by Nic Saint
“Yeah, well, maybe Shanille should do the honors,” I said. “She’s done this before, after all.” When Shanille looked away, I added, “You have done this before, right?”
“Um… not technically,” she admitted. And when I rolled my eyes, she said, “I’ve done it to myself.”
“You baptized yourself.”
“Well, I had to. It’s not as if I could ask my human. ‘Please, Francis, could you baptize me?’ That would have gone over well. Besides, unlike Odelia he doesn’t speak feline so my paws were tied.”
“Wait, Father Reilly’s name is Francis?” I asked.
But she was already walking away towards a large stone basin located behind the altar to the right. This was where humans baptized their babies. They pour water over their little heads and that’s it. No idea why but then who knows why humans do anything.
“Come,” ordered Shanille.
Brutus took a deep breath. “This is it, Max,” he said.
“This is it, buddy,” I agreed.
And then he took the plunge. Not literally. But he set one paw in front of the other and pretty soon we were all staring at Shanille, hoping she knew what she was doing. The thing is, cats don’t like water. At least not in general. So us willingly and consciously having water splashed on top of our heads was kind of a crazy thing to do. Then again, if I had to choose between horrible spots and a bath, I’d choose the bath. Lesser of two evils, right?
“Hop up,” instructed Shanille, and in an effort to lead by example, she hopped up onto the baptismal font herself, followed by Dooley, Brutus and, finally, yours truly.
The inside of the font was dark, the stone having turned black over the years. We stared into the water, and for a moment I imagined staring into an abyss. Creepy!
“Who wants to go first?” asked Shanille.
“Me, me, me!” said Dooley, holding up his paw.
“Very well,” said Shanille. “Um…” She hesitated.
“What’s wrong?” asked Dooley.
“The thing is, Father Reilly always says a lot of stuff at this point, but I’m always too far away to hear a word he says. Plus, he kinda mumbles a lot, so there’s that, too.”
“He does mumble,” I agreed.
“So I have no idea what he says but he looks very serious and solemn while he says it. And I’m pretty sure it’s something to do with Jesus, the Holy Ghost, and the Father.”
“Whose father?” asked Dooley, interested.
“Father Reilly’s father,” I said. “Duh.”
“Pretty sure he means God,” said Shanille.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“So what I propose is that I say a few words of my own creation and then proceed like I’ve seen Father Reilly do. Which basically is to splash some water on y’all.”
I grimaced. “Sounds like a plan,” I said.
“Let’s get on with it,” Brutus growled. “I can feel my spots getting bigger by the second.”
“Fine,” said Shanille. “Dooley, in the name of the—”
“Stop!” suddenly a voice echoed through the church. “Stop this abomination right now!”
When we turned we saw that none other than Harriet had joined us, and she didn’t look happy.
Chapter 31
“What do you think you’re doing?” Harriet demanded as she bore down on us.
“Getting baptized?” said Brutus, looking distinctly uneasy.
“Getting baptized my ass. You’re getting married, aren’t you?” She pointed an accusing finger at Shanille. “You’re getting secretly married to that female feline!”
“No!” said Shanille shocked. “You’re wrong, Harriet.”
“Sneaking behind my back for your secret wedding. You should be ashamed of yourselves. You, too, Max. I can’t believe you would agree to be a party to this nonsense.”
“What about me?” asked Dooley.
“Of all the double-crossing, sneaky, devious, underhanded…” Harriet fumed.
“We’re not getting married!” Brutus interrupted her harangue. “I mean, who has even heard of cats getting married? That’s just nuts. And very human!”
Harriet narrowed her eyes at him. She looked absolutely terrifying right now, a regular queen of vengeance. “So what is this? A nice little get-together? Conveniently without inviting me? I don’t think so. I hate you, Brutus. And you, Max.”
“And me?” asked Dooley hopefully.
“And you, Shanille—I can’t believe you would stab a fellow female feline in the back like that. Us females should stick together, not let these treacherous tomcats divide us.”
