Read Scratch the Surface Online
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
Scratch the Surface (29 page)
“Accepted,” said Valentine. “Have you remembered anything that might help us out? Come across any letters? E-MAIL? Anything?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry. Not a thing. But I did wonder about William Coates. You probably did, too.”
“In what way?”
“At the funeral, I told him that I had his father’s cats, and he was very hostile. Not just about Edith and Brigitte, but about his father. He thinks that his father cared more about the cats than he did about his son. Quinlan Coates didn’t leave his money to a cat shelter, did he? Or to—”
“His entire estate goes to Angell Memorial Hospital.”
“Animal Medical Center. It’s changed its name. Not that it matters. Well, no wonder his son is so hostile to him!” In her excitement, Felicity gripped the phone with one hand, and with the other, made a fist and shook it wildly in the air. At last, her very own detective was confiding information about the victim! At last, she and her detective were discussing a suspect!
“Quinlan Coates had planned it all out years ago. Planned giving. Angell saved the life of some cat of his a long time ago.”
“William Coates can’t have been happy to be disinherited.” Felicity was on the verge of saying that if Uncle Bob had left his money to a veterinary hospital instead of her, she’d have been furious, but the statement would have raised the best-avoided topics of Uncle Bob’s money and donations to Angell. “Did William Coates know in advance? If so, motive could go either way, you know. If he didn’t know, then his motive could’ve been to inherit, and if he did know, then his motive could’ve been revenge against his father for—”
Valentine laughed. “Ideas for your next book, huh?”
“My next book is about mercury poisoning,” she said with dignity. “And it has nothing to do with fathers and sons. Or I don’t think it does. It doesn’t yet.”
To Felicity’s disappointment, Valentine ended the conversation there. She hung up with a mild sense of insult. He had not taken her seriously! On the other hand, she had made him laugh, and that was something, wasn’t it? It was a start. Maybe the dead romance could be nursed back to life and made to blossom after all.
On to the exoneration—or exculpation?—of her unsatisfactory best friend, Ronald Gershwin. She called Newbright Books and reached Ronald, who, as if to illustrate his deficiencies as a series character, said that he was busy. Could he call her back? As usual, he made it sound as if his busyness consisted not of restocking his shelves, advising customers about books, and taking their money, but of passing along state secrets. Ronald did, of course, blab confidential information, but he gossiped about authors, agents, editors, and book deals; his knowledge of espionage came exclusively from his reading of spy novels. Still, he indulged in breaches of confidentiality. So, if he’d known the truth about Isabelle Hotchkiss, why hadn’t he tattled to Felicity?
“Are you free for dinner?” she asked.
“Thursday,” he said.
“Thursday it is.”
The phone went dead. Normal human beings didn’t just hang up on friends! At a minimum, they said good-bye. Preferably, they made excuses for ending conversations and then said good-bye.
“Therefore,” Felicity said to the cats, who were lingering in the kitchen, “Ronald is not a normal human being. Are you normal feline beings? Should I use the phrase about Morris and Tabitha? Or will the critics scratch out my eyes for being cutesy? And if so, will it be because my mother leads a secret life as an anonymous reviewer of mysteries, especially mine?”
Emboldened by her success in thus conversing with Edith and Brigitte, Felicity bent over Edith, who was rubbing against a table leg, and touched the top of Edith’s big head. It would be a good idea, wouldn’t it, to have Prissy speak to Morris and Tabitha more often than had been her habit. Also, Morris and Tabitha were perhaps hungry for affection. Prissy must remember to pat them frequently.
Felicity again sat at the table and placed a phone call, this one to Janice Mattingly, who answered immediately in a surprisingly robust voice. “I was dehydrated,” she explained. “Once they got fluids and electrolytes and whatever back into me, I felt pretty much okay. I got home last night. The stress of worrying about Dorothy-L was starting to make me sick, so the hospital let me leave. I kept thinking about what could happen to her with me gone. The neighbors know better than to let her out, but who knows? Anything could’ve happened, and she is so attached to me. And I wasn’t sure they’d give her the medication when they were supposed to, and maybe she wouldn’t swallow her pills for them, or she’d spit out her pills, and they wouldn’t notice.”
