Cat Playing Cupid

21

THREE THINGS HAPPENED the morning after the honeymooners returned home. Ryan and Clyde and Joe Grey put the first step of Joe's plan into action-the vital, pivotal step upon which the success of the operation depended. Kit and Sage argued hurtfully, and not for the first time. And Kit discovered Ray Gibbs lurking behind Molena Point PD, looking around warily as he shoved something against the locked back door.

The cats' argument had begun the evening before at the Greenlaw home as Kit and her two humans, and Wilma and Dulcie and Sage, gathered for an early supper and a reading of the Bewick tales; it was that reading that sparked Sage's sullen response and Kit's anger.

The Greenlaw house was one story at the front but two at the back; the daylight basement had been converted to a separate apartment, which still stood empty, waiting for the right tenant. The view from both floors was of the village rooftops and the hills beyond.

Surrounding the house, Lucinda's garden shone bright with early spring flowers, but the evening was chill, and within the cozy rooms a cheerful fire burned on the hearth. As the Greenlaws and Wilma settled down for supper in the corner dining room, they looked out over hills awash in golden light as early evening tucked itself down around the village. Wilma had brought a salad to complement Lucinda's shrimp Creole, and for desert Pedric had baked a key lime pie. The three cats ate on the kitchen floor where they could splatter Creole sauce without regard for the rugs and furniture; already Sage's pale fur and white bandages were splattered with tomato sauce as if he'd just endured a second bloody encounter. Whoever said cats ate tidily hadn't seen these three, particularly when shrimp was on the menu. Only Joe Grey was missing; the tomcat was not a big fan of the ancient Celtic tales-and after supper, as everyone settled before the fire, it became apparent that Sage felt the same. As the humans sipped their coffee, and the cats licked the last splashes of Creole sauce from their paws, and Pedric read about doors that led beneath the green Celtic hills into under-earth worlds where lived cats that spoke like men, Sage grew increasingly uncomfortable.

The stories made Dulcie and Kit shiver with wonderful dreams, but Sage turned his back and curled up tight, his face hidden, not wanting to listen. Kit watched him, frowning.

Pedric read of cats appearing suddenly in ancient villages then disappearing, and the villages filling as suddenly with human strangers. His scratchy voice told of how an orphan child followed music from within a hill, and entered through a door carved with a rearing cat. "'And there,'" Pedric read, "'lay an ancient world, its sky as green as emerald, a world all peopled with cats who spoke like men.'"

But if Bewick's retold folktales made Sage uneasy, it was the author's own experiences with speaking cats as he rambled on a walking journey across Scotland that startled everyone, his encounters at crofts and farmhouses where the country families gave him lodging.

"'I had been, in this short tramp, particularly charmed with the border scenery; the roads, in places, twined about the bottoms of the hills, which were beautifully green, like velvet, spotted over with white sheep, which grazed on their sides, watched by the peaceful shepherd and his dog.

"'But it was the cats I met in that part of the country, the strange and unnatural cats that gave shocking credence to the folklore of the region. These were the speaking cats of legend,'" Bewick wrote, "'and one cat in particular, who lived in a small thatched cottage with an old grandmother, entertained me with the gossip of that region, telling stories of the weddings and births, and, purring slyly, telling me the misdeeds of his human neighbors; and he related heartrending tales, too, of the ferocious battles among the region's forbearers, where wars seemed a way of life.

"'But no war, no atrocity, nor wonder of the land itself, could match the amazing existence of that cat and of those four like him whom I met on my Scottish journey. Even the folktales which I have published herein cannot begin to match that wonder. And surely those stories were based far more on fact than most men could ever guess.'"

Wilma recognized passages that were the same as in the more common edition of Bewick's memoir, where the folktales and encounters with speaking cats did not appear at all. She'd never seen this rare composite, she hoped that perhaps Bewick had printed only very few copies. When Pedric closed the book, they were all wondering how many people over the years had read these same pages, how many well-meaning folk had shared Bewick's discoveries, not thinking how dangerously cruel such knowledge could be when passed on to others, how it could inflame human greed.

Sage, by this time, was fidgeting and scowling. Everyone watched him, but Kit most of all, her dark ears back, her tail twitching with irritation. When Pedric had finished reading, she crouched for a long time looking at Sage, then she rose to prowl the house, her tail lashing, her yellow eyes blazing; and soon she slipped out of the dining room window and across the oak branch to her tree house where she could be alone.

