The Girl with the Cat Tattoo

by Theresa Weir

  “I’ll take you home and you can change. We can drop Max off too.”

  The sisters turned to walk away, back to the street and Lola’s car. Lola gave Melody another hug and said, “It’s okay to be Alice. You know that, don’t you?”

  Melody shook her head. “No. No, it’s not. Where have I been for the past two years? Baking cupcakes? Dressing in costumes? Dressing poor Max in a thneed? This isn’t life. Not real life. Tonight. Tonight was real life.”

  “We all need Alice and cupcakes,” Lola said. “Why do you think Joe was attracted to you in the first place? He needed some whimsy, some Alice in his life.”

  A camera flashed, blinding them. Several flashes later, the man behind the camera explained himself. “I’m a reporter for the Pioneer Press. Can I get a statement from you?”

  “No,” Melody said, surprised by her rudeness.

  “You were witnesses, right? Did you see anything?”

  The sisters kept walking.

  “Can I at least get a name and phone number?” the reporter shouted after them.

  Chapter 12

  “Let’s go straight to the hospital,” Melody said as soon as they were in the car. “I don’t want to take the time to drop off Max or change.” Because they might not have time. That’s what she was thinking.

  Lola took Snelling Avenue to 94 E. Traffic on 94 was moving quickly, and in less than five minutes they were taking the downtown exit to Regions Hospital. Foregoing the parking ramp, Lola headed straight for the emergency lot adjoining the ER entrance. The sisters went inside the building, leaving Max alone in the car.

  At least Joe had been shot within five minutes of a major trauma center, Melody thought. If there was anything good to be said about being shot.

  In the past, whenever Melody visited the ER, the people at the desk had taken their sweet time gathering information. What a difference a little blood made. Before Melody could explain what had happened, or explain why they were there, trauma nurses swarmed. The next thing she knew, she was being forced onto a gurney. Then someone grabbed her arm and readied her for a blood draw. All of this in less than a minute. Melody was quite proud of them, and it was good to know they could snap to attention when the situation required it. But of course it didn’t.

  “Where’s the injury?” This from someone who looked like a doctor. A young man with dark, curly hair.

  Melody pushed herself up on her elbows just as a nurse began cutting at the hem of Melody’s dress.

  Both she and Lola shouted at the same time.

  “She’s not injured!”

  “I’m not injured!”

  “You’re covered in blood,” the doctor said. He didn’t believe her about the injury. Or lack thereof. She supposed they got a lot of crackheads who chewed on glass and had no idea whether or not they were hurt. And her costume didn’t really help. “It’s not my blood. I’m here to check on someone who was just brought in.”

  “Name?” the nurse asked. She’d stopped cutting.

  Name. “Joe.”

  “Last name?”

  Melody bailed off the gurney. “I’m not sure.”

  “How do you know the victim?”

  Now, from the corner of her eye, Melody saw a hospital security guard moving closer, a hand to his belt. Saint Paul wasn’t the sweet place painted by Garrison Keillor. Saint Paul could be as nasty and as violent as any other big city, maybe worse. Melody herself had been mugged twice.

  “I’m his girlfriend,” she blurted out.

  “And you don’t know his last name?”

  “It doesn’t make that much sense, but…” Now several people were eying her with suspicion. Lola grabbed Melody by the arm and tugged. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  The guard stepped forward. He was an older guy. Old enough to be somebody’s grandfather. “I think you’d better leave,” he said, not unkindly but with a stern tone that made Melody want to obey.

  She said, “This isn’t what you think.” What did they think? That she was a stripper? Maybe. “I’m a librarian.” As if that explained everything. As if that would suddenly make them back down.

  From somewhere behind them came a snicker. Two young dudes slumped into waiting room chairs were finding the whole thing extremely entertaining.

  “A children’s librarian. This evening was story hour.”

  “Why don’t I just go check and see if I can get an update on the gunshot victim?” the receptionist said. She took off, and the crowd dispersed.

