Cat Laughing Last

25

Beyond Wilma's windows, the garden was pale with fog, the twisted oak trees and flowers washed to milky hues. Looking out from the desk in the living room, Dulcie enjoyed both worlds, the veiled garden from which she had just emerged and the fire on the hearth behind her. Near the warm blaze, Cora Lee was tucked up on the love seat, with the afghan over her legs and the kit cuddled on her lap.

Wilma had just this morning brought Cora Lee home from the hospital and gotten her settled in the guest room. It seemed to Dulcie that her housemate was always sheltering one friend or another. Charlie had first come to her aunt when she fled San Francisco after quitting her commercial art job, convinced she was a failure, that she would never make it on her own. Then after Charlie started her cleaning business, she had come home to Wilma's again when she was evicted from her first apartment, dumping her cardboard boxes and bits of furniture back in Wilma's garage. And Mavity had come here from the hospital after she'd been hit on the head and left unconscious in her wrecked car-had come with a police guard, round-the-clock protection. And now another police patrol was cruising the streets, watching over Cora Lee.

Dulcie looked up, purring, when Wilma appeared from the kitchen carrying the tea tray-a final comforting touch on a cold afternoon. The little tabby looked around her at the perfection of their small, private world, with the fire casting its warm flickering light across the velvet furniture and over the shelves of books and the bright oil painting of the Molena Point hills and rooftops. As Wilma set the tray at the end of the desk, Dulcie sniffed delicately the aromas of almond bread and lemon Bundt cake; but she kept a polite distance. Some folks might not like cat noses in their dessert. Wilma flashed her an amused look and cut two tiny slices for her, slathering on whipped cream. Wilma was wearing a new turquoise-and-green sweatshirt, printed in a ferny leaf pattern, and her gray-white hair was sleeked back with a new turquoise clip.

"You spoil her," Cora Lee said sleepily, watching Wilma set Dulcie's plate on the blotter. "What about the kit? Can she have some?" She stroked the kit, who, at the sound of knife on plate, had come wide awake. Cora Lee was dressed in a creamy velvet robe, loose and comfortable, covering her bandages.

"Both cats will feast," Wilma said, preparing a second plate, "while you and I wait politely for our guests."

Cora Lee shivered, pulling the afghan closer around her. "A week in the hospital, and I still feel weird and disoriented."

"It's the residue of shock, from the surgery," Wilma said. "Plus the shock of what happened-of someone intentionally hurting you, and of seeing Fern dead."

Dead, Dulcie thought, after maybe Cora Lee had idly wished something of the kind for Fern. That wouldn't be easy to live with.

Certainly Cora Lee was still pale, her color grayish, her ease of movement, and lithe ways replaced by stiff, puppetlike gestures, though already she had begun a regimen of exercises designed to strengthen her injured muscles. Very likely painful exercises, Dulcie thought, stretching her own long muscles, extending her length with ease and suppleness. She thought of the distress Cora Lee must be experiencing-and was ashamedly thankful suddenly for her own lithe feline body.

"Growing up in New Orleans," Cora Lee said, "murder wasn't uncommon. It was ugly, but we accepted it. Even as a child, street murder, gang murder, drug-related killings, we were well aware of them.

"But here, in the village that I chose for its small-town gentleness and safety, murder and violent attack seem to me far more shocking." Cora Lee smiled. "I guess I haven't come to terms with that yet," she said lightly.

"We should not have to come to terms with it," Wilma said. "And if you hadn't been bringing the kit home-"

"I would have gone by the Pumpkin Coach anyway. You know I stop every Tuesday morning to see if anything in the window is worth getting in line for." She looked solemnly at Wilma, her thin, oval face drawn and serious. "I should have driven away when I saw the window was broken, when I saw Fern lying there.

"I got out to see if she'd fallen. I had this silly notion that she had been decorating the window-you know how they do, different volunteers taking a turn each week. Fern worked for Casselrod's Antiques; I assumed she'd be a natural one to ask. I was so focused on the idea that she had fallen and hurt herself that I didn't think at all to close the car door, to shut the kit in. I felt guilty afterward.

"When I was close to the window and saw the blood, saw the terrible wounds, I knew I should get away. Like a dummy I stood there trying to see back inside the shop, looking for whoever had hurt her. So foolish…

"Then when I turned to the car to phone for an ambulance, there was the pack of letters on the sidewalk. I didn't know what they were but something, a twinge of excitement, made me snatch them up-and then that man leaped out of the window, from nowhere…"

"And you ran…" Wilma encouraged. It was good for Cora Lee to talk about it, try to get rid of the trauma. "The letters… Old paper, you said…"

"Old and yellowed. The ribbon was faded and sort of shredded.

