The Tell-Tail Heart: A Cat Cozy (Cattarina Mysteries)

by Shaughnessy, Monica

  Near the park, a group of nannies stopped their baby carriages and waved, signaling me out to their charges. The squeal of children seemed to shake Eddie from his preoccupation, and he began to talk again, first about the warm weather streak, then about his books. "We sold four copies of Tamerlane in an hour, Catters. Four," he said. He unbuttoned his overcoat and pulled the window shade, cutting the sun. "They'd been in storage for years—oh, how young and naïve the author!—and now they are in the hands of readers. If I solve this mystery, what might it do for my public profile? I could raise money for The Penn in no time."

  The Home for Broken Humans appeared in the carriage window. As we passed, I stared back at the building and chirped with anticipation. When we traveled this way again, I would create a ruckus and force Eddie to stop the carriage. While I longed to hunt in Rittenhouse, a meeting with Caroline would have to suffice until I could detour our investigation. Between Josef's mention of her name in the bar and Mr. Uppity's receipt of her note, the young woman knew something of the crimes. I switched my tail and wondered if the hospital door would swing open for our arrival, because it would take this degree of precision to carry out my plan.

  Our driver pulled curbside, and we departed for the optician's shop. What a funny word, optician. Why didn't they just say spectacle? I didn't know who this Lorbin fellow was, but I questioned his usefulness. To our mutual agreement, I waited for Eddie outside on the stoop and surveyed the street for any sign of the dappled mare and gig. Mostly residential, this sedate piece of Philadelphia held little activity, save for a group of mourners in the cemetery across the way. I recognized it as the burial ground I'd passed before my confrontation with Claw. I watched as the humans lowered a coffin into the ground with ropes, their grip unsteady and faltering. The wailing that accompanied the event pricked my ears. For all its certainty, death's timing is decidedly uncertain. This I feared most. One day, one very unexpected day, I would wake up beneath Sissy's cold, grey arm. But I would not wail as these humans did. I would become very, very still—

  A bespectacled Mr. Lorbin opened the door, pushing me from the step, and, mercifully, from my morbid obsessions. The glasses magnified his eyes to an alarming size. I could've watched the twin brown fish swim in their bowls all afternoon. "Sorry I couldn't be of more help, Mr. Poe. Try the Wills Hospital. They should be able to help with your inquiry."

  "Thank you, Mr. Lorbin. You've been most helpful." Eddie leapt to the sidewalk with excitement. "If you are to follow me, Cattarina, you must be quick. I am a man in search of answers."

  I scurried down the street after him, working to keep pace. Imagine my surprise when we turned up the walkway toward the Home for Broken Humans. Great Cat Above, I hadn't expected this! A comely woman with slender hands and narrow shoulders greeted Eddie and invited him into the entry hall. The smell of boiled chicken permeated the air, giving it a gelatinous feel.

  "Good afternoon, sir," she said to Eddie. "Welcome to the Wills Hospital. Are you here to see a patient?"

  "No, I'm here to see Dr. Burton." He reached to take his hat off. When he realized he'd left it at home, he clasped his hands behind his back instead. "On the recommendation of Ezekiel Lorbin."

  Not wanting the "shoo" again, I stationed myself behind the usual potted plant and waited.

  "Dr. Burton is occupied. A patient died rather suddenly this morning, and he's been attending to the details." Her bottom lip quivered. "Terrible tragedy the way Mr. Sullivan passed. The police are being summoned—" She inhaled sharply and covered her mouth with her fingertips. "You must forgive me. I talk far too much."

  "On the contrary." The corner of Eddie's mustache lifted. "I find it helps during trials of fortitude. Madame, I stand before you, eager to share in your burden. Now then, how did Mr. Sullivan die?"

  "I cannot speak it."

  "Then show me."

  She motioned to her throat, drawing her finger across it in a line. "Who would be heartless enough to kill a man with one leg? And then steal his artificial one?" She laid her hands along her cheeks. "He'd just gotten it, too. Brand new steel contraption with springs at the knee."

  I slunk from my hiding place and crawled around the room, scuttling the baseboards like a cockroach.

  Eddie's eyes shone in the sunlight cascading through the window. "Tell me more about this leg."