  The woman returned a short time later. “He’s in surgery.”

  Which meant he was still alive.

  In the bathroom, Melody washed the blood from her face and hands and removed her apron, which was covered in blood. Back in the waiting room, a cop searched them out, and Melody found herself going over the story one more time.

  “They’re crediting your cat with saving the young man’s life,” the officer said.

  “My cat?”

  “When the victim arrived here, he had a pink leash wrapped around his thigh. He would have died without it.”

  Max’s leash. Melody hadn’t even noticed it was gone. “My cat certainly didn’t tie the leash around Joe’s thigh.”

  “No, of course not, but from what I understand the cat was the first one on the scene. And he was dragging the leash behind him.”

  “We heard gunshots. The noise scared him, and he ran. He got away from me.” She didn’t go into how Max had heard gunshots another time in his life. And that he’d possibly been the only witness to David’s murder. Melody had always wondered if Max had seen the murderer. He’d been in the house. But maybe he’d hidden. Maybe he’d run downstairs to hide the way he often did. But it was weird to think that if Max could talk, if Max could understand, he might be able to point out David’s killer in a lineup.

  “I don’t think he could have seen anything,” Melody said. “We heard gunshots. Then a car flew past. No headlights. It was all over by the time my cat got there.”

  A doctor approached them and addressed the officer. “He’s out of surgery and in recovery. You should be able to talk to him in thirty minutes or so.”

  Melody’s whole body went limp. “He’s okay?” she whispered. “He’s alive?”

  “He’ll be fine. We had to give him a transfusion, but he’ll be fine. If he hadn’t made a tourniquet I doubt he would have made it. Saved by a cat leash. That’s a new one.”

  At that moment, Melody noticed someone just beyond the doctor. The reporter who’d taken her photo. And he was taking notes as quickly as his pen could move across the tablet.

  Oh, what did it matter?

  Joe was alive.

  “Are you a relative?” the doctor asked.

  “Girlfriend,” the receptionist piped in from her station.

  “You can see him as soon as he’s out of the recovery room. We’ll let you know.”

  “Thanks.”

  Melody looked at Lola, communicating her fear. What now? How did she go on from this point? With this relationship? She almost wished he’d been a drug dealer, because then it would have been easier to walk away. How would he understand that she couldn’t do this? That she couldn’t be with him?

  Lola, who knew her sister inside and out, said, “This will probably never happen again. I mean, how many times does someone get shot? Not that I’m trying to talk you into or out of anything, but-”

  “Logically I know the odds are against it ever happening again. But what were the odds against my being involved with not one, but two men who were shot?”

  Chapter 13

  He wasn’t dead.

  That was Joe’s first thought when he came to in the recovery room, nurses hovering over him, making conversation, trying to figure out if he had all of his marbles. Apparently he did.

  His second thought was of Melody, his third, Max. His fourth? What the hell had happened? Somehow his cover had been blown.

  The recovery room was history, and he was now in a regular
hospital room with a view of downtown Saint Paul. Well, he could see the tops of buildings, and he could see some stars. An officer had already talked to him, but Joe didn’t have much information to share. He hadn’t seen anything.

  His cell phone, placed within reach by the nurse, beeped. He opened the message app to find a text from Jerry. Brief. Succinct. A warning. Be careful who you talk to and what you say. I suspect a mole.

  Joe deleted the message and let his head drop back against the pillow. Mole. He was living a cop cliché. He thought about the cop he’d just talked to. A guy he’d seen around but didn’t know much about. He hadn’t given him any real information. He hadn’t had any information to give. But from now on he would have to be careful, and he’d have to keep a low profile. Hopefully it wasn’t a slow news night. Hopefully the story wouldn’t even merit a few sentences.

  He heard a faint tap on the door, and Melody poked her head inside. “Can I come in?”

