Cat Seeing Double

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

(Joe Grey Cat Mystery Series, Book 8)

HarperCollins, 2003
Hardcover: ISBN 0066209501
Paperback: Avon, ISBN 006101561X
E-book: HarperCollins
Large Print: Thorndike, ISBN 078625436X
Audiobook: Download, CD, and digital rental

Winner of the Cat Writers' Association's
2003 Muse Medallion

Always a loner, Charlie Getz never expected to fall in love with anyone, let alone Molena Point, California's chief of police. So her wedding on a perfect, sunny day is all the more joyous, especially when two of the honored guests are her four-footed pals, feline detectives Joe Grey and Dulcie.

But there are two unexpected visitors, as well. A young boy and an old man hidden in the shadows prepare to bomb the soon-to-be-filled church. The lone witness, a small, tattercoat kit crouched beneath the oak branches, warns Joe's owner Clyde, then with claws and teeth she stops the would-be murderers. The shock of the near disaster that might have killed half the village is only the beginning. The next morning Charlie's good friend, building contractor Ryan Flannery, awakes to find her estranged, philandering husband dead in her garage; and Ryan's gun is missing.

With suspicion falling squarely on Ryan's shoulders, Joe Grey, Dulcie and Kit use their unique feline skills at break-and-enter to prove Ryan's innocence. Prowling her apartment they watch a stranger tamper with her business account books. His sinister push into her life is as unexpected as the arrival, on the morning of the murder, of a handsome purebred hunting dog, a homeless stray who seems determined to move in with Ryan.

Whatever hateful force has descended on the small seaside village, the three cats are soon paw-deep in a tangle of jealousy, greed, and carefully planned retribution. They work the case as only cats can, passing information anonymously to the cops, making a heroic feline effort to nail the killer and catch the wedding bomber, and hoping to see the silver hunting dog settle safely into his new home.

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Quotes from the reviews

"Murphy has a huge fan base and has won awards for good reason... Great sleuthing with a feline touch." --Cat Fancy

"Murphy's unconventional 'take' on the idea of undercover investigation has delighted cat lovers for years.... Anyone who owns a cat will appreciate the little nuances Murphy has worked into her felines' personalities. She knows from first-hand experience that 'attitude' and 'cat' go together just like 'tooth and claw.'" --Bob Walch, Monterey County Herald, January 19, 2003

"Anyone familiar with Murphy's very fine writing also knows the author has no truck with throw-away plots. Hers are intricately conceived stories tinged with a dark side. Her criminals and miscreants are imbued with evil, her protagonists smart and loyal, dedicated to friends and family, caught up not only in the mystery at hand, but with their own frailities, as well. This applies to the three cats, too, but we have the fun of following how their special capabilities for investigating suspects is broadened beyond those of their humans..." --Margot Nichols, Carmel Pine Cone, April 18, 2003

"It's easy to suspend disbelief and accept the sharp-thinking, fast-acting cats as the natural sleuths they are.... Both the animals and humans are well-drawn sympathetic characters and the plotting is tight and fast-moving. Fans of Shirley Rousseau Murphy and newcomers alike will purr over this newest addition to the Joe Grey corpus."
--Michele A. Reed, www.iloveamystery.com

"Shirley Rousseau Murphy has an exceptional way of sharing information and telling a story. The pace never stalls; it proceeds at a very comfortable speed, but it is certainly full of surprises." --Sandie Herron, www.ILoveAMysteryNewsletter.com

Excerpt from the story

At first, no one saw the lone witness. Not even Joe Grey and Dulcie, crouched high among the branches of the lemon tree, saw the tortoiseshell cat on the rooftops across the street. The two older cats had no glimpse of the tattercoat kit hunched on the dark shingles hidden beneath the overhanging oak branches; they had no hint of the panic that coursed through the kit's small, tensed body.

The community church was set well back from the street within its garden of flowering shrubs and small decorative trees. The non-sectarian meeting rooms of the one-story Mediterranean building were employed for all manner of village functions besides church services, from political discussions to author readings. The kit had hung around the church all morning watching the cleaning crew performing a last polish and setting up buffet tables on the back patio; and she had watched masses of white flowers being delivered and arranged within the largest meeting room. Only when he wedding guests began to arrive had she trotted across the narrow residential street, out of the way of sharp-heeled party shoes and the hard black oxfords of the many uniformed officers. Swarming up a jasmine trellis to the roof of a brown clapboard cottage, she had stretched out where an oak tree's shadows darkened the weathered shingles. She had the best seat of all, with a clear view across the garden and through the wide glass doors to the lectern where the bride and groom would stand, exchanging their sacred vows.

