Nancy J. Bailey - Furry Murder 01 - My Best Cat

by Nancy J. Bailey

  My eyes narrowed. It was difficult to imagine someone like this not displaying a rosette. In fact, she probably took them all home and hung them from her mailbox. She was lying.

  But Reynolds, being the foolish man that he was, just beamed at her. Larry nodded. He turned back to Reynolds. “Any other questions?”

  “What time yesterday did this final take place?” Reynolds said.

  Larry opened his mouth, but Tracy blurted the answer. “About six p.m. It was late.”

  I glared at her. “He wasn’t asking you.”

  She did not even deign to turn her head my way.

  “It’s all right,” Reynolds said.

  “We had a lot of cats to get through,” she went on. “The show doesn’t usually run that late, but Larry judged the entire class that day and the Allbreed classes at this show are huge. Some of the best cats in the country are here.”

  “Did Roxanne’s cat place in that final?” I spoke this time, directing my question to Tracy.

  She threw up her hands again. “I really couldn’t say. I know he gave Best Cat to a white Persian, and after that things got all muddled.”

  Larry skimmed over the book. “The Somali, yes, I remember him. Beautiful animal. I think he placed third or fourth.”

  “Well, his ears are a bit high for my taste,” Tracy said. “I am sure Larry noticed that part, but of course he didn’t comment on that in his final. He only says nice things about the cat, no matter what it looks like.”

  “He was fourth,” Larry pointed to the list and held the book out to us.

  Reynolds nodded.

  “That’s why he didn’t go higher, because of the ears,” Tracy added. “My cat Baloo has perfect ears, but of course he is a blue, which is a minority color, so I’m grateful he was even in the top ten.” She gave a little laugh. “Thanks again, Larry!”

  Larry handed the book to Reynolds. He turned to Tracy. “Your blue Aby is lovely but it wasn’t the color that held him back. It was his leg bars.”

  Tracy was silent for a moment, but I saw a muscle in her cheek quiver. Reynolds seemed to be ignoring this exchange and was again scanning the area.

  “Well,” Tracy said. “It’s just shadow barring. The standard does mention leg bars as a fault, but it doesn’t say anything about shadow barring.”

  “That’s exactly right,” Larry said calmly. “It doesn’t say anything about shadow barring, because there is no such thing.”

  “Ask any Aby breeder about shadow barring. They will tell you. It’s not an actual bar. It’s simply a darker version of the undercoat.”

  “That’s what a bar is! A darker version of the cat’s coloring, on the legs or throat, or anywhere it’s not supposed to be!”

  “Well, this is clearly another case where the breeder knows the breed better than the judge does.”

  “I bred Abyssinians for ten years!” Larry was clearly becoming irritated. I couldn’t believe this little cheerleader was getting a rise out of him. I looked at Reynolds, but he was simply watching them quietly.

  “I realize you raised Abys, Larry, but you had red and ruddy cats only. You didn’t work with the dilute colors,” Tracy said.

  Larry’s red-rimmed eyes were popping now. “It doesn’t matter! Color is color! Markings are markings!”

  “And shadow barring is shadow barring. Period.”

  “It doesn’t make a difference!”

  “Yes it does.”

  ”I’m afraid not. It’s just a variation of the same flaw.”

  “Look, I’ll be happy to bring Baloo over and you can take another look at him under the lights. I can explain the difference between his leg bars and the true actual barring of a flawed cat.”

  Reynolds, whom I expected to have ended this by now, was standing back with a bemused expression. I said nothing. Tracy stood with her arms folded and a tiny smirk glimmering on her face. Her dimple appeared, a groove in her cheek, like a glaring symbol of her amused contempt. Larry seemed to have forgotten we were there.

  “I don’t need to look at the cat again,” he said.

  “Well, see, that’s the trouble.”

  “What is the trouble?”

  Tracy stifled a sigh, making a great show of being patient with him. “When I get into the judging program, no matter how long I am a judge, I hope I never stop learning.”

  “Are you saying that I have?”

  “Your attitude speaks for itself!”

  “My attitude?”

