The Whole Cat and Caboodle: Second Chance Cat Mystery

by Ryan, Sofie

  I looked over at the cat. “This is insane,” I muttered.

  He narrowed his eyes at me, and his tail slapped against the seat of the chair. Then he looked pointedly at the television again.

  I checked my watch, even though I didn’t really need to. I knew exactly what time it was. What I didn’t know was how Elvis knew what time it was. And he definitely did know.

  I grabbed the remote off the nightstand, turned on the TV and changed the channel just in time to hear Johnny Gilbert announce, “This is Jeopardy!”

  Elvis made a noise that sounded a lot like sigh of contentment and stretched out on the lounge chair, chin on his paws.

  The cat was a Jeopardy! junkie, something I’d discovered about a week after I’d brought him home. Elvis had been eating when suddenly his head came up as though maybe he’d heard something. He’d tipped it to one side like he was listening and then he headed purposefully for the bedroom. Curious, I’d followed him.

  He had parked himself on the floor in front of the television and looked at me. When I didn’t do anything he’d made a sharp meow. So I’d turned the TV on. The cat had studied the screen for a moment and then meowed again.

  “What? You don’t like Star Trek reruns?” I’d said.

  That had gotten me a look that I would have called withering if Elvis had been a person. So I started working my way through the channels. It was strange enough thinking that the cat wanted to watch TV, so it wasn’t that much weirder to think that he had a specific program in mind. The moment he’d seen Alex Trebek, Elvis had jumped up onto the chair and stretched out.

  The same thing happened the next night, although I didn’t channel surf. I went right to the show. The third night was a Saturday. When Elvis started for the bedroom, I’d said, “It’s Saturday. No Jeopardy!”

  He’d stopped in his tracks. I’d waited to see what he’d do. After a moment he’d turned and come back to his bowl. Not only did I have a cat that liked to watch quiz shows, but somehow he also knew it was a weeknight thing.

  Luckily, the TV had a sleep timer so I could set it to turn off in thirty minutes, when the show was over. I pulled my hooded red sweater over my head and grabbed the beaded bag Jess had given me for my birthday.

  “I’m leaving,” I said to Elvis.

  His eyes didn’t move from the screen. His tail twitched once and he made a low murp that was probably the cat equivalent of “Okay. Fine.”

  The streets in North Harbor were spread out in no pattern that I’d ever been able to figure out. It seemed that as the town grew, streets were laid down wherever they seemed to be needed, so it wasn’t always easy to get from one place to another in more or less a straight line. But that was part of the town’s charm, too. I was only three blocks from the harbor front. An easy walk.

  Jess had already snagged a booth along the back wall when I got to The Black Bear. One elbow was on the table, head propped on her hand, and she was staring at a basket of Sam’s spicy corn chips.

  “Why are you torturing yourself?” I asked as I slid onto the seat opposite her.

  “It’s not torture,” she said, without looking up. “I’m expanding my sphere of willpower.”

  “Just because you’re trying to eat healthier doesn’t mean you can’t have the occasional corn chip, Jess,” I said.

  Jess was trying to live a healthier lifestyle but it kept getting derailed by her love of all things deep-fried and her loathing for any activity that made her sweat.

  “I don’t want a corn chip,” she said in a flat voice, like she was repeating some kind of mantra. She was concentrating so hard there were frown lines between her blue eyes.

  “Okay,” I said. I reached over and pulled the basket across the table. I knew the crisp little tortilla triangles would be spiced with cracked black pepper and lemon. I grabbed two. They were delicious, still warm from the oven. I ate a third one.

  “How can you sit there and eat those right in front of me?” Jess asked, an exaggerated aggrieved edge to her voice.

  “I’m removing temptation from your sphere of willpower,” I said, reaching for another chip.

  She made a face at me and leaned against the back of the booth. She was wearing her long brown hair loose with a pumpkin-colored sweater, jeans and brown knee-high boots. She had a funky, eclectic style and she could find humor in just about anything.

