The Whole Cat and Caboodle: Second Chance Cat Mystery (7 page)

I couldn’t help smiling at the sound of her voice. “Hi, Gram,” I said, “How was your day?”

“Wonderful. I had the best blueberry pancakes I’ve ever eaten. I wish you’d been here.”

“I wish I were there, too,” I said, tucking my feet up underneath me.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

I took the elastic out of my hair and shook out the braid. “How do you do that?” I said.

“Grandmother’s intuition,” she said. “What is it?”

I sighed, softly. “It’s not me. It’s . . . do you know Maddie’s gentleman friend?”

“Arthur,” she said. “I’ve met him twice, I think.” I could hear the caution mixed with curiosity in her voice.

“I’m sorry, Gram,” I said. “He’s dead.”

“Oh, my word,” she said. “Poor Maddie.” I heard her turn to John and repeat what I’d just said. “What happened?” she asked when she came back to the phone. “Was it an accident? Did he have a heart attack?”

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly and gave her the short version of what had happened. About halfway through my explanation Elvis wandered in, jumped up on my lap and laid his head on my chest as though he was listening to me breathing.

“Are you all right?” Gram asked.

“I am,” I said. Just talking to her made me feel better. “And Maddie is with Charlotte.”

“What can I do?” I could hear her moving around and guessed that she was looking for a piece of paper and something to write with. That was Gram. Whenever something was wrong the first thing she did was look for a pencil and make a list.

I put one arm around Elvis and stretched out my legs. He tipped his head and his green eyes looked up at me. I started to stroke his fur and he closed them and began to purr. “There really isn’t anything you can do,” I said. “Maybe you could call Maddie. She’d probably love to talk to you.”

“Okay, I’ll do that,” Gram said. “Now what can I do for you?”

“You’ve already done it,” I said.

“Anytime, sweet girl,” she said. I could feel the warmth of her smile coming through the phone somehow. “So, tell me how the workshop went?”

“It went very well.” Elvis was purring so loudly I was surprised Gram couldn’t hear him through the receiver. “I could have done without seeing Mr. Peterson naked, though.”

For a moment there was nothing but silence. “Naked?” Gram finally managed to choke out. “Alf was . . . naked?”

“As the day he was born.”

“Did he have some kind of breakdown or a stroke?”

I laughed. “No. It’s a long story, but there was an art class in the room next door. Mr. Peterson was the model but he got the dress code and the room wrong.”

“Oh, sweet girl, that would be enough to put a person off their food,” she said. “No offense to Alf.”

“Mr. P. doesn’t strike me as the type of person who takes offense that easily,” I said. “And it would take a lot more than the sight of his wrinkly backside to get rid of my appetite.”

She laughed. “I miss you,” she said.

“I miss you, too,” I said. “Tell me more about your day.”

Elvis suddenly lifted his head and licked the edge of the telephone receiver.

“And Elvis just sent you a kiss.”

“Give him one from me.”

I spent the next five minutes hearing about Gram and John’s adventures along the coast of Nova Scotia. When I hung up I was still hungry, but not nearly as lonely.

I’d come to North Harbor to figure out what I was going to do next after my job had disappeared. I’d spent a week with my mom and dad, mostly feeling restless and out of sorts. My mother had suggested coming to Gram’s. Mom had walked up behind me while I was standing, looking out the kitchen window, and put her arms around my shoulders.

“I love you, pretty girl,” she’d said. “But I’m kicking you out.”

I’d turned to look at her. “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

She’d kissed the top of my head. “Your grandmother is expecting you for supper. North Harbor is where you need to be. You have a house there and, more importantly, that’s where your heart is. Go figure out what you want to do next. Your dad and I are only a phone call away.”

The next morning Gram had brought me breakfast in bed. She’d told me I had exactly one week to wallow. That had been a Wednesday. I made it until lunch on Thursday. I hated having unwashed hair, I’d gotten crumbs in the bed and my pajama bottoms had a hole in one knee.

How could I lie around feeling sorry for myself with Gram around? A lot worse had happened to her. She’d lost my grandfather. She’d lost my dad, her only child. And she could still find joy in the world. She’d told me once that it would be an insult to my dad’s memory to give up on life because he’d been the type of person to grab onto it with both hands. And since I could still grab onto life pretty well with both hands that’s what I was trying to do. Which was why, in the end, I hadn’t told Gram what I also hadn’t told Nick: I didn’t know what had happened at Maddie’s house this afternoon. I just knew she wasn’t telling the truth about it.

