Cat on a Blue Monday

by Douglas, Carole Nelson

  "The entire matter rests on the will," Temple said half aloud. "Did Molina say anything about that?"

  "She asked about it," Peggy admitted. "Not too nicely.

  She pointed out that it didn't much matter whether Aunt Blandina left her estate to the cats or the church; I was out of the picture either way."

  "Did that bother you?" Matt asked.

  Peggy paused for a moment before shaking her head. "Why should it? I'm a cat breeder. That means I'm a little nuts about the species. I'm happy to see so many abandoned animals have a chance at a decent, protected life. As for the church, I really didn't have that much contact with my aunt. I didn't earn a place in her will; if she wanted the church to have everything, fine. I just hope the cats weren't left out entirely. But she wouldn't have done that, no matter what."

  That was all Peggy knew, all they could know. When Sister Rose bustled in to tell them that an officer wanted to see Miss Wilhelm, they tensed in concert.

  Their visitor was not Molina, but another detective, a wiry man with a luxurious mustache who identified himself as Detective Sanger. The crime-scene team was through. Miss Wilhelm could collect some clothes for her aunt's funeral, but otherwise the bedroom and stairs were still off-limits.

  "What about the cats?" Temple asked indignantly.

  Detective Sanger rolled his eyes. What about the cats?

  "They need to be fed and watered twice a day."

  "Do it then," he told her, "but stay downstairs."

  "What about the upstairs cats?" Peggy wondered, the ones that preferred to stay on the second floor.

  "They'll just have to walk down the stairs to eat," he said.

  "They've been all over that place since forever. I guess they can't do any more to mess up the crime scene."

  "It was a crime . . . then?" Sister Seraphina asked.

  The detective eyed her sincere face. "We don't know for sure yet." His voice was the standard detective-issue gruff.

  "Just do the essential business and get out."

  They chirped agreement like doves in their little nests are reputed to agree, and then eyed each other after the detective had left. Maybe, Temple was thinking for them all, they would find some overlooked clue in the chaos.

  Temple, Seraphina and Peggy decamped with a will for the Tyler house and their designated duties. Where Matt went next, he didn't say, but his face was a study in graceful abstraction when they left.

  The trio was greeted at the Tyler door by a coven of milling cats--thirteen pairs of eyes the gold, copper and verdigris color of old coins gazing up to heaven and human faces for manna and Yummy Tum-tum-tummy.

  It was messy, sometimes smelly, bend-and-twist work, but Temple was glad she could concentrate on feeding the multitudes while Peggy and Sister Seraphina went about unearthing funeral clothes upstairs. She counted their slow overhead steps in a series of loud creeks, then stopped with a can of

  Finnyky Feast half-open and smelling to high heaven.

  This old house made more sounds than the mews of its many feline residents, and Blandina had not been in the least deaf. Suppose she had heard a step in the hall and come out to investigate? Her cane could have been ripped from her hand and used to strike her until she fell down the stairs, the victim of an apparently nasty accident.

  How could Molina prove or rule out murder in such murky circumstances, with such ambiguous clues as bruises, and stairs the murder weapons? Perhaps the cane . . . now broken and in police custody, was it the murder weapon?

  Temple would have liked to see it again, for more than the dried dirt on its rubber tip.

  A raucous meow reminded her that standing with an open cat-food can in hand and two dozen open, empty mouths at her feet was not a particularly safe occupation. Thump. A big brown-and-white tom had leaped atop the cabinet. Meroww, he said.

  He was not as eloquent as Louie, but he made himself understood. Temple dropped a dollop of what looked like minced eel bellies into an empty pie tin. Boston Brownie was at it in a twinkling, and so were the lithe, lean cats that joined him atop the cabinet for a feast.

