Meow Matrimony

by Lickel, Lisa;

He closed his eyes.

  I gave him mercy. “What would we use for an excuse to talk to Jason?” I said. “He wouldn’t just agree to come for tea, would he? And it’s not as if the mayor can command him to appear.”

  “How about we ask for a business meeting?”

  “A government contract? He’d never believe that. And I don’t think he sells chocolate to individuals.”

  “Mea Cuppa isn’t an individual,” Adam said.

  “Hmm?”

  “We could say we’re interested in ordering North Star candy.”

  I shuddered. “But we’re not, are we? I mean, it’s good and all, but your home base is Chicago and the contracts for the year are all in order.” I’d signed them myself.

  “He doesn’t need to know that, does he?”

  I gave him the “naughty child” eye.

  He faked innocence. “What? I try to do business locally.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I quickly shifted some slices of my mocha bundt cake onto floral paper plates. What did Adam really want to learn from Jason? Unfortunately, I was not the conspiracy type, and had no wiles to work on Adam. He knew me too well. “You want me to call him and set up an appointment?”

  He winked. “It might be better coming from me.”

  “Ri—ight. After you!”

  In the living room, conversation seemed to be perking along pretty well. Elvis had Stanley going on about baseball spring training and what teams were a challenge this year. They thanked me briefly for the cake then went back at it.

  Mom and Amy were hot and heavy into table decorations for the wedding. I probably should have joined them, but I was content to watch. They hardly noticed when I handed them paper plates with cake, fork, and a napkin.

  Adam and I settled on the end of the sofa next to Mom after everyone had dessert and coffee.

  Isis trotted in with Two held by the scruff, his feet dragging the ground. He was doing much better after his visit with Addy, and if he’d been a teenager, I’d say he was milking the situation, getting his poor mother to cart him around. She dropped Two at my feet.

  I plucked him up to play with his big ears.

  Isis went to claim Adam.

  He let her sprawl lengthwise up his left side, forepaws over his shoulder. I couldn’t see how that was any way relaxing for either of them, but she stuck her whiskers by the scarred skin over his jugular and he seemed at peace.

  My nose swiveled toward Mom and Amy before my ear caught up with my brain processing the word “Pressman.”

  “I told her I was canceling the order,” Amy said. “But she threatened me. I don’t know what else to do. If she talks to the local papers or even starts up again in public, it could ruin us.”

  “That’s slander,” Mom said. “But you’re right. Once your reputation is sullied, it’s hard to get it back.”

  “She’s just vindictive.”

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  Elvis and Stanley were staring at Mom and Amy too.

  Amy set her uneaten cake on the floor, I assume to hide her florid face.

  Mom didn’t mince words. “It seems that Doralynn Pressman insisted Amy carry through with fumigating Ethereal Events after claiming she saw silverfish on the bottom track of the sliding door to the patio.”

  “I told her I’d call my uncle who owns a pest control business and have him check things out and make a report…only I didn’t tell her it was my uncle. She just somehow found out and called a surprise meeting with the county building inspector at the venue today.” Amy sat up straight and smoothed her skirt over her knees. “She tried to make me sound like a cheat by hiring a family member who might not do the job properly. She even brought along a woman from one of those national chain pesticide companies. They came in the official van, screaming neon yellow with the name of the company painted in red along with a super-size bug, and parked where everyone could see.” Amy was on the verge of tears.

  Elvis moved over to sit on the arm of her chair.

  “I run a clean place!” Amy wiped her eyes with the napkin I’d given her.

  “Of course you do,” Elvis murmured.

  “The building inspector couldn’t find any problems, though of course it’s not his job to check for infestation or food safety. The restaurant safety people do that, and I was inspected last year. The silverfish could have been outside—”

  “If there even were any,” Elvis said.

  “Right.” Amy put her hand in his. “Fumigating would shut me down for a week, minimum, and I’d lose all my spring contracts once they heard there might be a…a problem. Even though there isn’t. If we really needed to do something about…about bugs, of course I would.” She turned her face to Elvis.

