Cat Pay the Devil

Cat Pay the Devil by Shirley Rousseau Murphy Read Free Book Online Page B

Book: Cat Pay the Devil by Shirley Rousseau Murphy Read Free Book Online
Authors: Shirley Rousseau Murphy
away with Kit, to the living room, where Kit licked Dulcie’s ear just as, so many times in the past, Dulcie had comforted the tortoiseshell.
    â€œWho are they?” Kit asked. “The burglars who killed that woman in the middle of the night? Oh…”
    â€œIt’s Cage Jones,” Dulcie whispered. “He shot Wilma’s partner this morning.”
    â€œMandell? Oh, he didn’t shoot Mandell Bennett! How…?”
    â€œHe’s alive. Intensive care.” Bennett had been to Wilma’s house only a few times, but he was gentle in the way he spoke and stroked a cat, was the kind of human a cat liked and remembered.
    â€œWe need help,” Dulcie said, glancing at the phone that had, surprisingly, not been knocked off the hook; its receiver was still in place—but if they called 911, Jones would see the extension’s red light blinking in the bedroom. For several years, Wilma had had a second line for her computer, with two-line extensions where a red light blinked when one line was in use. That light would be a dead giveaway.
    But what if Wilma was in there, and hurt, maybe tied up in the closet? Abandoning the phone, the cats headed back for the bedroom, Dulcie thinking, So what if they see us? We’re cats! What’re they’re going to do? Shoot a couple of house cats mindlessly looking for our supper?

7
    T he beefy man sat on the bed going through the overnight case Wilma had taken to the city; her thin hanger bag was thrown on the floor, the clothes spilling out. Dulcie stared in at his long, heavily angled face, long upper lip and heavy features. Jones must be well over six feet, big boned, big hands, thick shoulders. The other man was smaller, tall but of light frame. Thin face, maybe thirty. Thin shoulders, thin long hands, long brown hair under a brown baseball cap. Both men seemed, to Dulcie, parodies of what humans should look like. She could not bear to think how they might have hurt Wilma, what they might have done with her.
    Wilma’s flowered chintz coverlet was wadded up on the floor, the white wicker night tables overturned, the door to the red iron stove flung open and ashes scattered over the flowered rug: Did they think Wilma hid her valuables in the woodstove? But, what valuables? What did Jones think she had? Finished with the overnight case, he dropped it on the floor, stood, and began going through Wilma’s closet,throwing clothes out into the room, running his hands over the wall behind. The white wicker dresser had been jerked away from the wall, cosmetic jars scattered on the floor, as were the contents of her traveling makeup case. What would she hide in there? The case she kept in her overnight bag, neatly supplied, ready for an impromptu junket, a habit learned when she was a probation officer and so often had to travel. Dulcie, seeing that Wilma wasn’t in the bedroom, backed away toward the guest room, Kit pressing close.
    The guest room had been trashed, too, closet doors flung open, drawers pulled out and dumped, guest sheets and towels spilled on the rug, the bed shoved aside, the covers pulled off. If they thought Wilma kept valuables in the house, a large stash of money, or jewelry, why would they look in her luggage? And if they had Wilma, why had they brought in her luggage and packages? This made no sense. If Jones wanted it to appear that Wilma had come home, why bother to trash the house?
    Did they want it to look like she’d been here, then was forcibly taken away? Did they want the cops to think that the housebreaker who’d killed that woman last night had done this? Take advantage of the moment, make it seem that Wilma had come home, had a snack, started to unpack, and then the break-in or forced entry had happened?
    â€œHer car…,” Kit said. “Is her car here?”
    â€œI smelled exhaust. It…She…I didn’t look inside!” Racing for the laundry and the door to the garage,

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