by Clea Simon
Following her to the sidewalk, I saw Violet surrounded by children. The petite, purple-haired rocker seemed to have inherited the mantle of neighborhood “cat lady.” Standing on her toes in what looked like black high-top sneakers, she was busy counting heads and checking with mothers. A convoy was going over to the shelter and the kids were excited.
“We’re going to have to say goodbye to Mrs. H’s kitties, now. Remember that,” she said, her hands on the shoulder of one shy-looking girl. She glanced up at me with a look of pain on her face. “Five days,” she mouthed, silently, over the children’s heads. How could I have forgotten? On Wednesday, any of the cats that had not been adopted would be destroyed. I knew Violet was hoping to place some of Lillian’s cats today, counting on the presence of their children to make some of the parents relent. But there were more cats than parents here, and I suspected that a good number of these mourners were renters, working people who probably had the standard “no pets” lease and couldn’t afford to move. Dougie was already gone; I’d have to find another time to talk to him. Violet, meanwhile, clearly had her hands full.
“Who’s coming with me?” I asked, trying to keep my voice bright, as I nodded toward Violet. She smiled in relief. “Let’s go visit some kitties!”
Chapter Eleven
I ended up with a full carload in my little Toyota: the shy girl, whose name was Luisa, her mother, Eva, and Luisa’s buddy Kristen were all getting comfortable when Violet came over to where I was parked.
“Room for one more?” I nodded and she slid into the back, next to the girls.
“You don’t have a car?” I was a little surprised.
“My drummer has a van,” she explained. “But she’s using it for work today. Floral deliveries.”
I’d forgotten that not everybody’s economic situation was better than mine, but Violet seemed happy enough squeezing into the tiny back seat. She made sure the girls were buckled up, and we were off.
“Make sure Rosie sees you,” Violet reminded me. I was leading a convoy of three cars to the shelter, which boded well for the cats, but it took a few minutes of stopping traffic on Mass Ave before we were off and across the river.
“Will they let us pet them?” Kristen suffered from none of Luisa’s shyness.
“I don’t know, honey. I think so.” Violet had slipped fully into the role of den mother, or pride mother if we were talking cats.
“I want to see Blackie. I want my mother to let me take her home,” said Kristen. I didn’t risk turning around, not with a carload of kids, but I was dying to read Violet’s expression. Surely some of the parents in our group would permit the adoption of a cat today, wouldn’t they?
“Let’s talk to her later, okay?” Violet seemed to have the same agenda I did.
“Okay.” We rode in quiet for a while, with Luisa occasionally whispering to her mom.
“I don’t know, sweetie. Maybe you should ask Violet.”
I could hear Violet turn in her seat to face the shy girl, and when she spoke there was an extra gentleness in her voice. “Is there something you want to know about, hon?”
“What will happen with Mrs. H’s house?” The tiny voice was clear, if soft.
“Well….” Violet paused and I realized she might not have the answer.
I stepped in. “Do you know Dougie, Mrs. H’s son?”
“Uh-huh!” Both girls nodded eagerly.
“Well, because he’s her son, everything Mrs. H had now belongs to him. But because he lives so far away, a judge will probably ask someone else to help him take care of everything.” I wasn’t about to explain probate to nine-year-olds, partly because I didn’t fully get the intricacies myself. “So someone else, maybe Mrs. H’s neighbor, will clean out the house and figure out what to do with things. She might have to sell the house.” I figured I should begin to prepare them for what seemed inevitable. “But if she does, then the money will go to Dougie.”
The administrator would be paid handsomely for his or her efforts, of course. I wondered if the cut would be enough to keep Patti Wright afloat, even before she manicured the neighborhood into her own image.
“She’s gonna sell the house?” Kristen had understood me, even as I’d tried to soft-pedal my suspicions. “But what about the cats? Where will people take their cats?”
“What about the treasure?” Luisa’s softer voice chimed in. I’d forgotten about the imagination of children. “If we found it, we could buy the house for the cats.”
I looked at Violet, but she just shook her head. Another child chimed in. “Yeah, the jewels!” She pronounced it “jools.”