I got only a glance-the handwriting like old copperplate. Then he was after me. I ran, I got up that little walkway and around the corner before he grabbed and hit me and snatched the letters. The pain in my middle was so bad I knew I'd pass out.

"It's strange. Once I thought the kit was there with me. Then later when I woke in the hospital I thought about leaving the car door open and I worried about her.

Cora Lee smiled. "Detective Garza didn't know how I could outrun the guy as far as I did, could get clear around to the back street- I told him I run at the sports center. When the guy did catch me, when he grabbed me, I really don't remember all of that clearly. I don't remember how I got into the alley where the police found me."

She looked at Wilma, frowning. "Just… him hitting me, grabbing the letters, twisting my hand. I remember falling, doubling up with the pain, and I heard a car take off. I don't know who called the police. A woman, they told me. They said she made two calls. I suppose it was someone in one of the upstairs apartments, but no one knows who. I'd like to thank her."

On Cora Lee's lap, the kit rolled over purring and looked up at her with a little curving smile. And Dulcie thought, Careful, Kit. Be careful. She watched Cora Lee with apprehension.

If Cora Lee, in her deepest mind, remembered that the kit was there with her, licking her face, did she remember, in some lost dream, the kit speaking to her? Remember three cats crowding around her, talking about her? Did unconscious people hear and remember what was said in their presence? Some people thought so, even some doctors thought they did-but Cora Lee mustn't. Enough people already shared their secret, they didn't need anyone else knowing, even a person they liked as much as Cora Lee French.

Besides Wilma and Clyde and Charlie, Kate Osborne knew about them. They didn't see Kate often; and Kate would never ever tell their secret, one that was so close to her own. But one other person knew, as well-a sadist now locked in San Quentin, a man who had broken out once and followed Kate, surely meaning to kill her just as he had wanted to kill Dulcie and Joe.

Dulcie watched the kit, on Cora Lee's lap, licking the last specks of cake and cream from her whiskers.

"I'm surprised she doesn't make herself sick." Cora Lee said. "She ate like that at my house, too."

Wilma laughed. "Nothing seems to bother her. Apparently she has the same cast-iron constitution as Dulcie and Joe."

"Maybe they're a special breed." Cora Lee stroked the kit. "Certainly this little one is more intelligent than most cats, she seems to know everything I'm saying."

The kit glanced up at Cora Lee, then looked at Dulcie guiltily. Cora Lee seemed unaware of having said anything alarming; her expression was completely innocent. Watching her, Dulcie started when the doorbell rang.

Wilma rose to answer it, hurrying Mavity and Susan in out of the cold fog. Mavity's uniform of the day sported pink rickrack around the white pant cuffs and collar. Over this she wore a zippered green sweater, and her frizzled gray hair was covered by a pink scarf damp with mist.

Susan Brittain was snuggled in a brown sweatshirt over her jeans, and a tan jacket, her short white hair curly from the fog. Gabrielle came up the walk behind them, her smart cream pants suit well tailored, probably fashioned by one of her seamstresses. The three women crowded around the fire and around Cora Lee, making a fuss over her, though they had visited her in the hospital only the day before, taking her flowers and the latest magazines that Wilma had good-naturedly carted home again this morning. On the way home, Wilma had driven Cora Lee by the police station to talk with Detective Garza again. Then at home, she had had a nice lunch waiting. Dulcie herself had curled up on the afghan with the kit while Cora Lee had a long nap.

Gabrielle helped Wilma serve the coffee, then sat down at the end of Cora Lee's chaise. "Did the doctor say whether-say when you can go on with the play? I've started your costume."

"Will there still be a play?" Cora Lee said, surprised. "But they won't want me, they'll put out a call for new tryouts. Truly," Cora Lee said, "with Fern dead, in such an ugly way, I feel ashamed to think about the play." Coloring faintly, she looked up at Susan, where she stood before the fire. "Ashamed that I would still want to do Catalina," she confessed softly.

"Feeling guilty?" Susan said.

"I suppose. Because I did so want that part."

"You're not responsible for Fern's death," Susan said.

"I can't help feeling guilty, though, because I surely wished her no good the night of the tryouts."

"Wishing didn't kill her," Wilma said sharply.

"And whatever debt the Traynors owed Fern Barth," Susan told her, "to make them give her the lead, that's over now."

"Well, they won't want me," Cora Lee said. "Vivi Traynor won't."

"What did the doctor say?" Mavity asked. "How soon will you feel right? How soon can you sing again?"

