The Whole Cat and Caboodle: Second Chance Cat Mystery (8 page)

Sam laughed and headed back to the kitchen.

I was just spooning up the last bit of creamy broth from the bottom of my bowl when Katie, our waitress, appeared with pie and coffee for both Jess and me.

“Mmmm,” Jess moaned after her first bite. “Why doesn’t my pie ever turn out this good?”

I took a sip from my cup. “I can tell you, but you aren’t going to like the answer.”

She licked flakes of pastry from the back of her fork. “It’s not going to be something corny, like Sam makes it with a song on his lips and love in his heart, is it?”

“Uh, no,” I said, taking another bite and wondering if I could taste a hint of vanilla in the filling. “It’s lard.”

“Lard?” Jess frowned, her mouth twisted to one side.

“Uh-huh.”

I could almost see the gears and cogs turning in her head. “Lard is animal fat,” she said.

I nodded.

Her expression cleared. “Okay.
Animal fat
means ‘meat.’ Meat is a source of protein. Protein is part of a healthy diet. I’m good.” She used her fork to spear another bite.

I reached for my coffee cup again. “You can rationalize pie but you couldn’t rationalize a corn chip?”

“Yeah, the human mind is a funny thing, isn’t it?” she said, around a mouthful of berries and rhubarb.

“Did you know Nick Elliot is working for the medical examiner’s office?” I asked, deliberately changing the subject.

Jess looked up from her plate. “Seriously?”

I nodded.

“I thought he was taking a job teaching an EMT course.”

I shrugged. “I guess he changed his mind.”

“So how does Nick look these days?” Jess asked teasingly.

“Fine,” I replied, maybe a little too quickly.

She smirked at me over her mug. “Only fine?”

“Well, maybe . . . very fine,” I admitted, feeling my cheeks redden.

“I knew it,” Jess crowed, waving her fork in the air almost as though she were conducting an imaginary symphony orchestra.

“Okay, so Nick is a very good-looking man. The fact that I noticed it doesn’t mean anything. I can appreciate that just the way I’d appreciate a beautiful sunset over the harbor or a well-made guitar.

Jess leaned back against the padded vinyl. “Good thing I wore my boots,” she said.

I narrowed my eyes at her across the table. “What are you talking about?” I said.

“Good thing I wore my boots,” she repeated, “because all that bull crap you’re spreading would have ruined my new shoes.”

I made a face and she laughed.

“Getting involved with Nick Elliot. Now, there would be a bad idea,” I said, wrapping my hands around my coffee cup.

Jess shrugged. “What’s so bad about it?”

“Well, he just started a new job; that’s going to be pretty stressful. I’m trying to get a business off the ground, and, as you like to point out, all I do these days is work.” I held up a hand because I could tell from Jess’s face that she was about to mount an argument to try to refute my objections. “And don’t forget, Nick’s mother works for me.” I raised my eyebrows at her.

Jess pressed her lips together and after a moment she sighed. “Okay, you win. I don’t have anything.”

“How about you and Nick?” I said.

She shook her head. “He is not my type.”

“Oh, really?” I set my cup back on the table and folded my arms across my chest. “And your type would be?”

She tilted her head back and looked up at the hammered-tin ceiling, putting one hand to her throat. “I like the sensitive, artistic type, the kind of man with the soul of a poet.”

“Good thing I wore
my
boots,” I said dryly.

Jess laughed.

I was so glad Jess was still in North Harbor. She was always bugging me about spending too much time working, but the truth was that without her dragging me out with the three-dimensional people, as she put it, I would have spent all of my time at the shop, working on the house or looking for new business.

We spent the next ten minutes or so with Jess catching me up on town gossip. Her sewing space and the little shop where she sold her repurposed clothing were right down on the waterfront and, like Sam, she knew everything that was happening in North Harbor.

As we got up to leave, Jess glanced at the woman in the booth behind us. She was still wearing the Red Sox baseball cap with bits of flaming red hair poking out from underneath, but she’d taken off the sunglasses for a moment and was rubbing the bridge of her nose with her thumb and index finger.

