Cat in the Dark (8 page)

Mavity busied herself picking up her dishes, and she soon left for the airport, her decrepit VW ratting away through the thinning fog. Strange, Dulcie thought, that at breakfast no one had mentioned the two burglaries. Usually such an incident in the village was a prime topic of conversation.

She guessed Bernine had been too interested in Winthrop Jergen to think about burglaries, and certainly Clyde wouldn't mention them in front of her and Joe; Clyde hated when they got interested in a local crime. He said their meddling complicated his life to distraction, that they were making an old man of him—but Clyde knew he couldn't change them. Anyway, their interests gave him something to grouse about. As she and Joe slipped out into the fog through her cat door and headed up the
hills, their thoughts were entirely on the burglaries and on Mavity's brother, Greeley, and his traveling tomcat.

“If Greeley is the burglar,” she said, “we need some hard evidence for Captain Harper.”

He looked at her quizzically. “Why the change of mind? You were all for keeping this from Harper.”

“I've been thinking—if Harper doesn't find the burglar and make an arrest, he'll set up a stakeout. And what if they see Azrael break into a shop? That would really tear it. What if the
Gazette
got hold of that?”

“Harper isn't going to tell the press that kind of thing.”

“But one of his men might. Maybe the uniforms on stakeout would tell someone. What if Lieutenant Brennan or Officer Wendell sees Azrael open a skylight and slip in, and then there's a burglary and they start blabbing around the department?”

Joe sighed. “You're not happy if we finger the old man, and you're not happy if we don't. I swear, Dulcie, you can worry a problem right down to a grease spot. What is it with females? Why do you make things so damned complicated?”

“We don't make things complicated. We simply attend to details. Females are thorough—we want to see the whole picture.”

Joe said nothing. There were times when it was better to keep his mouth shut. Trotting across the grassy park above the Highway One tunnel, they headed up a winding residential street, toward the wild hills beyond.

“And,” she said, “if Brennan and Wendell did see Azrael break in, they'd start putting things together—remembering the times
we've
been under their feet at a crime scene.”

“Dulcie, who would believe that stuff? If a cop talked like that, they'd laugh him out of the department. No one would believe…”

“People
would
believe it,” she said impatiently. “The story's so bizarre, the press would love it. The papers would have a field day. Every tabloid would run it, front page. And every nut in the country would believe it. People would flock to Molena Point wanting to see the trained burglar-cat. Or, heaven forbid, the talking cat. If
that
got in the news…”

“Dulcie, you're letting your imagination go crazy.”

But he knew she was right. He cut a look at her, kneading his claws in the warm earth. “If we can find the stolen money and get it to Harper, and if the guy's prints are on it, Harper will make the arrest without a stakeout. And the cops will never know about Azrael.”

“If there
are
any prints on the money, with those gloves the old man was wearing.”

“Likely he'd count the money after he stole it,” Joe said. “Why would he wear gloves then? Harper gets the prints, arrests the old man, and you can bet your whiskers that tomcat won't hang around. He'd be long gone. And good riddance.”

“Except,” she said, “that old man might
tell
the cops about Azrael, just to take the heat off himself. Figure he could make himself famous and create enough interest, enough sympathy for the talking cat, enough public outcry, that he'd be acquitted.”

“That's really way out.”

“Is it? Look at the court trials just this year, where public opinion has swayed the verdict.”

He looked at her intently. She was right. “Talking cat confesses to robberies. Verbose kitty discovered in California village.”

She twitched her whiskers with amusement. “Tomcat perjures himself on witness stand.”

“Speaking cat insults presiding judge, is cited for contempt.”

Dulcie smiled. “County attorney goes for feline conviction. Judge rules that jury must include proper quota of cat lovers.”

“Or cats,” he said. “Tomcats sit on jury…”

“Cat excused because she's nursing kittens…” She rolled over, convulsed with feline glee.

“But,” she said at last, “what about the murders? We don't…”

“What murders?”

“The three deaths. Azrael said he saw death—three murders.”

“You don't believe that stuff. Come on, Dulcie, that's tomcat grandstanding.
There will be murder in this village
…” Joe mimicked. “
I smell death, death before the moon is full
…” He yowled with amusement. “
I see you two little cats standing over the bodies
…Oh, boy, talk about chutzpah.”

