Cat on the Edge (20 page)

Once a year Jolly's Deli held a party in the alley. George Jolly and his staff set up tables and chairs along the brick lane, and out along the sidewalk, and served an elegant cold buffet of their specialty salads, cold roast turkey and pastrami and roast beef, and assorted cheeses and breads and desserts. The annual affair was a big event in Molena Point, a time for neighbors to get together. Even the village cats could party if they cared to brave the noisy crowd. George Jolly himself arranged leftovers for the cats on a row of paper plates beside the back door.

This year, so soon after Samuel Beckwhite's murder, many villagers assumed that Jolly would postpone or cancel the event, but he did not. What better way to dispel the ugly memories of what had occurred in the alley than to fill the lane with good cheer and comradery.

Though the case was not yet closed, though portions of the investigation were still under way, the shock and overwrought publicity had subsided, and the Molena Point Gazette had relegated any new developments to the third page.

Lee Wark had been booked for murder, for grand theft auto, and for passing counterfeit bills. Jimmie Osborne's charges were similar, but he was booked as an accomplice to the murder of Samuel Beckwhite.

The murder weapon, a British-made torque wrench, had turned up on the seat of a patrol car which had been left unlocked for a moment in the station parking lot. The weapon was wrapped in a plastic bag. The plastic had been buried; it was stained with garden soil. The police lab identified the dirt as coming from a garden that grew marigolds. That could be half the gardens in Molena Point. The lab was trying to pinpoint the exact location of the garden, but that would take some time. They did find on the wrench traces of Beckwhite's blood. And they found Lee Wark's prints superimposed over Clyde Damen's prints. Damen had identified the wrench as among the tools stolen shortly before the murder, from his automotive repair shop.

A pair of thin rubber gloves was found in Wark's car, and sent to the lab. Captain Harper said that it wasn't uncommon for fingerprints to go right through the thin, surgical rubber. Wark's prints, plus testimony by the woman who had been in the alley the night of the murder, would be enough to indict the Welshman for Beckwhite's death. The witness saw Wark hit Beckwhite and she saw Beckwhite fall.

“And it wasn't a man, after all,” Joe said.

Dulcie widened her eyes. “How could I tell it was a woman, in the pitch-dark? I couldn't smell her, my
nose was so full of the scent of jasmine I couldn't have smelled a rotting fish.”

But even with the weapon and the killer's prints accounted for, the investigation was not complete. Evidence led police to believe that Beckwhite had been a knowing accomplice in the sale of stolen cars, and that matter was still under scrutiny. Sheril Beckwhite swore to police that her husband didn't know about the counterfeit money, nor did she. Sheril had been indicted as an accomplice to the theft of the cars, but not as an accomplice in her husband's murder. That, too, was still under investigation. The common assumption around the village was that, even if she was convicted for car theft, Sheril would get probation.

Beckwhite's funeral had been an impressive occasion. He had been put to rest with mountains of flowers and an endless parade of mourners. The funeral entourage, which ran heavily to gleaming foreign cars, was so long that for two hours the entire village had to be cordoned off by the police, effectively preventing entry into Molena Point even from Highway One.

But once Samuel Beckwhite was laid to rest in the prestigious St. Mark's Cemetery, which occupied a high hillside plateau above Molena Point Valley, George Jolly set about planning his annual party. He announced the date, as he always did, by taking out a half-page ad in the
Gazette
. The party was planned for just seven weeks after the arrest of Lee Wark and Jimmie Osborne.

Arrested, as well, and out on bond were the owners
of Mom's Burgers and of the adjoining laundry, for trafficking in counterfeit bills. Max Harper still had no idea who his informant was, who had given him the location of the money, and had anonymously turned over the murder weapon. He had questioned all employees of Mom's Burgers, of the laundry, of the automotive agency. The phone call which relayed to him the location of the counterfeit bills behind the mirror in the men's room had alerted him, as well, that the VIN number on the yellow Corvette had been changed. The dispatcher had prudently made a tape of the voice. Everyone in the department had listened. No one recognized it.

Bernine Sage, the agency bookkeeper, had not come forward with her eyewitness account of the murder until Wark and Osborne had been arrested, claiming she was afraid to do so until they were behind bars. She had described the killing accurately, and had shown Harper where she was standing, concealed behind the combined shelter of the jasmine bush and the oleander tree when Wark killed Beckwhite. She said she had been headed for the drugstore that night, looking in the gallery windows when she came abreast of the alley and heard low voices. She had glanced in at the precise moment that Wark hit Beckwhite.

