Cat Breaking Free Read online

  Cat Breaking Free

  Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  Joe Grey isn't your average feline. After all, there's nothing ordinary about a cat who solves crimes. But it's more than his skill and cunning on the mean streets that makes Joe stand out among the legion of cat detectives on the prowl today – it's how Joe cracks cases that makes him so unique. Join Joe Grey, his lady friend Dulcie, and their tattercoat friend Kit in the eleventh delightful installment in the series that "raises the stakes of the feline sleuth genre" (Booklist) and discover the secret they hide from most people – and the mystery that makes Joe Grey so exceptional.

  CAT BREAKING FREE

  The fur starts flying – the fur of Joe Grey, Feline P.I., that is – when a gang from L.A. comes up to tranquil Molena Point, California, and begins breaking into the village's quaint shops. After all, Molena Point has been his home since he was a kitten eating scraps from the garbage behind the local delicatessen, and he doesn't take well to marauding strangers. Joe even wonders whether the blonde who's moved in next door to his human companion Clyde could be a part of the gang – she's been acting pretty suspicious lately.

  But when the strangers start trapping and caging feral cats – speaking cats, like Joe and his girlfriend Dulcie – it proves too much for the intrepid four-footed detective. And when one of the gang is murdered, and a second mysterious death comes to light, he has no choice but to try to stop the crimes. Joe, Dulcie, and Kit, who used to be a stray herself, are deep into the investigation when they are able to release the three trapped felines. But as Kit leads them away to freedom, will she herself return to that wild life?

  In this marvelous book that once again opens the door to the spectacular world of Joe Grey, meet three new cats – winning cats drawn from among hundreds of their owners' entries and chosen at random to appear in this book – and join old friends and new in Shirley Rousseau Murphy's most ambitious and enjoyable mystery to date.

  Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  Cat Breaking Free

  Book 11 in the Joe Grey series, 2005

  She possesses an essentially wild soul. Relish her versatility, gentleness, playfulness, adaptability, and capacity for forming loving bonds. But also thrill to hints of that ever present wild creature- her inner wildcat-in all its glory, mystery, and paradox.

  – Wendy Christensen, Outwitting Cats

  Not water nor food can be withheld from the living creature lest it die; nor freedom withheld lest the living spirit wither and give up life.

  – Unknown

  1

  We don't need that bimbo living next door," the tomcat hissed. "Why would they rent to the likes of her?" His ears were back, his yellow eyes narrowed, his sleek gray body tense with disgust as he paced the top of the long brick barbecue, looking down at his human housemate. He kept his voice low, so not to alarm curious neighbors.

  Joe Grey and Clyde had been together since Joe was a kitten, though it was just four years ago this summer that he discovered he could speak. He didn't know whether that revelation had been more shocking to him or to Clyde. For a human, to wake up one morning and find that his cat could argue back couldn't be easy. Joe paused now in his irritable pacing to study Clyde, then glanced toward the high patio wall behind him. Peering as intently as if he could see right through the white plaster barrier to the house next door, he considered the backroom of their neighbors' vacation cottage where Clyde's old flame had taken up residence.

  "Bimbo," the tomcat repeated, muttering. "Why did they rent to her?"

  "They only just bought the house," Clyde said. "Maybe they need the money."

  "But why Chichi? And how did she find you?"

  "Leave it, Joe. Don't get worked up." Clyde sat on the back steps with his first cup of coffee, enjoying the early-morning sunshine. He scratched his bare knee and smoothed his dark, neat hair. "Call it coincidence."

  The tomcat replied with a hiss. Chichi Barbi was not among his favorite humans; "bimbo" was too polite a word for the thieving little chit. "Maybe they don't know she moved in. Maybe she broke in, a squatter, like that homeless guy who…"

  "Don't start, Joe. Don't make a federal case. That's so way out, even for your wild imagination!"

  "Not at all," Joe said haughtily. "Look around you, that stuff happens. That homeless guy last winter spent three months crashing in other people's houses before anyone noticed. Three months of free bed and board, free food from the cupboards, use of all the facilities-five houses before a neighbor started asking questions, then called the cops. Moved from house to house as innocent as you please and no one…"

  "Chichi Barbi might be a lot of things, but she's not a housebreaker. That guy was a transient, half-gone on drugs. You knew the Mannings were going to rent the place. Chichi might live a little loose, but she wouldn't…"

  "Wouldn't what?" Joe's ears were back, his whiskers flat. He showed formidable teeth. "In San Francisco she rips you off for five hundred bucks, but she wouldn't rip off your neighbors? You want to tell me why not?"

