The Lucky Cat Shop

by Debi Matlack

  “Absolutely, come in!” I bent down to greet the dog and received a thorough facewash from an enthusiastic tongue. “I’m glad to see you found Rocket.”

  The boy beamed with joy. “Yes ma’am, right where you said he’d be. He was happy to see us too.” He looked up at me, with wide guileless eyes. “You must be magic.”

  “I just got lucky. I’m really glad you two found each other again.”

  “So am I.” His mother gave me a shy smile. “I don’t know how you knew, but I’m very grateful.”

  “My pleasure, any time.”

  They wandered through the store and Mom bought a small St. Francis charm and stopped to put it on Rocket’s collar. “Just in case.”

  “You can never be too careful.”

  “I know.” She smiled fondly at the pair, her son calling from the front door for her to hurry up, he was hungry and wanted a corn dog. “That dog is Robbie’s life.” She glanced back at me and flashed me another quick smile. “Thank you again.”

  “Any time.”

  By now it was lunchtime and I was starving.

  “Prrrow?” Ernie rubbed against my shin and I reciprocated by rubbing his ears, inducing a merchandise-rattling purr. I’d kept him shut upstairs all morning to keep him from sneaking out the front door with all the people in and out. He was clearly neglected and unloved.

  “Watch the shop for me. I’ll be back with lunch in a little while.” Ever hopeful, Ernie trotted with me to the door and took up his station in the front window next to the maneki neko he bore such a strong resemblance to. Here he could see the whole street, up and down the sidewalk and bask in the afternoon sunlight that slanted down between the buildings on Water Street. For an indoor cat, it was as close to the Wild Kingdom as he was going to get. Pulling the locked door closed behind me, I tapped the glass by his head and he rubbed, eyes squinted shut against the sun. I envy that cat. If only life could be that simple: a warm spot in the sun, a soft chair to sleep in, all the kitty kibble and ears rubs you can get. That cat was damned lucky. He lived in the right place.

  I unconsciously made a habit of taking most of my meals at the sandwich shop and today was no exception. What I did for food before Carrie opened the place, I don’t recall, probably mooched off Mike and Karen a lot more. I sat in a back booth, read and awaited my order. In a few monutes, Carrie herself delivered it to my table and slid into the seat opposite me.

  “Thanks.” I tugged the chicken parmigiana closer and glanced back at my book with a pang of loss. My thousandth re-reading of Outlander looked like it was going to have to wait. Oh well, it’s not like I didn’t already know that Horrible Things were going to happen to Jamie at Wentworth prison. Carrie seemed to want to say something but was uncharacteristically silent.

  “Everything okay?” My simple question opened her floodgates.

  “I was going to ask you that same thing. That was the detective you were here with at lunchtime a week or so ago, right?” Not giving me time to do more than simply nod, she plowed on. “I thought maybe he had something to tell you about your grandfather’s case but you seemed pretty upset. I’ve always been very sensitive to people’s feelings and emotions. Mama said maybe I had a touch of the Sight, but it seemed more like you were telling him something and I just wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

  Actually, she was being a busybody, but at least she was honest about it. She asked for information up front instead of sneaking around for it. I didn’t take any offense because she didn’t mean anything by it. Carrie was a lot like a friendly, slobbery dog in that respect. You got the attention whether you wanted it or not, but you couldn’t help but like her anyway. I gave her credit for waiting almost a week before bringing it up.

  “No problem Carrie. We just wanted to talk face to face after all these months. No real news about Poppy’s case though.” I didn’t elaborate further, because I had a sneaking suspicion she was trolling deeper waters.

  “Were you talking about that little girl that disappeared?” Bingo, I knew it. “I thought I heard you mention Abby’s name.” Carrie’s face went slack with regret. “She and her grandparents came in here on the weekends, until Mrs. Keene passed away a few months ago. That poor family…” Carrie may not have been in Pinehaven for long, but she had been fully assimilated and was now part of the collective.

  I nodded in sympathy. “It’s a terrible thing, to lose two people that close together.”

  “Why were you talking about Abby?”

