Cat on the Money Read online

  Cat on the Money

  Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  This short novella is part of the popular Joe Grey cat mystery series, of which Booklist said: “What makes this series so delightful for both cat lovers and readers of offbeat fantasies is that Murphy’s convincing anthropomorphism allows the cats to maintain their feline natures while still adopting human speech and cognition.” Both fans of the Joe Grey novels and new readers will enjoy it.

  Part of this story appeared as a serial in Cats Magazine, which was discontinued before it was complete. It has not had any other print edition. The events in the story come between Cat Spitting Mad and Cat Laughing Last, and are referred to in some of the later books in the series.

  Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  Cat on the Money

  The story comes between Cat Spitting Mad and Cat Laughing Last in the Joe Grey series of mystery novels.

  Chapter One

  The village of Molena Point lay cupped between sea and hills and blessed by sunshine, its cottages and shops shaded beneath ancient oaks. A perfect place for a cat-feline hunter or couch potato. Or for a cat of added, and more unusual, talents.

  It was dawn, 6:02, when sirens screamed through the village. Above on the grassy hills, the gray tomcat pricked his ears and reared up. Watching the squad car far below, small as an ant, careen through the empty streets, immediately he left his kill, heading down as eagerly as any ambulance chaser. Village crime, to Joe Grey, was far more interesting than the remains of a dead rat.

  6:20 a.m. Police Captain Max Harper stood among the ruffled curtains and potted ferns of Otter Pine Inn’s tearoom preparing to photograph the corpse. The tearoom, with its wicker furniture, flowered wallpaper and fine crystal and china, was among the most charming settings in the village, a chamber used exclusively for formal afternoon tea, no other meal served there.

  The body lay as if sleeping, a lovely, blond woman dressed in black leotards. She had no apparent wound. There was no sign of violence. She appeared to have died from a sudden massive heart attack but she was young for that, maybe thirty. Harper had smelled nothing on her breath to suggest certain drugs or poison. Her face was not flushed and there was no sign that she had struggled, as with some violent seizure. The coroner was on his way. Harper hadn’t sent a detective on the case; the village was small, the inn’s owner a close friend. Beyond the leaded windows, the morning was foggy and chill. The body had been discovered at 6:00, when janitors entered the tearoom to clean.

  Harper was a tall man, thin, his lined face leathery from the sun, his brown eyes tired. He was not in uniform but dressed in faded jeans and sweat shirt. Among the chintz and delicate furniture, he felt awkward-as out of place as the big gray tomcat who appeared suddenly, shouldering in through the open door, his yellow eyes wide with interest. Harper wasn’t pleased. “Get out of here, Joe Grey. We don’t need cats contaminating the evidence.”

  Joe looked at Harper, amused. Licking the taste of rat from his whiskers, he considered the corpse, observing the body as intently as the captain had done. At first he thought the dead woman was Patty Rose herself, the inn’s famous owner-big Hollywood name in the forties. But though she looked like Patty, she was far younger-a slim lady, her hair falling into short, honey colored waves, her pretty hands well cared for. He could smell the scent of brine, and her black shoes were wet as if from the sea, water puddling around her, into the carpet. Something black lay tangled under her tawny hair. A mask?

  Yes, a black mask. He could make out its pointed ears and cat’s face-a costume for the coming festival.

  February was the only month when Molena Point’s hotels had to work to keep their rooms full. The rest of the year, the village attracted wall-to-wall tourists. Early this year, some wag had thought to have a cat festival. Really a bit much, the tomcat thought, coupled with the usual jazz festival, art exhibits, wine tastings and little theater and with Otter Pine Inn’s own competition.

  Joe Grey sauntered closer, studying the young woman’s face.

  “Simms, get that cat out of here. That’s Clyde Damen’s cat. Why does he always turn up at a crime scene!”

  The officer hurried in, reaching for Joe. Joe raised an armored paw. You touch me, Simms, you’ll be wanting the emergency ward -but the tomcat said no word aloud.

