Cat Call (Crazy Cat Lady Cozy Mysteries Book 4)

by Mollie Hunt

  In Norse mythology, the chariot of Freya, goddess of beauty, love, and fertility, is drawn by two large long-haired cats. These cats were often connected with the powers of creativity, the Earth Mother, and fertility gods.

  As I cruised the stretch of Milwaukie Avenue that ran parallel to the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, I caught glimpses of the Willamette and downtown beyond. City lights reflected an unearthly orange on both the river and the low overcast that had settled on the crest of the West Hills. It was even later than I’d imagined, after midnight, and all I wanted to do was get home and into a hot bath. Burn away the chill and the scary feeling that there was more to tonight’s misfortune than met the eye. A man may be dead. Was it that mystifying hex or something more human and ever more sinister? I was still hesitant to accept the supernatural take, but something—‌someone—‌was making mischief on the set of McCaffrey & Jack. People were getting hurt, and if that scissor lift hadn’t faltered on that rock, I would have been one of them. No telling what might have happened had that lift kept coming at me. One thing was for sure, I wouldn’t be driving down this highway. I shuddered, trying not to think about it, and failing.

  I was also trying not to think about the apparition I’d witnessed in the parking lot. I could almost convince myself I’d been seeing things, the result of stress, exhaustion, and a dirty trailer window, but I kept coming back to Jason Prince. The look on his face said it all. If I was experiencing hallucinations, I wasn’t the only one.

  All of a sudden television work didn’t seem so glamorous; in fact it was turning out to be gruesomely macabre. It was strenuous at the best of times, and when one had to worry about one’s sanity and possibly one’s life on top of that, it hardly seemed worth the trouble.

  But I wasn’t doing it for me, I reminded myself; I was helping out Rhonda. Rhonda, who was in the hospital after suffering an accident on the set. Were all TV shows fraught with such disasters, or was it only McCaffrey & Jack?

  When I got home and checked my phone, I saw I’d missed a text from Gerrold’s assistant, Bear. It was brief, saying only that changes had been made to the schedule, and the movie cats and I were going to have a day off. I won’t begin to say how relieved I felt that I wouldn’t be required to go back and face that hapless (or hexed) set for another twenty-four hours.

  The impromptu respite also meant that I could go ahead with plans I’d made long before I knew I’d have a gig as a stand-in cat handler, specifically the Friends of Felines very exclusive ASPCA dinner presentation arranged for the following evening. I’d been looking forward to it—‌so much so that I hadn’t canceled, even when I learned we would be shooting. For once, my procrastination paid off since now it turned out I could still go. The event began at five o’clock, which gave me plenty of time to put in a shift at the shelter, go to the bank and the pharmacy, and drop by the hospital to see how Rhonda was faring with her leg.

  I wondered about the fate of the young camera operator. Bear hadn’t mentioned Juno in his text; was that bad or good?

  My cats were joyous to see me, though not so much the carriers housing Clark Gable and Cary Grant. There was unbridled curiosity and a few hisses from Violet, who at twenty-two pounds, considered herself the clowder heavyweight in more ways than one. I whisked the boys into their back suite, promising the others I’d return to give them dinner in a jiffy.

  “Me-rrow,” Emilio said, slipping in behind me like a large furry shadow before I could close the door.

  “Oh, Emilio,” I addressed the robust black longhair. “Are you going to play ambassador?”

  I set the carriers down in the center of the small room and opened the gates. Emilio me-rrowed again and focused a yellow-eyed stare on the boys. They returned two sets of gleaming golden orbs on him. For a moment they held each other’s gazes. I wasn’t sure what would happen and was ready to pull Emilio from the room if there was any sign of conflict. On the other hand, introductions were part of cat life. Once the boys got acquainted with my clowder, they could have the run of the house.

  Clark Gable was the first out, walking slowly toward the ebony stranger. The two sniffed noses, then Emilio gave Clark a little lick on the sideburn. Clark began to purr—‌all good there.