  Damn, deflecting the focus of the conversation hadn’t worked. Now what the hell should I say? I didn’t want to hurt Carrie’s feelings. She was a nice lady and fed me well. I just wasn’t sure how far I wanted this ‘Maeve Kavanaugh- Ghost Wrangler’ thing to go. With Carrie pounding the drum, I’d have every wackjob in the Southeast beating a path to my door by the end of the month. “Detective Jenkins was the lead on that case since they suspected homicide initially. I was curious and he was kind enough to indulge my questions.”

  “Whatever he had to say seemed to make you kind of mad for a few minutes.”

  I shrugged. “A three-year-old getting lost and drowning is a terrible thing. I just think about Deanna and how devastated Mike and Karen would be.”

  “I’m not trying to be nosy, but it seemed like there was a lot more going on.”

  I sighed and shook my head. “You don’t make it easy, do you?”

  “What?” Carried was taken aback by my words. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to pry—”

  “Yes you were, but that’s okay. You’d find out soon enough, I guess.”

  “Find out what?” She stared at me, her expression similar to Karen’s that night Mike and I told her what had happened at Poppy’s: anticipation, impatience, and foreboding.

  “If you have a touch of the Sight, then I’ve got a boatload of it. And it sucks.”

  Carrie squealed like a thirteen-year-old girl at a slumber party. “I KNEW it!” She grinned like she had just won the lottery. “I just had a feeling I ended up in this particular place, in this particular building for a reason. It was so I would meet you.”

  Now I was surprised. “Oh?”

  “Steve was always telling me that my little feelings were guiding me. Sometimes in a different direction that what I thought it should be, but I would end up in the right place at the right time. And now I know I’m supposed to be here.”

  I hoped she wasn’t going to declare us blood-sisters or make a pinky swear to be my bestestest friend forever and ever. “To do what?”

  “I don’t know. But it feels even more that I’m in the right place knowing what I do about you now. And it doesn’t suck, it’s a gift.”

  I gave Carrie a level stare. “Migraines, noisy spirits, knowing stuff about people and things I never wanted or needed to know? No, it’s definitely a curse.”

  Carrie chuckled and patted my arm, satisfied now that she had obtained the information she’d sought. “I’m sure it will get better. Gotta go back to work.” She sailed back into the tightly orchestrated chaos of the kitchen and I was left to shake my head. At least I didn’t have to try and hide anything from her anymore. Of course, with her enthusiasm, that might not be a good thing. The jury was still out.

  The Pinehaven Reporter came out weekly. Most people took their daily newspaper from Gainesville or Jacksonville, but the Reporter had a loyal local following. Copies fresh off the press could be purchased at 4:30 every Thursday afternoon, by a young man standing in the middle of Pine Avenue right in front of the Reporter’s storefront.

  Most if its content consisted of high school sports scores, stories of extremely local interest, such as the gentleman who sold his own local honey at the flea market, or the middle school class that made a float for the Fall Festival Parade. It was my habit to walk the single block to the machine in front of the Reporter and purchase my copy, waving to Ross, the vendor standing in the street. All business, he gave me a polite nod as he took two quarters from a passing motorist an
d handed over their paper.

  My not-so-stealthy visitor in the hospital and subsequent stalker, Mr. Donald Marchen was their star reporter, for what that was worth. He covered the crime and investigative beats, but a small town begats small-town crime, mostly petty theft, traffic violations and domestic battery. In addition, the Reporter was so vastly inferior to the Smallville Ledger that, assuming he had greater aspirations, I feared Mr. Marchen would never gain the notice of The Daily Planet, known in these parts as the Gainesville or Jacksonville newspapers. He certainly seemed to think he was Clark Kent. The Pinehaven Curse was his special area of interest and my refusal to become the subject of one of his Weekly World News-worthy stories really irked him. After I’d threatened to put bear traps around my property, he’d left me alone, but I always had the strange feeling he was watching me. Maybe I’m just paranoid.

