Cat to the Dogs by Shirley Rousseau Murphy Page A

his claws when Clyde actually signed up for the class at the community center.
    Surprisingly, both pups had learned to Sit , to Come on command, and, sometimes, to take the sitting position at Heel —except when they were together. Then they were oblivious, had never before heard those words, had no notion what they meant.
    So that afternoon Harper, still in uniform, had taken a few hours off, left his unit parked in front of Clyde’s, and he and Clyde had headed up the hills in Clyde’s ’34 Chevy, the convertible top folded down, Selig securely tethered in the rumble seat—and Joe and Dulcie concealed on the little shelf behind the seats, beneath the folded leather top.
    It was hot as sin in there, but, crouched just behind the men’s heads, they could hear every word.
    â€œYou started to tell me about this accident victim,” Clyde said, turning up Ocean. “Torres, you said?” He seemed far more willing to talk with Harper about the case when he thought Joe wasn’t around.
    â€œRaul Torres. He did give the antique car agency his right name. Torres was a PI working out of Seattle. I don’t know why he used the fake address. Maybe he used that routinely, for security reasons.” Even Max Harper, Joe thought with interest, seemed more comfortable relating information in a supposedly cat-free environment.
    â€œI called Torres’s office a dozen times before I got his secretary. She was closemouthed until I identified myself. Said she’d call me back. While I waited, she called the station, checked me out. Called me back to say Torres was on vacation, that she didn’t expect to hear from him for maybe another week. She’d gone in to do the billing.
    â€œI told her Torres was dead. Took her a few minutes to take that in. When she felt like talking again, she said she’d made reservations for Torres at the Oak Breeze, in Molena Point, beginning last Saturday. That he’d gone down to L.A. on a case, had planned to leave there Saturday, was meeting someone in Molena Point Saturday night, a woman—girlfriend, she said.”
    â€œYou find a motel registration?” Clyde asked as he turned up the long dirt road leading to Harper’s acreage.
    â€œNothing under Torres, not in Molena Point. But the fact he was a PI keeps me digging.”
    â€œSo he was a PI,” Clyde said. “That doesn’t mean he was murdered.”
    â€œOf course not,” Harper said, amused. “But it does make me wonder.”
    The house at the end of the lane was white clapboard, with a four-stall barn behind and an open, roofed hay shed. The stable yard was shaded by three huge live oak trees, the garden weedy and neglected since Harper’s wife died. They pulled up beside the barn, and while the two men were occupied tying a long, thin line to Selig’s choke chain, the cats, panting from the heat, slipped out from under the folded leather top and beat it for the hay shed.
    Scorching up the stacked bales to crouch high beneath the shadowed roof, they watched Harper head for the house and return carrying two cans of Coke. The slam of the screen door started Selig barking, and Clyde couldn’t shut him up.
    One word from Harper, and the pup was silent.
    Clyde scowled at Harper and led Selig out into the pasture; the puppy pressed his nose immediately to the ground, jerking on the lead, ignoring Clyde, snuffling deeply at the delicious scent of horse manure.
    Dulcie made herself comfortable on the baled hay, raking her claws deep. “Torres died Sunday morning,” she said softly.
    Joe rolled over, slapping at straws, and turned to look at her.
    â€œIf Torres drove up from L.A. Saturday,” she said, “and if he was with a woman in the village on Saturday night, as his secretary told Harper, then what was he doing driving south again, before dawn on Sunday?
    â€œAnd who was the woman?” Her green eyes narrowed. “Cara Ray