Read Online Cat in the Dark by Shirley Rousseau Murphy - Free Book Online Page B

called and called. Damn the holidays.”
    After getting Bernine settled, Wilma had left a note on the kitchen table hoping Charlie would see it.
    Bernine is in the guest room with you, I’m sorry. She had a fight with her live-in.
    Charlie had seen the note, all right. When Wilma came out at five this morning, the scrap of paper was in the trash, wadded into a tight ball.
    Bernine had dressed for brunch this morning not in jeans like everyone else, but in a pink velvet leisure suit, gold belt, gold lizard sandals, and gold earrings, and had wound her coppery hair into a flawless French twist decorated with gold chains—just a bit much in this house, in this company, Wilma thought, hiding a smile. Her own concession to company for breakfast had been to put on a fresh white sweatshirt over her jeans. And Clyde, of course, was nattily attired in ancient, frayed cut-offs, a faded purple polo shirt with a large ragged hole in the pocket, and grease-stained sandals.
    Bernine had greeted him, when he and Joe arrived,with a raised eyebrow and a shake of her elegant head. “You brought your cat ? You brought your cat to breakfast? You actually walked over here, through the village, with a cat tagging along?”
    Clyde had stared at her.
    â€œWell,” she said, “it’s foggy. Maybe no one saw you.”
    â€œWhat difference if someone saw us? We—I do this all the time, take the cat for a walk.”
    â€œI’m surprised that a cat would follow you. What do you do, carry little treats to urge it along? Don’t people laugh—a grown man walking a cat?”
    â€œWhy should anyone laugh? Why should I care ? Everyone knows Joe. Most people speak to him. And the tourists love it; they all want to pet him.” Clyde smiled. “Some rather interesting tourists, as a matter of fact.” And he turned away, snatching up the Sunday paper, looking for the sports page.
    Now the cat in question lay patiently awaiting the breakfast casserole. Stretched across the couch beside Dulcie, the two of them occupied as much of the blue velvet expanse as they could manage, comfortably watching the fire and dozing. Their occasional glances up at Wilma communicated clearly their pleasure in this lazy Sunday morning before the blazing fire, with their friends around them—and with the front page of the Molena Point Gazette lying on the floor where she had casually dropped it so that they could read the lead article. As they read, their little cat faces keen with interest, she had busied herself at the coffee table rearranging the magazines, effectively blocking Bernine’s view. But then the cats, finishing the half-page account of the liquor store burglary, had put on dull, sleepy faces again, diligently practicing their best fuzzy-minded expressions.
    The two cats looked beautiful this morning, Wilma thought, sleek and healthy, their coats set off by the blue velvet cushions, Dulcie’s curving, chocolate stripes as dark as mink, her pale, peach tinted ears and paws freshly washed. And Joe always looked as if he had groomed himself for a formal event, his charcoal-gray coat shining, his white paws, white chest, and white nose as pristine as new snow.
    Wilma didn’t speak to them in front of Bernine, even to prattle baby talk as one would to ordinary pets; their responsive glances were sometimes more intelligent than they intended, and Bernine was far too watchful. The history that Bernine had picked up from a previous boyfriend, the Welsh mythology of unnatural and remarkable cats that had peopled the ancient world, was better not stirred even in the smallest way. Better not to set Bernine off with the faintest hint of immediate feline strangeness.
    In fact, having Bernine in the house with Dulcie was not at all comfortable. She just hoped Bernine would find a place soon. And certainly Bernine’s intrusion into the guest room was not a happy situation for Charlie who, half an hour ago,