  “I feel sorry for you, Larry. You’re stagnating.”

  The next thing I knew, Larry’s hand had flashed forward and he slapped her, with a loud crack, right across the face.

  “Hey!” Reynolds leaped forward and grabbed his arm.

  Tracy didn’t move, except to reach up and touch her cheek lightly with the palm of her hand. Her face did not register any surprise at all. She said nothing.

  Reynolds glared at Larry. “Man, what is wrong with you?”

  “I – I’m sorry.”

  I couldn’t blame Larry, actually. I would have wanted to slap her too. She stood there now, with her hand on her face, looking at him, with her one eye drifting inward just a bit. “That must be what happened to it,” I thought. “Someone knocked it loose!”

  Reynolds was clearly very disgusted with Larry. “You can’t be doing that! Jesus, I could take you to jail for assault right now.”

  “It’s okay,” Tracy said. “I won’t press charges.”

  Larry was breathing hard, his eyes still wide. Reynolds gave his arm a little shake. “Hey! You okay?”

  He looked down. “Yes, yes. I do apologize. I don’t know what came over me.”

  I looked at Tracy. I was beginning to think that maybe she was more canny than I had imagined. She had provoked him, there was no doubt about that. But why?

  “That judge bears watching,” Reynolds said as we walked away. “He’s crazy.”

  Ah. So that was it. Tracy was forcing the suspicion away from herself, maybe. I glanced back over my shoulder, and saw her sitting in her clerking chair again, as Larry busied himself at his table, preparing for the next class. Tracy looked over her shoulder, and our eyes met. But she quickly turned away.

  Chapter Eight

  Cecilia Fox

  Thursday Afternoon

  Kenya was well into his championship points, and he only needed sixteen more to hit two hundred and be Grand Champion. Roxanne and I knew that one final at this show would put him well over the limit. We had talked about running him for a national breed win. It was too late in the season for him to win any Allbreed awards nationally, but he might have a chance to be best or second best Somali.

  The thought was exciting to me. I’d had very few wins in my life. When I was small I had been particularly lucky with instant lotto tickets, winning nearly every time my father brought one home. I would take a dime and scratch off the filmy coating, to find matching amounts of two or five or seven dollars. That lasted for a couple of months. And then, that was about it. I had never been voted Class Anything; not even Class Nerd. I had never won any scholarships, having worked my way through college to get a degree in business. Now I managed a Wendy’s. Yippee.

  Just owning Kenya was a joy in itself. He really didn’t have to win anything. He waited for me right at the apartment door when I came home, and he slept on my head every night. He entertained me with games in the evenings. His favorite toy was the ring from a plastic milk jug. He was easily amused and always happy. And he was beautiful to look at, with his flaming ruddy coat and black ticking and full brushy tail. No, he didn’t have to win anything. But it was so great to have other people acknowledge how extraordinary this creature was.

  Now he was sitting happily on the grooming cart while I did my knitting. We were waiting on the next breed ring. Kenya would perch on that grooming cart for an hour without trying to go anywhere, but his feet never stopped moving. His name, Kenya Strut, fit him so well, because he definitely could. He purred and kneaded
constantly. It was like he just couldn’t contain his joy.

  Spectators would often stop and ask questions about him. I had a sign sitting next to him that said, “Please don’t touch me, even if I ask!” and most people were very good about it. They would stand politely gazing at him while they asked me questions. The most common one was, “Do Somalis shed?”

  The answer: Of course they do! Every spectator seemed to have this obsession with finding a non-shedding cat. If you can’t handle a little hair, why have animals? They also wanted a cat who wouldn’t jump up on the countertop or claw the furniture. It was insane. I resisted the urge to tell them to just go to Toys R Us and get a stuffed animal.

  Those particular topics annoyed me a little, but for the most part I loved answering questions about Kenya, even when I had to answer the same ones over and over.

  “How old is he?”

  “Eight months.”

  “Does the Somali originate in Africa?”

  I recited the answer like a newscaster. “No, the breed is a longhaired Abyssinian, named Somali for that country’s proximity to Ethiopia, which was formerly Abyssinia.”

