Cat Breaking Free

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  Luis lay on his back, his snores loud and rhythmic. The cats were so close that their noses stung not only with the smell of his feet but with his garlic breath. Rearing up with his left paw against the edge of the mattress, Joe eased his right paw toward Luis's pants pocket. And Dulcie slipped silently up onto the nightstand, ready to spring into Luis's face if he grabbed for Joe.

  Ready to defend her tomcat, she looked as lethal as a coiled snake.

  Faster than she could blink, Joe's paw slipped into Luis's pocket.

  Reaching delicately to the bottom of the pocket, Joe felt two car keys on their chain. Then, among a tangle of loose change, he could feel another key fob. Round, with some kind of raised emblem, attached by its short chain to a lone, fat, stubby key. That sure felt like a padlock key.

  Soft as butterfly wings, his paw caressed the hard metal. Gently he hooked his claws into the chain. Luis grunted, stopped snoring and scratched his leg. He turned over, reaching automatically to his pocket, in his sleep. He nearly touched Joe. The tomcat panicked, reared away from him and dropped off the bed-without the key.

  Angry at his own clumsiness, Joe wondered if he had tickled Luis. He crouched beside the bed, scowling, until Luis began snoring again with little uneven huffs, then he slipped up for another try.

  Luis's snores continued unbroken until Joe's paw was again in his pocket; but suddenly Luis jerked upright, thrashing his arm, flailing out, then rubbing his eyes. Joe was gone, vanished beneath the bed, Dulcie beside him.

  Directly above them, Luis sat up, bouncing the springs so close to their heads they ducked. Swinging his legs to the floor, he sat on the edge of the bed yawning, then, in his socks and his pants but no shirt, he headed down the hall to the bathroom. Not until they heard the shower running did the cats come out from under the bed, to crouch before the closed bathroom door.

  Dulcie didn't want to go into that small closed space with Luis. Joe leaped, grabbing at the knob until he had a secure grip between his clutching paws. Swinging with all his weight, he turned the knob. Beside him, Dulcie pushed the door open.

  The shower water pounded, its thunder hiding whatever noise they might make, its steam and the mottled shower door hiding them from Luis's view-they hoped. The room was like a sauna, steam blurring the porcelain fixtures. Behind the obscure glass door, the ghost of Luis's squat, broad figure genuflected and scrubbed.

  On the closed toilet seat lay Luis's wadded-up pants. Faster than the speed of the pounding water, Joe's paw was into the pocket among the tangle of keys and loose change. This time he knew what he was looking for. Beyond the shower door Luis bent one knee as if washing his feet-an indication to Joe that he was about to finish up and step out, that any minute he would slide the door open and snatch a towel from the rod. Glancing at Dulcie, he saw a sharp mix of fear and predatory determination in her wide green eyes.

  Pawing deeper into the pocket, he tried to separate the little fob with its single fat key from the other keys, and to catch its chain in his claws. At last, with it securely hooked, he drew it out.

  The fob at the other end of the chain held the carved picture of a long-tailed quetzal bird, its image half worn away from use. Gripping the bird in his teeth, he pushed quickly out the door, Dulcie by his side. When, behind them, the shower door slid open, Dulcie swallowed a mewl. They shouldered the bathroom door closed and were gone, twin shadows streaking down the hall into the empty living room and behind the couch, the first piece of furniture they encountered.

  Crouched in the shadows, they listened to the two women in the kitchen. "… Must be tired, Maria," Chichi was saying. "Abuela to take care of, Luis and Tommie to cook for, and those cats to tend, cleaning their cages… Would you like to get out for a while?" There was a jingle of keys. "Go on, take some time for yourself. Bring home some groceries, you can say you were doing the shopping. Go have a sundae, a look in the store windows. I'll take care of Abuela, see that she's comfortable, make her a nice cup of tea."

  Slipping through the living room and into the dining room, the cats peered through a second door into the kitchen. Maria stood by the table, pulling on a red jacket over her blue sweat suit. "You sure you don't mind?"

  "Go while you have the chance." Chichi hugged Maria. "Before Luis comes out of the shower. I'll tell them you had to go to the store."