Wilma said, "There's a lot of muscle tightening around the incision. She'll be stiff for a while, and hurting, and fluids will collect there. The doctor wants her to be careful so it doesn't go into pneumonia. He's told Cora Lee not to take any fill-in restaurant jobs until she's completely healed."

Cora Lee touched her side. "If anyone wanted me-if Sam Ladler wanted me bad enough to arrange it, I'd be ready. Two or three weeks, I could be ready to rehearse. But I…" Her face reddened. "That won't happen."

Gabrielle said, "Were you able to help the police? To give them information that would be useful?" She fiddled nervously with her napkin. "I hope Detective Garza doesn't feel that you were involved in Fern's death in some way?"

"Why would Garza say that?" Wilma asked. "Though, in fact, he has no way to know at this point. Until he's sorted through the evidence, he has only Cora Lee's word. He has to wait for the lab tests, has to remain detached."

"I suppose," Gabrielle said. "But Captain Harper knows Cora Lee."

"That really doesn't matter," Cora Lee said. "Wilma's right."

"But," Mavity said, "what exactly did happen? The part you can talk about? It was all so confusing. The paper said there were blood splatters in the back room and on those three wooden chests, that there was a fight back there. I don't-"

Wilma put her hand on Mavity's. "Cora Lee doesn't need to talk about this anymore."

"I'm sorry," Mavity said contritely. "Of course you don't."

"In fact there's very little that Cora Lee is free to discuss," Wilma added.

"But those three carved chests," Gabrielle began, "Catalina Ortega-Diaz's letters…"

"No one knows," Wilma said, "if any of the letters have survived all these years. Those letters could be nothing but dust."

Gabrielle put her hand on Wilma's. "I… have something to tell you." She looked shy and uncomfortable. "I didn't before because… Well, I hadn't intended to do anything about it-I didn't do anything about it, so I didn't think it mattered."

They all looked at her.

"When I was in New York and stopped to see Elliott, he was more than cordial. He fixed lunch for me-Vivi had gone out- and he wanted to talk with me about Molena Point." She sipped her coffee, looking down as if finding it hard to tell her friends whatever was bothering her.

"Elliott told me about the Spanish chests, about the research. He said he had been corresponding with a museum that had one of the chests, and that it had contained three of Catalina's letters. He thought there might be other chests still around, with letters hidden in them-a false bottom, something like that. He told me they would be worth ten to fifteen thousand dollars each.

"He wanted me to look for similar chests when I got back to the coast. He said that if I found any, he would handle selling them to the highest bidder, and we could split the money-that I would be acting as his agent.

"I didn't like the idea. The more I thought about it, the less I wanted to do that. I told him I'd think about it, but when I got home I wrote him a note, said I wasn't interested, that I was sorry he had told me.

"I was up front with him, I told him about Senior Survival and that we were shopping on our own for antiques. I said it wouldn't be fair to you if I were to be shopping for someone else.

"He never answered my letter. And then when they arrived he didn't get in touch. I felt awkward about it, but what could I do. I feel awkward about doing the costumes, about working with him. And I suppose I ought to talk with Captain Harper. Just… to fill him in?" she said, looking at Wilma.

"I think you must," Wilma said.

Gabrielle twisted her napkin. "Well, there it is. I knew all along that Elliott could be connected somehow to the theft of that white chest and to your break-in, Susan, though I'm sure Elliott wouldn't do anything violent. That had to be someone else."

The kit's eyes had grown so wide as she listened that Dulcie leaped at her, landing on the arm of Cora Lee's chaise, licking the kit's face until she had her full attention. The kit subsided, tucking her face under her paw.

"With all the violence these last weeks," Mavity said, "I'm not sure I'll go to any more sales. That Iselman estate sale, that should be grand. But if the Iselmans had those old carved chests, what else might they have that would cause trouble?"

"I'm going," Susan said. "I'm not letting Elliott Traynor, if he is involved, or anyone else frighten me. We can make some money out of that sale, if we buy carefully. I think we should all go."

"And carry our pepper spray," Mavity said, laughing. Pepper spray was the one legal weapon a woman could carry without any kind of permit. After Susan's break-in, Wilma had bought vials for all of them, and taught them the safety procedures-including careful awareness of which way the wind was blowing.

"Why not with pepper spray?" Susan said. "I carry mine all the time. I don't like to be intimidated. If I'd been at home, with that little vial in my pocket, my house wouldn't have been trashed. I'd have given them something to think about, and so would Lamb." She looked around at her friends. "I've been selling on eBay all week. I've sold nearly everything on our shelves that wasn't destroyed. If we mean to go on with this, to keep putting money in the bank, we need to start buying again."

