Cat Playing Cupid

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  Mike said something Joe couldn't hear, then during another short silence he caught snatches of Lindsey's words. "If that woman…her clothes in his pack?" Another loud burst from the happy diners, then Mike said something that made Lindsey look the way she had in Dallas's office as she read the plastic-wrapped letter, made her go pale and still and rigid. Joe was watching her so intently, pushing out from among the bottlebrush leaves, that he almost fell off the wall. There was more laughter from the party table, then two waiters appeared with loaded trays and began serving the revelers-and soon all was still there, as the diners concentrated on their sizzling platters, and Lindsey was saying, "…didn't know her that well, she would never have confided something like that. If she'd had a gun, with California 's strict gun laws, surely she wouldn't tell anyone."

  "Was she coming on to Carson, back then," Mike asked, "despite the fact that her husband and Carson were partners?"

  "That could have been," she said, looking down, twisting her hands in her lap. "I didn't see much of her, she was my boss's wife, but I didn't like her much, and I guess she felt the same." At the next table several people were talking at once. Mike leaned closer to her, lowering his voice. He looked at her for a long moment, then put his arm around her, his words soft and private. Joe crouched on the wall for a few moments more, but when the large party of diners had demolished their dinners enough to start talking again, even louder, he gave it up, abandoned his supperless vigil, and headed home ravenously hungry, royally out of sorts, and having learned very little of interest.

  He was in the kitchen morosely eating dry, tasteless kibble when the two came in, the heady scent of Mexican food wafting in with them to further enrage the tomcat. At the sound of the front door opening, a commotion of barking rose from the patio where Mike had left Rock for the short time he'd been absent. Joe sat in the center of the linoleum floor listening to Rock scratch at the locked doggy door. He scowled up at Mike and Lindsey as they came through to the kitchen smelling unkindly of Lupe's Playa-scowled until he saw that Lindsey was carrying a small, white Styrofoam box.

  Abandoning the kibble, he rubbed against Lindsey's ankles, purring loudly.

  She stood holding the box, looking uncertainly down at him. "You sure this won't hurt him? It's awfully spicy."

  Mike shrugged. " Clyde says to give him anything he wants. Chinese, curry, Mexican. Says the cat's never sick." But Mike, too, regarded Joe with misgiving.

  Joe, leaping atop the counter, yowled demandingly in their faces. He wished he had a tail to lash. Having lost his tail when he was a kitten, he missed it only when a wildly switching appendage could augment a repertoire limited, temporarily, to imprecise yowls and hisses.

  "He's so hungry," Lindsey said. "The poor thing. If you're sure it's all right…"

  "It's what Clyde said to do. If he gets sick," he said, grinning, "you get to clean it up."

  She opened the box. Joe rubbed against her arm, purring louder than ever. When she set the container on the counter before him, he shoved his face into the still warm enchilada, lapping and slurping. Heaven couldn't be better than this.

  But did the two have to watch him? Did they have to laugh? Didn't it occur to them to give a cat a little privacy?

  Joe didn't emerge from the Styrofoam carton until he'd licked the plastic clean, until he was replete and purring with enchilada, chile relleno, and beans. Outside the back door, Rock was still pawing and yipping impatiently. Mike had sensibly left him there until Joe finished his supper-Rock's digestive system, unlike Joe's, couldn't handle such rich treats. Joe remained on the counter washing his paws and whiskers as Mike let Rock in, gave him some kibble, then fixed cappuccinos for himself and Lindsey. When the couple retired to the living room, where Mike lit a fire, Joe sauntered in past Rock, who had stretched out on the rug, and leaped into his own clawed and fur-covered easy chair, where he curled up pretending to doze as the couple settled cozily on the couch. Mike was saying, "You and Ryder have always been at such odds? Even when you were children?"

  "We never got along, it was always war."

  "That had to be stressful. Is that why you never told me much about your childhood?"

  "It's painful to talk about, painful for me to go back to that time. Even when we were little, Ryder always demanded to be boss. She'd pitch a fit to get her way, and it was easier to let her have it."