  “Well, we’re not canceling,” I told her.

  “Wait a minute!” Elvis stood, eyes on Amy. “You said the Pressman woman drove up with the pest control person? Like, they were together in the company vehicle?”

  Amy nodded.

  I caught myself following suit and shook my head to get out of rhythm.

  “Did you get a name? Or a card?” Elvis asked.

  “Why?” Amy started moving things around in her purse. “Here.” She handed him a yellow card with red lettering.

  “Mind if I take this for now?”

  “Go ahead.”

  No one said anything else.

  For crying out loud, why did it always have to be me? “What are you thinking, Elvis?” I asked.

  He tucked the card in his back pocket and shared a measured look with Adam, who stroked Isis’s back. “Could mean nothing,” Elvis said. “But some pesticides use cyanide.”

  “Cyanide?” My neurons fired up, recalling the questions Elvis asked me about what I’d seen of Ivanna’s corpse. He’d said foreign substances had been involved in her death. The official report was poisoning, but not what or how. Elvis didn’t make casual conversation without a reason. I looked at him.

  Adam was tense beside me.

  Stanley sputtered and slurped his coffee.

  I got the message and slumped toward Adam. I tossed a concerned smile at Amy. “I’m sure nobody would get hurt from it. I mean, professionals fumigate buildings all the time. You just have to wait for it to clear. Then, bingo, you’re back in business. Even daycares and nursing homes…” I trailed off, realizing I was not making things better.

  Amy dabbed her eyes again.

  Elvis stretched. “Well, I think I’ll head out. Ames, give me a ride, would ya?” His smile did its magic and Amy stopped oozing tears.

  Mom followed them to the closet and began to hand out coats. As Elvis wrapped the shawl coat around Amy, Mom repeated, “We’re not canceling Ivy and Adam’s wedding reception so if there’s anything we can do to put in a word for you, file an injunction against fumigating, anything, you let us know.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Preston.” Amy gave her a hug.

  My mother was like that. No-nonsense, loveable, a rock. I wanted to be her when I grew up.

  Stanley said he’d wait for Adam outside. “Thanks for dinner, Ivy.” He and Mom exchanged stilted chin bobs.

  Mom may have forgiven Stanley for leaving me at the altar once upon a time but forgetting was difficult for a genius like her. She said good night to Adam and left the kitchen. Subtle.

  Adam toyed with his keys. “I’ll arrange that meeting we talked about earlier,” he finally said. “It was nice of you to include Amy tonight.”

  “She’s a good person. She doesn’t deserve the trouble Doralynn Pressman is trying to serve up. Can’t you do something?”

  He shook his head and appeared glum. “I wish I could. Mayor is not King.”

  I smiled and put my arms around him. “You are to me.” I kissed his cheek, which he swiftly turned into a much more meltingly romantic interlude. I pulled back after a couple of minutes, noting we’d left the back door open and steamed up the glass of the outer door. I groaned when I thought about what Stanley might have seen. But we were all grownups and he shou
ldn’t have been looking. Not to mention his time had long passed.

  “I’ll see you at church on Sunday,” Adam said and left.

  ~*~

  I had a quiet weekend since I was not scheduled to work, and Mom was off visiting with Virgil’s family. I cleaned corners, even in my office, and addressed wedding invitations that finally arrived via special carrier. I hadn’t asked for that service from Emblem and wasn’t charged for the delivery, so I just shrugged it off, glad to have my own invitations.

  As I turned over a creamy interior envelope and admired the linen texture, I thought again about the papermaking process, and how different this paper was from copy paper, shiny coated paper, and waxed or foil candy wrappers. I wanted to make an appointment with Emblem for that tour, which hopefully included details of the different processes, but also listed of all the paper they created. I wanted to catch up to Ruby, too.