I couldn’t cook. Whatever the cooking equivalent of a green thumb was, I didn’t have it. In middle school I was voted Most Likely to Set a Kitchen on Fire after a term of culinary arts classes in eighth grade. But I did like to eat and I paid a lot of attention to food. I’d seen the glass bowl of fruit in the middle of the teak table in Maddie’s backyard. And Arthur Fenety had had a cup of coffee, about half-full, at his place. What I hadn’t seen was the omelet that Maddie had said she was making for the two of them to share.

Maybe I couldn’t make an omelet—okay, definitely I couldn’t make an omelet—but I knew they weren’t something you whipped up, stuck in the refrigerator and then popped in the microwave later to warm up.

“So, where was it?” I asked Elvis. “Presumably she would have brought it outside to serve it to Arthur.”

The cat stopped purring long enough to lift his head and give me a blank look. He didn’t know, either.

I closed my eyes and pictured the round table again, set with sunny red, orange and white place mats and matching napkins. There hadn’t even been any plates at either of their places, which made sense. When the omelet was finished, she would have just slid it onto the plates and served it. But she didn’t. Why?

I didn’t think for a moment that Maddie had killed Arthur Fenety. She wasn’t that kind of person.

“She’s hiding something,” I said. “What? And why?”

He didn’t have an answer to that question, either.

I looked at the phone. Should I call Michelle? And tell her what? That I knew Maddie wasn’t telling the whole truth because she let some eggs get cold? What difference did that make, anyway? It was a police investigation. It was none of my business.

I was still hungry. I reached for the phone and punched in my friend Jess’s number.

“Hey Sarah, what’s up?” she said.

“Have you had supper?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Not unless you count three Tic Tacs fused together that I found in my pocket about an hour ago.”

Unlike me, Jess could cook. It was just that she’d get busy sewing and forget. “How about supper at The Black Bear?”

“Umm, yes,” she said. I pictured her at her sewing table, tucking her long brown hair behind one ear.

“Twenty minutes too soon?” I asked.

“Not for me. I’m doing over a wedding dress and I’m out of ideas. Maybe supper will inspire me.”

“Nothing screams ‘Marry me,’ like a pub with a house band named The Hairy Bananas
,
” I said, dryly.

Jess laughed. “You joke, but a couple of years ago a guy actually proposed to his girlfriend at Sam’s place. It was one of those elaborate public proposals and he did it during halftime of the Superbowl.”

“Please tell me you’re making this up.”

“I am not,” she said, a bit of indignation in her voice. “All I can remember is that it involved tortilla chips, bean dip and a pretty expensive diamond ring.” She paused for effect. “The ring turned up a couple of days later.”

I groaned. “Now I know you’re making it up.”

She laughed again. “I’ll see you in a bit,” she said, and ended the call.

I hung up the phone and gave Elvis a little nudge. He opened one green eye and looked up at me without lifting his head. “I’m going to meet Jess for supper,” I said. “You have to get up.”

He sat up, yawned and stretched and finally jumped down to the floor and headed to the bedroom. I went into the bathroom to wash my face, and when I walked into the bedroom Elvis was sitting on the white faux-leather lounger, looking expectantly at the TV.

I changed into a black sweater and my favorite pair of gray suede pull-on boots. A loud meow came from the chair by the window.

I looked over at the cat. “This is insane,” I muttered.

He narrowed his eyes at me, and his tail slapped against the seat of the chair. Then he looked pointedly at the television again.

I checked my watch, even though I didn’t really need to. I knew exactly what time it was. What I didn’t know was how Elvis knew what time it was. And he definitely did know.

I grabbed the remote off the nightstand, turned on the TV and changed the channel just in time to hear Johnny Gilbert announce, “This is
Jeopardy!
”

Elvis made a noise that sounded a lot like sigh of contentment and stretched out on the lounge chair, chin on his paws.

The cat was a
Jeopardy!
junkie, something I’d discovered about a week after I’d brought him home. Elvis had been eating when suddenly his head came up as though maybe he’d heard something. He’d tipped it to one side like he was listening and then he headed purposefully for the bedroom. Curious, I’d followed him.

