Read The Catswold Portal Online
Authors: Shirley Rousseau Murphy
The Catswold Portal (39 page)
San Francisco Chronicle,
September 14, 1957.
The female figure is a time-honored theme in painting. The female figure reflected in shop windows, and those reflections woven through with abstract city scapes, produces a richness of subject unerringly right for Braden West. This is West's best work to date, a difficult feat for one who has long been admired for the richness of his palette.
West's show, which opened last night at the Chapman to a jostling crowd, was a smashing success. By the close of the evening, nearly all the work had been sold. The richness of this work is overwhelming. West's entire Reflection series is of the same elusive young woman, yet not one painting is repetitive, except in the mysterious, symphonic mystery that graces them all. This fascinating show will remain at the Chapman through October 31. It will open in New York at Swarthmann's in December in a group show with the work of Garcheff, Lake, and Debenheldt. The foursome will move on to the Metropolitan early next year.
San Francisco Chronicle,
September 20, 1957.
A strange disappearance of San Francisco's cats has led to complaints over the last week to police and to the Humane Society. Most of the disappearances seem to have occurred last Sunday night. Cat owners reported their pets acting unusually nervous, pacing and yowling. The cats that were let out were not seen again.
The same night, Marin County residents reported seeing groups of cats running into a garden near Sam's Bar, a well
known jazz cafe. Cats were seen by the dozens in the headlights of heavy traffic, and there were more than the usual number of complaints about barking dogs. About three
A.M
. the barking stopped. No more sightings were reported.
San Francisco Chronicle,
August 8, 1959.
Business News:
Meyer and Finley appointed their first woman broker today. Anne Hollingsworth, brokers' assistant with the firm for twelve years, was appointed head of the San Francisco office. And in another surprise move, nine previously terminated brokers and key personnel were re-hired, after their mass firing two years ago.
The firm has been completely restructured, though it will remain in its Union Square offices. It had been virtually bought out by the Lillith Corporation in early 1957, but that corporation has since filed for bankruptcy. Lillith's extensive charitable branch has been sold to the new philanthropic
Alice West Cat Rescue Foundation,
named for the late and well-known animal artist, Alice Kitchen West.
If you enjoyed
The Catswold Portal,
you'll love Shirley Rousseau Murphy's award-winning Joe Grey Mystery series. Joe Grey is not your average sleuthâhe's a tomcat who, with the help of his feline friends Dulcie and Kit, uncovers the nefarious doings in his sleepy hometown of Molena Point, California. Besides their exceptional sleuthing skills, Joe, Dulcie, and Kit have one more advantage over your average catsâthey can communicate with humans. But these fine felines don't talk to just any Tom, Dick, or Harry; they choose their human friends carefully, and only when the case is at stake. From fighting an evil, green-eyed “cat” burglar, to solving murders of a more human nature, they take the case and use a healthy dose of feline intuition to collar the killer.
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Turn the page for a glimpse into the mysterious and intriguing world of Shirley Rousseau Murphy's Joe Grey series.
Joe Grey was content just being a regular old tomcat. But after a mysterious accident, everything started to change. First he found he could understand human speech, then he found he could talk (quite useful for scaring dogs), and then even read! But he really wanted to worry when he found himself feeling human emotions like guilt and sympathy. And now he's in a real predicamentâwhen a man is murdered in a dark alley behind the local deli, Joe is the only witness. He must put his newly acquired skills to the test to make sure the killer ends up behind bars. Now Joe has to deal with the responsibility that comes with being a
Cat on the Edge
ânot a human, but no longer just a regular old tomcat!
Perusal of the human mind was not a feline concern. Cats didn't
think
about human perversion. Cats
felt
human depravity. They knew that human lust and dark human hatred existed, and they accepted those aberrations. Cats did not analyze those warped human conditions. Cats left the philosophizing to men.
Yet all the time he had been fleeing from the killer, a part of him had been trying to analyze the man. Trying to guess at the man's motives. Trying to figure out his intentions not only at chasing him, but his purpose in killing Beckwhite. Trying to unravel the mystery that had transformed that thin human face into a killer's mask.
What did he care what drove the man to kill? He wasn't connected to this man's problem, and he didn't want to be. And inside him, alarms were going off. These thoughts were new and terrifying. A gut level signal was warning him that he was in the throes of mental and emotional change. A new facet of himself had awakened, new concerns were surfacing.
