Cat in Wolf's Clothing (9781101578889)

by Adamson, Lydia

  We left the coffee shop and walked slowly to Mrs. Salzman’s apartment. We held hands as we walked, like children.

  On the way, I told him about Abelard. And I told him that since this was my last visit to Mrs. Salzman, I was determined to finally flush Abelard out and see him.

  Once inside, I saw that Mrs. Salzman had left me a lovely good-bye note in the kitchen, attached to my pay envelope. I put them both into my purse.

  “Where is the beast?” Tony asked.

  “Somewhere in the apartment. We have to listen and then corner him. Abelard is very elusive. But sometimes you can hear him under the furniture.”

  We walked slowly through the apartment, listening. We heard nothing.

  “Are you sure there’s a cat in this apartment?” Tony asked.

  “Don’t be stupid. Of course there is.” I pulled Tony first to the food dish and then to the litter box—both of which showed evidence that a cat lived in the apartment. “Abelard just doesn’t like to reveal himself,” I explained.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Suddenly Tony held his finger up to his lips, cautioning silence.

  A second later he slammed his hand down on a table! It sounded like an explosion.

  Then we clearly heard a scurrying under the furniture. It was Abelard!

  Tony walked forward. I followed. He slammed his hand down again on a piece of furniture. We heard Abelard scurrying away from the sound again.

  It was obvious what Tony was doing—he was driving poor Abelard into a corner with the loud sounds . . . like a sheepdog yaps at a flock of sheep.

  We kept moving down the hallway and finally cornered him in the alcove between the end of the hall and the living room—under a divan.

  “We’ve got him now,” Tony said gleefully. “I’ll pick up the divan. You grab your friend.”

  How I longed to finally see and hold Abelard! Tony started to lift the divan.

  “Wait!” I called out.

  He stared at me, confused. “What’s the matter, Swede? I thought you wanted to get this cat.”

  I turned away. Suddenly it dawned on me that I didn’t want to see poor Abelard. I found myself frightened by the bizarre possibility that when the divan was raised, I would not see Abelard—I would see Bast! I would see Bast rising off the floor in her cat-headed glory.

  “Leave him!” I said to Tony urgently. My back was wet with perspiration. We walked quickly out of the apartment as if pursued by demons.

  Once on the street, Tony said, “I think I got a glimpse of him, Swede. He had two ears, two eyes, one nose, four paws, and a tail. A very handsome cat indeed.”

  I wasn’t listening to his quip. I wanted to get back to my apartment quickly, where I could avoid all things Egyptian for a while. I was safe there. I mean, even if I was reincarnated in feline form, it wouldn’t be as Bushy or Pancho. They were just too difficult.

  Chapter 22

  The police officer blocked my way. He was burly. He said nastily: “No I.D.—no access! It’s as simple as that, lady.”

  “I don’t have an I.D. card. I don’t work for Retro anymore. Judy Mizener told me to come in and pick up some stuff I had forgotten to take.”

  I explained the situation to him like he was a child. I was furious at myself for coming to Retro again. But Judy Mizener had called me and said there was a whole batch of stuff in my cubicle that I had forgotten to clear out. She asked me to take it away as quickly as possible.

  At the mention of those magic words—Judy Mizener—the officer got on the phone.

  Ten seconds later he stepped aside, allowing me to enter the sacred precincts. I walked quickly to the small cubicle.

  There was a typed note fastened to the outside panel of the cubicle. It read:

  Alice:

  We moved your stuff to the north meeting room. Please pick it up there.

  Judy Mizener

  P.S. Arcenaux wants to plead guilty to obstruction-of-justice and income-tax-evasion charges in return for our dropping the conspiracy/murder charge. No decision yet. Take care of yourself.

  I crumpled the note and left it on the empty desk. I walked to the meeting room. There was no desire on my part to meet any Retro staff. Anyway, the halls were empty . . . the staff just wasn’t about.

  I stepped into the meeting room, closed the door behind me, and reached for the light switch on the wall.

  Something grabbed my wrist in an iron lock!

  I screamed in the darkness.

  Suddenly the room was flooded with light.

  I found myself staring at this enormous white face.

  It was only inches away.

