The Cat Among Us

by Louise Carson

  Somebody must still run sap from the giant maples into the shack, for the plastic lines were up and looked well maintained. There was a padlock on the crooked little front door, but Gerry knew, if she wanted to, she could easily get in by a back or side window. She’d done it often enough when she was a child let loose in the woods on vacations.

  A scuffle among last year’s dead leaves made her turn. “Uncle Geoff! What are you doing up here?”

  He held up first the gun and then the birds that dangled from his other hand. “Partridge. Good to eat. You should wear a red hat when you go into the woods. Don’t want to get shot.”

  He seemed like a different man when he was away from his wife and home: calm, peaceful. They fell into step.

  “Did you walk all the way here from your house?” asked Gerry.

  “Naw. Got my car parked in the development, where the tracks cross the road, that way.” He pointed and the birds swung in the air.

  “Prudence sent me out of the house. I guess I was getting on her nerves. Tonight is my art exhibit vernissage. Are you coming?”

  “Ah, probably not, Gerry. No offense, but it’s just not my thing. I heard Margaret and Mary talking about it though.” He smiled. “I wish you luck.”

  “Thanks, Uncle Geoff.” They’d returned to the tracks. He headed left and Gerry kept straight. It had been a good idea to walk. She felt steadier, ready for the rest of the day.

  The opening night of her show was a blast. Gerry wore her little black dress and one of Aunt Maggie’s retro fringed shawls: red roses, green leaves on cream. All her students came and brought their friends or family. The Parsleys were out in full force, not just Judy’s immediate relations, but the Parsley Inn Parsleys, who came partly to see the art, but also to keep an eye on two of their offspring Gerry had hired as servers. She wanted Prudence to be a guest.

  Prudence arrived wearing a rather splendid emerald green dress, with black shoes and purse, and a pearl necklace.

  Cathy worked hard, heating snacks and sending them out of the kitchen, while Gerry greeted people in the foyer, then directed them into the gallery. After they emerged from there, they were sent on into the living room for their wine. After that, they were free to meander from room to room as they pleased.

  Bea and Cece arrived. It was a walking day for Bea, but Gerry noticed she quickly found a chair where Cece brought her refreshments. Gerry was glad to see how people gravitated to their corner of the living room.

  Before long the house was packed and people were talking their heads off. “There must be about seventy-five people here.” Gerry squeezed Prudence’s arm in excitement. “And the cats are no bother.”

  In truth, most of the cats, put off by the noise in their formal dining room, soon vacated it for upstairs or outside (where they sniffed the new fence), and Prudence was able to whisk cat towels off of available chairs before anyone haired up their good clothes.

  Only the boys were overcome with excitement and chased each other up the dining room curtains, from where they were detached one by one by a sweating Gerry and deposited outside. She blocked the cat flap with a large urn, and resumed being elegant.

  Right on cue, shortly after sunset, she began to hear exclamations from people looking out of the back windows. Doug’s neon installations were creating a beautiful effect as they blinked and cascaded cool colours — green, blue, aqua, white — that reflected on the lake. Some people took their drinks onto the lawn to get a better look. Gerry found Doug and gave him a thumbs-up from across the room.

  Andrew was there, and David. No sign of David’s brothers. And it wasn’t until after eight-thirty that Mary and Margaret arrived. As he’d vowed, Uncle Geoff was absent.

  Mary handed her wrap to Prudence but Gerry quickly took it, saying, “Prudence is my guest tonight, Aunt Mary.”

  Mary sniffed and moved on, stuck her head in the gallery and remarked, “Very nice,” in a quiet voice, then added, much more loudly, “Where are the refreshments?” and went off in search of them.

  Margaret took her time in the gallery, pausing before each object, slowing down when she got to the fourth wall displaying the works collected by the Coneybears over almost two centuries. When she left the room, she seemed angry, but smug. With Margaret it was difficult to tell, so Gerry politely indicated where she might go to get a drink.