Quietly Dulcie followed her, concerned for the young tortoiseshell. She found Kit curled up on a cushion in the far corner of the tree house, still scowling, her fluffy tail tucked morosely beneath her. Dulcie approached, sniffed at her, and curled up beside her.

"What, Kit? What's wrong? Sage doesn't like the old tales, but why does that bother you so? Joe doesn't like them either."

"That's different," Kit said, hissing at her.

"Can't Sage have his own likes and dislikes? You're his friend, you should understand that. Or maybe more than his friend?"

"It's the way he…," Kit began miserably. "He so hates the old tales where there are heroes, where there are brave cats saving the weak. He calls those stories foolish." She looked crossly at Dulcie. "That's what Stone Eye told him, and he always believed Stone Eye, he thought Stone Eye knew everything-when all he really knew was how to bully us."

"But Sage turned on Stone Eye," Dulcie said, puzzled. "Sage fought him, and helped kill him." This was more complicated than she'd imagined-and more important to Kit.

"Yes," Kit said, "I thought he'd changed. Maybe he did for a little while. I thought after the battle, with Stone Eye dead and the clowder free again to run and live as they choose, I thought Sage saw what a tyrant Stone Eye was.

"But he hasn't changed," she said sadly, tucking her nose under her paw.

"But you love him, Kit?"

Kit looked up pitifully at Dulcie. "I love what he could have been. What we could be, running free together on the hills and no one to beat us down and fill us with ugliness…

"But I can't love that he still worships Stone Eye's cruel ways. I don't want to be with him if those ways are still part of him." And miserably Kit closed her eyes and ducked her head again, shivering.

Dulcie lay beside her for a long time puzzling over Sage and hurting for Kit, and the evening ended, for all of them, not filled with the joy Dulcie and Wilma had expected from hearing the old tales, but with unease all around.

THE NEXT MORNING Kit didn't appear at Dulcie and Wilma's house to share breakfast with Sage, as she had every morning since he'd arrived. When they had finished their pancakes and she still hadn't come, Wilma phoned Lucinda.

"She slipped out at first light," the older woman said. "She isn't there?" she said worriedly. "I saw her padding away over the farthest roofs, her head down and her tail dragging, and I thought…She was like that all night, would hardly talk to us. I'm frightened for her, Wilma. I'm frightened that she's sick; she says not, but…"

Dulcie lifted her nose from her syrupy plate. "Tell Lucinda she's not sick. I know what's wrong, I'll go and look for her," and, licking syrup from her whiskers, she took off though her cat door, raced through Wilma's garden, and up a tree to the neighbors' roofs. There she paused a moment, then headed for the library-this morning was story hour. Sometimes when Kit felt blue, she would join the children while they were read to, wanting the warmth and love of the children petting her and the joy of a good story for comfort.

Across the rooftops to the library's red tile roof Dulcie raced, and down a bougainvillea vine to the front garden, where she reared up, looking in the big bay window of the children's reading room.

Yes, there was Kit crowded among the children on the long window seat. Dulcie could hear the librarian's story voice, and the kids were laughing.

Waiting for the story to end, Dulcie padded in through the open front door as if to make her official library rounds, preening and purring while the patrons and librarians petted and spoiled her. She was, after all, the official library cat. When she didn't appear on a regular basis, Wilma was deluged with questions: Was Dulcie all right? Was she sick? Did she not like the library anymore?

It was nearly an hour later when Kit came padding out of the children's room. When she saw Dulcie, she followed her out into the garden and up to the roof, but when they were alone, she said nothing. She paced irritably, as fidgety, now, as she had been dark and morose the night before.

"What?" Dulcie said. She was grateful for the change in Kit, that she no longer seemed to be grieving. But what was wrong now? The curved roof tiles felt cold under her paws, the shade of the overhanging cypress tree damp and chill as she watched the pacing tortoiseshell.

