Disclaimer: I do not own the Streets of San Francisco Characters, I only use them for my amusement- and hopefully the amusement of my readers, too!

A/N:The character of Andy bears striking similarities to my present cat- with bits of other cats mixed in that used to live with me and made my life better.

A big thank you goes to Tanith 2011 for beta reading this story.

An equally big thank you to Mounty Swiss, for giving me the idea of letting my cat appear in one of the stories!

No Dumb Witness

Inspector Steve Keller stretched his stiff back and stifled a yawn. It had been a long night and an even longer day stretched ahead of him. He was looking into the glass cubicle, where his partner Mike Stone was at his desk, when the phone rang.

"Homicide, Stone." His partner barked.

Steve tried to listen to the one sided conversation, but from what he could gather he'd better put on his sports coat and be ready to go. Yep, was right, he thought as he watched Mike grab his coat and hat and jumped up to follow him to the car.

"What's up, Mike?"

"An old lady died in a fall in her house in Pacific Heights. It's probably nothing, but we need to follow it up."

"It would be nice to find out something was an accident and not a murder, for once…" Steve mused. Mike shot him a half reproachful and half amused look. "Oh yeah, you would like an open and shut case wouldn't you so that you can get some shuteye tonight. It's disgraceful the way you are dragging. You were home at one, no reason to be tired. "

Steve sighed. "And you were back on my doorstep at seven."

"That gives you six hours of sleep, buddy boy."

"Six hours? Deduct time for a shower and something to eat and… besides, I am still of an age where you need your sleep, unlike some…"

The banter went on in the car until they reached their destination in the form of a nice house in an equally nice neighbourhood. Steve looked up at the many steps leading up to the front door.

"And you said the victim was an old lady?" a note of doubt crept into his voice. He braced himself and started the climb.

"That's what keeps us older people fit- lots of stairs and we don't lounge in bed all day, youngster!" Mike passed his younger partner on the steps in an energetic stride and slapped his back playfully.

The crime scene team was already there and Bernie, the medical examiner, was still kneeling next to the body of a frail looking white haired lady.

"She was found right here by her neighbour who holds a key. She got suspicious when the milk was still on the doorstep at eight."

"What do you reckon, Bernie?" Mike asked.

"It looks very much like a fall down the stairs. She was old, unsteady on her feet. Maybe she even tripped over this little fellow." The medical examiner pointed at an overstuffed chair. It was only then that the two detectives noticed a small black cat was hiding under it, watching their every move with suspicious green eyes.

"Aaw, the poor little guy! You're not serious, Bernie!" Steve dropped on his knees and tried to entice the cat out from under its hiding place. Bernie watched the young man and laughed. "According to the neighbour, the cat is underfoot all the time and tripped Mrs Dwyer up on numerous occasions!"

Steve was rewarded with a cautious sniff of his finger and a loud purr. He smiled with delight. "He likes me. He must be so frightened, the poor little thing."

Mike was amused. He knew that his partner was fond of animals, whenever they passed a dog or a horse he tried to pat it, but he had never seen him this affectionate before. "I'll leave you to interrogate this witness here while I talk to the neighbour." Mike suppressed a grin and made his way over to a lady in her late sixties, who was sitting on the sofa, a cup of water in her shaking hands. "Such a shock to find poor Dessie dead…"

When the interview, that yielded nothing new, was finished, Mike went in search of his partner. He found Steve and the black cat in the kitchen, where the young man was feeding the animal a can of cat food all the while talking to it and stroking its back. When the cat heard footsteps, it looked up in alarm. "It's okay, little guy, Mike won't hurt you." Steve soothed and the cat resumed eating.

"Did he tell you something?" Mike joked. "I bet you- you didn't even get his personal details but I did. His name is Andy and he is nine years old. You will need this kind of information when you drop him off at the animal rescue shelter later on."