  Jess had grown up in North Harbor but we really hadn’t been friends, probably because I was a summer kid. We’d gotten close when I put an ad on the music-department bulletin board at the University of Maine, looking for a roommate. Jess had been the only person to call. She’d been studying art history and I’d been doing a business degree and taking every music course I could fit into my schedule, but we’d hit it off. After we’d been living together for a couple of weeks she’d confessed that she’d taken the ad down about five minutes after I’d pinned it up.

  “I would have put it back if I hadn’t liked you,” she’d said.

  “What if I hadn’t liked you?” I’d countered. We’d been out on the lawn, painting a trash-picked table we’d carried half a mile home, walking on the edge of the road like a couple of nomads.

  Jess had grinned. “Now, what were the chances of that ever happening?”

  “How was your day?” she asked me now.

  I blew out a breath. “That’s a long story,” I said, looking around for a waitress.

  “I already ordered for us,” Jess said, waving one hand dismissively at me.

  “Why?” I asked as I pulled my sweater off over my head. It was warm inside The Black Bear. Even though it was a Monday night the place was about half-full. Three tables had been pushed together in the center of the room for what I was guessing was a group of tourists, at least a dozen. There was another tourist, a woman wearing a Red Sox cap and sunglasses, in the booth behind Jess. The folded map on the seat beside her was a dead giveaway,

  “Because I know you like Sam’s fish chowder and Sam said they seemed to be having a run on it tonight. Did you want something else?”

  I shook my head. “No, that’s good. Did you order me some of those little cheese biscuits?”

  She nodded. “I told Sam you’d figure out your own dessert.”

  I smiled at her. “Thanks.”

  She laced her fingers behind her head. “So, tell me the long story about your day.”

  “Let me see if I can sum it up for you,” I said. “I got a great price on two boxes of Fiestaware. I saw a seventy-five-year-old man naked. And Charlotte and I discovered a dead body.”

  Jess blinked. “Wow,” she said. “That beats the heck out of a seagull stealing my French fries at lunch.” She leaned forward again, forearms on the table. “Start with the dead body.”

  “His name is—was Arthur Fenety.”

  “Wait a minute. Does he have a sister named Daisy?”

  “Yes,” I said, stretching my legs under the table. “Why? Do you know her?”

  “I altered a dress for her. Silk. Beautiful, beautiful fabric. What happened to her brother?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said carefully. I explained how Charlotte and I had ended up at Maddie’s house.

  Jess shook her head. “Poor Maddie. She’s such a nice person. You know those buckets of tulips that are out in front of the shop?”

  I nodded.

  “She helped me plant all of them. She gave me fertilizer to put in the water. She even told me when to water them. You know me—I can’t even keep plastic flowers alive.”

  Our waitress arrived then with two oversize steaming bowls of Sam’s fish chowder, a plate of cheese biscuits and a little pot of butter.

  We ate for a couple of minutes in silence, cut only by our little murmurs of satisfaction. If there was fish chowder that was better than Sam’s, I hadn’t tasted it yet.

  Jess set down her spoon and rea
ched for a biscuit. “So, how does the naked seventy-five-year-old man fit into this?” she asked.

  I laughed. “He doesn’t, really. Remember I told you I was doing a workshop for a bunch of Gram’s friends down at the seniors’ apartment building?”

  Her mouth was full so all she did was nod.

  “Well, it turns out there’s an art class there at the same time.”

  Jess nodded and brushed crumbs off the corner of her mouth. “Isn’t Eric teaching some kind of drawing class?”

  “That’s it,” I said, scooping up a fat scallop with my spoon. “Do you know Alfred Peterson?”

  “Little bald man? Pants are always up under his armpits?”

  I nodded.

  Jess paused, spoon halfway to her mouth. “Wait a minute. You saw Mr. Peterson naked?”

  I nodded again.

  “Did he know?”

  “That he was naked or that I saw him?”

  Jess thought for a moment. “Both.”