  He should never have gotten involved with her. He’d known better. Not the thing for an undercover cop to do, moral implications and the fact that he could never be honest with her aside. He’d put her in danger.

  She approached the bed. Her dark hair was disheveled, and her dress, her blue Alice-in-Wonderland dress, was stained with blood. His blood. Without thought, he reached for her with the hand that wasn’t tethered to the IV rack. Her fingers wrapped around his, and he gave her a firm, reassuring squeeze along with a crooked smile.

  “The doctors are crediting Max with saving my life,” he said.

  Some of the tenseness left her body, and she returned his smile. They were like two shy strangers, but he’d spent the night with her. He’d made love to her. He knew he should regret it. He tried to regret it.

  “It’s not like he tied his leash around your leg and stopped the bleeding,” she said.

  “But it’s a good story. And you like good stories.”

  She thought about that and nodded. “Something the kids will like to hear when Max makes another appearance at the library.”

  “And the shelter,” Joe said. “Don’t forget the shelter.” But he could sense her retreat. He could feel her pulling out of his life. Maybe he should help her.

  “Lola called 9-1-1,” Melody said.

  “Ah.” He’d forgotten Lola was there.

  “So it was Lola and Max. I didn’t really do anything.”

  But he remembered that she’d comforted him until the ambulance arrived. She’d hugged him to her and cried. That’s what he remembered.

  “I have to go soon,” Melody said. “Max is in the car. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  This was goodbye, and he understood. One of them had to do it. No more waking up in her bed. No more lazy Sunday mornings with Max at the foot of the covers. No more Pippi Longstocking, or Alice, or cupcakes with pink frosting that he wished he’d tried. When he thought of her house, he thought of bright sunlight, of whimsy, of bravery.

  “Did you see anything?” he asked. “Anything that might help us catch whoever did this?”

  She shook her head. “A car with no headlights. That’s all. It was dark. I can’t even tell you the color or make. Max ran off, so I was thinking about him, looking for him. I wasn’t thinking about the car.”

  “What were you doing there? How did you find out where I lived?” He thought about Jerry’s warning. No, not Melody. Couldn’t have been Melody. But what about how she’d come into his life? Her cat. Her cat had found him. Her cat had lured him to her house.

  No. He was crazy for even entertaining the idea. That would mean everything about her was false. He would never believe that. She was real. And he was afraid he loved her. And whoever had tried to kill him was still out there. He released her hand.

  “Tell Max hi for me,” Joe said.

  “I will.”

  Had she read him? Had she felt that he was closing the door too? Yes. She knew this was goodbye.

  “And tell him thanks for saving my life,” Joe said.

  “I’ll do that.”

  She bit her lip, made a nervous gesture with one hand, and said, “I thought you were a drug dealer or something. So Lola and I decided to spy on you.”

  “Ah.” That explained it. He would have laughed if the whole thing wasn’t so messed up. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you what was going on. That day you told me you’d never date a cop, I almost said something. I’m sorry.”

  And maybe if he hadn’t been working undercover… Would he have kept it a secret? When telling her would have meant losing her?

  “Can I get you anything? Before I leave?”

  “I’m fine. And Melody?” He wanted to drive home the seriousness of the situation. “Be careful who you talk to. Be careful what you say.”

  He noticed her pallor and the circles under her eyes. “Go home.” He checked the clock on the wall. “It’s 2:00 a.m.”

  He got the idea that she wanted to say something. Instead, she nodded, turned, and left.

  *

  In the waiting room, Melody found Lola curled up in a corner chair, asleep. She shook her awake, and then they were shuffling their way to the car where Max was waiting.

  Melody was always surprised by the amount of traffic at 2:00 a.m. People leaving bars. Going home. She held Max to her chest and pressed her face in his fur, inhaling. Yes, she would go home and take a shower. She would wash the rest of Joe’s blood away, and she would crawl into bed.

  “Joe and I just broke up,” Melody confessed.

