He could hear, at this moment, from around the side of the house, the voices of the housekeeper and her husband; the husband seemed to be the caretaker. They sounded relaxed and happy. Despite the elegant leftovers, they appeared to be the only humans in residence at the moment, and that suited him just fine.
Last night, when the housekeeper discovered him in the garden, she had seemed delighted with his company.
He had, growing tired of mice and birds, approached the back door, where he could smell a beef roast cooking. He trotted up the stone steps and stood looking in through the glass door, into a spacious kitchen and breakfast room. The breakfast room was done up in hand-painted tiles and flowered chintz, very bright and homey. His first mewl brought the old woman’s glance from where she was setting the table.
She had opened the door wide.“It’s a kitty. A stray kitty. Henry, come look.” And she had invited him right on in.
The husband was a small man with a huge brown mustache and huge hands. To be stroked by those hands was like being petted by a catcher’s mitt.
She did not offer Joe food until she had put supper on the table and she and Henry had sat down.
As she served the plates, she fixed a plate for him, too, much as Clyde would do at supper. Only this meal was out of Clyde’s league. She put the plate on the floor beside the table.
That meal had been just as fine as this morning’s breakfast, a slice of rare prime rib cut small and served warm and bloody, and mashed potatoes and gravy, all artfully arranged on a cracked, hand-painted porcelain plate. And for desert a dollop of rum custard.
A few days of this, and he’d be so fat he wouldn’t be able to run from a one-legged turtle, let alone from Beckwhite’s killer.
And yet despite the couple’s eager goodwill, or perhaps because of excessive goodwill, their attentions had left him with a cloying discomfort. They had been so friendly that by the end of the evening, when he demanded to go out, he had felt pushed, felt leaned on. They had let him out with worried little flutterings about whether he would return, and the woman had put a cushion for him outside on a chair.
He ignored the cushion and slept on the marble lady. She held the day’s heat until long after midnight.
But he dreamed that he was shut in a cage. And now as he lolled atop the fountain with little droplets of cool water bursting up around him, he began to feel watched. He felt a sudden powerful need to glance up toward the windows of the house. And he found himself flinching at every flick of a winging bird, startling at every blowing leaf, jumpy as a toad on hot pavement.
He stared down at the burbling fountain, blinking in the sun’s bouncing reflections, trying to shake off his unease.
But he couldn’t shake it, couldn’t lose the feeling that those two well-meaning folks would soon get pushy, try to keep him inside by the hearth whether he wanted to stay or not. Try to turn him into a tame little lapcat.
He would like at least one more gourmet meal before he left the premises, but he wasn’t going to chance it. It was time to go. Time to cut out. He leaped from the lady’s marble rump straight across the pool, through the fountain’s spray. Landing on the lip of the pool, he hit the grass running.
Streaking up the cup of gold vine and over the wall, he sailed down in one big jump, hit the woods running free, he was out of there. The leaves crackled and shook beneath his speeding paws, he charged at fallen logs and leaped them, drunk with freedom and speed.
But then, belting along through the woods, he began to think about Clyde. About how he missed Clyde.
He began to think about Clyde and the murder weapon.
Until that moment he had managed to ignore the possible connection of the killer’s bright wrench to Clyde. But truth was, that weapon that killed Beckwhite had looked exactly like the new torque wrench Clyde had purchased only a month before.
The package had come to the house via UPS, had been waiting for Clyde when he got home from work. The wrench was handmade, by a craftsman in England. It might, Joe had thought, not be any more efficient than a plain, manufactured wrench, but to Clyde it was cast in gold.
And now, with the wrench stolen among an array of automotive tools, and undoubtedly with Clyde’s fingerprints all over it, Joe could only wonder if the whole robbery had been for the express purpose of acquiring a suitably incriminating weapon; to wonder if Clyde was the patsy. If, when the missing weapon was found, Clyde might be taking his meals behind bars. Between the night of the murder, and the night when the killer tried to break into their house looking for a gray tomcat, the newspapers had been full of the murder. The weapon, ‘Possibly a piece of metal, perhaps a length of pipe,’ had not thus far been found.
None of it made any sense. But if he knew why the killer might want to frame Clyde, maybe he could piece together the scenario, maybe things would begin to add up.
One thing sure, if thatwasClyde’s wrench that killed Beckwhite, the cops mustn’t find it.
He tried to remember if the killer had worn gloves to prevent smearing Clyde’s prints, but he could not. He’d been too concerned with saving his own hide.
He broke out of the woods on the crest of the hill, stood staring down at the village. Somehow, he was going to find that wrench.
Studying the roofs half-hidden among the trees, he tried to find his own dark-roofed, white Cape Cod. To find a little glimpse of home. The time was midmorning, and it was Sunday. Clyde would be schlepping around the house unwashed and stubbly, probably still in his Jockey shorts, drinking coffee and reading the sports page. Barney and Rube and the three cats would be napping, either on their two-tiered bunk beds in the laundry or lounging in the sunny backyard.
He was scanning the village, trying to find home, when he glanced down and saw, among the low bushes, a caterpillar spinning its cocoon. Watching it, he was soon fascinated with how the wooly worm’s body accordioned so the stiff hairs of its pelt shot left then right. Amazing how skillfully it spun its continuous thread from some wonderful machine in its innards. Excitement touched him, keen interest. He found himself observing the little worm in a disconcertingly unfeline manner.
He studied intently, details he had never before fixed on. Watching the little beast at work, he was caught in an unaccustomed fever of discovery.
Any normal cat would bat the furry worm and tease it, play with it, crush it, maybe taste it. Though caterpillars were incredibly bitter. But here he was, fascinated by the caterpillar’s amazing skill. Its remarkable talent of spinning held him spellbound.
On and on it worked, spitting forth yards of silk, maybe miles of thin thread. The small animal humbled him.
And he realized, with one of those instant, earth-shaking revelations, that this amazing little creature was far too cleverly conceived to have come into the world by accident.
This creature had evolved by some logical and amazing plan. Joe was observing one small portion of some vast and intricate design.
Right before his eyes he was watching a miracle. Nothing less than a boundless and immoderate creativity could account for the complex and efficient little beast working away beneath his nose.
He hunched closer, absorbing every detail.
And this productive little being was only one minute individual in a huge and astonishing array of creatures. He couldn’t even conceive of how many beasts there were in the world, each with its own unique skills and talents. He trembled at the wisdom that had made caterpillars and cats, made dogs, birds, and lizards, made the whole gigantic world. It had taken a huge and astonishing intellect to conceive this endless array, an intelligence steeped in some vast mystery.
And I am part of it,he thought.Imay be strange and singular, but in some way I am part of the incredible puzzle.Then he smiled, amused by his own unaccustomed intellectual excitement.