"If it was murder," Dulcie said softly, "who knows how long the gallery will be locked down? And Charlie's show has just opened."

Joe Grey licked his paw. "The coroner should know by morning. Charlie's already sold seven drawings and four prints. By morning, Garza should have photographed, fingerprinted, done the whole routine. Let's go, before we miss supper." They moved quickly to the front door, where the party was shrugging on coats and winding scarves against the late October chill. But as the three cats slipped diffidently around their friends' ankles, preening and purring like pet kitties, Joe's thoughts remained with the dead waiter. Allowing Clyde to pick him up, Joe purred and tried to act simple for the benefit of those who did not know his true nature; but as he snuggled against Clyde's shoulder, his sleek gray head was filled with questions as sharply irritating as the buzz of swarming bees.

Joe lay across Clyde's shoulder absorbing the warmth from his housemate's tweed sport coat, which smelled of aftershave and of dog. Around them along the village streets, the wind hushed coldly, and above their heads the sheltering oaks rattled like live things; a few tourists lingered looking into the bright shop windows, but the shadows between the shops were dense and still, for no moon shone beneath the heavy clouds. Clyde's tweed shoulder was rough against Joe's nose. Dressed in his usual party attire, a sport coat over a white cashmere turtleneck and Levi's, Clyde had had a haircut for the occasion. His dark hair was short and neat, with the obligatory little white line of non-tan-the general effect a clean, military look that Ryan liked. Ryan walked close beside them, Clyde and Ryan holding hands. Joe observed them with interest.

"What," he had asked Clyde just last week, like some over-protective parent, "are your intentions? You're dating Ryan, neither one of you seeing anyone else. I know it's not all platonic, but where's the wild abandon of passion? A couple of years ago, it was a different woman every week, in bed, cooking your supper, and in bed again. What happened to all the debauchery?"

Clyde had scowled at him, said nothing, and left the room. But Joe thought he knew. Clyde had had a sea change, a complete turnaround in the way he viewed his woman friends.

It had started with Kate, when she left her husband after he tried to kill her. She had been so very frightened, so distraught, had left the house in fear and come to Clyde for shelter and for comfort. Clyde had made up the guest bed and cooked a midnight supper for her, had tried to soothe and calm her, but when Kate exhibited her alarming feline nature, trying to make him understand the extent of her fears, when she took the form of a cat, she had put Clyde off royally.

After her move to San Francisco, there had been months when she'd been out of touch, when she wouldn't answer his calls or return them. Then Clyde began dating Charlie. That had lasted until Charlie and Max, unplanned and unintentionally, had fallen madly in love. And Joe smiled. They had been so distressed that they had hurt Clyde, so relieved when Ryan came on the scene, moving down from the city, and the two hit it off.

But where this romance was headed, Joe wasn't sure. Clyde had become far more circumspect in his relationships. No more one-week stands, no more wild partying-and Ryan, recovering from a miserable marriage, seemed just as reluctant to commit.

As they headed across the village to a late supper, strolling past the brightly lit shops, Wilma carried Dulcie wrapped in her red cloak, and Hanni carried the kit. Hanni had covered her jade-green sequined dress with a long cape made from a Guatemalan blanket-tacky on anyone else, smashing on Hanni Coon with her lean model's figure and tousled white hair. Hanni, definitely a dog person, carried the tattercoat with considerable deference. Consorting with cats was new to her. The kit was so thoroughly enjoying herself looking over Hanni's shoulder into the shop windows that Joe wanted to tell her not to stare. When passersby greeted them, Joe looked totally blank and mindless, but the kit was incredibly eager, accepting the petting of the locals and smiling at them in a far too intelligent manner. The few tourists they met stopped to stare at the bizarre little group carrying three cats, but then they smiled. Molena Point was famous for odd characters.

Ahead of Hanni and Wilma, Charlie walked with Kate, Charlie wrapped in a long, creamy stole over her wine-damp gold lame. Kate wore a black velvet ankle-length wrap. In the wake of the waiter's death, the party of six was silent and subdued. Strange, Joe thought. When the waiter fell across Charlie's lap, Kate had registered not only alarm but fear, a quick shock visible for only a moment before she took herself in hand.

Beside Joe, Ryan moved so close to Clyde that her dark, blowing hair tickled Joe's nose. She was growing more used to him, more comfortable with Clyde taking his tomcat around the village, carrying a cat in the car just for the ride or allowing Joe into a restaurant. No matter that Ryan took her dog into restaurant patios, that was different. After nearly a year of dating Clyde she hadn't quite decided what to make of Joe-Joe knew he shouldn't tease her and set her up, but his jokes gave him such a high. Nothing so bizarre as to reveal the truth, nothing to imply that he understood Ryan's every word and might have something to say in return.

But dog people were such suckers for the inexplicable behavior of cats, for the unfathomable mysteries of the feline persona. There was, in the minds of most dog addicts, not the faintest understanding of the logic of feline thought. And that made them ridiculously easy marks. The simplest ruse could bring incredulous stares: I never saw a cat go round a garden smelling the roses, standing up on its hind paws like that. I never saw a cat sit up like a dog to beg, or fetch a ball like a dog.

Well of course ordinary cats did all those things, when they chose to; he had demonstrated for Ryan nothing extraordinary. But in that ailuro-challenged young woman, his little dramas had stirred amazed responses. Dulcie kept telling him to watch himself. "You're going to blow it, Joe. Blow it big time. Ryan isn't stupid. How do you think Charlie found out that we can talk, that we're not ordinary? By watching us when we got careless, that's how. Just as you're getting careless with Ryan."

"Don't worry so much. I'm never careless, my jokes are totally harmless. And Ryan isn't Charlie, Charlie's the one with the imagination. Not everyone would come to the conclusion Charlie did. Ryan's a cop's kid, she likes a logical explanation for everything. Facts are facts. She would no more believe a cat could carry on a conversation than Max Harper would believe it. And you have to admit, we're in Harper's face all the time."

"But…"

"There's no way," Joe had said, "that either Ryan or Harper would ever buy the truth about us-unless, of course, we sat down and had a little heart-to-heart with them."

He looked up as they approached the restaurant's brick patio, and he licked his muzzle, tasting the good smells of steak and lobster. The patio was crowded with diners at small tables beneath its sprawling oaks. The host was all smiles as he escorted them through the patio, through the main dining room, and up the stairs. The eyes of everyone were on them, not only because Charlie was an up-and-coming artist in the community and the wife of the chief of police, not only because of Hanni's theatrical good looks and her status as a top interior designer, but because how many dinner parties, reserving the upstairs private dining room, included on the guest list three cats?