Scratch the Surface

by Susan Conant

  “Well, at the risk of sounding melodramatic, I have to tell you that I came into possession of one of his cats under extremely sinister circumstances. And the other cat may very well be in his apartment. You don’t happen to know anyone who has a key, do you?” To emphasize the nature and urgency of her mission, she lifted the carrier by its handle.

  “I have one. Quin’s apartment is right above mine, and the plumbing’s old. I have a key to let the plumber in if something leaks when Quin’s away. He wasn’t too crazy about the idea, but then he had to pay for my ceiling, and he wasn’t too crazy about that, either. He’s an old tightwad, but I hope he’s all right.” The dark man inserted his key in the door, held it for Felicity, and took the cat carrier. “Let me take that thing for you. If anything’s happened, he’ll want the cats to be all right. It’s on the second floor.”

  Felicity followed him up a flight of carpeted stairs. The carpeting was dark brown, the walls a muddy beige, and the atmosphere oppressive. At a door with “24” printed on adhesive tape, he stopped, searched through his key ring, and finally found the right key and let Felicity in. “I have to warn you, you’re going to want to open a window. Quin won’t hire anyone to clean, and he doesn’t get around to taking out his trash all that often. I’ve got to go. You can let yourself out.”

  After thanking the neighbor, Felicity moved the carrier into the apartment, closed the door, and, in spite of the thick, rancid odor, smiled broadly. She stood in a large living room with a high ceiling, dark wood doors and trim, and walls that had once been white. The furniture had probably been sold as Scandinavian and had certainly been bought a long time ago. A sectional sofa and two soft chairs had also been white or possibly the color called “oatmeal.” The arms of one chair had turned brown, and the patterned rug in front of it bore black stains. The tops of the side tables were invisible under piles of scholarly books and journals, but the legs were teak or maybe teak-stained pine. Dust and cat hair were especially prominent on the standing lamps and table lamps, which, like the other furnishings, were domestic Scandinavian in style. Their condition was battered. Strands of gray fluff clung to stained lampshades.

  On the only clear surface in sight, the top of the coffee table, sat a single hardcover book, which proved to be an anthology of short stories presented in English and in French, English on the left-hand pages, French on the right. The editor of the collection was Quinlan Coates. Although the term “crime writing” always struck Felicity as an absurdity when applied to cozy mysteries, especially her own, she had attended enough presentations by forensic experts and law-enforcement personnel to know that the first rule for behavior at crime scenes was: Don’t touch anything! It was also the second rule, the third rule . . .

  But was the apartment really a crime scene? And she’d already touched the door and a light switch. What’s more, having picked up the book and leafed through it, she’d already contaminated it and was therefore free to examine it yet more, as she promptly did by flipping to the back flap of the dust jacket, which showed a photograph of Quinlan Coates, Ph.D., Professor of Romance languages at Boston College, who was unmistakably the small gray man. The weirdly long and thick eyebrows were the clincher; they were as prominent in the photograph as they’d been on the deceased Coates’s face. Why on earth hadn’t he had them trimmed? One of Naomi’s assistants did a splendid job on Felicity’s eyebrows, and there was no reason Quinlan Coates couldn’t have had comparable care taken of his, not that he should have had his brows waxed and plucked until they arched, but why had he chosen to go through life looking bizarre?

  But Quinlan Coates’s eyebrows were a trivial concern except to the extent that they established the identity of the murder victim. Felicity retrieved her phone from her purse, found Detective Valentine’s number, and dialed. She’d been tempted to conduct a thorough search of the apartment before calling the police but had felt that it would be just her luck if Detective Valentine and his associates, all on their own, were to put a name to the body as she was looking over Coates’s possessions. Besides, the police wouldn’t arrive instantly. She’d have time to find Brigitte and investigate the place, too.

