Cat Fear No Evil by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

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.
    â€œWhat,” he had asked Clyde just last week, like some overprotective 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 wildabandon 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 lamé. 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—Joeknew 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