Cat Playing Cupid

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  Rock was still for a while, but then he rose nervously again, heading for the kitchen. He pushed and pawed at the locked doggy door, then looked at Dulcie angrily, as if she was the one who had locked it. She tried to get him to eat some kibble, but he turned his face away. At last he headed back to the living room, gave a sigh of deep resignation, climbed into Joe's ragged easy chair, and curled up tight, his nose hidden in his flank.

  Dulcie didn't know whether to laugh at his dramatics or lick the big dog's face. Leaping into the chair beside him, she curled up in a little circle against his side, and began to purr to him; but worry about Joe ate at them both.

  When at last Rock slept, snoring, worn out from his concern, she slipped down carefully, silently, and left him. Just for half an hour, she thought. Just for a little while.

  Padding up the stairs, she sailed from the desktop to a rafter and quietly pushed out through Joe's cat door. And she headed over the rooftops, galloping across the village toward the Gibbs condo, her mind on a possible laptop and printer, on the source of that second anonymous note left at the back door of the station.

  Landing on the roof of the complex, she dropped down to Gibbs's terrace, and peered in. Why waste the perfect time to toss the place, with Gibbs an hour's drive away, hopefully detained by the law.

  Nothing moved in there. No lights. The TV dark and silent. She could hear no sound. She had the place to herself, and she had plenty of time for a thorough search. Sliding the screen back, she wondered if they'd been in too much of a hurry to secure the door.

  No such luck. The glass slider was locked tight.

  There were three windows facing the condo's terrace. Leaping up, clinging to the sills with stubborn claws, she found all three screens locked, and she could see that the locks on the windows were engaged. Going over the roof to the front door, near the stairs, she found that locked, too.

  The kitchen had one window, which was on the outside wall, two stories above the street and with no roof access. A thorny bougainvillea vine clung to that two-story wall, but it was a five-foot leap from this landing onto the vine. If she missed, it would be a straight drop, two stories to the sidewalk.

  She crouched, made the leap. Was scrambling through the bougainvillea toward the kitchen window, hoping they hadn't bothered to lock this one, when a squad car pulled to the curb two floors below.

  Peering down through the leaves and red blossoms, she watched Juana Davis step out, tucking a folded paper into her uniform pocket. Could that be a warrant? Dulcie thought with excitement. She's been to the judge already? Well, Davis wasted no time. Maybe Ray and Ryder's hasty departure, plus the body at the ruins, had given her enough to request a search warrant.

  Clawing her way back through the bougainvillea, away from the window, Dulcie managed to leap back to the landing, where she crouched behind a small potted tree, waiting for Juana, waiting to slip inside behind her.

  Coming up the stairs, Juana used a key with a large white tag that, Dulcie supposed, she'd gotten from the landlord. As she pushed the door open, Dulcie made a fast dash…She got only as far as Juana's heels when Juana turned, closed the door in her face, and stood looking down at her. Dulcie didn't know if she'd made some tiny sound, or if Juana had felt a change in the air current behind her stockinged legs. The tabby stood frozen, staring up at her. Did Davis have to be so perceptive?

  Juana looked at her for a long time, her dark brown eyes as unreadable as if she were studying the face of a shackled felon. Dulcie tried to look innocent. She tried her sweet cat smile, and knew she looked nervous and guilty.

  But guilty of what? Juana didn't know why she was here. As good a detective as Juana Davis was, she didn't have a clue on this one. Boldly Dulcie rubbed against her ankles, purring as hard as she could manage.

  "Dulcie, what are you doing here?"

  Dulcie preened and purred.

  "You were on the roofs, and you saw me?" Juana said quietly, the way she would talk to any animal. "Well, the roofs are a good place for cats. No cars, no dogs, nothing to bother you-but I don't want you following me inside. If you got lost among the furniture, and got locked in…" She looked deep into Dulcie's eyes. "I wish you could understand. You mustn't go into strange houses, you could starve to death before anyone knew you were there. You go on, now. Go chase a mouse." Turning, she slipped inside and closed the door.

