Cat Cross Their Graves

386 Pages·2005·1 MB·English

by  Shirley Rousseau Murphy

To the memory of Phyllis Wright.
To the memory of J.,
and to what might have been.
And with thanks to Peter S. Beagle*
for allowing Lori to read aloud passages from
his delightful A Fine and Private Place,
a book and a voice that I treasure.
*www.peterbeagle.com
I do not know that I ever saw anything more terri-
ble than the struggle of that... Ghost against joy.
For he had almost been overcome. Somewhere,
incalculable ages ago, there must have been
gleams of humour and reason in him...But
[now] the light that reached him, reached him
against his will...he would not accept it.
—C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

Contents

Epigraph iii
1
Up the Molena Point hills where the village
cottages stood… 1
2
When sirens careening through the night woke
the village, the… 17
3
The harsh lights that had illuminated the patio
had been… 32
4
The room was musty and dim. She peered out
from… 44
5
No one knew the kit was trapped in the old… 53
6
Crouched in the dark cabinet beneath the
bathroom sink, Kit… 65
7
Dulcie had that same sick feeling about the
missing tortoiseshell… 79
8
Half an hour before Dulcie fled across the
rooftops following… 90
9
Cora Lee didn’t move. She might have been
molded into… 99
10
“The bodies floating away…,” Cora Lee said,
“the sight of… 106
11
Dulcie couldn’t stand, any longer, the painful
chill that separated… 118
12
Galloping across the peaks and shingles,
swerving to the edges… 124
13
Above the courthouse tower the clouds moved
away; the full… 137
14
Pawing at the heavy glass door of Molena Point
PD,… 146
15
Stretched across the dispatcher’s out box, his
hind legs sticking… 154
16
By one in the morning the wind had scoured
the… 167
17
Hurrying home across the rooftops, Joe Grey
peered down past… 176
18
The tortoiseshell kit woke to a harsh beam of
light… 182
19
In the black predawn that enfolded the village,
Lori slowed… 190
20
Insistent fingers of icy dawn wind crept through
the thinnest… 205
21
Dulcie was not near anyone’s phone, she was
crouched in… 212
22
Leaping in through the third-floor window that
Lucinda had left… 224
23
“When Patty’s daughter ran,” Dallas said,
“could you tell me… 234
24
Joe approached the cottage behind the old
house, concealed beneath… 246
25
Juana Davis set the deli bag on her desk,
filled… 253
26
Looking out at the bright morning, Charlie
switched on the… 265
27
Jack Reed’s house stood five blocks below the
home of… 280
28
In the children’s reading room, Lori had
concealed herself as… 288
29
The minute the weather cleared, Ryan’s
building crew began to… 302
30
Slipping into Molena Point PD on the heels
of a… 314
31
“Genelle’s asleep,” Wilma Getz said, taking
Lori’s hand. Lori watched… 325