When Tom arrived and asked, “What’s wrong? Has something happened?” she burst into tears. He put his arm around her shoulders and helped her inside.
Once in the living room, she wiped her tears with her T-shirt, and, in control again, sat on the couch. Tom sat next to her.
“I used to love this house. Now I’m scared to be in it.”
She took a deep breath and told him about the run-in with Ramsey. “Maggie thinks he was just trying to scare me, but it upset me anyway. I’m afraid, Tom. I’m afraid for me because someone tried to kill me, but mostly, I’m afraid for Ethan. Things don’t look good for him. What if his lawyer can’t convince the jury of his innocence? How can I live my life with my son locked up for something, I know, he didn’t do?”
“I’ve heard really good things about his lawyer. Don’t you think he’s doing a good job so far?”
“Yes, I do. I trust him, and so does Ethan. I know he’ll do the best he can.”
“Well, then, give him the chance to do that before you decide it’s a lost cause.”
“I know you’re right, and it does help to hear it from someone else.”
“Call the lawyer and tell him about your conversation with Dan Ramsey.” He got up to leave and gave her a hug. “I have to keep this appointment. I couldn’t postpone it for more than an hour.”
He added as an afterthought, “If you’re uncomfortable here, why don’t you come and stay with us for a while?”
“Thanks for asking, and don’t think I don’t appreciate it, but I should stay here. I have the cats, and I’ve imposed on Maggie too much already. Besides, I have to face this too; this is my home and I’m not leaving.”
“Okay, take care and call me if you need me. We’re family and I love you, even though we don’t see much of each other.”
She almost started to cry again as she waved good-bye.
“A cat is a lion in a jungle of small bushes.”
––Indian Proverb
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: In Their Own Language
I had convinced the felines––actually, I threatened them with bodily harm––not to do anything foolish when I showed Alyx what happened. Their concern was justified. Alyx would undoubtedly think I was the guilty party but they understood there was no other way. Neither did I have a guarantee that Alyx would understand my message. What I was about to do might just land me in a lot of trouble.
As expected, my loud, guttural yowling propelled Alyx and my housemates to the kitchen to see what was wrong. I gave one big roar, and leaped on the counter, then straight up in the air, just catching the edge of the upper cabinet with my front paws, digging up the side with my back claws. In a perfect replay of what Pooky had said happened, I struggled to hang on and knocked down a basket in the process
Alyx rushed to help, but I pulled myself up, purposefully knocked down another basket, and paused to look at her.
“What’s gotten into you, Murfy? Get down from there!” she admonished.
Maggie had told Alyx about my odd behavior with the lawyer and she had probably attributed it to the changes in the household. Now, watching me deliberately knock down another basket, she didn’t know what to make of it.
“What is going on here? You get down from there before someone gets hurt.”
While she was coaxing me to come down, Misty leaped on the counter on the other side of the sink, onto the refrigerator and lithely up to the top. She gently pushed off a bunch of dried flowers, and before Alyx could do anything, Pooky joined Misty and me. Alyx stepped back, hands on hips, astonished as we continued to push items off, stopping to look at her as the things fell to the counter or to the floor, with a so what are you going to do about it attitude.
She dropped into the nearest chair, flabbergasted at our behavior. The others jumped down––one by one; I defiantly stayed where I was, my eyes boring into hers.
Finally, she got it. She immediately called the number David Hunter had given her, and then sat on the floor.
“This goes way beyond imagination. If I hadn’t known better, I would have to say you did that on purpose.”
Ethan’s lawyer arrived an hour later and Alyx ushered him to the kitchen. If David Hunter thought it strange when he saw all the items on the floor, he didn’t say so.
“You sounded sure when you said you knew what happened. What did you remember?”
“Actually, my cats told me what happened.”
He looked at her askew. “Your cats talk to you?”
“Yes, cats do talk when humans are willing to listen. True, their native tongue is body language, but house cats have developed a wide variety of meows intended to alert humans to their needs and intentions. Sometimes I get the feeling that Murfy can read my mind, and lets me know what he wants me to know is going on in his. I think it’s just a lucky guess when I get it right, but who knows?”
“So what did they tell you?”
“They didn’t tell me anything. They helped me figure out that what happened was an accident.
“The first time you asked me to tell you what happened, I said I was sitting at the kitchen table and the cats were being cats. What I meant by that was that they were eating, sleeping or chasing something around.
“When I came back to the kitchen from checking out the noise in the guestroom, I saw one of those green lizards you see everywhere frantically climbing the wall and, because of the sounds I heard in the living room earlier, I thought one of the cats must have been after it. Usually, I rescue them from the cats, but this one seemed safe, so I paid no more attention.”
The quizzical look on Hunter’s face must have irritated her as much as it did me.
“Don’t you see? One of the cats must have been stalking it, jumped up there and accidentally knocked down the pot that hit me.”
“Those lizards are called Green Anole and that’s pretty high for a cat to jump. Did they ever do that before?”
“I’ve never seen them do it, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t done it in the past.”
His skepticism was annoying, and what did Alyx care about the proper name of the lizard?
“Do you have any cats?” she asked.
“No.”
“Have you ever spent any time with cats?”
Again, he responded with a negative and at the same time backed into the closest chair.
“So you don’t know anything about them. Well, I have three. They do things that can make you crazy if you try to figure it out. Cats aren’t show-offs, and you have no idea what they can do until they do it.”
Her cheeks turned red when his mouth twitched, holding back a smile or maybe laughter, infuriating her even more.
She sat across from him and he turned to face her.
“Okay, how did they do it? How did they get to the top of the cabinets?”
“Misty went by way of the refrigerator. The other two went floor to counter and straight up. Murfy almost didn’t make it and knocked down a basket in the process.
“Don’t you see––it could have happened just like that. It’s bizarre, I know, but I read an article in the newspaper some time back, about a man shot in the rear by his cat while he was standing at the stove cooking his breakfast. The article said that he had placed his loaded handgun on the counter and his cat had accidentally knocked it off, causing it to fire. And that, you can find in the paper’s archives, I’m sure.”
“I agree it’s a paw-sible theory but...”
She looked away hiding a smile. “You called it a paw-sible theory.”