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

by Nancy J. Bailey

  “I didn’t save that woman,” I said. “I didn’t catch that one.”

  His eyes softened. “You can’t seriously blame yourself for that.”

  “It happened on my watch.” I took out my pack of cigarettes and pulled one out. My hands trembled as always, my nervous condition. It was a little embarrassing. I fumbled in my pocket for a lighter but he beat me to it, presenting his, leaning across the table holding the flame before me.

  “Thanks,” I said, inhaling deeply. He nodded and snapped his lighter shut, put it back in his pocket and stirred his coffee. I looked out the window at the street lights reflected in red and white lines on the wet pavement. Rain spattered against the pane.

  “I’ll tell you something,” Reynolds shook his head. “You can never predict when some craziness is going to happen, Norwich. There’s no accounting for the insanity of people. They can be mean and they can be vindictive. We can’t prevent these people from being who they are. But we can sure as hell catch them afterward. It’s important to make that distinction and not take this home with us at night.”

  The way he said “us” made it sound as if I was in his category, even though I was just a security guard. I looked at him, but he was gazing out the window too now. His chin was resting in one palm. His eyelashes were long and thick, tipped up on the ends, like fans.

  The waitress came and poured us each a coffee, filling my cup and topping his off.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “You’re welcome, sir.” She went away.

  I placed my hands around my steaming cup, warming them. “You think you know who the murderer is?”

  “Not a clue,” he said. “What do you think?”

  I shook my head.

  He stirred his coffee. “I have some ideas though. I have some ideas about you, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Two steps behind. You’re two steps behind. You are a watcher. You’re not participating. Nobody waits for you, do they? They just go on with life like you aren’t even there. Do you like it that way?”

  I just shrugged and took a sip.

  “Know what I think? I think you don’t like it. I think you would like someone to notice you, but you are too proud to stick your neck out.”

  I set the cup down. “Please don’t try to psychoanalyze me, Reynolds.”

  “Rob.”

  “It’s not your job. And that’s lucky because you suck at it.”

  He smiled and sipped his coffee.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Cecelia Fox

  Friday Night

  I lay wide awake in bed, with no Kenya, and thought of cats.

  My black cat used to leap up and steal birds right out of the bird feeder. He would sit crouching below it, waiting for them to land. When they landed he would launch himself, hang by his front legs, and just grab them. The birds just seemed to huddle there waiting for him. They never struggled. He would grab them, drop to the ground and dash off. My mother screamed when it happened. But I admired his athleticism. It was quick, and judging by the stunned reaction of the birds, they didn’t really grasp what was happening.

  In those days cats were not generally pampered as they are today. They lived outdoors and bred at will. Back roads were occasionally littered with their bodies. One of the kids in my school found a cardboard box filled with kittens beside the road. He brought the kittens to school. There were six of them, black and white and grey and white, all fuzzy and tickling whiskers. They were about six weeks old, and strangely calm, as if they knew they were in the hands of fate and could do nothing about it, rather like the birds in the feeder. I could hold them, cuddle them to my cheek. They just hung in my hands, silent and waiting. When finally one started to purr, all the kids laughed and sighed. It was really a very sweet moment then. Pettiness and rivalries were forgotten as nerds and basketball stars and cheerleaders alike all gathered around to see these kittens. They were magic.

  Aaron Brady was the kid’s name who found those kittens. He was a geek, a math student, very pretty though, with a shock of sandy hair that covered his forehead. He had one tooth in the front that was chipped. His pants always seemed a little too large. They hung loosely on his behind, and when he walked they said, “Swish, swish.” He wore plaid shirts that had snap buttons on the front, and the collars were a little frayed, as though they’d had a previous owner. He carried his books gently cradled under one arm, like treasures. When he spoke, he would lisp just a bit. Despite his geeky qualities, he seemed to have plenty of friends.

