Cat Telling Tales

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  Erik Kraft was one of the first and heaviest buyers, making purchases all over the village. Though he had made no discernible improvements in the shabbier places, he had already turned over nearly half of them at a profit. He’d give a place a rough mowing and trimming and, in the worst cases, a coat of cheap paint. Ironic, Ryan thought, that Erik’s estranged wife would be living—practically in poverty, as she put it—in the very area where Erik must already have made a couple of million dollars’ worth of clear profit.

  But the saddest victims of the downturn, Ryan thought, were the abandoned pets left behind like broken toys for trash pickup, innocent animals who had become victims of a vast financial war. So far CatFriends, her volunteer group, had taken in nine dogs and trapped twenty-three abandoned cats, settling them all in volunteer foster homes until new and permanent homes could be found. Ryan wasn’t sure how many creatures the local Animal Friends group had saved, as well, but the two organizations tried to help each other. Yet even with the work of over two dozen volunteers, the police continued to field complaints about stray cats.

  Calls came in not only about abandoned animals around the empty homes, but about the cottages themselves. Often, lights came on late at night in empty, unoccupied houses, then soon went dark again. Rented houses had half a dozen decrepit cars parked in the drive and on the street, and many had trash piled up in the yards. And then, of course, there was the meth house, bulging black trash bags stacked in the side yard, to be hauled away in the small hours. That was why the department had been alerted, the black plastic bags smelling strongly of chemicals. Strangest of all, perhaps, was a FOR SALE sign going up in the weedy yard of a decrepit cottage, soon to come down again as if the house had been sold, but then to be replaced a week later. Another FOR SALE sign. Another apparent sale, then soon another sign, in a seemingly endless two-step.

  Ryan’s sister, Hanni, had bought one of the cottages early on, before the blight was apparent, and had at once set about restoring it, contracting with Ryan to do the heavy professional work; Hanni was an interior designer, not a builder. When events in the neighborhood began to make her nervous, still she moved ahead. Now, the renovation was almost finished, waiting for the interior hardware and window shutters, while Ryan and Clyde hadn’t yet begun on their own remodel. At least now their shabby investment would have an occupant. When Ryan pushed the front door open the cold, damp wind caught it, slamming it against the wall. She stepped aside so Debbie could enter, directly into the living room.

  Standing in the open doorway, you could see right on into the bedroom and the tiny bath beyond, and with a full view of the kitchen to the left. There was no furniture, only a very old refrigerator in the corner of the little kitchen and an ancient gas cook stove that Ryan had been assured by her plumber wouldn’t blow up or asphyxiate anyone. If the house had any virtue it was the high, raftered ceiling and strong beams, the surprisingly solid construction. This was its one redeeming feature—plus the location and price, she thought, hearing again Joe Grey’s caustic remarks about their obsessive bargain hunting.

  As Clyde joined her on the tiny porch, putting his arm around her, Vinnie crowded in past them, scuffing her shoes across the dusty gray linoleum that floored all the rooms. She peered with disgust into the small, dim bedroom and ancient kitchen. “I’m not staying here, we can’t live here.” Moving to the grimy window, she stood looking up the hill. “There’s real beds up there, we—”

  “We have our sleeping bags,” Debbie snapped. “Bring in your toys and shoes.”

  “But I don’t—”

  “Now!” Debbie said, her glare silencing the child. Clyde had started to speak when, above them, a hard thump hit the roof. They all four stepped back, as if the ceiling might give way. Next minute, a scrambling of claws shook the cypress tree beside the house, and Joe Grey leaped down to the hood of the king cab. While Debbie’s attention was diverted, Vinnie raced out across the yard and was gone, running up the street, her long blond hair whipped by the cold wind, her fists clenched. Behind her Tessa appeared from nowhere, racing after her. Debbie ran after them, yelling as if they were runaway dogs escaped from their leashes. Ryan pressed her face against Clyde’s shoulder, trying hard not to laugh.