  I fished a chunk of red-skinned potato out of the bowl and ate it. “Yes and yes.”

  “So Eric’s class is drawing nudes and Mr. Peterson is their model?”

  “Not exactly,” I said. I leaned sideways and looked around the room. Sam had just come from the kitchen. He gave me a sheepish grin when I caught his eye, and started over.

  “I’m sorry,” he said as he got close to the table, holding up both hands as though he was surrendering. “I really did think Alf knew Eric was just going to have the class draw hands.” He was trying to keep the grin in check but it wasn’t working. “Was he really completely . . . ?” The end of the sentence trailed off.

  “In all his glory,” I said solemnly.

  Sam laughed. “I’m sorry, Sarah. If I’d had any idea that Alf didn’t know, I would have told him. I swear.”

  “I believe you,” I said. “I think.”

  “Are you playing Thursday night?” Jess asked. In the off-season the house band—Sam’s band—played most Thursday nights with whoever was around and wanted to sit in.

  He nodded. “Are you two coming?”

  Jess looked at me.

  “I think so,” I said.

  “We’ll be here,” Jess said.

  “What if I have a date Thursday night?”

  “You on a date.” Jess tipped her head to one side, a thoughtful expression on her face as she studied me. After a moment she turned back to Sam. “Not likely. We’ll be here,” she repeated, reaching for a biscuit.

  “Good,” Sam said. He turned to me again. “Mac said you might have an old fiddle you’re going to need an estimate on in a few days.”

  “Looks like it,” I said.

  “Okay, well Vincent knows a guy up in Limestone. So let me know and I’ll set something up.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I need to get back to the kitchen. There’s rhubarb-strawberry pie, if you’re interested.”

  Jess’s eyes lit up. “I may possibly love you, Sam.”

  Sam laughed and headed back to the kitchen.

  I was just spooning up the last bit of creamy broth from the bottom of my bowl when Katie, our waitress, appeared with pie and coffee for both Jess and me.

  “Mmmm,” Jess moaned after her first bite. “Why doesn’t my pie ever turn out this good?”

  I took a sip from my cup. “I can tell you, but you aren’t going to like the answer.”

  She licked flakes of pastry from the back of her fork. “It’s not going to be something corny, like Sam makes it with a song on his lips and love in his heart, is it?”

  “Uh, no,” I said, taking another bite and wondering if I could taste a hint of vanilla in the filling. “It’s lard.”

  “Lard?” Jess frowned, her mouth twisted to one side.

  “Uh-huh.”

  I could almost see the gears and cogs turning in her head. “Lard is animal fat,” she said.

  I nodded.

  Her expression cleared. “Okay. Animal fat means ‘meat.’ Meat is a source of protein. Protein is part of a healthy diet. I’m good.” She used her fork to spear another bite.

  I reached for my coffee cup again. “You can rationalize pie but you couldn’t rationalize a corn chip?”

  “Yeah, the human mind is a funny thing, isn’t it?” she said, around a mouthful of berries and rhubarb.

  “Did you know Nick Elliot is working for the medical examiner’s office?” I asked, deliberately changing the subject.

  Jess looked up from her plate. “Seriously?”

  I nodded.

  “I thought he was taking a job teaching an EMT course.”

  I shrugged. “I guess he changed his mind.”

  “So how does Nick look these days?” Jess asked teasingly.

  “Fine,” I replied, maybe a little too quickly.

  She smirked at me over her mug. “Only fine?”

  “Well, maybe . . . very fine,” I admitted, feeling my cheeks redden.

  “I knew it,” Jess crowed, waving her fork in the air almost as though she were conducting an imaginary symphony orchestra.

  “Okay, so Nick is a very good-looking man. The fact that I noticed it doesn’t mean anything. I can appreciate that just the way I’d appreciate a beautiful sunset over the harbor or a well-made guitar.

  Jess leaned back against the padded vinyl. “Good thing I wore my boots,” she said.

  I narrowed my eyes at her across the table. “What are you talking about?” I said.

