by Clea Simon
“Now, wait a minute.” If I were Wallis, my fur would be rising along my spine. “It’s not the kitten’s fault.”
I felt a hand on my upper arm and shook it off. Creighton should know better by now.
“Pru? Ms. Marlowe?” I turned and instead of my beau, I saw a younger version of the sad, angry woman who was now staring daggers at me. Jill.
“Yes?” I was in no mood for this family.
“I’m so glad you came.” Yes, it was the same breathless voice. “Jill Canaday. We spoke on the phone.”
I turned back in time to see Jackie storm off. Her coterie—more of those tight-mouthed women—were staring daggers at me. I’d just given them a bit more to gossip about. Not that I could help that. Turning from their basilisk glare, I focused on the woman in front of me.
“Jill, yes, of course.” I bit my lip, unsure how to proceed. Behind me, I heard the slow chunk of shovels in the dirt. The gravediggers had begun their work. “About what your sister said.” When in doubt, dive in. “You know, it’s not the kitten’s fault.”
“I do.” She nodded, and I realized I’d been holding my breath. “I’m sorry you had to hear that. In fact, that’s part of what I want to talk to you about.”
She tilted her face up to mine, and I was struck again by the family resemblance. Jill’s round face might have lacked the fashion model contours of Judith’s, her skirt and blouse certainly cost less, but her youth made her pretty. I put her at twenty—twenty-five at the outside—a good ten to fifteen years younger than her oldest sister.
“I’m so glad. I mean, that you’ll be taking the kitten.” Creighton was behind her and from the look on his face, I knew he was about to butt in. The gravediggers were working in earnest now, their rhythm regular and deep. “Because he needs a home.”
“I’m sorry.” She had the grace to look distressed, though that could have been the sound of spades. “I’m thinking I shouldn’t take the kitten back just yet. Not while my sister is so, well, you know. I didn’t mean to lead you on, but I don’t really know what I’m going to be doing in the fall. I’d already decided to spend the summer back here. I thought I’d be helping my dad, and now…”
A swallow and a blink pushed back the tears that had suddenly appeared. Chunk. We could all hear it now. Chunk. “But that wasn’t all of it. What I meant, was— well…I’ve heard about you, Pru. I’ve heard so much about you. I want you to teach me everything you know.”
Chapter Fifteen
I had a million better things to be doing than to go back to the dead man’s house. Curiosity overruled them all, however. Curiosity and a desire to get to the bottom of this particular puzzle. Creighton looked amused when I told him I was heading over there. Smart enough to suppress his smile, he made some comment about acolytes. He wouldn’t say anything more.
“Look,” I tried to keep my voice soft. I’d taken his hand by then. Usually the combination does the trick. “I just want to know what’s going on, okay? The Canaday who hired me is not going to take her dad’s kitten. I don’t think she’s going to want to pay me, either. And the sister who bought the animal can’t take him. She’s staying in a fancy hotel for the duration.” I paused, waiting. I got nothing. “So this third daughter is it. Only, I don’t know what’s up with her.”
“Watch out, Pru.” A dimple twitched in his cheek. “These Canaday girls—they’re a whole new breed of animal.”
“I’ll watch it,” I snarled. I hadn’t wanted to be roped into this whole funeral shindig in the first place. I liked even less thinking that I was going to be even further ensnared.
By the time I got to the house, it was already full. Casseroles and platters of cold cuts covered the dinner table, and I saw one of Creighton’s deputies loading cheese on an overfilled sandwich.
“Ms. Marlowe.” Wilkins turned to acknowledge me. He’d been talking to Judith, who turned and blinked at me as if we’d never met.
“Pru Marlowe,” I extended my hand to her. “I’m the one who took your kitten in.”
“That’s right.” She looked me up and down before turning back to the lawyer. “Maybe she can talk some sense into Jackie.”
“Excuse me?” I don’t like being talked about as if I weren’t there. In that way, I’m like Growler.
