Free Cat Laughing Last by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

still a half-grown kitten, had left him nervous for weeks afterward, distraught at losing the only real home he knew. Even Charlie’s recent moves had unsettled him, first from her aunt Wilma’s and Dulcie’s house into an apartment, then into another apartment. Places that he’d liked to visit, gone before he got used to them. And now Mavity Flowers was about to be evicted, closing another door to him—and Mavity’s cottage held some rare memories.
    It was there that he had spied on the black tomcat and his human partner in crime, Mavity’s no-good, thieving brother. It was there that Joe had routed some of the evidence that convicted the killer of Mavity’s niece. Besides, though Mavity’s cottage was just an old fishing shack, it was all Mavity had—he felt, too sharply, the little woman’s distress at her own impending loss.
    If all those houses along the bay were destroyed, who knew what the village would do with that land? The city council was still arguing the issue. And now, with Mavity’s friends planning to sell their houses too, and buy some big old house where they would rattle around, everything was changing. All these moves and prospective moves made the whole world seem shaky under his paws.
    And to top it off, the entire Molena Point Police Department was being renovated, Harper’s officers taking up temporary quarters in the courthouse while Harper remodeled the building.
    Already Joe missed the big, casual squad room with all its desks and clutter. Now the space was full of lumber and Sheetrock and carpenters with loud hammers and louder power tools. The department that Joe thought of as the heart of the village was going to be totally different. He had no idea whether, with the new design, he’d even be able to get inside. When finally the renovation would be complete and everyone back together again, who knew what the offices would be like? Harper might make the building so secure that no cat could breach the locks to slip in to hide under the first handy desk.
    What was he going to do then? It was hard enough for a cat to get police intelligence. Imagining the new setup made him feel like he was walking on a broken tree limb that hung shattered and ready to fall. As if there was nothing secure left in the world, nothing steady that he could count on.
    When two cars pulled to the curb in front of the house, he dropped off the porch into the bushes. Watching Detectives Dallas Garza and Juana Davis and Captain Harper thunder up the steps, laughing—likely at some rank cop joke—and bang into the house, Joe felt for an instant incredibly lonely. Quickly he slipped through his cat door, following them inside. Slipping behind the couch, he heard beer cans being popped and the cards shuffled. He listened for some time, staying out of sight as Clyde preferred, and feeling put upon, but the conversation didn’t touch on the break-in at Susan Brittain’s house, it was just light banter. He had nearly dozed off when the phone rang.
    Clyde answered, then Detective Garza took the phone. It was apparently a personal call, from the tone of Garza’s voice. Yes, he was talking to his niece,Ryan, a young woman who was as close to Garza as if she were his own daughter.
    â€œYou what? You’re kidding!” Garza sounded pleased. But Joe could hear the faint echo of a tight, angry female voice from the other end of the line.
    â€œYou’re leaving him?”
    Ryan was Garza’s youngest niece. He had helped raise her and her two sisters after their mother died. Likely Ryan was calling from San Francisco, where she and her husband ran a building construction business—or apparently had run it. Sounded like they were splitting. For an instant Joe sensed what Garza must be feeling, deep parental distress for a young woman who had apparently decided to pull up stakes, chuck everything, and start her life all over again.
    The foolish