Shirley Murphy - Cat Playing Cupid

But what the hell, he was a big, strong tomcat. Those two sleazeballs couldn't intimidate him. And it might be interesting, doing the lost kitty act.

He had soon talked himself into it, soon felt okay with the deception. "A piece of cake," he said later when he told Dulcie his plan.

"Are you out of your furry mind? Move in with Ryder Wolf and Ray Gibbs? That Gibbs is a creep, Joe! He was Chappell's business partner. He could be the killer, he might have had plenty of reason to kill Chappell." They were crouched on Dulcie's roof, watching for wood rats on the hill behind the house, speaking softly so as not to draw the attention of Wilma's neighbors.

"He could have had something crooked going with the business," Dulcie said, "and Chappell found out." Her green eyes narrowed. "Do you know what went on in the firm, back then? Have you bothered to research that?"

"If Gibbs had anything to do with Chappell's disappearance, Dulcie, the cops would have found out ten years ago. I read the file. Gibbs was the first one they looked at, the business partner, the possibility of embezzlement. Don't you think they looked? A detective and Chappell's trust officers went over all the books and found nothing."

"But-"

"And Gibbs wouldn't have killed him to inherit Chappell's half of the firm," Joe added, licking his paw. "That all went to Chappell's mother, Gibbs didn't get a cent."

"But maybe Gibbs didn't know that."

"He had to know, it was all in the corporate papers. And two years before Carson disappeared, when Chappell and Gibbs caught one of their accountants embezzling funds, Gibbs went right to the law and to the newspaper. Laid it all out, furnished the DA with enough evidence to convict the employee, cooperated in every way."

"Maybe that was a setup, to make Gibbs and the firm look good."

Joe sighed. "Harper investigated it himself. In Harper's report, they were squeaky clean."

Dulcie flicked her tail. "I still don't like you moving in with them, pretending to be a helpless stray."

Tenderly Joe licked her ear. "You played lost kitty after Janet Jeannot's murder."

"This feels a lot more threatening than moving in with that nice old woman and her crooked son, spending a week among her collection of China figurines trying not to knock them over. She was right there in the house, he wouldn't have dared hurt me-though I did worry about being trapped in there. It's too easy to get shut in, Joe. If those two suspect you-"

"I'm a cat, Dulcie. A stray cat. What would they suspect? That I'm a cop in cat skin, working undercover?" He nuzzled her whiskers. "Their purchase of the condo closed this morning. They're moving in this afternoon. I'll give them the day to get settled, then join them. If you want to help, you can play lookout, run surveillance for me."

Dulcie was silent.

"Are you up for this?" Joe said impatiently. "Or do you mean to let me get skinned all alone?"

Dulcie looked him over, and sighed. "If you plan to play starving kitty, you'd better start fasting. Try to drop some of the fat off your ribs." And she stalked away, her ears back, her striped tail lashing, her green eyes dark with unease.

D ESPITE DULCIE'S DISAPPROVALof the plan she was there the next evening waiting for Joe, crouched on the roof above the Wolf/Gibbs second-floor condo as the tomcat, sucking in his belly in a forlorn charade of starving stray, of dejected homelessness, prepared to charm his way into enemy territory.

The small, five-condo complex was tucked atop a row of village shops, the apartments surrounding a small roof garden that could be reached from the street below or from the underground parking garage by elevator, or by a stairway whose narrow steps were faced with bright, hand-decorated tiles. The views from the condos were of the village rooftops, of the small shops and cafés below and the sea beyond. The Wolf/Gibbs unit faced Ocean Avenue with a private balcony overlooking that wide, divided street and its tree-shaded median.

This evening the sliding glass doors to the balcony stood open to catch the breeze, and through them drifted the voice of a national anchor, treating pedestrians on the street below to the early evening news. Joe, padding silently across the condo roof, left Dulcie beneath the branches of an overhanging oak and dropped down to the balcony where he peered in through the sliding screen.

Ray and Ryder had made short work of moving in. The living room furniture was already in place, and the happy couple sat on the couch having a drink and watching the overwrought commentator. The entire room looked as if it had been decorated by Rent-A-Center, Ray and Ryder taking advantage of a discount for the shopworn condition of the oversize off-white upholstered pieces and the matching white coffee and end tables flamboyant in design and scarred from frequent use. A vase of artificial mauve roses graced the ornate coffee table.

The couple seemed entranced by the news, with the latest lurid details of the latest high-profile murder, this one a multibillionaire widow found dead in her Rio de Janeiro penthouse. They were drinking something pink and tall with little flowered umbrellas tilting to the sides of their glasses, a drink that was highly amusing in the big hand of sweaty Ray Gibbs with his two-day growth of beard, his black jeans, and his black T-shirt emblazoned with a skull. Holding the delicate glass in meaty fingers, he laughed at the news shots of the murdered woman's bloody body. Joe watched him with disgust and an unwelcome fear as he decided how to play this hand; crouching even this close to Gibbs made his paws sweat.

Should he finesse the sliding screen open and stroll on in, boldly treating the couple to his macho charm? He'd known several ordinary cats to handily open a screen door. Or should he push his nose at the screen and give out with the pitiful mewls, cringe, and play frightened kitty? See if a gentle stroke and a kind word were forthcoming-or a thrown shoe? He paused, debating, looking Gibbs over.

Ray Gibbs was a handsome man fast going to seed; he looked to Joe like a heavy drinker, with his cheeks starting to puff and his eyes baggy. He was maybe forty-five, about six two, well set up, but soft around the middle. His dark hair, though not excessively long, was ragged and could stand a good trim. What did young, well-turned-out, glamour-conscious Ryder Wolf see in the creep?

Money? Or maybe Gibbs was really good in bed? Whatever the case, the longer Joe watched him, the more he disliked the man-and the more certain he was that he didn't want to barge brazenly in and lock heads with that hulk.

Maybe better to win Ryder over first, try to get her on his side, though he didn't think she'd be a pushover. He glanced up at the roof, at Dulcie's dark silhouette in the shadows of the oak branches. Her green eyes were intent on him. Taking heart from her claw-quick backup, knowing his lady was a tiger in a fight, he moved into the path of light that fell through the living room sliders, dropped his ears and sucked in his gut again, and let out a weak and tremulous mewl. A faint and frightened cry that neither Gibbs nor Ryder heard, apparently, over the loud deodorant commercial that now demanded their attention.

He tried again, louder, a plea so pitiful that Joe almost felt sorry for himself.

This time Ryder heard him. She half-rose, staring toward the door. "What's that? What the hell is that?"

Gibbs turned to look. "A squirrel or something. What the hell's it doing at the door?"

When Joe mewled again, Gibbs grabbed a folded newspaper. "A damn cat!" he said and headed fast for the screen.

"Mewwwoooooww," Joe cried pitifully, crouched and subservient but tensed to run like hell. In one move Ray shoved the sliding screen back and swung the paper-but Ryder was behind him. She grabbed his arm. "Wait, Ray. Look at it, it's starving."