  Now that their benefactress was dead, Temple wondered, would the authorities evict these cats from their overcrowded haven? Miss Tyler's death exacerbated everybody's problems. Lieutenant Molina was forced to investigate a suspicious death in her own back yard. Matt was confronting his past in great, stunning wallops. Father Hernandez, hiding from something past or future, now stood in an unavoidable spotlight. Sister Seraphina fended off obscene phone-callers and held everything together, while Peggy Wilhelm nursed a shaved cat and buried a well-to-do aunt whose cats and money were sure to be bones of contention for the framers of city statutes and decipherers of legal complexities equally.

  A vibrating fur boa suddenly encompassed Temple's ankles. Cats curved around her calves, making her wobble on her usual high heels, turning her into an island of comfort and consideration, making her a prisoner of their endless needs.

  Temple wondered if Blandina Tyler had ever felt that way.

  Chapter 23

  It's in the Cards

  It is never possible tor the born overachiever to rest on his laurel.

  Actually, what I normally rest upon is a tot more personal and less prickly than laurels, but that is another story.

  I am recovering from my ordeal as Blood Bank Boy of the Year when a certain irritation, a rather noxious itch in my ears, a haunting restlessness, indicates that I am being summoned by the imperious, if not imperial, Karma.I must confess that I am sorry to have sniffed out this telepathic dame. Like all advocates of alternative realities. she is more than somewhat flaky. I am not referring here to the state of her skin, but to that of her mental capacities.

  Now that she has got my number, I foresee that I will rue the day I ever investigated Miss Electra Lark's premises and discovered the resident prophetess. (This foreseeing is not restricted to psychic cats. you will observe, but is also accessible to the ordinary street dude it he is so foolish as to think he has anything to look forward to.)

  Right now I am anticipating a hot climb in the dark to the filth-floor penthouse, where I will find the sublime Karma hiding behind something and teasing me with whatever it is she has to hide.

  These telecats would be a pain in the neck it they were not already a pain in the previous life. I have a feeling that I have felt Karma's hooded claws riding my destiny in other places and at other times. I am no more amenable to that idea now than when I was a hot-blooded kit accepting worship and mummification at the hands of long-gone Egyptians. Why is it that those who are gods in one culture end up as garbage in another? I could go on about my noble origins and sadly fallen slate, but time is fleeting and I do not have too many lives left.

  I bestir myself, which makes me feel like last week's stew, and slip through Miss Temple Barr's accommodatingly loose French doors. (These French are notoriously loose in every manifestation.) I naturally recall that my normal egress--the small, high, open bathroom window--has been closed for my own good. This means that I will have to put myself to considerable trouble to achieve another escape route. Which cannot be doing my own good much benefit, but those who determine one's own good do not worry about such trivialities.

  So I am out on the patio and up in the blink of an eye, if it is a lizard's peeper and rather slow to blink. I stand on the penthouse patio, girding my loins for another encounter with the elusive Karma. This loin-girding is a figure of speech and somewhat obscure. It certainly is not the fun it should be.

  I push my way back into the shadowy interior. All is still, which means that Miss Electra Lark is nowhere in the vicinity. I have nothing against Miss Electra Lark, other than her taste in household companions and furnishings, but I am not eager to be caught trespassing on her turf. She is a buxom lady who is quite capable of sweeping me out the door without so much as a by-your-leavings.I am in luck, as usual. Faint light flickers from the many prognosticating orbs--otherwise known as crystal balls stationed around the
room. The light glows green, and I realize that I have once again stumbled upon the hypnotic eyes of the prescient Karma.

  "You rang." say I in a bored, Maynard Krebs manner. (I am fond of vintage television reruns on the cable channels when I can get my mitts on a remote control.)

  I cannot say that Karma uncorks a sigh, but she certainly looks askance.

  "Louie . . . Louie . . . Louie," she breathes, "Such a common and undistinguished name. Sometimes one must descend to the cruder tool. I see a cogitation of cats in disarray, abandoned, threatened, At sea."

  "Maybe they met up with an owl with a three-pound note." say I. "I myself might skip town with some bird with dough about now."

  "Louie . . . Louie . . . Louie. You are incorrigible."

  "Flattery will get you nowhere," I warn her wan-coated silhouette.