The transformation had been coming on him for some weeks, but it had not been stirred violently alive, not until
tonight. Now, some foreign presence within him had come alert. And it was clawing to get out, to break free.
He ran the last two blocks caught in a distressing tangle of fears and wanting nothing more complicated than his warm, safe bed, wanted to curl up safe on the blanket next to Clyde, protected by his human housemate.
Joe Grey never regretted the mysterious accident that gave him the ability to talk and understand human speech. And now he has companyâthis mysterious gift has been given to his girlfriend Dulcie, too. The problem is, Dulcie isn't only listening to humans, she's believing them! She is convinced that the man in jail for killing a famous artist and burning her studio is innocent. And, leave it to Dulcie, she is determined to find the evidence that would convict the real murdererâeven if she has to get Joe Greyâa real
Cat Under Fire
âkilled in the process!
At least if Dulcie had to solve puzzles, the murder of Janet Jeannot was better than agonizing over the mystery of their own pasts. They'd done enough of that this summer. Their sudden onslaught of uncatlike thoughts, and their ability to speak human words had been a shocker. When Joe had first experienced his new and alarming talent, he had tried to remain cool and laid-back. Scared as he was, he'd attempted to handle the matter with some restraint. But not Dulcie. She had exploded into her new life with wild eagerness, embracing her sudden new talents with hot feline passion. Wanting to learn everything about the world all at once, trying to make sense of the entire universe, she'd just about driven him crazy. Even watching TV had become a challenge as she soaked up information.
Ever since she had been a kitten, Dulcie had watched TV with her elderly housemate. Curled cozily on Wilma Getz's lap, she had basked in the music and motion of the programs, and in the incomprehensible but fascinating voices. Then suddenly this summer, when she had begun to understand human words, she'd fixed her attention on the programs, eagerly lapping up the smallest detail. Sitting rigid on Wilma's lap, like a little furry scholar, she had soaked up the daunting new experiences and ideas as if, her entire life, she had been waiting for this moment to learn and discover.
Joe Grey is, well, peeved. His human housemate Clyde has been trying to volunteer him as a once-a-week Animal Therapy cuddle-kitty. And just when Joe is about to nab the cat burglar who's been terrifying his usually quiet coast town, he has to add this to his plate as well! But when Joe finds out that this “pet-a-pet” scheme is really his girlfriend Dulcie's idea, he can't say no. Dulcie needs Joe's help to prove that the old folks' home is hiding more than just lonely seniorsâshe's already uncovered a severed finger and a very, very busy open grave. In
Cat Raise the Dead
, Joe can't resist Dulcie's feline feminine charms, even if he sees nothing but trouble from butting into yet another human mess!
Leaping up, she wandered among the bottles and crowded jars, stepping carefully, sniffing at the lids, trying to identify the contents. Makeup, certainly, but some smells were very strange. Stepping over an array of lipsticks and little boxes of eye makeup, over eyebrow pencils, cotton swabs, and a pair of tweezers, she paused to look into the three-way mirror, enchanted by her multiple reflections. To see herself from all angles at once, see herself from the back as if looking at another cat, was like an out-of-body experience.
Forgetting Joe, preening shamefully, she heard, from the drive below, from somewhere beyond the kitchen, a car start up and pull away, heard it move around the front of the house and head off up the long drive.
A miniature chest of drawers stood beside the hat-boxes, a little, perfect piece of furniture no taller than her shoulder. She nosed at it, and with a careful claw she pulled out one of the drawersâand she raised her paw to strike, her eyes blazing.
But these were not mice. In the small drawer, the furry bodies looked, in fact, more like dead caterpillars lying fuzzy and still.
Some were gray, some brown, some nearly white. They did not smell like anything that had ever lived. Puzzled by the lifeless fuzzy creatures, she shoved the drawer closed and opened the next.
She froze, staring.
Eyeballs. The drawer contained human eyes.