“You were her treasures, kiddos,” said Violet, her voice unusually soft. “You and your families and her kitty-cats.” Her eyes met mine, but I already understood. These children wanted a happy ending. “Too much TV,” she murmured for my ears only. “Every time there’s a special on the Discovery Channel that comes up and I tell them….”
“But the kitties?” Luisa, interrupting us, wasn’t going to be deterred.
“We’ll do what we can for them, honey.” Violet’s voice sounded as sad as I felt. “We’ll see what we can do.”
I feared an outbreak of tears, and knew that I’d be joining in. But Eva had been a mother too long to allow that. “Why don’t we all sing a song,” she suggested, with a lightness in her tone that none of us felt. “What’s that new one you really like, Luisa?” She started a round of something I vaguely remembered from summer camp. Her voice was truly lovely, effortless and clear, and the two girls quickly joined in. Counting games and Britney Spears took over, and by the time we pulled into the shelter’s parking lot trailing the other cars, everyone was in a much more chipper mood, ready to go visit the kitties.
“Don’t run! Look both ways!” It was no use, kids were bursting out of cars and racing to the front door, led by Violet, who sprinted as fast as any of them. I stayed to lock up and found myself walking with Rosie, one of the elderly women who had spoken at the memorial.
“They’re so happy, going to see the animals.” I pointed out the obvious as an ice-breaker.
“The children gave Lillian a lot of joy,” her friend responded. “I always suspected that was one of the reasons she took the cats in. Cats—especially kittens—are like catnip for children.”
“It sounds like she was really good for these kids.”
“They were good for her.” Rosie nodded at the memory as we followed the group across the lot. “She needed them. She always felt so guilty about Dougie, you know.”
“Because she couldn’t take care of him at home?” I held the shelter door open for her and she stepped in and turned to me, eager to explain.
“Because she thought she caused it. That’s what they told her, that’s what they told all the mothers in the bad old days.” She chuckled, but it was a grim laugh. “Your child’s problems are all your fault. Piers was a scholar. He kept up with the research, especially after Dougie was hospitalized the first time. Piers knew that it wasn’t Lillian’s fault, that it wasn’t anything either of them had done. He brought all the studies home and told Lillian all about the genetics, all about how one percent of the people always have schizophrenia, everywhere in the world. But she was a mother, and she felt bad. If she didn’t give it to him, she thought at least she should have been able to save him. She kept him at home as long as she could. You know, after all she lived through, she never could quite work through her distrust of institutions, the law and all. But it didn’t work. Eventually she had to move him out, and so she found the nicest, homiest place she could.” Rosie sighed. I wondered about why, but wasn’t sure how to ask.
“Were there ever big problems?” I was trying to be delicate. “Safety issues?”
“You mean, was he ever violent?” She cut straight to the point, and I nodded, but she paused before answering. “He was…he could be…scary.” She finally decided on the word. “He got loud, and he heard things, had fights with voices in his head. He was never
mean, but it got to be too much, especially as he got bigger and Lillian grew older.”
“He seemed in control this morning.” I was wondering if he were always that composed, or if his “scary” moods ever crossed the line into action.
“He’s good now. He has been for a while.” Rosie was nodding to herself. “The last hospital he was in tried him on one of the new drugs and it seemed to help a lot. He and Lillian actually got a lot closer in the last few years. As long as he stays with his program, I think he’ll do fine.” She turned and walked through the inner door, where our group and two other families were raising the volume level to ruckus proportions. Somewhere an excited puppy had started barking.
The last thing Rosie had said stuck in my mind as I entered the din. Schizophrenia was becoming treatable, but it still wasn’t curable. Quitting the drugs and the therapy could easily make the voices, the scariness, come back. Dougie’s program—as Rosie had called it—had already been disrupted once recently, by the fire at Greenleaf House. Had Dougie really settled in again after that, or had he gone off his meds again, gone missing, and maybe—just maybe—headed back toward Cambridge? This is what I needed to find out. But then Luisa and Kristen came running, each of them grabbing a hand and demanding my presence so they could go into one of the other animal rooms. I didn’t feel much like an adult in charge, but I allowed myself to be half led and half dragged through a glass door and into one of the shelter’s quieter cats-only rooms where the girls had found some of their feline friends.
mmm
“Tommy, Tabby, Tigger….” Violet was counting cats. She’d been in the other cat room first and now she looked worried.
