by Valerie Tate
“So what did you want?”
“I always wanted to stay here and work in the company but not in the business side of it. I’ve never been any good at business. That was Bobby’s forte. He was a natural. We had it all worked out. He would run the business and I would run the shop. That’s what I love, the craftsmanship, the wood. We would have made a great team,” he added sadly.
“Your mother told me he died in a car accident that you survived.”
“That’s right. Did she tell you that I was driving?”
Chris could hear the guilt and bitterness in his voice, even after all these years. “No, she didn’t mention that,” he replied softly.
“I had just bought my first new car and I was taking Bobby for a drive to show it off. The accident wasn’t my fault. A drunk driver ran a red light and plowed into the passenger side. Bobby didn’t stand a chance. But I could never stop thinking that if it had been me that was killed and not him, how different everything would have been for everyone.” He said ‘different’, but Chris had the feeling that he’d meant ‘better’.
“Your mother didn’t think that. She said that it was fortunate that you survived.”
James looked pleased. “She said that? Anyway, it was me, and I had to take over the whole firm when my father died. Thankfully, mother had a broker look after the investments or I would have run them into the ground as well.”
Chris decided to ignore the last self-deprecating comment. “I suppose Alice was unhappy about it.”
“Yes. She tried to make the best of things here, though, and when we had Alicia, she made up for everything. But Alice couldn’t have any other children and that was a bitter blow to my parents. I think that’s when life began to change around here.” Chris looked at him questioningly and he continued, “I wanted you to understand why my wife is not always at her best. Being deprived of the life she expected has made her dissatisfied with life in general.” And being made to feel a failure for being unable to produce a male heir to carry on the Dunbar name couldn’t have helped, Chris mentally added, contributing what James had been unwilling to say outright.
Chris felt an unexpected sympathy for Alice Dunbar and the young woman she had been in that old house. And he began to realize that there was more to James Dunbar than he’d thought. Perhaps he’d been too quick to let Amanda Dunbar’s bitterness towards her daughter-in-law cloud his own judgment. Perhaps it would be possible to help this family after all.
It was with a quiet sense of optimism that he drove home that night, but the optimism was short-lived. That was, in fact, to be only the first of a series of disasters. Each day, it seemed, brought news of some new cat-astrophe, and despite the pleasant anticipation of seeing Alicia, he began to dread those Sunday visits.
There was the Boston Cream Pie that ended up, or rather down, on the floor when the four-footed sweet-tooth tried to lick off the whipped cream topping; the antique slipper chair he used as a scratching post; the table-cloth he’d caught a claw in while playing with the lace edging, dragging it and all of the contents of the table after him as he flew through the house trying to escape the dreaded linen- monster on his tail; the dead mouse brought in and proudly dropped at Alice’s feet while the snooty president of the local Historical Society was visiting; and, of course, coughing up a hair-ball on the rug in the parlor during the Minister’s visit! The list seemed endless. Many of the accidents that happened inside the house were because the rooms were over-crowded with chairs, tables, sofas and bric-à-brac, not to mention the fringes, tassels and ties so close to the heart of a playful cat. But at times it seemed as if he knew exactly what he was doing and delighted in the mayhem he caused. He’d find a lofty perch and watch the results of his antics like an avid spectator at an antic theatrical event.
At the end of the first month, Alice’s temper had been stretched to the breaking point, James had taken to spending longer hours at the factory, and Alicia had withdrawn to a point where Chris doubted he could ever reach her. He had fallen greatly in the estimation of his partners as well.
Clearly something had to be done, and fast. The question was, what?
June arrived without a solution and he was near desperation. Outwardly, the house was as calm as ever. Roses spilled over the walk, their scent filling the air with perfume, but he was in no fit state to appreciate it. Cold dread filled his heart at the prospect of another Sunday dinner spent in that atmosphere. The walk over had been spent in tortured imaginings of what new calamity had taken place in the forty-eight hours since he’d learned of the seafood chowder incident when the feline miscreant had been discovered head-down in the tureen in the middle of the dining room table.
* * *
His heart fell as Alice answered the buzz. He could tell by the look on her face that something was wrong.
“What has he done now?” he asked without preamble.
“He’s missing! We haven’t seen him since yesterday morning.”
Chapter 6
“He’s missing.” The voice on the other end of the line was barely a whisper.
“Missing? That was fast! Good work.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“If it wasn’t you, then who was it?”
“How should I know? What should I do?”
“Nothing. Just wait and see. Call me again when you know something.”
Chapter 7
Alice said that they’d been trying to keep him in for fear of something happening to him, which explained in part the many incidents over the past few weeks. The day before, when she’d opened the door to get the newspaper, she hadn’t realized he was right behind her, and before she could shut the door, he was gone.
It sounded perfectly plausible.
“Why didn’t you call me?” Exasperation made him curt.
“We thought he would come back when he got hungry, but he hasn’t. James and Alicia are out looking for him. We’ve been out all day. I came back so there would be someone here when you arrived.”
Chris couldn’t keep the suspicion from his mind or from showing on his face.
