Scratch the Surface

by Susan Conant

  “Yes,” said Felicity.

  “And his cat was a blood donor. He was picking her up. He told me all about how she gave blood, how he brought her in four times a year, the first Monday of the month every three months. Like, this was the first Monday in August. He showed me a picture of her and of his other cat, and he told me they were Chartreux. They really are gorgeous. You could tell he was crazy about them. And I told him about Dorothy-L. Anyway, I didn’t tell him about Tailspin, but I just asked him if he ever read cat mysteries. And you know what he said?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “He said, ‘Most of those people can’t write and shouldn’t try.’ Just like that! So then he asked me if I’d ever read Isabelle Hotchkiss. Naturally, I said yes. And he said that he didn’t know why anyone else bothered writing cat mysteries because the market was glutted with them and with mysteries in general, and most new mysteries didn’t stand a chance. So, I knew.”

  “The same phrases as the ones in the horrible letter.”

  “But I didn’t say a thing! I mean, I just made normal conversation, and then they brought out Dorothy-L’s food. So, as I was sort of saying good-bye, I introduced myself, and he more or less had to do the same thing. And he said his name was Quinlan Coates. There’s another piece of luck. I mean, the first was that we were at Angell at the same time and got to talking. And the second was that he had an unusual name.”

  “So it must’ve been easy to find out more about him.” Feeling the need for strength, Felicity tried to fortify herself by eating, but she had to take small bites. Her mouth and throat were dry.

  “I used all those Web sites. Once I knew where he lived and where his office was, I hung around, so I knew what kind of car he drove, his license plate, where he parked his car, all that stuff.”

  “In a way, you stalked him.” In her anxiety, Felicity lost control of her accent and heard herself say “stawked,” but Janice seemed not to notice the lapse.

  “It was very interesting. You know how real private investigators always say how boring it is to keep someone under surveillance? Well, that part of it really was boring. But it was interesting to do it myself, if you know what I mean. I’m already using it in the book I’m writing now. And in terms of planning, that part was pretty easy, too, because I knew when he was going back to Angell for his cat to give blood. Every three months, the first Monday, so that made it November third, which was perfect, of course, because it was after daylight savings ended.”

  “What if he’d picked up his cat early?”

  “I’d have had to wait for February, which I might’ve had to do anyway if he’d parked right near the entrance. But he didn’t. The way it worked was that I took the T to Angell, which was very inconvenient. Public transportation isn’t what it should be. Anyway, I did, and I hung around on South Huntington Avenue, waiting at bus stops and stuff, until I saw his car. I watched where he parked, and then I went in the main entrance and got a case of Dorothy-L’s food and waited in line to pay for it. Coates had to wait in line, too, to let them know he was there for his cat and to do the paperwork. So, it was easy to strike up a conversation, remind him that we’d met there before, ask about his cats, and so on. And I said I’d love to meet the one he was picking up, Edith, because I’d never seen a Chartreux before. Just pictures.”

  “He was probably flattered.”

  “Oh, he was! He told me all about Chartreux cats, Carthusian monks raising them, all this stuff, until they brought out his cat. So, I gushed over her. She really is beautiful, by the way. And we sort of naturally left together. I told him my car was at the far end of the parking lot, and we just kind of walked together, with him carrying the cat in her carrier and me carrying the case of cat food, until we got to his car. I made sure I kept talking. I was telling him all about the radioactive iodide treatment that I was thinking about for Dorothy-L, and I didn’t give him a chance to interrupt me. So, he went ahead and unlocked his car and opened the back door, and he kind of bent over to pick up the carrier.”

  “And?”

  “And I whacked him over the head with the case of cat food. That hasn’t been done before, has it? You haven’t used it, I know, and it isn’t in Isabelle Hotchkiss or Lilian Jackson Braun, as far as I can remember. I don’t think it’s been used before.”

  Felicity refilled both wine glasses. “I don’t think so, either.”

  “Do you mind if I have seconds? This is really good.”

  “Please, help yourself.”

  Janice served herself more chicken, rice, and green beans, and ate hungrily before resuming her narrative. “He was heavier than I expected. Dead weight really means dead weight, not that he was probably dead yet, but he was a skinny little guy, very short and bony, and I’m stronger than I look, so I managed to shove him into the backseat with the cat carrier. He’d dropped his car keys. So I took them and drove the car a few blocks away, not that anyone would’ve noticed anything at Angell. I mean, the advantage of Angell is that all anyone notices is animals. Even if there’d been people walking by, they’d have been paying attention to their dogs or thinking about their sick animals in the hospital. But I didn’t want to stay there too long. So, I drove over near Jamaica Pond, which is no distance, and I pulled over. I used duct tape that I’d brought with me on his nose and mouth, and just to be safe, I sealed his head in some plastic from the dry cleaner, which I’d also brought along. It’s hard when you’ve read a lot of mysteries. The possibilities are endless, and there’s always the question of what’s reliable and what isn’t.”

