by Clea Simon
She wasn’t taking direction well, and tossed me off, refusing to sit. Improvising as quickly as I could, I turned her toward the other side of the room. “Hey, if you’re really considering shelter work, maybe you’d like to see some of the other animals.”
“No,” she recoiled.
I did a double take. “It’s a rabbit, Robin. Not a rat.”
“I don’t care.” She was yelling now, and I saw the small creature retreat in panic.
“Please, Robin. The animals…” I preferred her angry to tearful, but I was getting vibes of panic. “Please, just take a seat.”
Robin was sputtering as I finally got her into a chair. “Wait here,” I told her, and glancing around one more time—no, the brush was not in sight—I went to find the vet.
“Doc?” The first examining room, off the cat room, was empty. I went out its other door, which led to the back hallway. Empty, as well, though a metal cart held a carrier with—I ducked down to check—a slumbering boa inside. For a moment, I focused on the snake’s elegant head, but I was getting nothing. Either the combination of cold and a full belly had pushed the reptile beyond conscious thought, or my reception was on the fritz. I didn’t have time to worry about it, though, and instead walked on to the other examining room.
“Yes?” Doc Sharpe was standing over a brown and tawny body. Next to him, stood a woman I recognized. Yes, it was Nancy Pinkerton, and the cat on the table was her Most Serene Highness, Princess Achara.
“Nancy!” I turned to the small body. “Is the Princess—is Pickles all right?”
From the table, two blue eyes blinked at me. She was trying to tell me something…
“Gets into everything,” her person was saying. “I guess I shouldn’t have taught her how to work a doorknob.”
I nodded and looked back at the cat. She wasn’t in pain. She was concentrating. Hard.
“I don’t feel any obstruction,” Doc Sharpe was finishing his exam. “I don’t think she actually ate the ribbon, Mrs. Pinkerton. But if you notice her straining at the litterbox…”
False alarm. I tuned out the rest and focused instead on the cat. “Watch out.” Her chocolate-tipped tail swiped once. She’d been given something to calm her down, I realized. Strange surroundings, loud noises. “Watch out.” It could be a warning, but it could also be her instincts kicking in. She’d feel the drugs, know that she was impaired. She’d be on her guard. I got the impression of teeth. Long, yellow teeth. “Wolves.”
“Pru?” Doc Sharpe was addressing me. “Were you looking for me?”
“Oh, she just came in to see her favorite client.” The threat lifted, Nancy Pinkerton was her usual jolly self. “Pickles has that affect on people.”
“Princess?” I murmured her name, leaning in to stroke the apple-shaped head. Staring into her China-blue eyes, I willed her to talk to me. But Siamese can be funny. As loud as they yowl, they can clam up, too. I watched as her inner eyelids closed, the drugs kicking in. “You trying to tell me something?”
A flicker. Teeth. And then—
“It’s so funny you say that.” Nancy was beaming. I could have slapped her. “Because I could have sworn she did it intentionally. Waited until I was in the room and then swallowed that whole ribbon. Or, well, pretended to. Could a cat do that?”
I shrugged. The connection was gone, anyway. “Maybe,” I said. A week ago, I would have said a cat couldn’t shoot.
“Our animals are very aware of our attention.” Doc Sharpe stepped in. “Anything is possible.” He lifted the cat into her carrier, limp as a ragdoll. And yet despite the sedation, the Siamese managed to lift her head up, her eyes opening.
“Feel better.” I waved as an excuse to keep looking into those eyes. Blue, icy blue. Watch out. Princess Achara was a cool customer. I didn’t think she’d been frightened by any of this. Which left another possibility: could the cat have arranged all this to give me a message?
“Thank you!” Nancy was all smiles as she took the carrier. It was all just another trick, and this time I had to share her admiration. When I turned back, though, Doc Sharpe was waiting.
“What is it, Pru?” He knew me better. “Is something wrong?”
“The Persian.” Clearly he didn’t have it. “She’s not in her cage.”
I didn’t have to say more. His eyebrows went up and he pushed by me, taking the shortest path back to the cat room.
