A Curious Affair

by Melanie Jackson

  The mountain lion was looking for him, too. Also, I could tell that for all his seeming calm Tyler wanted the other man badly. I just needed to be patient and let the law—and the cats—do their work.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Of all God’s creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the leash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.

  —Mark Twain

  I kept my word to the cats and got a giant sack of cat kibble at the grocery store. I also threw in a bag of raw peanuts for the squirrel. The clerk on the afternoon shift was new and didn’t recognize me, so I was feeling fairly confident of making it home with no one in the neighborhood any the wiser about me inheriting the strays. But of course my luck ran out in my own driveway, not twenty feet from my door. Isn’t that always the way?

  Abby, my feline-unfriendly neighbor, chose that day to visit on her way back from her volunteer job at the library, and peering through the bare butterfly bush at my opened trunk as I unloaded my telltale groceries, she immediately spotted the heifer-sized bag of economy cat kibble dragged halfway out of the hatchback and left drooping over the bumper while I rested my muscles for a moment. It’s nice that they have clerks to help load stuff into your car, but what do they expect to happen when you get these things home?

  “Jillian,” she called. Hurried footsteps came crunching down the leaf-strewn driveway. I might have imagined it, but there seemed to be a bit of panic in her voice. Abby won’t admit to having any phobias, but she doesn’t do well with cats, snakes, bees or white dogs.

  “In here,” I admitted, since she’d seen me anyway. I straightened my spine and turned to face her.

  “I just heard about Irv. It’s so sad. I hardly know what to say.” But she would think of something. She always did.

  “Yes.” It wasn’t just my tightening jaw that kept my answers short. I was hoping that if I looked incredibly busy that Abby would go away. But no such luck. She crow-hopped down the last of the littered drive and stopped at the garage door. She’s a stickler for proper social conduct, and she wouldn’t step into the garage without an express invitation. It was sheer pettiness, but I didn’t make any offers.

  “You’re feeding Irv’s strays?” Abby looked at the sack of kibble laying half over the bumper and had no doubt guessed that I hadn’t switched my diet. Then, with a certain amount of hurt at my betrayal: “But why? You don’t like cats.”

  “Compassion.” And their promise not to talk to me when anyone else was around, since it made me act a bit crazy. I looked at the huge amount of food I had purchased and said more hopefully than truthfully, “It won’t be for long. I’m going to talk to the people at the animal shelter about finding them homes.”

  Abby nodded dubiously but didn’t say anything more. We exchanged the minimal levels of polite chitchat required of neighbors living less than fifty yards from one another, and then she climbed her way back up the drive to her idling car. I waited until I heard the vehicle slip into gear and begin rolling through the gravel before I turned back to my battle with the kibble. I dragged the fifty-pound sack inside the garage while Atherton perched on the fence Cal built with the optimistic belief that it would keep the deer out of our vegetable garden. (Ha! Like it ever worked!) The cat watched my struggles with unblinking eyes and a twitching nose.

  I invited Atherton in after I had put out several pie tins of kibble for the other, now very hungry cats, and a handful of peanuts for the bossy squirrel. After a short, surprised look, the cat followed me inside.

  I left the groceries on the counter while I caught my breath, and we went into the living room. We both sat down on the sofa. I pulled out the things I had collected in Sublime and laid the socks and bandana on the coffee table.

  “We found a smelly-butt man down by the river today,” I began.

  With the sheep man.

  “Yes. Do you think any of these things belonged to the person who killed Irving?”

  Atherton sniffed, and then sneezed.

  No. These aren’t the right men. This one does have very smelly feet, though, Atherton said kindly—being understanding about my poor human sense of smell that would lead me to confuse feet for a butt.

