Cat by Any Other Name (9781101597729)

by Adamson, Lydia

  The confusion and conflict must have shown on my face. I heard Tim speaking to me as if he were far away. “What are you thinking about? Alice . . . ?” he whispered.

  I moved away from his touch.

  “Are you starting to feel a little guilty?” he asked. “Like we’re betraying her in some way?”

  “Barbara’s dead,” I replied softly. “You cannot betray the dead.”

  His face seemed to grow paler, the morning sun highlighting the strong lines running down each side of his jaw.

  But of course I didn’t believe a word of what I’d just said. One can betray the dead—feel love and anger and hate toward them. Or guilt. One can demand justice for the dead. That was why I had pursued Tim originally. And look at what had happened: I was now “involved” with Tim, to put it mildly. The truth was that my passion for him was total. And I no longer knew what I was doing.

  It was then that I saw some of the old panic coming back into Tim’s face. He suddenly sat up and began a disjointed kind of monologue.

  “When it happened . . . Do you remember, Alice? We heard the sound of the cars, and then we looked down and saw that terrible thing on the road, and then we looked at each other . . . and we realized that she was missing. Remember? What I felt then was so strange. It was as if Barbara were standing right beside me, but she was also down there, shattered, a heap of bones and flesh . . . dead. I was calm then. Because she took my hand. For some reason I recalled something I had read a long time ago. Some Austrian philosopher—I forget his name—said that the limits of your language are the limits of your world. That’s what I was thinking as I stood there looking down. I knew I had reached the limit. Bang. The limit was like a wall. And I had hit it. And there was nothing to say. Nothing.”

  He went on talking. I watched his shoulders and chest rising and falling, as he spoke about how he could no longer really speak. About how Barbara’s death had taken away his capacity for meaningful language.

  I was watching his face closely. And in some disembodied way, I was watching myself watch him. I tuned in and out of his speech, which barely made sense. No, I didn’t know what I was doing at all. Was all this—this tumble into intense passion—really about my desire to be Barbara Roman? My desire to be a woman whom others loved devotedly because I was wise and gentle and compassionate and capable? Perhaps I had leaped into Tim’s bed, into his life, in exactly the same way I leaped into criminal cases. Did I just want to show others the truth they couldn’t see? If I could show the police they were wrong about a case because they were looking through a glass darkly, then I guess I could show Tim Roman that I was another Barbara.

  I snapped back into the present when I realized he was addressing me directly now. “. . . It’s been so wonderful being with you,” he was saying. “But sometimes I think you’ll disappear, too. Afraid I’ll touch you, and you’ll break into pieces.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “I’m not going to break.”

  He buried his face between my breasts.

  I have to be careful, I thought. If I find myself needing him as much as he needs me, all my priorities will go out the window forever. Barbara’s murder—if it was that—was supposed to be my first priority. I had to get to the point of looking at the affair with Tim as a gift—like finding a hundred-dollar bill in a used book.

  We made love again and again. And at last we lay side by side, neither touching nor speaking for a long time.

  I had dozens of things to do that day: meet a new cat-sitting client, see my agent, do laundry and the shopping, make some phone calls. But I just lay there.

  “Alice . . .”

  I touched him lightly on the thigh to signal that I was listening.

  “I’m going to Atlanta tomorrow on business. Could you . . . go up to the apartment and look in on Swampy?”

  The request seemed so jarringly out of context, so ridiculously mundane, that I began to laugh uproariously. Then I got out of bed and went about the business of the day.

  Chapter 11

  I entered the apartment whistling. The perplexities aside, the past few days of lovemaking and intimacy with Tim had mellowed me greatly. My obsession with Barbara’s death was receding with every passing hour. I was in her apartment now not as part of an investigation, but merely to do a favor for my lover.

  I called out to Swampy, but he did not appear. I even made a few of those clucking, kissy noises that non-cat people always think win over a shy cat. They never do, of course.

