Scratch the Surface (17 page)

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Authors: Susan Conant

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths, #Detective and mystery stories, #Detective and mystery stories - Authorship, #Cats, #Mystery fiction, #Apartment houses, #Women novelists

BOOK: Scratch the Surface
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“Do you remember that woman who shot her husband and threw him over the bridge? You and Angie and I followed that in the papers. It went on for weeks. She and her boyfriend killed the husband. What was her name? Nancy? And the boyfriend was ten years younger than she was. She shot her husband in the head, but he didn’t die right away, so she called the boyfriend to finish him off and help her get rid of the body.”
“Could I have a cup of coffee?” Felicity asked. “Do you want one?”
“Help yourself. Nothing for me. I had a nice poached egg for lunch. You know, Felicity, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. This review you sent me? Of your book?”
“Yes?”
“There’s something I don’t understand.”
“Yes?”
“It says here you’re funny.”
“What do reviewers know?” Felicity moved to the small kitchen, which was separated from the living room by a divider. She put the kettle on and got out instant coffee, sugar, milk, and a cup and saucer. Her mother disapproved of mugs. As she fixed coffee for herself, her mother reminisced about other murders that the family had enjoyed following in the papers throughout Felicity’s childhood: husbands who had hired thugs to brain wayward wives with baseball bats, doctors and nurses who had habitually done in patients, mothers who had drowned their children in bathtubs.
Returning to the living room and taking a seat, Felicity said, “I’ve wondered whether the body was left at my house by mistake. It’s occurred to me that maybe someone didn’t know about Bob and Thelma and thought that Uncle Bob still lived there.”
“Why would someone dump a body at Bob’s doorstep?”
“Why would someone dump a body at mine?”
“You’ll know more about that than I will. I’ve never believed in interfering in my children’s lives.”
“I don’t know a thing about it. That’s why I’m wondering about Uncle Bob.”
Mary put her hands on the arms of the recliner and leaned forward. “My brother was a fine man until Thelma got her clutches in him. She could see he was going places, and she set her cap for him. She was always greedy, Thelma was. A sly one, that’s what she was. Did I ever tell you what she did when my mother died?”
Ten thousand times
. But having diverted her mother from sensational murder cases to Bob and Thelma, she said, “What was that?”
“She stole my mother’s jewelry right off her body! After the funeral, right after, she went to the undertaker and got him to give it to her. My mother’s opal ring and her gold chain. Of course, I don’t believe in an open casket myself, but I had no say in it, and look how it ended up!”
“A new argument for closed caskets. Worried about the family kleptomaniac? Shut that lid!”
“What was that, Felicity?”
“Nothing. Look, Mother, this business of the murder and Uncle Bob. I know you thought a lot of him before Thelma came along, but was there anything not quite on the up and up in his past? Anything that would lead anyone to . . . I don’t know. Anything I might not know about?”
Mary closed her mouth and locked her jaw. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“A family secret.”
“In our family?”
“In our family. About Uncle Bob.”
“You know, Felicity, the Depression was a terrible time for men. It’s hard for a man to worry about not having a job.”
And easy for a woman
. “So, Uncle Bob worried?”
“There’s no real harm in rum-running. A lot of people did it.”
“He was a bootlegger? Uncle Bob?”
“Not a bootlegger, really. No. He just had friends at Seabrook Beach. It wasn’t
bootlegging
. It was just rum-running. He wasn’t much more than a boy, anyway. That’s how he got started in the liquor business.”
“Mother, rum-running
is
bootlegging.”
“It was a long time ago. And he gave it up, after all.”
“Of course he gave it up! Prohibition ended!”
Mary laughed hoarsely. “It wasn’t very profitable afterwards, was it? Hah! It wasn’t very profitable after that!”
TWENTY-TWO
Felicity arrived home
to find a message on her answering machine from a neighbor named Loretta who more or less ran the condo association. Loretta was a single mother with two young children fathered by two different men, neither of whom Loretta had married. As far as Felicity could tell, Loretta had somehow managed to grow up in the United States and reach the age of thirty or thereabouts without encountering the notion that society expected women to marry before having babies and frowned on those who violated the expectation. Loretta didn’t seem to defy the rules, nor did she seem to have liberated herself from them; she seemed not to realize that they existed.
What puzzled Felicity and the other residents of Newton Park was not, however, Loretta’s startling openness about having given out-of-wedlock birth to two children with two different fathers. Rather, the mystery about Loretta was the source of her apparently boundless wealth. Frugality was anything but the norm in Newton Park, but even by the extravagant standards of the neighborhood, Loretta threw away money with abandon. Although her house had been brand new when she’d bought it, she’d immediately redone the entire kitchen. Dissatisfied with the result, she’d then had the second new kitchen torn out and a third one installed. When she’d decided that the medium beige of her house was a bit more yellow than she liked, she’d had it repainted in a shade indistinguishable from the original. She clearly had a job: She left the house early every morning and returned home in the evening, and her children were known to attend an expensive day care center. She was rumored to do something with computers, but it was hard to imagine what she could possibly do to earn what she spent.
In any case, she generously hosted meetings of the condo association and dealt with neighborhood matters. According to her message, the Norwood Hill Neighborhood Association had sent a letter complaining about traffic, and Mr. Trotsky had lodged a formal objection to the presence of a cat in Felicity’s house. “Don’t worry about the cat!” Loretta said in her little-girl voice. “No one else minds! Just come to the meeting!”