"Are we smart to go on with this?" Gabrielle asked hesitantly. "Or are we only fooling ourselves? Are we going to make enough money to do this? And is it going to work?"

"We've been over the numbers," Susan said. "We've already put ten thousand in the bank from our sales, and we've only been at it six months. If we do this for a couple of years, plus the money from our own houses… mine and Mavity's…"

"And mine," Wilma said, "if I'm ready to throw in with you."

"And the profit from my two rentals," Cora Lee added. "And from that lot you own, Gabrielle…"

"I hope it will work," Gabrielle said uncertainly.

"It will work," Wilma said.

"We'll all have our privacy," Mavity said, "and our own space-maybe as much as I have now, in that little house. Plus a nice big living room and kitchen and a garden, maybe a nice patio.

"But then, it's different for me. I have to move." She looked around at her friends. "I got the notice this morning. The official condemnation. Thirty days. The letter said they made it such a short time because it's been talked about so long, because we all knew it was coming."

"You'll move in with me," Wilma said, "until you decide what to do. There's plenty of room for your furniture in the garage."

"By the time you're ready," Cora Lee said, "I'll be home again, and Wilma's guest room will be yours."

"We can move you," Susan said. "Rent a truck, maybe hire one of Charlie's guys to help us-make a party of it, go out to dinner afterward."

And on Cora Lee's lap, the kit was looking back and forth again, from one to the other, paying far too close attention. Dulcie tried to distract her. When the kit ignored her, she swatted the kit as if in play, forcing her off Cora Lee's lap and chasing her through the house to the kitchen.

Excusing herself to refill the cream pitcher, Wilma followed them, shutting the kitchen door behind her.

Backing the kit into the corner behind the breakfast table, Dulcie hissed and spat at her. "You didn't see yourself. You were taking everything in, looking far too perceptive and interested."

"But no one would guess," the kit said. "No one…"

"Cora Lee says you seem to understand everything she tells you. They could guess, Kit! Charlie did! How do you think she found out?"

"I thought-"

"Charlie figured it out for herself. She watched and watched us. She figured out that we were more than ordinary cats, and those ladies-especially Cora Lee-could do the same."

"Oh, my," said the kit.

"Charlie would never tell," Dulcie said. "But those other ladies might, without ever meaning any harm. You be careful! If you're going back in there to sit with Cora Lee, you practice looking dumb! Dumb as a stone, Kit! Sleepy. Preoccupied. Take a nap. Play with the tennis ball. Have a wash. But don't look at people when they talk!"

The kit was crestfallen, her yellow eyes cast down. She looked so hurt that Dulcie licked her face. "It's all right. You'll remember next time," she said, giving the kit a sly smile. "You will, or you'll be licking wounds you don't want."

Wilma looked at the kit a long time, then picked up the two cats and carried them back to the living room. She gave them each another piece of cake, lathering on the cream, setting their plates side by side on the blotter. Watching the kit guzzle the rich dessert, Wilma was torn between frustration at the willful little animal and love and amusement. But always, she was filled with wonder, with the miracle of these small, amazing beings.

If the cats would only leave police business alone. Theft, armed robbery, murder, Joe and Dulcie were in the middle of it all, refusing to back off. And the kit was becoming almost as bad. The cats' intensity at eavesdropping among questionable characters and their diverse ploys when digging out hidden information left her constantly worried about them.

But maybe, this time, what appeared to be a tangled case would turn into nothing. Maybe Fern's death wasn't connected to Susan's break-in or to the carved chests. Maybe Fern had happened on some gun-happy youth looting the store and in panic he had shot her.

Maybe, Wilma thought. But how, then, to explain the three chests pulled out of the window, and, days earlier, Richard Casselrod snatching the white box?

Dulcie watched Wilma, half amused and half irritated. They'd been together a long time, she knew how Wilma thought. Wilma was hoping right now that this case would turn out to be a dud. Just as Clyde seemed to be hoping. What was it that so disturbed them? The fact that a famous personality was involved? Both Clyde and Wilma seemed to want present circumstances to go away. And that wasn't going to happen.

For one thing, neither Wilma nor Clyde had all the facts. Neither knew that Joe had called New York this morning, setting in motion a whole new string of events. Nor did they know that Joe had found Augor Prey and found the gun that may have killed Fern, or that Joe's subsequent phone call had prompted Harper and Garza to stake out Prey's room.

And no one, not Wilma nor Clyde nor the police, knew that a second stakeout had been set up on the roof next door to Prey. A twenty-four-hour observation post with instant communication to Molena Point PD. A surveillance operation, Dulcie thought, that was soon going to need a nice hot dinner-a little sustenance for a cold and hungry tomcat.