Authors: Rebecca M. Hale
How to Wash a Cat (6 page)
I watched, perplexed, as he slid across the floor on highly polished wingtips and skid to a halt in front of me. The pores on his closely shaven face shone from the recently applied aftershave.
“So sorry about your uncle,” he said, bending towards me. One of his long arms reached over to brush a cobweb from the top of my head. “It was so sudden—shocking, really.”
I took a wide step backwards, dodging his gangly arm. “Yes, yes it was,” I replied uneasily.
Monty turned to lean over the open hatch. “I didn’t know Oscar had a basement over here,” he said curiously. “How big is it? There’s only a small one in my building—barely holds the water heater.”
“Oh, it’s big enough, I guess. It’s full of shipping crates, just like up here.” I gestured to the crowded room around us. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with all of this.”
“So, you’ll be taking over the place?” he asked, jumping on my allusion. Monty, I would quickly learn, was the gossip of the neighborhood. Few comings and goings escaped his close attention.
“Yes, I suppose so,” I said, feeling far less certain than I’d been in Miranda’s office. I was starting to realize how much work this was going to be. “I don’t know where to begin.”
Monty’s face lit up. “I think I can help you there,” he bubbled enthusiastically. “I’ve consulted on the renovations for most of the places up and down the street.”
It turned out Monty was inevitably a consultant on almost every renovation project in Jackson Square. His guidance was persistently offered—if rarely solicited.
I don’t actually remember accepting his assistance, but, ten minutes later, we were sitting at the upstairs kitchen table, sketches of various options accumulating on its surface. Monty, whose gallery across the street was filled with a wide variety of local artwork, turned out to be a fairly decent sketch artist.
“Wow, this is really good,” I said a short time later, complimenting an illustration he’d developed for one proposal we were considering.
“Oh, no, no,” he gushed, soaking in the praise like a puppy. “I’m just an amateur.” He picked up one of the sketches and held it towards the light, admiring it.
“You’re not much like your uncle, if you don’t mind me saying so.” Monty’s expression was masked by the sketch he was holding in front of his face.
“How do you mean?” I replied cautiously, not sure how to interpret his comment.
“Well,” Monty said, grinning as he laid the sketch back down on the table. “For one thing, I’ve been here for nearly half an hour, and you haven’t thrown me out yet. I don’t think I ever made it past the two minute mark when the old . . .” He coughed unnecessarily. “I mean, your uncle, ran the place.”
“You didn’t get on that well then?” I asked, visualizing my grouchy uncle leading the pretentious Monty out of the store by the ear.
Monty’s face confirmed my mental image. He rubbed his earlobe absentmindedly as he spluttered, “It wasn’t for lack of trying, let me tell you. I stopped in several times to tell him about my ideas for the Green Vase. You know, ways he could make improvements. He just wasn’t interested.”
Monty threw up his hands in disbelief as I smothered a guffaw with my own fake coughing spell.
“I got the distinct impression that he didn’t want my help,” Monty continued, shaking his head as I hid my face behind my hands.
Monty returned to his sketches, while I tried to regain my composure. The table was silent except for the scratching of his pencil as he filled in more details on the most recent picture. When he looked up again, his face was strangely serious.
“Not to put too fine a point on it,” he said, fixing me intently with a penetrating stare, “but I had the impression Oscar was hiding something over here. Like he didn’t want me nosing around.”
He pointed a forefinger at his left eye and winked dramatically. “You should keep an eye out.”
Chapter 5
FIRST THING THE next morning, I phoned the contractor listed on the business card Miranda had given me. The line rang several times before a static laden connection picked up. A sound like tires crunching on gravel rolled out of the earpiece as the voice on the other end cleared his throat.
“Miranda mentioned you’d be calling,” he responded to my introduction. “You’re Oscar’s niece then?”
It felt strange to meet people who saw me through Oscar-tinted lenses. Except for my weekly dinners at the Green Vase, our worlds had never overlapped.