Felicity waited silently as Janice continued to voice her fears about the cat for another few minutes. When Janice paused for breath, Felicity said, “Well, I’m glad you’re doing so well. The rest of us are, too.”
“I can’t imagine what happened. Tony’s is very, very clean. Spotless. And I bought that food on Saturday afternoon. I have to wonder whether we didn’t all have a stomach virus, something that was transmitted very quickly. I did notice that Jim looked a little under the weather. Did you notice?”
Eager to postpone the confrontation, Felicity said, “I didn’t notice that, but maybe he did. Anyway, we’ve all recovered. But the reason I called, besides wanting to know how you were doing, is that I’ve finally had time to read your book.”
She let the silence hang. Having published numerous books herself, she was familiar with the sensations an author experiences when someone says, “I read your book,” and then fails to add, “And I loved it” or “It was wonderful!” or even “It was interesting.”
Finally, she said, “I owe you an apology for neglecting you. And your book. I was just overwhelmed with work. Anyway, now that I’ve read it, I wonder whether we could get together to talk about how I can help you to promote it. I thought you might want to come and have dinner with me. But maybe you’re not well enough yet.”
“I’m well enough.” Janice said. “I can’t eat much, but who cares? I’m practically back to normal. Tonight?”
“Let’s keep it early. Six-thirty? Do you need directions?”
“No, I’ve been there for board meetings, remember? And when Sonya and I dropped you off after the funeral.”
“Of course,” said Felicity. “After the funeral.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
Out of consideration
for Janice’s traumatized digestive system as well as her own, Felicity planned a bland meal of roast chicken, steamed rice, and green beans, the ingredients for which she had on hand. She then turned to planning the Prissy LaChatte mystery to be written after the one now in progress. The motive and the opportunity for the murder were marinating to her satisfaction, but the means she’d chosen, mercury poisoning, was proving troublesome, and if she substituted some other toxin, it might prove incompatible with the motive and the opportunity.
for Janice’s traumatized digestive system as well as her own, Felicity planned a bland meal of roast chicken, steamed rice, and green beans, the ingredients for which she had on hand. She then turned to planning the Prissy LaChatte mystery to be written after the one now in progress. The motive and the opportunity for the murder were marinating to her satisfaction, but the means she’d chosen, mercury poisoning, was proving troublesome, and if she substituted some other toxin, it might prove incompatible with the motive and the opportunity.
She had originally been drawn to mercury in part because of its ready availability. It was in old-fashioned glass thermometers, fluorescent light bulbs, thermostat probes in gas ranges, and dental amalgam. Felicity preferred not to make the murderer a dentist, but perhaps the villain could remove the fillings from his own teeth. So, mercury was ubiquitous. But what kind of mercury? The elemental mercury in fever thermometers was far less toxic than she had hoped; contrary to a widely quoted claim, the one-half or one gram of mercury found in a glass thermometer was not enough to contaminate a twenty-acre lake. Damn!
What she needed was the kind of soluble mercury that descended to the earth in rain and was converted to methylmercury, which ended up in fish and, eventually, in the bodies of people who ate fish, especially big ocean species like tuna and swordfish. How many tuna sandwiches would the murderer have to feed to the victim to achieve a fatal result? And what did mercury taste like, anyway? She wasn’t eager to experiment on herself. But the ideal form was dimethlymercury, which didn’t pose the literary risk of leaving the victim stricken but alive; a drop or two on the skin was deadly. Unfortunately, the compound was used only in chemical analyses and wasn’t sitting around where her murderer or any of her red herrings could get hold of it. Furthermore, it was so dangerous that it would be difficult for her to do in the victim while keeping the murderer alive for Prissy to bring to justice. Damn, damn, damn!
