Scarborough Fair and Other Stories (5 page)

“No, nothing. And everyone has been looking out for us. Susan, Diane, Drew, Debbie and Dennis, Janice and Theresa, Mary and Michael Ann. Even Steinway barks very fiercely if he sees anything suspcious.”

She was referring to Mary's and Michael Ann's dog next door. “Steinway must have a really suspicious mind then,” Mustard said. “He barks at everything all the time.”

“No, I think he's trying very hard to help. Merlin is very scared.” Merlin was the black feline in charge of Mary and Michael Ann and Steinway and Chopin, the junior cat of the house.

“Hmm. Merlin never struck me as a scaredycat. Maybe I should go have a word with him.”

“Yeah, okay. I gotta jump now. The old girl is coming.”

“Who is it?” the old girl's voice demanded in a growl. “Who's out there and who were you talking to, you little ...”

“Lay off her and pick on someone your own size,” Mustard growled back through the door.

“What the...?
Mud Turd?
Is that
you
? You're dead, ashes, gone, kaput and you can't have the warm place on the video back. It's mine forever now.”

The thump of paws came from inside and he could see through the lace curtain across the glass door panel that she had hopped up on a high shelf so she could, as usual, look down on him. He glared back up at her and shouted, “Yeah, sure, until you eat the wrong thing and end up with the grandfather of all belly aches and writhe in agony till you're a ghost too, just like me and good old Blackie.”

“A ghost?” she leaned so far forward she fell off the shelf. He heard the kitten titter from somewhere high and the sound of a cat giving herself a brisk shake before coming to the closed catflap to sniff. “There's no such thing as cat ghosts.”

“Oh, that's rich. A cat who doesn't believe in ghosts. Well, there are, and I've seen them. I R them in fact. And like it or not, you too can be in the same situation if you don't stop bullying and try to help out here. Do you know what killed me? How I died? Or what got Blackie?”

“Of course not. Can I help it if the dumb beasts around here eat any poison thing they come across? I survived loose in the neighborhood for two years on my own after those
people
went off and left me when I was only a little kitten, no bigger than Miss Burnt Poptart, here...”

“Yeah, yeah, we all know how tough it was for you out in the neighborhood, taking handouts...”

“Hey, smart guy. You asked. I'm trying to tell you. The point is, in my two years I made the rounds of all the neighbors and I tell you, there's not one of them, not even one of the kids, who would hurt a cat. In this neighborhood, kids and dogs are brought up to have the proper adoration for our sort. I could have had a real home any time I wanted but I didn't want any of them. I wanted my house back and the minute I asked Susan, she displaced all of you who came with her from her old house and invited me in. She
knew
this was
my
home.”

“Sure it was, old girl,” Mustard said with a comforting purr this time. She was right of course. The only people who had changed houses since the time the old girl was on the streets were the renters in the back, and they had been there a good year and a half and were wonderful people who loved cats. “Thanks. But listen, I know you want to be top and only but I gotta tell you, the other side, over here where us ghosts are, it's not what you think it's going to be. I miss you and the kid too...”

There was a huff of air as she sank to her chest onto the floor and she said grudgingly, “Yeah, I miss that terrified look on your yellow face when I chased you, and watching you stand on your hind feet to stretch. How in the world did you
do
that anyway?”

He didn't answer but just said, “I'll be back. Just take care of the kid, you hear me? Remember too that she's going to be a strong young adult by the time Susan brings in the next strays and you may need someone to protect
you
. It's never too late, old girl.”

“Shove it, Mud Turd,” she growled, but softly, regretfully. “It's dull around here without you. You're coming back, you say?”

“At least for a little bit. I have to figure this out. The kid thinks Steinway and Merlin might have seen something.”

“I'm sorry I can't tell you more about Blackie. One minute I see him out rolling around like an idiot on the picnic table, the next thing I know the big galoot can hardly talk for the sores in his mouth...”

That was how it started with Mustard, he realized, though he hadn't known what was happening to him at the time. He tried to remember just when he had begun to feel uncomfortable but the whole experience was blurred by the fact that he had slept through as much of it as he could manage. He left the old girl to ruminate and sauntered next door to see Merlin and Steinway of course, who barked his few brains out when he saw Mustard.