“Can you shut up for one second?” Brutus suddenly roared, and he gave Harriet a look of such vexation that the latter closed her mouth with a click of the teeth. “I didn’t want to tell you this but you leave me no choice. I’m dying, Harriet.”
“Yes, you are,” Harriet said.
“No, for real.”
“I know. You’re dead to me.”
“I have spots!” Brutus cried out, desperation in his voice.
Whatever Harriet had been expecting, it wasn’t this. She stared at Brutus. “Spots?”
“Spots! Red spots! On my chest!”
For a moment, Harriet was speechless. “Huh.”
“So I asked Shanille for advice and she said inviting Jesus into my life would fix me right up.”
“Jesus,” said Harriet dubiously.
“Yes, Jesus. I’m a desperate cat, Harriet, and I didn’t know what else to do.”
“So why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to worry. Also…” He traced an uncertain pattern on the baptismal font’s ledge with his paw. “I, um, I guess I felt embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed!”
“I know you like your tomcats butch and strong, and these spots have made me feel weak and… well, all too aware of my own mortality. I didn’t want to let you down.”
“Oh, Brutus,” she said, and to my elation there was a marked softening in her demeanor. In the past her ‘Oh, Brutus’ had alternately sounded exasperated or incensed but now her words were tinged with a nice sense of compassion.
Brutus jumped down from the font and approached her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have told you. I didn’t think I could stand to see the disappointment on your face.”
“Disappointment! Brutus, I’m not disappointed. In fact I’m proud of you. That you would decide to face this terrible disease on your own—proud in the face of certain death.”
There was a moment of reconciliation that was accompanied by the kind of scene that would almost certainly earn this chronicle a PG-13 rating so I won’t recount it here. Suffice it to say that all seemed to be well in the enduring love affair of Harriet and Brutus.
“So are we still doing this?” asked Shanille, sounding a little peeved. A staunch believer in the life celibate, she hadn’t enjoyed being accused of being married to Brutus.
“Yes, we’re doing this,” said Harriet with a happy smile. “In fact, now that I come to think of it, I want to join you guys. I want to invite Jesus into my life, too. Max, Brutus, I want to be baptized, too, if that’s all right with you.”
“What about me?!” Dooley cried.
Harriet gave him a grin. “Just teasing.” She gestured between them. “I see you.”
“Avatar!” Dooley jubilated. “I love that movie!”
“What’s he talking about?” grumbled Brutus. For a cat on the verge of death he was no stranger to petty jealousy.
“Never mind,” said Harriet, jumping up onto the baptismal font. “So how does this work?”
“Shanille will say a few words, then splash some water on our heads,” I explained.
“Great. So let’s get on with it. This cold stone is murder on my butt.”
It wasn’t exactly the kind of statement to preface what Shanille had said was the most important moment of our lives. I wasn’t convinced she was right. The most important mo
ment in my life had probably been when Odelia lifted me from amongst my mother’s litter. The second most important moment when Dooley came into my life. But I wasn’t about to be nitpicky. After all, this wasn’t about me but about the salvation of Brutus.
Brutus joined us and now five cats circled the dark well of holy water.
“Let’s begin,” said Shanille. “Brutus, do you reject sin and the glamour of anvil?”
“Anvil?” I asked.
“That’s what Father Reilly says on these occasions.”
“Pretty sure he means ‘evil.’”
“Are you a church cat or am I?”
“You are.”
“Fine. Brutus, what say you?”
“Um, I reject the glamour of anvil,” said Brutus.
“Max,” whispered Dooley.
“What?”
“I thought I was first!”
“Let’s just go with it,” I suggested. Otherwise we’d be there all night. And Harriet was right. This cold bluestone surface was wreaking havoc on my tender tush.
“Do you believe in the Holy Sprite?” Shanille intoned.
“Spirit,” I muttered.
Shanille gave me a withering look and I mimicked locking my lips and throwing away the key.
“Sure thing, babe,” said Brutus with a grin. Like Big Mac, he was clearly lovin’ it.
