Cat on the Scent

by Rita Mae Brown

“I have nothing further to say at this point.” He turned his back on the camera.

  “What in holy hell is going on?” Harry exclaimed. “Mrs. Woo is the sweetest person in the whole county.”

  Murphy popped out from behind the sofa where she was hiding.

  “Mrs. Woo had her shop torched,” Pewter yelled out.

  “I know. I heard the TV.”

  “Where have you been?” Harry glared at Mrs. Murphy.

  “Hiding. I need to stay on the farm today.” She was determined to attend the 3:00 P.M. meeting at Blair Bainbridge’s.

  “Here.” Harry opened another can of cat food.

  Pewter sidled over next to Murphy. “Mariner’s Pride.”

  “Butt out,” Murphy growled.

  Harry scooped a big spoonful into Pewter’s oatmeal-colored crockery dish.

  UPHOLSTERY DESTROYER was painted on Mrs. Murphy’s dish, while Tucker’s read SUPER DOG.

  “This goes back to the reenactment at Oak Ridge.” Tucker stated. She sat down while the cats ate and Harry dialed Susan Tucker to discuss the latest news.

  “The new guys had to have uniforms made or altered in a hurry. Everybody went to Mrs. Woo. She knew who was in that reenactment,” Pewter said.

  “Yes, but so do Herb Jones, H. Vane-Tempest, Rick Shaw—each company commander has a list of men. That’s what’s sticking in my craw. We know!” Mrs. Murphy pushed her food bowl away.

  “Mrs. Woo had to know something.”

  “It could be unrelated, Tucker.” Pewter pounced on Murphy’s rejected food.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full. Humans do that. Vile.” Murphy sniffed.

  “Miss Manners.” Pewter swished her tail once.

  “Listen to me. Tucker, you go with Mother. Stick with her no matter what. We’ve got to stay here today.”

  “Only one of you needs to go to the meeting.”

  “Both Pewter and I need to read the map. Really study it.” Mrs. Murphy sat still like the famous Egyptian statue of the cat with earrings in its ears.

  “Why are you so worried?” Tucker cocked her head.

  “Because Harry found the airplane—my fault. And because Harry suggested checking out all the suppliers for Civil War reenactors. Remember? She mentioned gun sales, uniforms. She’s eventually going to go one step too far.”

  “She’d better carry her gun,” Pewter sagely advised.

  “Let’s mention that to her.” Mrs. Murphy rubbed against Harry’s arm while she was speaking to Susan. “Carry your side arm.”

  “She’s—” Pewter’s attention was diverted by the bold blue jay swooping by the kitchen window.

  Seeing Pewter, he sailed straight for the window, then turned, feetfirst, wings flapping while he threatened at the window.

  “I hate that bird!” Pewter spit.

  “Not my fave either. Come on,” Murphy said.

  He returned for another pass, the bird version of giving the finger. Pewter leapt at the window and smacked it.

  “Come on, Pewter.” Murphy kicked her with her hind leg.

  Pewter slid down off the counter. Leaping wasn’t her first recourse. If she could put her front paws on cabinets and reach way down, sliding, then she’d hit the floor with less of a thump. Hitting with all that lard made a big baboom.

  The three hurried into the bedroom. The bedroom door, usually closed, was open, since Harry was still in her robe.

  The .357 was in a hard plastic carrying case.

  “Ugh. This thing is heavy.” Murphy tried to push it out.

  “Let’s all three try.” Tucker wedged in next to Murphy on the left, pushing over sneakers and old cowboy boots.

  Pewter was already on Murphy’s right side.

  “On three,” Murphy called out. “One, two, three.”

  “Uh.” They all grunted but succeeded in moving the gun case halfway out of the closet. She’d trip over it if she wasn’t looking and she had to go to the closet for her boots.

  “Think she’ll get it?” Pewter scratched behind her ear.

  “Fleas?”

  “No,” she angrily replied. “An itch.”

  “Gray animals have more trouble with fleas.” Mrs. Murphy pronounced this as solemnly as a judge.

  “You’re so full of it.”

  Pewter swatted Murphy, and the two girls mixed it up. Tucker, no fool, stepped away just as Harry stepped into her bedroom.

  “Hey!”

  Two angry faces greeted hers.

  “She started it.”

  “I did not,” Mrs. Murphy defended herself.

  “Don’t you dare fight in my bedroom. The last time, you knocked over Mom’s crystal stag’s head. Luckily it fell on the carpeted part of the floor. I love that stag’s head.”

  She bent over to fetch her boots.

  “Take your gun,” Pewter said.

  Harry pushed the gray box back in, then stopped. She pulled it out and opened it up. The polished chrome barrel shone. She liked revolvers. They felt better in her hand than other types of handguns. Being a country girl, Harry had grown up with guns and rifles. She knew how to use them safely. Guns made no sense in the city, but they made a great deal of sense in the country, especially during rabies season. In theory rabies occurred all year long, but Harry usually noticed an upswing in the spring. It was a horrible disease, a dreadful way for an animal to die, and dangerous for everyone else.

