I told Dawn I’d gotten the names of two pet sitters and one already had told me she wasn’t available.
“Sorry to hear that,” she said. “Are you sure you don’t want to call Teri? At least she’s comfortable with cats. When she comes here, she always makes a fuss over Tigger, and she’s good at playing with him.”
I thought this over. Maybe it could work, but . . . “I just don’t know anything about her, except that she and Rick have a farm that grows great produce. With a little fancy oregano mixed in.”
Dawn laughed in surprise. “Is that what you’re worried about? I’m sure she won’t be smoking anything while she’s at your shop! Sarah, the former schoolteacher, will see to that. Besides, you have a smoke alarm.” Then my friend turned more serious. “I realize your Mom would have done it for free. . . .”
“I don’t mind paying—I’d have to do that with a pet sitter. The main difference is, they come with references.”
“But maybe the other one will be busy, too, during August. Why don’t you just give Teri a call? If she sounds like she might work out, have her drop by and test her a little, same as you did with your Mom.”
While I was considering this option, I saw a middle-aged man come in the front door of my shop and speak to Sarah. My heart did a hopeful skip. I doubted that Ayesha’s owner could possibly have found a way to get to Chadwick this quickly, but maybe he’d sent a friend?
“Gotta go,” I said. “A guy just came in who might be”—I caught myself—“a customer.”
“Is he fiftyish and balding? Wire glasses and a round, rosy face?” When I affirmed all this, Dawn told me, “It’s Roger Upton, the chairman for Chadwick Day. He’s making the rounds of the businesses. But you’re right, you do need to talk to him.”
I hung up and introduced myself and Sarah. Upton wore a short-sleeved yellow business shirt that strained a little over his stomach. He apparently was making his rounds on foot in the day’s heat, because beads of perspiration dotted his high forehead.
He had never been inside my shop before and proclaimed it “wonderful.” I gave him a quick tour before bringing him back to the front sales counter, where my table runner and sign lay in plain view. Sarah helpfully pointed these out to Upton, and he agreed they should attract attention to my display.
“I’m just visiting the merchants who are signed up for Chadwick Day, to finalize all the arrangements,” he said. “You understand that you supply your own table, canopy, and chairs?”
“Got all that,” I told him.
He scanned some instructions on his clipboard. “Because your display will be on the sidewalk, any canopy will have to be weighted down. You can use jugs of water, or sand, or . . .”
“Cat litter.” I smiled.
Upton laughed. “Of course—I imagine you have plenty of that. You wrote that you won’t be using any electrical equipment.. . .”
“No. I’ll be doing a cat grooming demonstration, but just with special brushes and combs.”
He adjusted his glasses, his expression turning wary. “So . . . you’ll be working with a real cat.”
“The fake ones aren’t much of a challenge.” I guessed his concerns. “I’m using Sarah’s cat, and he’ll be wearing a harness.”
“He’s very mellow,” my assistant added, with her motherly smile.
“Because a lot of people bring their dogs to a street fair like this,” Upton explained. “Also, the FOCA shelter will have a space not too far from yours, and they’ll have a few animals for adoption. They’ll be in cages or on leashes, but . . . We wouldn’t want to set off a melee.”
“Harpo will only be out there for about an hour. I’ll keep a carrier right on hand, and at the first sign of trouble, I’ll put him back into it.”
“Oh . . . Harpo! He’s something of a celebrity in this town, isn’t he?” Upton chuckled. “Well, sounds as if you’ve thought of everything. And you’ll also be selling merchandise?”
“I’ll have some of our cat furniture and grooming tools on display, and I’ll be taking special orders,” I told him.
“Very good.” He made another brief note, then met my gaze again with a beaming smile. “Well, Ms. McGlone, I have a few more merchants to visit, but we’re delighted that you’re taking part your first year here. It’s new businesses like yours that are helping to revitalize Chadwick. We plan to transform it from just another tired small town to a charming destination for city folks who want to get away from the hustle and bustle, whether for a day, a weekend, or longer.”
