Cat Spitting Mad

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  And no one knew to care. No one but Charlie would think of protecting them; no one knew how special they were.

  25

  IN THE TIDES and eddies of night, among the broken walls and fallen trees, a figure dressed in dark clothes moved silently and quick, pausing to investigate the two cars parked among the rubble, then slipping toward the ruined house, seeming to know well the layout of the gardens and the abandoned mansion. The time was 5 A.M., some four and a half hours after the three cars left the back door of the automotive shop; the winter night was still black.

  Beneath the estate's sprawling trees, no faint gleam shone across the figure's chin or hair, no glint of light fingered the gun that nestled in a furtive hand, nor could one hear the smallest hush of a footstep. The prowler was as silent as the hunter who followed behind on stealthy paws watching with curiosity every move, sniffing at the rank human smell.

  As the figure moved into the derelict house through the open parlor and toward the kitchen and stairs, the feline hunter padded closer. Only the cougar was aware of a second two-leg, standing behind them out by the road at the edge of the overgrown gardens. The big cat did not feel threatened. Cocking an ear, he listened behind him, then honed his attention again on the thin figure approaching the stairwell, the black cave down into the earth.

  When another hunter entered the scene, slipping up from the earthen caverns below, the cougar caught the scent without interest. The small domestic cat didn't distract him. All his attention was on the two-leg, where it wandered with its back to him, a position that excited him and drew him ever closer-that retreating back enticed him beyond curiosity, to a desire to grab and kill.

  Beside the cave-hole, the two-leg paused and seemed to be listening. The cougar paused. And from deep in the shadows, Joe Grey watched the little drama. The four players were positioned as in a game of chess, but this game was played by scent and sound, as rook and knights and king pursued their opposing objectives.

  And only one among the players understood the worlds of both his four-footed and two-footed opponents. Only one had the keener senses of the big, four-footed cat, yet the sophisticated mental skills of the two-legs.

  Crouched beneath a massy bush of Mexican sage, some fifty feet from the stairs that led down to the cellar, Joe Grey watched the puma slide through the ruined house, stalking the dark-dressed figure, the big cat relaxed and easy, strolling along as if he owned the Pamillon estate. And certainly in his cougar mind, he did own it.

  Joe didn't know whether the dark-clad figure the big cat followed was male or female until that player paused at the head of the stairs, and Joe caught the glint of honey-colored hair. Crystal? He couldn't smell her over the garden scents and the stink of the puma. She stood looking around her, listening.

  And out on the road, the watcher shifted position, his black clothes darker than the night. Stubby Baker? Had Baker slipped away from Clyde and followed Crystal? Joe wanted to go have a look-but daren't leave Crystal to slip down the steps and take Harper and Charlie by surprise; none of these players had made a sound; Harper would have no reason for sudden alarm. He and Charlie would still be sitting on the floor of the cellar, alert but caught in idle conversation.

  Joe didn't know if Crystal was armed. He didn't think she would hurt Dillon, but who knew? He thought she had held Dillon as security, to blackmail the killer. He figured Crystal as the go-between, liaison between the killer and whoever at San Quentin had done the hiring.

  If Crystal was the banker, the mastermind at Quentin fully trusted her.

  How ironic that the money to buy Helen Marner's duplex was money Crystal earned by having Helen murdered.

  Moving closer behind the cougar through the rubble of the kitchen, Joe leaped atop a tinder heap of rotting kitchen cabinets. The cougar twitched an ear, but remained intent on Crystal. And in a moment, Joe slipped wide around the big cat, positioning himself to scorch down past Crystal and warn Harper.

  But the other figure had slipped nearer, entering the parlor, looming black against the graying sky. It was a man, Joe saw clearly now.

  The cougar turned, watching the intruder, the tip of his tail twitching. The black-robed figure didn't see him; he cut through the parlor running. Grabbing Crystal, he shoved a gun in her face. The cougar wheeled, leaping away twenty feet to the top of a broken wall, crouching to watch, his tail lashing.