  “I noticed that,” I answered, thinking I would have to take my coat for cleaning now that my pocket was contaminated with foot stink, and hoping that whatever was wrong with this guy’s feet wasn’t contagious. I was also feeling a bit discouraged that we hadn’t managed to find Irv’s killer straight off. I wasn’t enjoying playing sleuth, a job which had so far been everything from unpleasant to downright painful, but I didn’t have enough money to hire a real detective to do the work for me. It would have to be someone from out of town. We had only one private eye in the area. His name was Graham Belle. He ran a small business that he called The Curiosity Shoppe. I liked Graham, but he was some sort of distant cousin of Nolan’s and I didn’t want to go anywhere near our mayor with my theory that Irv had been murdered. He’d find out eventually, but later was better than sooner.

  The heater clicked on with a soft whoosh. Atherton stared fixedly over my left shoulder. I turned to see what had riveted his gaze, but nothing was there except my long-neglected knitting bag sitting in Grandma Linn’s old wing-backed chair.

  “Atherton? What are you doing?”

  Watching.

  “Watching what?” I asked, wondering uneasily if a mouse had gotten inside. I hated catching the things. They always squeaked so distressfully when I caught them in the mop bucket.

  The yarn.

  “Oh. Um…why?”

  It moved.

  I turned and looked again. Sure enough, a stray blue wisp of mohair was caught in a current of hot air. It swayed slightly.

  “You’re watching it because it moved.” Against my better judgment, I asked again: “Why?”

  Because it moved. His green eyes flicked in my direction. It’s a cat thing.

  “Ah.” I nodded, pretending to understand. I cleared my throat. “Well, I’m getting hungry for dinner. Would you like…” I trailed off, trying to think what a cat might like. Probably not tomato soup with oyster crackers, or Cap’n Crunch cereal. It seemed wrong to serve him kibble when I wasn’t going to eat it. I reviewed the slim stock of canned goods at the back of the cupboard. “Would you like some tuna?”

  The giant head cocked, and unblinking eyes turned my way. Atherton reminded me of the helpful mountain lion, and I said another prayer that creature hadn’t followed me home from Sublime.

  I’m not sure. Would I like some tuna?

  Would he? Then, I thought to myself for the hundredth time: Why, of all the creatures on God’s green earth, did I have to hear cats? I didn’t understand them at all. A dog would have been so much easier to deal with. All you had to do was watch the ears and tail and you knew exactly where you stood.

  “I think you would. Most cats do.” I hurried to the kitchen, hoping I could find the can opener.

  I didn’t have any mayonnaise, so I made my tuna sandwich with Italian vinaigrette. It wasn’t bad and it helped moisten the rather stale bread that was all I had on hand—unless you counted a very old box of frozen waffles. I know this sounds disgraceful, but my jaw had been so tight for the last few weeks that all I could manage was soup, so I hadn’t bothered with anything like proper grocery shopping until today, and I didn’t think Atherton would care for grapes or instant coffee.

  I paused, tuna sandwich on plastic plate in one hand, Grandma’s yellow tea-rose porcelain saucer full of plain tuna in the other. Atherton was eating off the fine china since it was the only kind of saucer I had within easy reach, and a half can of naked tuna would look silly in the middle of a salad plate.

  “Where would you like to eat?” I asked. “Would you prefer the floor?”

  The green eyes stared at me, probing deeply, asking if I was a species bigot, a rude hostess who treated all her feline guests badly. Or was I so uncivilize
d that I refused to act like the rest of my species and actually ate off the ground?

  “How about on this table? I think you can reach,” I suggested, feeling myself flush as I said about my millionth prayer that the cat couldn’t actually read my mind unless I willed him to.

  I set both plates on the breakfast room table. To my relief, Atherton hopped into a chair but didn’t climb on the table itself. He had to stretch a bit, but was very tidy with his meal. In fact, he made less mess than I did. The jaw was a little better, but I had to poke the bread between my teeth and then grind it against them with my tongue until I had a soft paste.

  I like tuna, he said later, sitting back to lick a paw.

  “Good. It’s a kind of large fish that lives in the ocean.”

  He nodded.

  What’s wrong with your mouth? Atherton asked, surprising me. In my experience, cats ask for food and comment on your body odor; they don’t generally inquire after your health.