There's a bad new cat in sleepy little Molena Point: a renegade tom with a penchant for robbery, a scorn for his fellow felines, and a disdain for human laws. And this
Cat in the Dark
is masterminding a crime spree that's quickly headed toward murder most foul. Dulcie and Joe Grey both know the scoreâthey've seen Azrael in action. But how can they expose the criminal without letting ordinary, untrustworthy humans in on the secret that certain select cats thinkâand talk? Cats like themâ¦
It was not until the next morning that Joe, brushing past Clyde's bare feet, leaping to the kitchen table and pawing open the morning
Gazette,
learned more about the burglary at Medder's Antiques.
“What are you reading?” Clyde picked Joe up as if he were a bag of flour, so he could see the paper.
Joe dangled impatiently, twitching his tail, as Clyde read.
Clyde sat down at the table and dumped pepper on his eggs. “So this is why you've been scowling and snarling all morning, this burglary.”
“I haven't been scowling and snarling. Why would I bother with a simple break-and-enter? The police can handle the simple stuff.”
Clyde raised an eyebrow.
“So there's a new cat in the village. So are you satisfied? It's nothing to worry you, nothing to fret over.”
Clyde was silent a moment, watching him. “I take it this is a tomcat. What did he do, come onto Dulcie?”
Joe glared at him. Stupid humans could be all too perceptive at the wrong times.
Ever since the earthquake, things have been going from bad to worse in Molena Point, usually the most tranquil little town on the Northern California coast. It started with that suspicious “accident” on Hellhag Hill. In
Cat to the Dogs
, the police might write off the deadly accident to the night fog, but Joe Grey knows a cut brake line when he sees itâhe may be a cat, but he's solved more murders than your average police detective!
Frowning, the white strip down his gray face pinched into puzzled worry lines, the big tomcat padded along a fallen sapling between the upturned wheels.
What had he heard?
Dropping down on the far side of the wrecked car, his mind played back the crash in a quick rerun: the squeal of brakes, then the skid just about where Deadman's Curve began. Hellhag Hill was famous for that double twist. If a driver lost control on the first bend, he was hard put, when he hit the second one, to regain command. The too-sharp turn was on him, the canyon dropping straight down away from his front wheels. The locals took that road slowly. The warning signs were numerous and insistentâbut in the fog a driver wouldn't see them. Even a local might not realize just where he was on the hairpin road.
Had he heard another sound before the squeal of brakes? Had he heard a horn farther away, muffled in the fog? The faint, quick stutter of a warning horn?
He squinched closed his eyes, trying to remember.
Yes. First a faint triple beep, then the skid and the crash and the car careening down at himâbut had that earlier honking come from a second car, or had this driver honked at something looming out of the fog? Had there been one car or two, moving blindly along that narrow road?
He thought he remembered the hush of two sets of tires;
but had they been coming from opposite directions? Then the faint stutter of the horn, then the scream of brakes and the heart-jolting thunder as the car came careening over.
The other car must have gone on. Why hadn't it stopped? Hadn't the other driver heard the wreck?
While Joe Grey has played tricks on Max Harper, Molena Point's head lawman, he's never had anything but respect for the dedicated sheriff. Now Harper's in trouble, suspected of murdering two friends, and the only witness, a young girl named Dillon, has disappeared. Both Dulcie and Joe know Harper is innocent, and Joe is a
Cat Spitting Mad, determined to prove his pal's innocenceâand
find Dillon.
They looked and looked at the two women, at their poor, torn throats, at their pooled blood drying on their clothes and seeping into the earth.
The cats knew them.
“Ruthie Marner,” Dulcie whispered. The younger woman was so white, and her long blond hair caked with blood. Dulcie crouched, touching her nose to Ruthie's icy arm, and drew back shivering. Blood covered the woman's torn white blouse and blue sweater. She had a deep chest wound, as well as the wide slash across her throat. So much clotted blood that it was hard to be sure how the wounds might have been made.
Helen Marner's wounds were much the same. Her blond hair, styled in a short bob, was matted with dirt where she had fallen. She was well dressed, much like her daughter, in tan tights, paddock boots, a tweed jacket over a white turtleneck shirt, her clothes stained dark with blood. A hard hat lay upside down against a pine tree like a sacrificial bowl.
No horse was in sight. The horses would have left the fallen riders, would have bolted in panic, the moment they could break free.
Dulcie backed away, her tail and ears down. She'd seen murders before, but the deaths of these two handsome women made her tremble as if her nerves were cross-wired.