Cat Playing Cupid

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  Gibbs turned to look. "A squirrel or something. What the hell's it doing at the door?"

  When Joe mewled again, Gibbs grabbed a folded newspaper. "A damn cat!" he said and headed fast for the screen.

  "Mewwwoooooww," Joe cried pitifully, crouched and subservient but tensed to run like hell. In one move Ray shoved the sliding screen back and swung the paper-but Ryder was behind him. She grabbed his arm. "Wait, Ray. Look at it, it's starving."

  "It ain't starving, look at that gut."

  Look at your own gut, Joe thought, primed to run as Gibbs towered over him.

  "Oh, the pitiful thing." Ryder knelt and reached out to him. Which only went to prove, after all, that you couldn't always judge human character by a person's response to an animal in distress.

  "Come on, kitty," Ryder said in a high, fake voice. Joe cringed and shivered. "Oh, look at him, Ray, he's pitiful. And you've scared the poor thing."

  Hiding a smile, Joe rubbed against Ryder's ankles, followed her into the living room and, at her baby talk and beckoning, followed her straight through to the kitchen. Ray stood watching them, scowling and fidgeting as if he'd like to get his hands on the damned cat.

  In the kitchen Ryder poured milk into a bowl and set it on the floor. Joe was not a big fan of milk, and this milk was fat free, thin, blue, and disgusting. He lapped it up as heartily as he could, trying to look grateful, making a mighty effort to purr as he choked it down.

  He cleaned the bowl as a starving cat should, wanting to upchuck the disgusting liquid, then followed her back to the living room and jumped on the couch close to her, prepared to snuggle down and treat her to a session of grateful purrs.

  Ray, with one hard swat, slapped him to the floor.

  Ryder looked angrily at Ray, but she made no objection. "Cats on the floor," she told Joe sternly, shaking her finger at him-one minute kitty's best friend, the next minute to hell with the cat as she submissively knuckled under to her lover. Joe looked at her narrowly but, remembering his mission, switched on the pitiful again, rolled over on the carpet looking up at her-and putting himself farther away from Gibbs.

  Ryder leaned down, stroked him, and gave him the baby talk. "Leave him alone, Ray, he's not hurting anything." But she didn't invite Joe back on the couch.

  For the next hour Ryder was all sugar to the stray kitty, leaning down every few minutes between sips of her fresh drink to pet him as if to apologize for Ray's rude treatment. Ray looked so annoyed that Joe wondered just how much information he'd be able to collect before this guy tried to strangle him.

  But then, as darkness drew down and the glow of shop lights shone up from the street, Ray started talking about dinner and soon the couple left the couch, to dress. Joe, waiting impatiently for them to get out of there and leave him to search the place, could see into the bedroom and could hear them talking about an evening on the town, and that suited the tomcat just fine.

  He watched Ryder shimmy into a short black dress, pulling it down over black panties and bra. Ray seemed to think that straightening his black T-shirt and brushing off his jeans was all the cleaning up necessary-that, and pulling on a pair of lethal-looking black boots with metal toes that could kill a cat with one kick.

  Just before they left the condo, Ryder called the kitty into the kitchen again, where she unwrapped half a cold hamburger, scraped off the mustard and onions, broke it up, and put it on a paper towel on the floor next to a stack of packed moving boxes. "You be a good kitty, okay?"

  "You're not leaving that cat inside. Put it out, Ryder, before it makes a mess and stinks up the place."

  "He has no home, Ray, or he wouldn't be here. It's getting cold out. Look at how beautiful he is, just the color of that silver satin dress you bought me." She looked up at Ray, batting her mascaraed lashes. "Someone's dumped the poor thing, or has moved away and abandoned him."

  "The way Nina left me," Ray said. His laugh made Joe shiver.

  "We can leave the balcony door open," Ryder said, "so he can go out if he needs to. No one's going to climb in here over the roofs. And what would they take?"

  Ray glanced toward the bedroom, scowled at her as if she'd lost her mind. But he left the sliding screen cracked open, turning once to stare at the apparently sleeping tomcat, a hate-filled look that made Joe's fur crawl. The moment they were gone out the front door Joe was up again, ready to toss the place.

