Free Cat to the Dogs by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

had heard the wind change and gotten up to help Newlon furl the main sail. On the slick deck, he must have caught his foot in a line, though this was an unseaman-like accident. As the boat lurched, Sam and Newlon heard Shamas shout; they looked around, and he was gone. Newlon had grabbed a life jacket, tied a line on himself, and gone overboard.
    He told police that he got Shamas untangled, got him hookedonto a line to bring him up. When they got him on board, they saw that he had a deep gash through his forehead, where he must have hit something as he fell. Seattle police had gone over the catamaran, had thoroughly investigated the scene. They did not find where Shamas had struck his head. The rain had sloughed every surface clean. They found no evidence that Shamas’s death had been other than an accident. According to Seattle detectives, Cara Ray had been so upset, weeping so profusely, that no one could get much sense from her. She had given the police her address and flown directly home to San Francisco, leaving Newlon and Shamas’s cousin Sam and the Chamberses to sail the Green Lady back to Molena Point.
    And now Cara Ray was in Molena Point, making a social call on Shamas’s widow.
    â€œPoor Lucinda,” Charlie said. “Mobbed by his relatives hustling and prodding her. And now his paramour descends.”
    Wilma nodded. “Apparently Cara Ray is as crude and bad mannered as the Greenlaws.”
    â€œThey are a strange lot,” Clyde said.
    Wilma pushed a strand of her white hair into its clip and sipped her wine. “Every time I see a Greenlaw in the village, my hackles go up.”
    Clyde grinned. “Retired parole officer. Worse than a cop.”
    â€œMaybe I’m just irritable, maybe it’s this temporary job at Beckwhite’s. It’s no picnic, working for Sheril Beckwhite. I wouldn’t have taken the job except to help Max.”
    At Max Harper’s urging, Wilma had been running background checks on loan applicants for the foreign-car agency. Beckwhite’s had had a sudden run of buyers applying for car financing with sophisticated bogus IDs and fake bank references. They had lost over three million dollars before Harper convinced Sheril of Wilma’s investigative prowess.
    â€œOther than her visit from this Cara Ray Crisp person,” Charlie said, “how’s Lucinda getting along?”
    â€œShe’ll do a lot better,” Wilma said, “when Shamas’s relatives go home.”
    â€œSeems to me,” Charlie said, “that being Shamas Greenlaw’s widow would be much nicer than being his wife.”
    Wilma laughed.
    â€œShe’s certainly a very quiet person,” Charlie offered. “She seems…I don’t know, the few times I’ve talked with her, she’s seemed…so close to herself. Secretive.”
    â€œI don’t think—” Wilma began when, in the backyard, the pups roared and bayed, their barks so deafening that no one heard the front door open; no one heard Max Harper until he loomed in the kitchen doorway.
    â€œWhat the hell is this? The county pound?” He glared at Clyde. “What did you do, get more dogs? Sounds like a pack of wolfhounds.”
    Clyde rose to open a beer for Harper and dish up his plate, liberally heaping on the pasta and clam sauce. Skinny as Harper was, he ate like a field hand. Clyde had known him since boyhood; they had gone through school together, had ridden broncs and bulls in the local rodeos around Sacramento and Salinas.
    Dropping down from the kitchen counter, Joe took a good sniff of Harper. The captain’s faded jeans and old boots bore traces of dirt and of bits of leaves and grass, and carried the distinct combination of scents one would encounter in Hellhag Canyon.
    â€œSo what’s with the cat killers?” Harper said, glancing toward the back door.
    â€œStray pups. Followed my car,” Clyde lied. “Up along Hellhag