  So much for that, Dulcie thought, scrambling up the potted tree to the roof. She felt like a rookie who wanted to go on a case and instead was sent to direct traffic.

  But if there was a computer in there, or any kind of evidence, Juana would find it. And instead of her planned break-and-enter, she headed back to Clyde's house to babysit a hundred-pound Weimaraner-and to worry about Joe. To wait nervously for a call from Clyde and Ryan to find out if they'd found him and if he was all right.

  38

  THE EVENING WAS pushing on toward nine when Charlie got home from Dr. Firetti's, the wind cold at her back as she hurried from her Blazer into the tiled mudroom that led to both the living room and the kitchen. Something smelled good, and when she stepped through into the big family kitchen, Max was fixing a tray for their late supper. She could see through into the living room where he had set up the folding table before a welcoming fire.

  Max had wanted to go down to Firetti's with her, but she'd begged him to stay home, to heat up something from the freezer and maybe make a salad-she couldn't talk to the doctor openly in front of him, and certainly the cats couldn't. She was just thankful that John Firetti was there for them, day and night. There was a clinic up the coast for after-hours emergencies, but Dr. Firetti took care of emergencies for a few of his long-standing clients, as had his father before him, getting out of bed at any hour, and he seemed content with the arrangement.

  She and the two cats had told him every detail of their encounter with the coyotes. He'd asked how close they'd been to the animals, had asked the same questions Max asked. When Firetti was satisfied that no one had been bitten, he'd examined and X-rayed Sage's leg, put on a new splint, and rebandaged him. But he'd wanted to keep him overnight. Kit was unwilling to leave Sage, though they had spent most of the week battling and then making up. Maybe the tortoiseshell wanted to stay because they had battled, because she felt guilty that she'd made Sage so unhappy he'd run away and nearly been killed.

  Dr. Firetti had fixed a warm bed for the two in his office and tossed a blanket and pillow on the couch for himself. Charlie left with hugs for both cats, hoping they'd sort out their differences; she left Kit snuggled as close to Sage as she could get without hurting his wounds, and before she turned away Kit had looked up at her with such confusion, with worry and hurt for Sage and yet with a clear uncertainty in her wide yellow eyes. Uncertainty about the state of her own heart? Torn between her fear for Sage, and her own needs? Charlie had felt tears start and had turned away quickly, leaving the clinic, worrying about where Kit's hotheaded young spirit would lead her.

  Now, at home, Charlie washed her hands at the kitchen sink then followed Max into the living room, where she curled up in a big chair before the fire as he carried in their supper tray. She told herself that everything would be all right, that Kit would sort out her feelings, and as Max pulled his own chair near hers, she sipped her hot tea and reached hungrily for her grilled sandwich.

  "Before we got married," she said, grinning at him, "you told me you couldn't cook."

  "And you told me you didn't know how to fix a fence or shoot straight."

  "This is the best supper I've ever had," she said, taking another huge bite.

  "It's only a grilled-cheese sandwich."

  "It's your famous grilled cream cheese and salami on rye, and it's delicious. Is there more?" she said, devouring her salad, too, and gulping the sweet, steaming tea.

  "All you want, in the kitchen. Did you clean those scratches on your face? You're sure they're only from branches? The coyotes didn't get near you?"

  "Not within yards, Max. Will you
stop worrying?"

  He took her hand. "Just glad you're safe-don't want you frothing at the mouth and biting people." He brought her another sandwich from the kitchen, and fresh, hot tea, then threw another log on the fire and settled down again to fill her in on the events of the evening. She had, while in Dr. Firetti's office, taken a call on her cell from Ryan.

  "Joe's fine," Ryan had begun in a preamble to who-knew-what, then gave her such a brief sketch of where they were and why that Charlie had wanted to stop her, make her tell it slowly. "We're headed home now. Joe's asleep on my lap. He had a hamburger and then we stopped for dinner, smuggled him into a little steakhouse," she had said, amused. "I can't believe how much this cat eats."

  Ryan had had the speaker on, Charlie heard Clyde laugh.