  I then proceeded as if this were a standard cat-sitting/apartment-check assignment: water the plants; make sure the windows are locked; clean up the litter box; and so on. I peered into the bedroom, and for a moment was surprised to find the bedcovers rumpled. Then I remembered that it was Tim and I who’d done the rumpling.

  There he was! Swampy was suddenly swaggering around after me in his threatening alley cat fashion. So I went to prepare his food according to Tim’s instructions: a little raw chopped veal and a little raw chopped turkey from carefully labeled containers in the refrigerator, topped off with some plain yogurt and a dash of thinly chopped greens. I must have done pretty well as chef, for Swampy went at his food with relish. No alley cat on earth had it so good.

  Then I walked into the living room, sat down on the sofa, and took out the two pieces of mail I had retrieved from my box just as I left my apartment.

  One letter was an invitation to participate in a symposium on “The Future of the American Theater” at the august Yale Drama School. I laughed out loud, wondering if I was the only perpetually out-of-work actress who got invited to these things. Alice Nestleton, on the strength of a few critically acclaimed but obscure performances over a twenty-year span, had become some kind of cult figure. I’ve often thought that if I ever write my story, it will be titled How Stardom Eluded Me. Maybe the theater somehow needed me to remain obscure. As Tony might say, “It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.” I tore letter and envelope into four equal pieces.

  The other letter was from—of all people—Tony Basillio. When I opened that envelope, a small piece of note paper attached to a newspaper clipping fell out.

  He had scrawled on the note paper: “Now here’s a real murder case. Solve this one.” The clipping, from a Connecticut daily paper, read in part:

  A shooting on the Merrit Parkway that left a college student dead apparently was triggered by a traffic dispute, police said yesterday, as they continued to search for the gunman who opened fire from a moving car. David Harrel of Darien, nineteen, was shot in the head early Sunday as he drove home with two friends after a night on the town in Manhattan. The shooting occurred at about 4:30 A.M. in the northbound lanes of the highway, when a dark-colored Volvo pulled alongside Harrel’s red Toyota pickup and four shots were fired. Police said Harrel and his friends, whose names were not released, had been drinking in a bar on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Detectives said yesterday that Harrel had cut off the Volvo on a ramp of East River Drive on the way home and insults had been exchanged. Both vehicles then proceeded northbound at a high rate of speed for many miles until the shooting occurred.

  The clipping went on to tell more about the victim and give two phone numbers that anyone who had information about the crime was asked to call—all with a pledge of strict confidentiality.

  Good old Basillio—half smart aleck, half nursemaid. This was his not very subtle way of reminding me to desist in my inquiries about Barbara’s death. But I already had—more or less—desisted. If it was suicide, I didn’t know why. If it was murder, I still didn’t know why or who. The inquiry was on hold because I was sleeping with Barbara’s husband.

  Basillio’s letter went into the trash as well. Finished with his meal, Swampy drifted into the room looking doleful. I tried to make eye contact with him, I cooed like a pigeon, I sang a little bit, but he was having none of it. Fina
lly I stuck my tongue out at him. He was resolutely indifferent but lovable nonetheless.

  What could be sillier, I wondered, than a middle-aged, lovestruck woman? “Love . . . thou art absolute . . . sole lord of life and death.” Where was that line from? I watched for a few minutes while the cat groomed himself vigorously. Barbara had said that Swampy’s tongue was raspy enough to take the polish off a shoe. As Swampy went on with his toilette, I felt that corrosive, inexorable wave of remorse begin to creep over me once again—I had Barbara’s husband, I had her cat, and here I was, very much at home in her apartment. What next—her children? She had none. The pots and pans she cooked with? Her clothing?

  That was another extraordinary thing about Barbara: She never really gave a damn about clothes. I’d seen her look ravishing in a thousand-dollar evening suit, but she looked equally beautiful in a thrift-shop jumper or gardening overalls.