Felicity had just finished listening to Loretta’s message when she got a call from Ursula Novack, Edith and Brigitte’s breeder. “I mainly wanted to hear how the girls are doing,” she said.
“Fine. Splendidly, in fact,” said Felicity, who hadn’t seen either cat since returning home from her mother’s.
“Excellent. Any news about Quin?”
“Nothing. Not that I’ve heard.”
“Too bad. Oh, there’s something I forgot to tell you. Two things. First of all, Quin used Angell, so all the vet records are there. You know Angell?”
Boston’s Angell Memorial Animal Hospital was so famous that even Felicity had heard of it. “Of course.”
“And the other thing is that Edith is a blood donor there. You don’t have to keep that up if you don’t want to, but it’s a good thing to do. There’s always a great need for blood, and Edith is
so
suitable.”
It had never before occurred to Felicity that cats had blood, never mind donated it or needed transfusions. “Suitable,” she repeated.
“Because of her size. They have to be over ten pounds. Brigitte is too small. Also, Edith is so mellow. And she’s young and healthy. You’d just have to drop her off there and pick her up every so often, and you get free exams and shots. But it’s up to you.”
“I’ll think about it,” Felicity promised.
True to her word, as she sautéed chicken breasts and steamed fresh asparagus for her dinner, she mulled over the possible consequences to a cat that received Edith’s blood. Would the animal vanish under a bed and remain there forever? But Edith was shy, she reminded herself. Cats could be shy. Edith was. As if to prove that she was anything but shy, Brigitte ran into the kitchen, jumped up onto the counter, and strolled along it. Instead of shooing her off, Felicity dared to run her hand all the way from Brigitte’s head to the base of her tail. In response, the silky little cat rubbed her head against Felicity’s hand. In gratitude, Felicity cut off a small piece of chicken breast, minced it, placed it in a saucer, and offered it to Brigitte, but after a sniff of curiosity, Brigitte darted to the bowl of dry cat food and ate hungrily. Instead of reading or listening to the radio over dinner, Felicity watched the cat, who brazenly jumped onto the table, but didn’t try to eat off Felicity’s plate. Felicity pondered the possibility of speaking to Brigitte but decided that in real life, conversing with cats was a sign of serious eccentricity if not outright madness. Still, despite the lack of conversation, Brigitte hung around, and although Felicity did not admit it to herself, she enjoyed the companionship.
Indeed, many a sensible person would have preferred the company of the cat to the company afforded by the residents of Newton Park present at the condo association meeting. The first time Felicity had attended one of the meetings, she had made the mistake of assuming that it would be a social occasion or one that would combine the business of condo affairs with the pleasures of socializing. Expecting to meet her new neighbors over coffee and dessert, Felicity had turned up at Loretta’s with a contribution: a box of pastries from Rosie’s Bakery. Neither food nor drink had been offered at the meeting, and Felicity had tried to pretend that the pastries were a hostess gift for Loretta. Tonight, she walked empty-handed to Loretta’s, which was at the far end of Newton Park, near the Brighton entrance. Six or eight large cars were parked in the street. Had the murder made her neighbors afraid to go out at night? It was only seven o’clock. Felicity hadn’t considered driving.
Although Thanksgiving was three weeks away, next to the front door of Loretta’s house sat a large basket in the form of a cornucopia. Artfully arranged as if spilling from the cornucopia were gourds, Indian corn, pots of purple mums, and other inedible objects symbolic of a bounteous harvest. Felicity rang the bell. Before the door opened, she heard the clicking of several locks.
“Felicia, isn’t it?” Loretta greeted her. “Come in. Half the people aren’t here yet.” Loretta had masses of dark curls and wore heavy eye makeup.
“Felicity, actually.”
“Felicity. Sorry. Felicity. I’ll remember next time. This shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes.”
How had Loretta managed to call her a few hours ago and forget her name in the intervening time? “It’s very nice of you to have the meeting here, Lucille,” she said.
“Who’s Lucille?”
“Loretta. Sorry.”
“I have to tell you,” Loretta said, “that we’ve been driven crazy by the police. Everyone’s been questioned, and our yards have been searched. But we’re not going to waste time going over that. We just have to settle the business about your cat and decide what to do about this nasty letter.”
Felicity followed Loretta into the living room, which had off-white walls, off-white carpeting, and off-white furniture that provided ample seating. Ten or twelve people were gathered there. There was no food or drink in sight. The fireplace contained an oversized vase heavily decorated with gilded cherubim.
“Hi. Sorry if I’m late,” said Felicity, who was exactly on time.
Loretta left to answer the doorbell.
Zora Wang smiled at Felicity and said, “Any more murder?”
“What?”
Zora laughed and repeated her question. “Any more murder? Joke! Any more murder?”
“No, no more murders,” said Felicity.
Loretta returned with Mr. and Mrs. Trotsky, Brooke and her husband, and a man named Omar. “Let’s get started,” she said. “This should take no time. Everyone should have a copy of the letter from the Norwood Hill Neighborhood Association. They’re on the table. Take one if you don’t have one already.”
Felicity took a copy of the letter and seated herself next to Zora Wang, who had at least tried to act friendly. “Tom isn’t coming?”
“Work. Work all the time,” Zora said.
“Could we pay attention to business?” Mr. Trotsky said. “We have a no-pet clause. Cats are pets. No cats allowed.”
“That clause is there in case anyone gets a dog that becomes a nuisance,” Brooke informed him. “So we could do something if a dog barked all the time. Or ran loose and bothered us.” Brooke looked even more silvery and showy than usual. Her platinum hair and fingernails matched.

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