  Cary Grant was ignoring the union completely, heading straight from carrier to food station and plunging his tongue into the water bowl. It was down to half and I needed to refill it, to say nothing of dishing up their gourmet fare. The other cats vocally required dinner as well. Ten cats in the house, I thought to myself. Maybe I am the crazy cat lady after all.

  “Time to say goodnight,” I told Emilio as I plucked him up into my arms. “More play tomorrow, I promise.”

  Zombie-tired, I went through the motions of squaring away the cats. It was the abbreviated form, but half an hour later, everyone was fed and settled. Violet sprawled on her pillow in the kitchen, close to her dish. Old Dirty Harry curled up in his fleecy donut, and Mab, the Siamese kitten, jumped in with him, her tiny silver body nearly lost in his large tuxedo. I looked in on Clark and Cary as I headed upstairs. They were washing up from their midnight snack. They both regarded me, blinking slowly to tell me everything was fine, then went back to their baths. Emilio, Little, and Tinkerbelle accompanied me to the bedroom with Big Red lurking in the background. He would come up on the bed once I was established under the covers. His fear of being underfoot had decreased since I brought the tiger tabby stray in from my porch years back, but it had never completely gone away.

  “Goodnight, all,” I whispered as I switched off the light.

  I’d forgotten to shut the venetian blinds, and through the slats I could see pearl-edged clouds scudding across a waxing moon. Exhausted as I was, sleep didn’t come easily. The leftover ache of adrenaline and sore muscles; the unanswerable question of why. My senses told me something was very wrong on the set of McCaffrey & Jack. Was it a prankster who didn’t know where to draw the line? Did someone have it in for the show? A grudge? A joke? A psychopathic fan? Could it, by any stretch of the imagination, really be the supernatural? I kept circling back to the concept of a hexter. But that was nonsense, wasn’t it? Hexes weren’t real; they were something made up in fairy tales, the dark, creepy kind like the Grimm brothers wrote back in the early eighteen-hundreds. Witches, wizards, devils and demons. Stories to scare naughty children into behaving themselves. As my mind finally slowed into sleep, I wasn’t quite so certain anymore.

  * * *

  The creature with the seven arms had got hold of me and was dragging me into its lair. I was fighting, fighting, but to no avail. There was a light. If I could just get to the light I would be safe. It was growing brighter. I might escape after all.

  The light consolidated into a set of squares, the old fashioned wood frame windows of my bedroom. Through the open blinds streamed the sunlight of the new day. I blinked hard in the glare and moved to sit up but found I had wound myself in my blankets—‌the arms of the monster. All my cats had forsaken me except Big Red who was now a stubborn, furry weight on my left leg.

  I took a deep breath, exorcizing the remainder of sleep from my brain. I began untangling, but before I could get myself completely de-mummified, the phone rang. Dang, I’d left it in the pocket of my robe on the arm chair by the window. Wrenching myself from the last knot of bedclothes and grabbing my glasses, I stumbled over to it.

  The display showed only a number, not a name, and I considered letting the unknown caller leave a message—‌or not, as they chose—‌but what with new contacts from both the show and the hospital, I decided to take it after all.

  “Hello?” My voice was husky with slumber.

  “Lynley? Is that you?”

  “Rhonda? How are you?”

  “Oh, getting better. They’re moving me to the nursing home today. Did I wake you? You don’t sound like yourself.”

  “No, I was awake,” I mumbled, looking at the clock by my bed which glowed a cheerful red 9:26. “The shooting ran late last night.”
/>
  “Yeah,” she sighed. “I know how it goes. Been there, done that, as they say.”

  I sank down in the arm chair, pulling my bathrobe around me like a plush Batman cape. “You do sound better. Do they know when you’ll be able to go back to work?”

  “Had enough of show biz?” she snickered.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean...”

  “That’s okay, Lynley. It’s a lot harder than people on the outside could ever imagine. Three hours’ work for a two-second clip. It isn’t for everyone, I know for a fact. But that’s what I was calling about. You’re off the hook.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve found someone else, Vera from my theater group who has done a little cat wrangling in the past and knows a few of the crew. She’s agreed to step in for me until I get back on my leg.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful.”

