Shirley Murphy: Cat Breaking Free

There had been a time when the sight of curvaceous Chichi Barbi had sent Clyde straight to the moon. But now, Joe thought, smiling, Chichi hadn't counted on Ryan Flannery. Ryan had a stake in Clyde Damen that she wouldn't abandon to the likes of that little gold digger; and Ryan Flannery was a fighter.

Clyde had been dating Ryan for nearly a year, since she moved down to Molena Point from San Francisco. Escaping a difficult marriage, she had started life over in her mid-thirties, establishing her own building contracting business in the village.

Ryan had not only brought out the best in Clyde, had not only accomplished marked improvements in Clyde's appearance and attitude, but, with her impressive talents, she had brightened their lives in other ways. She had turned their dull little bachelor pad into a spacious, handsome dwelling, had changed their boxy, single-story Cape Cod cottage into an imaginative two-story residence with a new facade, new kitchen, new upstairs, to say nothing of the handsome and private outdoor living area where they were now enjoying the morning. She had even designed a private cat tower atop the new second-floor master suite, had built for Joe his own retreat, a six-sided glassed house with shingled roof and an unbroken view of the village rooftops and the sea beyond. A singularly private pad with soft cushions, a water dish, and easy access over the roofs to the peaks and upper balconies of the entire village.

"Say you're right about her deliberately finding me," Clyde said, tentatively abandoning the coincidence theory. "Why would she look for me here? I could have moved anywhere when you and I left San Francisco. Palm Springs. Malibu. Cucamunga. I sure as hell never told anyone where I was going. Well, a few close friends, but no one who'd tell Chichi. And how…?"

"The woman can read," Joe said. "She can get on the Web, punch up the directories and cross-references. These days, you can find anyone. A human has no private life-better you should be a cat. Even for us, it's getting harder. Microchips and these new electronic devices…" But he licked his paw, thinking with anticipation of cell phones for cats…

Though that tempting prospect was a way off yet, and surely would have its downside. He looked levelly at Clyde. "Easy enough for her to find you, and that's what she did."

"Maybe. Maybe not. This is a famous tourist destination, everyone comes to Molena Point. She heads down here for a luxurious vacation, gets settled, and just happens across my address." "Oh, right. And purely by accident, she rents the house next door."

"She isn't renting, she's working for those people. I told you that. House-sitting's a big deal, to ward off break-ins and burglaries. People want house sitters, someone on the premises. And with rents through the roof, people who can't afford to stay here are eager for the job. Those people who bought next door, they've only owned that house a few months. Living in San Francisco, they don't know anyone here in the village. They hire a friend in the city, someone who wants a free vacation."

Joe snorted.

"Makes sense to me," Clyde said. "Chichi is nothing more than the caretaker."

Joe watched Clyde narrowly, then turned his back, washing diligently. Chichi worried him. Clyde didn't need that little baggage back in his life. Chichi Barbi was still as gorgeous as she had been when she'd dazzled Clyde years ago, when the buxom blonde had seemed the answer to a bachelor's dreams.

Joe had been just a young cat then, not full grown but not innocent. He'd hated when Chichi made over him with her sickly sweet "Kitty, kitty, kitty," all fake and gushing. And now Clyde couldn't step out the front door without Chichi appearing from nowhere, wearing a tiny little bikini or some equally revealing scrap, prancing out to get something from her car or to change the sprinkler. And she was at their front door at least once a day, simpering at Clyde, wanting to borrow milk, flour, or a hammer and nails to hang a picture-at least Clyde didn't offer to help with her little carpentry ruses. So far, every time she rang the bell, Clyde shut the door in her face while he fetched the required item, left her standing on the porch. That had heartened Joe considerably. But Clyde's rudeness turned Chichi sulky for only a few minutes, then she was all over him again, all smiles and glossy pink lipstick and slick hair spray and enough perfume to gas a platoon of marines-how much of that could a guy take and still keep his hands off her?

"Maybe you're right," Joe said tentatively. "Maybe she isn't after you, maybe she came down to fleece the tourists-or fleece our rich celebrities." Molena Point was crawling with money. "She finds out you're here, thinks you'd make good cover for whatever she's up to.

"Or maybe she reads the want ads looking for a patsy, sees the Mannings' ad for a caretaker, checks the cross-reference to get a line on the Mannings' neighbors."

"Come on, Joe. That's…"

"She discovers you live next door, and voila! Opportunities she hadn't dreamed of. She interviews, gets the job, and moves in. What could be simpler. Set up her little schemes, maybe set up the Mannings for some kind of rip-off, checks their financial ratings… And comes on to you at the same time, to set you up as an alibi."

Clyde's usually agreeable square face and brown eyes were dark and foreboding. "What the hell have you been smoking? You've got a whole complicated crime scene going, and she hasn't done anything. This snooping into…"

"Hasn't done anything yet.''''

"Anyway, she wouldn't believe that she could suck me in again, that I'd fall for a second scam."

"How much did she take you for, the first time? Without a whimper? When you thought she was the love goddess incarnate? Easy as snatching a sparrow from the bird feeder, and in those days, five hundred bucks was like five thousand today- then, you could hardly afford the price of a hamburger!"

"Come on Joe. I was only a mechanic then, I didn't have my own shop, but I had savings, and if I wanted to…"

"If you wanted to be a sucker then, that was your business? Well, whatever you give her this time, Clyde, I swear, if you let her mess up your relationship with Ryan, I'll kill her with my bare claws, then come after you."

Though in fact, Joe thought Ryan had nothing to worry about. Ryan Flannery had everything Chichi didn't. A real, warm beauty. Keen intelligence. Wit. Talent. How many women were excellent carpenters and designers, had a sense of humor, and could cook, too?

Compare that with an artificial size 38C and hair bleached to the color of straw, and it was no contest.

"If Ryan were jealous of Chichi," Clyde said, "it wouldn't say much for Ryan, or for what Ryan thinks of me."

"You're right, there."

"Unless…" Clyde looked suddenly stricken. "That can't be why Ryan went off on that pack trip this week with Charlie and Hanni? Not because she's mad at me, because she is jealous?"

Charlie Harper, the wife of Molena Point's chief of police, far preferred time on horseback or at her easel to a formal social life. Partly because of this, she and Ryan had hit it off at once. When Ryan's sister, Hanni, moved down from the city, too, to start her own interior design studio, the three women soon became fast friends. The fact that Ryan and Hanni were from a law-enforcement family cemented the bond. Their uncle Dallas worked for the Molena Point Police Department, Dallas and his nieces comprising a family exodus that amused the tomcat. Though why should it? Who wouldn't leave San Francisco with its increasing crime? Molena Point was small, friendly, and comfortable. And the family had had a vacation cottage in the village since the two sisters were children.

Joe said, "If Ryan were worried, you think she'd leave you alone with Chichi for a week? You think she'd go off on horseback, letting Chichi have her way with you?"