by Tamar Myers
“I honestly don’t know. But I think I might be.”
Wynnell gasped. “Is that why I caught you fleeing your house this morning?”
“Yes. But fleeing might be too strong a word. I didn’t take any clothes with me. Plus which, I left my cat.” I turned to Marvin. “I came to see your legendary cane collection, but to be honest, I want your opinion on something.”
“Shoot—oops, poor choice of words. Sorry.”
“Yesterday I had a chat with Darren Cotter, the guy who owns the storage sheds. He gave me the names of the top five bidders, who, by the way, outdistanced any of the others. Two of those bidders just happen to have cane collections, and another sells them. Don’t you find that a bit odd?”
He looked me in the eyes. His were, appropriately for the setting, green with specks of sea foam.
“No, I don’t find that particularly odd. Cane collecting is a lot more common than you think. Darren comes across as an uneducated redneck, but he’s really quite savvy. He knew the time had come when he could sell the contents, so he notified everyone he could think of. I bet he sent e-mails out to a hundred people. On mine he added a brief note: just the word canes and a question mark.”
“I didn’t get an e-mail; I had to read about the sale in the paper. But never mind that. You sound like you know Mr. Cotter.”
“Every collector and dealer in the Lowcountry worth their salt knows Darren Cotter.”
“I don’t get it. Why?”
“Because Safe-Keepers Storage is the cream of the crop, as far as storage facilities go.”
“But they’re awful-looking. A blight on the landscape, if you ask me.”
He nodded. “That part’s a shame. But when Darren says his sheds are climate controlled, he means it. Each shed has its own thermostat and humidity controls. Want to store a mummy? He’ll make it as dry as your mouth the day after a bender. Want to store some uncured carvings from a rip-off woodcarver in Bali? He can make that happen too.” He paused to take a sip of fresh-squeezed orange juice. “Abby, did you count yourself among the five?”
“Excuse me?’
“You said the top five bids were put in by cane collectors. Does that number include you.”
“No.”
He smiled. “So let me guess who the other four are. The eccentric Colonel, the man-killer Claudette Aikenberg, the smolderingly beautiful Hermione Wou-ki, and the enigmatic Mac Murray.”
I gasped. “How did you know?”
“Because I called Darren and asked him. I was hoping to make contact with other stick collectors. Turns out only the Colonel and Hermione are big on sticks. The Colonel, as you may know by now, is an irascible S.O.B., and Hermione’s prices are through the roof.”
“Are they also liars like you?”
“Abby!” Wynnell recoiled in horror.
“Of course since you’re a liar, how would I know if your answer was true.”
“Abby, apologize!”
Marvin chuckled. “No, it’s okay. The lady has a point. Once a liar, always a suspect, right? But before I cop to being one, what lie are you accusing me of?”
“Yesterday you said you participated in the auction because of the thrill of not knowing what you might find. Something about fishing in murky water, I believe. But now you say you were tipped off that there might be canes in the shed. Which is it?”
He shook a long, deeply tanned finger at me. “You’re really something, Mrs. Washburn. I swear, if you weren’t married—”
“Forget about her,” Wynnell snapped. “She already has a stud muffin for a husband.” Then realizing that she had just spoken aloud her most private thoughts, she clapped a hand over her mouth in horror.
Lord knows I’ve been there. “Look,” I shouted, pointing out to sea, “there’s a whale.”
Marvin jumped up so quickly he knocked over his chair. “Where?”
“About halfway to the horizon. To the left of that container ship.”
“I don’t see it.”
“It’s there all right. Look, it just spouted.”
“I’m getting my binoculars,” Marvin said, and sprinted from the room.
He’d only been gone a second or two when Wynnell turned to me. “Thanks, Abby.”
“No problemo.”
“There isn’t a whale, is there?”
“None that I can see.”
Marvin returned panting. His was a large house, so he must have had a pair of the glasses close by.
