Cat Striking Back (5 page)

J
OE ARRIVED HOME,
over the rooftops, to the welcome smell of pancakes and sausages, the heady scent rising up to him as he leaped from the neighbors' shingles to his own. Landing on the wet, slippery shakes, he could hear Clyde's and Ryan's voices from the back patio. The rain had been short and light, only a few showers and then one serious effort, and even that didn't last long. Now the sky was clearing, the June sun brightening and warming his damp fur. Pausing beside the second-floor skeleton of the new construction that would be Ryan's office, he crossed to the edge of the roof to look over.

Below, in the big, walled patio, the two lovebirds were kissing and Joe backed away, unsure how much of this newlywed mush he could take. Ryan had put the big umbrella up over the patio table to keep their breakfast dry, a nicety that Clyde wouldn't have bothered with. Ryan Flannery was, Joe thought smugly, the best thing that
had happened to Clyde since Joe himself had come on the scene to brighten his life.

Looking over the edge, his paws soaking from the wet shingles, he watched Clyde move back inside the house, presumably to flip the sausages that he could hear sizzling in the pan. He could see, beneath the umbrella, a corner of the patio table carefully set with clean place mats, fresh napkins, and a centerpiece of flowers. Clyde's bride might say she wasn't domestic, that she was more used to a hammer and saw than a mixing spoon, but she had a nice touch around the house. In the four months they'd been married, life had taken a real change from his and Clyde's rough bachelor ways. No more breakfasts with their two plates slapped down carelessly on sections of the morning paper. Now the household reeked of domesticity, sometimes as cloying as a rerun from the fifties, but, more often, just as comforting.

Leaping from the roof down onto the high garden wall and again to the top of the cold barbecue grill, he dropped to the paving beside Ryan's big silver Weimaraner. The sleek, handsome dog lay stretched out on the rain-damp bricks, soaking up the brightening sun. Lying down beside Rock, Joe rolled over, presenting his own belly to the warm glow. Rock huffed at him in greeting, and with an inquisitive nose began to smell Joe's four extended paws, sniffing the mouse smells, the rat and rabbit smells, maybe a hint of kitten smell, and the heady scents of the wild hills. The big dog gave Joe a look that said, Why can't I run free like you? Sighing, he rolled over and drifted into a light sleep—with one ear cocked for the first sound of plates being set on the table. Joe watched Ryan as she crossed the
patio to finish planting a flat of begonias, gently tucking the little, delicate nursery flowers into the rich earth of a raised container, an occupation that, again, seemed out of character for the dark-haired, green-eyed beauty. He was far more used to seeing her running a heavy Skilsaw or dipping her trowel into a bucket of plaster, wearing jeans and muddy boots instead of a flowered housecoat.

Rock woke the minute Clyde began dishing up. Casting Joe a look of urgency, he trotted across the bricks to stand expectantly beside the redwood table, his chin on its corner, his eyes never leaving the kitchen window. They watched Clyde push through the screen door backward, letting it slam. Turning, he descended the steps bearing a huge tray laden with plates piled with pancakes, eggs, sausages, and all the fixings. As Clyde laid out their breakfast, Ryan moved to the barbecue sink to wash the dark earth from her hands. As she and Clyde took their places at the table, Joe leaped to the end of Ryan's bench where, now, he and Rock stood shoulder to shoulder sniffing the good smells and drooling with equal greed—he watched Ryan turn away, hiding a grin.

 

I
T AMUSED
R
YAN
greatly that Joe Grey and Rock looked like mismatched twins, their sleek gray coats exactly the same color, their eyes the same pale yellow. And, a source of gentle humor, Joe Grey's tail was docked to the same jaunty length as Rock's, both tails sticking straight up when the animals were happy.

In Rock's case, the short tail was the correct style for
a Weimaraner. Joe's shortened appendage, however, had been the result of a kittenhood accident when a drunk had stepped on his tail and broken it. Clyde had found the sick and feverish kitten in a San Francisco gutter, had rushed him to the vet where the infected part of the tail was amputated, and then had taken Joe home to nurse him back to health with antibiotics, love, and plenty of rare filet. The two hadn't been parted since.

But what tickled Ryan the most about the similarity between the two was that dog and cat were so very alike in spirit. Rock's wild, defiant, adventuresome view of the world had enchanted her from the moment she first encountered the valuable but abandoned stray. And then when she'd met Joe, his attitude, even before she discovered that the cat could speak to her, had been just as bold and brash. The big difference, of course, was that only the tomcat had use of the English language.

