Sherry Chandler

Cat in the graveyard

The priest had his missal clenched in his hands as he stopped on the snowy walk between the parish house and the church. His lips moved silently, either from a sudden desire to pray or to hold a conversation with a mangy cat that slunk, belly close to the ground, beyond his reach, suspicious of heathen and Christian alike.

“Father? My name’s Jury.”

From under the steel-rimmed spectacles, the little priest looked up at him, then down at the cat. It was a dirty white, much the color of the priest’s thin spray of hair, which stood up on his head like the comb of a cockatoo. The cat was watching the priest, who had taken a cube of cheese from beneath his cassock—taken from a dusty pocket, apparently—which he flung in the cat’s direction. The cat snapped it up and then slunk on, weaving around a headstone.

“I don’t know where they come from now where they go,” said the priest, scanning the darkening sky for signs of stray animals or angels. “That one’s been around for months. Never know it, it’s so distrustful.”

…

As Jury started toward the gate, the last of the sun sent a dazzling stripe across the snow, elongating his shadow. Two shadows. Jury looked back to find that the white cat was following him.

He was glad Father Rourke hadn’t turned to look back.

— Martha Grimes, Jerusalem Inn (Dell, 1984)

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