  Luck was on her side. Unable to speak directly to Valentine, she left a message that consisted only of Quinlan Coates’s name and address. Then, remembering not to touch anything, she began to search for Brigitte—and, incidentally, for anything else of interest she might spot. Through a large archway was a dining room with a mahogany table and chairs, and a matching sideboard, all at least eighty years old. Displayed in a built-in cupboard with glass doors were sets of venerable china and glassware. The contents of the room proclaimed inheritance from a grandmother. Few men would have wanted these possessions, which Felicity guessed to be a woman’s family treasures, probably those of an unknown Mrs. Quinlan Coates, of whom she’d seen no other sign. The dusty table bore the marks of plates and glasses. Through another and smaller archway was the kitchen, which was obviously a major source of the foul odor that permeated the apartment. The sink was full of dirty dishes, but the stench probably emanated from every surface. The walls and counters were coated in grease, and the old linoleum floor was so filthy that Felicity’s shoes almost stuck to it. Two stainless steel bowls on the floor were empty.

  Returning to the living room, Felicity tried to open a closed door, but found it locked. She decided to pursue her investigation and her search for Brigitte in the three rooms with doors that stood ajar. One proved to be a bathroom so disgusting that she did no more than peep in; the caulking around the tub was black with mold, and the white fixtures and tiles were stained yellow. The second room was the only clean area she’d found so far. Its furniture and most of the items in it were for cats. It contained two plush cat beds, a carpeted cat tree that rose to the ceiling, two large litter boxes in need of scooping, and dozens of small cat toys. Also in the cat room was a canister vacuum cleaner that had obviously been used here and nowhere else. A bookcase held a large collection of cat mysteries, including what seemed to be the complete collection of Isabelle Hotchkiss’s Kitty Katlikoff series, many of Lilian Jackson Braun’s The Cat Who . . . books, and works by Rita Mae Brown, Shirley Rousseau Murphy, Carole Nelson Douglas, Marian Babson, and, of course, Felicity Pride herself. It did not escape Felicity’s notice that Quinlan Coates had owned all of Isabelle Hotchkiss’s mysteries and only a few of her own. Furthermore, although she was anything but embarrassed about writing light entertainment, she was struck by the contrast between the feline subgenre fiction in the cat room and the academic tomes and journals in the living room. It crossed her mind, too, that most of her readers were women. The explanation for all the cat mysteries was, she thought, identical to the explanation for the cleanliness of the room and the cat beds, cat tree, and toys: Quinlan Coates had been a man who really loved cats.

  The next room she entered was obviously Coates’s bedroom. Although the shades were down, Felicity avoided touching a light switch. In the gloom, she saw a floor deep in discarded clothing and a rumpled bed topped with a heavy duvet. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw a length of fur in the center of the comforter. For a moment, she was unable to tell head from tail, but she then realized that the creature was on its back, its head twisted to one side, its tail stretched out full length. It reminded her of an exceptionally long and narrow gray bird with thick and ruffled feathers, a bird lying inexplicably dead. She had found Brigitte.

  EIGHTEEN

  When the apparently dead thing stretched, Felicity was able to discern four legs and, soon thereafter, a head and a tail. With presence of mind worthy of Prissy LaChatte, instead of lingering uselessly in the dim, musty bedroom and instead of making a quick grab at Brigitte, she tiptoed to the living room, opened the bothersome door of the cat carrier, and, using one hand to keep the metal door quiet, transported the carrier to the bedroom and put it on the carpeted floor. Faced with the task of moving the small cat from the smelly bed to the carrier, she hesitated almost as if she were hea
ring echoes of her mother’s raucous laughter and the inevitable taunt about Aunt Thelma’s cat: Cat’s got your number, Felicity! Cat’s got your number!

  Whether Brigitte had her number or not, the cat had to be shifted from the bed to the carrier. Was there a correct method for picking up cats? Should Felicity scoop the animal up in her arms? Grasp it in some manner known to the cat savvy and kept secret from people like her? Oh, my, yes, kept hidden from people whose numbers cats inevitably had, people whose essential character cats sensed and from whom cats therefore fled. Cats did sense things, didn’t they? Self-doubt, for example. Consequently, it was vital to act with a show of self-confidence that even a cat’s extraordinary powers of perception couldn’t spot as fakery.

