Second Hand Cat

A BROKEN MAN AND HIS DAMAGED CAT ARE SURROUNDED BY MURDER.Officer Charles Wall was hailed as a hero, but a traumatic brain injury left him dealing with constantly shifting and extreme emotions. After a violent fit of rage, his police friends helped him avoid prison, but he had to give up his pension and endure nearly two years in a psychiatric facility, crushed by guilt and barely able to speak.After his release, he moves into a City Housing apartment, using the name Roland Wall to avoid attention. No longer financially comfortable, he works part time at the Library for food money, and the sort of people he once thought were beneath him now look down upon him. Isolated and frustrated, he constantly struggles to control his anger, because he can't afford to fail.When one of his very few friends is brutally murdered in the rain, he inherits Claude, her 'nice, quiet old man' of a cat. But Claude turns out to be a homicidal mess who needs expensive medicine every day, and just wants to be left alone. They have much in common.Then another woman is murdered in the rain, it's discovered that Wall had a connection to her as well. Although the City Police soon rule him out as a suspect, he can't do the same. Roland can't remember where he was when it happened. He didn't remember murdering the boys for a long time, so maybe . . .Because both victims were lesbians, and members of the City Chix Roller Derby Team, ambitious FBI Special Agent Netty involves himself in the case, hoping the lurid headlines will give his career a boost. Netty admires Wall, but there are things Roland can't allow the FBI to discover.When evidence that could have been used against Wall disappears, Netty locks his sights on him, and is willing to turn the City upside down to get him.Meanwhile, one of Wall's neighbors is spying on him, the others fear him, the local newspaper is vilifying him, his own psychiatrist is angry with him, the ATF is getting involved, and a mysterious woman is stalking him.He's starting to feel the way he did when he murdered the boys.And the cat is not helping.Or is he? Approximately 330 pages.