by Susan Conant
In lieu of phoning the detective, she went to her computer in the hope that someone had e-mailed her, but nothing of interest had arrived. She again searched the Web for information about Quinlan Coates but found nothing she didn’t already know. On impulse, she entered Dave Valentine’s name and, to her delight, retrieved a photograph of him in his kilt at the Highland Games. To her even greater delight, she discovered something for which the thousands of mysteries she’d read had failed to prepare her, namely, that unlike the wives of the attractive male detectives, both amateur and professional, who populated mystery fiction, the woman hadn’t left or divorced Valentine, thus making him bitter, regretful, self-recriminatory, or mistrustful. No, novels to the contrary, Mrs. Valentine had died!
The wives of fictional detectives did die once in a while, Felicity reminded herself, but the cause of death was usually cancer, wasn’t it? And in those cases, instead of developing the detective’s character by having him respond with bitterness, regret, self-recrimination, or mistrust, the author revealed the protagonist’s devotion during his wife’s illness, his subsequent grief, and thus his capacity for deep, complex emotion. Mrs. Valentine, however, hadn’t died of cancer, been killed by terrorists, been run over by a drunk driver, committed suicide, or perished in some other fashion that might be expected to add sharpness and profundity to an author’s depiction of her husband. Rather, according to the obituary that had appeared in a Boston newspaper two years earlier, she had died of endocarditis, an infection of the heart that she had contracted during a routine dental appointment. As a literary device, the cause of death had nothing to recommend it, and, indeed, so far as Felicity could remember, nowhere in mystery fiction had a detective’s wife ever died from having her teeth cleaned. Still, Dave Valentine had probably mourned her despite the unliterary nature of her demise, and to her credit, Mrs. Valentine had an excellent excuse, indeed, the only acceptable excuse, for having abandoned her reading of Felicity’s books.
After turning off the computer and shutting off lights, Felicity made her way upstairs. Entering her room, she found Brigitte asleep on her pillow. The little cat was not sprawled awkwardly on her back at she’d been when Felicity had discovered her at Quinlan Coates’s apartment. Rather, she was curled up in what Felicity saw as normal cat fashion, her head tucked in, her tail curved around her body. Inexperienced cat owner that she was, Felicity never considered reclaiming her own pillow and her own side of the bed by picking up Brigitte and moving her; although she now knew that cats slept a lot, she had no understanding of the depth of feline sleep, nor did she appreciate the capacity of awakened cats to return instantly to oblivion. Consequently, motivated mainly by the fear that Brigitte, like Aunt Thelma’s cat, would get her number and run away, she performed her bedtime preparations in near silence. Entering the bathroom that adjoined the bedroom, she left the light off until she’d gently pulled the door shut, and, after finishing her ablutions, turned off the light before opening the door. On tiptoe, she moved her book from the nightstand on Brigitte’s side of the bed, carried it to the other side, and returned for a flashlight that she kept in the nightstand drawer. Easing herself between the sheets, she curled up on her side and read by flashlight until she joined Brigitte in sleep.
In the morning, Brigitte was no longer on the pillow but had moved to the top of a high dresser, which she had draped herself upon in a manner that looked precarious; she seemed to be a sort of feline scarf carelessly tossed on the dresser and in danger of slipping off. She remained there while Felicity put on her robe and slippers, and when Felicity descended to the kitchen, Brigitte followed her. To Felicity’s surprise, in the middle of the kitchen floor was a little pile of gray fur that was far too long and silky to have come from Edith. When cats groomed themselves, were they in the habit of pulling out dead hair, gathering it together, and leaving it for their owners to clean up? After starting the coffeemaker, Felicity topped off the bowl of dry cat food and opened a can of vile-smelling but supposedly gourmet cat food. As usual, Brigitte danced around, sniffed the stuff with great interest, and then turned to the dry kibble and ate lustily. Not long thereafter, while Felicity was examining her morning paper over her eggs and coffee, Edith appeared at the door to the kitchen and simply stood squarely there on all four paws with a bewildered expression on her face, as if she couldn’t understand why she wasn’t still under the bed. Then she uttered a single brief, soft, high-pitched meow that sounded as if had come from the mouth of a tiny kitten. With some notion that animals disliked being stared at, Felicity kept one eye on the paper and the other on Edith, who suddenly ran across the floor, came to a halt by the dish of canned food, huddled down, and began to eat. Whereas Brigitte moved lightly and gracefully, Edith, with her short legs and big, bulky body, looked to Felicity as if she hadn’t been designed for running and didn’t trust herself to perform the act competently.
To avoid making Edith self-conscious, Felicity concentrated on the newspaper, in which she found an obituary for Quinlan Coates. The accompanying photo was not the one on the jacket of the book in his apartment, but seemed to have been taken decades earlier. Coates’s hair and his distinctive eyebrows were dark rather than gray, and the face belonged to a man in his late thirties or early forties. The obituary was almost exclusively about his professional achievements: his publications, visiting professorships, and honors. His beloved wife, Dora, had died ten years earlier. He was survived by a son, William G. Coates, of Brookline. A funeral mass would be celebrated at the Church of Saint Ignatius of Loyola at Boston College the next morning. There was no mention of his cats.
