Free Cat People by Gary Brandner Page A

did his best to live the right kind of life. And your mother, your beautiful mother, she looked a lot like you. Oh, they were a fine couple to look at. Truly a handsome couple."
    "Did they ... do you think they loved each other?"
    "Oh my, yes. Those were two people as much in love as I ever saw."
    "Then why did he ... I mean, how could he ... do what he did?"
    Femolly looked at her accusingly. "I thought you didn't remember any of that stuff."
    "I don't, really, but people have told me about how they died. I went to a library and read the stories that were in the newspaper about it at the time."
    "Best you just forget all about it," Femolly said. "Stuff like that is best left buried."
    Irena wanted to ask more questions, but Femolly made it clear by the way she clanked the dishes together that the discussion was over.
    "You must be tired from walkin' all over town," she said, relenting a little. "Why don't you go on up to bed?"
    "I am tired," Irena admitted, "but I don't think I can sleep."
    "Why don't you go into the den and look at the television in there? The stuff they got on nowadays always puts me to sleep."
    "I think I'll do that," Irena said.
    She found the cozy room—all leather and books, with a massive old desk—just off the entrance hall. The air held a faint scent of pipe tobacco. Irena wondered if her father had relaxed in this room. It was not a room that would suit Paul.
    She snapped on the small television set and waited for it to warm up. It did not much matter to her what was on, just so it would occupy a part of her mind. When the picture came into focus she settled into a deep, comfortable chair. The story on the screen had something to do with policemen in San Francisco. Irena did not even try to figure out what was going on. The clipped dialog, the multiple gunshots, and the squealing tires during the car chase had a familiar rhythm that relaxed her.
    The movie ended and the late news came on. Irena dozed comfortably through the current international crises and the sports report, then snapped suddenly alert as the anchorman switched to local news.
    An angry black face filled the screen. Then the camera pulled back to show the leopard sitting against the rear wall of a small cage, glaring out at the camera. The voice of a woman reporter was saying, "... the leopard was taken to the New Orleans Zoo, where it is being kept in this quarantine cage while tests are made to determine if it is diseased. So far, attempts to locate the owner have been unsuccessful."
    The camera pulled back still farther to include in the picture a slim, windblown young woman standing next to the cage and talking into a ball-on-a-stick microphone.
    "If no owner turns up," the reporter said, "the zoo will have to decide what to do with its new kitty cat. This is Christine Goode at the New Orleans Zoo."
    Irena sat in the chair staring at the screen during the remainder of the news and a rerun of Starsky and Hutch without seeing any of it. Sometime after midnight she went to bed and slept fitfully, her dreams filled with cats.

Chapter 8
    In the morning Irena awoke with a light sheen of perspiration covering her body. The bedroom curtains hung limp before the open window. Outside the sky was low and gray over the city, holding the heat and moisture in like a lid on a pot.
    Irena got out of bed and walked down the hall to Paul's room. Again there was no answer to her knock. Inside everything was exactly as it had been the day before. The bed was neatly made, the window open, everything precisely in its place.
    She dressed and went down to breakfast, but asked no questions this morning about her brother's whereabouts. Nor did Femolly offer any information. The breakfast of buttermilk pancakes was served and eaten in silence.
    "Is there a newspaper?" Irena asked as the dark woman cleared away the dishes.
    Femolly shook her head. "Your brother don't hold with newspapers. Can't say as I blame him. Nothing but killings and wars and other