“Yes, I certainly will. Thank you.”
I hung up to see Mark listening from the dining room doorway, one eyebrow raised in a question. I relayed the news to him.
“Not again?” he moaned. “Didn’t you go through enough of that crap this spring? I though the new alarm was supposed to solve the problem.”
“It might have—they don’t think anyone got in. I’ve got better locks now, and that alarm is ear-splitting. The cats are probably going crazy, though. Not to mention Mrs. Kryznan-sky, next door.” My elderly neighbor had put up with enough disturbances last spring, I thought; her patience had to run out sometime. Automatically, I hooked the purse strap over my shoulder.
Mark took notice with a disappointed frown. “Yeah, I guess you’ve gotta go check it out. I’ll come with you.”
I hesitated, maybe because we’d just been arguing. “You don’t have to. The police will get there before I do. There shouldn’t be any danger.”
He grabbed his car keys from a wall hook near the front door. “C’mon. You take your car, I’ll follow.”
“We’ve both been hitting the Chianti,” I pointed out, as we took the stairs down one flight.
“We’ll drive slowly. Let the cops check the place out before we show up.”
At least, separate cars meant we had to postpone our argument over Jennifer for the time being. We arrived at my place in tandem and parked at the curb, because there was a Chadwick PD patrol car in my rear parking lot, its lights rotating. The shop alarm had been shut off, though, which told me the cops already had been inside.
In the lot we met up with Officer Bassey, whom I’d gotten to know during my adventures that spring. I introduced him to Mark.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“We found signs of tampering around one of the windows. Pry marks—maybe from a screwdriver.” Bassey, broad-shouldered, deep-voiced, and dark-skinned, pointed to a window that opened onto the boarder’s area. “The vibration must have been enough to set off your sensor.”
At that point, Dawn burst out the back door, looking frazzled. Her long, sage-green, gauzy garment could have been a bathrobe, but passed muster for bohemian street wear. I’d forgotten that, under directions from the security company, I’d left an emergency key with her in case I was away when the police needed to enter. A younger, blond cop, whom I recognized as Officer Steve Jacoby, came out the door a few steps behind her.
“Everything looks okay inside,” Dawn assured me. “All the cats are fine, though I’m sure they’re glad I turned that alarm off.”
Bassey told me, “You should have a look around yourself, Ms. McGlone, to make sure nothing’s been disturbed.”
Inside, I found Ayesha leading a chorus of caterwauls, like a rock diva and her backup singers. I gave them all an extra meal, which helped quiet everybody down.
Mark, meanwhile, checked every corner of the shop. “Too bad you don’t have security cameras with video. They might give you an idea of who tried to break in.”
“Those cost a lot,” I told him. “This alarm system was pricey enough, but at least it did the job—it chased the guy away.”
“This time. What if he rethinks his approach and tries again?”
Maybe I was already developing a hangover, or maybe I was tired from my six-day workweek. But just then, I didn’t need Mark coming up with dire scenarios. “Why are you purposely trying to scare me?”
“Wouldn’t think I needed to try, after what happened a few months ago.” He reconsidered and gave me a one-arm hug. “I’m sorry, Cassie, I don’t mean to be so negative. But think about it—why would someone try to break in here? Compared to some of the other stores in town, you don’t sell expensive things or keep a lot of cash around. Unlike my clinic, you don’t even have drugs on the premises.”
I stared at him. “So, what are you saying?”
“The burglar tried to break into your boarding area. The only thing you have in your shop that might be valuable enough for someone to steal is . . .” He jerked his head toward the hallway, where Ayesha let out another plaintive trill, right on schedule.
“Well, great. What am I supposed to do about that? Turn her over to a public shelter, where she’ll be shut up in a small cage and go nuts? If she acts up there, the workers might not know how to handle her. And if no one ever claimed her . . .”
I paused when I heard a saxophone faintly playing melodic jazz. Mark and I had been dating long enough for me to know that “Take Five,” by Dave Brubeck, was his ring tone for personal calls, as opposed to the generic tone he used for work contacts.
