Catch As Cat Can

33

At twelve midnight on the dot the rain stopped. Mrs. Murphy had become accustomed to the incessant din on the rooftop. The silence awakened her. Curled up next to Harry, she lifted her head, then rose, stretching fore and aft.

Tucker, asleep on the rug by the bed, snored lightly, her parted lips revealing her considerable canines as well as the small square teeth between them.

Pewter, on the pillow next to Harry, was dead to the world. Her gray forehead rested next to Harry's pillow edge, her body formed a comma, her tail curled tight around her legs.

No point waking up the Princess of Sleep. Next to eating, Pewter loved sleep.

Murphy walked out of the bedroom, down the hall, careful to step on the old carpet runner. She liked feeling carpet beneath her paws. Then she bounced across the kitchen, out the animal door, and pushed open the screened porch door. The clouds, low and billowy, Prussian blue, flew across the sky, west to east. Puddles like black ice filled the small depressions in the driveway. Keeping that driveway in good working order gave Harry fits. She'd dutifully fill the holes only to have the stones eventually worm their way out to the side of the road. Every three years she would break down and hire Mr. Tapscott to bulldoze the long driveway, put down bluestone or crusher run, and then pack it as hard as possible. No wonder a large part of the state budget was siphoned off by road maintenance. If only Harry had the tiniest fraction of that budget, her road would be in tiptop shape.

Murphy often thought of human cares. Not that she thought road maintenance a foolish care. After all, she was a farm cat; she understood the importance of roads, tractors, and re-seeding pastures. But much of what humans fussed over seemed silly to her. They worried about their looks, about money, about their social standing.

Cats ignored social standing. To be a cat meant one was at the top of the animal chain. And since cats are not herd animals, each cat remained a complete individual. This didn't mean that Mrs. Murphy lacked kitty friends. It only meant that she didn't rely on them for a sense of herself. She simply was.

She hopscotched across puddles, entering the barn. The three horses, sound asleep, didn't hear her. She jumped on the tack trunk. Gin Fizz slept like Tucker, on his side and snoring. Tomahawk and Poptart slept standing up. Murphy couldn't imagine sleeping standing up.

She crept into the tack room. The mice were playing with a jacks ball, singing at the top of their lungs, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

She pounced, narrowly missing the fattest mouse.

“Eeek! Mad cat. Run for your life!” they screamed, scrambling for the hole in the wall. They all made it.

Murphy put a glittering eye to the hole shaped like an upside-down U. “Have the decency to clean up after yourselves. My human doesn't think your games are funny. And you've left grain bits all over the floor. You'll get me in trouble and if you get me in trouble I'll nail one of you if it's the last thing I do!”

“Bully,” a high-pitched voice replied.

“We had a deal. You leave the tack room clean and I leave you alone.”

“You surprised us. We would have cleaned up.”

“Sure.” Mrs. Murphy batted the jacks ball between her paws.

“Give us the ball back. We'll clean up. I promise.”

“Maybe I will and maybe I won't.” With that she catapulted straight up in the air, turned halfway round, dropping back on the ball. She flopped on her side, kicked the ball out with her hind legs, then chased it wildly under the saddle racks and bridle hooks. She whacked it hard with her right front paw. The little red jacks ball slammed against the wall, bouncing back almost into her jaws.

Murphy carried on like this for five minutes until she tired of solo handball. She tantalizingly deposited the jacks ball about a foot from the mouse entrance. Making a great show of leaving the tack room, she tiptoed back in, silently vaulting onto a saddle. Holding her breath, she waited until she saw tiny whiskers appear in the opening.

“She's gone,” a voice said.

“Oh, no, she's not. I know Mrs. Murphy. She's clever,” the original high-pitched voice replied.

“Mom, you worry too much. She's up in the hayloft with Simon.”

“Bart, don't you go out there. You can play later.”

But Bart, young and full of himself, thought he could dash out, grab the ball, and roll it back in. Even if the cat happened to be in the tack room he thought he was quicker than she was. Wrong.

Bart no sooner scooted out than the full weight of Mrs. Murphy surrounded him. She'd jumped down, pinning him under her beige-striped tummy.

“Bart! Bart!” his mother screamed.

“Mom.” His voice was muffled by all the fur.

Murphy, highly pleased with herself, twisted her body so Bart could stick his head out from under her but couldn't escape. “Worm.”

“Oh, please, Mrs. Murphy, don't kill me.”

“I'm going to play with you, I'll let you go, then smack my paw down on your tail. When I'm tired of your foolishness, I'll snap your neck and bite your head off. I'll leave your head right here so Harry can see what a mighty mouser I am. I'll eat the rest. Yum.”

“Take me.” Bart's mother boldly hurried outside amid screams from the other mice inside.

“I could have you both, you know, I'm that fast.”

“You're a fabulous athlete, Mrs. Murphy.” The mother walked right up to Mrs. Murphy's nose. “But he's young. I'm not. Take me.”

Bart was sobbing. Mrs. Murphy considered the situation. She heard a soft flutter in the rafters. The owl returned from hunting.

“Go on. Get in there. She will eat you. I won't.”