  The kittens all were distributed on the day he brought them to school. They were entrusted into the outstretched hands of cooing girls and grinning sheepish boys. Aaron admonished each kid, saying, “If your mother says no, you bring her back to me! Understand?”

  He spoke with authority and his voice didn’t even crack. I immediately developed a huge crush on him. I loved how he cared for them, the way he held them. He was my first love. He never noticed me though. And I never had the nerve to try to talk to him.

  I didn’t even attempt to adopt one. They were treasures, and I was far too low in the class pecking order to consider it. Besides, my parents would have said no. But still, I wished it had been me who had found those kittens. I took frequent walks along the roadsides after that. If I saw a box in the ditch, I would run to it, hoping to find kittens inside. I never did though.

  It seemed to be a consistent theme in my life. The magic, the special moments, belonged to others. It was my fate to stand by and watch them, but not participate. If I verged on winning something, achieving something, it was snatched away as if a mistake had been made.

  I rolled over and looked at the clock. The illuminated numbers read 3:16. I sighed. I got up and went to the bathroom. The litterbox remained behind the toilet, with the gravel pure and undisturbed.

  As I came out, I looked at the blue ceramic water bowl, filled to the brim. “Kenya” it said in bright white letters. I picked up the bowl and emptied it into the sink. I rinsed it out, and filled it up with fresh water, and set it down on the floor. He was not here to drink it, but the gesture was somehow comforting to me.

  I stood for a moment staring at the wall, thinking about the day’s events, about the last time I had seen him, being borne away in Roxanne’s arms, his tail bouncing through the air happily. He had no clue, no worries at all.

  I had made the mistake of reading about witches and cats during my habitual research into cat history. The stories came back to me now. The Middle Ages were a dark time for cats, beginning with the onset of Christianity. Cats had been worshiped by Europeans to that point. There was even a cat goddess; Freya, a Norsewoman. She had two large cats pulling her chariot and was always surrounded by cats. Cat rituals were often involved in her worship. Friday was her official day – in fact the day was named after her.

  When Christianity spread throughout Europe, Freya was eventually considered a demon, and with her, the beloved cats. They bore the brunt of her downfall. It’s a horrid and tragic commentary on humanity, what happened over the next thousand years. Cats were tortured, burned at the stake, stoned to death. Cursed.

  The imagery was powerful and it was hard to get this out of my mind. The irony, of course, was that a religion had brought this about. It even extended to the witch trials of Salem and the superstition about how a black cat crossing your path was considered bad luck.

  I read that less than ten percent of the cat population remained in the European countries, for the duration of a thousand years. They had gone from the golden age of Egypt, where they were worshiped and the death penalty was issued to anyone who harmed them, to this.

  I couldn’t help but make the comparison. Kenya was a show kitty – a glamorous, dazzling showman, my pampered boy his entire life. Now he had fallen into the hands of someone who didn’t love him. What was happening to him?

  I lay down again and pulled the sheets up to my chin, and raised my hand to feel the empty space on the pillow
near me.

  The clock rolled to 3:24 with a loud click.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Tracy Pringle

  Friday Night

  He was supposed to be out picking up the pizza. He’d been gone over an hour. Where the hell was he?

  I paced back and forth around the hotel room. I kept checking my watch. It was a little silver watch with Italian charms in the band. The charms were ones I had selected from a cat show vendor. My initials were on them, and the Jungle Cats logo that I had made up through a special order. I had ordered another charm bracelet for Baloo to wear as a collar. I had seen a lady with one on her Chihuahua once in a shopping mall. Nobody in cats had these bracelets as collars yet. I was going to lead the way in the current cat show trends.

  I was getting hungry. Where the hell was Jack with that pizza? He was always running off to do some errand or other – get ice for the room. Gas up the car. Pick up cat food. When he came back, he absolutely was not going to leave this room again tonight. Period.

  Baloo hunkered in his Tokyo cage, reaching out through the bars for the TV cable. Whenever I looked in his direction, he squalled at me.