  Then the next question was invariably, “How did they get the long hair? What other breed is mixed in? Persian? Maine Coon?”

  “There is no other breed. A Somali is a purebred Abyssinian with a longhair recessive gene. They look different, but genetically, they are the same cat.”

  The questions made me feel like an expert, sort of. And I was learning to even look people in the eye. I did hate the kids though. Sometimes a small child would come along and make a grab for him. One drooling toddler had a bright red, sticky Tootsie-Pop, and it actually became glued into Kenya’s hair. The mother picked the kid up and without a word of apology, walked away with him while the Tootsie Pop remained firmly adhered to my cat, and the child reached back over her shoulder and screamed.

  Roxanne would usually take over talking to people if she was around. With her loud, authoritative voice, bright orange-y dyed hair and her flirty manner, she seemed to attract spectators, especially men. Her voice would always heighten to a squeaky falsetto when she spoke to them. She would cast her eyes downward to look demure, smiling coyly and fiddling with something – the edge of the cage curtain maybe – as she squeaked out answers to their questions. It made my hair stand on end, but for some reason men loved this baby-talking persona. They would laugh gently and keep making up questions, sometimes really stupid ones, like how much Kenya ate. If they could manage it, many of them would later ditch their wives in some other aisle and come wandering back, under the pretense of being so fascinated by the Somali. I would look up and here they’d come, slogging down the aisle, stopping to look briefly into a cage along the way, attempting to appear nonchalant. But they always drew closer to us until they inevitably would stop by Roxanne and say, “Hi. Do you have a business card?”

  They were like dogs tracking a bitch in heat. It was nauseating.

  Roxanne always took a card from her clearly visible plastic business card holder on top of the cage, and then she would scribble a little note on the back of it before handing it to the guy. He would read it, laugh and put it in his wallet.

  I had noticed that the business card never went into their pocket. They always reached for their wallet, flipped it open and stuck it in there. Then they would say an immediate goodbye. Some of them blushed at this point. Some of them would wink at her. But they always left right after taking the card. Their curiosity about the Somali was suddenly assuaged. What a surprise.

  She had the perfect patsy in me. One evening she had sent me off to the store for kitty litter, claiming to have forgotten to bring any for our hotel room. She directed me to a Wal-Mart that was on the other side of the town where we stayed. I thought maybe there would be something closer, and upon investigating the local phone book I found another one just a few miles down the road.

  While there, I shopped around a bit. I picked up some Kit Kats, Roxanne’s favorite candy bars, and some sparkly puff balls and other treats for the cats. I headed back to the room and as I opened the door, I heard a strange man’s voice saying, “Dammit! Damn your engines!”

  And then a woman shrieked, “No! Stay down there! Don’t do it like that! That’s not what I wanted, you fucking moron!”

  Obviously, it was a couple arguing, and judging from the language, it had to be a cable channel. I walked around the corner and there was a naked man standing by the bed with his back to me, thrusting hard with his bare buttocks, illuminated in the lamplight. He was holding Roxanne’s feet in the air, her thighs slapping like lumpy batter with each thrust. The man did not appear to hear me come in, which wasn’t surprising. He was still grunting rhythmically, “Oh damn your engines, damn you!”

  “Not so fast! You’re doing it all wrong!” Roxanne’s voice wasn’t squeaky now. It was deep and thunderous and annoyed, rising like a drill sergeant over the man’s grunting.

  Then she turned her head and looked me straight in the eye.

  The entire experience lasted just a split second, but it seemed longer, and that look stayed with me afterward. It was not one of shame or surprise. It was not one of apology. It was a cold and knowing smirk; the eyes half-closed, daring me to say something.

  I dropped the plastic bag and quickly left the room.

  I fled out the door and down the hall, pressed the elevator button and waited. I could feel my heart pounding. It was ridiculous. I mean, what were they going to do, come after me?