Steve looked up from scratching the cat's back. "There surely must be someone to take him in. Such a nice cat!" he exclaimed indignantly.

"The neighbour is allergic to cat dander and there is only a niece. It could be a while until she decides what to do with the cat."

The cat in question had stopped eating and left the room, howling at the top of his voice as it tried to follow the gurney the paramedics were wheeling towards the ambulance. Steve ran after him and scooped the agitated animal up in his arms. The little black cat burrowed under Steve's jacket and calmed down. "You poor little orphan. I know you are sad…" Steve cooed.

Mike watched him with a mix of exasperation and affection. He had seen Steve falling for pretty girls- but falling head over heels for a cat- well, that was a new one!

At this stage everybody else had left the crime scene. Mike wanted to stay on and look around the place without the distraction of photographers and the forensics team dusting for prints. He walked around the well-kept house, trying to get a feel for the place.

The black cat, reassured that the commotion had stopped, ventured out from under Steve's jacket and went sniffing and searching through the house, closely followed by Steve.

"He's looking for his momma…" Steve stopped when he noticed that Mike was giving him The Stare. "Do you think a cat has no feelings? I suppose you're more of a dog man yourself."

"I never thought you had this much interest in anything that isn't a woman." Mike quipped.

"Very funny. But come to think of it, a cat- like a woman- wants to be won over…"

"Stop giving me unwanted advice about women and better watch your new friend. The little devil is up to no good." Mike noticed that the cat was very busy clawing and batting at something in the corner at the foot of the stairs, close to where his owner had been found.

Steve bent down and carefully disentangled a thin piece of string from the cat's claws.

"Careful there, Andy. You could hurt your little paws, see, there's a nail attached to the string." He pulled the dangling object away from Andy's reach.

"Careful there with that little head of yours, buddy boy!" Mike mimicked Steve's tone of voice. "I always suspected that love affects your brain, but this takes the biscuit! After you and the cat mauling it, it is very unlikely to yield anything, but we might try!"

Steve looked at his mentor with a slightly sheepish expression on his face. "You mean this could be some evidence?"

"Yes, buddy boy; you know for a college graduate, sometimes you can be very slow on the uptake."

"Sorry, I may be a bit distracted right now…" Steve prised open the cat's claws which had latched on to his tie.

"I thought you wanted to clear your new best friend's reputation! So get down on your knees and see if there are any holes that could have been made by a nail in the wall or skirting board near the stairs."

The young man obediently let go of the cat and examined the wall and skirting boards carefully.

"You were right, Mike, this could be it!" He pointed at a tiny hole at ankle height right at the top of the stairs and soon found a corresponding hole at the same height on the bannister. Yes, you could have easily rigged up a bit of twine there. Stumbling over a tripwire at the top of the stairs would be enough to make an old lady who was unsteady on her feet to take a tumble. The cat had followed them up and pressed his sturdy little body between the two men.

Steve giggled. "I think he wants us to play with him."

"And I think you want a kick up your butt. We are here to solve a crime, not to entertain a cat." Mike was exasperated. This was a completely new side to his partner and he wasn't quite sure if he liked it or not.

"Steve, get Tom back to fingerprint the area here and then take care of the fleabag. We should be heading back to the bureau." Mike sounded quite gruff now.

Steve picked up the cat and went downstairs to make a phone call. Mike soon joined him in the living room. "Where is the closest animal shelter, so that we can drop him off on the way?"

"Aahw, Mike, you don't really mean this, do you?" Steve pleaded. "He must be so scared and lonely; the poor little thing has just lost his only friend…"

"It didn't take him long to make a new one, so don't you worry about him!"

The cat had snuggled back under Steve's jacket purring loudly. Mike scrutinised his partner, there was something going on he couldn't quite fathom.

"Mike?" Steve tried again. "He might be a material witness. Couldn't we at least try and find a foster home for him?"

"Don't give me the puppy dog eyes!" Mike's resolve began to weaken. "And don't even dream of unloading the beast on me."