When she'd first suspected Joe's ability to speak, when she'd finally convinced herself that this impossibility had to be true, and then when they'd had their first conversation, that had been a time of spine-tingling amazement, an experience from which she was sure she would never quite recover. And surely she'd never be the same after her first conversation with Joe and Dulcie and Kit all together, an impossible communication between their two species that had left her with permanent goose bumps.

But, while Rock didn't speak, while her good dog knew only command words and hand signals, knew the names of the humans he loved, and the names of everyday items that she and Clyde had taught him or that he had absorbed on his own, the Weimaraner was so clever and
such a quick study that he didn't need to talk to her. Body language was enough; they understood each other very well. The trouble with Rock was, he was often too clever. He knew how to climb a six-foot chain-link fence as skillfully as any cat. And with only one afternoon's training, he had learned to track a scent trail on command. For most dogs, reliable and unfaltering tracking skills took many months of training.

The fact that Joe Grey himself had taught Rock, that Rock had not learned from her own slow teaching but under the skilled tutelage of the gray tomcat, had impressed her considerably. She didn't know whether she was more proud of Rock for his quick mastering of the valuable tracking skills, or of Joe for the clever patience with which he'd tutored the big Weimaraner.

Serving the animals' plates, she set them on the bench, side by side. Dog and cat exchanged a glance of understanding that neither would steal from the other, and dived into their breakfasts. The issue of gourmet rights had been settled some time back, Joe laying down the rules with teeth and claws, and Rock with a gentle but insistent growl. Rock didn't seem to mind that his breakfast was mostly kibble, with sausage and egg crumbled in for flavor, while Joe was treated to exactly the same fare as the humans.

On the other side of Ryan, the white cat hopped up silently, her gentle eyes on Ryan as she lifted one soft paw. Crowded onto the bench, against Ryan's leg, she looked up trustingly, knowing that her own small bite of the human's breakfast was forthcoming. It saddened Ryan that the other two Damen cats, who had been far up in years,
had succumbed to separate illnesses not a month apart, shortly after she and Clyde were married—saddened her, and stirred her, that the two lifelong friends had gone within weeks of each other. As if somehow deciding, with their mysterious feline connection, that their closeness in life would not be broken by death, that they would move on into the next world together.

She glanced across the patio to the high back wall, its white-plaster surface still shaded from the rising sun. In the shadow at its base marched the little row of graves: two markers for the cats, two markers for their two departed canine friends, each marble plaque attesting to an urn of ashes buried beneath. Scrappy. Fluffy. Barney. Rube.

Barney, the golden retriever, had died before Ryan and Clyde met. Rube, the black Lab, had died just this last year. Ryan had suffered with Clyde over Rube's illness, had tried to comfort Clyde and Joe when the vet put Rube to sleep. Afterward, she had tried to comfort the little white cat. She had held Snowball for hours, talking to her, trying to soothe her over the loss of her doggy companion. With Rube gone, Ryan herself seemed to take Rube's place in nurturing Snowball; the white cat came to her far more often even than she sought out Clyde or Joe for tenderness and reassurance.

As they all tucked into breakfast, there was near silence at the picnic table. Only the scrape of a fork on a plate, Rock's eager slurping, the occasional car passing out front on the street and, from half a mile away, the rhythmic pounding of the sea against the cliffs and sandy shore. When the animals had licked their plates clean, Clyde looked across the table at Joe.

“I have an announcement.”

Joe looked back warily, his claws involuntarily stiffening at the implication of some portentous, and probably unwelcome, decision. Whatever was coming, he wasn't sure he wanted to hear it.

Ryan, watching the two of them, was both uneasy and amused by the tomcat's possibly well-founded suspicions. She was still wondering herself if Clyde's decision had been a wise one. This particular resolution would be life changing for Clyde. Another big adjustment even after bringing a wife into the household—and that meant one more upset in the tomcat's life. Ordinary cats didn't like change. In that respect, she thought that speaking cats weren't so different.

The moment she'd moved into the house, when they returned from their honeymoon, the household had morphed from a casual bachelor pad to the more complicated involvements presented by an added resident, particularly a female partner. Now, if she and Clyde pursued this new endeavor, their newly established routines would change yet again, and that would change Joe's routine.

How would that affect the tomcat? Would further disruption of Joe's comfortable home life complicate his other, secret life? That mustn't happen, she thought, watching the gray tomcat. Joe Grey's undercover investigations were far too unique and valuable to let this new venture get in his way.