  A pale paw flops out from under the sofa fringe, which begins doing a distracting hula at this interruption. I almost miss seeing the several oblongs of pasteboard pinned to the carpet by tour admirably sharp claws.

  "I have been studying the Tarot." Karma announces.

  "I am not unfamiliar with the pharaoh." I riposte. "We go back a long way together."

  "Tarot," she repeats. "T-a-r-o-t."

  "As in tommy-rot." I answer.

  "More like tomcat-rot," she purrs, "but unfortunately, your health appears to be splendid." Oh, Louie . . . Louie . . . Louie. Do you recognize this card?"

  "I am not unfamiliar with cards." I assert as I train my discriminating peepers upon the oblong she shoves forward with one agile claw. I see a picture of a dude in a funny hat who looks as it El Greco has scratched his portrait in a sandbox; he makes a mighty odd Jack of any suit I ever saw.

  "The Thin Man." say I.

  "Oh--" She no longer uses my name as an expletive. "This is the Hierophant, fool."

  "Say, I knew a few of these Higher Ophants in my early days.

  They usually led the parade when Ringling Brothers came to town."

  Karma's sky-blue eyes cross with consternation. I do like to ruffle her fluff. "The card of the Hierophant represents the figure of the Priest," she announces in high disdain. "In ancient Greece, far from my lost Burma, he was the interpreter of mysteries. Here, I fear he is the heart of the mystery. I have drawn the Hierophant repeatedly in the past few days."

  This I do not doubt. I can see the claw marks on the card. In fact, the figure of the Hierophant, now that l look more closely wears that funny pointed headdress reminiscent of either a dignitary in the Ku Klux Klan or a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church, Strange bedfellows, even on a Tarot card.

  I have not encountered any animated bed sheets, otherwise known as Grand Dragons, lately, but I have heard a lot about the Catholic Church all too recently from the person of the abused Peter, but no bishops. So who is supposed to be the dude on the card?

  "Does not sport the big ears of a Crosby," I say. "Does not look like Dumbo."

  "Neither." Karma says with great precision, "do you, but that is no excuse. Do you not sense the connection instantly?"

  "I do not know many priests, not to mention even fewer elephants."

  "But . . . you know . . . more priests than you know."

  I hate it when she leaks cryptic words like they were precious drops of Bailey's Irish Cream. From eavesdropping on my little doll, I have my suspicions about a certain person, but they are vaguer than Tarot cards.

  "One," I snarl, "but he may be in the past tense."

  "There is no past tense in life. Louie. All present problems merge past and future. I fear that you are not capable of distinguishing such differences, but you are the only tool available."

  "Listen," say I. "I am sick of being compared to a pair of household pliers. I am not a tool, or a fool, l am a feline being! If you insist on being abstruse, I will have to resort to my own methods."

  "Your methods?" Karma sounds particularly scornful.

  "I have my ways."

  "Your ways! Study my ways, and learn." One long, pale scimitar of nail, the blood showing pink through its pearly surface, taps the dude with the upstanding headdress. "I have often drawn the Hierophant reversed of late. You, of course, realize what that means."

  "He has undergone sex-change surgery?"

  "At times." Karma says, "I suspect that you deliberately play the fool to claim some connection, however remote, with the symbols of a higher consciousness, at other times. I do not. The Hierophant in itself represents a third party, a dark horse suddenly on the scene, a surprising development, and of course the church, or he who represents it. Reversed, it denotes a rude rejection of all religious beliefs, perhaps during youth, It speaks of emotional disturbance; someone is distrustful of others, or to be distrusted."

  I say nothing, not knowing what to make of this gibberish, and Karma tilts her head at me. "Speaking of the Fool, you will see that I have drawn this card, too, as well as the Emperor, which is heaven and spiritual things under the all important sign of Libra, as I mentioned before. And the Emperor reversed, which is chicanery. Also see here the Tower reversed, another Libra card, and the sign of an obsessive, distorted mind and spirit, of reality skewed to suit an unscrupulous, twisted mentality."

