Cat Chase the Moon

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  She looked at Max. “My blood should be on the earring, but I guess no prints, he was wearing gloves. I suppose it’s not much use as evidence, now that you know who he is.”

  “With your blood and flesh on it, it could corroborate your testimony.”

  She said, “It’s silly, but I want the earring back. If anyone ever finds it, and when the police are done with it, I want it.”

  It was late afternoon, nearly dusk when Max, Kathleen, and Dallas left the condo, crossing the back street hastily to the department—three uniforms: the chief and two of his detectives. Juana stayed with Maurita until Officers McFarland and Crowley arrived through the back door, the two officers dressed in jeans, sport shirts, and loose vests. Young McFarland was neatly shaven, hair trimmed short; tall, big-boned Crowley with such large hands that Joe always thought he should be farming or felling timber. Both were armed, both carried black camera bags, which Joe and Rock immediately inspected. It took only one sniff to know that these were packed with a few clothes and with a supply of groceries. Juana busied herself making sandwiches until Clyde arrived to show them Rock’s commands, and to give the big dog a last run for the night. When they returned, McFarland, Crowley, and Juana, and Maurita wearing Juana’s blue robe, had settled in for their supper. As Clyde headed home, Joe Grey followed him, leaped in through the Jaguar’s open driver’s door, and lay down on Clyde’s smoothly folded sport coat.

  Clyde scowled down at him. “I just had that coat cleaned. I suppose you think you’re going home to pig out as usual on our dinner. Why didn’t you eat with Maurita and the cops? You too good to beg?”

  “I’m going with you because you smell like lasagna, that’s why.”

  19

  Clyde turned the corner on the green light. “So you’ve been spying on the law, watching Maurita dress up like Detective Ray.”

  “Not a bad likeness. If Max would let her carry, just in case . . .”

  “That’s not up to Max. That’s the governor’s call. Max has given her two guards.”

  “And for how long will that condo be safe?”

  “A long time with two or three cops and Rock. I wouldn’t want to tangle with them. But I don’t think Max will keep her in one place very long. Every time I think of that grave I wonder all over again, what kind of society has this turned into?”

  Joe sighed. “A culture of kidnappers, rapists, killers, and druggies.”

  “And porn addicts,” Clyde added, “their minds gone. And the meth kids, if the users have kids, born already twisted or half crazy.” He slowed at a light. Joe looked over at him. “You missed the part about the grave digger. It was DeWayne Luther.”

  The light changed. Clyde didn’t move, he sat staring at Joe. “DeWayne Luther? DeWayne beat up Maurita, tried to bury her alive? My God, Joe.”

  “Well, the guy is mean as hell, he half killed his own father. I hope Max doesn’t let the hospital discharge the grandfather to Thelma. No telling what more those boys would do to him.”

  Car horns started to honk, and Clyde moved on.

  “At least Nevin’s locked up in a prison hospital,” Joe said. “Thelma didn’t seem so broken up over her husband being injured so bad and arraigned for murder and attempted murders. Mindy didn’t seem very upset, either. Maybe he’ll end his days right there in prison.”

  Clyde turned into their driveway beside Ryan’s truck; they could smell the lasagna, a breath from heaven. He said, “Thelma told Zeb’s doctor she’s taking him to her place, that she’s going to take care of him, not take him back to that dirty farm, as she put it. She takes him back to that apartment, Varney will be all over him.”

  Joe scratched his ear and turned to hop out of the Jaguar. “She won’t. She’ll find out differently when Max gets hold of her. He’s not letting Zeb stay there. Even with Nevin gone, Varney has a long record, all small arrests but enough that I don’t trust him, enough he should be off the streets. And Thelma herself is ripe for accessory to murder,” the tomcat said, leaping out of the car between Clyde’s feet and racing for his cat door.

  “Accessory,” Clyde said, opening the front door and wiping his feet on the mat. “If it was her car that Nevin used.” He looked down at Joe, shrugged, and headed for the kitchen; he kissed Ryan, her dark, bouncy hair freshly brushed, her flowered apron tied prettily over her black work jeans, which were streaked with caulking, and a clean blue denim shirt. Her bare feet were snug in bunny slippers, her boots stood on the front porch. Joe leaped to the table, onto his place mat, and sat eyeing her impatiently.