He took a step away from me and frowned. “Who can that be, at this hour?”
As he pulled out the phone and glanced at the screen, I smirked. “Probably Jennifer. Maybe she’s dug up some new dirt on somebody and can’t wait to tell you.”
Okay, it was a cheap shot, but I didn’t think it would make him as mad as it did.
Just as Dawn walked in from the back, Mark jammed his phone back into his jeans pocket and glowered at me.
“Y’know what? You got the cops here to protect you, and Dawn . . . you seem to be in good hands. So I’ll just head back to my place, Cassie. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Mark, I’m sorry. . . .”
But he was already out the front door. A second later, I heard the RAV4 pull away.
“What was all that about?” Dawn asked.
I groaned. “Too much stress, I think. And too much Chianti.”
* * *
So that night, instead of me staying over at Mark’s place, Dawn spent the night at my place. I called him to apologize for my smart remark, which obviously had touched a nerve, but he didn’t pick up or call back. I figured he needed time to cool off, and in a way, I did, too.
“Why is he so touchy about this Jennifer, anyway?” I asked Dawn, as we lounged around sipping her panacea for frayed nerves, chamomile tea. (I’d already learned that Chianti wasn’t the answer.) “Maybe he does have some interest in her, after all.”
“Not necessarily. But you were sort of questioning his judgment, weren’t you? He believes she’s loyal and trustworthy, and you implied that she’s a sneak who’s tattling on other people to impress him.” With my calico Matisse dozing in her lap, my friend took a sip of her brew. “Not that I think you’re wrong.”
“Aha, so you see it, too? I mean, what newbie just a few months on the job takes it upon herself to call the boss’s attention to the mistakes of people who’ve been there a long time? I would see that as questioning his judgment.”
“If she worked in some high-powered environment, I’d think she was super ambitious and angling for a promotion,” Dawn reasoned. “But in a clinic—without a veterinary license—how far can she hope to go?”
I wondered. “Possibly the office manager’s job, but I doubt that pays very much more than Jennifer’s. And you’d think she could at least work a year and pay her dues before going after that.”
“So she’s either a pain-in-the-butt Goody Two-Shoes by nature, or . . .”
“Or she’s trying to impress Mark in particular, right?” I reached one arm along the back of the sofa to stroke Cole’s satiny black head. “I just wish I could make him see it without coming off as the big, bad witch who’s picking on poor, innocent Jennifer. That’s just playing into her hands.”
“Mark’s a bright guy. His ego may be a little bruised right now, but if Jennifer really is up to no good, he’ll catch on sooner or later. You planted the suspicion—now let him find out for himself.”
“He’s probably thinking real well of me right now while he’s alone cleaning up after that nice dinner he made for us.” I finished my tea and gazed for a minute at the leaves in the bottom of the ceramic mug, wishing I could gain some insight from them. “Dawn, do you think I’m subconsciously pushing him away? For just a minute downstairs, when he lost his temper, I felt afraid he was going to hit me. Of course, he never even came close to that—he walked away instead. Bu
t after what I went through with Andy . . . do you think I’m scared to get involved again?”
She mulled this. “If you’re a little gun-shy, who could blame you? On the other hand, Mark’s the one who’s been working such long hours that he hasn’t been free to see you lately. And on the subject of Jennifer, it sounds like he asked your opinion and then got angry when you gave it. Maybe you’re both afraid to really commit.”
I sighed. Even though I’d majored in psychology in college, all this analysis was making my head hurt. Or maybe it was the wine ebbing from my system. “I can’t worry about it anymore right now. I need a good night’s sleep, and tomorrow I need to figure out if someone tried to break in here to steal Ayesha.”
“How do you plan to do that?”
“Contact Bengal breeders, I guess, and ask if they lost a cat. There’s only a handful of reputable, licensed ones in the New Jersey–New York–Pennsylvania area. That might not help if she was taken from some unlicensed, backyard breeder, but I have to try.”
