Free Cat Deck the Halls by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

smaller police parking area and the small jail, all enclosed within a woven wire fence. She could see, beneath the gnarled branches of an ancient oak that hung over the red tile roof of the building, the small bared window that was cut into a raised clerestory, allowing light and ventilation for the department’s one small holding cell that opened off the front entry. Now, at just before six on this cold winter morning, beyond her drawn draperies, Juana’s balcony was black and chill, a light dew clinging to the teak chair and love seat and the three potted camellias that were in full bloom. But here within the bright, firelit living room, she and the child were cozy. This was nice, the cheerful blaze on the grate, the little girl curled down, her tummy full of cocoa and a cookie, hopefully falling into welcome sleep.
    Since her own two boys had grown and left the nest, Juana had seldom held a small child in her arms. Maybe someday there’d be grandchildren, but not for a while.Both her boys were cops, neither one married yet. When that time came, she wondered what kind of grandmother she’d make. Well, she wasn’t holding her breath. At this point both her sons were married to their work, Randy as a detective with the Tacoma Sheriff’s Department, and Jed with California Highway Patrol.
    Guess I’m married to my own work, she thought, amused. Still, as a widow and an empty nester, she found it surprisingly satisfying to shelter this little girl, to hold her and to put her to bed, tucking her safe under the quilt. The child was such a fragile little thing, thin as a baby bird. Shoulder-length hair as black as a raven’s wing, and skin as pale and clear as milk. Long black lashes, and when she was awake, those huge black eyes staring up at you, so sad, filled with such hopelessness.
    In the hospital, and then in the car coming home, the child hadn’t spoken. She had made not a sound even when the woman doctor examined her, an examination that had to be frightening. Juana had called ahead and asked for a woman, and found that Terry Wayne was on duty. Juana’s white-haired, cheerful friend had been waiting for them at the emergency-room desk, and Juana, not knowing what the child had been through, was relieved not to have to deal with a male doctor.
    Terry hadn’t kept the child long. The little girl was so frightened, and so tired and cold. Just long enough to wrap her in warm blankets, and then gently examine her to determine that she had not been molested and had no physical wound that Terry could find. Nor could Terry find any malformation of the throat or mouth that would account for the child’s silence.
    Last night was not the time to run complicated hearing or speech tests, even if they had been available, at that hour. Terry thought the speech problem was simply trauma. Whether the child had been so traumatized by the murder that she’d stopped speaking, or whether this was an older condition, they couldn’t guess. They only knew that the child was still very afraid, and cold and clinging, and jumpy at any loud sound. The two other doctors on emergency duty had wanted to keep her in the hospital, but Terry wouldn’t hear of that. Even with a private room and a guard at the door, a hospital setting made Juana uneasy. She could make the child more comfortable in her apartment, make her feel that maybe someone cared what happened to her; and both she and Max felt that the child was safer with an armed officer, and with extra patrol around the building.
    Max would be setting up a round-the-clock schedule for the few woman officers in the department to take shifts staying here with the child. That would be hard on the officers, taking double shifts, even if they could get some sleep while they babysat, and it would be hard on the department’s budget, which was always tight—but at the moment there was no viable alternative. No one in the department wanted to