  Clyde stared at the tomcat and silently sipped his coffee. Clyde's work-hardened hands were permanently stained with traces of grease from his automotive shop. Otherwise, he looked pretty good for a Saturday morning, not his usual ragged cutoffs and stained T-shirt; almost respectable, the tomcat thought. He had showered and shaved before breakfast, blow-dried his short, dark, freshly cut hair, and was dressed in clean tan walking shorts and a good-looking ivory velour shirt. He was even wearing the handsome new Rockports that Ryan had admired in a shop window. "Pretty snazzy," Joe said, looking his housemate over. "Ryan's been a positive influence. She's right, you know-with a little incentive, you clean up pretty good."

  "Ryan Flannery has nothing to do with how I look in the morning. I simply felt like showering before I made coffee. There some law against that? And we weren't talking about Ryan, we were talking about Chichi Barbi."

  "And I was wondering why Chichi has pushed herself off on you again. Wondering what she has in mind this time."

  "You are so suspicious, I never saw a cat so suspicious. Maybe she didn't even know we lived here."

  "Right." Joe Grey twitched a whisker.

  "Maybe she is here for a vacation," Clyde said. "A few weeks at the beach, and to shop, just as she said."

  Dropping down from the barbecue to the chaise, Joe stretched out along the green cushion in a shaft of sunshine, and began to indolently wash his white paws, effectively dismissing Clyde. Around man and cat, the early-morning light was cool and golden. Within the patio's high, plastered walls, their little world was private and serene-a far cry from the scruffy, weedy plot this backyard had been some months ago, with its half-dead grass and open to the neighbors' inquisitive stares through the rotting, broken fence.

  Above them, sunlight filtered gently down through the new young leaves of the maple tree to the brick paving, and around them, the raised planters were bright with spring flowers, the plastered benches scattered with comfortable cushions. Beyond the trellis roof that shaded the barbecue, they could see only a glimpse of the neighbors' rooftop, which now sheltered Chichi Barbi. Despite his dislike of the woman, Joe Grey had to smile. Chichi's sudden appearance might be innocent or might not, but for the two weeks since she'd moved in, she'd made Clyde's life miserable. He'd started locking the patio gate and kept the draperies pulled on that side of the house. He locked the front door when he was home and he studiously avoided the front yard, slipping around the far side of the house to the driveway, sliding quietly into his yellow Chevy roadster and pulling out with as little noise as he could manage.

  "Anyway," Clyde said, "the morning's too nice to waste it thinking about some neighbor. How much damage can one airhead do?"

&n
bsp; The gray tomcat's yellow-eyed glance telegraphed a world of ideas on the subject. "You have a short memory-and an amazing tolerance."

  "Come on, Joe."

  Joe kneaded the chaise pad in a satisfying rhythm. "One airhead bimbo with a big mouth and a nonstop talent for trouble, to say nothing of amazingly sticky fingers. One thieving bimbo who will rip a guy off for five hundred bucks and never once act guilty or ashamed. Who shows up here crawling all over you like she never stole a thing, all smiles and kisses." Joe stretched, enjoying the brightening caress of the sun. The golden morning light gleaming across the tomcat's short gray coat made it shine like velvet and delineated every sleek muscle. Joe's white paws and white chest were washed and immaculate; the white stripe down his nose shone as pristine as new porcelain. There was no stain of blood from last night's hunting, no smallest speck of grime to mar his perfection. Watching Clyde, he yawned with bored contentment-but his yellow eyes were appraising and, looking up again at the patio wall, he imagined

  Chichi spying on their conversation. He envisioned the brassy blonde climbing up on a ladder to peer over, could almost hear her brash and bubbling "good morning," almost see her flashing, flirty smile.

  No, Chichi Barbi hadn't driven down here from San Francisco for an innocent vacation, with no idea that she'd be living next door to Clyde Damen. No way he'd believe that degree of coincidence.

  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?"

  "Put that way, you make me sound like a real wimp."

  "Anyway," Joe said, "Ryan and Charlie and Hanni have planned for that trip all year, getting their horses in shape, calling the blacksmith, checking their gear…"

  Clyde smiled. "I'm playing second fiddle to a couple of lady equestrians and a sorrel mare."

  Joe yawned. "I'm surprised Chichi keeps pushing you, though, after seeing the chief of police over here two or three times a week." Chief Harper and Clyde had grown up together. Max and one other friend were as close to family as Clyde had. "Unless," Joe said, his yellow eyes narrowing, "unless that fits into her plan."

  Clyde stared at him. "She's going to pull a scam on Max Harper?"

  The tomcat licked his white paws. "Why not? That woman would try to scam anyone. She even tried to make up to Rube, just because he's your dog. Just like she used to baby-talk me in San Francisco."