The kitchen seemed perfectly in order, the cupboards all neatly shut, their mullioned glass doors showing china and crystalware carefully arranged on the shelves within. On the tile counters they could see a stainless steel toaster, convection oven, microwave, food processor, blender, and an expensive coffeemaker with its own grinder. None of those had been stolen, and what else of value would a kitchen contain? “When does she use all those?” Joe said. “She’s gone half the time.”
“Maybe he cooks,” said Dulcie. “Wilma says when she’s home they’re very social, they’re always involved in some local event and they entertain a lot.” Turning away, she followed Tansy into the Watermans’ living room, a big, square room with a thick white carpet and a high ceiling set with three skylights. The furnishings were white and soft and deep, set against cocoa-colored walls: white velvet chairs, white leather couch, a perfect setting for the beautiful Rita Waterman. Over the fireplace there was an oversize mirror in an ornate silver frame, the glass reflecting the room in reverse like Alice ’s mirror into Wonderland. Two matching mirrors hung at the other end of the room, on either side of the arch that led into the entry hall.
“Does she have mirrors to to make the room look bigger? Or to reflect herself?” Dulcie wondered. She imagined the tall, slim blonde reflected over and over in endless and perfect images. The room did not look lived in. There was not a book or a magazine in sight, not a pillow out of place, nothing personal left lying around; but when they sniffed the furniture they smelled cat, and could see cat hairs clinging to it. There were three cat baskets, all on low stools, all lined with white plush, all dusted with multicolored cat hairs smelling of the Waterman cats.
“There are cat beds in every room,” Tansy said with longing. “I didn’t live here long. The other cats chased me away, so I went to another house. I was only little then, and her cats didn’t like me much.”
Kit licked Tansy’s ear, amusing Joe and Dulcie. Kit had found a small and needy friend, a little creature who seemed needy and quite lost.
“But I came back sometimes,” Tansy said, “when the other cats were out hunting. They had a housekeeper. Betty. She took care of the cats, but then she retired, whatever that means, and went to live with her daughter. Rita’s husband, Ben, he didn’t let on, but he didn’t like animals much. If Rita ever went away or died, he’d have sent them all to the pound.”
The cats couldn’t imagine slim, blond, beautiful Rita Waterman dead, she seemed indestructible. She was a strong woman who did as she pleased, who made of her life what she pleased.
Mavity Flowers, one of Charlie’s cleaning ladies and Charlie and Wilma’s good friend, said that Rita had had a fling with the neighbor two doors down, with handsome Ed Becker. Such behavior shocked Dulcie, though she knew that was unrealistic. She always wanted to think better of humans. In the world of speaking cats, pairing was a serious commitment. Cats did not wander astray; if a cat was tempted, the cat community judged him harshly and sometimes drove him out, to live away from the clowder. A clowder of speaking cats wasn’t like a band of ordinary ferals. Speaking cats even hunted cooperatively-they lived by a different set of rules, by a code as intricate and ancient as their own history.
As they padded through the dining room and study, Joe tried to catch any scent that might seem not to belong-hard to do in a strange house. He had a look at the front door, and at a side door that opened to the patio from the small study. Those and the glass sliders to the patio were all locked, and he found no marks of a break-in.
“When Rita was home,” Tansy said, “I used to watch her dress or pack her suitcases. I liked to watch her put on her jewelry, all her beautiful jewelry.”
“If someone broke in,” Joe said, “and they knew about the jewelry, maybe that’s where they’d start. I wonder if Charlie looked to see if it was there.”
Tansy’s eyes widened and she spun away, galloping down the hall. They followed her toward the master bedroom, passing three other bedrooms. All three were large, elegantly furnished in white and cream and pastel tones. Designed, Dulcie thought, as a complimentary background for Rita’s blond beauty. The rooms did not seem disturbed, all were neat and did not look lived in. She paused, looking into one at the small stone fireplace, the satin bedspread. Why, suddenly, did she feel afraid? Why were her paws sweating as if something was wrong? She prowled the room, looking, but there was nothing to bother her. Shaking her whiskers, annoyed at herself, she hurried to join the others, trotting down the hall along the thick white carpet.
The master suite was furnished all in white, the windows draped in a sheer white gauze; it was not a man’s kind of chamber. Tansy led them across the thick carpet to two large dressing rooms with a compartmented bath between them. “There,” she said, slipping into the room that smelled of perfume and was hung with garment bags full of pale suits and dresses.
Built into the end wall was a pair of white, intricately carved cupboard doors with brass hinges, brass handles, and a brass lock. “Her jewelry’s there.”
When Joe leaped up to paw at the handles, Tansy watched him patiently. He tried, and tried again, but the doors were indeed securely locked.
“On the shelf,” Tansy said at last, having let him struggle, amused by his useless tomcat hustle. Leaping onto the dressing table and then to the shelf above the hanging clothes, she reached her paw behind a stack of plastic storage boxes.
She felt around. She clawed deeper. Deeper still, and then pawed the boxes aside.
“It’s gone,” she said with dismay, looking down at them. She began to move boxes with her furry shoulder, pushing them aside. She was moving the last box when something slithered toward the edge. Her quick paw grabbed it. “Here!” she said, and from her paw dangled a gold chain with a brass key attached.
But then she looked down helplessly at Joe. She knew what the key was for, she’d seen Rita open the cupboard. But she didn’t know how to get that tiny key into the lock.
Leaping up beside her, Joe took the key carefully between his teeth. Crawling belly down on the shelf, he shoved himself out until half of him was hanging over space-but even by bracing one paw against the cupboard door, he couldn’t reach the lock. He leaned farther, nearly overbalanced. Dulcie jumped up beside him, took the end of Joe’s short tail in her mouth and leaned back. Kit joined them, gripping the skin above his flank. He tried again. Holding his breath and carefully aligning the key, he slipped it into the keyhole.
But when he tried to turn it, he overbalanced and fell, pulling Dulcie and Kit with him. They landed in a tangle. Tansy turned away, not daring to laugh.
They tried again, the three females all hanging on to Joe as he stretched out over space. At last he got the key into the lock again, and this time he kept his balance while he turned it. Backing away across the shelf, he pulled the door open. As it swung wide, Kit caught her breath and Dulcie let out a startled “Meow!”
Jewels blazed out at them, a rich array of stones of every color, set in ornately carved works of gold and silver that the cats thought should grace a museum. The broaches and bracelets were arranged on narrow shelves, the pendants and necklaces hanging behind them. Rings and earrings were stored in clear little boxes. Dulcie looked and looked. If ever a cat felt a surge of kleptomania, she felt it now. It had been a long time since she’d had such a strong urge to “borrow” some lovely human treasure.