It was the thought of representing Edith and Brigitte that gave Felicity the idea of attending the funeral mass. Once having thought about going, she firmly resolved to do so. In mystery novels, homicide investigators invariably showed up at victims’ funerals, usually in the hope that the murderers would do the same. Would Detective Dave Valentine be there? Detective Dave Valentine, the widower! Would the murderer be there? In any case, if Coates’s funeral had been set for tomorrow, the postmortem must be complete. Why had she been foolish enough to arrange to have dinner tonight with Ronald, when she could have invited Dave Valentine to share a meal? And to share the autopsy results, too. Even if Valentine failed to attend the funeral, it wouldn’t be a complete waste of her time to go. To the best of her recollection, she’d never written a Roman Catholic funeral mass. She hoped that the church had stained glass windows, dark recesses, and an odor of incense strong enough to overpower anyone except Prissy LaChatte.
After her morning shower, Felicity kept her promise to Ursula Novack to inquire about the blood donor program in which Edith was enrolled. A quick Web search informed Felicity that Boston’s famous Angell Memorial Animal Hospital had changed its named to the Angell Animal Medical Center. She also found its phone number and learned that it was on South Huntington Avenue in Jamaica Plain and was thus a short distance away. The drive from Newton Park to Angell would take perhaps twenty minutes. Having ascertained that Edith’s participation wouldn’t cut deeply into her writing time, she dialed the number and was eventually connected to someone in the blood donor program.
“I am the new owner of a cat that participates in your program,” Felicity said. “And I’ve been advised to call you for information.”
“Which of our cats is this?” asked a young-sounding woman.
“Her name is Edith.”
“Oh, Edith! Edith is a lovely cat. And she’s an ideal donor. I hope she’ll still be participating.”
“I need to know what’s involved.”
“Well, not a great deal, and there are a lot of benefits. You just bring her here in the morning and pick her up in the late afternoon. You’ll need to get her here between seven and eight, and she’ll be ready to go home at about four. Let me send you some material.”
When Felicity asked to have Edith and Brigitte listed as her cats, and gave her name and address, the woman did not exclaim, “The Felicity Pride
?” She did, however, again promise to mail the information and went on to say, “But you won’t need to do anything right now. Edith was just here on Monday, so she can’t donate again for at least six weeks.”
“Monday?”
“I think it was Monday. Let me look. Yes. The third. That was Monday.”
“Good lord!”
“Is something wrong?”
“No. Never mind. Just send me the information.”
“If you have any questions about it, give me a call.”
“Oh, I will. I definitely will,” said Felicity, who doubted that she’d have questions about the blood donor program, but was certain that she and the police would have a great many questions about Edith’s visit to Angell on Monday. For example, at what time did Quinlan Coates pick up Edith? At what time did he leave Angell? Was he alone? If not, who was with him? But the important point was that she, Felicity Pride, with the assistance, more or less, of her cat, Edith, had discovered where Quinlan Coates had been only a few hours before he’d met his unnatural death. At about four o’clock in the afternoon, he’d been at the Angell Animal Medical Center on South Huntington Avenue in Jamaica Plain. No wonder the detective had asked whether there had been dogs in her house and whether Bob and Thelma had owned a cat. Coates had been at Angell, where animal fur must have attached itself to his clothing. About four hours later, his dead body had been in her vestibule. Oh, hurrah! Hurrah for Edith! Just like Morris and Tabitha, she had “communicated” information vital to the solution to the murder! Felicity hastily called Detective Dave Valentine. She no longer needed a pretext. Now, thanks to Edith, she had a real reason to call.
TWENTY-FIVE
Felicity reached Dave Valentine. As soon as she heard his voice, she announced that she had important new information and needed to see him as soon as possible. If a mystery writer wasn’t entitled to be mysterious, who was? To her delight, he said that he’d be right over. After hanging up, she realized that her news might not be news to the police; maybe every investigator from the attorney general on down already knew that Quinlan Coates had been alive in the late afternoon, when he’d gone to Angell to get Edith. Felicity’s self-doubt worsened when she checked her kitchen and found nothing wonderful to serve Dave Valentine with the coffee she was already brewing. In particular, her cupboards and refrigerator lacked such components of a Scottish breakfast as mush, canned beans, and kippers. She cheered up after remembering that in Scotland itself, she had once been served Nescafé cappuccino; to prepare an authentically Scottish breakfast, she should substitute instant coffee for her good French roast. If Valentine had any sense, he’d be happy with the bagels she removed from the freezer.