The day of the party was bright and cool with very little breeze. The two dozen long tables occupied not only the alley but the sidewalks on both streets. They had been covered with white paper tablecloths, as were the two long buffet tables which dominated the alley itself. These were loaded with
an array of Jolly's most popular delicacies. Coffee and soft drinks were served by Jolly's staff, four young men dressed in their usual immaculate white uniforms.

Captain Harper, standing in line at the buffet, was deeply preoccupied with the several puzzling loose ends to the Beckwhite case. For in spite of his unanswered questions, the case was wrapping up neatly. Two and a quarter million in counterfeit bills. Six restaurant owners already indicated for passing counterfeit money. And his department was slowly putting together a complete picture of the money laundering operation which spread to the East Coast and the Caribbean.

He heaped his plate with Jolly's delicacies and headed down the alley to Clyde's table, where Clyde had saved him a chair. Sitting down next to Wilma, he was amused that Clyde and Wilma had brought their two cats. The cats were sitting on a chair right at the table, sitting side by side, very straight, looking around as if they were enjoying themselves. A well-trained dog might do that, but cats?

Max wasn't a cat person; he much preferred the more direct friendship of dogs and horses. But he had to admire the skill of anyone who could get a pair of cats to sit quietly at the table in a crowded environment. In his experience, cats were skittery and easily frightened. He glanced up to where old Jolly was watching from his doorway, and old Jolly was looking at the cats, too. George Jolly was a real cat nut, worse than Clyde, always feeding the ani
mals. There was always a plate in the alley, always cats hanging around.

Watching the two cats at the table, Max thought about these cats the morning of the arrests up at Mom's Burgers. He could see again the two cats standing right there among his officers watching intently as he removed the mirror and unlocked the metal door. When he lifted out the bags of counterfeit bills they had stared, had seemed almost excited.

He knew he was obsessed with cats. But the whole case seemed tainted by cats—that joke at the station about a cat walking through as if it owned the place, that had happened the morning Clyde brought him the list of stolen cars. And the night of Beckwhite's murder, there'd been a cat; some cat had run out from the alley. The patrol field sheet noted that a cat fled from the alley into the car's lights at about the time Beckwhite had been killed.

He watched Kate serve a small paper plate from her own plate, glancing down at the two cats. So Kate was another one—a big cat person.

Kate was doing very well, he thought, considering the last few weeks. She seemed to be shaking off the failed marriage and becoming eager to get on with her life. He'd heard she had put her house on the market and was talking about moving up to San Francisco for a while. Be good for her. Change of scene, new interests.

He watched her set the small plate down on the chair, watched the cats bend eagerly to the salmon salad and bits of cold meats. But the cats were far too mannerly; their unnatural behavior increased his
unease. And when Clyde asked the gray tomcat if he wanted more roast beef, and the cat mewled stridently, Harper's blood chilled.

He hardly attended as Wilma said, “I'm glad to have Dulcie home, I missed her.” She was speaking to Clyde, but she seemed almost to be speaking to the cat. “I bought her a new silk pillow, and a little Dresden supper bowl, after I cracked hers with my shovel.

“I thought I'd start taking her to the library, it's quite the thing among libraries now, to have a resident cat. I think she'd like to do that. A good many librarians say that a library cat has increased their book circulation.”

Harper had known Wilma a long time, he knew when she was putting him on. He grinned and winked at her.

But she looked back at him dead serious. “It's true, Max. Cats do increase library traffic, children and old people particularly will come in to pet the cat, and will stay to do a little browsing, end up with a stack of books. And cats are wonderful at story hour, a loving little cat can calm the children, and keep them from fidgeting. There's even a Library Cat Society. I think Dulcie will fit right in. I think she'll find the experience—entertaining.”

Max patted Wilma's hand. “I'm sure she will,” he said, trying to imagine the city fathers allowing a cat in the library. He guessed Wilma was getting a bit dotty. He didn't understand the sense of strangeness that gripped him. After all, Wilma was just another cat nut.

He finished his coffee and rose. He needed to get back to the station. Needed to ease down into the normal confusion of routine police work, shake off the weirdness.

 

But on his way out of the alley, when he turned to look back, both cats were watching him. He could swear they were laughing.