  Padding out the open slider to the edge of the terrace, he peered down between the decorative wrought-iron rails watching them cross Ocean and turn in at the first restaurant that had a bar. When they'd disappeared he reentered the apartment, heading first for the bedroom where he could see several stacks of movers' boxes jammed in the corners and around the door, all apparently sealed tight.

  He didn't much want to shred the tape and rip the boxes open, leaving awkward evidence. First, he tossed the room, clawing open the drawers in the nightstand and dresser looking for letters, for anything with hand printing like the letter Ryder had brought to the station. They hadn't unpacked much. He found a wadded-up grocery list in a neat, cursive handwriting; he prowled the closet and its high shelf, searched under the bed and behind the pillows, and under and between the mattress and box spring as deep as he could reach. He left the sealed cartons for the moment and headed for the kitchen, where the boxes were already open.

  Yes, five cartons stood on the floor by the dinette table, their flaps loose but still filled with dishes and pots and pans jumbled together with cans of food and a few articles of clothing that had been used as packing, and that smelled of Ryder's musky perfume and of Ray's sweat. Did Ryder intend to put all this directly in the cupboards, or did she mean to wash them first? No cat would eat food smelling of human sweat, to say nothing of human feet.

  Burrowing down into the nearest box, he knew this venture was a real long shot. And yet…What if he did find the same hand printing-or found a gun?

  The odds were great against finding a gun in this tangle-and greater still that it would be the murder weapon after all these years. Ridiculous odds. And yet…That twitching sense of needing to do this kept the tomcat digging.

  He was tunneling between bottles of cleaning liquids, trying not to spill any on himself, when he found, tucked among a stack of Ryder's hastily folded sweaters, a small box of linen stationery, its lid embossed with a logo and with BARTON'S FINEST LINEN-WEAVE LETTER PAPER, SINGLE FOLD. Pawing off the lid, excitement making his fur twitch, he inspected the envelopes and felt his heart pound. This looked like the same kind of paper as Ryder's letter, and when he eased the envelopes aside, the pages with their rough edges looked to be an exact match. Same color, same weave, same feathered borders. So good a match that he wanted to yowl with success-fate had smiled on him, big time.

  Or he hoped it had.

  With velveted paws, trying not to leave claw marks or paw prints, he worked the lid back onto the box then eased the box into one of Ray's T-shirts, wishing, as he so often did, that he had opposing thumbs for these complicated maneuvers.

  But with agile claws, and using his teeth, he managed to twist the ends of the shirt into a crude knot. Dragging his smelly package through the condo and out onto the balcony, he crouched beneath the overhanging oak. And, with the knot of the T-shirt clenched tight between his teeth, he leaped up the trunk, dragging his burden between his forelegs. He climbed awkwardly, the bundle scraping along under his belly. One last leap, from the tree to the roof, the package swinging precariously over empty space, and Dulcie reached out with fast claws and snatched it-and snatched Joe, too, to safety. He landed in her face, the package between them.

  She nosed at the T-shirt, grimacing at the smell, but clawing with curiosity at the knot Joe had tied. "It stinks, Joe. Stinks of Ray Gibbs."

  "Couldn't help it. Look what's inside-it's the stationery. At least, it looks the same as what Ryder said she found."

  "Oh, my. If it is, we have proof she was lying."

  "But it isn't enough," Joe said.

&nb
sp; "But if it's the same, if it can prove that Ryder wrote the letter-"

  "Forgery, if that's what the letter turns out to be, isn't evidence of murder." He looked at her intently. There was a sample of Nina's handwriting in the cold file, but could that help identify hand printing? "I want to find the gun, Dulcie. I'm going back in. There are open boxes I can get through in a hurry, and then a whole stack of unopened ones." Dragging the dark package beneath the oak's overhanging limbs and out of sight, he said, "If I can open those boxes from underneath and crawl up into them, maybe they won't notice for a while."

  She peered over the edge of the roof to the patio's open door. "I'll come, it'll be faster." And she crouched to leap down.

  Joe stopped her with his teeth in her shoulder.

  "Come on, Joe, before they get back."