She had watched Charlie and Wilma arrive, Wilma carrying the bridal dress in a long plastic bag and Charlie carrying a small suitcase. What a lot of preparation it took for humans to get married, nothing like the casual trysting of the feral cats she had run with when she was small. The two women entered the south wing of the church through a back door, where the bride would have a private office in which to dress. The kit was watching the growing crowd when, below her, the bushes stirred with a sharp rustle, and a man spoke.

He must be standing between the close-set houses. The timbre of his gravelly voice suggested he was old. He sounded bad-tempered. "Go on, boy, get your ass up there, you haven't got all day."

No one answered, but someone began to climb the trellis, approaching the roof slowly. The kit could hear the little crosspieces creak under a hesitant weight. Padding warily away across the shingles, she crouched beneath overhanging branches, out of sight.

A young boy was climbing up. A thin dirty boy with ragged shirt and torn jeans, his face smudged, but pale beneath the dark smears. His black eyes oblique and hard. His hands brown with dirt. One pocket bulged as if maybe he'd stuffed a candy bar in it, fortification against sudden hunger. The kit knew that feeling.

Peering over, she studied the man who stood below. He was equally ragged, his faded jeans stained, his face bristling with a grizzled beard, his gray hair hanging long around his shoulders. Both man and boy stunk of sharp scents that made the kit's nose burn. The boy had gained the roof. He didn't swing up onto it, but stopped at the edge, turning to look down.

"Go on, Curtis. They'll be filling the church in a minute."

"I don't..."

"Just lie under the branches, no one'll see you. Wait till Harper's in there and the girl and them cops, then punch it and get out. I'll be gone like I told you, the truck gone. You just slip away, no one'll see you."

Clinging in the vines, the boy looked both determined and scared, like a cornered rat, the kit thought, trapped in a tin can with nowhere to run.

"Just punch it, Curtis. Your dad's in jail because of them cops."

Swinging a leg over, the boy gained the roof, crouching near the kit beneath the oak branches. She didn't think he saw her, he seemed totally centered on finding a vantage where he would be hidden but could best see the church.

When he'd chosen his place he removed from his pocket a small smooth object like a tiny radio, and laid it on the shingles beside him. The kit puzzled over it for some time before she understood what it was, this small, plastic, boxlike thing that the boy could hide in one hand. Wilma had one, and so did Clyde. And the old man's voice echoed, Just punch it and get out. She didn't understand--there was no garage door in the church to open. Why would...

Just punch it and get out...

What else could a garage door opener do, the kit wondered, besides open the door for which it was intended? With its little battery inside, its little electrical battery, what could it do?

Just punch it and get out... Wait until Harper's in there, and the girl...

That little electrical battery, that little electric signal...

All the wonders of electrical things that had so astonished the kit when she first came to live among humans, the dishwasher, the refrigerator, the warmth of an electric blanket, the magical lifting of the garage door while Wilma was still in the car, its signal leaping from that opener--its electrical signal leaping...

She remembered cop talk, about triggering devices. She stared across the street into the church where someone had left a gift for the bride and groom, a silver-wrapped package tucked down into the lectern where Charlie and Max Harper would stand to be married. She had seen it earlier as she watched the workers, had thought it was a special present hidden just where the preacher would stand, where the bride and groom would stand, a gift all silver-wrapped with little silver bells on the ribbon...

A special present...

A gift that was not a gift.

The kit exploded to life, racing at the boy, leaping on his back, raking and biting and forcing him away from that electric signal-maker, that plastic box that could send its message across the street into the church, could send its triggering message...

She might be wrong The boy's actions might be innocent. But... Your dad's in jail because of them cops... Punch it and get out... Terrified and enraged, she clawed and raked and bit, driving the boy away across the roof, forcing him toward the trellis. Nearly falling, he swung away down the trellis, the kit clinging to his back.

Before he hit the ground she dropped clear and ran flashing across the street between cars...

There ... there was Clyde hurrying out of the church toward his car as if he had forgotten something. As he leaned into the open convertible, reaching, she leaped to his back nearly shouting in his ear, only remembering at the last instant to whisper...

"Bomb, Clyde, There's a bomb in the church in that oak stand ... in the lectern. A boy on the roof... garage door opener to set it off... tell them to run, all to run... I chased him but..." And she bailed to the ground again and was gone racing back across the street, causing Clyde to shout after her. The street was thick with cars letting people off.

But then seeing her appear at the far side and swarm up a tree to the rooftops, he spun away never questioning the kit's warning. Not daring to question, not this small cat. Never daring to question her any more than he would question Joe Grey.

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