J
OE WATCHED
C
LYDE
warily, waiting for the bomb to drop. Whatever Clyde meant to tell him, obviously Ryan already knew; her green eyes hid a smile but also a hint of worry. Certainly any statement coming from Clyde and begun in this serious vein portended nothing good, such serious pronouncements could easily end in disaster. One case in point would be Clyde's purchase of a derelict apartment building, which he'd intended to remodel for rental income. A project that had ended in a tangle of embezzlement, identity theft, and murder, to say nothing of the complications resulting from Clyde's inept carpentry skills.

Another example would be the time Clyde decided that Joe should visit the old folks' home on a regular basis in order to cheer up the needy elderly. That seemingly charitable endeavor had not only put Joe and Dulcie in considerable danger, but had resulted in the discovery of a
large number of anonymous dead, buried and forgotten in a garden of hidden graves.

So what was this new insanity? Joe looked at Ryan. She said nothing, just sat quietly waiting for Clyde to drop this one on him.

“What?” Joe said coldly.

Beside Joe, Rock eyed the last bite of Joe's breakfast. Joe glared a friendly warning at the silver Weimaraner and lifted a daggered paw, for which he received a doggy laugh and doggy breath in his face.

“What announcement?” he repeated.

“I'm selling the cars,” Clyde said.

“You're what?”

To some, such a comment might seem of minor importance. People sold cars every day and bought new ones, the world was based on obsolescence. But this statement coming from Clyde was a shocker. He might as well have said he was giving away all his worldly possessions and joining a nudist colony. At last count Clyde had owned eighteen antique and classic automobiles, collectors' items all, and he loved those cars like his own children. In restoring them, he labored over every detail, as a sculptor labors over every inch of clay in preparing his bronze castings.

“You're going to do what?” Joe repeated quietly.

Clyde took another bite of pancake and sausage, another sip of coffee. “Sell the cars. Except the roadster,” he said, referring to the vintage yellow convertible that sat, pristine and shining and completely restored, in their attached garage.

“I'm going to sell the cars,” Clyde repeated slowly, as if Joe was, regrettably, growing deaf.

“You're selling the cars.” Joe looked at Ryan. Her green eyes, turned to him, were wide and innocent.

This transaction would include cars both domestic and foreign, ranging in age from eighty years to more recent and overblown fishtail models, and in value from a few thousand into the high six figures, each car either already painstakingly restored, lavished with love, from its wheels and pistons to its new leather upholstery—with love and skill and plenty of cash—or cars in the process of being restored, to a few wrecks still patiently awaiting their turn at Clyde's skilled automotive rejuvenation, rather as an aging actress awaits her appointment to go under the knife of a highly paid plastic surgeon.

Ever since Joe had first met Clyde, when Clyde hauled him out of that San Francisco gutter, Clyde's one huge passion in life, besides charming women, and his dogs and cats, had been old cars and the rebuilding thereof. When they lived in San Francisco, he had collected cars, renting an old garage over in Marin County where he'd worked on them, on weekends and his days off, taking Joe with him. That was where Joe learned to hunt, stalking mice along the bare stud walls and loose building paper of that decrepit old garage.

When they'd moved down the coast to Molena Point, Clyde had sold his two beautifully restored convertibles, but when he opened his upscale automotive repair shop, he began to collect old models again, ferreting them out by newspaper ad and word of mouth, driving halfway across
the state to haul them home on a flatbed trailer. The garages at the back of the space he rented from the foreign-car agency had been largely reserved for his own growing collection of wrecks destined to become collectors' items. In short, a nice share of their income had been generated by those restorations, besides which, they had had Clyde's complete involvement. Joe didn't think his housemate could exist without those old cars.

“You mean you're selling all the restored cars and getting a new batch to work on,” the tomcat said reasonably.

“No. Selling them all. Finished. Not buying any more cars,” Clyde said.

“This is some kind of midlife crisis?” Joe said. “A man doesn't have a midlife crisis while he's still on his honeymoon, just four months after the wedding.” He looked suspiciously at Ryan. Was she responsible for this sea change? “Are you two having problems?” He prayed that wasn't so.

Ryan laughed. “Midlife crises happen to disenchanted, bored men with no positive philosophy, no positive take on life—no burning reason for living their lives.”

In Joe's opinion, Ryan Flannery Damen was the world's best reason for living. Anyway, nothing about that description fit Clyde. The tomcat had never observed any of the bored, flat, jaundiced, arrogant, or dully disinterested symptoms associated with the emotional demise of a human creature. In some ways, Clyde Damen was still twelve years old, enthusiastic about life to the point of sorely trying a cat's patience.

