Shirley Murphy: Cat Fear No Evil

Clyde pulled up behind the shop, unlocked the back shop door, and slid it open. "Don't call the station yet," Joe said, trotting inside. "Give me time to look around."

But, prowling the scene, he found not the smallest detail of evidence. Not even the faintest footprint. No scent, no smell the cops could not detect-except one.

Just at the edge of the bare concrete where the Packard had been parked, he caught the smell of tomcat.

Staring up at Clyde and growling, he crouched to sniff under the remaining cars. The scent was far too familiar- though it was hard to be certain, mixed as it was with the smell of oil, gas, and fresh paint. All of which, Joe pointed out to Clyde, were death to cats.

"You won't be breathing them that long. You've only been in here three seconds."

"Three minutes. It doesn't take long to damage the liver of a delicate and sensitive feline. You're buying me breakfast for this favor."

"You had breakfast. Your belly's dragging with mice."

"An appetizer, a mere snack. Are you asking me to work for nothing?"

"Kippers and cream last night, with cold poached salmon and a half pound of Brie."

"Half an ounce of Brie. And it was all leftovers. From your dinner with Ryan. Actually from Ryan's dinner. She's the only one who-"

Clyde had turned on him, scowling. "She's the only one who what} Who pays your deli bill when you have your goodies delivered? May I point out to you, Joe, that no one else in Molena Point has deli delivered to their cat door."

"The deli guy doesn't know it's the cat door. I tell them-"

"What you tell them is my credit card number. If I weren't such a sucker and so damned kindhearted-"

"I just tell them to leave it on the porch. Why would they suspect the cat door? What I do with the delivery after they leave can't concern them."

"No one else in the world, Joe, pays his cat's deli bill."

"No one else in the world-except Wilma Getz-lives with a cat of such impeccable culinary-"

"Can it, Joe! Tell me what else you smell. Not merely some wandering neighbor's cat that probably came in yesterday when the garage doors were open. Can't you pick up the scent of the thief? If you can't track him, no one can," Clyde said with unexpected flattery.

But in fact Joe could smell nothing more. He wondered if perhaps the thief had worn gas-and-oil covered shoes to hide his own scent. And if he had, why had he?

Maybe he thought the cops would use a tracking dog? But Molena Point PD didn't have any dogs, tracking or otherwise. Everyone in the village knew that.

Or did the thief hide his scent because he knew about Joe himself? That thought was unsettling. Nervously he watched Clyde call the station.

By the time three squad cars pulled up, Joe was out of sight in the rafters. He stayed there observing from the deepest shadows, watching Detective Garza photographing and fingerprinting, listening to him question Clyde, Garza's square, tanned face serious, his dark eyes seeing every detail. Officers lifted prints from every available surface. They went over the shop inspecting every car. They examined both the front and back entrances. The thief sure hadn't taken the car out through a window. Nor did it appear that he had entered that way Best bet was, he knew the combination to the back door's state-of-the-art numerical lock, or was very good at lock picking. The prints that did not belong to Clyde or to one of his mechanics would be duly checked. Garza would do his best to obtain prints on the prospective buyers who had answered Clyde's ad for the Packard. Only after the officers had left, a matter of several hours, did Joe pick up the scent of aftershave around the big double doors, a splash of Mennen's Original that likely was left by one of the cops, a brand so common that half the men in the village might be wearing it. But then he found the scent down the alley as well, along with a faint breath of diesel fumes.

"I think Garza's right," Joe said. "I think they loaded the Packard on a truck bed." Detective Garza had found a partial tire mark farther down the alley, the track of a large truck in a bit of dust out near the street. He had photographed that and had made a plaster cast. Garza did not wear Mennen's Original.

The upshot was that, except for the scent of tomcat that continued to worry Joe, he found nothing else that the cops missed, and that fact deeply annoyed him.

"You're starting to think you run the show," Clyde said. "That the law can't function without you."

He only looked at Clyde, he need not point out that he and Dulcie and Kit were the best snitches the department had. That they had helped Molena Point PD solve more than a few burglaries and murders. That the evidence they had supplied had allowed the city attorney to prepare for solid convictions, that many of those no-goods were presently enjoying cafeteria meals, free laundry service, and big-screen TV supplied by the state of California. He need not point out to Clyde that Max Harper and his officers did not make light of the anonymous information that was passed to them by phone. They no longer questioned the identity of the callers, they took what was offered and ran with it-to the dismay of those criminals subsequently prosecuted.

But now, as Joe prowled the rooftops long after midnight, it was not only the theft of Clyde's Packard roadster and the other high-class burglaries that bothered him. The identity of the illusive tomcat whose scent he had detected in Clyde's garage continued to prod at him. As did the problem of Dillon Thurwell.

Fourteen-year-old Dillon was deep into some kind of rebellion that, because she was Joe's good friend and a friend of Joe's human friends, worried everyone. Cat and human alike were amazed at her sudden change of character, at her angry defiance toward those she had seemed to love-yet no one could blame Dillon's anger on her age or on crazy hormones; her sudden rage at life was more than that. The unexpected disruption of her seemingly close and solid family had been a shock to the village. Who would have imagined that Dillon's quiet, businesslike mother, who seemed to manage her home life and her real estate work with such happy efficiency, would suddenly be slipping deep into an affair with one of the village's most prominent bachelors? Because of this, Dillon had changed overnight from an eager and promising young woman to a surly, smart-mouthed teen running the streets at all hours as she had never done-or been allowed to do. Dillon's sudden apparent hatred for herself, and for everyone she had cared about, deeply frightened Joe.

Beneath the bright half-moon Joe stalked the roofs fussing and worrying as only a sentient cat can, as only a cat-or a cop-with a compulsion for asking hard questions can chew on a puzzle. As above him the moon and stars glinted sharply in the cold black roof of the sky, the three problems racketed around in his head like fast and illusive ping-pong balls tossed out by some demonic tease: Dillon; the scent of a tomcat that did not belong in the village; and the mysterious burglaries.

Around him the moonlight struck pale the crowded, angled rooftops, and gleamed white below him across the sidewalks and across the faces of cottages and shops, slanting moonlight that threw stark tree shadows along the bleached walls. And the shop windows shone softly, their lights glowing across their bright wares like miniature movie sets. The village at three in the morning was so silent and still that it might lie frozen in some strange and uneasy enchantment. Prowling the roofs, Joe Grey himself was the only sign of life, his gray ears laid back, his yellow eyes narrowed to slits as he paced and worried.

But then, as he stalked from peak to peak among a forest of chimneys, he was suddenly no longer alone. He paused, sniffing.