  I left them mid exchange and entered the long room where I'd found Caroline and Josef yesterday. Most patients sat upright against their pillows, eating the boiled chicken from metal plates. Not all had the strength to lift a fork, however, and had to be fed by nurses—including Caroline. I ducked under the tunnel of bedframes to arrive at hers, making sure to stay out of view of anyone in a white pinafore. Once the nurse left with Caroline's empty dishes, I jumped onto the young woman's lap.

  "Hello," Caroline said. "What's this?"

  I froze beneath her pale blue gaze.

  "I like pussycats," she said to me in a whisper. "I can't see you, but your fur feels exquisite."

  I put my paws on her chest and examined her eyes. To my horror, they were identical to the one I found at Shakey House and altogether unnatural looking, giving her the appearance of a china doll. I hadn't seen them on my last visit because she'd kept her back to me. At least now I understood her involvement in the murders. She'd been the recipient Mr. Uppity's ill-gotten pearls.

  Caroline stroked my head. "Who let you in here, Miss Puss?"

  I glanced at Eddie in the entry hall, still deep in conversation with our greeter. Desperate to draw his notice and draw it now, I yowled with all my being. The patients pointed and laughed at me with riotous enthusiasm, as if I'd provided post-luncheon entertainment. Fiddlesticks. Their ruckus drew the attention of both Eddie and the nurses. The women rushed us, causing me to ponder—ah, the burden of verbosity!—what a group of them might be called. After all, geese had gaggles, dogs had packs, crows had murders. I settled on stern of nurses and ran like the devil.

  I hopped from bed to bed, exciting the broken humans into an unmanageable state as I avoided the nurses' grasping hands. Pillows and bedpans and spoons filled the air—hoorah! Several boys with crutches banged them against the bedframes, creating a rhythm that drove me around the room faster than the horse-drawn carriage. I was a lion in a jungle of blankets. I was untouchable. I was glorious.

  "Run, cat, run!" they cried. "Run, cat, run!"

  Eddie hovered in the doorway, shamefaced, his hands in his coat pockets. On my second go-round, someone beseeched him to help, and he reluctantly obliged. When he headed in my direction, I doubled back, landed in Caroline's lap, and waited for truth to break the horizon. He reached us, out of breath. "I am ashamed to admit," he said to Caroline, "the wayward cat is mine. May I take her?"

  Caroline handed me to Eddie and looked up at him. Perhaps look was the wrong term.

  His reaction to the girl's eyes surpassed even my own. He stared into their depths and stammered, "Two makes a pair!"

  A Ghost of a Girl

  A girl with two glass eyes can be most persuasive. The stern of nurses crumbled at her request that I be allowed to stay, and, after issuing several admonitions about "the hell cat," they left to quiet the rest of the patients. When the room returned to a state of normalcy, I curled in Caroline's lap, where she stroked my fur with hands spun—I swear it—from silk. If not for her unfortunate association with a murderer, I might've added her to my list of approved humans.

  Eddie fell into the familiar role of bedside companion and pulled up a chair. When he introduced himself, she mentioned one of his older pieces, "The Fall of the House of Usher," a tale he wrote the summer we met. "A fan!" Eddie said with a toss of his head. "And a fair one at that. If I may admit, you remind me of Mrs. Poe."

  "I do?" She nestled her hands into my fur to warm them.

  "Yes, except for your eyes. Hers are hazel, and yours are the loveliest shade of…let me think."

  "Blue?"

  "How mundane a description. No, I shall cal
l them oceania."

  "We secretly call them Ferris Blue since most of us are graced with the color. But I like your description better."

  "Ferris? As in the great Ferris family?"

  "Miss Caroline Ferris. Pleased to make your acquaintance." She held out her hand, skeletal and frail, and waited for Eddie to shake it. He did so, gently.

  "That's a very old name you carry," he said, "one of the oldest in Philadelphia."

  "It is heavy at times," she said. "But one cannot simply set these things aside when one grows weary. Still, being a Ferris has its charms. Or, rather, had them. Gala invitations have dropped off sharply since my unfortunate turn. Most are factories of tedium, but I am sad to have missed Charles Dickens in March. My second cousin Bess hosted a dinner in his honor."

