Cat Chase the Moon
by Shirley Rousseau Murphy
(Joe Grey Cat Mystery Series, Book 21)
Morrow (a HarperCollins imprint), 2019
Hardcover: ISBN 0062838040
E-book: HarperCollins
Large print: Harperluxe, 0062845748
Feline P. I. Joe Grey and his friends pounce on three investigations that may connect to one larger mystery—including one case that is very personal—in this hair-raising installment in Shirley Rousseau Murphy’s beloved, award-winning series.
Joe Grey and his partner Dulcie are frantic when Courtney, their pretty teen-kitten, goes missing. Aided by their two- and four-legged friends, they hit the streets of Molina Point in search of their calico girl. Has Joe Grey and Dulcie’s only daughter been lured away by someone and stolen? Is she lying somewhere hurt, or worse? In reality, Courtney, locked in an upstairs apartment above the local antiques shop, is enjoying her first solo adventure. She doesn’t know that the seemingly-kindly owner of the shop is hiding a dangerous secret that could threaten her and everyone in this charming California coastal village.
Meanwhile, with his focus on finding Courtney, Joe Grey has neglected his detective work with the Molina Point police, and now he's worried by the stalled investigation of a vicious beating and an apparently unrelated burglary. Though the crimes are as crisscrossed as the strands of a ball of yarn, Joe Grey’s cat senses tell him they may somehow be linked. It’s up to the fleet-footed feline and his crime-solving coterie to untangle the mysteries before it’s too late.
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Quotes from the reviews
"The Joe Grey series has been going strong for two decades for a reason...it's one of the most remarkable, unique collections of cat novels on the market. Each cat has a unique personality that will capture reader's imaginations, and now that Joe and Dulcie are parents there's an added layer to their relationship through the interactions with the kittens.... Whether you've spent the last 2 decades following Joe and Dulcie's adventures or you're new to the dynamic duo, Cat Chase the Moon will leave you purring." --Melissa's Mochas, Mysteries and Meows
"A delightful treat for all cat lovers. The cats have vivid personalities and are valuable members of the community, and they’re almost human in the way they interact.... Cat Chase the Moon is another fun Joe Grey adventure that hits close to home with family at the heart of the mystery and plenty of danger around every corner." --Elizabeth Konkel, Tulsa Book Review
"Joe and his family are very special cats.... My favorite part of the book is their personalities. Each cat is distinct and, despite the supernatural quality of their gifts, very believable. --Eleanor Kuhns, Criminal Element
"This 21st entry in the Joe Grey series is just as charming and compelling as the entire series. Having read all the entries up to this one brings a rich and full understanding of all the characters, human and feline. However, this book can stand alone as the enthralling story it is." --Sandie Herron, Lesa's Book Critique
"I have read every book in this series, and it is one of my favorite go to books when I want a fun relaxing story to read.... I am still amazed that into the 21sth book, Murphy can still win us over each and every time.... This is a fun series, exciting mysteries, and fantastic characters, including cats and humans. Do not let that fact that these cats can talk deter you." --Barb, The Reading Cafe
Excerpt from the story
The sea crashed behind Joe Grey, the tomcat standing tall on a heap of broken branches; the night’s heavy fog admitted only a smear of light from the low moon, just enough to brighten the hushing waves. The sound of digging had drawn the gray tomcat up the beach to the little sandy park, to the oak tree that had long ago fallen, a dry and twisted relic from last spring’s storms. The shoveling-noise stopped abruptly when Joe Grey inadvertently stepped on a twig: a sudden silence cut the night, then the sound of running through the sand and dry grass among the scattered trees. He couldn’t see much of the runner in the heavy mist and tangled branches but he could tell it was a man, heavy footfalls among the dead branches. He could see dark clothes, dark floppy hat, brim pulled down. Joe heard him hit the sidewalk, hard rubber-soled shoes, heard a car door open. Heard an engine start and the car pull away, a dark, long shadow in the mist. Joe leaped to the highest branch of the fallen tree, looked down where the man had been digging.A body lay beside the dead tree where dirt had been scoped out. A half dug grave in which a woman lay nearly buried, bruised and bloodied, fresh earth thrown over her lower body and legs, Joe leaped down. She couldn’t be dead, blood still flowed, her heart would still be beating.
At the edge of the grave, in the damp, heavy sand, he could see the shovel marks, small, sharp curves in the shape of those spades people carried in their cars for an emergency. She was slim and tall, her long black hair tangled but, except for the blood, was clean and shining. She would be beautiful under the purple bruises across her face and what looked like purple finger marks circling her throat. Her right earring was missing, the lobe torn sharply in two: the two ragged flaps bleeding down her white shirt. Her left ear was red and bloody, swollen around a lump of smashed gold as if the side of her head had been pounded against a log. Flecks of bark clung to her face.
Dropping down from one fallen branch to the next, Joe Grey stepped into the half-dug grave and put his nose to her mouth. Yes, the faintest breath.
He pushed his mouth to hers, feeling weird at the contact; he breathed in and out with all his might, trying to force air into lungs so much larger than his own. He was almost faint from lack of breath himself when at last her gasping came stronger. Her right hand moved slightly. The tomcat, even with the dead bodies he had confronted at so many crime scenes, felt sick that the grave digger had meant, apparently, to bury her alive.
A patrol car passed slowly, making its rounds. The fog was so thick the officer didn't see a thing among the tangled tree branches nor would he have heard any strangled cry over the static of his radio. As the unit passed, Joe could have yelled out for help, and then run.