  She sipped her cappuccino, her hazel eyes sad. "She'd get me into trouble for something she did, and Mama never believed me. I guess that's a common enough scenario, the world over. But even so, it hurts."

  "And you didn't fight back, didn't stand up for yourself?"

  She shrugged. "Ryder was two years older, and she was the beautiful one, she was Mama's girl. Our father died in a highway accident when I was five, he was a trucker. After he died, I had no one to stand up for me, no one who really cared. I was the throwaway child.

  "Later, the few men Mama dated, none of them made friends with me. It's strange-they were all weak men, nothing like my dad. Almost as if Mama didn't want them to compete with him? I never knew the answer.

  "But then George came along," she said, the sadness leaving her face. "She started dating George Afton. They were married when I was twelve. He was older than she, a coach at a private academy in Sacramento, and we moved there. It was a coeducational academy, but boys and girls had separate classes. Ryder didn't like that, she didn't like any of the rules. She didn't like wearing a uniform, didn't like being separated from the boys. I liked it all-the rules made me feel safe, as if someone cared about me."

  Tears glistened in her eyes. "George was the first person who ever stood up for me after Dad died." She found a tissue in her pocket, was silent a moment, shook her head with embarrassment. "He defended me against Ryder and against Mama. He made Ryder back off, and he showed me how to stand up for myself." Joe could see this wasn't easy for her. "He taught me how to get back at Ryder, to give as good as I got. He showed me how to do that quietly if I could, or," she said, grinning, "sometimes, not so quietly."

  She sipped her drink, leaning comfortably against Mike when he put his arm around her. "When George entered our lives, Ryder started treating me with some respect. It didn't make her like me more, but it got her off my back."

  She gave him a wry smile. "She's never forgiven George for that change in me. She's never forgiven me.

  "George tried to help Ryder, too, tried to get her interested in something that would deserve all her abundant energy. But it never happened. All she cared about were boys, clothes, movie magazines-she had a terrible hunger for surface pleasures, a voracious hunger for glitz and glamour."

  Lindsey looked down again at her hands, as if only they were neutral, offering a calm focus. "It's a waste. Ryder's beautiful, but what's come of it? She's not happy, far from it. And I'm not happy when I'm around her. I wish she hadn't come back here, I wish she'd stayed in L.A. "

  "She came because of Ray Gibbs?"

  Lindsey nodded.

  "And your opinion of Gibbs?"

  "Oh, that he's…an opportunist." She looked at Mike intently, then burst out laughing. "The guy's a sleaze. What else could you call him?"

  Mike laughed, and touched her cheek. "That wasn't a pleasant childhood. After your father died, you were lucky to have a second chance, lucky that George came along."

  She looked grateful for his understanding. "George's friendship meant everything to me, he showed me the strength to grow up without losing myself. Without going off the deep end and getting into trouble."

  Mike looked at her for a long moment. She had tears glistening again, and she leaned into him. "It's silly to be so emotional," she said, "after so many years. I just…I guess I'm easily undone, just now."

  He kissed her and held her. Embarrassed, Joe Grey dropped off the chair and padded silently out of the room, heading upstairs to his tower, to the cool, empty, impersonal winds of the roof. Private was private, he was not a voyeur.

  But even so, he spent t
he next week listening to Mike's side of their increasingly romantic phone calls, watching Mike dress to take Lindsey out, or watching the two of them cook dinner together in Clyde's comfortable family kitchen, laughing and easy with each other. Who knew a romance could progress-or be rekindled-so quickly?

  But they had been very close once. And he had to wonder if this reawakened romance was indeed mutual. Or if Lindsey, despite what seemed to be her genuine and honest caring for Mike, despite her quiet charm and the touching account of her childhood, was only putting Mike on, winning him over again after their long separation-winning the law to her side.

  No one could be sure, yet, that Lindsey Wolf wasn't simply a very good actor. No one could be certain that she hadn't killed Chappell.

  The most obvious scenario was that she'd found out he'd taken another woman with him to Oregon, had followed them in a rage and shot him. Or shot them both.

  If so, where was the woman's body? Or had she not been shot, but escaped, seen the shooting and run?