He had parked himself on the floor in front of the television and looked at me. When I didn’t do anything he’d made a sharp meow. So I’d turned the TV on. The cat had studied the screen for a moment and then meowed again.

“What? You don’t like
Star Trek
reruns?” I’d said.

That had gotten me a look that I would have called withering if Elvis had been a person. So I started working my way through the channels. It was strange enough thinking that the cat wanted to watch TV, so it wasn’t that much weirder to think that he had a specific program in mind. The moment he’d seen Alex Trebek, Elvis had jumped up onto the chair and stretched out.

The same thing happened the next night, although I didn’t channel surf. I went right to the show. The third night was a Saturday. When Elvis started for the bedroom, I’d said, “It’s Saturday. No
Jeopardy!
”

He’d stopped in his tracks. I’d waited to see what he’d do. After a moment he’d turned and come back to his bowl. Not only did I have a cat that liked to watch quiz shows, but somehow he also knew it was a weeknight thing.

Luckily, the TV had a sleep timer so I could set it to turn off in thirty minutes, when the show was over. I pulled my hooded red sweater over my head and grabbed the beaded bag Jess had given me for my birthday.

“I’m leaving,” I said to Elvis.

His eyes didn’t move from the screen. His tail twitched once and he made a low murp that was probably the cat equivalent of “Okay. Fine.”

The streets in North Harbor were spread out in no pattern that I’d ever been able to figure out. It seemed that as the town grew, streets were laid down wherever they seemed to be needed, so it wasn’t always easy to get from one place to another in more or less a straight line. But that was part of the town’s charm, too. I was only three blocks from the harbor front. An easy walk.

Jess had already snagged a booth along the back wall when I got to The Black Bear. One elbow was on the table, head propped on her hand, and she was staring at a basket of Sam’s spicy corn chips.

“Why are you torturing yourself?” I asked as I slid onto the seat opposite her.

“It’s not torture,” she said, without looking up. “I’m expanding my sphere of willpower.”

“Just because you’re trying to eat healthier doesn’t mean you can’t have the occasional corn chip, Jess,” I said.

Jess was trying to live a healthier lifestyle but it kept getting derailed by her love of all things deep-fried and her loathing for any activity that made her sweat.

“I don’t want a corn chip,” she said in a flat voice, like she was repeating some kind of mantra. She was concentrating so hard there were frown lines between her blue eyes.

“Okay,” I said. I reached over and pulled the basket across the table. I knew the crisp little tortilla triangles would be spiced with cracked black pepper and lemon. I grabbed two. They were delicious, still warm from the oven. I ate a third one.

“How can you sit there and eat those right in front of me?” Jess asked, an exaggerated aggrieved edge to her voice.

“I’m removing temptation from your sphere of willpower,” I said, reaching for another chip.

She made a face at me and leaned against the back of the booth. She was wearing her long brown hair loose with a pumpkin-colored sweater, jeans and brown knee-high boots. She had a funky, eclectic style and she could find humor in just about anything.

Jess had grown up in North Harbor but we really hadn’t been friends, probably because I was a summer kid. We’d gotten close when I put an ad on the music-department bulletin board at the University of Maine, looking for a roommate. Jess had been the only person to call. She’d been studying art history and I’d been doing a business degree and taking every music course I could fit into my schedule, but we’d hit it off. After we’d been living together for a couple of weeks she’d confessed that she’d taken the ad down about five minutes after I’d pinned it up.

“I would have put it back if I hadn’t liked you,” she’d said.

“What if I hadn’t liked you?” I’d countered. We’d been out on the lawn, painting a trash-picked table we’d carried half a mile home, walking on the edge of the road like a couple of nomads.

Jess had grinned. “Now, what were the chances of that ever happening?”

“How was your day?” she asked me now.

I blew out a breath. “That’s a long story,” I said, looking around for a waitress.

“I already ordered for us,” Jess said, waving one hand dismissively at me.

“Why?” I asked as I pulled my sweater off over my head. It was warm inside The Black Bear. Even though it was a Monday night the place was about half-full. Three tables had been pushed together in the center of the room for what I was guessing was a group of tourists, at least a dozen. There was another tourist, a woman wearing a Red Sox cap and sunglasses, in the booth behind Jess. The folded map on the seat beside her was a dead giveaway,

“Because I know you like Sam’s fish chowder and Sam said they seemed to be having a run on it tonight. Did you want something else?”