“He and I used to play dominoes with a group every other Thursday.” The voice paused, as if considering. “Guess we’ll need to find another player for this week’s game.” He suggested we meet at the Green Vase that afternoon.
A couple of hours later, I popped the cats into their carriers and loaded them into my car. They wouldn’t have allowed me to leave them behind on a Saturday afternoon outing to Oscar’s.
The rains of the previous evening had skittered away, leaving behind a city full of freshly bathed buildings. Row after row of tiered, bay windows were temporarily wiped clean of nose prints, so that the people looking out were once again clearly visible to those of us looking in.
I parked on the curb next to the front door of the Green Vase and unloaded the cats, one week to the day since our last dinner with Oscar. The cold metal of the padlock clinked against the iron framing of the door as I fed the small key into its mouth and released the teeth of the U bend.
I set the carriers down on the floor in the front of the shop and opened the doors. Somehow the cats sensed that the world was now irretrievably different. They crept slowly out into the room, their eyes wide, their whiskers twitching.
I’d tried to wipe the bloodstain from the floor, but Oscar’s imprint was indelible. Isabella took one round of it; then she charged to the back of the store and up the stairs, searching the premises for the source of the blotted mark. Rupert simply sat down on the floor and looked up at me with bewildered, blue eyes. I swept him up in my arms and carried him towards the stairs at the back of the store, burying my head in the soft, fluffy fur around his neck.
The soles of my feet sprung slightly as I crossed over the trap door near the foot of the stairs, and I wondered why Oscar had kept its existence a secret. What other shrouded elephants, I wondered, lurked in the closets of the Green Vase?
Isabella circled back as I carried Rupert up the stairs to the kitchen. She dodged nervously in and around my feet, nearly tripping me in her anxiety. No small dishes of food waited under the table. No pots steamed on the stove. The kitchen was cold and empty. I flicked on the light switch and dropped down to the uneven tile floor, trying to console the furry pair of worried heads.
The shiny red litter box gleamed in the hall just outside the kitchen. Oscar had proudly shown off his new purchase the night of our last dinner. Rupert slid towards it, sniffing loudly with obvious intent. I stepped in front of him before he could jump in and carried it up the next flight of stairs to the bathroom on the third floor. I didn’t think a litter box should be visible from the kitchen, even if it was fire engine red.
After relocating the litter box, I began to wash my hands with a grimy bar of Oscar’s soap. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Isabella jogging past the open door carrying a shiny metal object in her mouth.
“Hey, what’ch you got there?” I called out after her as she leapt down the stairs. She didn’t stop for an inspection—a sure sign she’d just snitched something.
For years, I had waged a losing battle against Isabella’s acquisitive impulses. Anything that she could pull, drag, or carry off in her mouth was fair game. Once she’d squirreled away her prize, it was almost impossible to find. Over the years, I’d lost a wide array of toothbrushes, hair clips, pencils, dice, tweezers, matches, bathtub stoppers, and who knows what else to Isabella’s klepto-cravings. This time, I was determined to intercept her.
I chased Isabella down the top flight of stairs and around a corner. She zoomed across the kitchen, slaloming between the legs of the kitchen table. I chased after her, nearly nabbing the tip of her tail, but she slipped past my grasp and launched down the steps to the first floor. Whatever item of Oscar’s she’d latched on to was about to be lost forever in the Green Vase showroom.
I clambered headlong down the stairs after her, nearly striking my forehead on a large, splintering beam that hung low over the sixth step. My fingers raced along the uneven wallboards like piano keys as my toes gripped the slick, worn steps with less and less success.
I hit the bottom step, my feet sliding wildly. There was a flash of white fur and a bloodcurdling—human—scream.
I tried to pull up, but I’d gained too much momentum. I tumbled out into the Green Vase showroom, plowing straight into a tall, stick figure wearing a white, strangely familiar, fur cap.