“Where’s Domingo? Where’s Butterfly? Click and Clack?” I didn’t know how to answer her, but just then a vet tech walked in.
“Excuse me.” Violet cornered the young woman, who was struggling with a large bottle of water. “There were other cats with this group. Can you tell me where they are?”
“The gray longhair and the Siamese? They were adopted out this morning,” said the tech, reaching into a cage for a dish. “We moved that litter up as soon as the cage was cleaned.” She pointed to a large metal crate where four adorable tabbies wrestled with each other and with two fuzzy toys. “Space is so tight here, we’re trying to give everyone a chance.”
“And the others? A kitten and some tabbies?”
“That’s all we got in. I’m sorry.”
Violet looked relieved. “They must have gotten away.” She turned to me. “I was afraid they’d jumped the gun on euthanasia. Some of them were older cats.”
I nodded. I knew what the odds of an adult cat being adopted were, especially when they were competing for attention with a frisky litter like the one that had taken their shared, if temporary, bunk.
“Can you take any of them?” I asked and remembered the birdwatcher who had happily nursed on her ear. “You have Sibley, right?”
“Yeah, and I shouldn’t even have him. My apartment, well… it’s not even an apartment, really. It’s our practice space. Just a loft. I’m living there illegally.” She straightened up, a look of determination coming over her. “But I’m not giving that cat up, even if I have to move to keep him. What about you?”
I didn’t want to explain. James, my mourning, all seemed beside the point here. “I’ve got that black and white kitten, the one she called Musetta.” Violet eyes widened in surprise. “She was limping,” I explained. “Animal Control was on its way, so I just scooped her up.” She smiled.
“Good for you, Krakow. You’ve got the right instincts.”
Just then I felt a tug on my shirt and turned to see Luisa holding one of the huge tabbies I had first seen on Lillian’s porch. Draped over the little girl’s bony shoulder, with much of its round bulk leaking through her matchstick arms, the floppy cat didn’t look comfortable, but I clearly heard a purr.
“This is Mrs. Thompson,” said the girl, her face nearly obscured by the cat’s tawny stripes. “She was a momma before she had her operation.” Clearly she knew the animal. “I’m taking her.”
I automatically looked around and saw Eva, who smiled and nodded. Although Luisa started to fumble as more of the relaxed cat began to slip through her too-small hands, Mrs. Thompson seemed to be smiling, too.
“Has your mom filled out all the forms?” I reached down to scoop up the falling feline, replacing her more solidly in the girl’s outstretched arms.
“I called in advance,” said Eva. “They just told me to bring written permission from the landlord.” She reached to relieve her daughter of the purring tabby.
“No!” Luisa started to wail.
“I’m just going to put her in her traveling box,” Eva explained and then turned to me. “We’d been planning on taking one of Lillian’s cats, but I thought Luisa would rather have a kitten.” She shrugged. “This one will be easier to care for.” She placed the pliable beast in the cardboard carrier the young vet tech had brought over. “It’s that little one I feel sorry for.” She motioned to Luisa’s friend, Kristen, who stood quietly in front of a cage that held a large black cat. Without a word, the girl pushed her fingers between the bars and the cat reached back. Claws sheathed, it gently batted a velvet paw at the small girl’s hand.
“I’m going to work on her mother, see what we can do,” said Eva softly, just for me to hear. “C’mon girls! Come on, Kristen! Time to take Mrs. Thompson home!”