Kit paused in a patch of sunshine. "I saw that man this morning on my way to the library. That Ray Gibbs. I saw him at the PD, he sneaked in through the back gate to the police parking lot and up to the back door looking all around not wanting to be seen and he left a note there with a rock on it to hold it down and then he sneaked away again, fast." Now, though she seemed as eager as ever in telling what she'd seen, just beneath that paws-over-tail earnestness was the same flat pall that had subdued Kit last night, her eyes not quite as flashing, her enthusiasm not bursting out like rockets, as was her way. That saddened Dulcie, that made her feel flat and grim, too.

"Maybe the note's still there," Dulcie said, hoping to distract and cheer Kit, and she crouched to run, to head for the PD.

"No," Kit said. "Officer Brennan saw it, coming to work. He picked it up. What would…?"

Dulcie imagined hefty Officer Brennan bending down in his tight uniform and picking up the note. "If Brennan found it, then it's inside, on someone's desk. Come on." And she took off across the roofs, glancing back to make sure Kit was with her.

They arrived on the courthouse roof just before the change of watch. Backing down the oak tree, they waited, crouched in a bed of Icelandic poppies, for someone to open the heavy glass door so they could slip inside.

"You feel better this morning?" Dulcie said softly. "You want to talk about it?"

"No. Yes…No."

"He's still your friend."

"I suppose." The joyous young tortoiseshell seemed to have slipped away again, leaving only a morose shadow of what she should be, and Dulcie hurt for her.

They were quiet for a while, waiting to get inside, the morning brightening around them, cars pulling into the parking lot beneath the big oak trees as folk went to their jobs in the courthouse. Most of the officers were going in and out of the back this morning, they could hear car doors slam behind the building. But then a uniform approached the door. "Come on, Kit, here's Wendell." And the cats slipped out from among the poppies and skinned inside on the heels of the young officer.

LEAPING TO THE dispatcher's counter, waving their tails, they smiled at Mabel Farthy then wandered down to the end where Detective Davis was talking on the phone. Kit looked at the note Davis held and cut her eyes at Dulcie, hiding a little smile, as if she recognized the look of it, and that was the first smile Dulcie had seen all morning. Davis was saying, "Brennan brought it in, it was tucked under a rock at the back door."

The note was typewritten, and unsigned. When Dulcie reared up, rubbing against Davis's shoulder and her face brushing against the phone, she could hear Harper's voice clearly. "Typewritten or computer?"

Davis petted Dulcie absently, glancing down to see if the tabby was depositing cat hairs on her dark uniform. "It's a printout." Beside her, Dulcie read it quickly.

Police Chief Max Harper:

Regarding the reopened investigation of Carson Chappell's disappearance: When Lindsey Wolf reported Chappell missing, she lied to the detective about where she was. She was not in the village. She rented a car from Avis and was gone all week. Here is a photocopy of the dated rental receipt in her name. I do not know where she went. Good luck in this investigation.

Had Ray Gibbs written this? Dulcie wondered. Or Ryder? She hadn't seen a computer in the condo. Maybe Ray had a laptop tucked away somewhere. Or he could have used a library computer. But were these Gibbs's words? Was his English that good? Well, he had held an executive position as half owner of Chappell & Gibbs, no matter how unfit he seemed for that kind of work.

Davis said, "Who the hell drops these things? Is this one of our snitches?"

The phone crackled as Harper said, "Whoever dropped it, why wait until now?"

"My gut feeling is that Lindsey Wolf isn't the kind to follow Carson up into the forest and shoot him," Davis said.

But, Dulcie thought, could anyone say for sure what another person would do? Could anyone be positive that another person wouldn't commit a crime completely out of character, given sufficient cause and the right conditions? And she could see that despite what Davis said, the officer knew that was so.

Had Lindsey killed him, despite how nice she seemed? Did Lindsey have the missing gun that they hadn't yet found in Gibbs's condo? And the romantic little tabby thought, Oh, if Lindsey turns out to be a killer, that will break Mike Flannery's heart.

"I'll see if I can lift latents from the letter," Davis was saying, "or get it off to the lab." And as Davis hung up, Dulcie dropped down to the counter.

Now, with this new piece to the puzzle, with two anonymous notes in the mix, Dulcie burned to bring the box of stationery to the detectives. And she burned to slip into the condo again, look in the remaining boxes for a laptop and maybe a small printer, for a gun, and for samples of hand printing. And she left the station beside Kit thinking, with sweating paws, about another break-and-enter within those confining walls.