Scratch the Surface (8 page)
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
“Your mother.”
“My mother is little and old, and she hardly ever leaves the house. She couldn’t have killed that man. And she couldn’t have moved his body.”
“Maybe your sister helped her.”
“Neither one of them would’ve touched the cat. And they’re not the perfect relatives, but they’re not murderers.”
“They resent your inheritance.”
“They were horrible to Bob and Thelma. I was nice. There’s no more to it.” Raising her glass, she paused for a moment. Ronald avoided the usual toasts to health and friends in favor of book titles. Felicity had picked up the custom.
“Living Well Is the Best Revenge,”
she said.
“Living Well Is the Best Revenge,”
she said.
Ronald took a sip of wine. “
Mommy Dearest
. Do you have any idea where he is?”
Mommy Dearest
. Do you have any idea where he is?”
“My mother is admittedly toxic, but she
is
female.”
is
female.”
“The cat. Have you looked for him?”
“First of all, I have to remind you that I am the one who rescued the cat, so please stop making that face, as if I disliked cats. He was in the vestibule with the man. I told you this on the phone. Whoever left the body in my vestibule deliberately left the cat there, too. And when I made the mistake of getting my neighbors, the Wangs, Mr. Wang was horrible to the cat, so I picked him up, the cat, obviously, and carried him around to the back door and brought him inside. But then he took off. I put out tuna, and I called him, but I haven’t seen him since I found him under a bed upstairs. Isn’t that where cats always go?”
Ronald drank some wine and then evidently reached a decision about the cat toys he’d been examining. After picking up a long rod with feathers and jingle bells fastened to one end, he rose and said, “Let’s go see.”
The grand scale of Uncle Bob and Aunt Thelma’s house made the search for the cat a challenging task. Felicity was sure that the animal hadn’t gone down the stairs that led to the back door and to what Felicity persisted in thinking of as the basement even though the space contained a family room, a big exercise room, the little wine cellar, and other finished rooms. The upper floors, however, offered countless hiding places. Although Felicity used only the master bedroom suite, which had a dressing room and a luxurious bathroom, she kept the doors to the other five bedrooms open, mainly to remind herself that she wasn’t living in a hotel. And, as Ronald pointed out, the cat wasn’t necessarily still in the same place.
“Cats hide under beds!” Felicity insisted when Ronald got down on his belly to peer under the living room furniture.
“Cats hide,” Ronald said. “That much is true. He isn’t here.”
“Well, I’m going upstairs where he was before. You can waste your time here if you want, but I’m telling you, Ronald, that’s exactly what you’re doing.”
Felicity headed upstairs, and Ronald indulged her by following. In each of the five unoccupied bedrooms, he silently lowered himself to the floor and, raising the bed skirts in which Thelma had dressed the beds, searched in vain for the cat. It was only when Ronald had stuck his head under Felicity’s king-size bed that he tapped a finger against his lips and mimed the instruction to her to close all the doors in the room. He raised the blue-and-white bed skirt, eased the feather-and-bell toy under the bed, and moved it slowly back and forth, in and out. Just as Felicity was on the verge of ordering him to crawl under the damn bed and grab the cat, a large paw shot out. And shot in again. It took Ronald a full five minutes of coaxing and luring to persuade the cat to emerge. Once Ronald was sitting on the floor holding it firmly his arms, Felicity’s impatience and irritation turned to satisfaction: Exactly as she had told Ronald, the cat had been under a bed, and not just any bed, either, but
her
bed. She felt proud and flattered that it had moved to her room. She also felt resentful that it was Ronald who was holding the cat.
her
bed. She felt proud and flattered that it had moved to her room. She also felt resentful that it was Ronald who was holding the cat.
“This is a magnificent cat,” Ronald said. “I wonder what she is. We’ll have to look her up. Russian Blue?”
“Oh, I think she’s a beautiful gray alley cat,” said Felicity with an effort to place no emphasis on the
she
.
she
.
“She is a she.” Ronald now had the cat on her back and was stroking her chest. “Mature but still young. Clean teeth. No fleas. On the heavy side but not obese. She’s in good condition. Did you notice her eyes?”
“Of course! They look like pieces of amber. How could I not notice them? They’re incredible.”
“The pupils are dilated.”
“Oh, I think that’s how they’re supposed to be.”
“Dilated? I wonder if she’s been drugged. She’s awfully calm. Mellow.”
“Drugged by the murderer! He drugged the cat and slaughtered the man. Maybe he drugged the man, too. Before he killed him. And left them both for me.”
“The whole business might have nothing to do with you, Felicity. You haven’t been here long. Maybe it has to do with your uncle and aunt.”
“Nonsense. Why would anyone leave a body and a cat for them?”
“Why would anyone leave them for you?”
“Because of my books!”
Ronald smiled and shook his head. “Authors,” he said. “Well, I’d better be going. Could you get the carrier? It’s in the kitchen.”
“What for?”
“To carry the cat.”
“Where?”
“Home.”
“Oh, no! Ronald, that cat is staying with me. He . . . she is evidence in a murder. She was left for me. She is staying here. We’re going to get her settled in one of my guest rooms with her litter box and lots of food, and she’s going to learn that she is perfectly safe now.” Reaching down, she tentatively stroked the top of the cat’s head. The cat silently watched her.
Acting on her plan, Felicity left Ronald and the cat in her room and transferred the litter box, cat food, and water bowl to the largest of the unoccupied bedrooms, which were not, properly speaking, guest rooms, since Felicity hated having houseguests and never invited anyone to stay with her. Aspiring mystery writers on do-it-yourself book tours were always eager to avoid the cost of hotels by staying with fellow mystery writers, many of whom were happy to accommodate the out-of-towners, who, in turn, were happy to reciprocate when their hosts traveled. Felicity had always managed to weasel out of offering hospitality to these visitors and had no desire to camp out in other people’s houses in strange cities. The cat, however, wouldn’t expect her to cook breakfast or recommend it to her literary agent and could be counted on never to expect her to sleep on a foldout couch or on some makeshift bed in a messy sewing room or office.
