Cat Laughing Last

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  This break-in had him uneasy; there were too many vague connections. But that's what investigating was about. What was the matter with him? Was he getting old, losing his edge? Fetching a halter rope from the back of the truck, he snapped it on the dalmatian's collar and led the dog into the waiting room.

  The ten-by-ten foyer was furnished with a green tweed carpet, green leather couch and love seat, and a couple of wooden chairs. A small old lady sat on the love seat, clutching a cardboard cat carrier on her lap. As Harper entered, a low hiss filled the room, sending the dalmatian bolting away from the carrier, toward the door. The receptionist nodded to Harper, spoke into the intercom, and in a moment motioned Harper on back to Firetti's office.

  Firetti was a small man with a smooth round face, pale hair thinning on top, and rimless glasses. When he examined a large dog, as he prepared to do now, he put on safety glasses. He'd been hit in the face more than once by a lunging animal. Changing glasses, he lifted the dalmatian to the table, though Harper hadn't suggested an examination.

  "Just a quick look-over. What's the problem?"

  "Can you keep him out of sight for a while? One of those back kennels? If you get anyone in here inquiring, let me know at once. Or if it's a phone call, get whatever information you can. Say you'll keep a lookout, and call them."

  Firetti nodded, smiling as if pleased to be a part of police business. He ran his hands down the dog, stroked him, checked mouth and teeth and ears, took his temperature, listened to his heart, then set him down off the table. He didn't ask questions, just nodded to Harper, and led the dog away to the isolation wing. Harper was back at the department in time for court, acting as a witness on a drunk driving case that he hoped would net the defendant the maximum sentence.

  He was out of court again by 10:50, heading down the hall to the department, wishing the remodeling was finished, wondering if things would ever be back to normal. Why did any kind of building project take four times as long as the contractor promised? Half his officers were in temporary quarters scattered all over the courthouse. The other half were doing their desk work among bare stud walls, stacks of two-by-fours, sawhorses and piles of sawdust and screaming power tools, and no kind of security. He wondered why he'd started this project.

  Though, to give the contractor credit, his carpenters were as quiet as they could be, they didn't shout, didn't talk on the job except when their work demanded a few words-no long-winded bouts of sports talk and male gossip that most carpenters indulged in while they hammered away.

  When he checked with the dispatcher, two calls got his attention.

  At 9:15, the neighbor living next door to Elliott Traynor had called to report gunfire the night before. A Lillian Sanders. She said she couldn't call until her husband went to work because he had considered the noise backfire and said she shouldn't bother the police, that she would only make a fool of herself. Checking back over last night's calls he found four reports of possible gunfire, though it could have been only backfire. An officer had patrolled the area for some time, with no indication of trouble.

  At 9:40, Charlie had called for him but wouldn't leave a message. That wasn't like Charlie. The number she gave was Elliott Traynors'. She told the dispatcher she'd be there until noon.

  Leaving the station, he headed for the Traynors'. Why anyone needed their house cleaned every day was beyond his comprehension. The Traynors didn't even have children or pets to mess things up.

  But Charlie did the shopping as well, and some meal preparation, so she functioned more as a housekeeper than a cleaning service. He wondered, if he and Charlie got married, if she'd want to keep the business or sell it. They hadn't really discussed marriage. He just kept thinking that way.

  Never thought he'd want to marry again. Sometimes it seemed like he'd betray Millie if he married Charlie. But other times, he thought Millie would approve. Thought if she could speak to him she'd tell him she liked Charlie, that he was a damn fool to feel guilty. Thought she'd tell him to get on with what was left of his life.

  As for Charlie's Fix-It, Clean-It business, maybe she'd just hire more help. She'd worked hard building the service, had turned it into a first-class operation in just a couple of years. It would be a shame to let it go. But her real work was her animal drawings, that was where he'd like to see her spend her energy. Her work was very fine, and that was not only his opinion.

  She'd tried commercial art, after getting her degree, and had left the field totally discouraged. She had no patience working for others. Maybe that's why they got along so well. She'd been feeling desperate, just about at rock bottom when she left San Francisco and moved down to Molena Point, living with her aunt Wilma and starting Charlie's Fix-It, Clean-It.