“Excuse me?” Robin Gensler was standing by Fluffy’s empty cage, looking through the soft towel rags that lined it as if they would offer up a full-grown feline. “And you are?”
She looked up, mouth open, and I jumped in to explain. “This is Robin Gensler. She knew the Persian, and I brought her by in the hope that she could help—” I didn’t get to finish the sentence.
“And left her in the cage room.” His eyebrows lowered as he glowered. I had broken one of the shelter’s firm rules.
“I brought her in, and when we found the cat missing, I thought it best to look for you. I didn’t know what you’d be doing…” I let the sentence hang. He could fill in the details for himself. He did, with a harrumph, but I wasn’t getting off that easy.
“A cat that you care for goes missing. And you’re the one who has been breaking the rules, Pru.”
“I didn’t take the Persian.” Would I have raised the alarm if I did?
“Even to save it from euthanasia?” Watch out, the Siamese had been telling me. Had she been warning me about Doc Sharpe?
A gasp broke into our conversation. Robin was staring at the vet. “You were the one? You were going to kill Fluffy?”
I shot Doc Sharpe a look. He glowered back.
I glanced over at Robin. She was holding the rags up to her chest like a shield. “I’m confident we can avoid that.”
“Maybe you already have.” Doc Sharpe’s voice had a testiness I didn’t recognize.
“Anyone could have come in, Doc. Pammy left the door unlocked.” Hey, I knew I hadn’t taken the cat. Doc Sharpe didn’t seem to be listening. “Shall we go ask her?”
He ushered Robin out, still clutching the cage cloths, and I led the way. The crowd around Pammy’s desk had been winnowed down to one hunky teen. Too young for the junior college student, but she seemed to be enjoying the attention.
“Excuse us, please.” Doc Sharpe nearly swatted the young man away. “Pamela. Did you let anybody back into the cage area without proper authorization?”
It was the wrong question, put the wrong way. Pammy swallowed and looked from her boss to me. In that moment, I knew we weren’t going to get anything.
“Only that dark-haired woman. She said she was with Pru. She said it was okay.”
Chapter Thirty-five
Doc Sharpe gave Robin a once over and then ushered Robin out, still clutching the rags that had lined the Persian’s cage. I followed, promising to let her know the moment we found anything. Then I returned to deal with the good doctor.
“I did not authorize anonymous visitors.” He had to know that. He had to know Pammy was trying to save her own job. “I only left Robin because I needed to find you, and I didn’t know if you were doing surgery or with a client.”
“I know, Pru.” The eyebrows had lowered, showing frustration rather than anger. “I know. But this is…highly irregular.”
His word choice almost made me smile. “That’s one way to put it. Look, the door was unlatched before I got here. Let me poke around. Maybe I can find something.” Princess Achara had taken off, but I wanted some time with that rabbit.
“Well, I should—” He cut himself off. A couple had stood up from the chair area. They had a small brown dog on a leash and were watching him as eagerly as puppies themselves. “I should report this, you know. To Mrs. Franklin. But I’m rather backed up.”
“See these people, Doc. It looks like they’ve been waiting.” I knew how the widow Louise would react from the first time she thought I’d taken her pet, and I really didn’t need Creighton involved in this. “We’ll
talk after.”
He nodded, the decision made, and gestured to the couple with the puppy. I tried to catch Pammy’s eye, hoping to fell her with a glare. She, wisely, kept her face averted, and so once the coast was clear, I returned to the cat room. I wanted to find that brush, and I was also ready to interrogate a bunny.
The brush was my first priority. As I recalled, I had left it on the table, and it made sense that it might have been cleared away. But a thorough search through the shelves didn’t show anything like it. Down on my knees, I found more dust—but no brush. Nor did any of the other cages show a grooming brush. I took a breath. I wasn’t going to panic. It had probably been filed someplace. Put aside when the table was needed first thing in the morning. There was no reason to believe that whoever had taken the cat had taken the brush, I told myself. I knew I was lying.