“But…”

“So who is going to be murdered over a couple of little, two-bit burglaries? Come on, Dulcie. He was giving you a line. That tomcat's nothing but a con artist, an overblown bag of hot air.”

But Dulcie lashed her tail and laid back her ears. “There
could
be truth in what Azrael said.” With all his talk of voodoo and dark magic,
was
the foreign tomcat able to see into the future?

Certainly there was a sense of otherness about Azrael—a dark aura seemed to cling around him like a grim shadow. And certainly when she read about cats like themselves, a thread of dark prophetic talents wound through the ancient myths.

Who knew, she thought, shivering, what terrifying skills the black tom might have learned in those far and exotic lands?

D
ORA AND RALPH
Sleuder's shuttle from L.A. was due to land at 11:03, and as Mavity headed up the freeway for Peninsula Airport, her VW chugging along with the scattered Sunday traffic, the fog was lifting; the day was going to be pretty, clear and bright.

Wilma's elegant breakfast had been a lovely way to end the week; though the pleasant company made her realize how much time she spent alone. It would be nice to have Dora and Ralph with her, despite her crowded little house. She did miss her family.

She really ought to entertain them better, ought to get Wilma's recipe for that elegant casserole. All she ever made for breakfast was eggs and bacon or cereal. Well, of course she'd be making grits. Dora couldn't face a morning without grits—she always brought instant grits with her from Georgia. The first time Mavity heard of instant grits, which were more common in the south than instant oatmeal, she'd doubled over laughing. But after all, it was a southern staple. And Dora worked hard at home. On the farm,
breakfast was a mainstay. Dora grew up in a household where her mother rose every morning at four to fix grits and eggs and salty country ham and homemade biscuits from scratch, a real farm breakfast. Biscuits and redeye gravy became Greeley's favorite after he married a southern girl at eighteen and moved south to her father's farm.

Greeley and his wife had had only the one child, only Dora, and for thirty years he had lived that life, so different from how he grew up here in California. Imagine, getting out to the fields every morning before daylight. You'd think Dora would want to get off the farm, but no, she and Ralph still planted and harvested and hauled produce to market, though they had some help now. And now they had that junk car business, too. Ralph called it a “recycled parts exchange.”

For herself, she'd rather clean other people's houses than do that backbreaking field labor. After a day's work, her time was her own. No sick cows to tend, no broken water lines or dried up crops to worry over. She could come home, make a nice cup of tea, put up her feet, and forget the world around her.

And maybe Greeley hadn't liked it all that well, either, because the minute Dora's mother died—Dora was already married—Greeley hit out for Panama, and the next thing she knew, he'd learned to be a deep-sea diver. That had shocked everyone. Who knew that all those years, Greeley Urzey had such a strange, unnatural longing?

Well, he was happy living down there in Central America, doing his underwater repairs for the Panama Canal people, and Dora and Ralph were happy with their farm and their junk business.
And I'm happy,
Mavity thought,
except I wish Lou was still here, that he wasn't taken away from me so soon.
She shoved aside the word
lonely,
pushed it down deep where it wouldn't nudge at her. She knew she'd soon be grousing because of too much family, longing for some loneliness—well, for some privacy.

Never happy. That's the trouble with me. Maybe that's the trouble with everyone, always something that doesn't suit. I wonder what it'll be like in the next world—I wonder if you really are happy forever?

She had given herself plenty of time heading for the airport, and in the brightening morning she took pleasure in the Molena Point hills that flanked the little freeway, the dense pine and cypress woods rising dark against the blue sky, and the small valleys still thick with mist. Ahead, down the hills, the fog was breaking apart over the wide scar of the airport that slashed between the houses and woods. Greeley had wanted to come along, and she could have swung by the house to get him if she'd had room, but he ought to have known the Bug wouldn't handle another passenger plus a mountain of baggage. Even though Dora and Ralph traveled with all those suitcases, she'd never seen either of them wearing anything but jeans and T-shirts or sweatshirts printed in Day-Glo with some crazy message. Besides, they were not small people. Each time she saw her niece and Ralph, their girth had spread a little, expanding like warm bread dough.