  Taking a deep breath, Felicity bent from the waist, wrapped both arms around Brigitte, and pulled the cat to her bosom. Edith’s body had the density and solidity of steel, and her coat was like wool. Brigitte, in contrast, was almost weightless and remarkably silky. Felicity did not, however, pause to stroke Brigitte and, in the darkness of the smelly bedroom, did not even get a good look at her. Rather, in one swift motion, she transferred the cat from her arms to the carrier. Only when she was fastening the latch did she realize that Brigitte hadn’t clawed, squirmed, or yowled. On the contrary, she’d shown no sign of wanting to run away.

  Far from boosting Felicity’s confidence in her ability to handle cats, the observation made her wonder whether Brigitte was ill, perhaps seriously dehydrated or weak from starvation. She did not, however, linger in Quinlan Coates’s apartment to offer the cat food and water, but immediately left. On her way out, she was pleased to see nothing of the police, who, she assumed, would detain her for questioning without hailing her as the brilliant amateur sleuth who’d solved the mystery of the murder victim’s identity. Thank heaven that she hadn’t reached Detective Valentine himself but had been able to buy herself time by leaving him a message.

  As always, Felicity drove home through Newton. When she reached Norwood Hill, the unhappy memory came to her of the unkind remarks she’d overheard in the waiting room of Furbish Veterinary Associates. Dr. Furbish’s snobbish clients, she now decided, had been jealous of the luxury enjoyed by the residents of Newton Park. Some of the old houses she passed had slate roofs that probably leaked. The wood of some houses was so old that it wouldn’t hold paint, and many of the kitchens must date to the twenties and thirties. Imagine the bathrooms! Furthermore, every house was defaced by ugly power lines and cables that stretched from utility poles inadequately camouflaged by overgrown trees. Newton Park, in contrast, had underground utilities. New roofs. New kitchens. New bathrooms. New everything! No wonder the snobs were jealous!

  Arriving home, Felicity lugged the big, awkward carrier inside via the back door. She wasn’t exactly avoiding the vestibule, she told herself; she was simply taking the expedient route. After a moment of debate, she decided not to haul the carrier up to the bedroom, but to look through the grill of its door and examine its occupant, Brigitte, here in the bright light of the kitchen. After all, once Brigitte was loose, she’d disappear under a bed, where she might remain indefinitely. If the preliminary examination warranted an immediate trip to the vet, there’d be no need to hunt her down and repeat the ordeal of getting her into the carrier; the carrier, with the cat inside, could go promptly back out to the Honda. With these thoughts in mind, Felicity put the carrier on the kitchen table and looked in. Far from languishing, Brigitte was pressing her slate-gray nose against the mesh door, thus displaying eyes of an amber even richer and deeper than Edith’s. Expecting Brigitte to bolt, Felicity unlatched the door. Before she had time to open it, Brigitte pushed against it, boldly sauntered onto the table, and dropped lightly to the floor. Felicity could now see that the blue-gray of her long, fluffy coat was identical to the blue-gray of Edith’s. Brigitte, however, was a dainty little creature who moved lightly and gracefully. As if blessed with the dowser’s gift for sensing sources of water, she leaped to the counter next to the sink, planted herself there, and trained those extraordinary eyes on Felicity.

  “Wait!” Felicity whispered. “Don’t run away!”

  The plea was entirely unnecessary. Moving swiftly, Felicity filled one of Aunt Thelma’s new cereal bowls with water and placed it on the floor. Brigitte flew off the counter and, as she drank, Felicity opened a can of cat food, spooned it into a bowl, and deposited it next to the water. Abandoning all appearance of delicacy, Brigitte attacked the food as if hammering it with her little head. Convinced that her touch would frighten off the cat, Felicity controlled the impulse to run her fingertips along the silky fur on Brigitte’s back. Instead, she made do with watching quietly as Brigitte emptied the bowl. Having done so, Brigitte still failed to run away. Unintimidated by her new surroundings, she dashed across the kitchen and, as if on invisible wings, rose to a counter and then to the top of the refrigerator, where she perched and peered around, like a bird that had alighted on a treetop.