  Some weeks, when there wasn’t a Strawberry Queen to interview or a meth lab bust, the editor at the Reporter apparently loosened Marchen’s leash. These were the issues where Marchen would dip into the archives and trot out another theory or three about the Pinehaven Killer. I had to admit, he seemed to have a knack for weeding the deaths allegedly attributable to the curse from the more pedestrian jealous spouses, traffic accidents, old grudges and drug related violence.

  Today’s article described the most recent incident he assigned to the Curse. Five years previously, a young woman was abducted and held against her will in a house on the outskirts of town for three months. She escaped during a traffic stop when the officer had separated her from her abductor to question her. Happily, she was reunited with the family she’d run away from.

  I couldn’t figure out why Marchen thought this case fit with the rest. It was tragic, to be sure, an unhappy teenager and lecherous older man. But there was no homicide, and neither of them were local. To be honest, I didn’t know if any of the cases had anything at all to do with one another, but there did seem to be a long string of deaths, many associated with my ancestors. The most recent of these, aside from the accident where Mike and I lost our parents, had been a car accident in the Fifties. Poppy and his older brother were hit by a tractor trailer carrying pulpwood. Poppy had been seriously hurt, but his brother and the truck driver died. Which of them had been the target, if this was an attempt on one of their lives at all? Of course, now that I wanted to ask him questions about something, Poppy was nowhere to be found.

  Maybe our family was extraordinarily unlucky. Maybe I was turning into a conspiracy theorist and letting my imagination run away with me. I formulated and discarded any number of ideas that would explain the alleged Curse. The real problem was that I was not a trained investigator. But I knew someone who was.

  Armed with my collection of information, I invited Scott and his wife to lunch. It was his help I really needed, but I felt like I should extend my hospitality to them both. Scott had spent a lot of time on Poppy’s and my case, and something about the woman I’d seen in my vision from his wedding band told me it would be better for all concerned if I had her as at least an acquaintance rather than not acknowledging her presence and importance in Scott’s life.

  I decided to cook, since I didn’t want Carrie hovering over us at the sub shop. My culinary expertise was not brilliant, but I could manage potato soup and cornbread without poisoning anyone.

  The front door opened, the camel bells jingled, and Scott came in with a beautiful woman on his arm. I knew she was gorgeous from my vision, but in person she was breathtaking. I felt like a flea-ridden mongrel beside her.

  “Maeve, this is my wife, Lillian.” Tall and willowy, her slanted green eyes and café au lait skin made her exotic and ethereal. Lillian offered me her hand to shake, looking me up and down with a smile and a subtle but unmistakable wave of jealousy.

  “It’s so nice to meet you. Scott’s told me a lot about you.” She sounded sincere. After all, she was here. Her gaze was direct and just a little unsettling, like being scrutinized by a stalking jungle cat.

  “Uh oh, that can’t be good.” True to form, I tried to joke my way through the tension. How much had he told her? What had he told her? I flicked a glance at him, now a bit uneasy. I really hoped I wasn’t coming down with a case of telepathy or clairvoyance, God knows there was enough noise in my head already; I did NOT need to be able to read the thoughts of live people too.

  “I’m so sorry about your grandfather. I know it really bothers Scott that they haven’t been able to find out anything more for you and your family.” And with that, she was a human being again, speaking with absolute sincerity and heartfelt sympathy. “I know how much it hurts to lose a grandfather, but I can’t imagine how awful it must have been for you, experiencing such violence.”

  “Thank you, I appreciate that.” I gestured them to the stairs and followed them up.

  The slight tension had dissipated so I chalked that up to me being another female her husband had a relationship with, albeit only on a professional and now friendly level. I showed them where everything was, told them to help themselves and she engaged me directly, asking questions about the store, what I thought about an idea she’d had for refurbishing a table, things like that. We ate in my apartment, the only place I knew where we could talk about anything without being overheard, at least by the living. I couldn’t be held responsible for whatever the spirit population did with the information I intended to discuss with Scott.

  “That was great,” Lillian sighed after lunch, pushing her bowl away. “I’m stuffed.”

  “Thanks. I love any meal that I can throw into a pot and walk away from it for a few hours.”

  “My kind of cooking,” she agreed. Scott suppressed a belch and rocked gently as she presumably kicked him under the counter.