  “My jaw is locked shut. It’s called TMJ. It will get better eventually—the doctors promise. It’s worse in the winter when it’s cold. I got hit by lightning a while ago and it did something to my face.”

  Ah. I had a friend who was kicked by a deer. Her jaw wouldn’t open either. He paused, then added: She died.

  “I’m very sorry.” And, oddly enough, I was. I reached out to pet Atherton but his body tensed, so I just took his plate and carried it into the kitchen.

  I spent a few minutes washing up. Atherton watched from the window ledge, fascinated by the water running from the tap. I didn’t know what to do about him. I wanted to keep him near me at least until Irv’s murderer was found. He was my only witness and needed to be kept safe, but this was going to be challenging. The cat was a lot like me—worse in some ways of course, and a lot hairier, but I easily saw the similarities. He was a creature so wary, so alone, that he didn’t even seek warmth or companionship or the usual things a pet would want. He probably didn’t even know he could want them. Or he hadn’t. Maybe that was changing, I thought, looking at the saucer I was drying. They said old dogs couldn’t learn new tricks, but maybe old cats could. He wouldn’t be the first creature corrupted by a soft life.

  Of course, that raised the question of whether I wanted him corrupted. Did I want to be the one responsible for keeping him in warm blankets and tuna from here on out? Was I ready for another relationship? With a cat?

  Molly called that afternoon and told me that they were holding a wake for Irv at The Mule. I was a bit surprised at the invitation, but pleased since it seemed to mean that Dell and company were going to let me into their group, at least in this marginal way. As little as I wanted to spend any time with them, I knew I would probably have to if I wanted to find Irv’s killer.

  The idea that I was truly committing myself to the search bothered me a bit, and I realized that I actually felt nervous about doing so. What was I doing playing detective? I was a sheep dressing up in wolf’s clothing to hunt a dangerous person, and eventually the real wolf was bound to notice he was being stalked.

  And yet…damn it! Irv had been murdered. That was wrong. So wrong. And I was the one—unfortunately—who had the best chance of finding out who was responsible.

  As I hung up the phone, I noticed that the light was blinking on my answering machine. As always, this made my heart sink. I knew who it was and I couldn’t ignore it. I like my editor—really—but I don’t like to call New York. It isn’t just that the phone is the instrument of Satan, though it is. Along with the general evil of contact, there is some mental time-space difference that happens every time I call the east coast and it leaves me feeling jet-lagged after even the shortest of conversations. There is probably some scientific formula or identified psychological condition that explains this, but I don’t understand anything except that in the migration of my thoughts, originating in California and traveling thousands of miles over fiber optics—or satellite relays—and into my editor’s ear, if not his brain, leaves me feeling as hungover as the morning after a pub-crawl. Also, the conviction grows yearly that though we were both educated in the English language, we have somehow ended up speaking two different dialects. Normally, I would send an e-mail instead of returning the call, but I had a feeling that things with Irv might take a while and there was a chance I would be a bit late getting my project turned in. There was an etiquette to this, a traditional way of suing for favors. This plea for more time required actual voice messaging.

  In the old days, this constant near-miss of deadlines would never have been a problem, but lately my attention and dedication to work had been, at best, intermittent. Deadlines had become like tax payments: something to be handled in the eleventh hour and made by the skin of one’s teeth. And, frankly, the subject of my latest work had gone from something already less than gripping to a project I couldn’t look at without yawning. Which was my own fault, of course. There are no boring subjects, just boring writers. And there always seemed to be something more important demanding my time—laundry to wash and muddy floors to mop. Ah, the glamour of a writer’s life.

  Atherton cocked his head at me, sensing my annoyance. I sighed and picked up the phone. It was almost seven in New York, but I knew my editor would still be in his office.

  “Work before pleasure,” I told Atherton, but his gaze remained blank. I guess this wasn’t a concept that translated into Cat.