  The moment I said it, I knew it was a lie, or at least not as true as I might have liked it to be. I could have sworn I wanted to be done with that accursed production; now I found myself unready to let it go. There was a mystery on that set. I couldn’t just walk away and leave it unsolved.

  “But Rhonda, I don’t mind, really. I love working with the cats and they seem to like me. I’ve enjoyed what we’ve done so far.”

  “Oh, really? Even when the equipment falls on your head?”

  “You heard about that?”

  “Yes, Grace called me this morning. It’s horrible. Poor Juno. Such a sweet young man. Everyone’s praying for him. He’s attending Northwest Film Center, did you know? Only has a few more semesters to go.”

  “I’d really only met him that once, during the search for Cary Grant.”

  “Dear Cary. Grace said he was on set when it happened. How did he take it? Oh, I miss the boys so much.”

  “Cary’s fine. He was scared but everybody tended to him, including Clark. He didn’t seem at all upset by the time I brought him home last night.”

  “He’s a trooper.”

  I shifted in my chair as Little hopped up on the arm to greet me, cool black nose pressed into my phone hand as if to say, “Hang up now, it’s breakfast time”.

  “Soon, Little.” Of Rhonda, I asked, “Did Grace have any news about Juno?”

  “I gather he’s still in ICU.”

  “Um,” I began, then faltered.

  “Lynley, what is it?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “Nothing? Really?” Rhonda said cynically.

  “It’s just that, well, if it weren’t for me, Juno would be safe. He got hurt trying to keep the scissor lift from hitting me, you know.” I hesitated, then burst out, “I can’t help but feel responsible.”

  “That’s silly, honey. It had nothing to do with you. I warned you that set is hexed, that the hexter is out for blood. Everyone knew it—‌even Juno.” There was a pause. “Especially Juno.”

  “What do you mean, ‘especially Juno’?”

  “Have you had a chance to read the notes I gave you?”

  “The notes—‌no, I’m so sorry. With all the craziness, I forgot all about them.”

  “Well, I have to caution you—‌on looking back, I was a bit drugged up when I wrote them, so you can take them with a grain of salt. But please read them over and let me know what you think. This latest disaster makes me more certain than ever that there’s evil afoot. I would never forgive myself if something happened to you.”

  “Okay, I’ll check it out,” I assured her.

  “Now, Lynley.”

  “I’ll read them the minute I hang up. I promise.”

  “And you’ll call me right back so we can talk some more?”

  “If you want me to.” I wavered. “Rhonda, yesterday you said something about murder. What did you mean by that? Do you think the lift accident could have been an attempted murder?”

  I heard her sigh, long and deep. “Of course that hadn’t happened when I wrote the list, and like I said, I was pretty much out of it—‌they’d put me on morphine and who knows what else. But I’ve had a bad feeling for a while that all this misfortune was leading up to something terrible.”

  “Escalating?”

  “Exactly. At first it was just little stuff—‌things going missing or turning up broken. Nothing really harmful. But then the incidents got worse—‌the deal with my step and now the scissor lift. That lift hit someone, and that someone is badly injured, or worse. If, Heaven forbid, Juno doesn’t make it, then it’s murder. This hexter must be stopped before she hurts anyone else.”

  I stared out the window but my mind was back in Oaks Bottom. “Look,” I said carefully. “What if there is no hexter? What if it’s just someone from the show, trying to get attention or play tricks? Maybe they’d only meant to cause a scare with the spontaneous start-up of the lift engine. Maybe they didn’t think what might happen if the wheel caught on a rock like it did.

  Rhonda was quiet on the other end of the line, then she said, “These events aren’t innocent. I’d stake my reputation as a cat lady on that.”

  “Then maybe someone did rig the prank with malice aforethought. Still a person. Still not a ghost. Have you considered that?

  “I’ve considered it,” she said defensively, “but only a sociopath would pull a prank that could kill someone. I think I’d notice if there were a sociopath hanging around.”

  “Well, that’s the thing about sociopaths. They blend right in with everyone else. Besides, maybe it’s not a sociopath at all but someone who wants it to look like a hex, someone with an agenda.”