  Marigold hopped slowly down the stairs from the bedrooms and sat in the foyer. Most of the other guests had left, taking note of the seven-to-nine timing of the event, but Gerry’s family members were gathered there, finishing their drinks.

  Marigold visited Gerry, who was reading comments and names in the guest book she’d placed by the door. Marigold sniffed her legs, pressed briefly against them and moved on.

  She sniffed Doug and then David with a little more attention. David bent down to pet her. She sat by Andrew’s feet, looking up into his face for a long time. Gerry saw Andrew shift his feet and look down nervously at the little cat. Finally, she moved away to sniff at Margaret’s slim brown shoes. Margaret kicked out. “Get it away,” she hissed at Gerry, but Marigold had already moved on to Aunt Mary, sniffed her legs and feet and sat down. Mary looked like she couldn’t have cared less. Gerry could tell that her aunt, after a few glasses of wine and some delicious high-calorie snacks, was feeling pretty pleased with herself. If she’d been a cat, she’d have been purring.

  Someone must have left a door open, because Bob appeared, dragging a withered object. He dropped it on the ground between Margaret and Mary, then rolled on his back, wriggling with glee. Margaret screamed, “Get that filthy thing away from me.” Everyone looked but only Gerry moved. She picked the object up and patted Bob. He had retrieved Marigold’s dug-up dead plant from the compost.

  Mary laughed. “Has he brought us some catnip? Is that your cat’s stash, Gerry?”

  “What is it?” Gerry asked, raising the plant so all could see it.

  “Monkshood,” said Mary. “Aconite.”

  Someone sharply and suddenly caught their breath. Gerry thought it had been Prudence.

  “Why are we all standing around and staring at an old plant the cat dragged in?” Margaret complained. “Mother, come. I’ll take you home.”

  Mary cackled. “Thank you, Gerry. Always nice to revisit the ancestral home.”

  Gerry, having no trouble holding back what should have been a gracious invitation to drop in again, coldly bid her aunt and cousin good night.

  The men left next. Andrew looked troubled. Prudence was last and clasped Gerry’s shoulders as they paused at the door. “Be careful, dear. Something is not right.” And Gerry could only nod and kiss her cheek.

  Gerry sat on the stairs, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her cupped hands. “The fourth sign will be repeated.” Two tipped teacups, one china lady, one dead plant. And then, “The first and fourth signs should combine to open your eyes.” Marigold tipping Aunt Maggie’s teacup and the dug-up plant were related?

  All the elation of the successful evening left her and she went tiredly up to bed.

  Saturday and Sunday afternoons between one and four, she was open for visitors, but only got a few. Cathy sent that weekend’s paying guests over for a look; a few tourists passing pulled in briefly.

  Gerry made cups of tea and chatted with these people, but the days were a bit anti-climactic after Friday night. Outside of the visiting hours, she flumped around the house in sweats or pyjamas, feeding the cats, trying to understand what it all meant.

  Aunt Maggie had died. She’d had a heart condition and her doctor was satisfied that was the cause of death — heart failure.

  Prudence had found her body. Prudence had washed out a teacup after Marigold knocked it over. Sign number one — only nobody knew it.

  Marigold had knocked over another dangerous teacup. The wasp might have stung Prudence inside her throat and that could have killed he
r. Sign number two — and Prudence began to think, told Gerry about the first cup. That had gotten Gerry thinking.

  A porcelain figurine was found intact, but buried at the side of the house. A gift from Andrew to Aunt Maggie, yet he’d seemed unconcerned when Gerry queried him about it. Sign number three didn’t seem to make much sense to Gerry, seemed to be unconnected to the other signs.

  Ah, yes, sign number four. One cat digs up a poisonous plant and, when this is ignored by the humans, another cat drags said plant into the middle of a party and leaves it near two of the dead woman’s closest relations — her sister and her niece. One of her nieces. Gerry being the other one.

  Wait, wait. I’m missing something, she thought. Oh yeah, I was going to look up that plant.

  There was a row of gardening books on a shelf in the living room. She grabbed a couple of the larger encyclopaedic ones and sat in a rocker by the hearth.