  “Take the gun.” Tucker panted from nervousness.

  Harry plucked out a clear hard plastic packet of bullets. She laid the bullets and gun on the bed, then pulled on her socks, stepped into her jeans, threw on her windowpane shirt, finally yanked on the old boots, and slipped the packet into her shirt pocket. Although the gun was unloaded she checked again just to be sure. Then she carried the gun to the truck and placed it in the glove compartment.

  She walked back into the house for her purse and the animals, calling, “Rodeo!”

  Tucker bounded through the screen door. The cats followed but then flew into the barn.

  “Murphy, come on!” Harry put one hand on the chrome handhold she had installed outside both doors so she could swing up.

  “Forget it.” Tucker sat on the seat.

  Harry dropped back down. She trudged into the barn. The horses walked up to the gate to watch. Harry turned them out first thing each morning.

  “Blown her stack,” Tomahawk said to Gin Fizz.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Poptart joined them. Human explosions amused them so long as they didn’t take place on their backs.

  “Let’s go!” Harry stomped down the center aisle, not a cat in sight, not even a paw print.

  Both cats hid behind a hay bale in the loft. A telltale stalk of hay floated down, whirling in the early sunlight.

  “A-ha!” Harry climbed the ladder so fast she could have been a cat.

  “Skedaddle.” Murphy shot out from her hay bale, streaking toward the back of the loft where the bales were stacked higher.

  Pewter flattened as Harry tromped by, not even noticing her. Then the gray cat silently circled, dropping behind an old tack trunk put in the loft with odds and ends of bits, bridles, and old tools.

  Harry craned to see around the tall bales. A pair of gleaming eyes stared right back at her.

  “Go to work.”

  “Come on out of there.”

  “No.”

  She checked her watch, her father’s old Bulova. “Damn.”

  “Go on.”

  “I know you’re saying ugly things about me.”

  “No, I’m not.” Murphy didn’t like Harry’s misinterpretation of her meow. “Just go on.”

  Harry checked her watch again. “You’d better be in that house when I come home.”

  “I will be.”

  “Me, too,” Pewter called out.

  Harry put her hands outside the ladder and her feet, too, to slide down.

  As she walked toward the truck a fat raindrop splattered on her cheek.

  “The we
atherman said it wouldn’t rain until after midnight.”

  Tucker, sitting in the driver’s seat, said, “He lied.”

  * * *

  36

  The two cats walked over to Simon’s nest. He opened an eye, then closed it.

  “I know you’re awake.” Murphy tickled the possum’s nose with her tail.

  “I’m tired. I was out foraging all night,” he grumbled.

  “In the feed room.” Pewter laughed.

  “Go back to sleep. I’m borrowing this map that I stashed here. I’ll bring it back.”

  “Fine.” He closed his eyes again.

  They carried the map to the opened hayloft door, unfolded it, and studied it.

  “It’s the watershed, like you said.” Pewter sat on the corner.

  “Wish I knew what the separate squares meant. Any ideas?”

  “No. They’re in or adjacent to the watershed.”

  * * *

  * * *

  “Well, let’s put this back. There may be a good time to show the humans.”

  The blue jay streaked past the hayloft, spied the cats, and shrieked, “Tuna breath!”

  Pewter lunged for the bird but Murphy caught her. “Don’t let him bug you like that. Do you want to fall out of the hayloft?”

  “I will kill that bird if it’s the last thing I do.”

  “Self-control.”

  Complaining, Pewter put the map in Simon’s nest along with his ever-expanding treasures. The latest find was a broken fan belt.

  “Mrs. Murphy, let’s do nothing today. Nothing at all.”

  “Good idea.”

  * * *

  37

  The massive green Range Rover, outfitted for its owner with a hamper basket from Harrods, rolled down Blair Bainbridge’s driveway at precisely 2:55 P.M. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, halfway across Blair’s hay field, observed Sir H. at the wheel. He wore a bush hat, which offset his safari jacket nicely.

  Sir H. Vane-Tempest never believed in buying a bargain when he could pay full price. He’d bought his attire at Hunting World in Paris. The French soaked him good.

  The brief morning rain had subsided, leaving a sparkling sky with impressive cumulus clouds tipping over the mountains.

  Pewter loathed mud. She hated the sensation when it curled up between her toes. She’d have to wait until it dried, then pick it out with her teeth. Mrs. Murphy, while not lax in her personal grooming, wasn’t as fastidious as Pewter. But then Pewter was a lustrous gunmetal-gray, which showed any soiling, whereas Mrs. Murphy was a brown tiger with black stripes, her mottled coat hiding any imperfections.