  My legs were trembling. My heart was thumping in my chest. I stepped back.

  Then I realized that I was staring at a mouse face.

  I was staring at the face and body of a huge white mouse balloon that seemed to fill the entire room.

  A second later it vanished with an enormous bang.

  There was Judy Mizener, grinning, a shiny hat pin in her hand—the weapon that had punctured the toy.

  Suddenly the room filled up with people. There was Bert Turk and Rothwax and virtually the entire staff of Retro, including the computer operators.

  They started to clap, and it took me many dazed moments before I realized that they were clapping for me . . . and that the huge white mouse balloon toy had been their gift to me . . . their apology to me . . . and ultimately their tribute to me for a job well done.

  “I think we deserve a speech,” Judy Mizener said, holding up her hand for silence and then pulling me toward the center of the room.

  There were cans of beer and bottles of whiskey on the table in front of the blackboard, along with small sandwiches and Danish and a host of paper plates and cups. The whole thing was bizarre and touching. It was a surprise party for me.

  I looked around the room. They were all waiting for me to speak. There were no catcalls now.

  For the first time in my life, I was speechless. A thousand parts and I couldn’t remember one line.

  Still, they waited patiently.

  Finally I recited the only thing I could remember right then—the Mother Goose nursery rhyme about the crooked man who bought a crooked cat that caught a crooked mouse, and they all lived together in a little crooked house.

  Don’t miss Alice Nestleton’s next mystery adventure

  A CAT BY ANY OTHER NAME

  Available now from InterMix

  There were three Siamese kittens. Winken was on my head. Blinken was playing with my right thumb. And the third, Nod, was on the carpet in front of me, staring up at me with her profoundly sad eyes.

  A second later they all changed places, and I couldn’t tell who was who.

  The night was warm. The glass doors of the terrace were open, and I could see out over the East River and the lights of the Queensborough Bridge. Ava Fabrikant’s Sutton Place apartment was magnificent; it nestled like a jewel in the ivy-covered building, twenty-three stories above the river.

  We had eaten the orange duck, and now we were all waiting for the great moment. There was Ava and her husband, Les. Barbara Roman and her husband, Tim. Sylvia Graff and her gentle alcoholic husband, Pauly. Renee Lupo and myself.

  What was the great moment?

  The serving of peppermint tea.

  Oh, not just any tea! But tea brewed from the first crop to come up in our community herb garden on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Fifteen tiny green peppermint leaves.

  Three months before, one of my cat-sitting clients had told me about four women, all cat lovers, who were going to create an herb garden on a tiny parcel of wretched, garbage-strewn land, just off Avenue B. They were, she told me, going to plant basil and coriander and dill
and thyme and chamomile and peppermint. And, above all, they were going to plant catnip and catamint. Then, along with school children from the area, they were going to harvest and dry the herbs, package them, and sell them to gourmet food stores—with all the proceeds going to the ASPCA.

  It struck me as romantic and quixotic: An herb garden in the city?

  But why not? I hadn’t dug into the earth since I left my grandmother’s dairy farm to go to the big city almost twenty-five years ago. And I needed a change in my life. I needed something different—nontheatrical—basic.

  So I called and they welcomed me. The last three months of planning and planting and fertilizing a small desolate patch of urban earth had been glorious.

  Barbara Roman sat down on the sofa beside me. Winken, Blinken, and Nod immediately switched their allegiance and overran her. Her laughter came in peals. She picked Blinken up with one hand and held the kitten close to her face.

  “I wonder,” she said, “what Swampy would make of you”—Swampy was her grizzled old Tom cat. Then she kissed Blinken on the nose. That was too much and off the kitten flew, the other kittens following. Five seconds later they were out of sight.

  The sounds of gentle bickering over the brewing process wafted into the living room from Ava’s immense kitchen. “Hell hath no fury like middle-aged herb gardeners,” Barbara noted.

  I laughed. I was beginning to pick up a faint odor of peppermint. I turned to Barbara to tell her, but she had already picked it up and was nodding happily. We were very much in synch.