Steve flashed Mike a mischievous smile and proceeded to pick up the cat's belongings, the litter tray, a cat bed and a supply of cat food. Mike watched the whole process with disgust, especially the litter tray.

Steve's grin widened when he asked: "What would you rather carry, the cat or the litter tray?"

When the older man picked up the litter tray and looked at the cat he could have sworn he had seen a smirk on the cat's face…

Back at the office Steve introduced the cat as a material witness in need of protection and settled him in a basket under his desk amid a chorus of oohs and aahs. Once again Mike was surprised at the reaction the nondescript small black cat received. Okay, he is kind of cute, alright and he does possess a certain charm… Stop it, Mike, the little demon is casting his spell over you, too!

"Now, Steve, how about doing a bit of work for a change?" Mike suggested when the door opened and his daughter Jeannie walked in.

"Hi Mike! Hi Steve! I was in the area and thought we could go for lunch together." She greeted them with a friendly smile.

"A wonderful idea, sweetheart, but it will have to be just the two of us. Our Steve here is too busy protecting a witness to have lunch with us!"

"What witness?" Jeannie asked curiously when a black head poked out from under the young Inspector's desk and a pair of bright green eyes scrutinised her with interest. "What a cute kitty! Where did you get her?"

"It's a boy and his name is Andy." Steve began to tell the story and Jeannie went down on her knees to pet the feline. A short time later she was sitting at Steve's desk with a purring and very contented cat curled up on her lap, all plans about going out for lunch was forgotten.

"Why don't you get us some takeout and we can have our lunch here, Mike?" she suggested. Her father sighed, knowing when he was beaten and headed out of the office.

"I reckon our friend might like a plain burger…" Steve called after him.

When Mike returned, he found Steve and Jeannie immersed in deep conversation.

"I never knew you were so fond of cats, Steve!"

"Ah well, this little fellow reminds me of a cat I once had as a kid. When I went to live with my aunt and uncle they gave me a black cat to look after. Okay, I was quite gullible then and bought the story of the lonely orphan kitty that needed a friend. They told me years later that they were looking for a kitten but in the end had to rope in a more mature farm cat to comfort me. "He chuckled. "Until the cat died many years later, my aunt had to turn a blind eye on the fact that the he was sleeping in my bed every night."

Mike swallowed, trying to rid himself of a guilty feeling. After all he had planned to drop the cat off at a shelter, not knowing what emotions the black cat had set free in his partner. But I will not bring the fleabag home with me. Let Steve have another cat sleeping in his bed!

Mike dropped the brown paper bag on the desk and handed out the food. He was the only one that ate his entire hamburger, while Jeannie and Steve ended up eating the bun with the salad and the black cat dined on broken up chunks of beef patty that he delicately ate out of his benefactors' fingers. Whenever the meat supply stopped, a plaintiff howl pierced the air.

"You have him spoiled!" Mike warned. "You watch, he'll never eat cat food again."

"But Mike, he just lost his home…"

"Oh no, Jeannie, no! We are not taking the cat home with us and that is final."

Steve and Jeannie exchanged glances, when Tanner approached. "No need, I know my missus and the kids will only be too happy to look after the little guy." He offered.

"I'll take him when you go on holidays, Bill!" Haseejian chimed in.

"Hey, guys, I'm the one who found him!" Steve protested.

"And how do you think you will look after a cat working the hours that you do?" Mike remarked acerbically.

"Well, I could bring him here during the day, he seems quite happy here…"the young man's voice trailed off when he noticed that the Captain was standing nearby and appeared to have been listening in to part of the conversation.

"Keller, care to explain the menagerie you are planning to keep here?" Olson said in a voice that allowed no protests and buts or sugar coating the issue at hand, although he was inwardly laughing at the idea of his men fighting over a cat.

