Cat Laughing Last by Shirley Rousseau Murphy Read Free Book Online

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5
    O n the patio of the Swiss House, only one table offered any degree of privacy where it stood in the corner behind a pair of potted trees and a climbing jasmine vine. The restaurant itself defined two sides of the terrace, while a high brick wall offered shelter from the street and side street. Atop the wall concealed within the flowering vine the three cats had joined, in their own way, the ladies of the Senior Survival club. Hidden, they looked down on Mavity and Wilma, Cora Lee and Gabrielle. The ladies had just ordered, and had ordered for Susan, as well. Wilma sat with her back to the wall, cozy in a red sweatshirt, a red scarf tying back her long white hair. She looked up as Susan arrived, with Lamb walking quietly at heel. Susan sat down un-steadily, next to Mavity. Her hands didn’t want to be still. She fiddled with her menu and stroked Lamb, who settled under the table leaning his head against her knee. She had called Wilma from her car, as she headed for the restaurant after her long session with Detectives Davis and Garza.
    â€œI filled everyone in,” Wilma said. Cora Lee lookedat Susan with sympathy, pulling her white stole closer around her shoulders, as if trying to ward off the ugliness of Susan’s experience.
    Mavity put her arm around Susan. “What a shocking, terrible thing, and how frightening. Do the police have any idea who the man was? But there had to be two men.”
    Susan shook her head. “If they can find the wounded man, find out what he was looking for…I didn’t know a break-in could make you feel so helpless.”
    â€œAs if you aren’t safe anymore,” Mavity said. “Can’t feel safe in your own home.” The ladies said all the trite, comforting things, hoping to ease Susan’s distress.
    Cora Lee laid her hand on Susan’s, her slim, dusky fingers still graceful, though knotted from work and age. Her nail polish was the soft, blush red of persimmons, pulling attention away from the darkening veins. “What could they have wanted? No single item we’ve ever bought would be worth breaking in for and tearing up a house, pulling the shelves from the wall. All our work…”
    â€œWe’ll make it right,” Mavity said. “We’ll clean up. Could they have thought something was hidden behind the shelves? But it would have to be thin. A painting, maybe? How silly—like some old B movie. Or did they think there was another cupboard built in behind the shelves?”
    Beside Mavity, Gabrielle was quiet, looking from one lady to the other. Above, them on the patio wall, the cats listened and wondered. Joe’s scowl was deep as he weighed the events of the morning. The kit snuggled close between Joe and Dulcie, her black-and-brown coat a part of the shadows, her attention not on the conversation but on the surrounding tables, where pancakes swam in butter, and sausages and ham laced the breeze with their delicious aroma. It wouldn’t take much, Dulcie knew, and the kit would be down there with her feet in someone’s breakfast.
    But when, pressing against the little tattercoat, Dulcie gave her a warning look, the kit smiled back at her innocently, her round yellow eyes bright and teasing.
    Only Wilma seemed aware of the cats—and Lamb, of course. He knew they were there. Entering the patio, he had rolled his eyes up at them as if amused, then had padded obediently under the table, the big poodle far too much of a gentleman to bark at cats.
    â€œAfter all the trouble we went to,” Cora Lee said. “All those lovely shelves—all the hours we spent, putting them together. And our nice work tables broken. Did they get the digital camera?”
    â€œNo,” Susan said. “It was locked in the file drawer of my desk. I guess they didn’t have time to break the lock. They certainly broke everything else. And they didn’t take my reflex camera, just dumped a pile of dirt on