  Then a local gallery had seen her animal drawings. This was the only artwork she truly loved doing. They'd liked her work enough to give her a show and represent her, and she was making a name for herself. She had a feel for animals, she knew anatomy, and she truly captured each personality. She'd done two of his horses, large framed portraits that he treasured. And Clyde's and Wilma's cats-Charlie made them look so intelligent they almost scared him. That was the only time he'd seen her digress from an animal's true character. He didn't know why, when she drew those three cats, she gave them more intelligence and awareness than even the brightest animal could command. Maybe she didn't realize how bright she made them look.

  Or maybe she did that to please Wilma, and to stroke Clyde's ego. Clyde did love the gray tomcat, Harper thought with amusement. He'd never thought, when they were young kids bronc-riding and raising hell, that Clyde would end up with a houseful of cats. Clyde had three cats besides the gray tom, though you hardly noticed them much; they seemed to drape themselves around the house minding their own business. It was the gray cat that seemed to be always in your face.

  Arriving at the Traynors', he found that Charlie had already gone, apparently earlier than she had expected. He sat in his truck for a few moments, studying the cottage, then called Charlie on his cell phone. He'd like to question the Traynors, to ask if they'd heard gunshots, but he had no real reason to do that. Charlie answered on the second ring.

  "You free for lunch?"

  "Yes. I meant to stay there until noon, but I was so ticked. When they got home early I knew I'd better get out or I'd blow at them."

  "You want to tell me now?"

  "No. Shall I order some deli?"

  "Yes. I'll meet you in front of Jolly's."

  When he arrived at the deli, Charlie had just picked up their lunch. She left her van at the curb, and they drove down the coast to the state park. Cruising in through the security gate and slowly through the cypress woods to the ocean, they parked where they could enjoy the waves crashing high against the jagged rocks. Charlie was pale, her freckles dark, the way she looked after a flash of anger or disappointment. She had ordered crab sandwiches, coleslaw and nonalcoholic beer.

  He opened two bottles of O'Doul's. "A neighbor of the Traynors thought she heard gunfire last night. Thought it might have been from their place."

  "You talked to them?"

  "I had no real reason to. Several calls were logged in last night, and an officer did an area check. He found nothing. Most of those reports turn out to be backfire." He looked at Charlie, waiting.

  "There was gunfire. It was so… Traynor left me a hundred dollars for cleaning up the mess he made."

  Harper let her tease him along, amused at her anger.

  "Raccoons, Max. In the pantry. They got in from the attic. They must have made a racket-tore everything up. He shot them, right there in the pantry. He made a terrible mess, blood and gore mixed with all the food they had spilled."

  She didn't know whether he was going to laugh or continue to sit there watching her. "Traynor shot them, and put the two bodies in the garbage. Left that mess for me to clean up, along with all the garbage strewn across the yard."

  She saw a grin start at the corner of his mouth, a wry smile that made her wan
t to smack him, then want to laugh, herself. "There was a loose vent into the attic. I got a ladder, nailed it back in place. The raccoons had worked the plywood cover off the crawl hole. Traynor left me a note and a hundred-dollar bill. Said he shot them with a target pistol-didn't want me to tell anyone."

  The lines that mapped his lean, tanned face deepened with interest.

  "It's a big pantry, a walk-in. Took me half the morning. I didn't do much else; I'll make up for it tomorrow. He got home as I was leaving, said he thought it was a burglar in there, that he got the pistol, jerked the door open, saw these huge raccoons tearing up boxes of food. Said they snarled at him and scared him, and he didn't know what else to do but shoot them. Said he was really afraid of them."

  "A lot of explanation."

  "Why would he not want me to tell anyone? Not want me to tell you? Because he has a gun?"

  "It's not illegal to have a gun if he stores it properly and if he's not a felon. If he keeps it locked up in the house, it's not my business."

  He looked deeply at Charlie. "You might want to watch yourself around Traynor, until we know what that's about. He has to have a hot temper, to blow away two innocent animals when he could have called the dispatcher and gotten some help."