  “That’s a lot of maybes, Lynley.”

  “I know, but it’s all I got. Do you know of anyone who would want the show to fail?”

  “Of course not. Why would they?” There was a pause, a strained silence, then she gave a nervous laugh. “Hexter, sociopath, or a man with a mission. Well, you decide, Lynley. Either way, something has to be done.”

  “I agree. Someone’s got to stop the madness before it’s too late, if it isn’t already,” I added grimly.

  “But who?”

  “The police are investigating. If the lift was tampered with, they’ll figure it out.”

  “I hope so, Lynley, though I’m not sure how far they’ll get chasing a supernatural being.”

  “You’re really convinced this isn’t just some crazy person’s idea of a joke?”

  “Logically, my mind says there has to be a rational, and human, explanation, but my intuition tells me otherwise. Sorry, Lynley. There’s more to this than some crazy guy with a lousy sense of humor.”

  I heard talking in the background.

  “Hey, I’ve got to go. Doctor’s here about my transfer.”

  “Okay. Keep me posted.”

  “Call me back in a few minutes?” Her voice was deadly serious. “This shouldn’t take long.”

  “Do you really think...”

  “Please Lynley,” she said hurriedly. “Read the notes and call me back at this number. Promise?”

  “Alright, I swear.”

  Chapter 14

  Are cats natural sleuths? With their excellent hearing, eyesight, and sense of smell, not to mention their innate ability to pick up on what’s happening around them, they would make first-rate detectives.

  Rhonda rang off to get ready for her move to the extended care facility, and I pulled on undies and sweats and took myself downstairs. As the coffee brewed, I rifled through my purse to find Rhonda’s notes. Coffee in hand and ignoring the cats who thought it was way past breakfast time, I sat down to read.

  On one side of the lined yellow page ran a numbered and dated list of events; on the other, a series of speculations. I decided to begin with the facts. Most of the incidents were minor, such as the charter bus running out of gas. These were the type of things that would aggravate, frustrate, and at the worst, hold up production. These also could be explained away as misfortunes or possibly pranks or practical jokes, but none of them would be considered injurious. On a whim, I rustled up a pen and added the los
t boxes of props. I thought for a moment, then put down Grace’s hinkey iron as well, jotting a question mark beside it.

  Below that set were three other incidents, more serious in nature. There had been a fire in the craft truck when the coffee machine short circuited because of a frayed cord. According to the notes, it was ruled accidental negligence but Rhonda obviously thought otherwise. The word fire was underlined several times.

  Then there had been a bout of stomach sickness thought to be caused by bad mayonnaise. In the margin, Rhonda had scribbled poison?

  The final incident was Rhonda’s fall. She must have heard about the tread being intentionally cut because she had written sabotaged—‌no question mark there.

  I added Falling lift as number four, and sat back to read it over again.

  One thing I hadn’t heard about before was the rash of threatening graffiti. Apparently there had been several spray-painted messages scattered around the set. Rhonda hadn’t given details except to say they were hex-related. I suppose if someone were trying to pass off their subversion as otherworldly, it might help to steer people’s minds in that direction with a little supernatural advertising.

  The more I read, the more convinced I was that the whole thing had been executed by a human being—‌a crazy, maybe even evil human being, but human just the same. Spray-painted hex threats do not a hexter make.

  I couldn’t imagine anything that would lead me to think differently. Then I turned the yellow page over and read the other side.

  * * *

  “So what sort of drugs were you on when you saw the apparition?”

  “None. Nothing. Nada,” Rhonda proclaimed from the other end of the phone. “Lynley, you know me. I’m a down to earth, practical fifty-three-year-old woman. Sure, I dabbled a bit in spiritualism when I was younger, and I have a healthy respect for things beyond the realm of human knowledge, but I’m certainly not prone to delusion. I can’t explain it. If you can, go ahead and try.”

  I could no more explain Rhonda’s sighting of the ghostly hex figure than I could my own. So far I’d kept that bit of information to myself, wanting to hear her take on the matter before admitting I also had seen—‌or thought I’d seen—‌something I believed was beyond possible.