“Sorry.” She smiled, full wattage, and I remembered—she’d been living in LA. “It’s just …my sister has gone a little over the edge. She’s so into being the mother hen that she doesn’t know what to do with herself.”
A look around revealed what Judith was talking about. Even now I could see her older sister putting together plates of food, wrapping up sandwiches in plastic like she was about to launch a campaign.
“Was she always like that?” As I watched, Wilkins made his way over to help her or to calm her down.
“Well, since this latest development,” Judith answered, her voice cool. “You heard about the autopsy?”
I nodded. “I gather there are some loose ends?”
“Aren’t there always?” Judith shrugged. It had the effect of sending a ripple through her coal-black hair. “Jackie just can’t deal. Ever since Mother died, she’s been high-strung, but I’ve never seen her like this. I used to feel bad for her, but you know, she could have left.”
I kept my voice cool. “Like you did?”
One eyebrow arched. “I have a right to a life. For what I wanted to do, I couldn’t wait.”
I nodded. “And how’s that working out for you?”
“Fine, thank you.” She turned, meeting me stare for stare. “I remember when you left town, too.”
Point. I smiled, the closest I would come to a submissive gesture. Judith Canaday would be a formidable opponent if I were ever in a competition. As it was, I noticed the few men in the room hovering. Maybe it was just as well Creighton had not tagged along. I looked back over at Jackie. She was fussing in the kitchen, rooting around in a cabinet. Wilkins had his hands full, balancing a plate of cookies and a cup and saucer, his temper starting to fray.
“Jackie!” I heard him bark. “It doesn’t matter. Go sit down.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. She shot him a pained look but obeyed, drifting off to the living room.
“You think you’ll stay?” I turned back to the woman before me. She had caught me watching the lawyer and smiled now, a slow smile.
“Why should I?” Judith’s voice was low. “What’s left for me here?”
A home, I could have said. A sister who would probably welcome you. A father whose overriding presence had been abruptly removed. Any of those would have been true. None of which I wanted to say. Instead, I found myself at a loss for words.
Luckily, I didn’t need them. Before I could form a more polite answer, a sudden rise in volume from the other room caught my attention. Panic sounds the same in most species.
“What’s wrong?” A woman’s voice spiked. “What is it?”
“Nothing, nothing.” Wilkins, his voice deep and reassuring. “She just needs some air.”
The crowd parted as the lawyer came through, one arm around the youngest Canaday girl.
“Poor thing.” I heard another woman say. “She loved her father.”
“We all did.” I turned to see Jackie, returned from the living room, her voice strained. “We all loved our father. We all lost him!”
“Of course, dear.” One of the matrons stepped in, as much to smooth ruffled feathers, I thought, as to offer real comfort. Any talk about the autopsy was over, at least until the social equilibrium was restored. Everyone was fussing about Jackie now—the town’s notables focused on her, and on the little sister who had left the house on the lawyer’s arm.
But there were three Canaday girls, and I turned to look for the other daughter. The one who had not seemed so upset. She had stepped back, I saw then—away from the hubbub by the food, from the dr
ama surrounding her sisters. Judith was watching the room, I could see that. What she hadn’t realized was that I had turned to watch her. And what I saw was chilling. For once, for maybe the first time in a long time, the woman before me wasn’t the focus of anyone’s attention. And in the calm privacy away from the spotlight, she had dropped the cool mask. Her striking features showed the grim set of rage.
Chapter Sixteen
“You should have seen your face.” Later, back at my place, Creighton was having a good laugh at my expense. “I can’t believe that little chit of a girl managed to shake you up like that.”
“You don’t—” I stopped myself. He was talking about Jill, not Judith. I was still mulling over what I’d seen—that sudden transformation. So instead I told him about Jackie, flailing, her outsized grief grabbing all the attention in the room. And only then about Jill’s strange request. With his cop instincts, Jim had homed in on the one Canaday girl who had really gotten to me.
“You don’t know how presumptuous Jill was being. I studied for years to get where I am, Jim,” I barked out now.