There was nothing for it, though, but to move on. The cat might be gone, but I had a witness. In a way, I was in luck. The rabbit in the opposite cage was an older bunny, an altered male, which made him less excitable than many of his peers. Rabbits are tougher than most realize. Some will even cohabit with cats, which is probably why Doc Sharpe had placed the beast in this room. Still, the strange surroundings and that basic bunny fearfulness do not make for calm. The brown-faced creature I found huddled into his shavings was quivering more with fear than curiosity.
“Hey.” I stopped a few feet from the cage and spoke just loud enough to be heard. “Thank you for the warning.” That’s what I had picked up, I was sure of it. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.” The little nose sniffed the air, and I waited. Robin’s outburst had shaken the tender creature. “Oh, dear.” At the very least, that woman was not cut out for animal care. She was worse than Pammy. I sent out calming thoughts—sunny hillsides. Ripening grasses. A prey animal like this would know the world by scent as much as anything. I had the sense that he was getting my mental images, but also that he was taking my measure. I could only hope I didn’t smell too much of Wallis.
“Big, scary….” Oh great, he must be getting a mental image of my tabby. I tried to clear my mind. “Dark.”
I waited, doing my damnedest not to think of Wallis’ sleek stripes. Instead, I focused on the rabbit. His ears, in proportion with his body, were long and sensitive, and I knew he would have clearly heard whatever had happened on the other side of that screen. The question was, would he tell me?
“Scared, scared, quickly. Hide!” The command came quietly, but it was still a command. “Run away.”
I looked at the little animal. “Are you warning me? Telling me to run away?”
“No, no, no. Too confusing.” The velvet nose quivered. “Watch out. Soft, but not soft. She bites.”
“Are you talking about the Persian?” I didn’t understand. “Or are you quoting someone?” The rabbit hadn’t been here when the cat had lashed out at me. Still, he might have overheard someone talking. “Is that what you’re saying?” I pictured the missing feline, and immediately realized my mistake.
“I trusted you. I did.” The bunny was shivering, and I fought the urge to reach for him. If I tried to comfort this small animal, I could shock him into a heart attack.
“Sorry. I’m sorry.” In my softest voice, I tried to make my regret felt. “Poor bunny.”
“It’s Tadeus, please. And I’m a rabbit.” Dark liquid eyes peered up into mine. “I heard it, you know. I heard it all. I was wrong. I’m sorry. I bite.”
“Wait, are you saying you bite?” This was hopeless. Wallis was right. I couldn’t expect any assistance from a rodent. “Or that you heard—” I was in mid-question when the door opened and Doc Sharpe came in.
“Any luck?” He wasn’t expecting an answer, not really, and turned from me to the rabbit cage. “The latest trend. House trained, if you can believe it.”
“Why’s he here?” Usually, we get the rabbits later in the spring. Easter bunnies, once the novelty has worn off.
“Wiring.”
I looked up. Was I missing something? The rabbit hadn’t seemed crazy.
“He chewed through some wires in his family’s living room,” Doc explained. “The family caught it just in time. It could have started a fire.”
“Poor little loser. So that’s what you meant about biting.” I reached through the bars of the cage, drawn by the soft brown fur. The bunny jumped back, startled. Prey animal. All he cared about was security. All he’d want would be a safe place, a haven. His warren. “Did you realize what you were messing up when you gnawed away?”
One hop. Two. Slowly the rabbit approached. I held still and felt the first tentative touch of leather as the trembling nose came up and sniffed my fingertip. “Little fool.” Doc Sharpe was looking at me. I addressed him as much as the bunny. “He couldn’t help it. It’s what he does.”
“Just like you.”
I recoiled.
“We are who we are.”
“Did he bite you?” Doc Sharpe looked over.
“No.” I eyed the rabbit. “It just occurred to me what little pests these guys are.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Despite Doc Sharpe’s Yankee reserve, it was clear that I was still in the hot seat. Didn’t matter that Robin wanted that cat as much as I did. Didn’t matter that I had no more means of spiriting a cat away than she did. Didn’t matter that I’d reported the loss. I had access to the shelter and, as the good doc pointed out, I had motive.