Jess tipped her head in the woman’s direction. “If I can get tickets, do you want to drive down to Portland for a Sea Dogs playoff game?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You mean you’d actually take an entire day off?”

“I would,” I said as we walked over to the bar to pay our bills.

She gave me a self-satisfied smile. “You taking the day off. My work on this planet is pretty much done.”

Jess and I walked up to Maple Street together. She rented a little cottage at the back of a much larger Federal-style house partway up the hill.

“If Charlotte or Rose needs some time off to be with Maddie, call me,” she said. “I can come and help out.”

“Thanks, Jess,” I said. “And I’ll let you know about Thursday.”

She nodded. “Tell Mac I’ll be up to get those boxes. Maybe after lunch tomorrow.”

I hugged her and turned right while she went left.

•   •   •

Arthur Fenety’s death was front-page news in the morning paper. They’d managed to dig up a lot of information about the man in less than twenty-four hours. A lot.

My eyes got wider and wider as I read the article. As Liz would have put it, Fenety had been a very, very bad boy during his time in New England. It turns out that Maddie hadn’t been the only woman he’d been involved with. He also had a girlfriend in Portland, and four different wives—at least that they’d found so far. And it appeared he’d done more than break hearts: apparently he’d taken money and jewelry from several of the women.

Arthur Fenety was an old-fashioned con artist who used his charm, his manners and his distinguished demeanor to take advantage of women.

“Poor Maddie,” I said to Elvis. He’d jumped onto my lap after he’d finished his breakfast. My breakfast had been coffee because I still didn’t have any more food in the fridge than I’d had the night before.

The cat craned his neck forward as though he were studying the wedding photos of Fenety with his four wives.

I looked at the pictures myself. I could see why all the women had been scammed. It didn’t mean they were stupid or gullible, just lonely. Arthur Fenety had been well-spoken, I remembered. Even though I’d thought he was a little too smooth, I hadn’t suspected what he was really up to. In each of the photos he was well dressed, his white hair freshly barbered, mustache clipped. He looked exactly like what he’d said he was: an educated, affluent, former financial advisor.

I thought about the time we’d discovered that a customer’s valuable heirloom oil painting was nothing more than a paint-by-number forest scene in a very expensive frame.

“You can put a pink tutu on a bear,” Rose had said, “but that doesn’t make him a ballerina.”

Arthur Fenety had dressed in expensive suits but that didn’t mean he was a gentleman.

Something about the image of Fenety with his second wife caught my eye. I leaned over for a closer look and so did Elvis.

“Wait a minute. I’ve seen her,” I said to the cat, tapping the paper with one finger.

He looked at the photograph and then looked at me, tipping his head to one side.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I said, feeling a little silly that I was having a conversation with a cat. At least I wasn’t talking to myself.

I grabbed my phone and called Jess.

“Do you have the paper?” I asked.

“Ummmm, let me see. Yes,” she said. I was guessing she was in her sewing space and had to look around to find where she’d set it down.

“Second page. Picture in the middle. Does that woman look familiar?”

“Hang on,” she said. I heard the newspaper rattle and Jess take a long drink from something, probably a cup of black coffee so strong you could strip paint with it.

“Oh yeah,” she said after a moment. “That was the woman in the booth behind us last night.”

“Are you positive?” I asked. Elvis kept craning his neck in the direction of the phone, as though he were trying to hear Jess’s half of the conversation.

“Of course I’m positive,” she said. I heard her take another sip of her coffee. “Same chin, same nose, same eyes, and she even had on the same earrings that she’s wearing in the photograph.” There was silence for a moment. “Wait a second,” she said. “How many wives did this guy have?”

“I have a feeling the final count isn’t in yet,” I said. “Thanks, Jess. I’ll talk to you later.”

I set the phone on the counter and looked at Elvis, who seemed to be looking at the pictures again.

“I’m betting Arthur Fenety had more than four wives,” I said. Elvis bobbed his head up and down, almost as though he were nodding. I picked him up and set him on the floor.

“The bigger question is, did one of them kill him?”

I wasn’t sure if it was important or not, but I called and left a message for Michelle at the police station, telling her that Jess and I had seen one of Arthur Fenety’s former wives at The Black Bear last night.