  “DeWayne Luther,” Clyde told her. “It was DeWayne Luther who tried to do in Maurita, and who dug the grave.”

  “Oh my God,” Ryan said, sitting down. “Is there a warrant?”

  Clyde nodded. “So far, five stops, heading east. All the wrong guy. Two of the officers swore he looked exactly like DeWayne’s picture, but his driver’s license, name, everything was different, so they let them go—and those could all be fake.”

  “What about prints? On the . . . on Maurita, on her throat . . . ?”

  “He was wearing gloves.”

  Joe said, “Poor Mindy. Her dad in county prison hospital, her grandfather beaten up and mad as hell. And a warrant out on her uncle DeWayne. Varney’s at home, maybe he’ll take pity and decide to be a good uncle.”

  Ryan and Clyde looked at him as if he’d lost his reason.

  Joe said, “So far, is Mindy all right?”

  “From what I’ve seen of her today,” Ryan said, pouring olive oil on the salad. “I don’t think she wastes much love on that family, except for her grandpa. She wants . . .” She looked up at Clyde. “She wants Zeb to come stay with us, she says she can take care of him here. I told her it’s too close. But she knows that—right across the street. Thelma would be all over her, telling her what to do—unless Thelma goes to jail as an accessory to Jon Jaarel’s murder. It was her car that Nevin used to kill him. I talked with Charlie about Mindy and Zeb staying there. She said she’d talk with Max.”

  Clyde raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t that make Max look bad, his protecting a witness at his home . . . ?”

  “He’d be under guard, for his safety. Mindy under police protection, to get her out of that family. That’s just good law enforcement.”

  Clyde didn’t look convinced.

  She lifted a hand, smeared lasagna sauce smartly on his cheek and turned away before he could smear it back. “The Harpers have the Luthers’ two horses at their place, so why not the child and the old man?”

  “Max can’t afford any more men on guard duty twenty-four-seven. And a child living with the chief? No department in the country could operate under such casual rules—except maybe Max Harper’s shop.”

  As Ryan put supper on the table, the little white cat came yawning down the stairs, looking for Rock. When Snowball didn’t see the big dog or smell him, didn’t hear him, she rubbed lovingly against Joe Grey . . . but Rock was her real protector, she needed his company. Ryan picked her up, petted and cuddled her, then settled her in the overstuffed chair at the end of the kitchen and set her dish of cat food and pumpkin beside her. They had learned, several years back, that a little pumpkin was good for aging cats, along with a saucer of chicken broth, to keep their tummies clear. Despite her nice supper, Snowball looked up at them forlornly, missing Rock.

  Ryan set the salad on the table. “I was in the bank this morning making a deposit. Fay Seaver got home this morning. Ulrich was in there. We talked a little while. That made me feel weird, to be talking to the person who kidnapped Courtney—I wanted to punch him out.

  “He said Fay would be back at work tomorrow. You’d think she’d want a day or two off. He said they were taking a vacation together soon. He looked at me with that amused, sarcastic expression and turned away. It was all I could do not to snatch him up, march him home, and make him give Courtney to me; we don’t know half of what goes on in there.”

  “So far,” Joe said, “they’re treating he
r all right, spoiling her. She seems happy, most of the time.”

  Clyde’s face was frozen. “I told you, Joe, if we don’t get her out of there soon, it’ll be too late, she’ll be on a plane for New York.”

  “She won’t come out,” Joe said. “When we got her out the window, she dove right back in. She’s scared of Seaver one minute and wants to get out. The next minute she’s giddy with vanity at being in such a fine place, filled with big dreams from the stories he tells her. We should have forced her back out that window even if it meant a cat fight.”

  Ryan said, “Now that Fay’s home, I’m really afraid for Courtney. That woman gives me the shivers, I can hardly stand her. For one thing, she smiles too much, fake smiles. Doesn’t Courtney notice?”

  Clyde said, “You cats got in after they closed, you could have let us in.”

  “Those locks on the big doors, you’d need a locksmith and an electrician. And that bathroom window,” he said, looking keenly at Clyde, “you’d have a hard time getting in there, with those bars on the outside.”