  It turned out that the news was at once better and worse than expected. My boring project was being shelved for the time being. I gave a silent hurrah. I’ve learned that there aren’t enough exciting adjectives—or verbs or nouns—to rescue a story when the author is uninterested, and I think my editor knew I was a few adverbs short of a thrilling piece and was happy to put me on something else. Needless to say, I was pleased to ditch my old project. As it happened, my editor wanted a piece on the perils of feline leukemia in domestic cats. The magazine was doing a special animal edition for April and I was being given the job of convincing people that they needed to inoculate their pets against this invisible killer. The timing was convenient since it reminded me that I was going to need to talk to a vet about the strays. I could kill two birds with one visit.

  I hung up the phone with an insulting degree of enthusiasm and turned to Atherton.

  What’s wrong? he asked warily.

  “Atherton? If I asked you to do something for me, would you?”

  His wariness increased.

  Perhaps. What do you wish me to do?

  “I want to make sure that you don’t get sick. Would you be willing to see a veterinarian?”

  What is a veterinarian?

  “It’s an animal healer. He would give you some medicine to make sure that you don’t get sick.”

  Oh. Irving did that. A woman in a white coat came to his house and she stabbed us with needles. I didn’t like it, but Irving said we must do it to stay well.

  “Irving said…You mean, Irving could talk to you? Like me?” My voice got a little high-pitched.

  Not as clearly as you. He did not understand us so well. But he always listened and tried to comprehend.

  I shook my head, trying to adjust my world to this information. Could it be that I wasn’t the first person in Irish Camp to hear cats talking? Then, with a bit of insight that was damn near blinding: Was Irv’s insistence on solitude a side effect of having strange cats talking at him whenever he went into town? I had certainly been avoiding town for this reason. Was Irv’s feeding the strays his way of bribing them into silence?

  Jillian?

  Or, was this some new form of delusion I had invented so I felt less of a freak? It wouldn’t do any good to ask Atherton if he was an illusion. Obviously, if I was crazy, he would say what ever I needed to hear.

  Instead of worrying about it the way I used to, I went to shower. I would need a while to steam my jaw open enough to face a social situation.

  Irving’s nephew, Peter Jordon Wilkes, had inherited everything. Molly whispered the news to me o
ver a commemorative scotch, preferred to the casseroles some neighbors might have dropped around in lieu of attending the funeral. She uttered this remark in the same tone of hushed outrage as a country vicar finding out his faithless house keeper had been putting arsenic in his tea. She was taking this matter very personally. That Irv might have had anything of value and not left it to her seemed an insult to her feminine charms. What I wondered at was her belief that Irv had anything of value to leave to anyone.

  I nodded and looked concerned, though Molly had dumped Irv long ago and I could see no reason that she should have been chosen to inherit anything from him. And, in spite of my words to the sheriff, I would have been more impressed by the appearance of this will had Irv’s everything included something of obvious monetary value—perhaps an old family portrait painted by Whistler, or jewels he’d smuggled out of Korea after the war, or a cache of gold ore dug out of that old collapsing mine shaft at the back of his property.

  The last thought gave me pause. Could there actually be gold on his own property? Not ore. The mine was played out. But could the recent rain and attendant mudslides have unearthed another golden treasure on our hill? Gold needn’t have been discovered on Irv’s land—in fact, it most likely wasn’t since he was at the top of the mountain and gold, being heavy, washed downward. But might he have found gold somewhere else and backtracked to the source—and when he had, it turned out to conveniently be on his own land?

  I would have to talk to Atherton, ask him if he had ever seen Irv digging in the dirt or playing with pretty yellow pebbles.

  Avoiding cold drinks and alcohol, I managed to convince someone to give me a plain coffee, which I hid behind as I watched and listened to this strange crowd gathered in Irv’s memory. A few of us were there because Irv had helped us in a time of crisis. Cal wasn’t the only person to have enjoyed his philanthropy, and I think the others didn’t know how else to pay their respects to the man who had helped them or their loved ones through a difficult time. They looked ill at ease, though; and grateful though they were, they didn’t stay long in The Mule.