  And where did Lindsey dispose of the gun? He thought she wasn't bold and arrogant enough to have kept a murder weapon that could easily lead back to her.

  Had she buried it in that Oregon forest, thinking it would never be discovered? And then, ten years later when she read that the body had been found, she'd panicked? Afraid of what the cops might find, had she, with practiced innocence, contacted Detective Garza wanting to learn what the department knew or guessed? Wanting to know if Oregon had any evidence pointing to her? Wanting to know if she should run, but at the same time hoping to charm and distract the law? But that would be foolish, and would take more brassy nerve than Joe saw in Lindsey. If, indeed, he was seeing her clearly.

  And what if Lindsey hadn't killed Chappell, but had received that letter? What if she'd suspected Chappell was in danger but hadn't gone to the law, if she'd simply let the murder happen? If so, then wasn't she as guilty as the killer, when that letter, in the hands of law enforcement, might have saved Chappell's life?

  One minute the tomcat had the gut feeling that Lindsey, despite her gentle charm, was lying, that she'd known for ten years that Chappell was dead. And the next minute he wanted badly to trust her and thought it more likely that Ryder had forged the letter, that maybe Ryder, or Ray Gibbs, had killed Chappell.

  And, sprawled among the cushions in his rooftop tower, Joe thought the quickest way to find out was to move in with Ray and Ryder. Play lost kitty. Move in as a homeless stray, get cozy with them, listen to their conversations, toss their condo, see what he could learn.

  Right. Get cozy with Ray Gibbs and Ryder Wolf. Play up to Gibbs, and Gibbs snatches him up and rings his little cat neck, or tries to. And for all he knew, Ryder could be just as vicious.

  But what the hell, he was a big, strong tomcat. Those two sleazeballs couldn't intimidate him. And it might be interesting, doing the lost kitty act.

  He had soon talked himself into it, soon felt okay with the deception. "A piece of cake," he said later when he told Dulcie his plan.

  "Are you out of your furry mind? Move in with Ryder Wolf and Ray Gibbs? That Gibbs is a creep, Joe! He was Chappell's business partner. He could be the killer, he might have had plenty of reason to kill Chappell." They were crouched on Dulcie's roof, watching for wood rats on the hill behind the house, speaking softly so as not to draw the attention of Wilma's neighbors.

  "He could have had something crooked going with the business," Dulcie said, "and Chappell found out." Her green eyes narrowed. "Do you know what went on in the firm, back then? Have you bothered to research that?"

  "If Gibbs had anything to do with Chappell's disappearance, Dulcie, the cops would have found out ten years ago. I read the file. Gibbs was the first one they looked at, the business partner, the possibility of embezzlement. Don't you think they looked? A detective and Chappell's trust officers went over all the books and found nothing."

  "But-"

  "And Gibbs wouldn't have killed him to inherit Chappell's half of the firm," Joe added, licking his paw. "That all went to Chappell's mother, Gibbs didn't get a cent."

  "But maybe Gibbs didn't know that."

  "He had to know, it was all in the corporate papers. And two years before Carson disappeared, when Chappell and Gibbs caught one of their accountants embezzling funds, Gibbs went right to the law and to the newspaper. Laid it all out, furnished the DA with enough evidence to convict the employee, cooperated in every way."

  "Maybe that was a setup, to make Gibbs and the firm look good."

  Joe sighed. "Harper investigated it himself. In Harper's report, they were squeaky clean."

  Dulcie flicked her tail. "I still don't like you moving in with them, pretending to be a helpless stray."

  Tenderly Joe licked her ear. "You played lost kitty after Janet Jeannot's murder."

  "This feels a lot more threatening than moving in with that nice old woman and her crooked son, spending a week among her collection of China figurines trying not to knock them over. She was right there in the house, he wouldn't have dared hurt me-though I did worry about being trapped in there. It's too easy to get shut in, Joe. If those two suspect you-"

  "I'm a cat, Dulcie. A stray cat. What would they suspect? That I'm a cop in cat skin, working undercover?" He nuzzled her whiskers. "Their purchase of the condo closed this morning. They're moving in this afternoon. I'll give them the day to get settled, then join them. If you want to help, you can play lookout, run surveillance for me."

