Cat Striking Back by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Longleys’ first editions and paperweight collection on their shelves behind locked doors, and Rita Waterman’s jewelry cabinet securely locked.
    Giving Mango a last ear rub, Charlie left the laundry room, closing the kitchen door behind her. Letting herself out the front door, she hurried up the street. The neighborhood was quiet. A couple of Sunday papers still lay in the front yards. She could smell bacon frying, as if for a late Sunday breakfast. The pine and cypress trees among the houses on the downhill side cast short, sharp shadows among the scattered rhododendron bushes. The sun was warm on her back, the rain vanished.
    The moment she let herself into the Waterman house,the three Waterman cats came in from outside through their cat door, to rub against her ankles as if feeling ignored or neglected.
    â€œYou already lonely?” She knelt and spent some time petting and talking to them, then she went through the house. Entering Rita’s closet, knowing where Rita kept her jewelry cabinet key, she pulled on the cotton gloves to retrieve it, wanting to make sure that, though it was locked, the pieces were safe inside.
    The key wasn’t where it should be. She fished around until she found it where Rita had apparently moved it, and she opened the wall case.
    All was in place, the ornate pendants and chokers with their faux jewels as rich and brilliant as any collection of multimillion-dollar pieces. It was interesting to Charlie that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, paste gems were often used in the most intricate gold and silver settings. That once the technique for making faux gems was developed, a whole new market was created for beautiful but affordable jewelry. Now, the settings themselves were collectors’ items though they were of more modest value than if they had contained real gems. These were the pieces that Rita collected, and among them were some that Charlie had specially admired, particularly one coral hair clip and an emerald pendant. She was tempted to try them on, but she didn’t take that liberty. If she wanted to spend royalty money on such a piece, fine, but she wasn’t messing with Rita’s treasures. Locking the cabinet, she replaced the key where she’d found it.
    She found nothing amiss in the other rooms, or in the other two houses. The Longley book cabinets were locked,and at the Beckers’, Frances’s antique furniture was all in place. She was thinking hungrily of lunch as she let herself out of the Becker house and locked the door. She was heading for her car when Clyde’s yellow roadster came up the street and pulled to the curb beside her. The top was down, Clyde and Ryan in the front seat, Joe Grey in the back. She did a double take at all three: Clyde looked angry and distraught, Ryan was trying to hide her amusement, and in the backseat, Joe Grey looked wide eyed and innocent—a sure sign of trouble.

10
    S TEPPING CLOSER TO the open roadster, Charlie was afraid to ask what was wrong. Clyde’s frown was of the helpless variety, which told her that whatever it was, Joe Grey was the cause. She studied Joe. In the backseat, the tomcat sat with his white paws together, his silver coat catching the sunlight, his yellow eyes as guileless as those of a kitten.
    She looked at Ryan, whose eyes, complemented by her green sweatshirt, seemed greener than ever. Ryan shrugged, her expression both amazed and amused as she watched some unspoken conflict between Clyde and the tomcat.
    Charlie could understand how she felt, this was all new to Ryan. She hadn’t known for very long about Joe’s unusual talents. Only shortly before Christmas had she learned that the tomcat could speak to her; that revelation had unfolded on a memorable Christmas morning thatneither Ryan nor Clyde nor Joe Grey would forget. Clyde’s subsequent marriage proposal had added to the general giddiness of their Yule celebration, and even now, after four