  The phone rang. Expecting a call from Detective Valentine, Felicity was startled to hear the voice of Ursula Novack, who moved rapidly through preliminaries to ask about Brigitte.

  “She’s right here,” Felicity said. “She was hungry and thirsty, but she’s fine now.”

  “There’s nothing shy about her!” Ursula said. “She couldn’t be any more different from Edith. That’s why Edith was Quin’s to begin with. She hated cat shows.”

  Shy? The concept of a shy cat was new to Felicity. “Edith is traumatized,” she said. She went on to relate the story of finding Edith with the body of her owner, Quinlan Coates. “The police haven’t identified him,” she finished. “I’ve left them a message with his name and address.”

  “Just like in one of your books!” exclaimed Ursula, whom Felicity was starting to like a great deal.

  “It is like that, isn’t it?” Felicity asked, as if the similarity had previously eluded her. “And I must say that I did feel a little like a detective when I went to rescue Brigitte. A neighbor let me in. In one of my books, he might turn out to be the murderer.”

  “Maybe he is!”

  “He didn’t do anything suspicious. But maybe. Ursula, was Quinlan Coates a friend of yours?”

  “No, not really. We stayed in touch about Brigitte and Edith. He was very good about that, letting me know that they were doing well. But I never met him. When he decided he wanted a Chartreux, he got in touch with a friend of mine in Connecticut who has one of my cats, and she sent him to me. That’s when he got Edith. I was showing her, and she did very well. I granded her, but she hated shows, and I wanted a good pet home for her. And then when I had a litter with a fluffy, I thought he might be interested, and that’s how he got Brigitte. He really loved his cats. I think he was lonely. He was a widower. Why in God’s name would anyone murder him? And leave him at your doorstep?”

  Granded? Felicity made a mental note to look up the word, which must be a piece of cat show jargon. “I have no idea,” she said. “I never met him, either. I’d never even heard of him. The only connection is cats. I write about them, and he owned them. But beyond that? Millions of people own cats. I have no connection with most of those people.”

  “Well, it must be someone who reads your books. But that doesn’t narrow the field down a lot, does it? Your books are so popular.”

  Do go on, Felicity wanted to say.

  But before she could say anything, Ursula resumed. “I see your books all over. Even at airports. Speaking of which, you can ship Edith and Brigitte back to me. Quin has a son, but I have the feeling they’re not on good terms, and Quin always said that his son didn’t like cats, so Edith and Brigitte better come home here. I always take responsibility for the cats I breed. A direct flight would be best. There are plenty from Boston to San Francisco. That’s the nearest airport to me. I don’t know if you’ve ever shipped a cat before, but it’s pretty simple. Edith and Brigitte have flown before. That’s how they got to Quin. I’m never comfortable when my cats ar
e flying, but I’ve never had a problem.”

  Brigitte, maybe. But Edith? Edith, who was so timid, so shy, that her response to finding herself with the freedom of a big, luxurious house was to huddle under a bed? Lock her in a cage and condemn her to hours in the roaring, terrifying belly of an airliner? No!

  “Edith can’t possibly fly. She is—”

  “Oh, that’s just Edith. Has she come out from under the bed yet?”

  “Yes, but she does spend a lot of time there.”

  “Edith always has to do everything on her own time schedule.”

  “She’s beautiful. So is Brigitte. Their eyes are . . . Look, Ursula, is there some reason they can’t stay with me?” Forgetting for once that she was the Felicity Pride, she rushed to establish her reliability: “I have a big house, plenty of room, no other cats, no dogs. Dr. Furbish seems very good. I’d take them to her all the time. I’ve bought the best food I could find, dry and canned, and toys and cat beds. They’d be inside cats. There’s no one here but me, so they wouldn’t get out accidentally.” Recollecting her place in the world, she added, “They’d have their pictures on the covers of my books!” She paused. “Only if they wanted to. If Edith was too shy, she wouldn’t have to have her picture taken. I’d be more than happy to buy the cats. I can pay you.”