  "I met him then. Twice. An enthralling storyteller, if I may confess. Boz and I run in the same circles, and he was cordial enough to grant me interviews." Eddie took his coat off and pushed it back on the chair. "I could have listened to him for hours."

  "Did he tell many stories?"

  "We spoke mostly of poetry."

  "And his manner?"

  "As if Philadelphia would make a fine footstool."

  "I knew it!" She giggled, rousing me from my contentment. But the delight was short lived. Her voice resumed its usual dirge. "My Uncle Gideon still mingles with that crowd. You may have seen his name in the paper or heard it in the streets around Rittenhouse Square."

  "Gideon Ferris? I thought he fell on hard times after Jackson killed the U.S. Bank."

  "No, no, we still own several coal mines to the west." She began to stroke me again, and I rolled belly side up. "How else could he have afforded my new eyes?"

  "Yes, it is a considerable mystery."

  I peeked at Eddie. Strange that he'd repeated the constable's phrase from yesterday. He smoothed his mustache, as if uncertainty preceded his next statement.

  "If you don't mind me asking, Miss Ferris, how did you lose them?"

  "Vanity," she said matter-of-factly. "It is a sad story, Mr. Poe, and I do not wish to trouble you."

  "Sad stories are my life's work." He crossed his legs and rested his hands on his knee. "I would be honored to hear yours."

  Caroline sat back against her pillows and blinked her doll eyes. I fairly expected them to roll back in her head. "You wouldn't know it to look at me now," she said, "but I was once quite pleasant to behold. The summer I turned eighteen, I received three marriage proposals." Her face brightened. "In those days of never-ending sunshine, I wanted for nothing. Private tutors in art and poetry, dancing assemblies at Powel House, gowns stripped from the fashion plates, regattas on the Schuylkill. And, Mr. Poe, you have never properly summered unless you've summered on Cape May. I'm almost ashamed to admit these pleasures in the company of unfortunates." She gestured to the occupied beds around her. "Pity would be no more, if we did not make somebody poor. And mercy no more could be, if all were as happy as we."

  "William Blake," Eddie replied. "Well stated."

  "Like all good fairytales, however, mine was not without tragedy. And it struck soundly my twentieth year." She reached for a glass of water on her nightstand, and Eddie handed it to her. After a sip, she continued. "In October of 1837, my parents booked passage on the steamship Home to travel from New York to Charleston. But a gale overtook the vessel and broke her apart near Ocracoke, scattering bodies to the sea. Lifeboats were of no use as they capsized in the boiling surf. Ninety-five souls lost, including those of my parents, only a quarter mile from the shore." The liquid in her glass trembled, so Eddie took it from her and replaced it on the nightstand.

  "Take heart, Miss Ferris. I, too, lost my parents at a young age, and I am no less a man."

  "Thank you," she said. "I will remember that in my darkest hours. Though I suppose, all of my hours are dark now."

  "I did not mean to take you from your story." He patted her hand. "Please continue."

  I stood and stretched. Caroline's lap had grown too bony for comfort, so I crossed to the end of the bed and secured a new spot until they'd finished their conversation. Hunting requires a great deal of patience, and I had plenty.

  "After my parents died," she said, "I went to live with my Uncle Gideon. He and my father were close, very close, so my uncle treated me as his own flesh and blood. Life was tolerable, if not acceptable, for several years until my illness. Rapid heartbeat, general weakness, thinning hair. For the longest time, doctors didn't know what was wrong with me. And then my eyes began to…" She sat forward. "Mr. Poe, are you constitutionally prepared?"

  "For things of a physical nature, I am not. But for this, none are more suited than I."

  She lay back again. "It started with pressure behind my eyes, propelling them forward as if drawn by magnet. This predicament wasn't so much painful as alarming. But we Ferrises are hardy stock, and I persevered without complaint. A year later, however, they'd begun to bulge from their sockets with such protuberance that leaving the house was no longer possible unless I wore a mourning veil. And what is a mourning veil without the rest of the costume? From then on, I became a black ghost, drifting the streets of Philadelphia, wailing for a life lost—my own."

  "Dear, God," Eddie said.

