Free Cat to the Dogs by Shirley Rousseau Murphy Page A

Hill.”
    The police captain looked at Clyde narrowly for a moment, perhaps sensing a twisting of the truth. He sat down in his usual chair, facing the sink and kitchen window, his back comfortably to the wall. For an instant, his gaze turned to Joe Grey, who had returned to the counter and was busily licking clam sauce off his whiskers.
    â€œHow sanitary can it be, Damen, to let your cat sit on thekitchen sink?” Harper scowled. “Is that a little place mat? Did he have his dinner up there?”
    â€œThat’s Charlie’s doing. And you know I don’t lay food on the counter,” Clyde said testily. “You know I use that plastic breadboard and that it goes in the dishwasher after every meal.” He looked hard at Harper. “So what’s with you? Bad night picking up hustlers? Ladies of the night make you late to dinner?”
    Harper brushed the dry grass and leaves from his jeans. “Took a swing down Hellhag Canyon.”
    Clyde stiffened; Joe saw his jaw clench. He did not look in Joe’s direction.
    â€œThe brake line was burst, not cut,” Harper said.
    Clyde cast a look of rage at Joe Grey.
    â€œI took some photographs of the surround, though. Infrared light and that new film. Shot some footprints that my men may have missed—the few they didn’t step on,” Harper said uneasily.
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” Clyde said.
    Harper shrugged. “Maybe someone messed with the car. Maybe someone switched brake lines. If so, it would be nice to have some evidence, wouldn’t you say? I have a crew down there now, working it over.”
    Clyde closed his eyes.
    It must be hard, Joe thought, working a crime scene when the uniforms had already been over it, under the impression it was an accident. And, washing his paw, he hid a huge feline grin. At his word, Harper had not only gone down Hellhag Canyon, he had called in the detectives.
    Harper’s detectives were good; they’d probably remove the jagged shards of the driver’s window, see if the lab could find cloth or leather fragments along the broken edges, probably try for fingerprints around the brake line.
    Harper’s confidence in the phantom snitch pleased Joe Grey so much that he almost leaped on the table to give Harper a purr and a face rub. But he quickly thought better of that little gesture.
    He could see, beneath the table, Clyde’s toe tapping with irritation; choking back a laugh, he turned his back and washed harder.
    â€œGood linguini,” Harper said. “Reminds me of that Italian place in Stockton, down from the rodeo grounds. So tell me about these dogs, Damen. Pups, you said? The way they’re banging on the door, I’d say a couple of big bull calves lunging at the gate. Strays, you said? You plan to keep them?”
    â€œIf he keeps them,” Charlie said, pushing back her wild red hair, “he’s—we’re taking them to obedience school.”
    Clyde did a double take. “We’re what?”
    She stuck out her arm, exhibiting a dozen long red scratches where the pups, in their excitement at having new and wonderful friends, had leaped up joyfully raking her.
    â€œObedience school,” she said. “You can work with the happy, silly one. I’ll take the solemn pup; I like his attitude.”
    Joe looked at Charlie, incredulous. There was no way she was going to get Clyde involved in dog-training classes. She’d as easily get him into a tutu and teach him to pirouette.
    Well, she’d learn.
    And Joe Grey sat grinning and washing his whiskers, highly amused by Charlie, and immensely pleased at his rise in stature with Max Harper. Harper had moved fast and decisively on Joe’s phone tip, had beat it down Hellhag Canyon posthaste, and that made the tomcat feel pretty good. Made him feel good, too, that Harper was back from the canyon in one piece.
    Though he would never let Harper know he cared. Stretching