When Janice arrived at six-thirty, Felicity was setting the kitchen table and still fretting about the technical challenges posed by mercury. The rotten stuff! Well, at least she wasn’t making tuna or swordfish for dinner. She had taken a short break from the irksome toxin problem to glance through the manuscript of Janice’s book,
Tailspin
. The protagonist was a man in his fifties. A journalist, he had ruined a successful career by drinking and was now a teetotaler. His two Abyssinian cats were not named Koko and Yum Yum; they were called Louis and Murphy.
Tailspin
. The protagonist was a man in his fifties. A journalist, he had ruined a successful career by drinking and was now a teetotaler. His two Abyssinian cats were not named Koko and Yum Yum; they were called Louis and Murphy.
She knew that Janice had arrived before the doorbell rang. The luxury vehicles driven by the residents of Newton Park were almost silent. Hearing a noisy engine and the shotgun sound of backfiring, she looked out the window and saw that Janice was making the mistake of parking her mud-colored clunker with its wheels on the Trotskys’ lawn. Consequently, she hurried out the back door and down the driveway while waving a hand to get Janice’s attention.
Opening her car door, Janice stepped out and returned the wave. “I’m so glad to see you, too, Felicity!”
Felicity made a quick recovery. “I’m glad you’re well enough to be here. Maybe you could move your car to my driveway?” Lowering her voice, she said, “The man who lives in that house has some silly notion that the street is his property.”
Janice returned to the driver’s seat and, after struggling to start her car, moved it as Felicity had requested. As Felicity headed toward the back door, Janice said, “Is this where you found the body?”
“No. The body was at the front door.”
“Could we go that way? It’s terribly important, I think, to view real crime scenes.”
“There’s nothing to view. Everything has been cleaned up. And I don’t have the key to the front door with me.”
“Maybe later? Atmosphere is crucial, isn’t it?”
“You’re welcome to soak it up whenever you want, but let’s go in this way.”
When the two women had climbed the half flight of stairs to the kitchen, Felicity took a good look at Janice and realized that she was still showing the effects of the food poisoning. Her chalky-white complexion was even paler than usual, and her crimson lipstick looked like blood applied with a brush. Her hair was lank, there were dark circles under her eyes, and her eyelids drooped.
“Let me take your coat. Have a seat,” said Felicity. “You must be exhausted.”
Janice hung her purse, a large handwoven sack, on the back of a chair and removed a red woolen cloak embroidered with colorful stick figures. Underneath she wore chino pants and a thick greenish-yellow sweater that smelled vaguely of animals. Goats? Felicity wondered. Or some more exotic species? Yak or llama, perhaps.
“I’m still a little bit weak.” Janice seated herself at the table.
“A drink? Scotch? Wine? Or maybe you’re not ready for that yet. Ginger ale? Spring water?”
“Ginger ale would be good. With the bubbles stirred out, please.”
As Felicity was pouring ginger ale for herself and her guest, Brigitte flitted into the room, scampered to the table, and jumped onto it.
“What a beautiful pussycat!” Janice exclaimed. “Here, Miss Pussycat!” She smacked her lips and tapped her fingernails on the tabletop. Brigitte moved toward her. “What gorgeous eyes she has. Golden! Felicity, this cat is to die for. And she’s young. She really is just a little baby kitten, isn’t she? Aren’t you lucky! Dorothy-L is fourteen, which isn’t all that terribly old for a cat these days, but it isn’t young. I’ve practically forgotten what it’s like to have a young, healthy kitty like this one.”
Brigitte, having moved toward Janice, sauntered to the opposite end of the table, where she sat on her haunches next to a dinner plate and fixed her amber eyes on the new-comer.
Addressing her, Janice cooed, “Aren’t you a lucky baby girl to be allowed on the table! Not all kitty cats are so spoiled, you know.” As Felicity handed her a glass of ginger ale and seated herself at the table, Janice returned to her normal tone of voice. “Felicity, was Morris allowed on tables? Your own Morris, I mean, not the one you write about, not that there’s all that much difference, is there!”
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