  "That we were out of beans and milk," Maria said quickly. "Chorizo. Onions. And sand, that cat sand."

  "Why does he keep them? What's he mean to do with them, now that Hernando's…" pausing, Chichi glanced toward Abuela's bedroom.

  Maria's expression went solemn. "He… Hernando said they were worth money. Luis believed him. He's too stubborn to turn them loose, he's sure he can sell them, make a bundle. I guess that's all," she said uncertainly.

  "Stray cats! Not worth shooting. And the poor things stuffed in that cage. I'll clean the cage before I go, so it won't smell so bad."

  "You can't clean it, Luis has the key. Can't clean it properly. You can reach the scoop in between the bars, though."

  Chichi sighed. "How can a grown man be so stupid?" She gave Maria a little shove. "Go on, before he comes out." The two women looked at each other with a bond of friendship, and Maria slipped away, out the front door. The cats heard her start the car and back down the drive.

  In the kitchen, Chichi immediately resumed her search, going through the pockets of Luis's windbreaker that he'd left hanging over a chair. When she pulled out a small, empty, black silk bag, Joe swallowed back a hiss of surprise that almost gave them away.

  "So," the tomcat said when they were behind the couch again, "she did give the bag to Luis. And Luis came in this morning counting money." Luis had gone back to bed, they could hear his snores chorusing off-key with Tommie's. "Is she looking for the money? Or something else, too? Go on, Dulcie. Follow her. I'll go in Abuela's room; if she's asleep I'll open the lock."

  Dulcie looked at him uncertainly. She didn't like to split up. And she was afraid of Chichi.

  But what was the woman going to do if she saw her? She was a cat, totally innocent; and she was faster and more agile than Chichi. Not liking to act the coward in front of Joe, she slipped quickly away following Chichi, padding down the shadowed hall toward the stairs with only a small shiver, only a few beads of sweat on her paws.

  27

  Dallas Garza was preparing to release Dufio Rivas. The detective had sent three men up the hills to watch the old house where Charlie had spotted the brown pickup. Two officers were wearing gray fatigues marked with Molena Point Gas Service logos, and were driving a gas company truck. The third officer, stationed just down the block, was dressed in greasy jeans and was changing the tire on an old car he had pulled to the curb. Dallas had a fourth man waiting near the jail to follow Dufio when he left.

  He had checked the ownership of the hillside house, and knew it belonged to an Estrella Nava, an eighty-two-year-old village resident who had lived there alone since her husband died twenty years before. The detective had run the Washington state plates of the truck Charlie spotted, and had run the Nevada plates of the car they picked up the night of the burglary. That night, the truck's plate had not been visible. Both plates came up stolen. Neither belonged to the vehicle to which it was affixed. Dallas had some concern that when they released Dufio, he would spot the tails they had on him. Max didn't think so. "We could probably send him home with a chaperone, he wouldn't catch on."

  "He's stayed out of jail better than his brothers," Dallas said. "Just hope he hightails it for the Nava house, gives us reason to get a search warrant. Charlie's pretty sure that was the truck?"

  "I've never known Charlie to be wrong about what she's seen. She's an artist, she looks and she remembers."

  "Let's get Dufio moving, maybe we'll see some action."

  Harper rose, grinning at Garza's unrest, and they headed down the hall and out the back door. Crossing the officers' parking lot within its chain-link fence, they entered the small village jail.

&
nbsp; Molena Point jail was a holding facility for short-term detainees and for prisoners awaiting trial or being tried. Once a sentence was imposed, those sentenced were moved to the county jail or to a state facility. There were four small cells, two on either side of the concrete hall. Four bunks to each cell. Down at the end were two large tanks, one on either side, each built to accommodate ten prisoners. The right-hand tank was empty except for Dufio. Its other three occupants had been released an hour earlier, when they had sobered up sufficiently and been bailed out by their wives. Dufio Rivas lay stretched out on his back on a top bunk under a rough prison blanket, his face turned slightly to the wall. Maybe the drunks had kept him awake all night, maybe now in the welcome silence he was trying to catch up on his sleep. Dallas unlocked the door.

  "Come on, Dufio. You're free to go home."