  Clyde sighed. Ryan thought of the many times one or another of their friends had walked by the open shop and glanced in knowing Courtney was shut in upstairs, wanting to race up and grab her but afraid Ulrich would follow, that he would snatch her away and hurt her. She felt like there was nothing they could do—nothing Clyde said they could do. He said to wait for the right chance and until Courtney really wanted out.

  “I still say . . .” Clyde began.

  Ryan gave him another small serving of lasagna to shut him up and stop the argument, and opened a second beer for him. Clyde shook his head at the beer, glanced at Joe, and pushed his plate away. Joe demolished the several bites of extra supper thinking that, with Fay home, they had to do something now, despite what Courtney wanted.

  Giving Ryan a lick on the cheek, Joe hissed smartly at Clyde and headed away up the stairs. Up onto Clyde’s desk. A leap to the rafter. Out his cat door and across the darkening roofs to the Seavers’ where he had a feeling that, with Fay home, some kind of change was about to begin. He felt that time was running short, that they had to find a way out for Courtney even if their humans had to storm the place, even if they had to call 911 and claim the building was on fire. Galloping over redwood shingles to the Seavers’, he wondered if Dulcie and Kit and Pan had returned and were once more clawing at that small bathroom window, fighting for a way in . . . To do what, when his daughter was so damn stubborn?

  20

  Peering over from Seaver’s roof, Joe looked down at Dulcie, working away at the powder room window. She should have been inside, this was her night to stay with Courtney. When he hissed softly, she looked up. She was standing on the tallest crate digging away at the window screen—even as he watched, the screen flew to the ground ripped aside, lay tilted atop the fallen dead branches and tall grass.

  The evening was nearly dark, the antiques shop had been closed for some time. At this angle, from the shop’s roof, Joe could see only the softly lit sidewalk, a reflection from the display windows; he couldn’t see into the windows themselves, not without hanging by his hind feet. As Kit and Pan appeared, from the higher roof of the apartment, Joe leaped into a shaggy stone pine and to the ground, the golden tom and Kit behind him. They stood looking at the screen and at Dulcie.

  “I pulled the screen off,” Dulcie said proudly. “That woman is back, her name is Fay. I think she’s his wife, the way she acts. Courtney’s upstairs with them. When Fay and Ulrich came in, with her suitcases, Courtney and I were asleep. Courtney didn’t stir, she just slit her eyes open. She belongs here, or they think she does. The minute I heard them I flew into the powder room, pulled the window open a few inches, dove through so fast the whole screen went flying. I’d closed the glass and I’m sure I left it unlocked but I was in such a fright. Bert was still in the back. I guess he heard me, he looked out, saw the screen off but didn’t see me. Maybe he thought it just fell off, it was that old. He put it back. Maybe he found the window cracked open and locked it.” She looked at Joe and Pan. “I came back when he left and listened at the glass, that’s how I know her name. If we can open the window again, just a crack, maybe he won’t notice when he puts a screen up?”

  And maybe he will, Joe thought. Pan thought the same. They could see inside where already a box of tools sat on the tile counter.

  For a while, all claws dug fiercely at the window latch. If they could only open the glass, they could get in and Courtney could get out, and this time they’d make her come with them. Pan had a dry stick in his mouth, he was forcing at the edge of the latch. They had loosened it before, but now it had been made tighter. Pan looked at Joe, looked down at the towel they had left behind the crate. Wrapping it around the outside of the latch, they tried again. It took a long while before they knew they couldn’t open it. Together, the three of them headed for the roof, to make sure Courtney was all right and to get a look at Fay Seaver.

  One would think that all the times they’d passed this shop, and the few times Dulcie and Kit had slipped in to admire the lovely relics, they would remember seeing Fay. The tomcats weren’t big on antiques; and all Kit had remembered was Ulrich Seaver, and the clerk. Maybe she’d thought Fay was one of the customers, or an interior designer; they came in here often, bringing their clients; the cats, staying in the shadows, had paid no attention to them; most interior designers were handsome, well-turned-out women.

  Climbing the stone pine to the roof again, they made their way across the roof of the shop to the upstairs apartment. On the other side of that smaller structure they eased down onto the fancily sculpted edge of the overhang, its pie-crust décor iced with pigeon droppings. They arrived just as a woman was closing the draperies.