“You think I did something to him, don’t you!” The accusation was more statement than question.
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“Whatever you may think of me, Mr. Mallory, you have to believe I could never harm Marmalade, or any animal, for that matter!”
“Your mother-in-law thought you could,” he said bluntly. The time for pussy-footing around was over.
Alice obviously thought so too. “My mother-in-law hated me for marrying her son. I wasn’t what she wanted for him. I wasn’t good enough to be a Dunbar.” The bitterness of years boiled to the surface. “I would have left years ago but James wouldn’t desert his family and I didn’t want to lose my husband and my daughter, so I pasted a smile on my face and I stayed. It’s true Marmalade infuriates me at times, and I’ve lost my temper with him, but Alicia loves him, so we would have kept him no matter what. My mother-in-law knew that the cat wouldn’t have ended up back on the street. She wrote that will out of pure spite. But the bottom line is I’m not stupid. I wouldn’t violate the terms of the will, regardless of what I think of them. In the long run it is our daughter’s future that we are concerned with. In ten years or so, she will be a wealthy woman. I can put up with being housemaid to a cat to ensure that.”
Alice’s words rang true and he was inclined to believe her. For everyone’s sake he hoped she was telling the truth.
James and Alicia dragged themselves in sometime later. They’d scoured the town without success. Chris could possibly believe Alice Dunbar to be capable of doing away with the cat but just couldn’t see James or Alicia being involved. Since it was too dark to proceed any further, they arranged to start looking again in the morning.
* * *
Chris arrived at the house right after breakfast. He’d decided to go door-to-door to see if any of the neighbors had seen Marmalade while James and Alice searched the beach and harbor. Ali
cia opted to hold the fort at home in case he turned up there. They would all keep in touch by phone.
Chris’ first stop was Mrs. Short’s house next door. Frantic barking could be heard inside when he rang the bell.
“Down Horatio, down! No barking!”
The door opened revealing a short, elderly woman with a tight perm and suspicious eyes. A small, black Cairn terrier was resolutely trying to push past her feet and she, just as resolutely, kept pushing him back, the two of them giving the impression of doing a well-rehearsed dance.
He introduced himself and explained about Marmalade being missing.
“So she’s finally done him in, has she?” Mrs. Short said bluntly, nodding sagely. “We’ve heard the scandalous goings on over there, haven’t we, Horatio?” In reply, the terrier tried to squirm past again and the little dance was repeated. “I’m just surprised it’s taken her this long.” More dancing. “Mark my words, you won’t see that poor beast again.” A few final dance steps and the door was emphatically shut in his face.
The next two neighbors were less vitriolic but no more helpful.
It was at the fourth house that he finally had some good news. The woman there said Marmalade had stopped by the day before. She explained that he used to be a regular visitor but he hadn’t been around for a while. She had given him some canned salmon and he had gone on his way. Thinking that he owed Alice Dunbar a huge apology, Chris asked which way Marmalade had gone and continued on down the street.
It seemed that the cat was a popular visitor all along Glengarry Lane. Several of the other neighbors said he used to stop by but hadn’t lately, and that they missed him and would be on the look-out for him. When he reached the end of the block, Chris called James and Alicia but neither of them had any more news to report.
The next day, they put up posters all over town, promising a substantial reward for any information, which resulted in a series of Marmalade look-alikes (and not-so-much-alikes) being paraded past their door, but no Marmalade.
It had reached the point that Chris felt he was going to have to report the situation to the APS when, walking back home one afternoon having spent the morning checking out back alleys along the main street, he saw an orange tail attached to a large orange bottom flying along a fence top.
Without stopping to think, he took it after it, running at break-neck speed, leaping short hedges, dodging trees and boulevard gardens, and calling “Marmalade!” at the top of his lungs. The scandalized expressions on the faces of people he passed assured him that he was making a spectacle of himself, but he was beyond caring. He had to keep the cat in sight. He didn’t even know if it was Marmalade, but it was the only lead he had.
And then he lost him. In the blink of an eye, the cat cut through a yard, leaped over a high fence, and was gone.
Abandoning the chase, Chris collapsed against a tree, panting. He really had to get to the gym more. When his ragged breathing had returned to normal, he turned back the way he had come and headed for his apartment.
He was sprawled on the sofa, cursing life in general and orange cats in particular, when his phone rang.
“He’s back!”
The happy wanderer was sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, calmly cleaning his fur, and totally ignoring the humans who stood in a circle looking down at him with a mixture of relief and exasperation.
“He just showed up at the kitchen door and meowed to get in. He smells of fish, so we think he’s been at the beach.”
Remembering the tinned salmon, Chris wasn’t so sure, but he didn’t care. A disaster had been averted.
Despite the scare he had given them, they decided that trying to keep Marmalade in was a mistake. The more they kept him in, the more he was bound and determined to escape. He was used to coming and going as he pleased and was obviously happy to return home when he was ready. It was a risk, but one they felt they had to take.
Chapter 8
“He’s back.”
It was faceless conversation spoken in sibilant whispers.