Right, and have the guy’s strobe light catch him, a tomcat yelling "Help!" in his ear. Worse, Joe knew the patrol officer. Ray Haley would have recognized Joe Grey at once, dark grey tomcat, white paws and thin white strip down dark gray face, all the officers knew him, he was practically the station cat. To see him here on what would turn out to be a crime scene wasn't in the books. One more puzzle for the department, Joe Grey nosing around a crime scene, at just about the time the “phantom snitch” called in the report—if he could find a phone—was one more coincidence he didn't need. Joe prayed that Haley would pull over, get out of the car, find the half-buried victim and call the dispatcher himself. While Joe fled among the rubble of the wild little park and vanished.
When the officer had noticed nothing suspicious among the fallen, tangled tree, when he had passed and turned back toward the village, when Joe was convinced the woman would keep breathing, he raced for a ramshackle cottage at the edge of the shore. Leaping to a sill, he clawed his way through the rusty screen and slid open the rickety window. This house was the only relic in the long line of seafront homes, the rest all restored to elegance or replaced by new dwellings. This old place smelled of cats but he didn’t see any. That took care of any pawprints, if the cops thought to search in here.
Slipping through the dim kitchen he found a phone in the hall. He called 911 then beat it out of there, the torn screen clawing at his fur. Racing back across the dead-end street, crossing the narrow lane where it ended at the sea, he was surely leaving prints in the drifted sand. But whose prints? Slipping out of sight among the fallen branches by the grave, just as the first siren screamed, he searched hastily for the woman’s purse, for a billfold or ID, but found nothing. She was still breathing but the oozing blood had slowed, not a good sign. He was looking for the shovel when the medics screeched to a halt, cop cars behind them; Joe dove into the tall grass and bushes and was gone.
He watched from across the street as the medics worked on her: oxygen, all kinds of tubes, then loaded her into the ambulance. He would know little more until the report was on Captain Harper’s desk, until he could saunter into the chief's office and have a look at the report.
Ordinarily Joe would stay after the medics left, would watch from the bushes to see if the cops found the shovel, found clues he’d missed. But this was Saturday morning and he was already late. His tabby lady would be waiting with her striped ears back, her striped tail switching, sitting rigid among the small children on the library window seat, her green eyes flashing at his tardiness.
How many tough tomcats spent their Saturday mornings in the library among a bunch of snively little kids listening to story hour? How many patrons smiled with wry amusement at Joe and the other four cats snuggled among the children: Joe’s lady Dulcie. Their grown kitten, Courtney. (Courtney’s two brothers were otherwise occupied.) Tortoiseshell Kit and her mate, red-tabby Pan, as macho a tomcat as Joe Grey, all curled up among warm and cuddling children listening to a tale of magic. But the cats were there for more than the story. Intently they watched for the mysterious man who had appeared these last few Saturdays prowling among the books, striking their curiosity, and sometimes their concern.
Ever since Dulcie, who was Molena Point’s official library cat, first saw the shadowy figure slip behind the book-stacks and stand watching the children, the cats’ curiosity had drawn them. Browsing among the books, he kept his eyes on one lone child, then another.
Public libraries were not the welcome retreats they had once been, peaceful and safe. These days, even small libraries had guards on the premises. Plain clothes officers walked through the paneled, silent rooms, sometimes arresting a stoned man, taking him away to sleep it off in jail. All across the country, addicts were frequenting the book rooms, hiding their stash among the shelved volumes or concluding their sales in the towns’ most innocent refuge. It was not uncommon, at closing hour, for a librarian to find a drugged man asleep in a soft chair, a newspaper spread over his face.
He heard from across the village the short blast of a siren and then a medics' van that made him want to leap away and follow, racing across the rooftops as he usually did. But Dulcie gave him a look that settled him down. Every siren wasn’t a major crime, it could be anything, traffic violation, fender bender. Or a domestic argument They’d had plenty of those since Zeb Luther’s family all moved out, leaving him alone. Moved in across the street from Joe, shouting altercations in the middle of the night that woke Joe and his housemates and left them all cranky, to say nothing of enraging the neighbors.
He wondered if the adults in the library were listening to the story, too, only pretending to read the paper. And, speak of the devil, here came his quarrelsome new neighbor in the front door dragging her little girl. Mindy broke away from Thelma and ran to the window seat, crowding in at the end. But when she spotted Joe she started to scramble to him. The librarian Wilma Getz, Dulcie’s silver haired housemate, told her kindly to sit down where she was. The tale Wilma was reading was the first of the Namia books; the boys and girls were already entranced, as were the cats, all drawn to the war-refugee children and the secret world they found at the back of a closet—but soon again the cats’ attention was drawn away to the open balcony, to the second floor bookshelves that looked down on the reading room.
Even as the world of Narnia unfolded in snow and ice, a figure appeared on the balcony among the deepest row of bookshelves. In the shadows he was hardly visible; but, as on other Saturday mornings, he was watching the children. The same man, the faint shadow of his close-clipped, pointed beard, dark cap pulled down over shaggy, dark hair. Why was he watching the children? Or was he watching the cats, was he some kind of cat fancier?
Not liking to be watched, and quick tempered, Joe wanted to race across the room, leap up through the rail, knock the man down and question him until he knew what the guy wanted.
Oh, right! And tell the whole world I can talk.