  "Just going to market for bread and cheese became a hardship, and every night, I needed help binding my eyelids closed with a strip of muslin so I could sleep. As you can imagine, Uncle Gideon became my constant caretaker, leaving only for business trips to Virginia. It was during one of these jaunts that I caught an infection in both eyes, turning them as red and runny as ox hearts. Yet I was too proud to ask for help. How could I, looking as I did? He returned three weeks later to find me crawling around the kitchen on all fours, weeping and scratching at the bottom cupboards for a tin of crackers. Why, I had almost starved! By the time Uncle checked me into Wills, my eyes were beyond hope, and Dr. Burton had no choice but to remove them. So you see, vanity stole my sight." She delivered a stillborn smile. "They diagnosed me with Grave's Disease the same week. That was nine months ago."

  "I have never heard of such an illness," Eddie said.

  "There are infinite ways to die, Mr. Poe," she said, "and we are still learning them. You, of all people, should know that." She sighed and crossed her ankles under the blankets. "I sit before you now, an invalid at the age of twenty-five. Uncle Gideon wants to take care of me, but cannot, the poor dear. He talks of enrolling me in Perkins School for the Blind so that I can care for myself one day. But sadly, that day is not today." She clasped her hands across her stomach, signaling the end of her tale.

  Sensing an immanent departure, I rose and arched my back, working out the knots in my spine. I prayed Mr. Uppity's home would be our next stop. If the serendipitous meeting with Caroline didn't persuade Eddie, our cause lacked hope.

  "That was quite a tragedy, Miss Ferris. Worthy of pen and paper," Eddie said. He uncrossed his legs, creaking the chair. "Where is your uncle now?"

  "He visited just last night and brought me my second eye. It does not fit as well as the first, but I cannot complain." She yawned, covering her mouth with her hand. "Oceania. I shall tell Uncle about it when he visits before dinner. He promised he would."

  Eddie rose and put on his coat. "I can see that you are tired, so if you'll excuse me."

  She felt for his hand one last time, shook it, then let it drop feebly in her lap.

  "Come, Catters," he whispered to me. "It is time we left." On the way out of the hospital, he stopped by the front desk to speak to the narrow-shouldered woman again. "I was touched by Miss Ferris's story. May I have the address of her benefactor? I would like to speak to him about a donation."

  "Benefactor?" she said. "Miss Ferris is a charity case. Her uncle could no more pay for lunch than hospital care, as least not from what Dr. Burton says. Said the man sold his piano to pay for her eyes, but I have my doubts."

  "Oh?" he said. "How do you think he got them?"

  "Won the money in a card game. M
y fella lives in Rittenhouse, and he knows Mr. Ferris as a gambler. Everyone does."

  "I see." Eddie rubbed his chin. "Still, I'd like to pay him a visit. Do you have his address?"

  She opened a small wooden box on her desk, flipped through several cards inside, and said, "Walnut Street, near Rittenhouse Square. That's all he wrote."

  "You have been a great help," Eddie said. He turned to leave, snapping his fingers to bring me along.

  "Oh, and Mr. Poe?" she called after us. "Visitors are welcome. But next time, leave your hell cat at home."

  Answers and Questions

  "We found the murderer, Catters," Eddie said to me. He'd hired another public carriage after leaving the hospital, and we rode in it now, heading north toward Fairmount—the opposite direction of Mr. Uppity's home. "If it hadn't been for you and your naughty streak, I might have left without meeting Miss Ferris and learning her ghoulish secret. I can't help but feel for Gideon Ferris, though. Who knows what lengths I would go to if Sissy were in that bed instead of Caroline. Even so, murder is murder."

  We hit a loose cobblestone, bouncing us to the roof of the coach. I had grown weary of "full chisel." The driver slowed the horse and mumbled an apology we scarcely heard through the glass.

  "Once we tell Constable Harkness about the affair," Eddie continued, "it will be over. I never dreamed to catch a murderer. Sissy will be thrilled, and Muddy will be… Well, Muddy will be asking if there's money in it."

  I meowed. Yes, catch a murderer. But Mr. Uppity did not live to the north. He lived to the south, a direction from which we were heading away. Had the visit with Caroline been for naught? I sat near him and formed a strong mental picture of Rittenhouse Square, hoping my friend would take it into his own mind. Telepathy between cats is common, but I had never tried it with a human, and certainly not with Eddie. Due to our similar interests and tastes, we operated in tandem so often that alternative communication hadn't been necessary.