  Dulcie was silent.

  "Are you up for this?" Joe said impatiently. "Or do you mean to let me get skinned all alone?"

  Dulcie looked him over, and sighed. "If you plan to play starving kitty, you'd better start fasting. Try to drop some of the fat off your ribs." And she stalked away, her ears back, her striped tail lashing, her green eyes dark with unease.

  18

  D ESPITE DULCIE'S DISAPPROVAL of the plan she was there the next evening waiting for Joe, crouched on the roof above the Wolf/Gibbs second-floor condo as the tomcat, sucking in his belly in a forlorn charade of starving stray, of dejected homelessness, prepared to charm his way into enemy territory.

  The small, five-condo complex was tucked atop a row of village shops, the apartments surrounding a small roof garden that could be reached from the street below or from the underground parking garage by elevator, or by a stairway whose narrow steps were faced with bright, hand-decorated tiles. The views from the condos were of the village rooftops, of the small shops and cafés below and the sea beyond. The Wolf/Gibbs unit faced Ocean Avenue with a private balcony overlooking that wide, divided street and its tree-shaded median.

  This evening the sliding glass doors to the balcony stood open to catch the breeze, and through them drifted the voice of a national anchor, treating pedestrians on the street below to the early evening news. Joe, padding silently across the condo roof, left Dulcie beneath the branches of an overhanging oak and dropped down to the balcony where he peered in through the sliding screen.

  Ray and Ryder had made short work of moving in. The living room furniture was already in place, and the happy couple sat on the couch having a drink and watching the overwrought commentator. The entire room looked as if it had been decorated by Rent-A-Center, Ray and Ryder taking advantage of a discount for the shopworn condition of the oversize off-white upholstered pieces and the matching white coffee and end tables flamboyant in design and scarred from frequent use. A vase of artificial mauve roses graced the ornate coffee table.

  The couple seemed entranced by the news, with the latest lurid details of the latest high-profile murder, this one a multibillionaire widow found dead in her Rio de Janeiro penthouse. They were drinking something pink and tall with little flowered umbrellas tilting to the sides of their glasses, a drink that was highly amusing in the big hand of sweaty Ray Gibbs with his two-day growth of beard, his black jeans, and his black T-shirt emblazoned with a skull. Holding the delicate glass in meaty fingers, he laughed at the news shots of the mu
rdered woman's bloody body. Joe watched him with disgust and an unwelcome fear as he decided how to play this hand; crouching even this close to Gibbs made his paws sweat.

  Should he finesse the sliding screen open and stroll on in, boldly treating the couple to his macho charm? He'd known several ordinary cats to handily open a screen door. Or should he push his nose at the screen and give out with the pitiful mewls, cringe, and play frightened kitty? See if a gentle stroke and a kind word were forthcoming-or a thrown shoe? He paused, debating, looking Gibbs over.

  Ray Gibbs was a handsome man fast going to seed; he looked to Joe like a heavy drinker, with his cheeks starting to puff and his eyes baggy. He was maybe forty-five, about six two, well set up, but soft around the middle. His dark hair, though not excessively long, was ragged and could stand a good trim. What did young, well-turned-out, glamour-conscious Ryder Wolf see in the creep?

  Money? Or maybe Gibbs was really good in bed? Whatever the case, the longer Joe watched him, the more he disliked the man-and the more certain he was that he didn't want to barge brazenly in and lock heads with that hulk.

  Maybe better to win Ryder over first, try to get her on his side, though he didn't think she'd be a pushover. He glanced up at the roof, at Dulcie's dark silhouette in the shadows of the oak branches. Her green eyes were intent on him. Taking heart from her claw-quick backup, knowing his lady was a tiger in a fight, he moved into the path of light that fell through the living room sliders, dropped his ears and sucked in his gut again, and let out a weak and tremulous mewl. A faint and frightened cry that neither Gibbs nor Ryder heard, apparently, over the loud deodorant commercial that now demanded their attention.

  He tried again, louder, a plea so pitiful that Joe almost felt sorry for himself.

  This time Ryder heard him. She half-rose, staring toward the door. "What's that? What the hell is that?"