  Sunday’s sun seemed quick to set — it was dark at only seven-thirty — and she shivered. Soon she’d be heating this big old house. She pictured a fire in the huge fireplace at her feet. She also pictured Aunt Maggie sitting where she was sitting, a cat in her lap. It wasn’t fair if she’d been hurried on out of her life before her proper time.

  She opened the first book, a British one, and found a colour photograph of Aconitum napellus. It showed a clump of delicate leaves and several spikes of bright blue flowers. It could have been similar to the plants in her garden but the plants had been photographed from too far away to make identification a sure thing.

  She opened another book. This one was without colour photos for the most part, used pen and ink drawings. These were more helpful: close up and detailed. Aconite was the first herb in the book. She looked from the withered plant on the floor to the drawing in the book. It could be.

  The text read: ACONITE (Aconitum napellus): A perennial to three feet tall, with deep green, finely divided leaves and dark blue hooded flowers in large spikes in July and August. The rhizomes have been used as a sedative, painkiller, and to treat rheumatism. All parts are poisonous.

  She had a thought, got a flashlight, and slipped into the garden, trying to remember where Marigold had dug up the plant. She crouched next to the remaining clump and let the light play over the leaves.

  Got it! There were the “finely divided leaves,” the few remaining “hooded” flowers. They looked more like helmets than monks’ hoods to her.

  She stood up, thinking. Rhizomes? What the heck were they? She went back into the house, looked it up in Aunt Maggie’s plant book. Basically, lumpy roots as opposed to hairlike ones. She held up Marigold’s specimen. Yup. Lumpy roots.

  But surely, when Maggie died in May, the plant would have been a low mound of green. So that meant, if that was how she’d been killed, someone had to be a real plant expert to recognize it. Gerry knew she’d have trouble recognizing even a rose bush if it wasn’t in bloom. Aunt Mary had said the sisters had a lot of the same plants in their gardens and had boasted that she was an expert.

  “More research is required,” Gerry told Bob, who was sitting on the padded bench that ran along one of the short walls under the bookshelf. “You seem to be okay. I guess touching the leaves of the plant with your mouth isn’t dangerous.

  “So, wait. If Aunt Maggie drank aconite tea, wouldn’t it have shown in any tests done after her death? Or does heart disease mean they wouldn’t have bothered with tests for poison? Yes. Why would they? So, assume no tests like that were done and she’s been cremated, so there’s no point in me involving any authorities like the hospital, the police.

  “I don’t know, Bob. What should I do?” Bob sat up, yawned and recurled himself into a warm ball of fur. Gerry took the hint and went to bed.

  When Prudence arrived Monday morning, Gerry was making aconite tea.

  13

  “Are you crazy?” Prudence exclaimed. “All these dishes and the counters will have to be scrubbed after you’re done. No, sterilized. What if you poison the cats?”

  “Mm?” Gerry looked up from where she was grating fresh aconite roots onto a piece of the Lovering Herald. She was wearing gloves and an apron. “Don’t worry, I’ve already fed them. We’ll just do an extra good clean of the kitchen when we’re finished.”

  “I’d say we’ll need to,” Prudence remarked more calmly, noting the mud tracked in by the boots Gerry was still wearing, the decapitated plants on the floor, the bits of grated root flying around the room. “I suppose it’s good practice. I thought we could make carrot cake for the students this week.” When Gerry looked blank, she added, “Carrots. You have to grate carrots.”

  Gerry giggled. “Oh, I thought you were suggesting we put aconite in the cake and finish them all off.”

  Prudence examined her. “Are you okay? You look a bit funny.”

  “Prudence, I have worked it out that my aunt was murdered by someone she trusted enough to bring her a cup of tea in her bedroom. That can only be you or someone from the rest of my family. How do you expect I should look?”

  “Well, I didn’t do it.”

  “I never said you did.” Gerry raised her gloved hands, adding grimly, “Kettle’s boiling. Let’s make tea.”

