Cat Seeing Double by Shirley Rousseau Murphy Read Free Book Online Page B

rooftop hiding places and in through second-floor windows looking for the bearded, crippled old man.
    There was no sign of him. When at last the search ended, below in the darkening streets the entire population of the village joined to move the site of the wedding. Men and women in party clothes hauled tables and chairs from dozens of shops, carrying them forblocks, setting them up in the center of the village. And when the cats returned to the church garden, it was lined with cars again—the bomb team had arrived.
    Within the barrier of yellow tape, grid markers had been laid out. Five forensics officers were down on their hands and knees under powerful spotlights working with cameras and small instruments and collection bags, carefully labeling each item they removed. The process seemed, even to a patient feline hunter, incredibly tedious. Watching from the roof across the street, the cats were overwhelmed by the work that must be accomplished. Clyde found them there, intently watching, perched on the edge of the roof like three owls in the cool and gathering dusk.
    â€œCome on, cats. It’s time for the ceremony. Come on, or you’ll make us late.”

5
    In the darkening evening, Ocean Avenue’s two lanes were closed off by rows of sawhorses; and its wide grassy median beneath spreading eucalyptus trees was filled with wavering lights; lights shifted and wandered and drew together in constellations. Nearly every villager carried a candle or battery-operated torch or, here and there, a soft-burning oil lantern retrieved from the bearer’s camping supplies.
    Down the center of the median a narrow path had been left between the crowd, for the wedding procession. The long grassy carpet led to a circle of lawn before a giant eucalyptus whose five mammoth trunks fanned out from the ground like a great hand reaching to the star-strewn sky. Within the velvet-green circle ringed by wedding guests, the pastor waited, holy book in hand. Beside him, the groom looked more than usually solemn, his thin, lined face stern and watchful.
    Tall and straight in his dark uniform, Max Harper was not encumbered with the cop’s full equipment, with flashlight, handcuffs, mace, the regulation array of weapons and tools; only his loaded automatic hungat his hip. His gaze down the long green aisle where the bride would approach was more than usually watchful; and along the outer limits of the crowd, his uniformed officers stood at attention in wary surveillance. This was what the world had come to, even for an event as simple as a village wedding—particularly for such an event. Harper’s nerves were raw with concern for Charlie.
    She stood a block away at the other end of the grassy path waiting, apparently demurely, between her aunt Wilma and Dallas Garza, her red hair bright in the candlelight, her hands steady on the bridal bouquet of white and yellow daisies—she had chosen his favorite flowers. No stain of blood shone on her white linen dress or on Wilma’s blue gown, as if the two women had diligently sponged away the slightest hint of trouble.
    Charlie did not look up along the grassy path at him but glanced repeatedly to the street watching for Clyde’s arrival. Max got the impression that the moment the best man’s yellow roadster appeared, at one of the side-street barriers, she meant to sprint down the lane double-time and get on with the wedding, before another bomb rent apart their world.
    But then when Clyde’s car did race into view, parking in the red before the sawhorses, Max saw Charlie laugh. He couldn’t see what she found amusing, but among the guests who had turned to look, several people smiled.
    Only when Clyde and Ryan came across the street, did he catch a flash of movement along the ground—three small racing shadows almost immediately gone again from view, among the wedding guests. He wasn’t sure whether to laugh, or to swear at Clyde. Buddies they were,