  Unaware, the man shook Crystal and hit her. "Where is she? Where is the girl?" His voice was raspy, whining, icing Joe Grey's blood.

  "I don't have her." Fear sharpened Crystal's voice. "Why would I have her?"

  Wark hit Crystal again. "Where?"

  She pounded him and kneed him. He stumbled, beating her. Above them the cougar crouched. Fighting, the two fell writhing to the ground. The cougar was on them in a hot surge of power, snatching Crystal by the neck, knocking Wark against the wall.

  Three shots rang out.

  The cougar turned, snarling. Harper fired again into the sky. The big cat dropped Crystal and crouched facing Harper, poised between springing at him and running. His paw still held Crystal. He glanced at her once, licking blood from his whiskers. In that instant, Lee Wark spun away, running. Harper shouted and fired after him-Harper knew better than to run. Nor would he leave Crystal. The gunfire and shout decided the cougar. He fled up the hill into the black forest.

  And Lee Wark, too, was gone. Harper looked after him for a moment, then knelt over Crystal, his gun on her as he spoke into his radio. The air stank of gunpowder and blood. Joe could see where the puma had torn her shoulder and arm. He backed away, fading into the shadows-and found Dulcie beside him, pressing close.

  And when the two cats looked up the hill above the ruins, the cougar stood watching, sleek and powerful against the silver dawn. The big cat screamed once, wheeled, and vanished toward the wild mountains. They looked after him, shivering.

  "Oh," whispered a small voice behind them. "Oh, so beautiful." And the kit pushed between them, her dark little face and round yellow eyes filled with yearning, her furry ears sharp forward as if waiting for another wild scream.

  Joe couldn't speak for the kit, but that golden image left him feeling as small and insignificant as a fly speck.

  But then Dulcie brushed her whiskers against his, purring, and pressed close to him, and he felt fine and strong again, the boldest and most elegant of tomcats.

  And Max Harper turned from his cuffed prisoner, where she lay curled into a fetal position, her head on Harper's folded jacket. Harper had managed to stop some of the bleeding, using pressure. They could hear the ambulance screaming up the hills, and soon they could see its whirling red light and the lights of two squad cars.

  As the cats came out from the shadows, Max Harper knelt and, in a rare gesture, reached to stroke Joe Grey. "Thanks, tomcat. With all that hissing and taking off up the stairs, you kept Crystal from slipping down on us. Maybe you stopped the cougar, too." Harper grinned. "Maybe Clyde's right, maybe cats are good for something."

  26

  DRIVING UP the coast with Hanni, Kate couldn't keep her mind off Lee Wark. She leaned back in the soft leather of Hanni's SUV, meaning to enjoy the morning, and spent the entire drive staring into every car they passed, with the paranoid notion that she would see Wark.

  The sun was bright, the air just cool enough to be fresh, their windows cracked to an ocean breeze, the sea on their left thundering with sufficient wildness to both beckon and repel. And all she could think of was Lee Wark.

  Stubby Baker was in jail, this morning. And that was good news. And Crystal Ryder was under arrest, in the emergency wing of Molena Point Hospital. But Lee Wark was still free, and Dallas had reason to believe that Wark had killed Ruthie Marner.

  What an amazing thing, that Crystal had been attacked by the cougar. What a strange end to Crystal's part in a bizarre crime.

  Certainly nothing had changed in the threat that she, Kate, felt from Wark. She was obsessed with the idea that he was near. When Hanni tur
ned off the freeway into the city, just before noon, she was tense with nerves.

  And alone again in her apartment, before she must return to work the next morning, she felt the afternoon stretching ahead, peculiarly unsettling.

  She needed to lay to rest her fears-at least those surrounding the Cat Museum. That fear, she had come to realize, was in part fear of the museum itself. Fear of what she might learn there, as well as her unease that Wark would find her there and hurt her.

  She wasn't home half an hour, glancing through her mail that had been shoved through the door onto the rug, before she grabbed her jacket, locked the door behind her, and headed for the Iron Horse. She'd have a quick lunch, then call a cab. Wark wouldn't be in the city.