  "If you come, we won't have a lookout," Joe said reasonably. "If Kit were here instead of-"

  "Well, she isn't," Dulcie said shortly. "Come on. We can listen for them." And as they leaped down to the balcony, she said, "How could that slob Gibbs be an accountant? That's a respectable profession, or supposed to be."

  Joe padded to the rail again, scanning the village for any sign of the absent couple.

  "Gibbs owned half the firm," Dulcie said, pausing by the open screen, "but he looks and talks like he just wandered in off skid row."

  "Whatever Gibbs is, Chappell is up there in Oregon, apparently shot twice, and if we can find the gun…"

  "If he has a gun, won't he be carrying it?"

  "You don't think he'd carry the same gun, do you? If he gets caught with that one on him…If he has that gun, Dulcie, it'll be hidden somewhere."

  Dulcie looked at his determined scowl, refrained from pointing out that the murder had been nearly ten years ago, that a lot of gun trading could occur in ten years, and slipped beside him into the condo, through the open screen.

  19

  I T TOOK ALL of Joe's and Dulcie's strength to tip over a box, at an angle against the dresser, slice the tape with rigid claws, and rip open the bottom of the carton. Tunneling up inside, they dug among layers of clothes and sheets and towels and through a tangle of dog-eared paperback novels. They found no gun. They had reached the top, nearly smothered, when they heard footsteps on the outside stairs, then Ray's enraged voice just outside the front door, Ryder's angry retort, and a key turn in the lock.

  Backing out of the box fast and pushing it upright, they fled for the living room just as the couple entered. Like a shadow Dulcie slid under the couch. Joe leaped into the white upholstered chair and curled up, pretending to be asleep. Why were they back so early? The two had hardly had time for a drink, much less dinner.

  Ray barged in ahead of Ryder and stomped through to the kitchen; they heard him open the refrigerator and pop a beer. Ryder stood in the living room, her fists clenched as if trying to collect her temper. Joe heard Ray open a cupboard and slam what sounded like a jar onto the counter, heard him unscrew the lid and soon smelled peanut butter.

  When Ryder seemed calmer, she crossed the living room and stood in the kitchen doorway, watching him.

  "That tears it!" Ray snapped at her. "Your sister snooping around. What the hell was she doing in there?"

  "She was having a drink. What else would she be doing? Don't be so suspicious."

  "Why would she drink with a cop? He's some kind of cop, I've seen him around the station. What's she up to? Why's she nosing around, hanging out with cops? What did she say about the letter?"

  "I don't know what she said. I gave it to that Max Harper, the chief, and I left. How would I know what she said?"

  Ray was silent; Joe could hear him scraping a spoon or a knife into the peanut butter jar.

  "I still don't understand why you wanted me to write that letter," Ryder said, "when it lays the blame squarely on you."

  "I was already a suspect. Even if I didn't kill him. Ten years ago, when he disappeared, they grilled me like I was Mafia or something. I told you, if the case is being looked at again, that letter'll throw them off. Can't you understand that? If that is Carson up there, and your sister had that letter all the time, then that throws the guilt on her. And why would you care? Better her than you."

  "Why would they suspect me?"

  Ray's laugh was sarcastic. "Think about it. If that body turns out to be Carson, and if the cops think that letter is for real, Lindsey will look guilty as hell. But if they find out it's a fake, you're the one in the hot seat. Either way, they'll quit suspecting me, I'll be off the hook."

  There was a long silence.

  Ray scraped more peanut butter, most likely eating it from the jar.

  "You don't think that's Carson up there," Ryder said coldly. "You know it is! You said Carson took off for Europe with your wife, you said you had proof. You said if I wrote that letter it would take the heat off you and wouldn't hurt anyone. You said that couldn't be Carson because he was out of the country, but now you're saying…" The floor shook as she moved fast across the kitchen. There was the sound of a slap and scuffling and a jar fell to the floor, bouncing.

  "They never flew to Europe," she screamed at him. "You've known all along he's up there. You killed him! You made me write that letter laying the blame on my sister!"

  "What difference! You hate your sister. Hell, they don't even have an ID on that body. How would they get an ID?"

  "That's what DNA is for."