“And do you believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior?”
“Absolutely, toots,” said Brutus, earning himself a scowl from Shanille.
“Brutus, I now baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Sprite, for the forgiveness of your sins, and the gift of the Holy Sprite.”
“So what about my spots?” asked Brutus.
In response, a clearly irate Shanille gave Brutus a slap on the back that sent the black cat flying into the baptismal font. When he resurfaced, spluttering and splashing, she made the sign of the cross and said, “Consider yourself baptized. Next!”
Dooley, Harriet and I exchanged worried glances. I’d expected a slight splash of water, which was enough to give me chills. But a full-body dunking? No way, José!
“Your turn,” said Brutus, who now looked like a drowned chicken. He sneezed. “Hey, I feel better already.” He quickly checked his spots. “Nah. They’re still there.”
“The benediction might take some time to kick in,” Shanille said. “So who’s next?”
Finally, Harriet stepped to the fore—metaphorically, at least—and said, with a slight shiver of anticipation, “Me. I wanna go next.”
“Fine,” said Shanille. “Harriet, do you reject sin and the glamour of anvil?”
And so it went. Harriet went into the drink, then Dooley, and finally, I was for it, too. I have to say that when all was said and done, I felt distinctly refreshed. Which of course could have had something to do with the fact that the water was pretty darn chilly.
Still, now that I’d put my destiny in the Lord Jesus’s hands, I had the impression that this benediction Shanille had mentioned had descended upon my furry shoulders, too. It was the weirdest thing. As the four of us walked out of that church, it was with a spring in our collective steps, smiles on our faces and a definite swing in our hips.
“I can’t believe we’ll never have to go to Vena anymore,” said Dooley, voicing my thoughts exactly.
“We’ll never get sick again,” said Harriet.
“And we’ll never have to get shots ever again!” I cried.
We all laughed. If there’s one thing us cats hate, it’s shots.
Brutus sneezed, and then, like a chain reaction, so did Dooley, Harriet and me.
Looked like the Lord Jesus had washed away our sins and given us a cold in return.
Chapter 32
When Odelia woke up the next day she wondered for a moment what had awakened her. It wasn’t her alarm—she’d forgotten to set it again—and it wasn’t the sun shining through the curtains either, for the sun hadn’t yet hoisted itself across the horizon yet.
“Achoo!”
She lifted her head from the pillow and saw, in the relative darkness of the room, a small form at the foot of the bed. She smiled and propped herself up on her elbows.
“Max? Is that you sneezing?”
In response, four distinctly different sneezes rang out like cannon shots in the silence of the room.
“Achoo!”
“Achee!”
“Achoum!”
“Achaa!”
She flicked on her bedside Betty Boop lamp and blinked against the sudden light. When her vision cleared, she saw four cats staring back at her. Max, Dooley, Harriet and Brutus. They didn’t look very happy. In fact they looked distinctly despondent.
“You have a cold,” she said matter-of-factly. “All four of you.”
All four cats nodded gloomily.
“I better take you to Vena,” she said.
Four equally cheerless nods, followed by four more sneezes.
“Better tell her about your spots,” said Max.
“Oh, all right,” muttered Brutus.
“What spots?” asked Odelia.
“I have spots on my chest,” Brutus announced. “They’re red.”
“Which is why we now all have a cold,” explained Max.
“I don’t get it,” said Odelia. “How do you go from spots to a cold?”
“It’s a long story,” said Max. “And it involves a baptismal font with very cold water.”
“It’s all Shanille’s fault,” said Harriet. “I should have known that flighty feline would get us into trouble.”
“At least our souls are with Jesus now,” said Dooley.
Odelia blinked. Looked like it had been a long night for her cats. Checking her phone she saw that it wasn’t even five o’clock yet. Pretty sure she wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep, she decided to get up instead. Moving over to the window, she peeked through the curtains and saw that first light was painting the sky in brilliant reds and blues.
