Cat's Paw, Inc. — L.L. Thrasher

"That's me, Arrow Investigations. I wanted to change the name to Cat's-Paw, Inc., but my sister said no one would get it. It's from an old fable about a cat and a monkey. The cat was sleeping by a fire where the monkey was roasting some chestnuts. When the nuts were done, the monkey used the cat's paw to pull them out of the fire so he wouldn't burn his own fingers. People hire me to pull their chestnuts out of the fire."
Hired to track down a fourteen-year-old runaway named Jessica Finney, Oregon private eye Zachariah Smith leaves the small town of Mackie, heading to Portland to follow his clues. Not far down the road, he picks up a young woman named Allison, who is also clearly on the run -- from what, Zachariah can't imagine, and she won't say. In Portland, Zachariah checks into a motel with one runaway and sets out to track down the other. Before long, it becomes clear that they're both going to be a whole lot more trouble than he ever would have guessed. The sequel to Cat's-Paw, Inc. is Dogsbody, Inc.

The hardcover edition of Cat's-Paw, Incorporated was published in 1991 by Write Way Books.