“You need the money?” Joe asked, though he could
hardly believe that. Clyde had a comfortable savings account, and Ryan was even better off. She had a nice inheritance from her first husband, and her construction firm did very well indeed. Joe turned to look at her. Did she not approve of the cars? Had she talked Clyde into selling them? Joe couldn't believe she'd be so selfish and unfeeling. He studied her, then eyed his housemate again, waiting.

Ryan started to grin, her green eyes dancing.

Clyde said, “We're going to buy a couple of houses. Go into—”

“We're not moving!” Joe yowled, going cold right down to his claws. The thought of changing houses, of losing his happy home as he knew it, hadn't entered his mind. Talk about life changes. It was bad enough for a human family to move their children around, haul them across the country to a new house, painful enough for the children to have to survive in a new school. To a cat, moving seemed far worse. Territory meant everything, its smells and hiding places and hunting grounds were a large and vital portion of a cat's life. To be removed from home and domain, deposited without introduction onto foreign soil could, without understanding treatment, disorient and nearly destroy a little cat.

“We're leaving our home?” Joe said, unable to control his dismay. He loved his home, he loved the new upstairs that Ryan had built, he loved his own private cat tower, on top of the second-floor roof, that Ryan had built just for him. The thought of moving to another house made his breakfast want to come up, mice and all.

“We're not moving,” Ryan said hastily, reaching to take
him in her arms. “We're not going anywhere, we're buying a house as an investment.” She smiled as Joe relaxed, leaning his head on her shoulder. “If this works out,” she said, “we're going into business remodeling houses.” She lifted his chin, smiling down at him. “Houses instead of cars. That make sense to you?”

“Into business?” he said dumbly. “You're selling your construction firm?”

“I'm not selling, and we're not moving. I wouldn't give up the company! This is just a side venture,” she said, her green eyes searching Joe's. “We thought it would be fun, working at our own pace—just a few remodeling projects that can pick up the slack for my crews between jobs or when things get slow.”

“When is the construction business ever slow?” In Molena Point, people waited months, years, for a contractor. “You mean because of the economic downturn?”

“Exactly,” Ryan said. “We're hedging our bets. Does this sound okay? You approve of this?”

Joe grinned. Even with that small hint of joking sarcasm, how many humans would ask their cat about family financial matters?

“There is something troubling about it,” Joe said, glancing at Clyde then back at Ryan. “Clyde's a wizard with cars, he can turn any old heap into new. But you
do
know he can't drive a nail? That it's an all-day project to change a leaky washer in the kitchen sink?”

Ryan ignored that. Maybe she thought she could teach Clyde. “We're going up to look at the Parker house today, it's just up above the senior ladies' place. We—”

Joe stiffened at mention of the Parker house. “You
can't renovate that place, you can't look at that house, it's a crime scene.”

They stared at him.

“There's blood in the pool, and—”

Clyde slammed down his fork. “Don't start, Joe! The Parker house is not a crime scene. Where did you get that? We talked to the Realtor early this morning, she said we could look at it. Where do you get this stuff!”

Joe said, “Someone died there. Detective Davis—”

“Leave Juana Davis out of this! What the hell did you tell Davis? You think every—”

Ryan stopped Clyde with a hand on his arm. “What, Joe? What are you saying?”

“Davis ran the scene this morning,” he said, licking a smear of syrup from his shoulder.

“Tell us,” she said, again hushing Clyde.

Scowling at Clyde, Joe gave them a blow-by-blow of the morning's events, from the time he entered the overgrown yard of the Parker house, dragging his mice, until, crouching on the roof in the first hesitant drops of rain, he had watched Juana Davis carefully remove and bag small samples of what looked and smelled like human blood.

When he'd finished, Ryan was quiet. Clyde was scowling, shaking his head, as if the tomcat had conjured blood and drag marks from thin air, as if Joe had made up this nutty, twisted scenario to bedevil him and, worse, to torment the officers at Molena Point PD.

Ryan reached across the table, taking Clyde's hand and squeezing it hard. She looked at Joe with an admiration that warmed the tomcat clear to the tips of his claws. “You want to come with us?” she said. “Maybe Davis will
let us in if she's already worked the house. If I hide you in my tote bag and if
we
put on shoe protectors, maybe we can have a look.” And as Joe's beautiful housemate rose to pick up their breakfast dishes, he gave her a smile that warmed
her
, in turn, clear down to her pretty toes.