Mango, to my left, stretched out a front leg and yawned extravagantly. Dawn and I both laughed.
“You’re right,” she told the cat. “Enough yammering. Time to hit the hay.”
I went to get Dawn a bed pillow and a throw blanket. When I came back to the living room she was studying one of my framed artworks, from school, that hung over the sofa. Self-consciously surrealistic, it depicted a submerged room with a woman and a few pieces of formal furniture floating suspended, though the draperies still hung straight and the window showed a sunny sky beyond.
“I’ve always liked this one,” Dawn said. “Is it computer-generated?”
“Yeah, back when the programs were a little more primitive.” I set down the pillow and shooed Mango off the sofa.
“Y’know, that new gallery downtown, Eye of the Beholder, has got a surrealism show on right now. I stopped in for a few minutes the other day, and the stuff is pretty wild. You should check it out.”
“No kidding? That’s kind of daring for Chadwick. Maybe I will drop by.”
Finally, Dawn sank, clearly exhausted, onto the sofa. We speculated over which of my cats would snuggle up with her, since I didn’t allow them in my bedroom while I slept.
“At least neither of us has to be up early tomorrow,” Dawn said.
“We may not have to,” I warned her, “but Ayesha could have other ideas. Don’t be surprised if you hear the call of the wild from downstairs around sunrise. She makes a very effective alarm clock.”
* * *
At least we had no more break-in attempts during the night, and even Her Highness didn’t disturb us until nearly seven. Dawn had seen the Bengal only briefly, behind the mesh door of her condo, the evening before. After breakfast, I brought Ayesha out and played with her awhile, for my friend’s entertainment.
“She’s lively, all right,” Dawn agreed. “I can see why you don’t want her cooped up at a shelter.”
“It’d be a disaster,” I said. “Even here, she’s ripped the screen on her condo door in a few places by climbing on it. I’ll have to call Nick to stop by and fix it.”
My friend wrinkled her long, elegant nose. “Her apartment is smelling a little riper than the others, too.”
“Tell me about it. When she gets frustrated, she sometimes sprays outside her litter box. Imagine how that would go over with the staff at a busy shelter. Combined with her appetite for destruction, they could see her as a major problem. No one would want to adopt her, and it wouldn’t end well.”
“Just as long as she doesn’t turn into a major problem for you,” Dawn cautioned. I knew she was referring to more than just a damaged or smelly cat condo.
Could the previous night’s break-in attempt mean that someone was still out to steal the Bengal?
After Dawn left, I released another of our boarders, a beautiful fawn-colored Abyssinian named Latte, into the playroom. Though it was Sunday, and Sarah was off, the cats still needed to be fed, watered, and exercised. While sleek Latte explored the high shelves, I made some handwritten notes on what to do for Chadwick Day.
Maybe I’d also have the printer make me a sign, ASK THE CAT LADY, and answer people’s feline-related questions. Sarah and I had discussed doing a live grooming demonstration for just an hour or two. She’d volunteered to bring Harpo, her cream Persian. Another cat who’d ended up at my shop after his owner died, Harpo had the ideal temperament to stay calm even with hordes of strangers milling around him. Chadwick Day would be the first weekend in August.... I hoped with his abundant coat, Harpo could bear up okay in the heat. If he showed any signs of distress, though, we could always hustle him back into the air-conditioning.
As I pictured Sarah helping me during the outdoor event, I realized that would leave no one to watch the shop. I supposed I could close it up for those two hours, or even the whole day. But if someone had their eye on the place, looking to break in, that might give them the perfect opportunity. And maybe next time, as Mark had said, they’d find a way to defeat the alarm.
Dawn will be tending her own table on the street, and Keith will have his own display, too. If Mark doesn’t take part in Chadwick Day, it will be because he’s busy at the clinic. Wish I could find someone trustworthy to at least staff the shop’s front counter that day.
Maybe Jennifer would like to pick up a few extra bucks? She sounds like such an expert on everything!