  He would be too busy, with the Marner murders hanging over him, too busy running from the police to think about her. To think about her possible connection to what she believed was a whole, traceable line of individuals possessed of the spirits of both cat and human. Certainly Wark would not be interested in her search for a man who might have been her grandfather.

  Hurrying into the restaurant, heading for her usual table- praying that Ramon wouldn't start about the cat killer-she greeted him with an unusual reserve.

  "Buenos dias, senora."

  "Good afternoon, Ramon."

  She felt guilty at his puzzled look, that she hadn't spoken in their usual joking Spanish. Why had she come in here, only to be rude to him?

  "It's good to see you, Ramon."

  "You have been away. Did you enjoy your village? Molena Point, verdad?"

  Kate laughed, telling herself she should be pleased that he would remember. "It was nice to be home in the village, yes." He was such a shy, kind person. There was no need to be rude to him. He was only very curious-and so easy to hurt, easy to rebuff, backing away if he felt unwanted.

  There was a reluctant, almost stray quality about Ramon. He was a loner. A shy, needy person and a loner. She gave him a smile. "It's nice to be back in the city. Very nice to see you."

  Her friendliness eased him. When he had taken her order and brought her sandwich, he fetched his own cup of coffee and sat down opposite her, glancing at her diffidently.

  "You were all right when you were in your village, senora? You had a happy time?"

  "Oh, yes, Ramon. Quite happy." What was he getting at? He couldn't know that she had left the city frightened, had been frightened, in a painful undercurrent, the entire time she was at home, and was still scared.

  She said, "There have been-no more terrible incidents?"

  Why had she said that? She hadn't meant to mention the cat killer, she didn't want to hear about him. It came out before she thought.

  "No, senora. No incidents. Maybe that man went away. Except…" He glanced out at the street, his white skin going paler, the rust-colored scar on his cheek seeming to darken.

  "Except, maybe an hour ago when I took out the trash, I saw three cats running, very frightened, into the alley as if something was chasing them."

  "City cats, Ramon. They run from cars, from dogs, from small children."

  "I suppose." Ramon finished his coffee and rose. She wanted to ask if he'd gone into the alley where the cats had run. Had he seen anyone chasing them?

  But she didn't ask. She was so foolishly obsessed. At least she could keep her fears to herself.

  She ate quickly, irritated with herself, paid her bill, and left; she looked back once, to see him standing in the window watching her. He had turned the open sign around to read closed, and had pulled the sheer white curtain across the lower half of the glass. She supposed he had an errand; he did that sometimes, left after the noon rush, returned in time to prepare for the dinner hour.

  Heading up Stockton, she decided not to look for a cab. The sun felt good on her shoulders. She liked watching the clouds racing overhead trailing their shadows swift as birds across the pale hillside houses. She swung along until soon, above her at the crest of Russian Hill, the white walls and red tile roofs of the museum glowed beneath their dark, twisted oaks. Hurrying up the hill, only once did she glance behind her.

  Seeing the street empty, she slowed her pace. She entered through the iron gate slowly, taking her time, enjoying the welcoming ambiance of the bright gardens.

  The museum's cats were everywhere, sunning on the walks, rolling over, smiling lazily as they watched her, cats as sleek as the marble felines that gleamed on the sculpture stands. Cats peered out at her from the geraniums, looked down from atop the stone walls and out through the gallery windows. She had such a sense of oneness with them, almost as if she could read their thoughts- of sun on their backs, of the warm sidewalk, the taste of water in a bowl.

  But then suddenly the cats turned wary, slipping away into the bushes.

  Afraid of her? Was her two-sided nature so apparent? And did that frighten them?

  Were none of them like Joe Grey and Dulcie, so they could understand her?

  Soon only one cat remained, watching her unafraid. A sleek torn as white as alabaster. He looked at her for a long time, then he, too, vanished, just where sunlight struck through the leaves. He'd had dirt on his face, or some sort of rust-colored marking.

  Approaching the main door, she paused to read the quotations inscribed on clay tablets along the garden wall.