  It occurred to me that Roxanne made love just like a cat. The female would coo and roll and trill, inviting in a tone different and higher than her normal pitch. But when the male mounted her, she would curse him. He would grasp her by the nape of the neck, as if she may decide not to cooperate. Some of the females growled and wailed the entire time, and at the moment of climax, the female would let out an ear-splitting scream, and suddenly turn on the male, clawing and spitting.

  Afterward the female would roll on her back, over and over from side to side, and lick herself. Often she looked very sated and, I thought, gloating.

  I never intended to mention the incident to Roxanne. I hoped we would never speak of it; and in fact I wanted to just forget that it had ever happened. But she brought it up when I came back to the room hours later. She was wrapped in her bathrobe, her hair in a towel, sitting on the bed watching T.V. and eating a Kit Kat bar.

  She grinned at me when I walked in. “It’s the Peeping Celia!”

  I blushed and my reaction angered me. Why should I be the shamed one?

  I took my coat off and said nothing.

  “Did you enjoy the show?”

  I didn’t answer, instead going to the sink and washing my hands.

  She was laughing. “What’s the matter, haven’t you ever seen anyone doing it before? Honey, you and I should rent some porn. I have never seen anyone look so terrified!”

  I attempted a smile. I picked up my hairbrush which was lying on the sink, intending to use it, but noticed it matted with long bright orange hairs. I laid it down again.

  She patted the bed, motioning for me to sit by her, but I selected a chair. There was an issue of “All Cats, All the Time” lying on the floor, which I had purchased at a newsstand earlier that day. I picked it up and flipped through it. The cover headline was, “Maui Wowee!” with a clever photo-shopped picture of a leaping Egyptian Mau shooting out of a volcano.

  Roxanne unwrapped another Kit Kat bar. “Celia, are you a virgin?”

  I looked up at her, startled. She sure had a way of getting one’s attention.

  “Why do you ask?” This was the tactical question one used instead of saying, “That’s none of your business.”

  Roxanne shrugged and took a bite of chocolate. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed about sex. It’s a very natural act. It is the most natural thing in the world. Did you get a chance to notice the size of his tool?” She shook her head and chuckled. “He was hung. He could be a porn star. Not like t
hat last one, the married one in Toronto. That poor guy had four inches, tops. I won’t be seeing him again. You can hardly call that a tool. Of course, I suppose there are tools that small. Needle nosed pliers. Drill bits.”

  I loudly riffled the magazine pages. “Did you hear about Ajax, this Mau that won the Hawaiian Regional?”

  “Aw, can’t we girl talk?” She pouted.

  I sighed. “Actually Roxanne, I am not that comfortable with girl talk like this. In answer to your question, yes I was very embarrassed. And the four inch thing wouldn’t bother me. I haven’t had any in so long that I’ve forgotten what it’s like anyway.”

  “You’re not a virgin!” she crowed.

  “Next time, just tell me when you’re going to have company. You don’t have to send me to the store. I’m not a nine-year-old.”

  “Oh, touchy, touchy! You really need to get yourself some, Sweetie. It will improve your mood. Do you want me to fix you up?”

  I glared at her. I couldn’t help it.

  She just smiled and went back to her Kit Kat bar, gloating, I thought, just like a cat. I half expected her to throw the candy bar down and start rolling around on the bed.

  After that, I started getting my own room on show weekends. She had not brought up the subject again, thankfully. Lately she had taken to wandering off to parts unknown. It was convenient that Jack always disappeared at the same time. Fortunately, this usually happened during show hours, when there was no chance of me bursting in on them.

  I didn’t mind being left alone in the show hall with Kenya, answering questions. It was easy and pleasant for me. The men did not stay as long, and they never came back or asked me for a card. That was fine with me.

  Today Kenya sat on his cart, and was keeping himself amused with a rabbit’s foot. I had tied it to the outside of the cage door, right next to him. He would stand on the cart, twirl, and arch his back. He would look at the bit of fur, tilting his head to the side, farther, farther, and then suddenly give it a whack. Sometimes he would lie on his back on the cart, so he could look at the toy upside down before he batted it. Then he would stand up and turn again. Now he stood looking at me, front feet dancing. I glanced up at him from my knitting and he squeezed his eyes happily.