  Pewter felt that she was a rare color, a more desirable color than the tabby. After all, tabbies were a dime a dozen.

  The cats reached the porch door as Sir H. Vane-Tempest stepped out of his Rover. He’d lost weight since the shooting and actually looked better than he had before he’d been drilled with three holes.

  He knocked on the screened-porch door.

  “Come in, H.” Blair walked out to greet him. “Arch is in the living room.”

  Mrs. Murphy shot through Blair’s tall legs. Pewter slid through, too. “You stinkers!” He laughed.

  As Blair served drinks, Murphy and Pewter edged to the living-room door. Vane-Tempest noticed them when he entered the house, but he paid little attention. To him cats were dumb animals.

  “Arch—” Vane-Tempest nodded.

  “H.,” Arch replied coolly. “How did you leave Sarah?”

  “I told you she’d do as I asked.” A wrinkle creased his brow. “Actually, BoomBoom came over to give her some soothing herbs. Don’t look at me like that—it’s what she called them, soothing herbs.”

  “She still selling that herb stuff? What’s she call it, aromatherapy?”

  “Yes. The girls are going on a shopping spree. BoomBoom will share her latest catharsis. I’ll come home. Sarah will forget to be out of sorts but she’ll suggest that we both try Lifeline. That’s BoomBoom’s latest salvation—she’s quite predictable.” He laughed.

  Archie didn’t laugh. “I don’t think any woman is predictable. Mine threw me out.”

  “Won’t last. Make amends. Buy her a new car or something.”

  “I don’t have that kind of money.” Archie sourly turned and noticed Mrs. Murphy seated under the coffee table.

  “You will.”

  “Blair,” Archie called out, impatiently.

  “I’m coming.” He returned with a silver tray bearing two Irish-crystal decanters and three matching glasses. “Sherry, if you’re so inclined, or Glenlivet.”

  Vane-Tempest longingly stared at the scotch, then sighed. “A cup of coffee or even tea. Early for tea, but I’ll brave it. Cutting back.” He indicated the booze.

  “Tea it is. Arch?”

  “I’m fine. What is that cat doing here again? Harry’s cat.” He didn’t see Pewter. She had ducked behind a wing chair.

  “I beg your pardon.” Murphy brazenly strolled into the middle of the room.

  “Two days in a row. I guess I rate.” Blair loved Harry’s cats.

  “Get Murphy out of here,” Archie grumbled.

  “Are you allergic?” Vane-Tempest politely inquired.

  “To that damned cat, I am. She made a fool of me at that meeting.”

  “Hardly needed the cat for that,” Vane-Tempest dryly noted.

  “I don’t trust her. Something uncanny about her.” Archie pouted.

  Blair scooped up Murphy. “Come on, sweetie. I’ll give you a treat, but outside.”

  Murphy wrinkled her nose. “You’re an asshole, Archie Ingram.” Then she called to Pewter, “Hide under the sofa. I’ll meet you outside later.”

  Blair put Mrs. Murphy over his shoulder while Pewter squeezed under the large sofa. He intended to poach salmon for supper, so he sliced off a bit, then diced it while the teakettle boiled. He placed a small bowl of the fresh salmon outside for the tiger.

  Murphy prowled around the cars. The windows were open. She might as well investigate the interiors.

  Once the tea was served, Vane-Tempest got down to business. Since he had called this meeting no one else could start it.

  “I’ll get straight to the point: Sarah wants to be a partner in Teotan Incorporated.”

  “Does she know what we’re doing?”

  “No, Arch, she does not.” Vane-Tempest shot him a baleful glance. “But she knows we’re purchasing land.”

  “Did you tell her?” Archie’s right eye twitched nervously.

  “No. She went through my papers when I was in hospital. Under the circumstances that was normal. I told her the lawyers would handle everything, but that didn’t satisfy her. She was terribly worried. Also, she doesn’t trust my lawyers.”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course I do. Some of these men have served me for over twenty-five years. Sarah’s feeling is that should the worst befall me, they won’t work with her, they won’t reveal to her the full extent of my holdings.”

  “She’s worried about them stealing from her?” His tone revealed curiosity as well as irritation.

  “No. I don’t think that’s it. She wants to be in charge. The only way she can make intelligent decisions is to have accurate information. I never thought about it until she raised the issue, but I can see her point of view.”

  “Why can’t you teach her about your investments without bringing her into Teotan?” Blair asked sensibly.

  “Oh, I can.” Vane-Tempest held up his hands. “But she read some of the real-estate transactions. She understands property, of course, so she wants to be part of this. She doesn’t know the full significance of our purchases.”

  “I see.” Blair poured himself a glass of sherry. He enjoyed the nutlike flavor.

  “I tried to dissuade her.”

  “What if we refuse her?” Archie crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in the chair.

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “But I do rather think—what’s the expression . .
. it’s distasteful but, ah yes—I think she’s better inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.”