  Some claim that the cat came to us from the vanished continent of Atlantis.

  Our companion the cat is the warm, furry, whiskered, and purring reminder of a lost paradise.

  That one made her smile. She recognized that quotation, she thought from some French artist.

  But the next inscription stopped her.

  Dark the cat walks, his pacing shadow small.

  Dark the cat walks, his shadow explodes tall,

  Fearsome wide and tall.

  Ramon's words. That was what Ramon had said, the day he brought the newspaper that had so upset her.

  Backing away from the plaque, she sat down on a bench, her hands trembling. His shadow explodes tall, fearsome wide and tall.

  Ramon couldn't know what those words meant. To Ramon, they would be no more than a poetic image. She read the lines again, trying to put down her unease.

  A movement at the corner of her vision made her look up. Ice filled her veins.

  The man in the black overcoat stood out by the street. Dense black against the clear colors of the garden.

  He stood looking at her, his face in shadow, then turned slowly away, moved casually down the hill to disappear between the houses.

  She thought to run after him and get a good look-grab his shoulders and swing him around, get a look at his eyes.

  But she didn't have the nerve. She hurried inside through the mullioned glass door to the safety of the galleries.

  Losing herself among the rich oils and watercolors, she found some ink drawings by Alice Kitchen, then discovered a Miro and two delightful Van Goghs. And a Picasso she didn't care for. Too stark and impersonal. She stopped to admire the primitive portrait of a black Manx playing with a mouse, the mouse so real she could almost feel the silkiness of its fur and the prick of its little claws.

  Moving slowly through the gallery to the visitors' desk, she slipped her billfold from her pocket to pay the admission fee. The attendant was a stocky, dull-haired woman rather like a box with thick legs. She watched Kate sullenly, looking her up and down.

  Why must short, meaty women bristle at her simply because she was slim and tall? She couldn't help how she looked. It embarrassed her when people saw her only from the outside, and didn't care to discover what she was like within.

  And that thought almost sent her into nervous and uncontrolled laughter.

  Even the attendant's eyes were dull, her expression discontented. Maybe she had an unhappy home life. Maybe she longed for a fortune's worth of plastic surgery and cosmetic rejuvenation.

  I can be catty, Kate thought, amused.

  She gave the woman a hesitant smile and laid her hand gently on the marble counter in a gestu
re of friendship. "It's a lovely museum, the work is magnificent. And the cats look so happy, so many beautiful cats."

  "Certainly we have cats." As if she'd heard that same remark more times than she cared to count.

  "They're lucky to live in such beautiful gardens." Did she have to add another inanity?

  The woman sighed. "They were all strays. Cats who found their way here hungry and lost. Or cats that were dumped by some uncaring person." As she spoke of the cats, a warmth crept into her voice, and she returned Kate's smile. "The cats are our welcoming committee. People seem to slow their pace, watching and petting them, and so take more time to enjoy the galleries."

  Kate nodded. "I understand you have a library in the museum? I'm doing research for a magazine article," she lied. "On the history of the smaller museums in northern California. But this museum-this one is special. I just moved to San Francisco. I'd like to learn more about the museum, I'd like very much to join." She opened her checkbook.

  The woman handed her a membership form. "I will hold your dues until your application is approved. Are you looking for something in particular?"

  "Some diaries. A man who lived in San Francisco in the fifties, a building contractor. I understand Mr. McCabe was a close friend of Alice Kitchen. I'm interested in her drawings, I'm planning a rather long article about Kitchen's work. I understand that Mr. McCabe knew her as a little girl, that he encouraged her talent- and that he designed and built the museum? I've never heard his first name."

  "We do not know his first name. He called himself simply McCabe. That was the way he signed his articles for the Chronicle."

  "And his diaries?"

  "They are locked in the vault, very valuable, very special to us. Once your application has been accepted, we can share them with you." The woman bent, reaching beneath the counter as if to retrieve an application form. As she did, Kate saw beyond her, out the window, the black-coated man slipping through the shadows into a pergola of wisteria.