  I addressed an invitation to Aunt Chris Waxley, Dad’s older sister who lived in Maplewood. Aunt Chris was one of those spinsterish women whom I visited as a duty while a little girl but continued to visit and write to as a young woman. I stopped being scared of her house and she replaced the weird cat who chewed on wool with one I liked. Humbert, a striped nondescript sleek feline, liked to stalk her prey from the top of her many bookcases and drop in, so to speak, unannounced, right in front of me and offer a paw. I took it as a sign of respect.

  Mom and I occasionally had a meal with Aunt Chris, though she often traveled, sending me postcards from Angkor Wat, New Delhi, or some little village on the shores of the Amazon. I had them all in a box, along with her annual birthday letter, a pagey affair in lovely script that was impossible to learn in today’s educational setting since it probably involved knuckle-rapping by stern instructors.

  Mom and I caught up on news that evening and went to bed early. She said she’d liked Virgil’s family a lot when they’d met at lunchtime and the feeling she was contemplating a major life change continued to grow on me. Maybe I would get to plan her wedding. Na…probably not. Knowing her, she’d pre-planned it with Amy already, just in case.

  My dreams were of myself as a child trotting down a white runner on a church aisle, tossing Featherlight candy instead of rose petals before the faceless bride. The candy took wing before it hit the ground and flew out of the church’s stained-glass windows.

  Speaking of church, the Sunday service the next morning was upbeat as usual, and Mom took Adam and me out for lunch afterward. Monday was my catch-up day with McTeague’s Tech Services, which took all of an hour, and other stuff I didn’t get to earlier, besides a little book work for Mea Cuppa. I tried to put death and murder out of my mind so I could think about the case fresh—maybe come up with a new angle.

  Then it was Tuesday morning again and back to work.

  “This is the last day I’m staying home,” a stuffy-sounding Martha said over the phone while I popped bread in the toaster. “I already told Adam.” The twins had gone back to kindergarten and their grandmother’s house. Martha just needed a day to rest after dealing with them all weekend while she was still recovering. Her husband, Dale, was on duty at the fire station.

  I was on my second cup of coffee and considering what clothes to wear when Mom unloaded her cannon ball. She daintily buttered a roll and said, “I heard from a little bird a judge will make a ruling in Ivanna Pressman’s death this week.”

  “A little bird, eh?” I set my mug down and lifted my heel to the seat of the chair in eager anticipation. Unladylike, I knew, but it was my house. “A little bird named Virgil?” They’d spent most of Sunday and Monday together, after all.

  She fluttered her fingers. “Never you mind about that.”

  “What else did you hear? Accidental? Suicide? Murder?”

  “We won’t know that until the judge rules. However, it means Doralynn can finally move on, bury her child, and try to heal from her loss.”

  “I guess. Oh…is that…maybe that’s what the Murphy girl meant about Ivanna’s will being made public.”

  “What’s this?”

  “I accidentally on purpose overheard some local gossip in the store earlier, about the will not being opened until…well, I didn’t catch that part.”

  “That makes sense.” Mom bit into the croissant while still questioning me with her gaze.

  “Maybe Doralynn will leave Amy alone.”

  “I’ll see Amy later today,” Mom said. She rose and took her cup to the sink. “I guess with Martha still out, we won’t get to meet for lunch?”

  “Right, I’m sorry.”

  “We’ll do it soon, then. Don’t worry.”

  She went to the guest room, whistling. It didn’t take a genius, or an amateur sleuth, to deduce she wouldn’t be short of lunch partners.

  ~*~

  The morning rush was over, and Adam went to his other day job at City Hall.

  I called Officer Ripple.

  “Good morning, Ivy,” he responded to my greeting. “What can I do for you?”

  “Uh…” Well, I had quite a few items on my list, but what did he mean?

  “You left a message for me to call you?” he reminded me with a hint of laughter.

  It came to me…so much had happened. “Last Friday. Yes. You weren’t in.”

  “I don’t work every minute. It was my afternoon off.”

  “Oh, sure. I…wanted to ask…” Somehow all of the conversation over the weekend never got to the rumor about Ivanna’s money, and I hadn’t talked to Ruby yet. Or Martha. “I had overheard something I thought you should know, but…” I grimaced and held my phone away to mouth “drat.” How could I exit gracefully and inconspicuously without sounding like a blithering idiot? “I don’t think it’s as important as it was…um, earlier.”