“Cat Ghost at two o'clock!” he yelled. “Cat ghost! Cat ghost!”

Mustard put his face right up to the fence and spat his nastiest at the bouncing, barking black lab, who backed off, hunkered down and whined.

“Nice dog,” Mustard said. “Hi, Steinway. Good to see you again. Can we talk?”

The dog whimpered and a black cat as sleek as Blackie, though not as well formed, suddenly appeared, followed closely by a gray and white spotted longhair prancing officiously behind. “Hey, there, you. That's
our
dog. If he needs spitting at, we'll do it,” the black one said.

“Merlin!” Mustard said. “Just the guy I wanted to see.”

“So, rumors of your demise were highly exaggerated, eh?” Merlin asked. For a musicians' cat, he had a pretentious penchant for literary misquotes.

“No, I think I pretty well bought it, okay. I'm sort of—between lives at the moment, I guess. Can't seem to get on with number two until I figure out how I snuffed number one. Boston Blackie apparently died the same way.”

“Not Blackie?” Merlin asked with genuine regret. “That is one fine specimen of my particular color. Poor guy. And he was so happy yesterday, just rolling on the picnic table, purring. I think he'd just had a visitor.”

“Any idea who?” Mustard asked, looking from first one cat to the other and then to the dog, who covered his nose with his paws and whined. “Anybody unusual around?”

Steinway whined again. “You know how it is in your yard. Your mistress lets everyone walk through to get to the houses in back. Much too sloppy to keep proper surveillance on, though I try. A lot of thanks I get though. “Shut up, Steinway,” people say, and uppity neighbor cats, who ought to be dead, hissing at me.”

“You're breaking my heart,” Mustard said. “You should know most of the people who go through the yard by now. Anyone you didn't know?”

“Nope. Just the usual residents and the usual guests. Of course, I think someone may have been through as I was chowing down—even I take a break once in awhile. Because right after I got back was when I saw old Blackie rolling on his back on the picnic table.”

“Well, thanks, I guess,” Mustard told them. “I seem to recall something about the picnic table too. Guess I'd better check it out. Could be the scene of the crime.”

A recent rain had washed the table clean, but the sealant on the wood was old, and so maybe small particles of the poison might have sank into the cracks.

He trotted back to the door and asked into the room beyond. “How long ago did Blackie start getting sick?”

The old girl was just beyond the door. He could hear her scratching the bald spot on her head against the sill. “I dunno, let me see, I saw him rolling around yesterday afternoon. Susan noticed he was sick last night and took him to Tony's. Er—unless my memory fails me.”

There was the sound of light, delicate paws landing on the floor beside the door. “No, that's right, okay. I asked him when he came in what was wrong. I could tell he wasn't himself right away. He was grumpy and kind of groggy and he smelled funny.”

“Funny in what way, Kitten?” Mustard asked.

“Like that nasty stuff Susan sprinkled all over the floor at Christmas—that stuff that made you all act crazy. I was scared.”

“You're always scared—“ the old girl's growl began. At a warning hiss from Mustard she moderated it to, “or maybe I should say, overly cautious. That was nothing to be scared of. Just catnip.”

Catnip! Of course! He raced to the table and sniffed—the rain had done a good job. And there might be fine particles of nip in the cracks, but he couldn't see them. He jumped under the table and put his paws on the supports and sniffed the undersides. His lips curled at the edges. Nip yes, and another smell, a smell he had not really noticed except as one of the subtle vintage differences in ‘nip, but now that particular difference made him feel nauseous.

He streaked up the street to Diane's house, to the cabin at the back of it, the one Diane rented to Drew.

Sadie barked a warning, but Mustard ducked past her and over to a window where he scratched at the glass. No response. Then he looked through the pane. The inside of the cabin no longer contained Drew's books and bed, the little arrangements of Christmas lights he made, or Moonshadow's dishes. It was totally empty and almost odorless.