  Dufio didn't stir.

  "Wake up Dufio," Garza said. "Get the hell out of here." When Dufio didn't move, Dallas drew his weapon and stepped over to shake the prisoner's shoulder. Before reaching him, he swung around.

  "Call the medics!" He rolled Dufio over fast, generating a last few spurts of blood. The man's face and neck were torn, a mass of blood. Dallas reached uselessly for the carotid artery; he couldn't be breathing.

  There was a bullet hole through Dufio's neck, and two in his head. Small holes, as if from a.22-but big enough for the purpose. Max, having called for medical assistance, glanced up at the cell window studying the bars.

  The bars were all in place. He looked at the branches of the oak tree outside, but nothing seemed different. Activating his radio again, he put out an arrest order for the three sobered-up drunks who had, an hour earlier, been released to their wives. In seconds, they heard the back door open, heard officers running out to their units and taking off. The same action would be occurring at the front of the building. The emergency van came screaming through the chain-link gate, and two medics ran in with their emergency packs.

  Climbing up to stand on the lower bunk, they began to work on Dufio, stanching the last trickle of blood and checking for a heartbeat. But soon they turned away, shaking their heads. "You call the coroner, Captain?"

  Max nodded, looking up as the coroner arrived, stepping into the long hall and heading for the back cell. John Bern was a slight, balding man with glasses. He glanced at Max and Dallas, stepped up on the bottom bunk as the medics had, and began to examine Dufio.

  "Shot from the back," he said, turning to look down at Max. He glanced around the cell, then up at the window as the other officers had done. He asked about the position of the body before the officers moved it, then he readied his camera and began to take pictures.

  He ended with several close-ups of the hole in the mattress and, once the body was removed, he employed forceps to carefully pick out the one bullet he could locate, from the thick cotton padding.

  "Twenty-two," Bern said. "Guess the other slugs are still in him." The overhead light reflected off Bern's glasses, off his bald spot, and off the fragment of lead he held in his forceps. "Good shooting, to kill him with a twenty-two." He glanced up again at the barred window. "Like hunting deer from a tree stand, the way they do in the South. Only this was more like shooting fish in a barrel. Quarry can't run, can't get away. Was probably sound asleep, never knew what hit him."

  They searched the cell but found no casing. They heard two more squad cars leave. Garza sent Brennan to search the yard, meaning to join him. He wanted to get up in that tree, maybe lift some fiber samples. Max turned and was gone, they heard him double-timing across the parking lot and into the building, heading for the control center.

  Garza remained with Bern until Dufio, tucked into a body bag, was taken away to the morgue. Strange, Garza thought, watching the medics carry Dufio away. He had an almost tender feeling for the poor sucker with his long list of screwups. Strange, too, that it wasn't a screwup that finally got him. Not directly, anyway.

  But who would want to kill the poor guy? He watched Bern collecting lint and hair samples, giving the cell and bunk a thorough but probably fruitless going-over. This cell housed a vast turnover of men, all of whom would have left traces of themselves. But John Bern was more than meticulous. At last Dallas turned away, his square, tanned face pulled into unhappy lines, his black-brown eyes dark with annoyance that someone had committed a murder in their jail.

  With Maria gone in Chichi's car, Chichi herself downstairs, and Luis and Tommie asleep, Joe approached Abuela's room, the key clutched uncomfortably between his incisors, making him drool. Crouching beside the bedroom door, he looked across at Abuela. Sound asleep in her rocking chair, softly huffing. Her cane leaned against the chair arm. The window was closed now, and the shades pulled down to soften the harsh morning light.

  The three cats looked down at him through the bars so forlornly they made Joe's stomach flip. But then Coyote saw the key, and his yellow eyes blazed. At once the other two pushed against the bars, in their terrible hunger for freedom. He only hoped he could manage this. He had never yet been able to manipulate a key; not that he hadn't tried. This time, he had to pull it off.

  Shouldering the bedroom door nearly closed, hoping no one would hear the tiny squeak of its hinges, he waited, listening. No sound from the hall. Abuela slept on. He leaped to the table beside the cage, the metal key and chain dangling from his teeth like the intestines of a metal mouse.