  Eager to maintain the role of sympathetic listener, Felicity said, “And then you drove to my house. You knew I’d be at Newbright, I guess. Janice, I understand why you were angry at me. You had every right to be. I should have known what a wonderful book you’d write, and I should’ve found the time to read it and blurb it. But, of course, I wasn’t thrown off my work. Most people would’ve been, I guess, and that would’ve made two down.”

  “Room at the top. But you were sort of incidental. The real competition was Isabelle Hotchkiss.”

  “For both of us.” In an effort to maintain the appearance of normality, Felicity forced herself to eat a little chicken. “In that sense, you did me a favor.”

  “God moves in a mysterious way,” Janice said. “Like, take the cat. Edith. I thought that would freak you out. I mean, if you’d wanted a cat all these years, you’d’ve had a cat, and you didn’t. So, I thought maybe you’d hate being stuck with the cat. Only you weren’t. Anyone who lets a cat get on the table and eat off plates really is a cat lover.”

  “Brigitte doesn’t exactly eat off plates. Not really. She just likes to see how food smells. But tell me something. How did you move the body to my vestibule?”

  “Not easily! I parked in your driveway. This neighborhood is totally deserted, you know? I’d checked it out. No one walks around or anything. What’s wrong with these people? Anyway, I parked there, and I dragged him, which was not, believe me, easy. But I did it. People get superhuman strength in a crisis, you know? Like those mothers who lift cars that their kids are trapped under. And then I carried up the cat in her carrier, and that was that. Oh, except that I returned his car to the spot behind his building where he always parked. And I walked home from there. It was a long walk, but that was the way. And on the way home, I found a dumpster behind a store and threw out the raincoat and the gloves I was wearing. It was a wet night, remember?”

  Felicity took a token sip of wine. “Yes, I do remember. It was foggy.”

  In one of her books, the resolute and resourceful Prissy LaChatte wouldn’t have been blathering about the weather. Rather, Prissy would have decided that the time had come to talk the murderer into surrendering herself to the police. Did real murderers ever turn themselves in? Could they be talked into it? Felicity felt sick to her stomach. She lacked the persuasive powers of Prissy LaChatte. Furthermore, the woman seated at her table was not a creature of her imagination, but a ruthles
s, ambitious killer who had no reason to confess to the police and go to jail. In fiction, amateur sleuths convinced murderers to give themselves up. In real life, murderers murdered again. Still, having been in comparable situations many times in fiction and never before in real life, Felicity did what Prissy would have done.

  “Janice,” she said, “just think! Once people know about all this, Tailspin will make the Times bestseller list. And stay there forever! The public will be so curious about you.”

  Janice rose, reached into the big woolly purse that she’d hung on her chair, and pulled out a small handgun. Pointing it at Felicity, she said, “Curiosity killed the—” She let seconds pass. “Finish it, Felicity!”

  “Cat,” said Felicity. Edith and Brigitte! No, not the cats!

  “Cat writer,” said Janice. “In this case, curiosity killed the cat writer.”

  FORTY

  Out of the corner of her eye, Felicity saw that Edith was standing awkwardly in the doorway that led from the front hall to the kitchen. The big cat wore a puzzled expression, as if she’d just awakened from a trance and had no idea where she was or how she’d arrived there. Felicity broke into a sweat. Hack mystery writers had a phrase for the trick of injecting a thrill into a story by placing a pet at risk: pet jeop. Was Edith in jeopardy? The combination of the gun and the cat terrified Felicity and filled her with a deep, raw sense of protectiveness. Always beautiful, Edith was somehow more extraordinary than ever, her dense coat a more vivid shade of blue-gray, her eyes a richer amber. Despite her powerful build, she looked heartbreakingly vulnerable.

  But Janice loved cats.

  Didn’t she?

  “Sonya knows you’re here,” Felicity said. “So do Jim and Hadley. They discovered the little game you’ve been playing with the receipts from Tony’s Deli and all the rest. They asked me to speak to you about it. They knew you were coming to dinner. Janice, please! I am totally sympathetic to everything you’ve done. All of us have to promote our books, and I know what that costs. And Isabelle Hotchkiss was competition for me, too.”

  Janice’s face had regained its pallor. She was, if anything, paler than usual, and the hand holding the gun trembled. Her other hand rested lightly on the back of a chair. It occurred to Felicity that for a person recovering from serious food poisoning, Janice had eaten more than was wise. Also, she had drunk quite a lot of wine.

  “Please let me help you,” Felicity said. “I happen to have a great deal of cash on hand. A great deal. More than a hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Enough for you to go anywhere you want. You can disappear.”

  “You’re lying,” Janice said.

  “I’m not lying. The uncle who left me this house was a very wealthy man. He left a great deal of cash.”

  “You like bloodless endings. I’ve noticed that.”