“Bless you, Mrs. Murphy.” The mother hugged Mrs. Murphy as best she could as Bart scurried into his home.

“Just clean up around here. If you don't I won't be nice to you next time.”

“We will!” the jubilant chorus agreed from behind the wall.

Satisfied that she'd struck terror into their hearts, the tiger emerged into the center aisle, then climbed the ladder up to the loft. Simon was asleep, his treasures surrounding him.

She looked straight up into the cupola as the owl, over two feet of her, peered down.

“Who?”

“You know who.”

“Indeed I do. A saucy cat. A spoiled cat. Mrs. Murphy. What are you doing in here? Get caught in the rain?”

“No. I woke up when it stopped. Have you been hunting in it?”

“A foray when the worst was over.”

Mrs. Murphy climbed to the topmost hay bale. “Come down here and talk to me so I don't get a crick in my neck. And I don't want to yell. Sooner or later Simon will wake up and whimper. You know how he is.”

Although not close friends, the two predators had respect for one another even though the owl did not understand domestication one bit. She glided down, silent as the tomb. Gave Mrs. Murphy the chills because when the owl hunted you didn't know what hit you until it was too late. Even sharp cat ears could only discern her presence when she was already close.

The owl's bright yellow eyes blinked. “What's on your mind, pussycat?”

“I have to get over to Tally Urquhart's but I can't cross the creeks.”

“Over the banks, debris hurtling in the water. The beavers don't even want to come out of their lodges and the lodges are getting holes punched in by tree limbs. You can hear the roar.” The owl blinked.

“Yes, I heard it when I left the house. I suppose I could open the truck window when we pass Tally's drive and hop out of the car. Mother has to slow for the curve but I don't like her knowing I can manage the windows. It's not good for humans to know what we know.”

She chuckled. “That's very owl-like of you.” She fluffed her feathers, turned her head almost the whole way around, then settled herself. “Want me to fly over?”

“I need to get in the house.”

“Ah, I can't help you there.”

“You see, two humans have been murdered. One was hanged and the other was shot.”

“I know.”

“I guess you would. You're out and about. I didn't think you cared much about human affairs.”

“I don't, but murder has a certain lurid curiosity. We owls don't murder one another. You cats might tussle, a bad fight, lose an eye, but you don't murder one another. It's one of those depressing curiosities about humans.”

“So it appears.” Murphy leaned toward the large bird. “I think there's been a third murder. Roger O'Bannon. And either his brother did it or his brother is next in line.”

“Ah, so I am not my brother's keeper?” She rocked back and forth on her huge feet.

“Cain and Abel. Mrs. Hogendobber would know the exact quote from the Bible. I don't but I know the story.”

“As do I. Cain slew Abel because he was jealous. The Hebrew God favored Abel. All religions have such a story. Being sacred to Athena, I'm partial to the Greek myths myself. But it would have to be a powerful motive for blood to kill blood. Either that or Sean O'Bannon is one cold-blooded creature.”

“I don't think he is. I could be wrong. Crozet is so small. You think you know people but you don't. But I really don't think Sean is cold-blooded. What puzzles me the most is what the victims have gotten themselves into—over five hundred thousand dollars was found in Donny Clatterbuck's safe. So I would have to say that money is the motive and if that's just Clatterbuck's cut then we are talking about a great, great deal of money. But I can't for the life of me think of what they could be doing to generate that kind of cash. It's not drugs, at least I don't think so, and we know the money's not counterfeit. I've thought and thought. I even thought what if they've been selling state secrets but there are no state secrets in Albemarle County. The government officials and military brass retired here are just that, retired.”

“Slavery.”

“Huh?”

“Mrs. Murphy, there's still slavery. Children are bought and sold. People from Asia and South America are sold as domestic slaves smuggled into the U.S. Oh, it's called something else but it's slavery. When you can't speak the language, you can't go out on your own. You work for nothing or next to nothing and another human, maybe the one who smuggled you in, controls your life. There's a lot of money in smuggling people across the border.”

“I never thought of that. I don't know, but it's something and it's here. This I do know, if Sean O'Bannon isn't part of it he'll be dead before too long. If he lives, I have to assume the worst.”

“Can't you set a trap for him? If he doesn't fall into it, he's innocent,” the owl said with deliberation.

“That's just it, since I don't know what it is that they're doing, I can't bait a trap.”

“You are in a pickle.” The owl chuckled. “But your human is safe. Why worry?”

“No, she's not. She was there when the safe was cut open by BoomBoom Craycroft, of all people. So now her blood is up. She's as curious as a cat but without the nine lives.”

“Harry does have an odd way of stumbling onto the truth.” The owl scratched her head with her foot.

“You could do me a favor. When weather permits, fly over O'Bannon Salvage. See if anything looks peculiar from the air. Sometimes land betrays things. Oh, and there's a very offensive rat that lives there, he calls himself Pope Rat. I think he knows a lot.”

“If I catch him and carry him aloft he'll sing like a robin.” She chuckled low and deep, the idea of swinging the rat in the air appealing to her.

“When we find out what it is we'll no doubt wonder how we missed it,” the cat sighed.

“Or be completely amazed. Humans, for all their faults, can be damnably clever.”