  All three captives nosed against the bars sniffing at the key, their eyes wide and expectant. None of the three spoke.

  Bending his head, Joe placed a paw on the dangling key fob and fumbled the key into position between his front teeth. He had the key in position-but when he guided the key into the hole in the dangling padlock, immediately the lock swung away.

  He looked at his three silent observers. But how could they help? The bars of the cage door were too close together to allow even a paw through, to steady the lock. And the way the lock dangled, every tiny movement sent it shifting.

  Rolling down onto his shoulder, on the four-inch strip of table, he peered up from that angle, hoping he didn't swallow the key. Reaching up with careful paws, humping up as close as he could get, he tried to line up the key.

  Voila! It was in position! Carefully he eased the key in, his heart pounding. He was starting to turn the key when it fell out, fell into his mouth and nearly into his throat, scaring him so badly he flipped over, coughing and hacking.

  Spitting the key out, he sat trying to calm his shattered nerves. But he took the key up again, tried again. Again it fell, again he nearly choked. Again and again, a half dozen frightening failures before, on the seventh try, slowly, carefully twisting his head with the key in place in the lock, it turned!

  The lock snapped open. He wanted to yowl with triumph. Employing his claws in a far more natural operation, he hooked the padlock, lifted it, and twisted it out. It fell with a thud, the key still in it. Six round eyes stared at it, and stared at him with wonder. Eagerly they pressed against the door, as Joe clawed to free the hasp.

  A sound in the hall; a shuffle behind him. The bedroom door flew open, banging against the wall. Hands grabbed him, big, hard hands. He flipped over fast and sunk his teeth and twenty claws into Luis Rivas's arm, biting, raking, tearing him, tasting Luis's blood.

  Dulcie padded soundlessly behind Chichi down the stairs to the lower floor. She watched the blonde in her tight sweater and tight jeans stretch up to the highest bookshelves and closet shelves, searching, then crouch to peer under chairs and dressers, to feel beneath cushions and to open drawers. What was she looking for? If Chichi's job was to help Luis and Tommie scope out their hits, to assess the number of staff and the best times to make those hits, then what was this stealthy search? Chichi seemed most interested in small niches, small drawers, cubbyholes. Not until Chichi had entered the small laundry room did Dulcie catch a whiff of what she might be seeking.

  Dulcie did not want to go into the laundry and be trapped in that tiny space with only one way out. She crouche
d in the shadows beside the door. The concrete room stunk of dirty laundry from the overflowing hamper that stood beside the washer, and of laundry soap and a whiff of bleach. But Dulcie caught, as well, another scent. A pungent oil, a smell she knew. She sniffed deeply.

  As sure as she had whiskers, that was gun oil. The same as Wilma used to clean her.38, the same smell that was always present around the PD, the smell of well-oiled handguns.

  The smell came from beneath the washer. Chichi was crouched on the concrete floor looking under, pressing her face against the washer, squinting into the dark; she was bound to smell it.

  But apparently not, with the other stinks in the room, and with Chichi's own sweet perfume, which carried considerable heft. Dulcie waited, tensed to race away. Chichi squinted and looked, but at last she rose and left the room, heading down the hall. Slipping into the laundry behind her, Dulcie peered under washer and dryer into the same shadows Chichi had scanned.

  The gun lay far back beneath the washer, where maybe only a cat would be able to make out its dim shape. So far back that a human, even if he found it with a flashlight or knew it was there, could only fish it out with a stick.

  Slipping behind the dryer, pressed in between it and the wall, she crept back behind the washer. Making sure the gun was pointed away from her, she lay down and reached a paw in, and gingerly fished it out by the grip, careful not to turn it toward her or touch the trigger.

  There it lay, under her nose, in the dusty dark space between the wall and the washer. A blue-black revolver with a roughly textured wooden grip and, on the side of the grip, a round embossed metal seal that showed a rearing horse and read Colt. A revolver very like Wilma's Colt.38 special.

  This had to be what Chichi was searching for. What crime had the revolver been used for? How did she know, or suspect, that it was here in this house? And what had she intended to do with it? Or, after all, was she searching for something else, and not the gun?