The cats posed a problem. The bold Brigitte would put in an appearance, but it was desirable to have Edith the Heroine in view when her key role was revealed. Desperate to set the scene properly, Felicity went upstairs to the guest room where she’d dumped her purchases from the pet supply store and chose a toy that consisted of a yarn ball and jingle bell on a string fastened to a stick. Neither cat was in sight. She shook the toy vigorously. Brigitte immediately responded to the jingling by rushing into the room and bat-ting at the toy. Shortly thereafter, the stolid Edith warily emerged from under the bed and joined Brigitte in aiming a paw at the yarn ball. Gradually moving to the hall and down the steep stairs, Felicity shook the toy, paused, and resumed her progress until she had finally lured both cats into the kitchen, where she hastened to open a can of food for Edith. It occurred to Felicity that a market existed for odorless canned cat food or possibly for a deodorizing powder to be shaken on the existing products. As it was, she had to settle for hoping that Edith would eat fast. While Edith savored her stinky second breakfast, Felicity shut all the doors to the kitchen to prevent the shy cat from escaping. Then, just in case the fresh coffee had lost its freshness, she acted with un-Scottish wastefulness by dumping it into the sink and making a new pot.
Valentine had said he’d be right over. Where was he? As the coffee brewed, Felicity went to the powder room, brushed her hair, and reapplied lipstick. When the doorbell rang, she was pleased that Dave Valentine—or, as Felicity thought of him, Dave Valentine the Widower—had had the sensitivity to go to the back door instead of to the scene-of-the-crime door, so to speak. When she opened the door, he wished her good morning and accepted her offer of coffee. He was wearing khaki pants and a navy blue fleece pullover. How much friendlier than a suit! With the big, strapping Scot sitting there at Aunt Thelma’s kitchen table, Felicity felt a wave of guilt for having looked him up on the Web and found his picture.
“Well,” she said, “maybe it’s not news to you at all, but I know where Quinlan Coates was late on Monday afternoon.” Without asking, she sliced a bagel and popped it into the toaster, which was a four-slice chrome appliance and, like all the other appliances in the house, brand new.
“His movements on Monday would be news,” Valentine said. “We have his appointment book, from his apartment, but the entries are in some kind of personal shorthand. Not really shorthand, but notations, abbreviations that meant something to him. What’s there for Monday looks like the letters a, b, d.”
“Angell. Blood. Donor. Edith, the cat who was left here, is a blood donor at Angell Memorial. Angell Animal Medical Center. It’s changed its name.”
Where was Edith? She was somewhere in this kitchen. How irritating of her to disappear! As Felicity was scanning the room, Brigitte suddenly leaped onto the counter by the toaster and began to lick cream cheese from a tub that Felicity had opened and left there. Felicity threw out the cream cheese and substituted butter and jam from the refrigerator.
“Edith is around somewhere. She was very traumatized by her horrible experience, but she’s beginning to recover. Anyway, the cats’ breeder, a woman named Ursula Novack, who lives in California, told me that Edith was a blood donor, and when I called Angell, the woman at the blood bank told me that Edith had given blood on Monday. So, Quinlan Coates must’ve driven her there in the morning and picked her up in the afternoon.”
“I didn’t know cats gave blood.”
Instead of admitting that she hadn’t known it, either, Felicity said, “They do. There’s a great need for blood. And Edith is the perfect donor. She’s big and young and healthy. Brigitte is too small. Anyway, the woman there said that the cats are usually ready to go home at about four o’clock. So, sometime in the afternoon, probably the late afternoon, he must’ve been at Angell. Which is not all that far from here.” She put the bagel on a plate, buttered it, and served it to Dave Valentine with blueberry jam that she’d spooned into a little bowl. After supplying him with a knife, she poured herself a cup of coffee and joined him at the table. “It’s maybe twenty minutes.”
“More at that time of day,” he said. “But that’s interesting. Helpful. Did the woman there have any more to say?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
He bit into the bagel and chewed. Felicity wished that she’d given him something quicker to swallow. “We’ll go and talk to them,” he finally said. “Good coffee. Thank you. Good bagel. And thank you for calling right away. We’ll get going on it this morning.”
“His car was at his apartment building,” Felicity said. “The neighbor who let me in told me that. Maybe he was with someone else, in someone else’s car, when he went to get Edith. Or maybe someone else got her, of course.”
Dave Valentine’s eyes, Felicity noticed, were an exceptionally clear blue. In police procedurals, the detectives his age tended to look tired, but Valentine didn’t. On the contrary, he looked as if he’d had ten hours of sleep.
“We’ll find out,” he said.
“Quinlan Coates’s obituary is in today’s paper.” She paused. “So the body must have been released.”
“That’s something I wanted to ask you about.” His eyes met hers. “Besides writing mysteries, you read them. You’d have to, wouldn’t you?”
“Not necessarily. But I do. It’s not an
obligation.”
“Sorry if . . . Look, see if this sounds familiar from a book. The victim sustains a blow to the head. Then his nose and mouth are sealed with tape.”
“Duct tape.”
“Any tape. Any strong tape. And then his head is covered with a plastic bag. Is there a book where that happens?”
“Not that I can think of. Not offhand. The three methods separately, I’m sure. But all three? It’s possible, but nothing comes to mind. So that’s how Quinlan Coates died?”
So, here was Felicity seated at her kitchen table with a handsome, burly police detective who was tapping her knowledge of mystery fiction and confiding the results of a postmortem. He was eating food she’d prepared, and the two were sipping coffee. Beautiful cats added a touch of domesticity. Specifically, Brigitte was now draped across the top of the refrigerator, and Edith was crouching beneath the kitchen chair at the built-in desk near the telephone. Ah, bliss!