  Joe must have awakened; he had growled, "You'd be hungry, too, if you barely escaped being hauled off to the pound." And the tomcat's yowling harangue had assured her that he was just fine.

  Now she waited for Max to give her the details of what had gone down at the airport and in the city. But by the time he'd finished with San Jose and the race to San Francisco, and was recounting how the San Francisco uniforms had decked Ray Gibbs, she was nodding and jerking awake.

  "Bedtime," Max said, picking up her empty cup and plate. She rose, yawning hugely. "And Ryder Wolf is dead," she said quietly. She would have thought she'd feel no emotion for Ryder. She was surprised by how sad that death left her.

  "What will happen now?" she said as they turned out the lights and headed down the hall.

  "The usual," Max said. "SFPD will go over the stolen Audi, Santa Clara County sheriff's office will examine Lindsey's Mercedes and take evidence. Ditto with Gibbs's car. The sheriff will send a unit over to the city to transport Gibbs back to the Santa Clara County lockup."

  "To be arraigned for murder," she said, crawling into bed. "What will happen to Lindsey? Is she under suspicion for Chappell's death?"

  "Don't know yet," he said, slipping in beside her. "We've yet to identify the woman in the grave. Maybe that's Nina, maybe not. And we have to establish cause of death. Gibbs could be arraigned on that count, too." He looked over at her-and smiled. She was sound asleep.

  Strange, Max thought, watching her. Although this case had endangered Mike and Dallas, it hadn't worried her nearly as much as had tonight's events involving the feral cat. The stress of forging back through that black tangle of woods to rescue the two cats-how many people would do that? The stress of having to shoot the coyotes. Her worry and fear for the cats always touched him. And she claimed she wasn't tenderhearted. Smiling down at his unpredictable redheaded wife, Max turned out the lamp and was soon asleep himself as the rising moon sent a first glimmer through the high windows.

  ***

  BUT LATER, AS moonlight washed broadly through the windows of the Harper house, touching Charlie's face, she woke again to relive the scene in Dr. Firetti's examining room. As the doctor went to fetch some food for the cats, she had stepped out into the hall, leaving Sage and Kit alone, tucked up in the big basket he had fixed for them. But there, she had paused.

  Behind her, she could hear them talking and she turned to listen; she was dismayed as Sage begged Kit to come back to the clowder, to join the clowder once more, to stay with him and be a pair.

  She didn't want Kit to return to the wild, didn't want her to leave her life in the village, none of Kit's friends wanted that. Yet they all, cats and humans, wanted her to be happy. The question was, what did Kit want? Kit, herself, didn't seem to know. She made up to Sage one minute, snuggling and purring, and the next minute was fighting with him. Tonight she'd told him, "No, Sage. I won't come back."

  "But we've always been best friends," he'd said. "You don't really want to stay here among humans, you can't really want to live as a captive, locked up in houses with humans."

  "I don't live as a captive," Kit had hissed. "I come and go as I please, I do as I please. I'm not locked up! I belong here!"

  "But what about us. If you love me…"

  "We will always be loving friends," she'd said softly. "I…I don't know how I feel…Stone Eye is gone," she'd said, "but if another tyrant comes along, will you be obedient to him, too? So he'll protect you?"

  Sage had said nothing. Only silence.

  "Does being safe mean more to you than our freedom?" she'd snapped. There was a thump on the floor as she'd leaped out of the basket and come racing through the door-but Charlie had moved faster, catching her up and holding her close, Kit's heart pounding against her, a fast little trip-hammer.

  "You can't run away, Kit. Just listen to him. Listen to his side, you owe him that."

  Kit had turned her face away-but then in a moment she looked up at Charlie, and shame showed in her wide yellow eyes. As Charlie carried her back into the examining room, Sage had tried to rise, stumbling against the side of the basket, crouching as if to leap out. Charlie hurried to stop him, setting Kit down in the basket beside him, where the two hissed at each other. But then Sage had looked ashamedly down at his paws.

  "I'm sorry," the pale cat had mumbled. "No one can force you to leave here, no one can force you to love me."

  "I'm sorry," Kit had said contritely. "I guess…Maybe, sometimes, one doesn't have a choice in how one feels."