  Lola put on her blinker and shifted lanes, preparing to exit onto Lexington. “Is that such a bad thing? I mean, you didn’t want to date a cop.”

  “I know, but that was before. I mean, I didn’t want to date a cop to begin with. I never wanted to go out with a cop. And what is it with me and cops? Look at me. I’m not a cop kind of person, but I seem to attract them. How is it I ended up with another cop?”

  “I’m sorry, hon.”

  “I like him. I really like him.” She thought a moment. “I wonder if he’ll go back undercover. I wonder if they’ll send him away, to another city.”

  “We should have a party.”

  “What?” Melody couldn’t shift gears from sorrow to party.

  “A theme party. Where we dress in fifties clothes and drink martinis.”

  Lola’s solution to everything was a party.

  “I’ll invite some of my guy friends.”

  Most of her guy friends were unemployed musicians. “No, thanks, I don’t-”

  “A tattoo party. How about that? My tattoo artist friend will come, and everybody can get drunk and get tattoos. It’ll be fun.”

  Melody was all set to protest, but she didn’t. She kind of liked the idea. “Let’s do that. Maybe all of those things. Fifties clothes, martinis, and tattoos.”

  “What kind of tattoo will you get?” Lola asked.

  Max was purring away on Melody’s lap. She gave him an extra rub on the head and said, “I have a great idea.”

  Chapter 14

  The front door slammed, and Max waited for Melody to return. She always grabbed the Sunday paper and brought it to bed so they could read it together. He heard his mistress gasp and he stopped kneading the down quilt.

  And then she said, “Oh, my God.”

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what had caused her voice to take on such a disturbed tone. He heard the snap of the newspaper, heard her bare feet as she made her way back to the bedroom. But he didn’t think there would be any lazy cuddling. She sounded too upset for that.

  “Oh, Max. You should see this.”

  He was waiting for her to show him the paper when her cell phone rang. She answered. “I just saw it. Haven’t finished reading it yet. Let me call you back.” She disconnected and dropped to the bed, her eyes on the newspaper she held in both hands.

  Max squeezed under her arm so he could get a better look. There, on the front page of the paper, in full color, was a photo of him and Melody. She wa
s holding him protectively to her chest, her eyes huge, her lips sad and worried, the blue of her dress and her ruffled white sleeve nicely visible. He was wearing his striped sweater.

  Oh, he loved it! Loved it! Even the smear of blood down her cheek, left from that tender moment when Joe’s fingers had caressed her face-even that looked cool. And it was a great picture of him. A wonderful picture of him. Melody liked to take photos of him acting silly. Photos when his eyes were wild and he’d been doing a little too much catnip. But this was sweet. And wow did his eyes ever look yellow. What a handsome cat he was. And how beautiful Melody was. What a pair they were.

  She read the article to him. “Cat saves man’s life.” She gave him a hug and a kiss on his head. “That’s you. They’re writing about you.” The article talked about how he’d bravely run into a danger zone, and, when he spotted the injured man, he’d run toward him rather than away. “A cat on a rescue mission,” Melody read. “Oh, how silly. But we don’t care, do we? It’s silly wonderful.” She continued reading, then stopped and said, “That’s not good. They’re using my full name. I don’t think I like that. I didn’t like that sneaky reporter. Maybe I should have talked to him. I suppose I made him mad by refusing to give him an interview, so now he puts his own spin on our story and it makes the front page.”

  She set Max aside and grabbed her silver laptop. He didn’t like it when she messed with her laptop, petting it instead of him. He tried to step on the keyboard, but she kept elbowing him back. “Not now, Max.”

  Click, click, click. Her fingers flew. Her back was against the headboard of the bed, the laptop on her thighs, her bare feet crossed at the ankles, her face intense as she examined the computer screen. “You are not only the star of the Pioneer Press, you’re also the star of the Internet,” she said, her voice full of amazement, puzzlement, and worry.

  He was hungry. She usually fed him his canned food by now.