  Vinnie made it almost to the white brick house, Tessa trying in vain to keep up. Passing Tessa, Debbie grabbed Vinnie by the arm, jerked her around, shouting. Clyde turned away, disgusted, and went to unload Debbie’s car. Ryan looked at Joe, on the hood of the king cab. “What’s Vinnie after, up there? Can she have been in that place? In Alain Bent’s house? How could she have been?”

  “Maybe she looked in the windows,” Joe said. “Saw furniture and beds.” He turned to look at Ryan. “Or has the kid been inside?”

  “They only arrived last night.” Ryan’s green eyes looked into his. “She’s been with us all morning.”

  Joe stretched out on the pickup’s warm hood, wondering, his back pummeled by the cold wind, which smelled of rain. Together they watched the family saga as Debbie dragged Vinnie home, scolding all the way. Ryan scratched Joe behind his ears then picked him up, draped him over her shoulder in a manner few people were allowed, listening to his purr as they watched Debbie haul Vinnie into the house, and Tessa slip in behind. Debbie’s angry scolding seemed overkill—what was she so mad about?

  16

  In the dumpy little kitchen, Debbie had torn open the wrapper of a loaf of bread and was hastily putting together sandwiches for the children, maybe hoping to keep Vinnie from whining any more about the white brick house. The kitchen counter was crowded with grocery bags that were still not unpacked except for the bread and peanut butter. Joe watched from Ryan’s shoulder as Vinnie grabbed the open jar, stuck her fingers in, retrieving a big glob, and licked them clean, her small face pinched with anger.

  Though Joe had come up looking for Dulcie, hoping she’d escaped whatever tight squeak she’d gotten herself into with that aborted phone call, he’d found no sign of her. No scent of her, nothing. Coming up the hill, he’d passed two cops he knew, dressed in blue coveralls with the water department insignia on the pockets and sleeves. They were kneeling together at the curb beneath a spreading cypress tree, pretending to examine a water meter, their position giving them a straightaway view beneath the branches to the meth house. Did Harper expect other members of that ragtag gang to return to their little home business? He had passed Ryan’s sister Hanni, too, pulling her blue Chrysler van up to the one-car garage of her own remodel. Ryan was nearly finished with the exterior, had covered the gray board siding with white stucco and added a new tile roof as deep blue as an autumn sky.

  Now as Ryan headed outdoors from her own cottage, away from the crowded kitchen and away from Debbie, Joe looked from her shoulder up the hill, scanning the rooftops for Dulcie. He looked past the rambling white house, but then quickly back as two dark streaks flashed across the roof into the shadow of the pines that sheltered the double garage; the sight of Dulcie, safe, made him inadvertently dig his claws into Ryan’s shoulder.

  “Hey!” she said, pulling his claws free.

  “Sorry.” He patted her cheek with a soft paw. “Gotta go, explain later,” and with a leap into the overhanging cypress tree, he left her, heading up the hill from roof to rising roof, looking for his lady.

  There, they appeared again, two dark shapes barely visible atop the garage, two pairs of sharp ears silhouetted against the low clouds. Racing to join them, he greeted Dulcie with nose pushes and purrs. “What happened to you? You were caught with someone’s phone? I was in Harper’s office when you clicked off.”

  “Emmylou saw me.”

  “Oh my God. She heard you using the phone? She—”

  “She didn’t hear me,” Dulcie interrupted, “she saw me through the glass. When I saw her looking in, I pretended to be batting at a moth. She was outside, and I was talking softly, she couldn’t have heard me.”

  “I hope to hell not,” he said crossly.

  “We saw her on
the street, going door to door asking about two lost cats. She came up into the patio, sat down on that low wall beside the camellias. Took a sandwich out of her pocket, unwrapped it, one of those dry-looking sandwiches in yellow paper. I was inside the house, it was a perfect time to phone, without losing her.”

  “How did you get in?”

  Dulcie smiled. “A basement window, all locked but the last one.” She lashed her tail smugly. “Broken, rusty lock, and when we pushed the window it swung right in. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  But Joe paused, watching Kit. All this time, she hadn’t said a word, she sat apart from them, staring off into space. Watching her, Joe twitched an ear at Dulcie. “What?” he said softly.