  When Swampy had finished with his cleaning ritual, he headed for the bedroom. Pulled along by my thoughts, I followed him.

  There were two walk-in closets in the room. A his-and-hers setup I knew Tim had designed himself. And, yes, I opened her closet. The dresses and skirts and coats were arranged neatly on their hangers. There was a blouse I’d given her. On the floor of the closet the shoes were all lined up in sad little pairs. My invasion did not stop there. In the bottom drawer of the built-in dresser I saw her slips and panties and bras. Nestled in a corner of the same drawer was a pair of antique opera glasses in a red leather case.

  Suddenly something flashed past me, so quickly and with such force that I let out a little cry.

  It was Swampy, who had leapt into the drawer and was frantically scratching at something there.

  “Swampy, you crazy cat! What are you doing?” I attempted to pull him out, but he was oblivious to me. In another second he had pulled from the pile of things a pale blue handkerchief. He jumped triumphantly from the drawer and onto the floor, his prey in his teeth. I bent down and snatched it from his jaws.

  The handkerchief was silk and quite lovely, and had been folded to conceal something. No wonder Swampy had exhibited such enthusiasm: Nestling in the center was one of the packets of catnip from the herb garden.

  But how had it gotten there? When we started the garden, we had all agreed not to bring home any catnip whatsoever to our own cats until the project was completed and we’d sold what we could. It was a good idea. The one person allowed to take the packets off the premises was me, and that was only because I was the salesperson. I had practically vowed on a stack of Bibles that neither Bushy nor Pancho would get so much as a sniff until the other cats got theirs.

  Stranger still, this was one of the newer packets, the ones made up after Barbara’s death. These had no price penciled in on the labels; that way, we figured the stores would have more leeway to charge whatever they wanted, which would make it easier to sell them.

  I kept the little cheesecloth packet in one hand, and with the other held up the hankie to read the decorative monogram on its edge: RAL.

  I realized then, to my tremendous annoyance, that I did not know Renee Lupo’s middle name.

  Why on earth would Renee have smuggled catnip from the garden crop and made a secret gift of it to Tim?

  At my feet, Swampy was fairly snarling with anger and impatience. I’d stolen something from him. But Renee was a thief, too.

  Why on earth? Why Renee? Why Tim?

  Chapter 12

  I couldn’t sleep.

  For the past few nights I had felt I couldn’t sleep without Tim next to me. Now I couldn’t sleep—period. All through the day that blue handkerchief had been in my thoughts.

  Basillio’s standard words of caution kept coming back to me: “Go slow, Swede. Let’s lay it all out before we jump any guns. Right?”

  Right. All I’d found was a bag of catnip, gift-wrapped, so to speak, in a pretty handkerchief that might belong to Renee Lupo. Well, that wasn’t quite the sum total of what I’d found. Before I left Tim’s apartment, I’d looked in the file where Barbara kept all her papers relating to the garden.

  One of the insurance documents, which contained all our names, revealed that Renee’s middle name was Abra.

  Although I was sleepless and worried, I thought I was being hyper-logical. If Tim could turn to one of Barbara’s good friends—me—for “comfort,” then why not another—Renee?

  It was a big leap, I knew, but the logic could be taken a lot further. Tim was a complex, handsome, sexy man—right? He and Barbara may have had a good marriage, but there’d been room in it for her to keep some pretty big secrets from him—right? So it stands to reason that he might have been keeping a few from her—right? Like an affair with Renee—right?

  Suppose Tim and Renee had been long-term lovers . . . who figured it was time to kill Barbara. Logic can assume some strange shapes, but could it stretch as far as that?

  What would Basillio say if he could hear me now? I would come in for all kinds of ridicule. I’d be a naïf who couldn’t accept the fact that she was not her lover’s only lover. He would recommend a long rest at a home for the thinking impaired. And maybe he’d be right. Maybe I was making the same kind of mountain out of this molehill as I had done with my conviction that Barbara had been murdered.