The shop phone rang, but Sarah answered it. Meanwhile, I had to admire Upton’s obviously rehearsed speech, and wondered if he had any political aspirations beyond the Chamber of Commerce.
“Of course you, in particular, did our town an unusual service this spring,” he added, “by helping to solve a local murder at great personal risk. I’m sure many of our residents will be excited to speak with the cat lady sleuth on Chadwick Day!”
I shook his outstretched, pink hand. “Thanks. I’m looking forward to it.”
While I watched Upton head off to visit his next merchant, Sarah sent me a crooked smile. “You might’ve committed yourself too soon.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You only called two pet sitters, right? That was the second one—she’s also booked solid through this month.”
“Oh, Lord.” Now, after all of Upton’s enthusiasm, I really didn’t feel I could just back out of Chadwick Day at the last minute.
Okay, I’d give Teri a try.
Chapter 14
I poured myself another cup of coffee, for energy, before I phoned Schaeffer’s Organic Produce.
“Hello?” said a gruff voice.
“Hi, is this Rick?” I asked.
“Who is this?”
“Sorry, this is Cassie McGlone. We spoke at Nature’s Way yesterday, about Teri maybe helping out at my shop tomorrow during Chadwick Day?”
“Oh, sure! I’m sorry, I thought you were . . . Yeah, she’d be glad to do it. She’s real good with cats. Want me to put her on?” He called out to her, as if from another room. They had a brief, muffled exchange before she took the phone.
“Hi, Ms. McGlone!”
“Call me Cassie, please. How are you doing?”
“Great, just great. I hear you need somebody to watch the kitties tomorrow while you’re doing the street fair.”
“Yeah, I’m kind of stuck. Rick probably told you, my assistant sprained her ankle, so she can’t do much except sit at the front counter. My mom turns out to be cat-phobic, and the professional pet sitters I called were tied up.”
“Sure, I can do it. Rick can spare me for a few hours. He’s got a couple of other guys to help out here.”
“Great! I can pay you the typical sitter’s fee, if that’s okay.” I quoted her a modest rate, and she said it would be fine.
I glanced at my watch—it was about two. “If you’re not too busy, could you drop by the shop this afternoon so I can orient you? I’ll be moving pretty fast tomorrow morning, to set up. It would be better if you know the routine ahead of time.”
She checked with Rick and got back to me. “I can be there around three, three thirty. That okay?”
“Perfect. I’ll see you then.”
I hung up feeling a bit more relaxed.
“The lady from the farm is gonna do it?” Sarah asked me.
“She sounded positively eager,” I said. “Who knows? Either they need the extra money, or she really loves cats.”
* * *
Rick dropped Teri off at my shop right at three. As when I’d seen her before, she wore a floaty top that covered her upper arms—this time beige mesh over a white tank—with hip-hugger jeans. Her long, layered hair was parted in the middle and blonder near the ends. I introduced her to Sarah and showed her around the boarding area. Teri commented on the different breeds of the cats, as if trying to reassure me that she did know her stuff. But at least she seemed perfectly at ease around them.
“No problem,” Teri said.
I figured I’d really put her to the test, asking her to deal with the two liveliest cats, Mia and Ayesha. She first removed their empty bowls, being careful not to let the animals slip out of their condos. She measured out the right amount of food into clean dishes and replaced Mia’s with no fuss. When Teri stretched out her arm, the mesh sleeve fell back and I noticed four short, purplish marks on the inner flesh, just below her elbow.
Scratches, maybe, from one of her own cats? But they look too wide for that....
Next, she opened Ayesha’s door while holding the bowl of fresh food. Predictably, the Bengal charged forward and tried to grab the dish.
“No!” Teri scolded, and with her free hand slapped Ayesha lightly on the head. While it certainly didn’t do the cat any harm, it shocked her and made her shrink back. Satisfied, Teri set the dish down and closed the condo.
