Cats Can't Shoot: A Pru Marlowe Pet Noir #2 (Pru Marlowe Pet Mysteries)

by Clea Simon

  It would take some work. The aunt had told me Louise Franklin had taken Robin in. The way this girl was talking, it sounded like Don had taken an interest too. At any rate, this pretty brunette seemed to miss the cat—and the man—more than the widow did.

  “Maybe I could just take her now?” She looked so eager, if she’d had a tail, she’d have wagged it. “While everything gets straightened out?”

  I shook my head. I wasn’t getting involved in a custody case. “Sorry, no can do.” The red lips quivered. “It’s not just the question of ownership,” I explained. “You see, once the Persian has a clean bill of health, I’ll still have to do some behavioral work with her. She’s been through a lot.”

  Then I dropped the bomb.

  “And I think the best way to do that is to get the cat back into surroundings that feel comfortable for her.” No response. “To take her back to the house. To the Franklin house. Do you think you might be able to help me with that?”

  “What? No.” The girl seemed taken aback by that. To do her credit, she seemed to be thinking about it. “No, that wouldn’t be—wouldn’t be a good idea.” She suddenly got awfully busy stowing her handkerchief back into her bag. I waited, wondering what would come next.

  Whatever it was, she’d stowed it with that hankie. When she looked up, her pretty face was blank. “You’ll call me, though, won’t you? Let me know?”

  I felt the pull of those big dark eyes. “I’m sure this will work out.” For the first time that day, I felt confident of a resolution. At least for the cat.

  “Well, until then.”

  She turned toward Mack, that little bag tucked underneath her arm. “I think we’re done here.” One touch on his forearm, and he leaped forward to open the door. A friend? I knew Mack. He wasn’t the type to do favors, even for a damsel in distress. He wasn’t the domesticated type, either. Not that I cared.

  Still, there was something a little doglike about the way he’d jumped. About the way he followed his mistress out.

  “Well, that was interesting.” I wasn’t talking to anyone in particular. A soft cough behind me let me know that I wasn’t alone. “Doc?”

  “Didn’t want to interrupt.” He was staring off into the middle distance. We weren’t that busy. “The Smalley family is in reception. Once you’ve finished with them, could we meet for a few minutes?”

  “Sure, Doc.” I tried to remember what he’d told me about the Smalleys. Something with allergies. Their little girl’s nose matched her hair—both a startling red—and as I approached, she sneezed some more. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was supposed to do. Even with my gift, I’m no miracle worker. But I was billing by the hour, so I went through everything I knew about grooming the long-haired dachshund the family had adopted for Christmas. I gave them the name of some doggie shampoos and dug up a few pamphlets about HEPA filters. Either the kid would outgrow the allergies or she wouldn’t, but I left them with some free samples and a little hope. More than many of us had at the end of the day, and I went to look for Doc Sharpe.

  I found him in the cat room. He’d managed to extract the white Persian from her cage and had her on the metal examining table. She was calm now, almost unnaturally so considering the noise and olfactory confusion of the shelter. As I closed the door behind me, I tried once again to reach out to her with my thoughts. This time, I added thoughts of Robin. Young, soft. Possibly more involved with the cat—and her owner—than the widow had been. Again, I got nothing—almost a solid nothing, as if the cat was intentionally keeping me out.

  “How’s she doing?” I walked up to the other side of the table, the better to assist if he needed me.

  “Better, I think.” He was looking at her teeth again, and she wasn’t resisting. “She’s still not grooming, but we can give that some time. And the deafness seems to be lessening. I’m not entirely sure, but I think she looked up as you opened the door.”

  I hadn’t seen anything. Then again, if she was locking me out, that might have been intentional.

  “It’s this foreleg that’s worrying me now.” He reached for the right paw, and she pulled back. I started to reach for her, but something stopped me.

  “Do you want to do an X-ray?” X-raying an animal meant giving it general anesthesia. Without a full medical workup, including blood tests, that was a risk. “Would Mrs. Franklin give her permission?”