  “Shut up!” I said.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Wesley Taft

  Friday Night

  I lay flat on my stomach on the floor with a big flashlight in my hand. The beam made a line below the bleachers, sliced now and then by the steel rods supporting them. SuMe was nowhere in sight. I pointed the beam into the far corner, searching, then edged it slowly along the wall. There! A reflection – two points of light. Her eyes, shining back out at me. Thank God. I was imagining the worst – a hole, an uncovered grate, an opening to outside or who knew where. But she was there, huddled in the far reaches of her black sanctuary.

  “SuMe,” I called. “SuMe kitty. Kitty kitty.”

  Max had gone back to the hotel to let the dog out. Reva always traveled with us to all the shows and though she had a bladder of iron, I was sure she must be getting bored and lonely.

  “Can I help you?”

  I turned and looked to see a pair of high top sneakers. They belonged to a skinny redheaded woman in a black leather jacket. She had the sleeves rolled up around her elbows. She wore a badge on the front of the jacket. Security.

  “Hi,” I said. “My kitty is under here. She’s been in there all evening.”

  Her face, which had been tight and suspicious, immediately softened to a look of concern. It even made her sort of pretty, in a boyish sense.

  “Oh no,” she said. “That is a problem.”

  Her eyes flickered quickly over the bleachers and I could tell she was reading the situation perfectly.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m sure the show committee never thought about this! We can’t roll these out. It will scare her. She might get hurt or rolled over by one of those big beams.”

  “Right.” She strolled up one side, looking up and down the wall. “Can you tell whereabouts she is?”

  “Yes I can see her. She’s up against the wall.”

  “Nobody is going to be able to crawl through and under these damn things either,” she said.

  “Nope. Not even a skinny little thing like you would fit in there.”

  She sighed. “Well, she’s got to get hungry or thirsty at some point. She’ll come out.”

  “It could be days.”

  “We could call a vet to tranq her… Shoot her with a dart maybe.”

  I gasped. “Oh no! He might hit her in the eye or give her too high a dosage or-“

  “Okay, I understand. Well what do you want to do?”

  “If you don’t mind, I will just stay here.”

  “I don’t mind at all. I’ll be right back.” She walked away.

  I had some cartons of moist cat food with me, SuMe’s favorite brand and beef, her favorite flavor. She was funny that way. Most cats seemed to prefer chicken or liver. But SuMe loved beef. I peeled the foil top off of one of them. I tried to do it loudly so that she could hear. “Look SuMe, snackies! And it’s your favorite! Come on, honey!”

  “Here you go,” a girl’s voice said. I looked up and the security guard was back. She had a thick tan blanket that she held out toward me.

  “Oh, thank you so much!” I took it gratefully.

  “My name’s Kim. My shift is over, there’s a guy working midnights but frankly, I think all he does is sleep. I’ll tell him you’re here. He won’t disturb you.”

  “Thank you,” I said again.

  “Goodnight.”

  She turned and walked away. I wrapped the blanket around myself and peered under the bleachers into the dark. I had a sudden flashback to my last stint in community theatre, waiting backstage to step out into the lights and take my bow. We had done Godspell in the spring, a musical about the last days of Jesus. The show was very emotional and Max and I had fought constantly for the duration.

  “You’re spending too much time away from home!” he’d said.

  I couldn’t explain it adequately, that I needed to do this, to be someone else for awhile, just to keep my sanity. The whole business of Rusty’s abduction had nearly killed me. I was afraid it would tear Max and me apart. I thought time away from him then might be a good thing.

  I was given the part of Judas Iscariot, which was perhaps the most important role in the show. It was weird because it was a dual role, combined with John the Baptist, so I was playing the parts of both good and evil. But there was nothing like standing out on stage in the lights, singing the song to herald the coming of Christ. I was not a religious person, but to hurl my voice to the rafters, singing, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord,” caused goose bumps to crawl up my arms.