She turned to me with a smile, maybe expecting praise for the way she’d handled the challenge.
“Obviously, you’re not afraid of cats,” I told her. “And you didn’t give either of them a chance to escape, which is a good thing. But I wasn’t so crazy about the hitting.”
Teri looked wounded. “Gee, I didn’t do it to hurt her. Just to make her back off.”
“I understand, but it’s not a good idea to make a cat afraid of people’s hands. These aren’t my personal pets, and I try not to discipline them any more than is really necessary. Okay?”
“Got it,” she said, with a nod.
For her final challenge, I turned Heckle and Jeckle loose in the playroom. Teri showed real skills in getting them to chase the “bird” on the fishing pole and clamber up on the wall shelves. After a couple of minutes, I told her to catch them and put them back in their shared condo.
Heckle (I think) had made it up to the five-foot-high shelf, and even though Teri was taller than my mother, this also posed a challenge for her. She stood on her tiptoes to reach the cat, but he was enjoying his freedom and shrank away from her. As he made a move to jump down, she grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. Though he howled in protest, she carried him that way for a second before putting her other arm under his back legs to support him.
I took him from her. “Okay, not crazy about the scruffing, either.”
“Oh, sorry. I do that with my own cats all the time. It’s the way their mother carries them, after all.”
“When they’re kittens, not when they weigh ten pounds. Here, we only do that in case of a real emergency, okay?”
Teri nodded, and at my direction, she used a treat to coax the other tuxedo cat from his shelf. After he reached the floor, she squatted to gather him up more gently. Her low-rise jeans rode down a little in back, revealing pale skin and a mottled lavender-and-yellow rainbow that arched above her waistband.
“Wow,” I said, “where’d you get that nasty bruise?”
Teri straightened up with a start, clutching the cat to her chest. “Oh, that?” She made a face. “I backed into some tools in the garden shed. Too lazy to turn the light on first. Dumb, right?”
I said nothing more. Together, we put Heckle and Jeckle back into their shared condo.
My criticisms still seemed to worry Teri, and she apologized again. “I should have asked you ahead of time if you had any special rules for handling them. Really, I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.”
“It’s okay.” I tried to convince myself, too. “Just keep in mind that they belong to other people. We don’t want any of the owners coming back to say his cat suffered some kind of trauma while it was here. Being boarded and groomed is enough to shake up some animals, so I try to stress them out as little as possible.”
“Makes sense.”
We walked back out to the sales counter, where Sarah sat. She still wore the padded boot, but no longer needed to keep her foot propped up. I made an executive decision: I would let Teri help out, but only under supervision.
“If you have any questions tomorrow,” I told her, “just ask Sarah. She’ll be here all day, too.”
My assistant looked surprised to hear this, but Teri even more so.
“Oh . . . she will?” The younger woman glanced sharply at Sarah.
Now what? Don’t tell me she’s a racist! I’d learned, since moving to this semirural suburb, that a few people here still were more bigoted than I’d thought possible in modern-day New Jersey.
“I mean,” Teri amended, “that’s great. I thought she was going to be out helping you, and I’d be on my own.”
Sarah glanced at me as if she’d thought the same thing—that Teri would be alone for at least an hour or two.
“I can groom Harpo for the demo by myself. Things will probably go more smoothly if I have the two of you here. Okay?”
Both women nodded in response.
A honk outside. I saw Rick’s truck pull up to the curb. This time, I finally got a good look at his dark green pickup with SCHAEFFER’S ORGANIC PRODUCE stenciled on the cab. The sides of the rear bed had been built up high, with a tarp fastened over the top, probably so they could stack the maximum amount of crates.
“I told him to come back for me around three thirty,” Teri explained. “So, I’ve got the job? Thanks so much!”
“Be here around seven thirty tomorrow. That’s when I’ll start setting up.”