  I wait for her to associate this last description with me, but am disappointed. "Quite a cast of characters," I comment, cocking my head to denote intelligent contemplation. I am getting the hang of this oracle routine.

  "These are not from a single cast of the cards, but the same figures have appeared repeatedly. Obviously, your task is clear, and formidable. You must find the true Hierophant, who will lead you to these other cards whose roles are less clear: Death, Deviltry, Justice and Judgment, as well as Temperance."

  I hold my Temperance and say nothing. Death, Deviltry, Justice and Judgment are fully familiar to me, if not as cards, and I have always handled them well, in my own unenlightened way.

  Having done my penance at the feet of Karma and her magical, mystery cards, I bow my way out of the Arcane Presence and head for my particular ever fruitful source of wisdom and all knowledge--the hot, bustling sidewalks of Las Vegas. Nevada. And whoever I can find on them with a tale to tell--man, woman or four-footed friend.

  Chapter 24

  Money Business

  Matt was waiting in the shade of a tall stand of oleanders when she came out of the rectory.

  Lieutenant Molina paused for a moment, then regarded the notebook she had been tucking into the deep side pocket of her navy jacket. "Will I need this?"

  He smiled. "It's not confession time. I just wanted to talk to you."

  "I'm not good to talk to right now," she said, without a softening smile.

  Matt could understand why she intimidated Temple. Lieutenant Molina was serious, direct, and competent to the point of a matching plainness of dress and manner. All women who competed in a once thoroughly masculine field like medicine or police work adopted that protective coloring--or lack of coloring. Women who would be priests shared that same single-minded purity of performance that sometimes made them seem slightly inhuman.

  "Did Father Hernandez offer any new information?'' he asked.

  "Only that the pranks around the convent phones had spread to the church. Red dye in the holy-water fonts, that kind of thing." She frowned, her expression abstracted.

  Matt wondered if she envisioned her daughter's hand dipping into a still surface of blood-tinged water. "Did he consider Satanists, or would-be Satanists?"

  "He didn't mention it. I thought of it. Look, I can check with the ritual-crime team, but I doubt it's anything like that. Father Hernandez certainly is frightened of something he wasn't a few weeks ago. He puts on a good act, but he's scared white down to his cassock hem. Perhaps it's fear of losing the Tyler estate. I've got a call in to the parish lawyer's office."

  "There's something I don't know if I should tell you," Matt began.

  He realized from the instant, hungry flare in her eyes that even by mentioning it, he had gone too far to ret
reat. His false sense of familiarity with Lieutenant Molina through Temple tended to make him forget that she was a seasoned homicide detective, and was not about to play games with anyone's conscience.

  "What?" she demanded.

  "Father Hernandez," he continued, wishing he hadn't mentioned it.

  "He drinks," she finished for him in a clipped, unshocked voice. "That rumor's been running riot over the parish for two weeks. Something new for Father Rafe, all right. He's Old World, autocratic, often an infuriating pastor, at least for those of us who don't feel that clutching rosaries is the beginning and end of devotion. But he was never a drunk."

  "Then you agree that this new behavior is disturbing."

  "Sure it is, so's yours."

  Matt blinked as if to shake the hypnotic gaze of a cobra. Lieutenant Molina's eyes were such a deep, lucid blue that it was hard not to fall into them, and fall into her eternal trap, maybe. Everyone in the so-called helping professions dealt in charisma of one kind or another.

  "Mine? What's so disturbing about my behavior?" He used the disarming tone that worked so well on lady librarians, nurses and church housekeepers. "I'm pretty low-key."

  It did not work on Lieutenant Molina. Her narrowed eyes reduced her compelling blue pupils to fractured glimpses through bristling eyelashes. "That could mean that you've got something to hide, or that you'd prefer to hide, something more than your past profession. This case--if it is murder and it is a case--reeks of some sort of religious kink. Anybody with a religious background is a suspect."