But they were a sweet couple, and she'd get them tucked into the car one way or another. Maybe by their next visit she would have a bigger house, three nice bedrooms, one on the main level for herself, two upstairs for company. Not too big, though. Too much to clean. Maybe a place up in the hills. She wondered why Wilma didn't open an account with Mr. Jergen and increase her own pension. Sometimes she didn't understand Wilma; sometimes she thought Wilma's
career as a parole officer had left her with no trust at all. Wilma relied on her close friends, but she didn't have much faith in other folks.

Turning off the freeway into the small airport, she drove slowly past the glass doors of the little terminal but didn't park in front. You could never depend on that fifteen-minute parking. They'd give you a ticket one second after your time was up—as if the meter maid was lurking just around the corner, hungry to make her quota. Continuing on down the hill, she pulled into a short-term space, locked the car, and headed double-time back up the steep incline.

Pushing open the glass door, her frizzy gray hair was reflected, and her thin old body, straight as a stick in her white uniform. She might look frowsy, but she was in better shape than most women half her age. She wasn't even breathing hard after the steep climb—and she didn't have to pay some expensive gym to keep fit. She
got
paid for doing her workouts scrubbing and polishing and sweeping, right on the job.

Greeley was the same as her, as lean as a hard-running hound. Dora, being Greeley's daughter, ought to be the same, but she took after her mother. Ample, Greeley said.

Still, Dora didn't have Greeley's quick temper, and that was a blessing.

Peninsula Airport was so small that most of its flights were commuter planes. The runways would take a 737 if some airline ever decided to put on a straight run, but no one had. Crossing the lobby toward the three gates, she saw that all three of the little glassed-in waiting areas were empty. To her left at the Delta desk a lone clerk stood staring into space as if sleeping on his feet.

In the larger general waiting room to her right,
only three travelers occupied the long lines of worn chairs. Two men sat slumped and dozing, as if they might have traveled all night or maybe waited there all night huddled down into the cracked leather. She couldn't see much of the man behind the pillar, just his legs. She had the impression of limpness; maybe he was asleep, too.

She thought she'd like a cup of coffee but, checking her watch by the airport clock, there really wasn't that much time. Anyway the airport coffee was expensive and not worth hiking upstairs, throwing away a buck and a half. Wilma's coffee was better. And where would she put another cup? She was so full of breakfast her ears bulged.

Choosing a seat in the middle of a row of attached chairs, she settled down where she would be able to see the incoming plane but away from the overflowing ashtrays and their stink of stale cigarettes. After one week with Greeley smoking in the house, she longed never to see another cigarette; her little cottage smelled not only of cat, but like a cheap bar as well.

She could have put up one of those
THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING
signs in the living room. Not that Greeley would pay any attention. He'd pitch a fit if she tried to make him go outdoors to smoke. Between the stink of cigarettes and the stink of that cat, she'd have to burn her home to the ground to get the smell out.

Mavity's cottage, anywhere else but Molena Point, would be called a shack. It was a low-roofed, California-style clapboard, one step up from a single-wide trailer. But in the upbeat seaside village, it had value. Well, she thought, the land had value. Located right on the bay, it was real waterfront property, even if the bay, at that point, was muddy and smelly.

One would think, from looking at the Molena
Point map, that her house faced a wide bathing beach. In fact, her little bit of land occupied a strip of marsh between the bay and the river—oh, it had patches of beach sand, but with heavy sea grass growing through. And the marsh was sometimes in flood. All the foundations along the shore were real high, and in bad weather one wanted to have buckets handy. The lower part of her house was stained dark with blackish slime that, as many times as she hosed and scrubbed it, just kept getting darker.

She hadn't thought much about her property value until Winthrop Jergen pointed out just how dear that land might be and had explained to her how much she could borrow on it, if she chose to invest more heavily. But she hesitated at the thought of a mortgage. She would hate to have something happen, though of course nothing would happen.

She did love the view from her porch; she loved the marsh and the sea birds, the gulls and the pelicans and terns. The land just above her place, up the hill where the old Spanish mission rose against the sky, was pricey property. There were fine, expensive homes up there bordering the valley road; and the old mission was there. She loved to hear its bells ringing for mass on Sunday morning.

Dora said the bells brought her right up out of a sound sleep. But what was wrong with that? Being southern, they got up for church, anyway. They always trotted off to mass, even if they weren't Catholic. Ralph said it was good for the soul to worship with a little variety.