Violet said she’d catch the bus back to Cambridge—it went right by her practice space—but I was famished by the time I dropped off Eva and the girls. Visions of yuk kai jang swam in my head, but I made myself drive past Korea Garden, abjuring my favorite spicy noodle soup, and pulled up instead in front of Carberry’s café. Minestrone and a sandwich would fill me up just fine. I wasn’t worried about the calories. Hell, I hadn’t had breakfast and it was close on four p.m. But I didn’t want the aroma of garlic, lovely at first but less attractive second hand, to be seeping from my pores later that night. Despite my hunger, I hadn’t forgotten that I had a date.
By four-twelve, I was picking up crumbs with the tip of my finger and wondering what to do next. It had been a while since I had a first date, even one as casual as this, but not so long that I didn’t remember how well I could work myself into a worry frenzy. Going home and trying to get some work done seemed like an invitation to fret, and now that my blood sugar level was approaching normal I realized I shouldn’t have let Violet off so easily. Even if she never gave me a straight story about why she didn’t trust the cops, I wanted to hear her reasons for going back to Lillian’s. Was she searching for something specific, some kind of clue or giveaway that she knew existed? Did she have any solid reason to believe that the old woman’s death had been murder? Had she even considered Dougie as a suspect, and that maybe he’d had an accident or breakdown that could have resulted in tragedy? I wondered if she knew that the yuppie neighbor had applied to administer the estate, and realized that I needed to find out more about the whole administration process as well. For all I knew, Patti Wright had already been given the job and was over there measuring curtains for luxury condos. Which made up my mind for me. I’d drive over to Lillian’s, see if anyone was around. Maybe I’d get a chance to talk to Patti or even Violet. At worst, I’d waste a little Saturday pre-date time.
I should have guessed by the empty driveway that Patti Wright wasn’t home. Nobody answered at Lillian’s either, when I rapped on the back door. When I checked out the slate in the walkway, the key was there, where Violet had said it would be. Maybe I’d lifted the wrong stone the other day? Whatever, I had it now, but I didn’t know if I dared to venture inside. What would I find there? Dust, cat waste, whatever bits of our spirits we leave in places after we’ve gone? Perhaps Patti in her role as trustee had secured the empty house with an alarm system. I started to imagine silent guard dogs, crouched and waiting to attack. I might be named for a famous vamp, but some things—like fear of bodily harm—make me into mo
re of a shrinking violet.
A brush against my leg made me jump, but it was fur I felt, not teeth. Looking down, I found myself staring into the mismatched eyes of one of the ugliest tabbies I had ever seen. A scar had taken the fur from over one eye, the yellow one, and the green eye didn’t look too healthy. One ear was ragged, the other folded down like a bad fashion statement. And the mottled tiger fur, a strangely colorless mix of greys and browns, looked moth eaten, barely covering the animal’s thin ribs.
“Were you left here?” I asked, wondering if this poor beast was one of Lillian’s who’d been missed in the roundup. Perhaps he was a new cat, a stray dropped off by someone who hadn’t heard the news—or a local regular who came by on his own occasionally, hoping for a handout. “Did anyone ever feed you here?”
“Ne-eh!” The tabby squeezed his mismatched eyes closed with the effort of the mew. “Neh!” he said again, butting my leg with his balding head. He expected a response.
“What can I do?” I asked him. I’d have to start carrying cans of tuna in my pockets, I thought. Or stock the car with Fancy Feast.
As if in response, the tom moved toward the door and stretched, reaching his long thin body up to grab at the metal door handle and flex his paws. He was positioned to scratch, marking the door as his property, I knew, but for all the world it looked like he was trying to open the latch. This was a cat who wanted to go in.
“Neh!” he said again, still stretched up to the door handle but now turned to stare right at me.
“I get it. Hang on.” I wasn’t hopeful, but it was worth a shot. As if he understood me, he came down, butting his irregularly furred head against my leg. With a sigh I tried the key in the door. It fit. What I was doing was against the law, and against my better sense. Besides, there was no guarantee that any of Lillian’s stock of cat chow remained. No assurance that I could find it, if it did, or that the alarms and mute Dobermans of my imagination would not materialize.
“Ne-eh-eh!” The little tiger tom was growing impatient. I turned the key and opened the door.