“Can you guys give me a hand or are you too sick to do a little sleuthing?” she asked.
“I’m never too sick to do a little sleuthing,” said Max.
“Great. I saw this on a TV show the other day. It’s called a vision board.”
She tripped down the stairs, four cats close on her heels, switched on the lights in her cozy little living room and gestured triumphantly to the whiteboard the UPS guy had delivered the day before. “Ta-dah!” she said.
“Achoo!” said Max in earnest admiration.
“What is it?” asked Dooley.
“A vision board,” said Max.
“Yes, but what is it?”
“I’m going to collect all the clues relating to the crime on this board and then I’m going to look for links,” Odelia explained. “That way I might be able to make connections I wouldn’t otherwise make. At least that’s the theory. I’m not sure how it works in reality.”
“I think it’s a brilliant idea,” said Harriet. “I’ve always been a very visual cat. I need to see things before I decide what’s what and you’re exactly the same, Odelia.”
“I am,” Odelia agreed.
And she was. It was all fine and dandy mulling things over in your head but there were only so many elements you could juggle before losing the thread. And since there were so many suspects in this case she needed to make things visual to make sense of them all.
She started by writing the name of the victim in bold at the top of the whiteboard. Then, underneath, she neatly wrote the names of all the people involved—starting with the seven suspects who’d been identified as having been present around the time Ackerman died. She decided not to include Gran or Mom or Dad, even though they’d been at the library. There was no way they were involved. Even Uncle Alec agreed on that.
There was movement behind her and when she looked up she saw that Gran had walked in through the sliding glass doors.
“Can’t sleep either?” she asked.
Gran shook her he
ad. She was looking even more crusty than usual. “I hate it when I can’t sleep. I can just feel my face getting wrinklier and my skin drying out like a mummy’s. What are you doing?”
“It’s called a vision board,” said Brutus. “It’s what real detectives like Odelia use.”
“Oh, right. Like what cops use. They call it an evidence board, though.”
“Achoum!” said Brutus in agreement.
“Oh, dear. Do you have a cold?” asked Gran.
“Achaa!” Dooley sneezed, as if in response.
“We better take them to Vena’s,” said Gran.
Four cats groaned. Going to Vena’s was agony to them.
A rustle at the window announced that one more person had decided to join them.
“Hey, Mom,” said Odelia. “Can’t sleep either?”
“It’s this Ackerman business,” said Mom. “I haven’t slept a wink since I saw his… body.” She gave a quick quiver to demonstrate how she felt about finding bodies of dead writers in her library—or anywhere else for that matter. “I can’t help feeling people all think that I did it.”
“Nonsense,” said Gran firmly. “Nobody thinks that, Marge.”
“I walked down to the General Store yesterday and I swear people were actually whispering behind my back. And when I tried to talk to Ida Baumgartner she ignored me.”
“That’s because Ida Baumgartner has a crush on Tex,” said Gran. “Everybody knows that.”
It was obvious that Mom didn’t, judging by the way she sucked in her breath. She then seemed to notice for the first time that Odelia was scrawling strange scribblings on a whiteboard. She moved closer. “Why are those names written in red?”
Odelia tapped the whiteboard. “Darius Kassman, Aldo Wrenn and Sasha Drood. These are our most likely suspects. Wouldn’t you agree, Gran?”
Gran had plunked her bony frame down on a chair and was inspecting Dooley, much to the latter’s exasperation, as Gran dug her fingers into his tummy and underneath his chin. “Mh?” she said, looking up. “Oh, yeah, right. Most likely suspects. Sure thing, hon.”
“Darius Kassman stalked Chris Ackerman and approached him in spite of the restraining order. He struck me as mentally unstable and could have killed Ackerman in a fit of rage. Then there’s Aldo Wrenn, or Aldo Ackerman as he now calls himself. Claims he’s Chris’s son and if he’s right he just might share in the writer’s substantial inheritance. And finally Sasha Drood, the man who robbed Chris and might have killed him in a struggle.”