While Steve told the story of the cat, Rudy's expression softened. "Maybe we could keep him here until the question of his ownership is cleared." He approached the feline who was perched happily on Steve's desk, then reached down and rubbed the cat under its chin. "The old lady's next of kin might want him as a keepsake."

Steve swallowed. He had never thought of that!

"If you can bear to be separated from your friend, maybe we can go down to the morgue and find out more about the death of his momma." Mike suggested. Then he turned to his daughter. "Do you want to stay here and do the cat sitting, or have you got other plans for the afternoon?"

Jeannie had been following the exchange with interest and hadn't paid any attention to the cat. It was only when she bent down to pick up her handbag that she noticed the zip of the bag had been prised open by agile little paws and a black head was stuck inside. "Aahw, how cute! He's looking for treats!" she cooed.

"More likely he is trying to get away with your money." Mike smirked.

The black furry head struggled to drag a large, colourful object out of the slightly too small opening. Eventually the cat succeeded and sat proudly with a postcard clamped in his vampire fangs. Jeannie blushed slightly. "Here, kitty, give that back to me!" but her father was faster and prised the postcard out of the cat's jaws. Jeannie made a grab for it, but Mike managed to get a glimpse of the signature under the short text- Ed Brown.* Jeannie turned deep crimson.

"Holiday greetings from a friend, if you must know!" She stuffed the card back into her bag and walked off to do her shopping, as originally planned, with as much dignity as she could muster, trying not to notice Mike's grin.

Olson laughed. "Steve, you better watch this little fellow, he seems to be a bit of a pickpocket." He patted the cat affectionately.

Down at the morgue Bernie looked over his notes. "Decima Dwyer died in the early hours of this morning from head injuries consistent with a fall down the stairs. Eighty-seven years old and in reasonably good health for her age; according to the neighbour her mobility was slightly impaired and she suffered occasional spells of dizziness. With all of those factors in mind, and the fact that she had tripped over her cat before, this would have made for an open and shut case, if you had not found evidence of a tripwire."

Steve interrupted the coroner's findings. "You mean, if the cat had not found the tripwire…"

Bernie looked up from his notes and grinned. "So I checked again. There is a barely visible mark on the front of her left leg, about ankle height, that could have been caused by a thin string, like the one you sent to the lab. The force of the body going over must have ripped the nail out of the wall and broken the twine. Did you find the other piece?"

Mike answered. "No, only what we sent in. Maybe the little black devil hid it somewhere."

"Or somebody took it." Steve added.

"Cui bono? Who profits?" Steve asked. "The niece? But that would be too obvious, wouldn't it?" "Buddy, boy, sometimes the obvious can actually be the truth, not all cases have to be complicated!" Mike replied.

"Okay, so I suppose I better go and check out Mrs. Dwyer's niece," Steve suggested.

"You do that and while you are at it, type up the report. You know, I have to be in court in half an hour," Mike reminded him.

Steve sighed and made his way back upstairs where the paperwork beckoned.

When Mike returned late in the afternoon, he had expected to see the report on the case of Decima Dwyer sitting on top of his desk. He would have settled for the typed sheets on Steve's desk, or even Steve still typing the last page. What he didn't expect, however, was a black cat stretched out over Steve's typewriter, fast asleep…

Steve was sitting at the desk, gently stroking the soft fur on the cat's paws. Mike felt his temper rising. And even if a cat had saved his life when he was a child, this is all too much! He shouted, "Steve!" and both Steve and the cat jumped - the cat with a hiss and a howl, while Steve let out a loud "Ouch!" as the cat had used his hand as a launch pad for the jump.

"Steve! What do you think you're doing? Watching a cat sleep when you should be working? Where is the report you were supposed to type? Did you check out the niece at all? And take your hand out of your mouth; you have been handling the filthy cat all day!" Mike didn't even try to hide his anger and frustration with his partner.

The young man looked at the scratched and bloody back of his hand that he had instinctively brought to his mouth, at a loss for words.

