Cat On The Edge

13

Joe watched Dulcie remove every trace of fur from their freshly killed squirrel before she touched the rich, dark meat. He had watched her do this at each meal, remove feathers, claws, beaks; he had never seen a cat so fastidious. The squirrel was big and fat and it had fought hard, leaving a long bloody gash down Dulcie's leg. They had caught it by working together, by driving it away from all available trees.

He was impressed by Dulcie's bold hunting style. She was quick and fearless, and she could catch a bird on the wing, leaping to snatch it from the wind. He had seen her outrun a big rabbit, too, and bring it down screaming though the animal outweighed her. The rabbit had raked her badly. It hurt him to see her beautiful tabby coat torn and bloodied, hurt him to know how those gashes stung and throbbed. He had licked her wounds at intervals all night to ease the pain, and to prevent fever. She was so beautiful, so delicate. And so puzzling.

At first light yesterday morning he had watched her steal a child's blue sweater from a deserted porch. Waking, he had watched amazed as she dragged the sweater deep into the bushes.

Following her, he found her in a little clearing arranging the sweater, kneading and patting it. She was so engrossed she didn't hear as he brushed softly in through the foliage. When she had shaped the sweater to her liking she curled up on it and rolled onto her back, her head ducked down, her paws limply curled above her belly. Her purrs rumbled.

But when she glanced up and saw him she looked startled and embarrassed. And when he asked her what was so great about the sweater and why she had taken it, she clutched the blue wool with her claws and stared at him, hurt. He felt ashamed. Her need was a private thing, a preoccupation he should not have spied on and really didn't understand.

"It's so soft," she said, by way of explanation. "So soft and pretty, and it's the very color of a robin's egg. Can't you imagine wearing it, all soft wool against your bare skin?"

"I don't have bare skin," he said uneasily. What was this? What was she dreaming? What did she imagine?

"Don't you ever wonder, Joe, what that would be like? To be a human person?"

She had to be kidding. "No way. I may talk like a human and sometimes think like a human, but I'm a cat. I'm a fine and well-adjusted tomcat."

"But wouldn't you…?"

"No. I wouldn't. I can just imagine it. Repairing the roof, mowing the lawn. Having to deal with car registration and income taxes. With traffic tickets and lawsuits and fixing the leaky plumbing." He shook his head. "No way would I be a human."

"But think about concerts and nice restaurants and beautiful clothes and jewelry. About being… I don't know. Driving a nice car, running up to San Francisco for the weekend." She stared at him, hurt.

When he didn't capitulate, didn't say it would be nice, she returned her attention to the blue sweater.

He hadn't meant to hurt her. In truth, her intense pleasure in the wooly sweater touched him, made him feel tender and protective. Made him very aware of her soft vulnerability. Made him smile, too. This was the same cat who had told him, late last night as they snuggled in the branches of an oak tree, how she had set out enraged to stalk the man who tried to poison her. The same cat who could explode into a hot chase after a wood rat, all claws and muscle, and nothing soft or helpless about her.

But yet the mystery was there, like another dimension behind her green eyes. And when she stood looking down the hills at the little village snuggled beside the wide sea, he knew she was not thinking cat thoughts. She was thinking of the tangle of human life; of the shoppers hurrying along the streets, the swiftly moving cars, the sounds of music and of human voices; of the richness of a world foreign to them.

He was hypnotized by her longing. And when, looking down at the village, she sensed him watching, she gave him a look so filled with mystery that it made his claws curl. And she laid her head against him, purring.

And in the night when he missed Clyde, and Dulcie missed Wilma, they would curl up close together and she would lick his face.

She told him a lot about Wilma, how they always shared supper, Dulcie sitting on a little rug by the sink, how they watched television curled on the couch together eating popcorn, and how nice it was to be in the garden with Wilma as she dug in the flowers; she told him about the books Wilma read aloud to her, and that was one thing they had in common, both their housemates read to them. The two humans shared a keen taste for mysteries, and traded paperbacks. They were always trading books, every time they got together.

But the biggest mystery, more urgent than any book, the real and frightening mystery, Dulcie found difficult to talk about. She would mention it, skirt around it, but soon change the subject.

And then on their third day in the hills as they crossed the yard of a redwood cottage where newspapers had blown out of the trash can, part of a headline drew Joe. He trotted over and found, on a crumpled portion of the paper,… POLICE SEARC… WEAPO …

He spread the paper out and smoothed it with his paw.

POLICE SEARCH FOR MISSING WEAPON

Police have as yet little evidence to the identity of the killer of Molena Point car dealer Samuel Beckwhite. No weapon has been found. Captain Harper requests that anyone having information about the killing, or anyone who may have found a heavy object such as a length of metal discarded in the vicinity of Jolly's Deli, contact him immediately. Employees of the Beckwhite Automotive Agency have been questioned as a routine matter. Captain Harper reminds Molena Point residents that withholding evidence to a crime is a felony punishable by imprisonment.

"I don't understand," Dulcie said. "If the killer went to the trouble of stealing that wrench from Clyde, meaning for the police to find it with Clyde's prints on it, why didn't he leave it beside the body?"

"I don't know. All I know is, if he plants the weapon later, for the police to find, Clyde's in big trouble."

"But why would he?" She cocked her head, puzzled. "Unless he means to use it to force Clyde to do something."

"Or keep him from doing something," he said. "All I know is, I'll feel better if-when we find the damn thing."

But it was not until late that night after finding the newspaper, that Dulcie woke mewling and shivering. Joe cuddled her close, clutching his paws around her. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"I dreamed about the murder. I dreamed about the third man."

"What third man?" he said sleepily, then woke more fully. "What man?" He looked hard at her. "There was no one else in the alley. Only Beckwhite and the killer. And you and me."

"A third man." She shoved her nose against his neck. "In the shadows. Standing near me between the jasmine vine and a little oleander tree. When he saw the killer hit Beckwhite, he slipped away fast, down the dark street."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"I didn't think of it. I supposed you saw him, too."

"What did he smell like? Could you see his face?"

"I couldn't smell anything, the jasmine was too strong. And it was so dark in the bushes. Just a darkly dressed figure, a thin figure, standing in the shadows where the bush and the vine blocked the light."

A tremble shook her, and she snuggled closer. "I saw the killer leap at you and swing his wrench. Then you ran, and a police light caught me in the face, I couldn't see where you went. I heard the police radio. When they shone their lights in, the killer moved toward me away from the street and stood still, his face turned toward me.

"He was looking right at me, Joe. He saw me, but then he turned back and chased you." She pressed her face harder against him. "He knows about us. He knows we saw-and more. He knows that we can tell what we saw."

She stared at him in the darkness. "I think that man knows more about us than we know about ourselves." And she curled down tight against him in a hard little ball.

He licked her face and ears. In a little while, he said, "If the second man was a witness, why hasn't he gone to the police?"

"I don't know. Maybe he's afraid."

"Or maybe he has other plans," Joe said. Then, "Maybe he found the wrench. Maybe he came back and found the wrench, before the police ever discovered the body. Maybe he's keeping it for his own reasons."

"Blackmail?"

"Maybe." He pawed at an itch on his shoulder. "Then again, maybe he didn't find it."

"Could it still be in the alley, somewhere the police didn't look? But how could the police miss it?"

"I don't know that, either. But it's a place to start looking. If it is hidden there, we need to find it before someone else does."