I shook my head. “No, that’s good. Did you order me some of those little cheese biscuits?”

She nodded. “I told Sam you’d figure out your own dessert.”

I smiled at her. “Thanks.”

She laced her fingers behind her head. “So, tell me the long story about your day.”

“Let me see if I can sum it up for you,” I said. “I got a great price on two boxes of Fiestaware. I saw a seventy-five-year-old man naked. And Charlotte and I discovered a dead body.”

Jess blinked. “Wow,” she said. “That beats the heck out of a seagull stealing my French fries at lunch.” She leaned forward again, forearms on the table. “Start with the dead body.”

“His name is—was Arthur Fenety.”

“Wait a minute. Does he have a sister named Daisy?”

“Yes,” I said, stretching my legs under the table. “Why? Do you know her?”

“I altered a dress for her. Silk. Beautiful, beautiful fabric. What happened to her brother?”

“I’m not sure,” I said carefully. I explained how Charlotte and I had ended up at Maddie’s house.

Jess shook her head. “Poor Maddie. She’s such a nice person. You know those buckets of tulips that are out in front of the shop?”

I nodded.

“She helped me plant all of them. She gave me fertilizer to put in the water. She even told me when to water them. You know me—I can’t even keep plastic flowers alive.”

Our waitress arrived then with two oversize steaming bowls of Sam’s fish chowder, a plate of cheese biscuits and a little pot of butter.

We ate for a couple of minutes in silence, cut only by our little murmurs of satisfaction. If there was fish chowder that was better than Sam’s, I hadn’t tasted it yet.

Jess set down her spoon and reached for a biscuit. “So, how does the naked seventy-five-year-old man fit into this?” she asked.

I laughed. “He doesn’t, really. Remember I told you I was doing a workshop for a bunch of Gram’s friends down at the seniors’ apartment building?”

Her mouth was full so all she did was nod.

“Well, it turns out there’s an art class there at the same time.”

Jess nodded and brushed crumbs off the corner of her mouth. “Isn’t Eric teaching some kind of drawing class?”

“That’s it,” I said, scooping up a fat scallop with my spoon. “Do you know Alfred Peterson?”

“Little bald man? Pants are always up under his armpits?”

I nodded.

Jess paused, spoon halfway to her mouth. “Wait a minute. You saw Mr. Peterson naked?”

I nodded again.

“Did he know?”

“That he was naked or that I saw him?”

Jess thought for a moment. “Both.”

I fished a chunk of red-skinned potato out of the bowl and ate it. “Yes and yes.”

“So Eric’s class is drawing nudes and Mr. Peterson is their model?”

“Not exactly,” I said. I leaned sideways and looked around the room. Sam had just come from the kitchen. He gave me a sheepish grin when I caught his eye, and started over.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he got close to the table, holding up both hands as though he was surrendering. “I really did think Alf knew Eric was just going to have the class draw hands.” He was trying to keep the grin in check but it wasn’t working. “Was he really completely . . . ?” The end of the sentence trailed off.

“In all his glory,” I said solemnly.

Sam laughed. “I’m sorry, Sarah. If I’d had any idea that Alf didn’t know, I would have told him. I swear.”

“I believe you,” I said. “I think.”

“Are you playing Thursday night?” Jess asked. In the off-season the house band—Sam’s band—played most Thursday nights with whoever was around and wanted to sit in.

He nodded. “Are you two coming?”

Jess looked at me.

“I think so,” I said.

“We’ll be here,” Jess said.

“What if I have a date Thursday night?”

“You on a date.” Jess tipped her head to one side, a thoughtful expression on her face as she studied me. After a moment she turned back to Sam. “Not likely. We’ll be here,” she repeated, reaching for a biscuit.

“Good,” Sam said. He turned to me again. “Mac said you might have an old fiddle you’re going to need an estimate on in a few days.”

“Looks like it,” I said.

“Okay, well Vincent knows a guy up in Limestone. So let me know and I’ll set something up.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I need to get back to the kitchen. There’s rhubarb-strawberry pie, if you’re interested.”

Jess’s eyes lit up. “I may possibly love you, Sam.”