“Well, you didn’t have to poison her.” Creighton was joking. He knew—he had his sources—about Jill getting sick at the gathering.
“Jim.” I wasn’t even going to respond to that. Besides, if he knew she had gotten ill, he also would have heard that she’d recovered. “I wasn’t the caterer. But, wait…” I turned to look at my beau. “Why are you talking poison?”
The autopsy. “Jim, was Canaday poisoned?”
“Pru, you know I can’t talk about this.” He put his hand on my mouth before I could speak. “But just to shut you up, darling, I will tell you that there’s nothing to say.”
“The medical examiner is doing more tests.” The hum of gossip at the funeral. The talk of delays.
His raised eyebrows were the only confirmation I would get.
“You really are becoming a gossip,” he said out loud. “Seriously, Pru, maybe you should take this girl up on her offer.”
He knew that the sofa we were now sitting on, as well as the house where I had retreated after the debacle at the funeral, was mine only because of my mother. Just as he knew that the labors that had taken up the rest of my day were more on the level of petsitter than animal professional.
“You know, it wouldn’t kill you to open up a little.” The bourbon had loosened his tongue.
“Are you sure you’re talking about that girl, Jim?” I wasn’t just deflecting his attention. This was an ongoing struggle between the two of us.
“She wants to learn from you. She admires you.” He took a sip. “She seems nice.”
“Maybe you’re jealous of her interest in me.” I was teasing, sure, but not entirely. I’d rather pawn my hunky beau off on a new girl than risk him knowing the truth about me. I liked having some company. I don’t like being locked up. “Maybe you want her for yourself.”
“I know what I want.” He put the glass down, and then he showed me.
***
I slipped out of bed before he woke the next morning, anxious to avoid any further questions. This close to the solstice, the sun was up as early as I was, sneaking through the shades with a soft light that almost had me reconsidering my harsh stance. Wallis was waiting in the kitchen as I came through, and she tilted her head as I reached for my jacket.
“Gotta get going.” I kept my voice soft.
“Don’t you want to know what’s up with Ernesto?” Without any apparent effort, she leaped to the windowsill and waited while I opened the window. The air that came in was cool, but as she flexed her whiskers, I caught the rush of new life it carried.
“If you can give me a quick rundown.” Creighton had a cop’s senses. He’d be up soon, despite the bourbon and my best efforts to lay him out.
“I don’t have to.” She flicked her tail. “He will.”
“Ernesto?” I looked around. Sure enough, the kitten had entered the kitchen and now stood looking up at me, imploring. With a sigh of resignation, I bent to pick him up, but rather than allowing himself to be cuddled, he strained toward Wallis. I put him in the windowsill and marveled at how he mimicked her pose. The scrawny kitten was learning balance, if not poise.
“He fell.” He was staring out the window, his mouth slightly open as he took in the scents. “Fighting it. Grabbing at it.”
I drew back. Was this little creature reliving the death scene? Had he been traumatized? I knew animals didn’t view death the same way humans did. They were much more prosaic about mortality. As carnivores, they are part of this bloody cycle in a more immediate, visceral way than we humans are. But had the kitten bonded with the dying man? Had he been scarred by his fall?
I got an image of hands grasping and then that button, rolling around on the floor. “Yes! The button.” And I got it. Ernesto wasn’t reliving anything. He was watching the world outside.
This was his frame of reference. Not that prey animals were toys, but that play was serious work for him. Every time he had jumped on that rolling button, he had been exercising his instinct to pounce, to hunt.
He was learning to be a cat.
Chapter Seventeen
Albert didn’t like lending me his truck. The Beauville animal control officer—think “dogcatcher”—particularly didn’t like that I wouldn’t give him the keys to my GTO in exchange, which meant he was stranded in the office until my return. But not only was I doing him a favor by taking the Wilkins case off his hands, I was protecting his pride. Albert was afraid of heights, I’d discovered, the first time a homeowner had asked him to go up a ladder. I’d covered for him then and not let on to the boys at Happy’s, our local watering hole. That gave me leverage now, when I needed something besides my old muscle car to do my—or, really, his—job. His ladder had been in the back of the shelter since that first unsteady climb, and that saved me a trip, too.