  “I don’t want to bother her. Though you could ask her caretaker, when you talk to him.” Lew. Hard to think of him as anyone’s manservant, though Doc Sharpe could have been reminding me of my duty. He’d overheard at least some of my conversation with Robin, and he was too smart not to have the same suspicions. “For now, I’m going on the assumption that it’s a bad bruise or some kind of a sprain.”

  “Kickback.” The word came out. One of Tom’s words.

  “Excuse me?” Doc Sharpe looked up.

  “From the gun.” We were both silent at that, but Sharpe’s hand must have moved, just a little, down the Persian’s leg. He must have touched the tender area, the bruise. Because right then, the cat started to struggle.

  “Pru?” I didn’t need prompting. I reached for the animal’s back with both hands, the better to hold her steady. “You can trust me.” I did my best to send my thoughts to the cat as I reached for her. “I can help.”

  “No! Never again! No!” The cat went wild.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I’m usually pretty quick, but that sudden outburst had unnerved me. As a result, I got thwacked. Blood was running down my forearm as I maneuvered the white Persian back into her cage and locked the door behind her.

  “Sorry to catch you like that.” Doc Sharpe was behind me. For a moment, his words confused me.

  “My fault,” I rallied. I didn’t want him to start hovering. “We knew that leg was sensitive.”

  I washed the parallel scratches, then he applied an antibiotic cream, patting my arm dry before unpeeling the butterfly bandage. That was kind, the cut was on my right forearm, where I’d have had trouble getting at it myself. As soon as he was done, however, I wished him gone. I needed to think about what had happened.

  “You want to get out of here?” He was looking at me funny. Something showed.

  “What? No.” Did he think a cat scratch would deter me? Then again, he’d given me my out. “Though if you don’t think you’ll need me…” I flexed my hand. The scratches pulled. The white Persian had gotten me good.

  “Go home, Pru.”

  I looked up at the vet, but I couldn’t read his face. Another reason I prefer animals.

  On the drive home, I thought about what to do next. “Never again,” the cat had said, and I was tempted to give in. It would be so easy to let the Persian go. She wasn’t wanted by Louise Franklin, but I’d have an uphill battle getting the widow to relinquish her for free. Particularly, if my suspicions were correct, to Robin Gensler. What’s sauce for the goose isn’t always sauce for the gander, not in the goose’s opinion. Besides, the cat was a mess. From what Robin had started to tell me, she’d had some kind of problems before, so it wasn’t likely she’d be pet-friendly for the foreseeable future. The world is full of excess animals. Most of them don’t make it.

  Then again, this was the fault of human beings. If this was a pedigreed animal—nobody really calls cats “purebred,” because most of the specialty breeds are crosses—then we made her. Any temperament problems were probably our fault. Short tempers, hypersensitivity—it all goes along with breathing problems and spinal dysfunction when you interbreed animals for their looks, for how we want them, rather than what’s best for the beast. I couldn’t let a healthy animal be euthanized, an animal who had asked me, however faintly, for help.

  The memory made me woozy for a moment, causing the double line on the highway to merge and dance. It was lack of sleep. Had to be, and so without access to caffeine, I pulled over for some air and stepped out onto the verge. Four o’clock. March. Almost dark. Winter cold, with frost just a few deg
rees off, but I could smell spring in the dampness, in the hint of green and the mud. Leaning back on my car, I felt the warmth of the engine. Listened to it tick, like a live thing, and looked out over the bare woods that fell away from the road. Out there, life was stirring again, too. At this hour, I was hearing little of it. Some small bird was nesting, grateful for its down. Something else—a fox, perhaps—was stirring. Would these two adversaries come into contact tonight? Would one not live to see the morning? I took a deep breath. This was the way it should be, without my kind interfering with it all.

  But we had. And so I pulled the piece of notepaper out of my pocket and dialed Lew’s number. I wasn’t sure exactly what I would say to my absent date and rehearsed some options as the phone rang. I’d make it clear that this was business. That we were on friendly terms. I wouldn’t refer to that weekend in Saratoga. And I wouldn’t ask how he had gotten involved with the merry widow.

  Years of training have some residual benefits. As the call connected, I pitched my voice low. Calm as well as sexy would get me what I wanted.