  Only four people knew Joe Grey’s command of the English language, knew that he could out-argue any politician and out-shout an Irish cop, knew that the gray tomcat read the Molena Point Gazette over breakfast, and followed local channel news; only four people were privileged to converse with Joe Grey. Max Harper wasn’t among them.

  When Simms tried to throw his jacket over him, Joe ripped the sleeve, then lay down beneath the yellow police tape. Harper looked at the two of them. “I’ll deal with him. Go find the Mannings-or Jim Manning. The third floor penthouse. If this is his wife, he’ll need to ID her.”

  The Mannings had been enjoying a luxurious two-week vacation, in the inn’s bridal suite, first prize for Alice Manning in the Patty Rose look-alike contest. A week of pampering, gourmet meals, and daily sessions with photographers and PR people, the event affording maximum publicity for the inn, handled as only Patty Rose knew how to orchestrate. How shocking for their exciting holiday to end in this manner.

  Slipping closer to the body, Joe Grey sniffed deeply, thinking to detect, with his superior feline nose, some substance that might have killed quickly, without violent reaction. Perhaps a trace of bitter almond?

  But he could smell only sea brine and the waxy sweet scent of the dead woman’s lipstick. When he looked around for a glass or cup that might have held a lethal drink, he saw Harper doing the same, checking behind flower pots and decorative cookie tins as he photographed the surround, the captain so intent on the evidence that he soon forgot the tomcat.

  The lattice-fronted cupboards at one end of the tearoom were filled with fine crystal. If the woman had died from poison, each glass would have to be checked, as would the glasses in the far pantry. Joe wondered about those in the kitchen, where he could hear the clatter of breakfast preparations. Thinking of the tedious police work ahead, he was glad he wasn’t human, glad he could run an investigation in his own way, without all the bells and whistles.

  Certainly his methods worked-Joe Grey and his tabby lady had a nice string of successes, over a dozen murders and robberies solved; and they’d been responsible for just as many convictions, passing vital information to the law anonymously-evidence that, in many cases, no cop could have found.

  Trotting beneath the wicker tables, he entered the tearoom’s pantry where the fancy sandwiches and cakes were brought from the main kitchen. Sniffing along the cabinets, he started when, beyond the open window, a black shape leaped into an oak tree then out of sight. The scent of the huge black tomcat was unmistakable, stirring in Joe a rumbling growl-he hadn’t expected to see that cat again, Azrael who could open any skylight or window, his paws as clever as those of a monkey; Azrael who could gain access to any shop then open the door from within for his human partner, the old man to strip the cash register and break open the safe before the pair vanished. And it wasn’t only the tom’s thieving ways that enraged Joe. The thought of that cat near his true love, beautiful tabby Dulcie, brought him to full alert.

  Following Azrael’s scent across the pantry and into the restaurant office, he smelled brine as well, around a carved screen that stood behind the desk. Leaping to the blotter, Joe pawed at the screen until he’d levered a panel back-revealing a wall safe.

  It was closed and apparently locked. How like Patty Rose, he thought, amused, the image-conscious movie star, hiding her valuables behind a rosewood and ivory screen.

  Nothing else in the room seemed amiss,
the papers on the desk and books on the shelf neatly arranged. Pushing the screen back, he returned to the tearoom behind Harper’s back and onto the window seat, slipping under its fancy cushions. Looking out from beneath a velvet pillow, warm and purring, he wondered why he hadn’t smelled the tomcat’s human partner, that thieving, wrinkled old man. Where was Greeley?

  Across the room, the medical examiner, a thin, gray suited man, stood conferring with Captain Harper. He had pulled a sheet over the body. Beyond the tearoom door in the patio and garden, a crowd had gathered, held in check by yellow police tape and two officers. The onlookers were forced apart suddenly as a man came running, a handsome, tanned guy in denim shorts and T-shirt, shouting and pushing through. “ Alice! Alice!”

  Shouldering past Harper, he knelt beside the dead woman pulling the sheet away from her face, pulling her into his arms, shaking her, trying to wake her. “ Alice!”

