Read Online Cat Laughing Last by Shirley Rousseau Murphy - Free Book Online Page A

one bad egg on the council tried to ruin Harper’s career, set Harper up to be prosecuted for murder. Tried to get him off the force big time—get him sent to prison on a life sentence.”
    Clyde slid the platters of meat and cheese into the refrigerator, with the bowls of salad, and busied himself arranging crackers.
    â€œWho found young Dillon Thurwell when she was kidnapped—when all the evidence pointed to Harper? Who helped her escape?”
    â€œHarper would likely have found her.”
    â€œRight. After she was dead. That woman was going to kill her.”
    â€œAll right,” Clyde said. “I have to admit you and Dulcie saved Harper’s skin on that one, and maybe saved Dillon’s life. But you two have come to believe that Harper can’t solve a crime without you, and I call that really insulting. You two cats think—”
    â€œI never said he can’t solve a crime without us. I said we’ve helped him, that we’ve offered some positive input—the way any good snitch would do. Why can’t you enter into a simple discussion of the facts without getting emotional? Without getting your back up, to use a corny and inappropriate colloquialism!”
    Clyde sat down at the table and put his face in his hands, shoving aside the rack of poker chips and twonew decks of cards. He didn’t say, What did I do to be saddled with this insufferable, ego-driven animal? But it was there, in his silence, in the slump of his shoulders.
    â€œAnd,” Joe said, “when you do marry, you’ll be in the same position as Charlie is with Harper. You marry anyone but Kate or Charlie, marry a woman who doesn’t know what kind of cat you live with, you try to hide the truth from her, there’s going to be trouble. It would never work. I’d have to move out, find another home—or you’d end up telling her about me! Sharing my fate with a total stranger. Compromising and endangering my life, and Dulcie’s. Putting us—”
    Clyde swung around in his chair, his face decidedly red. “If you don’t get out of this house now, and stay out until we’re done playing poker and everyone has gone home, I swear I will not only evict you and nail your cat door shut, I will take you to the pound. Shove you in a cat carrier and leave you at the animal shelter. See you locked in a metal cage forever—because no one would want you. No one would adopt such a bad-tempered tomcat.”
    Joe Grey smiled, leaped to the center of the table, and lifted a gentle white paw to Clyde. “You are becoming very creative. If you even tried such a thing, I would spill it all to Max Harper. I would break out of the pound—no trick for yours truly. I’d go straight to Harper. Sit down face-to-face with him and tell him my entire story. I would lay it all on him, every corroborating fragment of proof, every tip, every detail of past phone calls. Proof that I—I alone, not Dulcie—am his phantom snitch.”
    He thought Clyde would laugh, but Clyde’s browneyes blazed with anger. “If you ever did such a thing, I swear, Joe, I’d kill you.”
    Clyde shoved his face close to Joe’s. “Do you remember the night at Moreno’s Bar, after Janet Jeannot was murdered, when Harper tried to tell me his suspicions about certain cats being involved in the case? About certain mysterious phone calls? And you were eavesdropping under the table? Do you remember how shaken Max was?”
    â€œCome on, Clyde…”
    Clyde glared. “You so much as whisper to Max Harper, and you’re a dead cat. Finished. Comprende?”
    â€œYou are so grouchy. You really need to get your life in hand.” Joe dropped down to the linoleum, stalked through to the living room, pushed out his cat door, and crept under the front porch. He’d never seen Clyde so irritable.
    He really did have to blame Clyde’s mood on pretty,