  “We were with Misto,” Dulcie said. “Her head’s full of stories, that’s all. He talked about Pan, too. He misses Pan, and he’s worried because of the nursing home fire. Kit’s worried for them both.”

  Joe shifted uneasily, wishing Kit had never told Misto about Pan, that she had never upset the old cat. The tortoiseshell was so damned impulsive, as unpredictable as the leaps of a grasshopper. Well, what was done, was done. He said, “What about Emmylou? What did she do when she saw you?”

  “She looked puzzled to see a cat in there, and when she finished her lunch she walked all around the house, looking to see how I got in. I watched from above, from the windows.” Dulcie smiled. “I’d kicked the window closed when I jumped, she didn’t have a clue, she went right on by. The next thing I know she’s at the front door and it sounded like she had a key, trying to get inside.”

  “But she—” Kit began, suddenly paying attention.

  “That’s when Kit appeared,” Dulcie said.

  “I watched her from the roof and the key wouldn’t turn,” she said. “She tried and tried and seemed really sure it was the right key, so maybe Alain Bent changed the locks when she moved and Emmylou didn’t know and—”

  “Where did she get a key?” Joe said. “From Hesmerra? Did Hesmerra have it copied when she was with the cleaning crew? Maybe on her lunch hour, then turned the keys in as usual at the end of the day?”

  “Why not?” Dulcie said. “Maybe Emmylou found the key in the burn, maybe knew where she kept it?”

  “So, why did she?” Joe wondered. “What did she do when she couldn’t get in?”

  “She sat down on the patio wall,” Dulcie said, “sat there looking at the house as if deciding what to do next.”

  “But then Ryan’s pickup came up the hill,” Kit said, “and Debbie’s car behind it, and when Emmylou saw them she slipped away through the backyard and that’s the last we saw of her, she vanished like when a rabbit smells a coyote, and there’s something else, too. Debbie’s been inside, you can smell her and the little kids all around the door on the threshold and then inside the house.”

  Joe said, “I’m guessing they stayed there, maybe one night, maybe more, before they ever showed up at our place.” He told them about Vinnie saying there were beds to sleep in, up there in that house, and then racing away up the hill.

  “What’s Debbie up to?” Dulcie said, looking down the hill to where Debbie was hauling in a last load from her car. “What would she want in Alain Bent’s house? How did . . . ?” She looked at Joe. “It has to do with Erik. He and Alain were partners—or were they more than partners?”

  Joe smiled. “If they were, maybe Erik had a key. Say Debbie found out they were lovers,” he said, “found a key she suspected was Alain’s . . . How tempting to copy it and then do a bit of snooping, get the goods on him.”

  “But why?” Dulcie said. “She wouldn’t need to know he was sleeping around, to get a divorce in California.”

  “Maybe for child custody,” Joe said. “Except,” he said, “who’d fight to keep Vinnie? Maybe some other reason. Looks like Alain was into some real estate scams or maybe, who knows, Erik and Alain together. Debbie wants to know more, to make some mischief for them. She decides to get into Alain’s desk, into her personal papers. Who knows what she’d find, what trouble she could make? She could have come down here from Eugene any time she chose. Catch a commuter flight, round trip just for a day while the kids were in school and nursery school? But as it worked out, she drove down, left Eugene for good.”

  “With Alain’s key in her pocket,” Dulcie said. “Alain is beautiful, so slim, and her dark sleek hair done up in that fancy chignon, and her elegant suits. You’ve seen her pictures, of course Debbie would be jealous.”

  “Beautiful,” Joe said, “and as cold as a mannequin in Saks’s window.” He looked down into the wide front patio with its angles and nooks and lush plantings, its different level walls and neatly tended flower beds. “Alain might have been fired and moved away, Perry Fowler might not be in touch with her any longer, but she isn’t neglecting her property. Maybe she does have it listed, with another firm, and they’re seeing that someone’s watering.”

  “And pruning,” Dulcie said. There wasn’t a dead bloom or fallen leaf anywhere, and they could see fresh cuts where the red geraniums had been clipped back. “Or could Emmylou be taking care of the yard? When Alain moved away, could she have hired her? Was that why she was here? Maybe . . . maybe when she was pruning she found a key hidden under a flowerpot, the way people do? Found it just today, and thought she had a way in? She is homeless, she does need a place to stay. She finds the key and thinks she’s found a place to crash. Only, Alain has changed the locks.”

