, despite his sometimes wild and defiant ways, had been in some respects the more even-tempered.

  He had been the methodical planner when he set his mind to it, when they had something to gain. While she had swung crazily with her overwhelming moods, between soaring joy often generated by the jazz music that surrounded them on New Orleans’s streets and a deep sadness generated by her mother’s own sadness-at their poverty and then at her father’s senseless death from stray gunfire.

  Even as a child, Cora Lee had known instinctively that she would have to make her own happiness as she grew older, that she would have to learn how to lift herself out of the kind of sad days that her mother experienced. She hadn’t known, then, the word “bipolar” or the other fancy terms. But she had understood her mother as best a child can, and she had vowed never to fall into the kind of mourning to which her mother had succumbed.

  She had vowed that she would be strong enough to lift herself out of sadness. And always, she had refused to call those dark moods depression. She still hated that overused, catchall word that was used to describe so many different situations.

  As a child, she’d only known that she would be on her own far too soon, and that no one else would, or could, teach her the survival skills and resiliency she’d need. That only she could teach herself how to cope. How to solve life’s problems. Maybe she’d learned by watching her inept mother-learned that you always had a choice of solutions to a problem. You did, she had known even then, if your thinking was open enough and creative enough to ask all the right questions, and to choose the best answers. It made Cora Lee incredibly sad that her mother had never learned how to do that.

  Now, as she finished her shopping and left the market, wheeling her loaded cart, she paused beside the newsstand, the headline of the Molena Point Gazette catching her eye. So that was what the sirens were about, last night.