I realized I’d forgotten to ask Sam about the Rickenbacker guitar I’d let Nick play, so Elvis and I headed down to The Black Bear instead of up to the shop. I knew Sam would probably be in the kitchen. His apartment was over the pub and he did almost all his cooking in the pub kitchen.

I pounded on the heavy metal back door, and after a minute I heard the dead bolt turn and Sam opened the door.

“Hi, kiddo,” he said, a smile spreading across his face. “I thought you were the laundry. What are you doing here?”

“We got a new guitar in on consignment and I thought it might be something you’d be interested in. I completely forgot to tell you about it last night.”

Sam smiled. “Yeah, I heard about what happened.” He studied my face. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “I’m good.”

“Do you have time for breakfast?” he asked.

“Meow!” Elvis said loudly. I was carrying him in an old gym bag slung over my shoulder and his head was poking out of the top. As long as he could see what was going on he was happy to stay in the bag and get carried around.

“Yes, we know you have time for breakfast,” I said.

Sam gave me an inquiring look. “Blueberry pancakes,” he said.

My stomach gurgled. “Well, I wouldn’t want Elvis to have to eat alone,” I said with a smile.

“C’mon,” he said.

I followed Sam through the kitchen into the pub itself and slid into the same booth where I’d first encountered Elvis. He wiggled his way out of the bag as soon as I set it on the floor and hopped up onto the seat beside me. He sat down and looked expectantly at Sam.

“Do you have pictures of the guitar?” Sam asked.

I patted my pocket. “They’re on my phone.”

“Okay,” he said, wiping his hands on his long white apron. “Give me a minute and I’ll make your pancakes; then I can take a look.” He gestured toward the bar. “Help yourself to some coffee.”

I slipped past Elvis and got myself a mug of coffee; then I walked around the pub, looking at the photos that were everywhere in the room. After a moment Elvis jumped down and trailed behind me.

Sam had been making music pretty much his whole life and he’d known my dad—my biological dad—just about as long. In their early twenties—back before marriage, Mom and me—Sam and my father had been in a band called Back Roads. They’d even had a minor hit, “End of Days.” Even though I had Peter, and he was as much my dad as he was Liam’s, Sam still took on a kind of fatherly role in my life. When it came to music and musical instruments I trusted him more than I did anyone else.

One of my favorite photos of Sam and my dad hung behind the bar. I bent and picked up Elvis and walked over to look at it. They were squinting into the sunshine, grinning, with their arms around each other’s shoulders.

Sam came out of the kitchen, carrying a large, round tray. I walked back to the booth, set Elvis on the seat and slid in beside him. Sam had brought me two blueberry pancakes and a bowl of chopped apples, oranges and grapefruit. For Elvis there was a little dish of shredded chicken. I set the dish next to me on the vinyl seat. Elvis leaned around me to look at Sam, almost as though he were saying thank you, and then he eyed my plate.

“Keep your paws off my pancakes,” I warned. He made a huffy sound and dropped his head over his own food.

“Isn’t this breaking about a dozen health department rules, having him in here?” I asked Sam, cutting part of a pancake with my fork.

He was getting himself a cup of coffee. “Oh, probably,” he said, adding sugar to his cup. “But I wash those booths down every day, and I can promise you a cat eating breakfast isn’t the most unsanitary thing that’s happened in here.”

I held up a hand. “I’m eating. I don’t want to know.”

Sam laughed as he sat down opposite me. “Okay, girl. Let me see those pictures.” He held out his hand and I slid my phone across the table to him.

Sam scrolled through the photos of the Rickenbacker while I ate.

“I’m tempted,” he said, rubbing his bearded chin with one hand. “What are you asking?”

I named a price.

He reached for his coffee. “I didn’t ask you what the seller wanted. I asked for your price.”

I set my fork down and picked up my own mug. “You’re family, Sam.”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter, Sarah. This is business. Your business.”

I picked up a section of grapefruit with two fingers and ate it. “So, does that mean you’re going to charge me for these pancakes?”

“That’s not the same thing and you know it,” he said.