"Go wash your hands and clean up that scratch. Then I want to talk to you." Mike spoke in a lower voice now. He looked under the desk, where a pair of hostile green eyes was glaring at him. "I'm telling you, the cat is pure evil!"

"Mike!" Steve protested. "You frightened him and he jumped. He didn't mean to scratch me…"

"If you don't scat right now, I will mean every injury I inflict on you." Mike threatened and his partner walked out quietly.

Normally this kind of exchange between Mike and Steve would have been met with hilarity from the other detectives in the office, but not today. Stony silence filled the department until Haseejian walked over to Steve's desk and picked up the cat. "There now, little fellow, Uncle Norm will take care of you and won't let the bad man get you." He looked in Mike's direction and grinned. The cat snuggled up against the cop and head butted his chin. Mike shook his head and withdrew into his office, muttering under his breath.

When Steve returned, the older man's temper had cooled somewhat and he felt quite bad for losing it in front of the colleagues. Telling Steve to go and wash his hands…

He scrutinised the scratch on his protégé's hand and in spite of Steve's protests insisted on dabbing it with iodine and covering it with a plaster. Steve gave in and allowed the ministrations to continue, realising it was Mike's way of apologising. Then he broke the silence. "It took longer than expected to check out the old lady's niece, you know," he began. "I was just going to make a start on the report…"

"Forget it!" Mike waved the apology aside. "Tell me about this niece!"

"Well, first of all, she doesn't live in the States; she lives and works in London. I found that out from Mrs Dwyer's neighbour. It felt like I spent the entire afternoon on the phone to her. My, oh my, the lady can talk."

"There are flights!" Mike insisted.

"Yes, flights from London where she lives. London is eight hours ahead of us, so I couldn't get anyone at her workplace to provide her with an alibi. I'll do that tomorrow. By the way- the niece is on her way over as we speak- Mrs Dwyer's neighbour told me she rang her niece while she was waiting for the ambulance. Did she tell you she had informed the family?" Steve asked.

"No, she didn't mention it, but the poor old dear was pretty rattled after finding her friend dead." Mike answered. "A pity, though, she could have given the niece the head start to provide herself with an alibi." The older man added pensively.

Steve grinned. "Aw, come on, Mike, you're not making sense now. How can she receive a phone call in London and be in San Francisco to rig up the tripwire?"

Mike thought for a moment. "Well, I suppose it would have been too pat… But did the neighbour speak to her or leave a message for her at work or at home?"

"To be honest, it didn't occur to me to ask her that." Steve made mental calculations. "No, Mike, I don't think it is possible to fly back in time."

"What about the time difference?" Mike inquired.

Steve sighed. "That's what I'm just trying to figure out, you know. Eight hours…. Say she left here at around midnight. Flight time would take around eleven hours… That would be eleven in our morning, but seven in the evening London time. So she wouldn't be even back in England yet, would she?" Steve laughed out loud. "It would work a treat the other way round. I must bear that in mind if I ever want to kill someone in England!"

Mike was getting seriously confused about the different time zones. "What if she never went back to England but has an accomplice to take the message for her? And besides, she could have hired someone to do it!"

"You are intent on pinning it on the niece, aren't you?" Steve was amused.

"I'm only thinking of you, my boy! If she is legit she can walk off with your cat tomorrow and you can't do anything about it." Mike deadpanned.

Steve eyed him suspiciously. "You're pulling my leg now, aren't you?"

Mike burst out laughing. Steve chucked politely. "Maybe I better ring the neighbour and find out who took the message!" the young man conceded but the phone was ringing out.

"I suppose we might as well wait for the niece. According to our main source of information Mrs Fleming will arrive in San Francisco tomorrow morning. And please Mike, don't ask me about the time difference again!"

"Okay, buddy boy, I won't. But I have another question. What are you going to do with the fleabag over night?"

* see FF story "The Dangers of Maths and Love" by Mounty Swiss