He was about to ask Sadie where his friend had gone when he heard the sound of Dr. Tony and Jeannette's van pulling into the driveway. Diane met them at the door and ushered them inside. Sadie, kept bouncing and barking.

“Shut up!” Mustard hissed. “What happened?”

“It's Moonshadow. He's been laying in the cabin for the past two days while Diane was gone.”

“Dead?”

“No, but close. Oh poor Moonshadow! He's been so lonesome since that Diane made Drew leave.”

“Why did she do that? Drew was nice.”

“I don't know. Maybe he peed on the rug.”

“Has he been around the last couple of days?” Mustard asked.

“Yes, Friday the 13th it was, day before yesterday. He came to pick up his things. I heard him yelling it through the door to Diane but she wasn't here. He petted us, gave Moonshadow some catnip, and left.”

“Catnip!” Mustard exclaimed, and bolted out of the house and back down the street again, to the front door. “Kitten! Old girl! Are you there? Where is Susan anyway?”

The kitten's voice answered in a plaintive mew. “She went to get Drew to come and stay with us while she goes to visit her friends in Copperton. She doesn't want us left alone with all this cat-killing going on.”

Mustard twined back and forth across the ridges that held the cat flap. He was agitated and had no idea what to do now. Except to say, “Look, don't either one of you let him near you. Don't eat food he puts out or touches, or even water. And don't take any catnip from him.”

“Ick,” the kitten said. “That nasty stuff. I am not one of the youth with a drug problem, Uncle Mustard. I think that stuff sucks.”

“Just keep thinking that way,” he said, noticing she was already falling into the teenaged vernacular.

He was about to run back down the road to check on Moonshadow when Susan drove up. She got out of the car on one side. Drew emerged from the other. “Thanks for coming to get me, Susan. With Diane's car broken down again, and me taking that job out of town, I had no way to get here. But it will be good to see the kitties again. I'm sure going to miss Blackie and Mus—“ he stared straight at Mustard, who walked calmly over and sat down in front of him and stared straight up at him.

“Returned to the scene of your crime, eh, murderer?” he asked, but Drew didn't understand that much. He did, however, recognize Mustard for who he was. Which was unfortunately more than Susan did.

“What's wrong? Oh, look at the pretty white cat. Hello, honey. You better be careful around here.”

White
cat? Was she nuts? He looked down at his own orange stripes and back up to her. Well, Mu Mao had said this was a second life and he wouldn't seem the same to Susan. But
white
? So impractical.

He returned his attention to his murderer, who certainly looked guilty enough. Mustard was certain that somehow Drew saw his victim for who he really was. There had always been something uncannily catlike about the big man—leonine, really. It was what the cats liked about him. Had he been a cat in his last life like Tony and Jeannette? But he was no bodhisattva, even though at one time Mustard would have said so. Drew was wonderful with animals, he had often heard Diane and Susan say. But Diane had thrown him out. And Mustard doubted it was for peeing on the rug. She must have found out something about him to make her run him off and hadn't told Susan yet. No wonder, really. Right after Susan met Drew, she and Diane had had a fight, though they'd been the best of friends for years. But why would he poison the cats? His friends? Because now Mustard was sure it was Drew who did him in. You could still smell the tainted catnip on him. Probably had a bag in his pocket to feed the old girl and kitten.

Well, no way was that man going near them! Or any other cat, or Susan, not if Mustard had his way. He did the only thing within his power and sprang for Drew's throat, biting and clawing his way up as he went while Drew swore and tried to tear him off.

“The damned thing's rabid!” Drew screamed to Susan, who tried to pull Mustard away from his murderer. “Kill it!”

“No! I have it, see?” she said, pulling Mustard spitting from his victim. “But you need a doctor.”

“No, I—“

“Don't be silly. I saw Tony's van up at Diane's. He can look at those scratches and test the cat for rabies. Just let me pop him into the carrier in the trunk. I still have it—“ her voice broke and she looked very haggard. “From taking Blackie in, you know.”

Of course, Mustard, white or not, was gentle with Susan and only hissed over his shoulder at Drew, who surprised him by sticking his tongue out at him and making a neck-breaking gesture with his big hands just before Susan tucked Mustard into the carrier.