  They waited a good ten minutes, then poured the liquid into a cup. “Does that look the same colour as the stuff in Aunt Maggie’s cup?” Gerry whispered. “And why am I whispering?”

  Prudence whispered back, “Because this is dreadful. It’s so easy. To kill someone with a common garden plant.” She tipped some of the liquid into the cup’s saucer. “It looks the same.” She straightened and spoke in her normal tone. “But you realize it looks the same as any herb tea — kind of weak and yellowy. What have we proved?”

  “That it’s easy to do, as you said. That the plant could be harvested with or without flowers present if you know your plants.”

  “We’re still guessing all this, Gerry. Surely, they would have tested the contents of her stomach.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe that’s only done on TV. It’s probably too expensive to do on everyone. And with the doctor right there, blabbing about her heart…”

  There was a pause as they thought. “Well, what do you propose to do next?”

  Gerry smiled. “A bit of sleuthing.”

  “Not alone, you’re not. That’s what the amateur sleuth always does on TV and then of course the murderer has a chance to kill them too.”

  “All right. I’ll set things up and you can come with me.”

  Prudence looked taken aback. “Me? What about Doug or Andrew, someone big and strong?”

  “You’re big and strong and they’re suspects.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. Andrew especially. He lives just there.” They both glanced nervously through the kitchen window at Andrew’s cottage. It had been a cool night and a lake mist was drifting through his garden, obscuring the lower half of the house. They shivered, then started, as Andrew, whistling, came out the front door and drove off to work.

  Gerry cleared her throat. “He lives just there. He was second on the spot after you found Aunt Maggie’s body. Was he ever alone with her?”

  Prudence thought. “I called him and he came through the front door and ran up the stairs. I waited in the hall, so, yes, he was alone, just for a couple of minutes.”

  “Long enough to alter evidence!” Gerry concluded triumphantly.

  “But what would he have to alter, if he did it? He had all night. And the teacup was still there when I cleaned the room later.”

  Gerry’s face fell. “Oh. You’re right. This is harder than I thought. Okay, well, Doug then. He could have paddled over in the middle of the night, let himself in — ”

  “Made tea and presented her with it?” Prudence finished the faltering Gerry’s sentence sarcastically. “And what’s his motive? Why would Doug kill Maggie?”

  “You’
ve got me there.” Gerry tried to take off the rubber gloves. Her hands had sweated and they stuck. She went to put one finger in her mouth to pull them off when Prudence lunged at her with a cry.

  “You’ll poison yourself! You do need a minder. Right. You do nothing without me. Got it?” She gingerly peeled the gloves off of Gerry inside out and threw them in the garbage. “I’ll clean this up. You go and paint something.”

  “Yes, Prudence. Anything you say, Prudence.” A chastened and somewhat trembly Gerry went into her studio and sat facing the fireplace. The Scottish lady gleamed dully on the mantel. Marigold entered the room and tried to hop onto Gerry’s lap, couldn’t make it and fell. Gerry tenderly picked her up. “You started all this, Marigold, but I know you’re just a little cat. I don’t expect you to finish it.”

  Gerry looked at the figurine. Was it an important clue? Mrs. Smith hadn’t mentioned it when she spoke about signs.

  Doug and Andrew didn’t seem like very strong suspects, especially Doug. Even if Margaret inherited Aunt Gerry’s house, she and Doug were a divorced couple. He wouldn’t get anything. “That’s it!” She sat upright, waking the cat. “Prudence! Prudence!”

  Prudence came running, wiping her hands on a tea towel. “Whatever is it now?” she exclaimed.

  “It’s not about the house and Aunt Maggie’s stuff. Because no one knew who inherited. Am I right?” Prudence nodded. “So why kill someone when there was only a chance you might inherit? She might have left it all to the cats for all the potential heirs knew.”

  “Yee-es.” Prudence sat down next to Gerry, reached out and petted the cat.

  “So. Don’t you see? Financial gain couldn’t have been the motive. Something else got Aunt Maggie poisoned. An emotion, like rage or jealousy. Aunt Mary seems to have always been jealous of Aunt Maggie.”