“Has it moved?” he asked.
“I’m afraid so,” I said. “It went under, and hasn’t surfaced yet.”
I waited patiently until he gave up trying to spot the phantom behemoth. “Okay, Marvin, which is it?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see it.”
“Forget the whale for a moment, Marvin. About the auction, were you tipped, or casting your line in murky water?”
“Both. You must have misunderstood me yesterday. I said I like to hunt—fishing might have been the term I used—but I didn’t say that was the case on Saturday. I got the e-mail from Darren sometime last week, and then decided it was time to enjoy the thrill of the hunt again.”
I wanted to call him a liar to his face, maybe even throw some scrambled eggs at him, but that wouldn’t have been ladylike—oh the heck with acting like a lady. The truth is, honey really does attract more flies than vinegar. And I’d come to see Marvin’s cane collection. In retrospect, I should have thrown the eggs.
16
Marvin’s collection was displayed in what appeared to have been intended as the master suite. It was undoubtedly the largest room in the house, taking up, as it did, half the second story. Immediately upon entering the room I could tell that the air was purified. There was something else about it that made me immediately wary.
“Less oxygen,” Marvin said, reading what was left of my mind.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Take deep breaths, through your nose, and exhale through your mouth. There is twelve percent less oxygen in this air.”
Wynnell inhaled. “Why?” she said on the exhale.
“The idea came to me on a camping trip. I had some vacuum-packed meat with me, and I started wondering why it was it didn’t spoil. Then it occurred to me that bacteria—that’s what causes food to spoil—need oxygen to survive. But you see, bacteria aren’t just in food; they’re everywhere, in everything. I did some calculations of my own and came up with the perfect formula that still allowed me to breathe and dramatically slowed down decomposition in those canes that possessed biodegradable parts. Which was just about all of them except for one aluminum cane and one that is carved from soapstone.”
I didn’t know whether to be astounded at his brilliance or skeptical. After all, he was a proven liar.
“Have you run your theory past any accredited scientists?”
He laughed, which was a waste of precious oxygen if you ask me. “I’m an intelligent man, Abby. I don’t need some narrow-minded Ph.D. to tell me I’m right. Just look around you. Everything is in tip-top condition.”
I looked around. He really did have an impressive collection. It might have taken my breath away if the room hadn’t done that first. In addition to having canes displayed in racks along the walls, as well as in glass-topped tables in the center of the room, Marvin had done a very thorough job of labeling each cane, along with its complete history.
“There’s a man out on Wadmalaw Island who has a similar setup,” I said.
Marvin laughed again. “Mac? Ha, I don’t think so. All Mac does is lower the humidity. Anyone can do that, using dehumidifiers from a home improvement store. But that isn’t going to slow decomposition as markedly as using a dehumidifying system plus reducing oxygen levels. I’ll swear by this. Ha, if I stashed a corpse in this room, I bet if you were to come back six months from now, you’d still be able to recognize him.”
I saw Wynnell shiver and rub her arms. “I’m glad you said ‘him’ and not ‘her.’”
&
nbsp; It was definitely time to change the subject. “Which cane is your favorite?” I asked, having heaped as many compliments on him as my overtaxed brain would allow.
He led me to the center of the room, where a single cane occupied its own tabletop. The stick was nothing special to look at, just one continuous smooth piece of wood that didn’t even have a handle, and there were random blotches of color on it, like spattered paint.
“This belonged to Michelangelo. It’s olive wood. He used it to fight off dogs—roving, hungry dogs were always a problem back in the days before leash laws and commercial kibble. He took it with him everywhere. Those spots are drops of paint that fell from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.”
“Where did you get it?”
Marvin, gym owner and all-around regular guy, switched into collector mode. “One doesn’t ‘get’ a specimen like that. One acquires it.”
“I beg your pardon. From whom did you acquire it?” Just to be on the safe side I affected a bit of an English accent.