Elvis had stopped eating and was watching us, almost as if he could follow the conversation.

I reached for my fork again. “How many instruments have you checked out for me in the past four months?”

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. Half a dozen, maybe.”

“Eight,” I said. “You haven’t charged me a cent. And it’s not like I’ve even make you a thank-you cake or a plate of cookies.”

“And I’m very grateful for that,” he said with a smile.

I made a face at him. “So don’t give me a hard time about the price.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, you’re not going to argue with me, or okay, you want the guitar?” I said.

Sam held up both hands. “Okay, you win, and okay, yes, I want the guitar.”

I grinned at him across the table. “Good. It’s beautiful and I wanted somebody to have it who would play it more than a few times a year. The man who owned it didn’t think he played well enough to get it out very often so it spent most of the time in a closet.”

Sam shook his head. “That’s criminal.” He took one last look at the guitar and then pushed the phone back across the table to me. “A great instrument like that is meant to be played and enjoyed.”

“You’re just going to have to play it a lot to make up for that,” I said. I wondered if Sam was thinking about my father’s guitar that hadn’t been out of my closet in more than a year. If he was, he didn’t give any sign of that on his face.

Sam leaned against the back of the booth. “So, how did you come to find that Fenety man’s body?” he said.

“I drove Charlotte over to Maddie’s house.”

Elvis had finished eating. He climbed over my lap, jumped down and went around to the other side of the booth, settling himself next to Sam.

“Had you seen him around town?” I asked, starting in on my second pancake.

“A few times.” He tented his fingers over the top of his cup. “And Fenety and Maddie Hamilton were in here for lunch a couple of days ago.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“What is it?” I asked.

Sam shook his head. “There was just something about the guy that I didn’t like. He was just a little too perfect, if you know what I mean.” He leaned forward, both elbows on the table. “I saw the paper this morning. Do you think she knew?”

“That Fenety was a polygamist?” I said. “She didn’t say anything. And it’s kind of hard to imagine they’d be having a cozy little brunch for two at Maddie’s house if she’d found out he was just scamming her.”

“That’s true,” Sam said.

I swallowed the last bite of pancake and checked my watch, snagging a chunk of apple from the bowl at the same time. “I have to get to the shop,” I said. Elvis’s head came up when I said
shop
. He shook himself and jumped down to the floor. I stood up, as well.

Sam got to his feet and hugged me. He smelled like coffee and Old Spice aftershave. There was something very comforting about that combination.

“Thanks for breakfast,” I said.

“Anytime,” he said. “Thank you for the guitar. It’ll probably be tomorrow before I can come get it. There’s another fall-foliage tour scheduled for a late lunch here this afternoon.”

Elvis was already headed for the door. He settled on the passenger’s side of the front seat as I pulled out of my parking spot, and looked out the side window as though checking for oncoming cars. I wondered how he’d liked the new—well, new to me—SUV that I was planning on trading the truck for. He seemed to like driving around in the truck, which fit with the theory that he’d used to belong to the guy in the camper van.

I stopped at Legacy Place to pick up the tables the ladies had dipped the day before. I wrapped them carefully in the tarps I’d brought with me and set them in the back of the truck. Mac was already at the shop when we got there. He helped me carry the tables inside and I helped him carry a long farm-style table out and set it on a drop cloth.

“Are you sure you want to strip off the old paint?” I said, standing back to look at the table. It was painted olive green.

“I am,” Mac said. “I’m almost positive it’s oak. There’s some beautiful wood underneath all those layers of paint.”

“I hope you’re right,” I said.

Elvis had been circling the table and now he stopped and meowed loudly at me.

I laughed. “Okay, so you’ve convinced him.”

“Good to know you have my back, Elvis,” Mac said to the cat.

Rose was heading toward us. “I’m going to open things up,” I said. “Rose can handle the shop and—”

Elvis meowed again.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Rose and Elvis can handle the store, and I’m going to work on an offer for the pieces I want from the Harrington place.”

Mac was already rolling up his sleeves. “I think we could do something with that sleigh bed.”

“Me too,” I said. “And I think I’ll make an offer on those quilts we saw.”