“Be back by lunch, Pru.” He surrendered the keys finally. “Okay?”
“I’ll do my best.” With a quick wink at Frank, who had popped out of his person’s vest, I took off. Back to Laurence Wilkins’ place.
Quarter past ten, and the day was gearing up to be a warm one. In a month, I’d work up a sweat hoisting a ladder. The same breeze that had flooded my kitchen had hung around, though, and I welcomed the sun on my back as I settled Albert’s cheap aluminum deal against the side of Wilkins’ house. Careful as I could be, I couldn’t help crushing the first leaves of his foundation planting. It was a pity. That greenery would soften the boxy look of the new addition, if it survived. But I had a job to do. Already, I could hear the chirps and squeaks of life inside the roof. Happy sounds. Homey. Shaking them off, I went back to the truck for the wire contraptions.
“Ms. Marlowe.” The lawyer had come out to his front stoop. “You’re prompt.”
“Who’s there?” A sharp bark, inquisitive rather than alarmed. “Who?”
“Going to get these up and be out of your hair.” I showed him the little wire boxes. Although they look like traps, they allow animals to get out, I explained. But once out, they can’t re-enter. “I’d give them forty-eight hours,” I said. “If you hear anything after that, give me another call.”
“Who?” Someone was getting impatient. “Is it her? Her? Her?”
“You have a dog?” The bark was audible, after all.
“What? Oh, yes.” He turned back toward his house. “A Shetland shepherd. Biscuit. She was my wife’s.”
“I’m sorry.” He’d mentioned her. I tried to remember what else he’d said.
“Thank you.” He looked down at the stoop, embarrassed, I thought, by his emotion. “That was close to ten years ago, and she’d been ill for some time.”
I nodded. Some people think of grief as a weakness, as if time and anticipation make it less. Another bark rang out. Someone was still feeling the pain. Someone was also, I could hear, bored a
nd sick of being cooped up. “You know, I also walk dogs.”
“Good to know.” But he was looking toward the road. Silly me, I had thought he was checking up on me. That he’d want an explanation of what I was doing. He was simply taking the air.
Or waiting for someone, I realized as I went back to work. One day after his partner’s funeral. Well, life goes on.
Chapter Eighteen
I was up on the ladder when the first car appeared. A late model sedan, big, dark, and formal looking. An older woman, perhaps, looking to revise a will. Another lawyer, seeking to finalize some corporate paperwork. Whoever it was would be a break from the chirps and squeaks around me. My hammering might not be understood—not exactly—but my presence, so close to a nest, was. I was a danger, a threat, though not quite as deadly as those squirrels feared. Well, they should be grateful, I told myself as I turned to watch the big car. Life was hard all over.
The sedan had been idling at the curb, but now it parked and the driver stepped out—Judith, in the dark suit she’d worn to the funeral. She stood, leaning against the hood of her car and stared into space. She must be early for an appointment, I realized. And that meant I could grab a few minutes of her time.
“Hey,” I called, or tried to. In lieu of a third hand, I held my nails in my mouth and only managed a grunt. Judith looked around—but not up. Instead, I heard a rustle on the window. Old man Wilkins, only a few feet beneath me, was peering through the blinds. I couldn’t tell if he had heard my smothered greeting or he was checking to see if Judith had arrived, but I wouldn’t risk disturbing a paying customer. Instead, I took the nail from my mouth and used it as I’d intended. Two more, I’d have the one-way door in place.
Three minutes later, the first opening was wired shut. And Judith was still outside, leaning against the sedan’s hood. I watched her with interest. As I’d learned yesterday, the dark-haired beauty was very conscious of being looked at—and very different in her unguarded moments.