Shirley Murphy - Cat to the Dogs

Joe looked at Charlie, incredulous. There was no way she was going to get Clyde involved in dog-training classes. She'd as easily get him into a tutu and teach him to pirouette.

Well, she'd learn.

And Joe Grey sat grinning and washing his whiskers, highly amused by Charlie, and immensely pleased at his rise in stature with Max Harper. Harper had moved fast and decisively on Joe's phone tip, had beat it down Hellhag Canyon posthaste, and that made the tomcat feel pretty good. Made him feel good, too, that Harper was back from the canyon in one piece.

Though he would never let Harper know he cared. Stretching out on the cold tile, he gave the captain his usual sour scowl.

Harper returned his frown in spades. The two of them got along just fine with an occasional hiss from Joe, and Harper grousing about cat germs; anything less would spoil the relationship.

TWO NIGHTS later, as Clyde fetched the cards and poker chips and began to lay out a cholesterol-rich array of party food, Joe was all set for an evening of imbibing the fatty diet necessary to his psychological well-being and picking up interesting bits of intelligence courtesy of the Molena Point PD, when Clyde dropped the bombshell.

"You are not invited, Joe. You are not wanted in this house when my friends are here playing poker. No more snooping. You're done listening to private police business."

"You have to be kidding."

"Not kidding. No cats on or near the poker table. No cats in the house tonight."

"You're making crab-and-olive sandwiches, you know that's my all-time favorite. And I'm not invited to the party?"

"You can take a sandwich with you. Brown-bag it."

Joe looked at Clyde intently. "You're serious. You are turning me out of my own home."

"Very serious. No more eavesdropping." Turning his back, Clyde resumed spreading crab and green olives.

"I see what's wrong. You have your nose out of joint because I was right about that wreck in Hellhag Canyon."

"Don't be silly. And even if there was something strange about that wreck, whatever Max Harper might, in the presence of his officers and closest friend, find fit to discuss in this house, will be restricted to those human listeners, and to no other. No tomcats. No lady cats. No snooping. Comprende?"

Joe drew himself up to his full, bold, muscular height, his growl rumbling, his yellow eyes blazing. "For your information, if that wreck turns out to be a murder, I'm the one who put Harper onto it. Me. The tomcat you're booting out of his own home for no conscionable reason. Without yours truly, without the information that I tipped to Max Harper, the killer would go scot-free."

Clyde turned from the counter to glare at him. "You don't have much respect for the abilities of our local law enforcement. You don't seem to think that Harper is capable of-"

"I think Harper is very capable. Why should I expect one of your limited reasoning to understand that if the brake line was switched, and the billfold was removed before the police got to the scene of the accident that morning, and if the wreck looked in every other way like an accident, and Harper had no information to the contrary, he would have no reason to search for evidence.

"That is a dangerous curve," Joe explained patiently. "There has been more than one wreck there. The morning was foggy. Thick as canned cream. Without my help, Harper would have no reason to think the wreck was any more than an accident."

"I've had enough, Joe. I don't intend to argue with you. You are out of the house. Don't come home until Harper leaves. Go now. Go hunt. Go hang out on Lucinda's fence with Dulcie. Get out of here."

Joe leaped down, so incensed that, stalking through the living room, he paused long enough to deliberately, maliciously rake his claws down the arm of Clyde's new leather chair, leaving long, deep indentations just short of actual tears.

And, shouldering out through his cat door in a mood black and hateful, within three minutes-never reentering Clyde Damen's pokey little cottage-he was set up to listen to every smallest whisper from Clyde's sacrosanct poker game.

He, Joe Grey, would miss nothing.

Dulcie discovered Joe's hideaway when she came along the fence from Lucinda's. The night had turned chill, and Dirken had closed the windows. Annoyed at being shut out, she had left the Greenlaws, galloping along the fence top to see if Joe wanted to hunt.

Clyde's kitchen lights were all burning. She smelled cigarette smoke and heard Max Harper laugh. She was about to go on, knowing Joe wouldn't budge on poker night and miss some juicy bit of police gossip, when she saw the two pups behaving so strangely that she stopped to watch them.

Instead of pawing at the back door to get inside and join the party, the pups were down in the dirt beside the back porch, teasing at a vent hole, a little rectangular opening in the foundation that should have had a screen over it but was yawning, the screen cover pushed aside.

Both pups were crouched, heads down, their backsides high in the air, their tails wagging madly as they tried to push in through the small space. Dulcie, leaping down and racing across the lawn, slipped in between their noses-and caught Joe's scent, over the reek of damp earth.

Peering into the musty blackness, she saw a flash of white-two white paws and white chest, where Joe Grey crouched atop a furnace duct, just below the kitchen floor.

A blanket of fiberglass insulation hung down, as if Joe had clawed and torn it away to bare the floor joists. Atop the heat duct, he stared up toward the kitchen, his ears cocked, his expression sly and triumphant. The voices came clearly to Dulcie.

"I'll call," Harper said. They heard the clink of poker chips dropped on the table.

Lieutenant Brennan said, "I'll raise you two." Dulcie could imagine Brennan sitting back a little from the poker table to accommodate his ample stomach. A woman's voice said, "No way, Brennan. I fold." That would be Detective Kathleen Ray, the dark-haired young detective who had worked the Winthrop Jergen case.

Not all men liked to play poker with women. Not many male cops liked women on the force. Well, these guys were okay. But just for eveners, Dulcie hoped Kathleen Ray went home a huge winner-cleaned them out, even if they were only playing penny ante.

A loud groan announced a pot won. Clyde laughed, and they heard chips being raked in.

"Why are you down here?" Dulcie whispered. "Did you and Clyde have a fight?"

Joe cut her a scowl as sour as yesterday's cat food. "Clyde shut me out."

"He what? You can't be serious. Out of the house? But why?"

"Said he didn't want me spying on Harper."

Dulcie stared at him. "What's the matter with Clyde?"

"The minute I left, he went right out to the living room and slid the plywood cover into my cat door. Talk about cheap… I could claw the plywood off, go on in the living room, and listen, but I'm not giving him the satisfaction."

"I can't believe he did that. Maybe he isn't feeling well," Dulcie said softly.

"He feels just fine. His usual bad-tempered self. Earlier, when I first got down here, Harper said something about fingerprints. Clyde interrupted him-just in case I was listening." Joe gave her a narrow-eyed leer. "Well, Clyde can stuff it. I'm hanging in here until I know what Harper's found."

Dulcie snuggled next to Joe on the warm, softly insulated heat duct, settling down to listen to endless rounds of poker talk punctuated with scattered gems of police intelligence. Only when the pizza delivery guy arrived, to augment the crab sandwiches, did the ringing doorbell trigger a round of frantic barking from the backyard, and some of the conversation was lost. But then, soon, Harper's dry, slow voice seeped down through the kitchen floor again, along with the scent of pepperoni pizza.