As I did a quick clean up of the cage room, he had reiterated his suspicions—and his responsibility to act on them—and I had to think fast. I really didn’t want him to call Louise Franklin. The woman already thought I was a nag, at best. And my reputation as the local cat lady wouldn’t help either. The idea of him calling Jim Creighton didn’t make me feel any better. Jim liked me, sure. But he was a cop.
“Look, Doc, can you give me some time on this?” I said as I wiped down the table. I was still wearing my funeral finery, but it seemed prudent to be useful. “I’m sure there’s a simple explanation.” I wasn’t, not by a long shot, but I needed a little room to figure it out. “It’s not like Mrs. Franklin is going to come by for a visit.”
He opened his mouth to complain. And shut it. I was guessing that he had realized the negative impact of the news. Shelter directors are not supposed to lose animals. Especially not animals that supposedly have commercial value.
“Forty-eight hours?” I was near to begging. If I couldn’t find her in that time, I’d think of something else. The deadline did it, however. Mumbling something about Monday by closing, Doc Sharpe retreated, leaving me along again in the cage room.
“I’ll want to examine that cat,” Jim Creighton had said—was it only three days ago? Had he been serious? I’d read the news reports, the ones that talked about using pet DNA to convict home invaders. I’d never heard of anyone checking the pet herself. Not that it mattered. At this rate, there would be nothing left for him to inspect. For a half a second, I thought of calling him. Maybe he could fingerprint the cage.
No, I shook my head. For one thing, Doc Sharpe’s cooperation was based partly on the tacit promise to keep this quiet. For another, if I were to bring him in on this, I’d have to confess to stealing the brush. I was in too deep to call for professional aid now.
Besides, I wanted to get home. My broken pump had me walking with a limp, and if the snow had continued—back here, it was hard to tell—my shoes would be beyond salvaging soon.
I looked back at the rabbit—Tadeus—but all I saw was that dappled back. “Stay warm, dig deep…” Images like waking dreams floated by. A dark place. Safety. The quiet of solitude. I turned away with a twinge of guilt; the little creature had given me what he could. “Search out a burrow, a place to hide.”
***
Pammy was gone by the time I emerged. The waiting room, deserted. Doc Sharpe was still in back—I could see the light—but I made sure the door locked behind me anyway. Not that I thought any oth
er animals would go missing, but if any did, I didn’t want the blame. And then I stepped out into the maelstrom.
Snow in the valley isn’t like in the city. Without the packed-in buildings, it has fewer borders. Even here, on a commercial street, I could see waves of the white stuff, swells of it blowing down the street. Trying not to think about my poor shoes, I bent my head against the wintry blast and made my way to my car. I’d dealt with storms all winter, enough so I was used to it again. But I didn’t have to like it.
It took a few minutes for the heat to kick in, and I used those to scrape off the windows. At least the road looked empty as I pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward the highway. I didn’t want to prolong this drive. With this weather, with any luck, I’d not see another car till I got back to Beauville no matter what my route. Barefoot—the soggy pump was worse than useless—I tapped gingerly on my brakes. A little skid, not bad. It was all a question of knowing what you were dealing with.
By the time I got to the highway, I was almost enjoying myself. My big old car didn’t have four-wheel drive, but it had heft. Besides, the radio worked, and with no traffic, I could take my time. Tom would have laughed at me, driving like this. Tom could go to hell. As the wind picked up, shaking the car and dashing more of the white stuff at me, I did find myself wishing for one slow truck. If I could have followed some taillights all the way home, I wouldn’t have to think.
So when I saw the headlights coming up behind me, I gave a little cheer. Not a truck, but something big. Probably something with four-wheel drive and newer tires than I had, anyway. We were the only vehicles on the road, and I waited for it to pass. If it didn’t go too fast, I’d fall in behind, taking advantage of the slipstream as well as the lights.
Only the car didn’t pass. Another burst of wind shook my GTO, and I realized those lights were still behind me. Great, another genius with the same idea. We were at the point where the road turned, curving a little to deal with a steeper grade, and I slowed in response. Not enough, I realized, as my rear tires fishtailed on the icy road. Rather than braking again, I lifted my foot from the gas. Too much, and I’d lose control. I only wanted to slow it down.