  Was this Fay Seaver or someone else, maybe his lover? A handsome, auburn-haired woman about Ulrich’s age. As the draperies closed they left a little tiny slit at the end where a bookcase jutted out. The cats, crowding close, could just see through—and Joe Grey swallowed back a hiss.

  Just look how Courtney had taken to this woman. Fay was gently holding his grown kitten, sweet-talking and cuddling her. Neither Dulcie nor Joe could bear to see Courtney smile up at her, they could both see that the calico was purring and they watched her lift a paw with delight. Joe was so disgusted he nearly bailed over the edge and left the scene.

  When Fay turned to speak to Ulrich, he nodded and left the room. With both preoccupied, Courtney looked from Fay’s shoulder directly across to the slit in the draperies. From out on the ledge, four pairs of eyes looked in at her. Courtney, draped over Fay’s back, let her claws come out in fighting mode, long and sharp, not touching Fay but catching the light like rapiers, and she gave her family a wicked cat laugh. But when Ulrich returned with a large hoop such as a child would play with, and with a ball and a box, her expression changed to one of dismay.

  Fay hugged her and set her down by the hoop. “Let’s start our training, shall we?”

  Courtney didn’t run off, she waited patiently, but as Joe watched Fay try to manipulate his grown kitten, rage flared deep within him. He tried to think, What harm can a few tricks do? But the idea sickened him, to make his beautiful child into a slave cat. He wanted his girl out of there, and when he looked at Dulcie, she had a cold snarl on her tabby face—but now, as Fay tried to get her to jump through the hoop, the calico looked across into her daddy’s eyes with sly cunning.

  It wasn’t easy to watch Fay try to teach Courtney, at this first lesson. The cats could see, from across the room and into the bedroom, Fay’s unpacked suitcase open on the bed; she seemed so eager to get started that she hadn’t even taken time to unpack. She called Courtney her “little prize,” her “shining star.” Courtney, seeming not to get the hang of this, again peered behind Fay not only scowling but sticking out her tongue, showing her hidden audience her real feelings.

  Fay put Courtney down on the carpet in a better position and held the upright hoop at floor level. She held a little treat on the
other side to get Courtney to walk through. Such a simple beginning; but Courtney seemed not to get it. She walked around the hoop to Fay’s side and tried to accept the bit of salmon from her hand. Fay withdrew it.

  Fay tried again, and again, until at last she had Courtney stepping through. But when she lifted the hoop four inches, she never did get Courtney to hop or even step through. All four cats knew Courtney could have leaped to the ceiling, could have done all Fay’s tricks as slick as a circus tiger. Fay, frowning more and more, at last turned away looking as sour as spoiled pickles. “Is this what you brought me? Your famous exhibition cat?”

  “She’s afraid, it’s something new for her, give her time. Or,” he said, looking intently at Courtney, “she’s bluffing, she doesn’t want to do tricks. Maybe . . .”

  “Well, she’s not going downstairs to entertain herself, with that attitude. She can sleep up here.” Turning, she marched away to the bedroom. Ulrich joined her, just as annoyed, shutting the door behind them.

  Courtney sat in the middle of the room looking at both doors. She turned to look at her cat family. She was half laughing, half weeping with frustration.

  When the four cats could hear Ulrich snoring, Courtney began to leap at the door that led downstairs, wrapping her paws around the knob and swinging her hind legs. No matter how she swung, it was impossible to gain enough leverage. Was it locked? She couldn’t turn the bolt above the knob, either. She tried until Ulrich quit snoring. At once she went quiet, dropped softly down and came to the corner of the window. She touched noses through the glass with her daddy and her tabby mama, with Kit and Pan. Though barely whispering, they could hear one another well enough; but their ears were cocked for any more sound from the bedroom.

  “You’re getting out of here,” Joe said through the corner of the window. “Now. No arguments. No matter what dreams they’ve sold you, you’re out of here as soon as we can get you out. We may have to ask Clyde’s help but I don’t like the idea, I don’t want him arrested for break and enter.” He looked hard at Courtney. “No more changing your mind. No more wild visions that could lead to a cage, for the rest of your life!” He glanced at his mate. “If Dulcie hadn’t accidentally locked that window . . .”