Free Cat in the Dark by Shirley Rousseau Murphy Page A

The crime was discovered by the store’s owner, Leo Jewel, when he went in early this morning to restock the shelves and prepare a bank deposit. When Jewel opened the register he found only loose change, and loose change had been spilled on the floor.
    Captain Harper said the burglar’s mode of operation matched that of the Medder’s Antiques burglary earlier this week. “It is possible,” Harper said, “that the burglar obtained duplicate keys to both stores, and that he picked the cash register’s lock.”
    Leo Jewel told reporters he was certain he had locked both the front and the alley doors. He said that no one else had a key to the store. He had closed up at ten as usual. Captain
Harper encourages all store owners to check their door and window locks, to bank their deposits before they close for the night, and to consider installing an alarm system. Harper assured reporters that street patrols had been increased, and that any information supplied by a witness will be held in confidence, that no witness would be identified to the public.
    Dulcie wondered if the police had collected any black cat hairs. She wondered what good the stolen money was, to Azrael. So the old man buys him a few cans of tuna. So big deal. But she didn’t imagine for a minute that any monetary gain drove Azrael. The black tom, in her opinion, was twisted with power-hunger, took a keen and sadistic pleasure in seeing a human’s hard-won earnings stolen—was the kind of creature who got his kicks by making others miserable. For surely a chillmeanness emanated from the cat who liked to call himself the Death Angel; he reeked of rank cruelty as distinctive as his tomcat smell.
    When the doorbell blared, she jumped nearly out of her skin. As Wilma opened the door, Mavity Flowers emerged from the mist, her kinky gray hair covered by a shabby wool scarf beaded with fog. Beneath her old, damp coat, her attire this morning was the same that she wore for work, an ancient rayon pants uniform, which, Dulcie would guess, she had purchased at the Salvage Shop and which had, before Mavity ever saw it, already endured a lifetime of laundering and bleaching. Mavity varied her three pants uniforms with four uniform dresses, all old and tired but serviceable. She hugged Wilma, her voice typically scratchy.
    â€œSmells like heaven in here. Am I late? What are you cooking?” She pulled off the ragged scarf, shook herself as if to shake away remnants of the fog. “Morning, Clyde. Bernine.
    â€œHad to clear the mops and brooms out of my Bug. Dora and Ralph’s plane gets in at eleven. My niece,” she told Bernine, “from Georgia. They bring everything but the roof of the house. My poor little car will be loaded. I only hope we make it home, all that luggage and those two big people. I should’ve rented a trailer.”
    Dulcie imagined Mavity hauling her portly niece and nephew-in-law in a trailer like steers in a cattle truck, rattling down the freeway. Bernine looked at Mavity and didn’t answer. Mavity’s minimal attention to social skills and her rigid honesty were not high on Bernine’s list. Yet it was those very qualities that had deeply endeared her to Wilma. Mavity’s raspy voice echoed precisely her strained temper this morning; she had been volatile ever since her brother arrived two weeks ago.
    Greeley Urzey visited his sister every few years, andhe liked to have his daughter and her husband fly out from the east to be with him; but it took Mavity only a few days with a houseful of company before she grew short-tempered.
    â€œThat house isn’t hardly big enough for Greeley and me, and with Dora and Ralph we’ll be like sardines. They always have the bedroom, neither one can abide the couch, and they bring enough stuff for a year, suitcases all over. Greeley and me in the sitting room, him on the couch, me on that rickety cot, and Greeley snoring to shake the whole