By noon Mark still hadn’t returned my call from last night. I was too proud to phone him again. I’d made the first move and said I was sorry—now the ball was in his court. I still felt bad, though, that I had ruined our plans for a romantic evening, first with my burglar alarm going off and then with my jealous barb.
I put Latte away and went upstairs for lunch. Made a tuna sandwich, waving away three furry beggars, and opened my laptop while I ate. No e-mails from Mark, either.
With a little free time, I decided to get out of the apartment and the shop. Do something to take my mind off Mark, work, Rudy’s murder, and the stolen cat.
That gallery show Dawn told me about? What’s the name of the place again?
I found it online, Eye of the Beholder. And as I suspected, it was open on Sunday to take advantage of random tourists. I headed out into the hot, sunny afternoon.
Only a few doors down from two of my favorite Chadwick establishments, Cottone’s Bakery and Towne Antiques, the gallery featured a large display window on Center Street. A sign on an easel there advertised the current show as NEW SURREALISTS, and two artworks on view drew me in immediately. One acrylic painting showed a man walking across a calm ocean, by night, using the circles of light from his flashlight as stepping-stones; treacherous-looking sea creatures lurked beneath the surface. The other piece, a sculpture, consisted of an old Kodak camera mounted on eight black-and-red tarantula legs with the title, Smile! It made my skin crawl at the same time as I laughed out loud.
I stepped inside, savoring both the air-conditioning and the churchlike quiet I usually experienced in a gallery or museum. Probably converted from some other type of store, the space preserved the original oak floors, refinished dark, and the tin ceilings, updated with white paint and track lighting. The center of the main exhibition space featured movable panels that I guessed could be adapted for different types of shows. I glimpsed a woman whom I took to be the owner seated at a small desk in a side alcove.
Serene as the setting was, the artworks were designed to shake up your everyday perceptions. In one computer-generated print, the yolk of a cracked egg hovered in midair and gave off a brilliant glow like a setting sun. In a colorful pen drawing, a woman’s face, composed of multicolored butterflies, started to disintegrate as they flew away. A foot-tall ceramic sculpture called Willow resembled a tree with a pair of fused human legs and a limbless torso for the trunk, topped by a cascade of silky hair. Layers, a large color photograph, showed a nude woman from the back with a long zipper opening down her spine; it revealed yet another zipper underneath.
I’d been browsing for a few minutes when the owner approached me with a smile and introduced herself as Nidra Balin. Elegant in a sleeved turquoise tunic and black leggings, her dark hair in a sleek knot, she asked if this was my first visit to the gallery.
“Yes, although I’ve been curious about it for a while.” I told her about my own business in town. “A friend of mine—Dawn, from Nature’s Way—told me about your surrealism show, and I had to check it out.”
“Ah, yes, Dawn was in the other day.” Nidra’s smile widened. “You like surrealism? So do I, but I realize it isn’t the most popular style. It takes a special kind of person to appreciate it.”
“That’s why I was so intrigued that your gallery took the chance. How has the show been received?”
“Pretty well. I have to say, our last exhibit of modern impressionist landscapes was the most popular by far. We sold quite a few of those paintings, and I don’t expect we’ll match that this time around. But people do enjoy discussing these works. They’ll come in with family members or friends and argue about what a piece means.”
We strolled around for a minute, and she told me a little about the various artists, most new on the scene and just making their reputations.
“Here’s one you should enjoy.” She stopped in front of a framed silk-screened print maybe two and a half feet tall by twenty inches wide. It featured a woman in a short slip standing in front of a full-length mirror, but seen only from the back. Her reflection was a spotted leopard that sat erect and stared back with hypnotic green eyes.
“I’ve seen that look from my cats,” I joked. “Whenever supper is late.”
Nidra smiled and asked me a few of the usual questions about how I came to groom and board cats for a living. After explaining a little about that, I noted that many of the pet groomers I’d met had some kind of artistic leaning or background. I admitted that I’d studied art in college and dabbled in surrealism myself.
“Did you!” she said. “You’ll have to show me some of your work.”
The Bengal Identity Page 7