  “My readers don’t like gore. Neither do I. Janice, neither do you! And there doesn’t have to be any. I’ll show you the money.” With pain in her Scottish heart, she said, “I’ll give it to you. I’ll give you all of it.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Upstairs. It’s in a fireproof box behind a headboard in one of the guest rooms. The key is right here in a drawer. Look, you don’t have much choice. If you shoot me, the police will find out you were here. Sonya and Jim and Hadley will all say so. Your car is in my driveway. Your fingerprints are all over the door, the table, the silverware, the chair. You’d never be sure of wiping off all of them. There’d be trace evidence. Janice, all you have to do is go away! I’ll tell the board that you never turned up for dinner. You can mysteriously disappear.”

  “What about Tailspin? What about my whole career? What about Dorothy-L?”

  “Tell your agent where you are. No one else needs to know. Isabelle Hotchkiss was a woman of mystery, and it didn’t do her sales any harm. Quinlan Coates’s lawyer probably knew his secret. His accountant must have. His agent. You can do it! Think of all this cash as a grant to launch your career. Dorothy-L can go with you. There are good veterinarians everywhere. And don’t worry about this little local fuss with Witness. I’ll settle that. If I make a generous donation, no one will care about the details.” Inspiration struck. “Janice, just think! If you want to, you can stay in Boston! No one will ever guess. The money will tide you over until your royalties start pouring in. You can stay in Boston, but you can quit your day job! You’ll never have to enter a classroom again!”

  Janice’s face brightened. Her shoulders relaxed, and the hand holding the gun stopped shaking. “Let me see the money,” she said. “You go first.”

  “I’m going to open the drawer and get the key.” With Janice almost pressing against her, Felicity did just that.

  As she headed toward the front hall, Edith turned tail and fled across the slate floor toward the stairs. By the time Felicity reached the staircase, Edith was nowhere in sight. Where was Brigitte? She’d left the kitchen a while ago. Where had she gone?

  Felicity began to ascend the stairs. “As I said, the money’s in a box behind the bed.”

  Janice said, “You’re still going to help with my book, right?”

  “Of course! I’ll be delighted. I’ll send the blurb to your editor. I’ll review it, too. Here we are.”

  Felicity dropped to her knees, lifted the bed skirt, and was happy to find that Edith was not under the bed. She rose, reached behind the headboard, removed the fireproof box, and set it on the comforter. She unlocked and opened the box, gave Janice a chance to watch as she thumbed through the stacks of bills, and asked, as if offering to send leftovers home with her guest, “Do you want to take the box? Or I can give you a bag.”

  “Just give me the box. Are you sure it’s a hundred and twenty thousand?”

  “It’s a hundred and twenty thousand five hundred fifty-five dollars. Most of it’s in hundred-dollar bills.”

  “This would be easier if it was thousand-dollar bills.”

  “The largest U.S. denomination is one hundred.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.” And you’ve been teaching school? “Janice, the box is quite heavy.”

  Nancy Drew would have managed to use the metal box as a weapon. And Prissy LaChatte? She’d never have allowed a murderer to pull a gun on her in the first place. Or she hadn’t yet, anyway. Mercury poisoning would be a big bother. Maybe a nice, simple gunshot would be a better choice. Felicity usually avoided guns, mainly because she knew almost nothing about them. They couldn’t be much worse than mercury, could they? The one in Janice’s right hand wasn’t difficult. Even Felicity recognized it as a revolver. What she knew about revolvers was that they were reliable: If you squeezed the trigger, a revolver fired a bullet.

  FORTY-ONE

  Edith recognizes the scent of unwashed llama. To Edith, Janice reeks of hunger, cold, and fear. In search of safety, the heavy-footed Edith runs upstairs to the bed she now prefers, the big one that offers warmth and companionship, the prime spot in this new household. So trusting is she of this secure place that instead of hiding under the bed, she hops up and settles on her usual pillow, where she rests undisturbed until Brigitte races into the room and onto the bed. With the unmistakable air of a cat looking for trouble, Brigitte sidles up to Edith and pinches the thick flesh at the base of Edith’s big skull.

  Edith flattens her ears against her head. Her eyes glow with suppressed rage. Still, she refrains from striking. Determined to awaken the wild ancestral feline that sleeps beneath Edith’s infuriating air of civilization, her tedious contentment, her dull placidity, Brigitte withdraws to the foot of bed. Her eyes closed, her body relaxed, she pauses to enjoy a few moments of meditation. After taking two deep, full, cleansing breaths, she conjures the image of herself in her very own special place of perfect safety, and once she sees the place vividly with her inner eye, she relishes the sounds and smells of the place, its feel beneath her paws, and the tranquility of spirit with which it blesses her. After benefiting from her sojourn in the imaginary place, Brigitte s
ays good-bye to it, gradually opens her eyes, and slowly returns to the foot of what was formerly Felicity’s bed. The remarkable feature of Brigitte’s imaginary place is that it is almost identical to the real pillow still occupied by Edith. The only difference between the real place and the imaginary one is this: Where Edith is, there Brigitte belongs.