  “If you think there’s something I should be aware of, ma’am, you can let me be the judge of how important it is.”

  Was this the same man who blew me off last year when I tried to tell him I feared for the life of the former mayor? “Thank you, Ti—Officer, but for now I don’t want to waste your time.” As I was currently doing.

  A heavy sigh with a side of frustration answered me. “You’ll be sure to let me know what you’re thinking before you pull any—that is, act on any ideas that would be better handled by the police?”

  “Of course, I will!”

  “Or at least tell the mayor?” he said in a rush, probably sensing the phone was on the way to the proverbial cradle.

  “Bye now. And thanks for calling me back.” I clicked off. Yeah, thanks for returning my call three days later. I could have pulled any number of stunts in three days. I made a face at my phone and stuck it in my pocket, only to pull it out immediately when it buzzed again. I held the thing to my ear stupidly befuddled.

  “Ivy?” Adam asked when I had not answered out loud.

  “Yep, it’s me,” I replied cheerfully.

  “You must have been on a call earlier. I just wanted to let you know we’re meeting with Jason Clark after hours, at six fifteen. He said he’d come with his samples.”

  “OK.” My voice must have sounded bothered and cautious, for he told me he’d pick up dinner later, to which I happily agreed and clicked off. I spun…we were already almost like a married couple. Whee! I grabbed a cube of Featherlight raspberry crème mocha and unwrapped it.

  My dream of the candy flying through the church window struck me. I hadn’t realized until I examined my memories today that the Featherlights had all been flying in one direction: toward the North Star winking extra big at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper. What could that mean? I didn’t generally believe our dreams could be interpreted with universal signals, yet I couldn’t shake the thought that mine was significant.

  The afternoon passed with cleaning at the store and getting some of the slow-moving inventory ready for a sale. I was arranging bookmarks on a cute little revolving tree like a tie rack when Elvis came in.

  He flipped the sign on the door to “Closed.�
�� “It’s after six,” he said.

  “So it is. We’re just waiting for…someone,” I said, unsure if he was supposed to know about Adam’s and my meeting with Jason Clark.

  His grin spoke for him.

  Honking, squealing brakes, and shouting interrupted us.

  13

  Elvis and I rushed to the large picture window overlooking Main Street.

  Jason’s racy little car was up on the sidewalk, paint scraped by one of the black lamp posts. Dangling variegated lime and white vinca vines from the hanging pot brushed his windshield. He slowly backed onto the street and parked at an angle in front of the store. Elvis and I shared a look.

  “Should we help?” I muttered.

  “He doesn’t appear to be injured, and the lamp post is secure.”

  Jason got out and was checking his paint job when his head swiveled toward a woman sauntering across the street. I hadn’t seen Ruby for two weeks, and I almost wouldn’t have recognized her but for the red-streaked hair. She must have lost fifteen pounds. Or the frumpy waitress uniform had plumped her up.

  Jason watched her, too, mouth slightly slack, until she turned the corner. I would never have guessed he was grieving his late fiancée who’d experienced a violent death shortly before their wedding.

  Bob had rushed out of the barber shop presumably to see if there was any blood. He heaved a disgusted apron flap at Jason’s back and returned to his customers.

  Elvis and I retreated when we saw Adam speed-walking toward the shop from the direction of City Hall.

  I didn’t want to be caught staring at an accident scene when I probably should have been out there dusting off Jason, calling the ambulance…that sort of thing. At least one alert citizen must have called for help.

  Ripple cruised in.

  I turned away.

  Elvis was fiddling with something, flicking a pen and twirling it in his fingers.

  “So, um, are you staying?” I just wanted to be sure.

  “Adam invited me to the party. It seems Jason didn’t damage much out there besides the paint. Maybe the alignment on his excuse for a vehicle.” Elvis stuck the pen in his jacket pocket and rubbed his hands.