  He froze, staring at her, staring up at Harper. “This isn’t Alice!” He cradled the woman’s face in his hands. “My God, she looks like Alice.” Then he saw the black leotards. “Not Alice. Not her clothes!” He rose, grabbing Harper. “Where’s my wife? Where’s Alice?”

  So, Joe thought, their vacation wasn’t such a disaster after all. But what was going on, here? The death of movie star Patty Rose’s look-alike wearing a cat costume, her feet briny from the sea. The inn’s safe burglarized. And the untimely return of Azrael, a cat with the same unique talents as Joe himself, but those skills irreparably corrupted-disparate matters indeed pricking Joe Grey’s curiosity, alerting every sly, sleuthing instinct.

  Chapter Two

  Joe Grey sat hidden among the cushions of the window seat, his sleek fur blending with the velvet, his yellow eyes slitted in speculation as he peered out at the crowd that had gathered around the door of the tearoom. Locals and tourists, held back by yellow crime tape and by two uniformed officers, observed the pretty young victim and speculated on the cause of her death. She lay across the tiles, covered by a sheet that had been pulled back to reveal her familiar face and bright blond hair and the top of her black leotard. A man stood over her shouting at Police Captain Harper and ineffectually trying to shake Harper; a handsome young man, tanned, dressed in T-shirt and denim shorts.

  “That woman isn’t Alice. Where’s Alice? That officer came to get me, said Alice was dead. Where is she? What’s happened to my wife! Where is Alice?”

  Harper held him at arms length. “If this isn’t your wife, Manning, cool down. Get hold of yourself.”

  Manning stared at Harper, anger and fear twisting his face.

  “When did you last see your wife, Manning?”

  “I was asleep when she left the room this morning. She likes to walk the beach early. She…” The young man straightened, staring past Harper as a blond woman dressed in khaki shirt and shorts entered the tearoom-short golden hair, a turned up nose and blue eyes-an exact double for the corpse.

  She stared down at the dead woman, her eyes widening, and she went very pale. Her husband grabbed her, pulling her close. “They told me you were dead. I thought… Where were you?”

  “Walking the beach, you knew that. Who… What happened?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Harper said. “Mrs. Manning, would you join me in the pantry where we can talk? I’ll need to ask you some questions. Alone, please.”

  She took Harper’s arm, leaning on him, looking back at the corpse and at her husband.

  Joe Grey followed them, trotting swiftly beneath the tables, his short, docked tail straight out behind him like a pointer tracking its prey.

  Joe hadn’t had much of a tail since he was a kitten, when a drunk stepped on his tail and broke it. He was rescued from the gutter by Clyde Damen, who had the hurt part removed. He’d hardly missed his tail, he was so glad to find a caring human. They’d been together ever since. Now, following Captain Harper, he paused only when he sensed another cat behind him.

  He looked back at his tabby lady, her green eyes filled with questions.

  “I heard the sirens,” Dulcie said softly.

  “Don’t know what killed her,” Joe said. “No mark on her. They don’t know who she is, yet.”

  Otter Pine Inn, three days before, had hosted a bevy of look-alikes of the inn’s owner, Patty Rose. Lovely ladies who could double for Patty as she had appeared in her old movies, made in the thirties and forties. The winner, Alice Manning, had received two luxurious weeks in the bridal suite, with her husband. An elegant second honeymoon, Alice had told the press.

  After the contest, four of the finalists had remained in the village for vacations. And why not? They had paid for gas or plane tickets, so why not take advantage? The most vocal of the four was Gail Gantry, who had gotten the other three women to join her in a simple dance routine for the village cat festival. Two of them were would-be entertainers, and Gail had done some little theater. Joe and Dulcie thought that must be the kind of person who entered these contests, someone who wanted the exposure, wanted to further their career. The four ladies had sold their act to the cat festival committee, not for money, but for sponsorship by local shops in exchange for using their photographs in newspaper ads: four Patty Rose look-alikes, dressed in black leotards for their number as dancing cats.

  And now one of them is dead, Dulcie thought. It must have been terrifying for Alice Manning, to see the body of her double lying there.