  “Lew? This is Pru Marlowe calling.” I assumed he had caller ID, but I wanted to give him a moment to collect himself.

  “Pru, what a surprise.” The voice on the other end wasn’t the one I had anticipated. Slightly higher, a lot younger. For a moment, I was disoriented. “Then again, I’d heard you two had been spending some time together.”

  “Creighton?” My own voice ratcheted up. Not what I wanted. “This is a business call, Officer. And I’d appreciate it if you would respect that and put Mr. McMudge on the phone.”

  I didn’t know what I expected. The low laugh on the other end certainly wasn’t it.

  “I bet I can do you one better, Pru. In fact, I’d like to invite you to speak with him in person.”

  I waited.

  “In fact, if you can tell us where he is, Pru, the department will be deeply indebted to you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Llewellyn McMudge. Your Llewellyn McMudge has gone missing. Just when we really wanted to speak with him about his new interest in antique guns.” There was quiet on the line. “Anything you know about this, Pru?”

  I didn’t, but I wasn’t surprised. Lew and Don were friends. So they shared a hobby? Well, they were wealthy boys who could afford their toys. Had Robin been one of those pricey playthings? Had I? I banished the thought. Better stick to the literal truth.

  “I’m calling about the Persian,” I said. He’d been there when Louise Franklin said she wanted to sell it. He’d heard her outburst, and I told him how she’d now hired me to rehabilitate the beast to see if we could interest a breeder or some other buyer. “Rich people, Creighton. They collect things. Cats, guns. And the widow gave Llewellyn’s name to Doc Sharpe. Told him he should be my contact.”

  “Huh. He’s awfully good at making himself useful, isn’t he? The old family retainer?” He waited, but I didn’t take the bait. “Ever wonder what he does for his money, Pru?”

  “We didn’t have that kind of relationship.”

  Quiet on the other end. I’d have bet my own scarce savings Creighton was wondering what kind of relationship we did have. “Let me know if you hear anything, Pru,” he said finally. “And be careful. You know him. You don’t know everyone he hangs out with.”

  I couldn’t deny that. Meanwhile, I had a question of my own. “Speaking of rich people, don’t you think it odd, first that the widow acts so concerned about getting rid of the cat and then she’s so insistent that it not be given away?”

  “Well, the cat reminds her of her husband.” I’d told myself that, too. “Of what happened to him. I could see wanting it out of the house. Or maybe, I don’t know. Maybe she never liked the cat.”

  Unbidden, Robin Gensler came to mind. If there had been something going on and Louise Franklin had been aware of it, the cat might be more pawn than pet. It wouldn’t be the first time an animal had been injured out of spite. I opened my mouth to pose this theory to Jim—and caught myself in time. I didn’t need to stir up trouble. Not till I had that cat placed in a good home, anyway.

  “There are a lot of maybes in this, Pru.” He sounded tired, this strange case weighing on him. “Look, why don’t you come in tomorrow. We’ll talk about it.”

  At another time, I would have joked. We knew each other well enough by now. I could take some liberties. There was something in his voice, though. Something beside fatigue. And he’d given me license to sleep on my suspicions. It wasn’t like anything was going to happen tonight anyway. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll come in tomorrow.”

  If Creighton noticed my hesitation, he didn’t let on. He was the wrong kind of animal, and I couldn’t read him. Instead, I went home to my cat.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  Wallis rarely laid down the law. Being a cat, she didn’t have to. A few subtle hints. A lash of the tail. I get the message. This time, though, she was not taking any chances.

  “Wallis, I wasn’t.”

  “Yeah, right.” I’d only walked in when I saw her, waiting for me. Now I turned to hang up my coat, and heard the ripping sound of her claws in my mother’s old couch.

  “Wallis!” I whipped around. She wasn’t even pretending to stop. Instead, she pinned me with those cool green eyes and reached up an inch further. “Look, can we talk?”

  The claws stayed where they were, far enough extended so that I could see the pink at their base. “When you say ‘talk,’ what you mean is, ‘Can you convince me.’”

  I shut up. She was right. “Look, Wallis, I wasn’t intending to bring the white Persian here.”