My sarcasm was not wasted on him. “Scoff all you want, Abby. But it’s that very attitude that separates you from the real players like Hermione Wou-ki.”
“Ouch.”
“But to answer your question, I acquired this piece from Count Giovanni D’Arroganti.” Even the way he trilled his r’s was impressive.
“I know this is a rude question, Marvin, but do you mind if I ask you how much this cost?”
“Not at all. We collectors live for just that question. Because of this piece’s impeccable provenance, it’s utterly priceless. But I’m willing to sell it for sixty-five grand. Table not included, of course.”
“Of course.” If sixty-five grand was priceless, than what was my house worth?
“It’s funny,” Wynnell said, “that Michelangelo would carry around such a simple stick. You’d expect it to be intricately carved. What if Count Whatever-his-name-was was making the story up?”
Marvin’s nostrils flared. “It says right here that he acquired it from Cardinal Giuseppe DiGropa, who—”
“I feel faint,” I said. “It must be the lack of oxygen.” I headed for the door.
“Not so fast,” Marvin said sharply.
“Excuse me?”
“Slow down or you’ll get the bends.”
I moved even faster. Once outside, after gulping air a few times, I began to feel better. Still, I didn’t waste a minute saying my good-byes. Wynnell, bless her horny heart, didn’t put up any resistance.
“Where to next?” she said, before we even got down the front steps.
“Back to the source of all my troubles.”
Safe-Keepers Storage was just as ugly the second time around, but at least I was better able to appreciate its technical merits. Even from the parking lot I could see the giant air-conditioning unit, and a web of wires that undoubtedly had to do with other aspects of climate control.
Although Wynnell complained about having to walk on gravel, she kept up with me, and was looming behind me when I rang the doorbell. Darren Cotter answered immediately, as if he’d been waiting with his hand on the knob.
“Hey,” I said.
His eyes twinkled. “It’s you—the woman who is half an orphan.”
“At least as of eight o’clock this morning.
Depending on what Mama does the rest of the day—well, I could be a full-fledged orphan by bedtime.”
“Abby,” Wynnell said, clearly aghast, “never joke about your mama that way. Think how awful you’d feel if something did happen to her.”
I know for a fact that Wynnell lost her mother when she was just sixteen. They’d had a fight that morning, over the length of Wynnell’s skirt. My buddy had slammed the door on her way to school, yelling over her shoulder that she hated her mother and wished her dead. About an hour later or so, the police reckoned, a door-to-door salesman talked his way into the house. Wynnell found her mother in the upstairs bathtub when she got home from school. Her throat had been cut.
I tried to push the grizzly image out of my mind. “Mr. Cotter, this is my friend Wynnell Crawford. Do you have a few minutes to talk?”
The twinkle disappeared from his eyes and I could almost hear him debating with himself. He sucked air through his teeth before speaking.
“I’d ask you ladies in, but I have a cat.”
“Oh we don’t mind cats,” I said. “I have a big marmalade tomcat named Dmitri. And my friend, here, gets along very nicely with cats. Don’t you, Wynnell?”
“Absolutely.”
His blue eyes darted from me to her, and back again to me. “Yes, but this is a very large cat.”
“Like a lion? Or a tiger?”
He smiled. “Not quite that big. She’s a Chausie.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s a new breed, a hybrid actually, between a domestic cat and the wild jungle cat. The jungle cat’s scientific name is Felis chaus, so that’s why this new breed is called a Chausie.”
“Is it like a Bengal cat?” I asked. “I’ve heard of those.”
“Same idea, but a different wild cat species was used in the founding of this breed.”
“Why on earth would anyone want to have a wild cat in their house?” Apparently Wynnell’s love of cats was limited to the domestic. “Isn’t that cruel? And what about conservation of these species?”