  I had always wanted to be in “Cats.” That was my dream. I didn’t have any particular role in mind; I would gladly have taken any part, just to wear the costume and sing the songs. I’d even sing backup. But “Cats” was by far too huge an endeavor for our little troupe.

  Godspell had sort of the same energy in some ways. There was lots of physical stuff, dancing and singing. The story was magnetic too – and I adored my dual roles. Sometimes rehearsals jumped around, so I’d be John one minute, and Judas the next.

  Maybe it was the fact that I was dealing with evil in the world, in reality, which caused me to burst into tears during unexpected times at rehearsals. Roxanne was evil. There was just no question in my mind about that.

  It was interesting how generous and kind the cast became, I am sure in part due to the spiritual messages our characters were sending. There wasn’t any fighting backstage, which was very unusual. Community theatre is usually akin to the cat fancy in terms of rampant ego.

  I had begun spending longer and longer evenings with the show group, much to Max’s frustration. The other cast members and I would go out at night after rehearsal and sing karaoke. I’d stumble home at 3 am, smelling of bars and smoke and liquor. Max would jump out of bed and say, “Well, hope you had fun tonight, because you’re not having any more now!”

  He’d go sleep on the couch.

  His unpleasant reaction only increased my reluctance to go home at night. It all cumulated during the last night of the last show, when we sang our last song before a tearful audience, and I realized that it was over.

  And Max had not even come to see us.

  When we did the group hugs as the curtain closed, everyone in tears, I felt a kinship to the group, and deep gratitude, but a sense of closure. The Godspell chapter was over and had served its purpose. It was time to go home.

  When I walked in that night, Max’s suitcase was packed and he was standing with his back to me, looking out the window.

  “I’m leaving you,” he said.

  “Oh Max, no!”

  “I can’t do this anymore,” he said. But when he turned to look at me, I saw his face was wet with tears. And I knew he wouldn’t go.

  “I just miss Rusty,” he said. “I miss us.”

  And now he had left me. I was sure it was his way of
showing me what it was like, to mull it over alone, to feel really isolated in a time of crisis. I didn’t blame him, really. But tit for tat was never constructive. And Max did have a tendency to be a bit of a drama queen. At times it was funny and exciting when he reacted emotionally to things, but at a time like this, it was pretty awful.

  Now SuMe was lost in the dark shadows beneath the bleachers, waiting for – waiting for what? I leaned down again and peered into the darkness, but there was nothing to see.

  I wished I hadn’t quit smoking.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Andrew Gilbert

  Friday Night

  I sat in the hotel room by the window that night, and for the first time in six months, I lit up a cigarette. I heard Dennis’s familiar step in the hallway, his toes dragging a bit. The door opened. Hotsy was lying on the back of the chair adjacent to me. She blinked her oversized eyes at Dennis, then closed them to slits again. The Somali kittens were curled on the pillow, exhausted from the day’s events. They barely stirred. I did not turn away from the window. Dennis went to the mirror and I heard him flicking his hands through his hair.

  “Hey,” he said.

  I didn’t answer, just kept smoking, watching the red taillights of cars moving in pairs up the long hill below.

  Dennis lay a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry about today.”

  “Huh?” I turned. “Oh, yeah. Me too.”

  “Jeesh, here I thought you were so pensive about me. What else is going on?”

  I didn’t want to mention Roxanne. “Nothing much.”

  “Nothing much? You’re smoking! What’s that about? I thought you quit!”

  “I did.”

  Dennis stroked my back, rubbed my shoulders. “No will power, huh? Wow. You are tense. Relax, wouldja?” He gave my back a slap. “Hey, I’m gonna jump in the shower.”

  He got up and I heard his knuckles crack as he stretched his arms above his head. He yawned loudly and then I heard his clothes hit the floor, and the bathroom door shut. The faucet screeched, the water applauded for him into the tub.