  “Not consciously.” She sheathed her talons and sat back down. “You were wondering what to do with the cat. Why that cat was important.”

  “To the widow. To Robin Gensler. Not to me.” I was fudging a bit and hoped she wouldn’t notice. “You have to admit, there’s something strange going on here.”

  “Maybe.” She settled down onto her belly, her tail wrapping around her legs. And I realized, she might be able to read my thoughts, but she didn’t have all the info. “I have enough.” Her tail lashed.

  “Look, let me tell you what I know.” I needed to make peace. I lived here, too. Besides, Wallis was the only other creature I could trust to be straight with me.

  “Damn right.” She couldn’t suppress the low purr that my unintentional compliment had prompted. I pretended to ignore it as I put my thoughts in order.

  “To start with, the widow is off somehow. For one thing, she doesn’t care about cats.” Yes, I was playing on Wallis’ vanity a little. It had worked for me before. “And, okay, maybe their marriage wasn’t the greatest. They didn’t seem like the best matched couple. But you’d think she’d be a little more visibly upset.”

  I pictured the pretty widow. She’d been angry, but she’d never lost control. “She only gets loud or upset when she wants others to react.” Creighton’s questions. The gun. “Or when she needs to control the situation. It’s like she’s trying to use aversion training on us.”

  “Oh, nasty.” Wallis’ ears went back. She hates loud noises.

  “And the girl Robin. She’s quieter, but there’s something odd going on with her, too.” An image of a mouse—gray and terrified—came to mind, courtesy of Wallis, most likely. It seemed at odds with the young woman I had met, toting Mack along like this month’s prize, after the purse and the ring. I blocked that thought as quickly as I could, but Wallis’ ears had already pricked back up. “No, I’m not doubting you. She is anxious, that’s for sure. And I don’t think she’s a friend of the family.” As I said it, I tried to figure out why. “She and Louise Franklin clearly hadn’t spoken. Not about the cat, anyway. And, well, she seemed to be siding with the Persian against the widow.”

  “And there’s something wrong with that?” I couldn’t tell if Wallis was being serious or toying with me. She could be hard to read, too. I decided I had to take her question ser
iously.

  “There’s something off about it. About her.”

  “So negative.” It had worked. Wallis was engaged again. “You say you don’t know what is happening, but really it’s always the same story. Hunters hunt. Prey…” She licked her chops.

  “Are you saying Robin is prey? She’s afraid? Of the widow?” I paused to consider this. If what I suspected was true, I could understand that, a little. “But wouldn’t Donal Franklin’s death have put an end to their rivalry?”

  I was answered only by silence. At least in her mind, Wallis was on the prowl.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I woke with the birds. Now that spring was on its way, they had the potential to become seriously annoying. It wasn’t the sound. It was the inanity. “I’m here! I’m here! I’m here!” Or “You’re back! You’re back! You’re back!” All with the kind of vacuous intensity that explained the term “bird brained.” Neither size nor relative cuteness, I’d learned, was proof of anything in terms of character. This morning, though, I managed to block out most of the content. It wasn’t quite the usual tweets and twitters. Those days were long gone. But at least I wasn’t caught up in some trivial domestic drama—whose down was softening what twig—or some puffed-up robin’s territorial machismo.

  Grateful for small blessings, I descended to the kitchen. Wallis was nowhere to be seen. Which could have been intentional; she likes keeping me in my place. Or it could have been the call of those birds. I don’t like the idea of Wallis out hunting. I know she’s not the biggest predator in these woods. But with our relationship on its current footing, I no longer felt comfortable insisting on my rules in the house.

  I’d hoped to follow up on our conversation, though, and her absence left me hanging. Wallis had hinted that the widow was on the hunt herself. Looking for something. As I made my coffee, I tried out the possibilities. Creighton said the widow had an alibi. Her phone placed her miles away. She insisted that her husband had been alone in the house. And the evidence, supposedly, pointed toward the cat. Toward an accident. Even with the Persian’s apology, I didn’t buy that for a minute. Though it did make me grateful that I couldn’t tell Creighton the little I had picked up from the white cat.