“A lot of people are in love with the idea of owning an exotic cat,” Darren Cotter said calmly. “So they manage to buy a leopard cub or lion cub off the Internet, and when it stops being cute and starts eyeing them for dinner, then they give it to a zoo, or just let the poor thing loose. The idea behind these hybrid breeds is to have an exotic-looking cat that has all the qualities of a domestic cat. Plus, it helps to raise the public’s consciousness about the plight of wild cats, hundreds of thousands of which are killed every year for their fur, whereas only a handful are used to establish these new exotic breeds.”
“Well,” I said, “I’d love to see your cat. Does she, like you said, behave just like a domestic cat?”
He bit his lip before answering. “I may have stretched the truth just a bit. You see, it takes four generations for the interbreeding to create a domestic breed. In this case, the Chausie. The one I have is only a first generation cross. That is to say, her father was a full-blooded jungle cat.”
“But her mother was a regular cat, right?”
“Well—to be truthful, her mother was half domestic and half jungle cat. So she’s kind of on the big side. That’s why her name is Catrina the Great.”
Math has never been my strong point, but even I could solve this story problem. “What you’re saying is that she’s three-quarters jungle cat, right?”
He nodded.
“Too much wild cat for me,” Wynnell said definitively.
I could never pass up the opportunity to see such an exotic creature. “How big is she?”
“Sixteen inches high at the shoulder, but two feet high along the back when she arches. Weighs just over twenty-five pounds, although the males can weigh thirty-five. Come in and see her.”
I’ll wait in the car,” Wynnell said. The positioning of her eyebrows told me she was not a happy camper.
The first thing I noticed about the inside of Darren Cotter’s house was that it did not smell of cat. Of course he read my mind.
“She pees in the sink. Bathtub too. In the wild they like to pee in streams, to move their odor away from them.” He nodded at a red leather couch. “Please have a seat.”
“Where is she? She’s not going to leap at me from behind, is she?”
“No. She’s probably sleeping on top of the refrigerator. I’ll go look for her—but hey, would you like something to drink?”
“Diet soda?”
“Sure thing. Be right back.”
No sooner did he leave the room than this monstrous creature came ambling in from the opposite direction.
17
Had I not been warned, I would have thought she was a cougar—well
, maybe just a cougar cub. At any rate, she dwarfed Dmitri. “Hey there, kitty,” I managed to squeak.
Catrina the Great did not appear happy to see me. She arched her back to at least two feet and growled, a deep rumbling growl that seemed to come from her belly.
“Nice pussy. Nice puddy-tat.”
She hissed at me, displaying two rather alarming pairs of fangs.
“Hey, that’s not nice,” I said, and hissed at her in return.
The next sound she made was more of an explosion than a hiss. Saliva drooled as she resumed growling.
“You really need to learn some manners, dear, if you intend to be a domestic cat.”
The beast was not amused and advanced regally in my direction. Not knowing what else to do, I obligingly held out my hand for her to sniff. Her Majesty must have interpreted this as an aggressive move, because out flashed a paw. I jerked back, but not before she made contact.
The fact that I shrieked is completely understandable, I’m sure. At least it brought Darren Cotter back into the room.
“What happened?”
“She lunged at me. Swatted at me, too.”
“Don’t worry, she’s declawed.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. I had it done when I had her spayed. She was a kitten then so she recovered pretty fast. I wouldn’t do it again, though.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t get that close again.”
“No, I meant the declawing. I used to think it was just a matter of removing the claws, but it’s much more than that. They actually have to remove all her toes up to the first knuckle. And since cats walk on the tips of their toes, and not the balls of their feet, like we do, they are forced to walk on bloody stubs until they heal. They have to scratch in their litter with those stubs as well. Then for the rest of their lives they walk on scar tissue. Can you imagine having your fingers chopped off at the first knuckle?”
I shuddered as a wave of guilt washed over me. Dmitri was declawed, but back then I had no idea what it entailed. All I knew was that I didn’t want my drapes and furniture shredded.