  "I guess maybe sometimes," Sage had said, "one takes the easy way." He looked at Kit a long time, then lay down again. Tentatively Kit curled down beside him. Sage purred a little, and nuzzled Kit's whiskers-and Charlie turned and left them, slipping out of the room.

  Two stubborn little individuals, she'd thought, feeling tears start. So at cross purposes. She'd hurt deeply for them, had headed home filled with concern for Sage and for the fiery young tortoiseshell.

  39

  NOW, AS CHARLIE dropped into a tired sleep again snuggled against Max, down in the village, at Molena Point PD, Lindsey Wolf finished giving Detective Garza her formal statement, clarifying every detail she could recall from the moment she'd first parked across from Gibbs's condo and then followed his car. From those terrible moments in the airport when she saw her sister murdered, to the moment when, in the gift shop at Fisherman's Wharf, Gibbs himself was shot and taken into custody.

  In Dallas's office, against the faint sound of the dispatcher's voice from up the hall and the voices of various officers moving in and out through the building, she told Dallas everything she could remember. The long ride in the cab watching Gibbs's car moving in and out of traffic. Thinking her driver would have a cell phone, and he hadn't. Not wanting to relay her message through his dispatcher, not sure what the dispatcher would tell her superior and other drivers. Following Gibbs to the hotel, paying her cab fare, and slipping into the restaurant to use their phone, having to explain that it was an emergency. By the time they finished the interview, she felt wrung out.

  "Come on," Dallas said. "Mike's waiting. You'll feel better with a drink and some dinner." And they headed for Mike's apartment, leaving the center of the village, its streets and shops bright and awash with moonlight, and heading up among the darker streets where the moon was hidden above pine and oak and cypress trees.

  "Have you thought about what you'll do now?" Dallas said. "After all that's happened, will you find it too painful to stay here in the village?"

  Lindsey looked at him for a long time. "You think I'll run away from ugliness again."

  He glanced at her. "I don't know."

  "That's not very flattering."

  "I'm a cop. I don't specialize in flattery."

  She smiled. "You don't use flattery in your work?"

  He laughed, then was silent. Ahead, at the top of the hill, the over-the-garage duplex was dark on one side, but Mike's lights were bright and welcoming. She looked at Dallas as he pulled up the drive. "I don't think I'll run, this time."

  From the living room above, Mike watched them pull in. He'd been standing at the windows nursing a drink, looking down across the moonlit village to the sea beyond.

  He h
ad stopped to pick up salad things and steaks, had put the potatoes in the oven to bake, washed and put together the salad. Turning to check the oven, he considered his new digs with satisfaction, the big, airy studio with its high, white-stained rafters, its tall windows looking down over the village. Ryan's roomy desk before the windows, offering a comfortable place to work-near the kitchen and coffeepot, he thought, amused.

  At the back of the long room was a simple daybed, soft with throw pillows in the daytime, and two canvas camp chairs. With the dressing room and bath, he had the perfect bachelor pad.

  Perfect, for now.

  It would be pretty crowded for a couple.

  But that was way down the line. He didn't know if Lindsey was ready for a real commitment. How tied was she, still, to what she'd had? What she'd thought she had with Chappell?

  Turning as if to speak to Rock, he realized the big dog wasn't with him, that Rock was back with his mistress. I don't suppose, he thought, watching the Blazer pull in and stepping into the kitchen to mix Lindsey's drink, don't suppose I'd ever find another dog like Rock.

  He thought about this morning, which seemed days ago, about Rock's exhibition of unerring tracking, and wondered what the real story was. Maybe Ryan would tell him, sometime. And maybe she wouldn't. And for a moment, again, he missed the youngster she had been, a handful of fire and stubbornness, as hardheaded as a young mule. Then he smiled. Was she so different now?

  He put aside his fatherly sentiment as Lindsey and Dallas came up the stairs. Opening the door for them, he felt a stab of warmth at the sight of Lindsey-and, again, a sharp jolt of relief that she was safe. That she wasn't dead in that car, in place of her sister.

  ***