  “You didn’t give me a chance to excuse myself.”

  “Because I know you.”

  “All too well,” he smiled. Seeing their easy camaraderie made me a little jealous myself, but who had time for that? I had my hands full with my own problems, I didn’t need to try and weave them around another person in my life. But I’d made a choice to accommodate her and I needed to see it through.

  “How much has Scott told you about me?”

  Lillian raised her brows, quizzical. “Other than what happened to you and your grandfather, nothing really. He can’t discuss ongoing cases with anyone, not even me.”

  I nodded. “But this isn’t part of the case. Not really, a result of what happened, maybe but…” I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I’m being very confusing.” I glanced at Scott.

  He returned my gaze and gestured in a go-ahead manner. “It’s up to you, I didn’t say anything.”

  I offered him a genuine smile. “Thank you.”

  Lillian looked back and forth, a little of that tension seeping back into her voice. “Tell me what?”

  “As a direct result of the head injury I received in the attack, I now have some psychic ability.”

  Brows raised, she smiled cautiously. “Really? That’s kind of cool.” She paused, then gave me a direct look when I didn’t express agreement or enthusiasm. “Isn’t it?”

  I shrugged, sighing ruefully. “Not usually, but sometimes. Mostly it’s pretty freaky. But it means that I may have a unique insight into what happened to me and Poppy.”

  Scott pushed himself back from the kitchen island and glanced at me. “Is that why we’re here?”

  I nodded. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

  “Again?” He snickered when I shot him a dark look then I gave in and laughed too.

  “Yes, again. Have you heard of the Pinehaven Curse, some people call it the Pinehaven Killer?”

  He shrugged and nodded at the same time. “Sure. A lot of the old-timers around here seem to think that there is a long-standing curse that affects the area.” He cocked a brow at me. “Do you think there is?”

  I shrugged and got up, gathering the empty bowls. “I don’t not believe it, let’s say that for now.” My folder had graduated
up to a ring binder, lying on a side table in the living room. I retrieved it and set it in front of him. It was heavy and made a substantial thump when it hit the marble countertop.

  He looked up at me and opened the notebook. My printouts of information I found online and at the library were bound by metal rings in the front, the back full of clear vinyl sleeves with articles cut from more recent newspapers and magazines. “Wow, this is a lot of information.”

  I pulled my stool around to sit at the end of the island counter so I could look at the contents with him. “Ever since the attack, I’ve been collecting these. I suspect about half of them are unrelated, and some are pure crap, but there have been enough incidents in the area that I really do wonder if there isn’t more to it than just random violence.”

  Lillian gave me a glance. “Especially with your ‘unique insight’ you called it?”

  I gave her a reluctant nod. “Especially now.” She started to lean over Scott’s shoulder then paused, looking back at me. “May I?”

  I gave her a welcoming gesture. “By all means, the more the merrier.”

  By that evening, we’d spread out to include the living room and every horizontal surface was covered in stacks of papers. Each pile had a post it note on top, with varying legends such as ‘possibility’, and ‘yeah, right’.

  I picked up the ‘yeah, right’ stack and found a few confirmations of my own suspicions. Pure crap. I dropped the papers again and stood up to stretch.

  Scott sat hunched over the coffee table, papers scattered in seemingly haphazard piles in front of him. The Post-it note in front of him said ‘dig more’. As I approached to offer a bottle of beer, he looked up, paper in his hand. “Much as I hate to say it, I think Mad Marchen may be on to something with this one.” He handed it to me and I read a familiar headline: Over A Century: Pinehaven Curse Ongoing. Scott sat back and sighed. “He mentions several incidents, spaced anywhere between twenty and a hundred years apart, always resulting in the death of someone from an old local family, never newcomers or strangers. Sometimes it appears to be an accident, others are blatantly murder.” He pulled an item free from one stack. “This was the traffic accident that your grandfather was in as a young man, where he was the only survivor. Twenty some-odd years before,” he tugged another article free of a different pile, “a young woman named Cora Tanner was murdered and her body dumped in a sinkhole on the property that now belongs to your brother.”