“Not for long. You know what has to be done.”
“He’s just a cat.”
“He’s not just a cat. He’s a fortune with legs, money with a tail.”
A resigned sigh was audible at the other end of the line. “What if I get caught?”
“Don’t.”
“But what if I do?”
“If you do, you’re on your own. No one can know I’m involved. I’ll deny everything.”
“If I’m taking all the risk, I’ll want more money.”
“There’s no money until it’s done.”
Another sigh and the line went dead.
Chapter 9
Chris had quietly apologized to Alice for having thought her capable of harming Marmalade and she had accepted, but their relationship was even more strained than it had been before, and so it was with some surprise that she greeted him at the door the following Sunday.
“Mr. Mallory, how nice to see you. Please come in. Isn’t it a lovely evening?” She was smiling.
His first reaction was suspicion. The last time she had greeted him with a smile, it was to present him with a bill to replace a dress Marmalade had ruined, but this time there was no bill and no calamity. Alice was in good humor and so, therefore, was James. As for Alicia, the release from tension made her positively sparkle. Chris could hardly take his eyes off her.
They had cocktails in the parlor and then, while Alice finished the preparations for dinner, she suggested James and Alicia show Chris the rest of the house.
It was basically a center hall plan with a large, graceful, curving stairway rising to the second floor. Opposite the parlor, on the other side of the hall, was the library which served as James’ den. Richly paneled in oak, the walls were lined with bookshelves. A large, black walnut desk stood in front of the windows and two leather-covered chairs framed a fieldstone fireplace. The floor was covered by a thick oriental carpet and cream-colored draperies covered the windows.
The primary focus of the room was a large oil painting of Robert Allen Dunbar hanging over the fireplace. There was a strong likeness to his son, both men having thick black hair and brows, a fine aquiline nose, high cheekbones and a long chin, but whereas the father bore the assurance of success, the son showed only the despair and exhaustion of defeat. It was a cruel contrast and must have been a constant reminder to James of his failure to maintain his father’s business.
Not that the failure was entirely his fault, Chris had discovered. In the last few weeks he’d spent considerable time researching the history of furniture in the area. Located on the western shore of Lake Huron, Dunbarton had a fine natural harbor that made it a focus for trade and thus commerce. Access to forest products and means of transporting the finished products early on produced a flourishing furniture industry. The Dunbar family had been among the first, and the best, and had developed one of the finest names in the business. Times had changed, however, and in the last 20 years numerous furniture manufacturers had gone under. The lack of skilled craftsmen, the high cost of wood, and competition from more cheaply made, veneer-finished products and imports were the principle reasons in the bankruptcies. Chris was surprised that James had managed to keep going as long as he had.
From the library, Alicia and Chris went upstairs to look at the bedrooms, while James went to lend Alice a hand. There had originally been six but at the time indoor plumbing was introduced the smallest was converted to a bathroom and dressing room with a connecting door to the master bedroom. Similarly, dressing rooms in two of the other rooms and part of the pantry adjoining the kitchen downstairs were also converted.
From there, they continued on to the attic suite and then climbed up the winding stairs of the tower to the Widow’s Walk where they spent some time watching the play of colors on the calm surface of the lake and enjoying the magnificent panorama of the countryside beyond the town.
“This would make a great sun-deck,” Chris remarked. “Did
you really drop water balloons from up here?” he asked dubiously, looking over the railing.
Alicia hung her head in mock embarrassment. “Yes, to my shame, I did. Actually, it is really very scientific. You have to time things perfectly. I got quite good at it. In retrospect, I was a horrible child.”
“You said it, not me.”
“I’d be happy to give you a demonstration sometime,” she offered primly. “I’m sure I haven’t lost my touch.”
“Just so long as I’m not the intended target.”
“Spoil sport!”
It was the most relaxed Alicia had ever been with him and he wanted to prolong the moment.
“Why is this called a Widow’s Walk?” he asked. “Did women get rid of unwanted husbands up here, drop them over like your water balloons?” He mimed tossing someone over the railing, hoping to make her laugh, and succeeding.
“That depends on who you listen to. However, I don’t think anyone has ever suggested the dropped husband theory before, at least not to my knowledge,” she added with another giggle. “Seriously, one very romantic theory is based on the fact that houses that had an enclosed walk-way on the roof were usually found by the shore. People said they were built so that the wives of sea captains could watch for the return of their husband’s ships. Since sailing was a dangerous business, many of the wives became widows and hence the name. The other, more mundane, theory is that they were built purely as decorative features on the houses to show how affluent the home-owners were. I like to imagine some young wife waiting anxiously for her husband to come home to her, straining for a glimpse of sails in the distance.”
“I prefer my theory,” Chris said with one last glance over the railing as they headed back down to the entrance hall.
Marmalade was sitting waiting for them at the foot of the stairs.
“You know, I’ll swear that cat deliberately sets out to annoy mother,” Alicia said with a conspiratorial grin. “Sometimes he’ll go to where she’s sitting and just stare at her. It makes her so uncomfortable she usually gets up and leaves.”