  "It's hard for me to think of him as being crosswise with the law. Though I do have other questions about him."

  "Oh? Like what?"

  "Umm-about his writing."

  "About his writing?" Harper leaned back, watching the breakers crash against the rocks sending up white showers of spray. The smell of brine was sharp through the open window.

  "I read part of his manuscript that he left lying on the desk."

  He looked at her, raising an eyebrow.

  She ignored his silent sarcasm. This was nothing she wanted to joke about. "It's crude, Max. Clumsy. I don't understand. Traynor's a beautiful writer."

  "I didn't know you were a literary critic. Or that you were so nosy."

  "Call it hero worship," she said lightly. "But this has truly upset me-a real let-down."

  He began to peel the label from his beer, rolling it into a little ball. "It's a let-down because his writing is bad. Because you admired his work. You're disappointed in the man you thought of as perfect."

  "Maybe." She sipped her beer, staring out at the sea, eased by its endless and constant rhythm. "Somehow the Traynors make me uneasy. They aren't what I expected. I guess I thought Vivi, too, would be different. That she would be gentler, wise and capable and supportive. My idea of an author's wife," she said, laughing. But then, watching Max, she frowned. "You-the police have no reason to be interested in Traynor?"

  "Not at all. Not at the moment."

  She watched him, then changed the subject. "I'm keeping the hundred dollars. I earned it. Tucking it away for a special occasion."

  "Like what? A bottle of champagne for our wedding?"

  He shocked himself. Shocked them both. Charlie's eyes widened. Beneath her freckles, she blushed.

  He said, "Maybe a wedding and champagne on shipboard, on our way to Alaska?"

  "Now I know you're putting me on. You haven't been away from the department since you joined the force."

  "Not true. Been to Quantico twice for FBI training. And more conferences on police administration than I want to remember."

  "Well, bully for you."

  He grinned. "A lot of vacation time to use up. I figure a month's cruise, this fall, before the weather turns."

  Her response was so enthusiastic that she startled Harper. The moment amazed them both. It was a while before they opened their sandwiches and the containers of coleslaw and popped another beer. She tried to get hold of herself, but she couldn't. When she started to laugh, she couldn't stop. She leaned against him, laughing.

  "So what's the joke?"

  She knew her face had gone red. "Just… just excitement," she lied. "I…" She looked up at him. "Just happy!" But what she'd thought of suddenly was about telling Dulcie and Joe Grey. Thinking how happy the cats would be-and then that knowledge sobered her.

  That was a hard call; no matter how close she and Max might be for the rest of their lives, there was one secret she could never tell him. One part of her life that she could never share.

  16

  Spotlights illuminated center stage. The house lights were dark, the rows of seats marching away empty into the hollow blackness of the theater. Only a few front seats were occupied where Elliott and Vivi Traynor, director Samuel Ladler, and music director Mark King sat together softly talking, and occasionally rattling a script. Elliott had hunched down in his wrinkled corduroy sport coat as if perhaps he felt unwell. On the far side of the theater near the exit door, a dozen actors had taken a block of seats, whispering among themselves, waiting for their callback auditions for Thorns of Gold. Above the house among the rafters, where night clung against the high ceiling, crouched an attentive feline audience of three: two pairs of yellow eyes, one pair of green, catching glances of soft light. No human, below, bothered to look up, to find those tiny spotlights.

  "But where's Cora Lee?" Dulcie said softly, peering down at the waiting actors.

  "Still backstage," said the kit. "Painting sets like she doesn't care at all about the part."

  Of the seven women who had read and sung for the part of Catalina during yesterday's tryouts, Cora Lee was one of two callbacks. Director Ladler felt so pressed for time that he had notified the actors last night before they left the theater, had stood on the patio with the little group gathered around him and read out the names of the callbacks. Then he had quickly turned back inside before anyone could challenge his decisions. No director liked that part of the casting; no one enjoyed seeing the disappointment of those who were turned away.