  “Good thing I wore my boots,” she repeated, “because all that bull crap you’re spreading would have ruined my new shoes.”

  I made a face and she laughed.

  “Getting involved with Nick Elliot. Now, there would be a bad idea,” I said, wrapping my hands around my coffee cup.

  Jess shrugged. “What’s so bad about it?”

  “Well, he just started a new job; that’s going to be pretty stressful. I’m trying to get a business off the ground, and, as you like to point out, all I do these days is work.” I held up a hand because I could tell from Jess’s face that she was about to mount an argument to try to refute my objections. “And don’t forget, Nick’s mother works for me.” I raised my eyebrows at her.

  Jess pressed her lips together and after a moment she sighed. “Okay, you win. I don’t have anything.”

  “How about you and Nick?” I said.

  She shook her head. “He is not my type.”

  “Oh, really?” I set my cup back on the table and folded my arms across my chest. “And your type would be?”

  She tilted her head back and looked up at the hammered-tin ceiling, putting one hand to her throat. “I like the sensitive, artistic type, the kind of man with the soul of a poet.”

  “Good thing I wore my boots,” I said dryly.

  Jess laughed.

  I was so glad Jess was still in North Harbor. She was always bugging me about spending too much time working, but the truth was that without her dragging me out with the three-dimensional people, as she put it, I would have spent all of my time at the shop, working on the house or looking for new business.

  We spent the next ten minutes or so with Jess catching me up on town gossip. Her sewing space and the little shop where she sold her repurposed clothing were right down on the waterfront and, like Sam, she knew everything that was happening in North Harbor.

  As we got up to leave, Jess glanced at the woman in the booth behind us. She was still wearing the Red Sox baseball cap with bits of flaming red hair poking out from underneath, but she’d taken off the sunglasses for a moment and was rubbing the bridge of her nose with her thumb and index finger.

  Jess tipped her head in the woman’s direction. “If I can get tickets, do you want to drive down to Portland for a Sea Dogs playoff game?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You mea
n you’d actually take an entire day off?”

  “I would,” I said as we walked over to the bar to pay our bills.

  She gave me a self-satisfied smile. “You taking the day off. My work on this planet is pretty much done.”

  Jess and I walked up to Maple Street together. She rented a little cottage at the back of a much larger Federal-style house partway up the hill.

  “If Charlotte or Rose needs some time off to be with Maddie, call me,” she said. “I can come and help out.”

  “Thanks, Jess,” I said. “And I’ll let you know about Thursday.”

  She nodded. “Tell Mac I’ll be up to get those boxes. Maybe after lunch tomorrow.”

  I hugged her and turned right while she went left.

  • • •

  Arthur Fenety’s death was front-page news in the morning paper. They’d managed to dig up a lot of information about the man in less than twenty-four hours. A lot.

  My eyes got wider and wider as I read the article. As Liz would have put it, Fenety had been a very, very bad boy during his time in New England. It turns out that Maddie hadn’t been the only woman he’d been involved with. He also had a girlfriend in Portland, and four different wives—at least that they’d found so far. And it appeared he’d done more than break hearts: apparently he’d taken money and jewelry from several of the women.

  Arthur Fenety was an old-fashioned con artist who used his charm, his manners and his distinguished demeanor to take advantage of women.

  “Poor Maddie,” I said to Elvis. He’d jumped onto my lap after he’d finished his breakfast. My breakfast had been coffee because I still didn’t have any more food in the fridge than I’d had the night before.

  The cat craned his neck forward as though he were studying the wedding photos of Fenety with his four wives.

  I looked at the pictures myself. I could see why all the women had been scammed. It didn’t mean they were stupid or gullible, just lonely. Arthur Fenety had been well-spoken, I remembered. Even though I’d thought he was a little too smooth, I hadn’t suspected what he was really up to. In each of the photos he was well dressed, his white hair freshly barbered, mustache clipped. He looked exactly like what he’d said he was: an educated, affluent, former financial advisor.