“Good idea,” Mac said. “They always sell.”

I nodded in agreement. “Oh, and Sam’s buying the new guitar, the Rickenbacker. I’ll take it up to my office. And Jess is going to try to come get those boxes this afternoon.”

He nodded. “All right.” He was eyeing the table and I knew his attention was already there.

I walked over to meet Rose and took the quilted bag she was carrying.

“Good morning,” I said. “How’s Maddie?”

“She’s still upset, although she’s trying to hide it. She stayed the night with Charlotte.” She looked up at me. “How long do you think it will take to settle all of this?”

“A few days, at least. They’ll be an autopsy to figure out just how Arthur Fenety died.” I didn’t say that once the police knew what the man had died from, things might just get a lot more complicated.

The quilted tote bag was a lot heavier than it looked. “Rose, what do you have in here?” I asked as we walked over to the back entrance, Elvis leading the way.

“Tea bags,” she said. “And a cherry coffee cake.” She smiled. “And coffee, of course, because I know Mac isn’t that crazy about tea. Oh yes, and some cloth napkins. I really don’t like using so many paper ones. And my fertility-goddess statue.”

I had been just about to unlock the door. I paused, keys in one hand. “Excuse me?” I said. “A what?”

“A fertility-goddess statue,” Rose repeated.

“Why are you carrying around a fertility-goddess statue?”

She looked at me like I was just a little bit dense. “Well, for Avery, of course.”

I sighed, figuring I was probably going to regret asking my next question. “Why does Avery need a fertility statue?” I knew I couldn’t think of any good reason. I unlocked the door, flipped on the light switch and let Rose and Elvis go ahead of me into the storage room.

“It’s for her history class,” Rose said over her shoulder as I hurried to catch up with her and Elvis. She moved surprisingly fast for a woman who was almost seventy-five.

I was already in deep so I decided to ask the next obvious question. “And why does Avery need a fertility statue for her history class?”

Rose bustled ahead of me into the store, stopping to turn on the overhead lights. I went across the room to switch on the tall floor lamp with the elegant cranberry glass shade that sat by the cash register. It cast a warm, rosy glow on that part of the store.

I set the bag down and Elvis started sniffing at it.

“Well, dear, it’s a little complicated,” Rose said as she unbuttoned her jacket. “Avery is studying religious artifacts and symbols in her history class, and you know how she likes to put her own stamp on things.”

I smiled. “Yes, I do.”

“She decided she wanted to write about fertility statues. The problem was, she’d never actually seen one.” Rose gestured at the bag by my feet. “So I brought mine for her to see.”

She came over to me, rummaged in the bag and pulled out what I was guessing was the statue, wrapped in a big blue bath towel. She unwrapped it and handed it to me. It was clearly the figure of a woman, robust, with heavy breasts, an ample belly and wide thighs. It stood about four inches high, and was carved from a single piece of rust-colored stone.

“It looks old,” I said, turning over the little figure in my hands. Its curves and edges had been worn smooth by time and weather.

“I think it is,” Rose agreed. “I found it in a little open-air market in Vienna twenty years ago. The man who sold it to me didn’t seem to know anything about its history.”

“You should get someone to look at this,” I said, handing the statue back to Rose. “It could be worth a lot of money.”

“Oh, heavens, I wouldn’t want to know that,” Rose said as she wrapped the towel around the stone figure. “I wouldn’t feel right putting her up on the window ledge by the sink if I knew she was worth money, but I’d miss seeing her when I’m doing the dishes.”

“All right,” I said as she settled the statue next to the box of tea bags, but I made a mental note to warn Avery to be careful.

I carried Rose’s bag upstairs to the lunchroom, put my things in my cubbyhole office and went back downstairs to open the shop while Rose made coffee and tea, supervised by Elvis.

When I finally got back upstairs there was a cup of tea and a piece of coffee cake waiting on my desk. I had a hard-shell case for Sam’s guitar, and I laid it inside.

I spent a good part of the morning working out what I could afford to pay for the items I wanted to buy from Mabel Harrington’s house. Mac looked over the numbers and made a couple of suggestions for changes.