  Below the cats, Vivi leaned over to Elliott, whispering something, then giggling. She leaned forward in her chair, looking down the several seats to question Sam Ladler and to give him orders. Elliott hardly paid attention. Surely he wasn't feeling well, Dulcie thought. Maybe the decisions that should be his had suddenly fallen on Vivi's shoulders and she was nervous about that.

  Director Sam Ladler was a lean, tanned man with thinning hair that heightened his forehead into a deep widow's peak. He looked like he ran or played tennis. He was dressed this morning in old jeans and a limp sweatshirt. He was a terse man, Wilma had said, with a dry humor. Wilma said that he and his casts had created outstanding theater for Molena Point. He sat between Traynor and Mark King, the two directors having managed to put Vivi down at the far end of the row.

  Mark King was smoothly pudgy, a young man who seemed to have turned middle-aged before his time. He was short, maybe five-four, with straight, faded brown hair down to his shoulders and rimless half-glasses that he kept wiping as if he found it impossible to remove the smudges. He wore wrinkled chinos and a T-shirt with palm trees printed across it. He rose as Ladler called for Catalina and moved up onto the stage, to the piano.

  "We'll have Fern Barth," Ladler said, looking down at the little group of actors. Fern was Richard Casselrod's assistant at the antiques shop, a pale, spiritless woman, in Dulcie's opinion, whose singing during tryouts had sounded as if she was practicing for second line in the choir box, hitting the notes okay, but with no more feeling than a china doll. As Fern stepped up on stage, a whiff of her perfume rose to the cats as sweet as cake icing.

  "Why," Dulcie whispered, "was this woman called back?"

  Joe Grey shrugged, yawning. "Doesn't stand a chance."

  "I hope not," Dulcie said uneasily. And her dismay was sharp when Fern had finished, and Vivi smiled and nodded at Sam Ladler. Elliott came to life long enough to give Fern a friendly wink. Sam Ladler looked over at them blankly and called Cora Lee.

  Cora Lee came out from the wings rolling down the sleeves of her smock and wiping paint from her face. Moving to center stage, she turned to the piano, smiled at Mark King, then stood quietly looking out at the rows of empty seats, collected and composed.

  "Read
from where she refuses to marry Stanton," Ladler said. "Then where she's locked in her room, and that first number."

  Cora Lee read her lines with cold anger as Catalina was led away to her prison. Watching her, the cats forgot her stained smock and the green smear down her cheek. She stood and moved with the grace and dignity of generations of Spanish queens.

  But when Catalina faced the audience from behind her locked door, her movements were restricted and disheartened, her song holding all the misery of imprisonment and of love denied.

  "One more number," Ladler said. "Let's hear her plea."

  As Catalina begged for rescue, her audience on the rafters above was very still. The kit mewled softly, and Dulcie felt her own heart twist. This was not Cora Lee French, the gentle waitress with gray in her hair; this was a young girl frightened and alone, her pain wrenching their very cat souls. When the number ended, there was not a sound in the theater. Cora Lee bowed slightly to Samuel Ladler and to King, but did not move from the stage. The ghosts from the past that she had summoned clung around her, lingering in the shadows.

  "Thank you," Ladler said softly, and watched Cora Lee move offstage. But as she stepped down to sit with the other actors, again Vivi leaned to speak to Ladler, shaking her head. Her whisper rose clearly to the cats. "Too bad, Sam. She's just not right for the part-that gray hair, for one thing. Really too bad, but the part calls for a younger woman.

  "And," Vivi said, "to be honest, Elliott doesn't care for overacting." She gave Ladler a bright smile. "Well, Fern is perfect for the part. We're fortunate to have her. So sweet-just the way a young girl would sing, with a broken heart."

  Sam Ladler sat looking at Vivi, very still and rigid. He rose, turning to Elliot. "Shall we step out to the lobby to discuss this?"

  "There's no need," Vivi said. "We love Fern's performance. Elliott loves her. She's perfect." Beside her, Elliott nodded.

  Sam continued to look at Elliott. "I don't discuss the tryouts in front of the actors. Would you like to continue this in private?"