“If I tell Rick, he’ll be sure to get me here on time. Thanks again.”
I watched her dash out the door and hop into the passenger seat of the truck’s cab. I hoped she didn’t oversleep, because I feared Rick might not take it well.
The marks on Teri’s arm had come from fingers, rather than claws. And the big bruise on her back reminded me of one I’d gotten a couple of years ago, just below my left shoulder. But I hadn’t backed into any tools.
I’d dared to argue with my boyfriend—now my ex—and he’d shoved me into a metal bookcase.
* * *
Later, on the phone, I told Dawn that I had agreed to let Teri help out the next day. I mentioned that I had a few misgivings about the way she’d handled the cats, and had decided to leave Sarah in the shop to supervise. I didn’t mention, for the time being, my concerns about the marks I’d seen on Teri’s body. After all, she could have been telling the truth about an accident in the tool shed.
I might just be hyper-alert to such signs because of my own experience.
After Sarah left for the day, I got a call from Mark, and also brought him up to speed.
“So, I’m gearing up for the street fair,” I finished. “Too bad you can’t take part. My offer still stands, to display some of the clinic’s brochures at my table.”
“That would be nice, if you have room.” His voice sounded so weary, though, that I asked what was wrong.
“Another mess here,” Mark admitted. “We were treating a cat for inflammatory bowel disease. I tried him on a grain-free diet, and he seemed to be recovering well. He was set to go home today, but overnight he had a setback, because Sam gave him regular food. Elena was supposed to transfer instructions about the cat’s diet to his chart, but she never did.”
Sounded like yet another screwup by staffers who were usually reliable. “So, Elena just forgot?”
“I personally added a note to the cat’s chart, where she couldn’t have missed it, but she swears she never saw it.” He laughed, with an edge. “Reminds me of that old movie, Gaslight, where the husband plays tricks to drive the wife crazy. Except I don’t know who’s gaslighting who around here! All I know is, the animals are suffering.”
I braced myself before I asked him, “Mark, what did the note look like? Was it on a bright green Post-it?”
“Yeah, it was. Why?”
“You’re not going to like this. When I was over there the other night, talking to Jennifer, I saw her take a Post-it off one of the
charts, read it, and then throw it away. She’d told me she was cleaning out old records, so at the time I didn’t think anything of it. Then she put the file folder back in the cabinet.”
The silence on the line worried me. Finally, he said, “I guess you wouldn’t make this up.”
“Of course not. Besides, how would I know the color of the note? Maybe you can still find it in the wastebasket behind the reception desk. Has your trash been taken out yet?”
“Sam would have emptied it last night.” More silence.
“Are you angry with me?” I asked.
“No, babe, not with you. With myself, I guess.”
“It’s not your fault. Jennifer acts very sweet—I can see why you wouldn’t want to suspect her.” I paused. “What are you going to do?”
“Ask her about it, tomorrow. And she’d better have a damned good answer.”
“Sorry,” I told him. “Try to get some sleep, okay?”
“I will, Cassie. You, too.”
That was going to be hard, I thought as I hung up. So many questions, so many situations unresolved. But I made myself turn in early and tried to relax.
After all, I had to be on my toes tomorrow, for Chadwick Day.
Chapter 15
I didn’t get as much rest as I’d hoped to, because my mind kept scrolling through all the things I needed to have ready for the big day. When I finally gave up at five thirty a.m., got out of bed, and fed my own three cats, I already could hear muffled sounds of activity starting up toward Center Street.
I ate a quick breakfast, showered, and dressed to prowl in a peach T-shirt, Laurel Burch cloisonné cat earrings (a birthday gift from Dawn), khaki Bermuda shorts, and cat paw print ankle socks. I chose my footwear with special care. Having taken part in a few daylong outdoor events, over the years, I wore sneakers that would be comfortable not only for lots of walking but for many hours of standing.
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