The airport loudspeaker crackled, announcing the incoming commuter flight from L.A., and she rose and moved into waiting area number three and stood at the window. The runway was still empty, the sky empty.

It had been a long time since she'd seen Dora and Ralph, though they had talked on the phone quite a lot recently. Now that Greeley was considering moving back to California, she thought the Sleuders might decide to come out to the coast, too, maybe settle down inland where property was cheaper. Since they had that terrible financial loss last year, she supposed they didn't have a lot of money. Well, the only reason
she
could afford to be here was because she and Lou had bought their little place nearly forty years ago when prices along the marsh were nothing. And both of them always worked, too. Their cottage had been only a couple thousand dollars, back then, and was called a fishing shack.

She'd buried Lou in the Molena Point Cemetery thirteen years ago last April, and she had to admit, if only to herself, she
was
lonely—lonely and sometimes afraid.

Well, maybe she wasn't the only one who was lonely. Before Ralph made their plane reservations, Dora had called her four times in one week, long chatty calls, as if she, too, needed family. Then Dora surprised her by deciding to head out her way, when they didn't even know if Greeley was coming. Usually it was Greeley who set the dates, far in advance, when he could get off work.

The small, twin-engine commuter flashed across the sky. Mavity pressed against the glass watching as it came taxiing back, its turbo engines throbbing, and slowed and turned and pulled up before the building. She watched two men push the rolling metal stair up to its door, watched the baggage cart run out to the plane, and stood looking for Dora and Ralph. There was no first class on the commuter, so they might even be first in line.

Waiting for her family, she did not see the thin
faced man behind the pillar shift in his chair for a better view of the plane—a pale, waxen-faced man with light brown hair hanging down his back in a ponytail, pale brown eyes. His brown cords and brown polo shirt were deeply wrinkled, his imitation leather loafers pulled on over bare feet.

 

Half hidden behind the post, Troy Hoke had observed Mavity since she arrived, and now, watching the disembarking passengers, he smiled as Dora and Ralph Sleuder came ponderously down the metal steps and headed across the tarmac toward the building. Dora's T-shirt said
GEORGIA PEACH
, stenciled over the picture of a huge pink peach, and Ralph's shirt told the world that he was a
GEORGIA BULLDOGS
fan. As they came into the glass-walled waiting room, Hoke lifted his newspaper again. The two big people surged inside, laughing and engulfing Mavity in hugs. He kept the newspaper raised as the three stepped to the moving baggage belt and stood talking, waiting for the luggage. He had parked at the far end of the long-term section and, coming up into the terminal forty-five minutes before Mavity arrived, he had loitered in the gift shop reading magazines until he saw Mavity's old VW Bug pull by the glass doors heading for the parking lot. Had watched her come quickly up the hill again, in that familiar, impatient jerking way she had, and swing in through the glass doors to check the flight postings.

The luggage was being unloaded, the two baggage handlers throwing it off the cart onto the belt. It took a while for the Sleuders to retrieve their suitcases, slowly building a tilting mountain of baggage. He watched the two hefty folk and Mavity slide and drag suitcases across the lobby to the main door, where
Dora and Ralph waited beside their belongings while Mavity went to get her car, pulling into the loading zone. He was amused at their efforts to stow all the bags into the interior of the VW and in the hood. They rearranged the load three times before they could close the doors. Dora sat in the front seat balancing a big duffle on her lap. Ralph, in the back, was buried under three suitcases. Not until he saw the VW drive off and turn toward the freeway did the thin-faced man leave the terminal, taking his time as he walked to his car and then headed for Molena Point.

 

Mavity's little car was so loaded she thought its springs would flatten right down to the ground. Leaving the terminal, she was certain the tailpipe would drag along the concrete. Before she left home she'd removed all her cleaning stuff—brooms, mops, her two vacuum cleaners, the canister model and the old Hoover upright, and her scrub buckets and plastic carrier fitted out with bottles of cleaning solutions and window scrapers and rags—had left it all in the carport hoping Greeley's cat wouldn't pee on everything. Now, beside her, Dora sat pinned down by the big duffle bag and by her bed pillow, which she always carried when she traveled because without it she couldn't sleep. Dora's arm pooched over the gearshift, and her thigh squished against it so hard that they might have to drive the freeway in low gear.