  "Those police labs are backed up for years. You think they're going to waste time on a ten-year-old corpse?"

  Gibbs, Joe thought, would freak out when he learned Oregon had already ID'd Chappell. The tomcat smiled, wondering how many felons had been taken down by their own blind stupidity.

  "They'll ID him," Ryder snapped, "one way or another, and now I've set Lindsey up. You said-"

  "I just want her to quit snooping around. Stop her from messing around with those cops. Why's she running with that cop, following us tonight?"

  "How could they follow us? They were already in there, their drinks were half finished. You killed Carson, and now you're worried about my sister snooping on you?"

  "You talk about snooping! You went through Nina's things after she left."

  "I thought I might find something to show where she went, something a woman might notice that you wouldn't."

  "That's a crock," Ray snapped. "By then, you were glad she was gone…But earlier, before she started seeing Carson, you and Nina got pretty close. What secrets did she tell you, Ryder? Did she tell you where she went when she used to go off by herself? I followed her once, up in them hills," he said. "She was looking for something. Poking around those old ruins. Did she tell you what she was looking for? She damn well never told me!"

  "If she wouldn't tell you, why should I! It was personal, it was about her aunt, nothing to concern you!"

  "Money? Was that it?" he scoffed. "What, her crazy old aunt left buried money?"

  "It was a keepsake, something of sentimental-"

  "Oh, right! Nina was real sentimental!"

  "Leave it alone, Ray. It was nothing that concerns you."

  "Everything concerns me!" The scuffling started again. A thud shook the floor, as if someone fell or was slammed hard against the wall. Joe and Dulcie left their cover, creeping closer to look, peering into the kitchen.

  "Bastard!" Ryder shouted. "You followed him up there! You killed Carson!"

  "I didn't kill him! How could I when he was in Europe? I just don't like cops nosing around." There was a long silence, then, "You were crazy with jealousy when Lindsey told you she and Carson were getting married. You wanted Carson, you were hot as hell for him. You followed him up there and-"

  "How could I shoot him when I'm scared of guns?"

  "How did you know Carson was shot?"

  "Lindsey told me. It was in the paper, for Pete's sake."

  "I didn't see that in the paper. And you and Lindsey hardly speak. Why would she tell you anything?" Ray hit her again, and she came storming out of the kitc
hen. The cats vanished under the couch. Peering out, they saw her grab her purse and slam out of the apartment banging the front door so hard Joe was thankful they hadn't tried racing through.

  "Out," Dulcie whispered the moment the room was empty, "Out of here, now!" But even as they fled for the sliding screen, Ray emerged from the kitchen. He saw them and lunged for them, burning to take out his rage on anything that moved-as he grabbed for Dulcie, Joe leaped in his face, digging his claws deep, raking Gibbs's whiskery flesh. He leaped free before Ray could grab him and was out the door beside Dulcie, across the balcony, and up the oak tree. As Ray burst out, they streaked higher among the concealing branches. Ray stood on the balcony swearing, staring up into the tree. At last he turned back inside, slamming the glass slider and pulling the draperies.

  ***

  H ALF AN HOUR EARLIER, in the sunken patio of the Running Boar, at the table closest to the stone fireplace, Lindsey Wolf and Mike Flannery sat talking softly as they sipped their hot spiced rum. In the early twilight, the patio was darker than the streets above. The fire on the hearth cast a ruddy, dancing glow across the small tables and onto the faces of the half dozen couples who sat enjoying early cocktails.

  "It was only a little one-story cottage," Lindsey was saying, "built during the days when the village was a religious retreat. In the old photos I have of it, the roof was really low, mossy, and sagging. Whoever renovated it and added the upstairs made a great attic living space."

  "You were lucky," Mike said, "to find a combination office and apartment."

  "I was," she said. "Perfect location, two blocks from Ocean. And the office is just right, with its open beams and fireplace-a far cry from the generic office I rented in L.A. And this one is all mine," she said, her eyes crinkling with pleasure, "bought and nearly half paid for."

  She looked into the fire, sipping her toddy, then looked back at him, her hazel eyes dark in the dusky light. "It's good to be back, Mike. Despite all that's happened, despite having to face this pain and ugliness again."