  “Maybe,” Joe said. But something about the scenario was off. As little as he’d observed of Emmylou, he wasn’t sure she’d be bold enough to move into someone’s house, when workmen might be scheduled to come in, or maybe other Realtors, to have a look, if the house was going on the market. The garage roof was in shadow now, around them, the clouds low and heavy above them. Moving closer together with their backs to the chill wind, the three cats tried to sort out what they knew about Alain Bent: She was Erik Kraft’s sales partner, and maybe his lover. She’d not only been fired, but moved away, maybe before her other scams caught up with her. How much did Debbie know about Alain? What had she been after, when she broke in?

  “And what’s Emmylou Warren’s connection?” Dulcie said. “Will that lead back to Hesmerra and maybe to Hesmerra’s murder?”

  Joe looked down into the patio of the silent, locked house. He rose, nudged Dulcie, and the three cats skinned down a bougainvillea trellis to the warm paving and headed for the basement window.

  Pushing the little window open, they peered down into the dark cellar. Its cold breath chilled their noses; it smelled of damp cement, sour earth, and mouse droppings. “How deep?” Joe said, frowning down into the blackness. “Looks like about seven feet. How did you get out? The boxes?”

  “Yes,” Dulcie said. “I pushed that stack of boxes over,” she said, glancing down at the dark cartons piled against the wall directly beneath them. “I could just see them there in the corner where more daylight comes in; my shoulder’s still sore from shoving them. The labels say ‘dishes’ but who knows what’s packed in them. They smell sour, like old clothes.” Slipping in through the window, she dropped down onto the stack, and to the floor. Kit followed, and then Joe, each one careful not to tip over their means of escape.

  The cellar was L-shaped, following the lines of the house above. The dark corners and the spaces behind the furnace and water heater were thick with cobwebs, and garlands of cobwebs hung down from the floor joists. Three folded aluminum chairs leaned against one wall, their plastic seats frayed, and gray with mildew. There was no scent of Debbie or the little girls down here, and they padded up the dusty wooden stairs. Leaping at the knob, Dulcie curved her paws around it, swinging and kicking until the door flew open.

  The house was dim, the rooms lit coldly as the coming storm gathered. They had come up into the front entry, the basement door at right angles to the more impressive front door with its deep carvings, and that did indeed smell of Debbie and the children. A smear of chocolate candy had been smashed into the
grout between the floor tiles.

  Across the tile entry, six steps led down to a sunken living room, which was only half furnished. The clay tile floor was bare, but Dulcie could imagine richly colored throw rugs. There was a creamy leather couch but no end tables or coffee table or lamps. White walls, vast windows looking out on the lowering gray sky and the trees and roofs below, white ceiling crossed by burnished oak rafters. The house was silent, no hush of footsteps, no thump or rustle of someone hurrying their way, summoned by the sound of the cellar door. Already, Kit had left them, racing down into the sunken room to look at the fireplace wall.

  The entire wall was painted in an intricate mural, a floor-to-ceiling scene in rich colors, though Joe and Dulcie couldn’t see the subject clearly from the angle where they stood, up on the dining balcony. Moving out from beneath the carved table and chairs, Dulcie leaned out through the rail, to look.

  “Medieval,” she said softly. “Oh, my. It’s beautiful.” Below her, Kit sat in the center of the room looking up at the mural, her fluffy tail wrapped around her, twitching with excitement, her front paws kneading at the tiles in nervous concentration as she absorbed each detail of the ancient scene. From the look on her face, Dulcie knew the tortoiseshell was already transported back into time, how many centuries ago?

  “It’s a beautiful home,” Dulcie said. “Even if Alain was fired, it’s strange she’d leave this, and leave the village, when Molena Point’s doing better than much of the country. Couldn’t she get a job somewhere else, another real estate firm? You’ve seen the ads. The high-end houses are still selling, some of the really wealthy people are doing just fine. Where else could a Realtor make better money?”