When Ronald had carried the cat to its new room, he and Felicity returned to the kitchen, where Ronald finished his glass of wine and, as an obvious afterthought, presented Felicity with a small supply of Valium, a gift that she assured herself was the American equivalent of those British cups of sugary tea.
Before leaving, he also reminded her to activate her alarm system. “And if your password is
Morris, Tabitha, Prissy,
or
LaChatte,
” he said, “change it.”
Morris, Tabitha, Prissy,
or
LaChatte,
” he said, “change it.”
She’d intended to replace Uncle Bob’s password with
Morris
.
Morris
.
“Ronald, I know better than that.”
She walked Ronald to his car, in part to assure the police that she had survived her encounter with this suspicious-looking character—not that the police seemed to care—and in part to see whether they were leaving soon. The investigators of a murder couldn’t exactly be called guests. Even so, it seemed to Felicity that they were overstaying their welcome. When she invited people to dinner, she expected them to finish dessert, converse a bit over coffee, and go home so that she could go to sleep. Like after-dinner lingerers, the police, she feared, might continue to hang around well past her bedtime. How many photographs were really necessary? How long could it possibly take to gather trace evidence and to dust for fingerprints in one small vestibule? As it turned out, the police were, in fact, about to depart for the evening but would return in the morning to search the neighborhood by daylight. To Felicity’s disappointment, Dave Valentine had left without saying good-bye to her, cautioning her to lock up carefully, or otherwise expressing any concern for her or her safety. Having studied hundreds, perhaps thousands, of accounts of police procedure in English villages, she knew better than to expect a policeman to be stationed protectively in her kitchen all night; such special treatment was inevitably reserved for the aristocracy and for friends and relatives of the chief constable. Consequently, she was surprised to learn that a cruiser would remain in Newton Park. She didn’t actually feel threatened: If the murderer had wanted to kill her, she’d be dead by now, wouldn’t she? Still, she appreciated what she took to be the show of attention.
Comforted by a sense of being looked after, she returned to her house, went to bed, fell asleep after only two pages of the new P. D. James, and dreamed neither of London and Dalgleish nor of vestibules and gray men but of the Highland Games and Dave Valentine, who wore his kilt and tossed the caber.
TEN
One male had
come and gone. Another had arrived and, with him, the odor of food, both wet and dry. Still, Edith remained under the bed. Better safe than satiated. When the feathers and bell appeared, Edith was hip to the ploy, but prey drive triumphed, and Edith was nabbed. Now, under this new bed, she licks her paws as if she were smoothing ruffled feathers, as, in a sense, she is.
come and gone. Another had arrived and, with him, the odor of food, both wet and dry. Still, Edith remained under the bed. Better safe than satiated. When the feathers and bell appeared, Edith was hip to the ploy, but prey drive triumphed, and Edith was nabbed. Now, under this new bed, she licks her paws as if she were smoothing ruffled feathers, as, in a sense, she is.
ELEVEN
Felicity allowed nothing
to come between her and her commitment to regular grooming. At nine o’clock on Tuesday morning, she kept her appointment with Naomi, to whom she related the entire story of the small gray man and the large gray cat, including her tumble down the front steps; her rage at the perfidy of Mr. Wang; her rescue of the cat; her medicinal consumption of Uncle Bob’s single malt scotch; her embarrassment at the reek of fish; and her memory of the caber tossing at the Highland Games and of the kilted Dave Valentine’s oaklike legs. “Scots are famous for having knobby knees,” she told Naomi, “but his aren’t. They’re all muscle.”
to come between her and her commitment to regular grooming. At nine o’clock on Tuesday morning, she kept her appointment with Naomi, to whom she related the entire story of the small gray man and the large gray cat, including her tumble down the front steps; her rage at the perfidy of Mr. Wang; her rescue of the cat; her medicinal consumption of Uncle Bob’s single malt scotch; her embarrassment at the reek of fish; and her memory of the caber tossing at the Highland Games and of the kilted Dave Valentine’s oaklike legs. “Scots are famous for having knobby knees,” she told Naomi, “but his aren’t. They’re all muscle.”
In telling the story to Naomi, Felicity was aware of whipping off a rough draft that would be revised and edited before the police gave her permission to present it to newspaper, television, and radio reporters, her fellow mystery writers, and others in a position to distribute it to the mass market. Dave Valentine’s knees would suffer deletion, and the nameless little man would move from the background to the foreground. It now seemed to Felicity that in responding to Valentine’s questions, she had senselessly limited herself to a dreary recitation of facts and had underemphasized her observations of the body. In mystery writing, it was an old saw that no one cared about the corpse. The same couldn’t be true of the police, could it? If so, why had there been no urgent message on her answering machine this morning, no plea for details she might have forgotten the previous evening, no request for her thoughts about means, motive, and opportunity? When she’d left for the salon, the police had been searching her yard and the surrounding area, but Valentine hadn’t been there, and those present had merely nodded to her. Novels, she reflected, were far more satisfying than was real life, especially the novels she wrote herself. If she were working from one of her own outlines, for example, she’d know why Mrs. Valentine had abandoned Prissy and the irresistible Morris and Tabitha.
“Felicity,” Naomi demanded, “are you with us this morning? Your eyes are glassing over.” Painting a foil-encased strand of Felicity’s hair with chemicals, she added, “You haven’t gone and caught something from that stray cat, have you?”
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