  Slipping into the pantry, behind a serving cart, the cats listened to Harper question Alice Manning then question her husband, each separately.

  The couple’s answers matched-responses so bland and untutored that surely they were telling the truth. They did not know which young woman this was, who had been killed. They had not socialized with any of the finalists, or seen much of them after Alice won the contest, except for some photograph sessions. “We assumed,” Alice told Harper, “that they all went home.”

  Harper did not point out that a person could hardly walk through the village without falling over one or the other of the look-alikes, whose faces appeared daily in the Molena Point Gazette. The Mannings seemed hardly aware of this, as if the young couple had spent the last days in a little world totally their own.

  When they’d gone, Harper sent an officer for the restaurant manager, a thin, dark-haired man with a high forehead and a neatly clipped goatee.

  Harper examined the smaller man. “I’d like to see the restaurant safe, Mr. Demmons.”

  “The safe? Oh, my…” Demmons swallowed. “You think there was a burglary, too? Come this way, then. First, let me call Ms. Rose’s secretary.” He smiled up at Harper. “No one’s notified Patty Rose yet. She likes to sleep late.” Demmons picked up the pantry phone.

  As he made his call, the cats slipped through the shadows to the manager’s office. Leaping atop a carved armoire, they peered over, Dulcie studying the handsome room, the intricately carved desk and book shelves, the rich and fragile antique rug. “Lovely,” she whispered. As the two men entered, they crouched lower.

  Watching Demmons move the rosewood and ivory screen and spin the dial of the safe, Joe could feel Dulcie’s heart pounding against him and her tail twitching. Her green eyes burned with interest, as predatory as any cop.

  There had been nine burglaries in the seaside village in the past week, all in bars or exclusive shops, their safes or cash registers opened and emptied, and small, expensive items taken. The money stolen was some sixteen thousand dollars, but the merchandise was valued at far more. There were no marks on the safes, and no prints. The only sign of entry would be a second story window or a skylight, left undamaged but unlocked.

  Peering into the safe, the manager looked sadly at Captain Harper. The interior loomed black and empty. Not so much as a dust speck.

  Wiping at his goatee, Demmons opened the top drawer of the desk, retrieved a slip of paper, and handed it to Harper. “Four thousand, four hundred and nineteen dollars. That’s the amount we locked up with last night, from the bar and restaurant. I…
”

  Voices rose from the tearoom, a woman’s angry voice-and Patty Rose swept into the office, pulling an embroidered dressing gown around her, making the grand entrance. She stared at the safe. “One of the look-alikes stole? Came here for the contest, then stole from me?”

  She looked at Harper. “But who killed her? And how did they get in?”

  But as Harper tried to console her, Dulcie stiffened, staring beyond them to the window.

  Behind Harper, a cat peered in. A big cat, black as soot.

  “Azrael,” Dulcie breathed, so softly no human could hear. “It can’t be, he’s three thousand miles away, playing at voodoo in Central America.”

  “Afraid not,” Joe said. “His scent is all over the safe.”

  Dulcie’s ears went back, and her voice was a hiss. “That explains the thefts, the high windows left unlocked. Where’s his light-fingered partner?”

  Last summer, the cats had watched Azrael and his human pal at their midnight work, Azrael opening a vulnerable window and slipping inside to unlock the shop door. They had watched the old man clean out cash registers, watched him drill a safe. It distressed them that one of their own kind, with their own special talents, had fallen to the level of a human thief.

  For Joe Grey and Dulcie, their dual natures were a source of wonder. Their command of human speech, their human perceptions and understanding, coupled with their keen hearing and noses and night vision, and with their ability to get into small places, provided superior crime solving skills. They had the best of both worlds, and they put it to the best use they knew.

  But those same talents, in ebony coated Azrael, added up to an underhanded feline crime spree.

  And there he was outside the window, eyeing the empty safe with smug satisfaction.

  “And I not only smelled Azrael around the safe,” Joe said, “I smelled brine. Same as on the corpse.”