  Barbara was the first good friend I had made in twenty years. We spent hours on the phone together. She was interested in me: in my acting, in my cat sitting, in my crime solving, in the men who had shared my life. Barbara was literate and witty—but above all she had the gift of compassion. I was not the only person who thought that. Everyone who knew this small brown-haired woman with a penchant for smocks loved her. Even if they didn’t, they listened to her because she made sense. Maybe she was, in the old-fashioned sense, wise.

  She leaned over toward me. “Look at poor Renee.” I looked across the room where Sylvia Graff’s husband, Pauly, was telling her some kind of disjointed story. Barbara speculated, “Renee is making believe she’s listening, but her mind is on the peppermint tea.”

  Then a shout of triumph came from the kitchen, and Ava appeared, holding a tray. On the tray were eight tiny Japanese tea cups.

  “Drum roll, please!” she shouted at her husband, Les, who did his best by slamming a fork against a piece of furniture.

  Walking gingerly, as if she were carrying a priceless treasure, Ava approached the French Provincial dining table and carefully put the tray down.

  We all rushed to the table. Each of us picked up a cup and held it high.

  “Wait!” Les called out, “What about sugar?” He was greeted with such looks of withering scorn that he seemed to crunch down into the carpet.

  “A toast is definitely in order,” Sylvia said.

  “To the plant we plucked the leaves from,” Renee offered.

  It was a lovely toast. We drank the tea. (There were only two fingers’ worth in each cup.) After the great moment was over we placed the cups back onto the tray. No one knew what to say.

  “Well,” Ava finally said, “mine tasted like peppermint tea.” We all burst out laughing. There are few things as ludicrous as searching for superlatives when they just don’t apply.

  After the tea we had a delicious lemon mousse, strong French Roast coffee, and brandy.

  The hours flew by. No one made any move to leave. At around eleven thirty I found myself listening to Renee Lupo. Barbara stood next to me, sipping brandy. Behind her was Ava, holding a coffee cup.

  “I read this fascinating article about trap gardening,” Renee said.

  “What is trap gardening?” Ava asked, adding, “It sounds almost cruel.”

  Barbara handed me her brandy glass to hold. “I’ll be right back. I want to get some air.”

  “Well,” Renee continued, “imagine that you are growing potatoes. But each year you’ve tried to grow them in the past, they’ve been decimated by potato beetles. What do you do if you’re an organic gardener and refuse to use pesticides?”

  “Pray?” asked Ava.

  “No, you plant eggplant.”

  “Instead of the potatoes?” I asked, confused.

  “No, in addition to the potatoes. You see, there is only one crop potato beetles like better than potatoes—and that is eggplant. So, the beetles will decimate the eggplant and leave the potatoes alone.” Renee’s dark eyes flashed. She was a writer and very intense. She saw cosmic significance in the most mundane of things. . . .

  “What is that noise?” Ava asked. There was a noise now, a growing sound of horns.

  Les called out from the far side of the room. “There must be a backup on the East River Drive. Take a look out, Ava.”

  Ava handed me her coffee cup. I now had Barbara’s brandy glass in one hand and Ava’s coffee cup in the other. She walked out onto the terrace. I looked for a place to put the glass and the cup. . . .

  A horrible scream shattered the air around us! It seemed to suck the air from the room.

  It came from the terrace.

  We ran out and saw Ava standing by the terrace ledge. Her hands were cupping her face. The scream lingered on, gurgling in her throat.

  I stared down, out over the railing. The cars were backed up as far as the eye could see in both directions. Their headlights glowed like circular fireflies.

  On the highway, far below, lay a small black object.

  It was a body.

  We all looked around, furtively at first, then with increasing desperation.

  Barbara Roman was not among us.

  I looked at my hand. It was trembling. It still held the brandy glass. I walked slowly to the terrace wall and leaned against the brick so I wouldn’t fall.

  Barbara had handed me her brandy glass, walked out to the terrace, and leaped to her death.

  ***

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  Lydia Adamson is a pseudonym for a noted mystery writer and cat lover in New York City.

  Alice Nestleton Mystery Series eBooks from InterMix

  A Cat in the Manger

  A Cat of a Different Color

  A Cat in Wolf’s Clothing

  A Cat By Any Other Name

  Look for A Cat Tells Two Tales

  available now in print from Obsidian