“I saw you come in from across the street,” Monty said, trying to straighten his bow tie as Isabella teetered back and forth on top of his head. “Thought I’d try to catch you. I came up with a few more ideas this morning.”
I reached up and plucked Isabella out of the brown nest of curls. With a triumphant look, she leapt gracefully from my arms up to the top of a nearby bookcase. She’d already disposed of her trinket.
“You’re just in time then,” I said to the long back of Monty, who had turned to straighten his neatly pressed suit and tie in the reflection of the storefront glass. “The contractor’s going to meet me here this afternoon—to take a walk through and get an idea of what we’re up against.”
Monty tore himself away from his reflection, clapping his hands together hungrily. “Excellent! What’s this fellow’s name? I might know him.”
Despite Monty’s efforts, an independent-minded curl near the top of his head flipped out of position and curly-cued straight up in the air.
“Um, hold on a second. I can’t remember it off the top of my head.” I grabbed my shoulder bag and unzipped the pouch where I’d stashed the business card. “Miranda Richards recommended him—she was Oscar’s attorney.”
“Oh, I know Miranda,” Monty said, bobbing his head up and down to emphasize his familiarity. He leaned against the cash register counter and tilted up one of his long, wingtipped feet so that the flat, handsewn sole flashed in the afternoon sunlight.
“I’ve got his business card right here,” I said, digging in the shoulder bag.
A shadow darkened the front door as my fingers found the card and fished it out. Monty turned to greet the entrant as I began to read the card. “His name is . . .”
“Harold Wombler,” Monty gasped as if he’d been punched in the gut.
I looked up. Monty was staring at the front door, his back stiffened, every hair bristled. Even the renegade curl springing off the top of his head seemed to register offense.
He swiveled around towards me, a look of abject horror on his face. “Noooo,” he whispered hoarsely as the door swung open behind him. “Wombler?”
The shadow entered the Green Vase and stood behind Monty, blocking my view. There was an awkward silence broken only by the barely perceptible thud of Isabella’s nimble feet hitting the floor in front of the bookcase. A moment later, I saw her silently circling the group, carefully studying the visitor.
Harold Wombler cleared his throat, this time channeling a clogged up carburetor. A pale look of dread iced down Monty’s face. I sprung forward and vaulted around the frozen Monty to greet the contractor.
“Hello, you must be Mr. Wombler,” I said, holding out my hand to the man standing in the doorway.
Harold Wombler nodded, pressing his crinkly, cracked lips firmly together.
He was a middle-aged, smaller-framed man wearing a pair of oversized overalls that looked like they’d been shredded through a lawn mower. I tried not to look too closely at the gaping holes, desperately afraid of what he might, or might not, be wearing underneath. A dingy, frayed baseball cap with an illegible message on the front covered most of his course, greasy black hair. Bushy tufts protruded from each nostril.
Monty had turned to face Harold and was now standing behind me; I could hear his teeth grinding in my right ear.
Harold finally met my extended hand and weakly engaged me in one of the most disconcerting handshakes I have ever experienced.
Harold’s skin hung loosely over his entire body, as if he had recently lost a vast amount of weight. Big, hollow jowls of dermis hung from his sunken cheeks. He looked like a chipmunk that had been flattened by a steamroller and only partially re-inflated. The skin on Harold’s hands was just as flaccid. It rolled beneath my fingers as I tried to grip his hand.
Harold nodded in Monty’s direction. “Carmichael.”
“Wombler,” Monty croaked, disbelievingly.
I stepped back as the two glared at each other. Monty’s fingers fidgeted with his bow and arrow (“I Left My Heart in San Francisco”) cufflinks as if he might pluck them out of his sleeves and chuck them at Harold. For his part, Harold had placed one of his wrinkled hands on a hammer attached to a tool belt slung loosely across his narrow hips. He palmed it like a pistol as his shiny, black eyes stared seethingly at Monty.
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