  Yes, Renee had been standing right next to me when we heard Ava’s terrible scream. On the other hand, I had no idea where Tim was when Barbara drifted out onto the terrace . . .

  I went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. What I yearned for was fresh, raw milk like we used to drink on my grandmother’s farm: thick and warm and grassy. Of course, the only thing I had on hand was a half-filled container of the low-fat pasteurized stuff. I slammed the door shut and went into the living room to pick up my script for the upcoming radio play I was to perform in.

  All these crazy speculations were probably just more manifestations of my discomfort and guilt over the affair with Tim. Why had I allowed myself to get into such a situation? What was wrong with me? I opened the script and read the first passage my eye came to rest on.

  ELECTRA: Then I will speak now. You say that you have murdered my father. What confession could heap deeper shame on you than that, whether the act was just or not? But I must reveal to you that your act was not just. No! You were led to it by the wooing of that base man who is now your husband.

  I was playing Clytemnestra in this production, mother of Elektra, and in a speech previous to this one I have just confessed to her that indeed I had murdered her father.

  Had I been wooed? Had Tim wooed me as an “assignment,” on someone else’s “orders”? Perhaps after I’d questioned Renee and the others about Barbara’s religious beliefs?

  Among my many mistakes, I thought, was my search for a secret life being lived by Barbara. What about Tim’s secret life? The fact that we were lovers now would complicate matters, but there were a few facts about Tim I simply had to uncover. There was no way for me to go on with him while I had all these suspicions and doubts.

  I thought of one possible way I could check on Tim without his knowing—a vaguely dishonorable way. I could contact Rothwax. I had been a Retro consultant for long enough to know that their computer has the capacity to search a thousand accessible databases in the city. All it needs is a name and address, and it can get into the motor vehicles database, the courts, the hospitals. If a person has ever bought a car, rented an apartment, filed a lawsuit, stayed at a city hospital, paid a fine to any municipal agency, contested a tax bill, been arrested or mentioned in a newspaper report, applied for a license of any kind—the Retro computer can find the record, expand on it, cross-reference it, and spit out more personal information than one could possibly imagine.

  Dishonorable . . . So be it. I dialed Rothwax’s home number. The phone rang many times before a dazed voice answered.

  “Who is this?!�
��

  “Alice Nestleton.”

  There was no response for a minute.

  “Detective Rothwax, are you there? I could use a favor from you.”

  The voice on the other end of the line exploded: “Damn it! It’s one thirty in the morning!”

  I honestly had lost track of the time and was terribly embarrassed to be reminded of my oversight. But I forged ahead. “Listen, I’m really sorry about the time. But I need a Retro computer search.”

  “No way.”

  “Please don’t say no. Couldn’t you go in a little early and run it for me? No one would have to know.”

  “Too much to ask.”

  “But it’s important. Please.”

  “This have anything to do with your friend who jumped?”

  “She didn’t— Yes. I need a profile on her husband.”

  “Why? Is he your number-one suspect now?”

  I hesitated. “I didn’t say that. But I . . . I don’t quite . . . trust him. I need the profile.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “What do you mean, ‘and’?”

  Rothwax was very smart. He’d picked up something in my voice.

  “I mean, do we have something else working here—like a domestic squabble? A payback?”

  “Detective, please!” I snapped. “If you’ll just help me on this, I’ll never ask for anything like this again.”

  “Damn right, you won’t,” he grumbled, then exhaled an audible sigh. He was going to agree to it. I gave him the particulars on Tim Roman.

  “This won’t come cheap, Cat Woman,” he said at last. “It’s going to cost you three drinks and a club sandwich.” And then he hung up.

  Elektra probably had been putting audiences to sleep for generations, but not me. It was three thirty in the morning, and I’d read as much of the script as my mind could hold for the present. I had some yogurt, then turned to the depressing psychiatry text I’d picked up in a used-book store shortly after Barbara’s plunge from the terrace.