Cat Me If You Can

by Miranda James

  I heard voices and looked in the direction of the sound. At the back entrance to the hotel stood two people chatting. One of them was Melba Gilley, the other her new friend, Paul Bowen. From what I could hear, Melba sounded tense. Their voices were too low for me to make out their words, but the tone was plainly audible.

  “Not right now, boy,” I said softly. “I think Melba wouldn’t want to be interrupted. Let’s stay where we are.”

  Diesel stopped straining at the leash, but he uttered a couple of sad meows. I thought Melba might have heard him because I saw her head twitch briefly in our direction, but her focus snapped right back to Paul Bowen. He had placed his hands on her shoulders and had drawn her closer to him.

  I glanced away, not wanting to invade their privacy any more than I already had.

  “What do you think is going on over there?” Helen Louise asked, her lips against my ear.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered back. “I think maybe they’re having a disagreement.”

  “They haven’t raised their voices,” Helen Louise said. “That’s a good sign.”

  I glanced toward the back door and found to my surprise that Paul Bowen had disappeared. Melba stood where he had left her, apparently staring into space. Had he gone to get something? Drinks, perhaps? There were several tables with chairs at one side of the garden.

  Melba turned her back to the door and surveyed the garden. I decided it would be okay to let Diesel go to her, and I let go of his leash. “Go ahead, boy. Go see Melba.” Diesel meowed before he trotted off in her direction.

  I nudged Helen Louise. “I think we’d better follow him.” She nodded and rose from the bench alongside me. We stepped out of the shade and headed toward Melba.

  Diesel had reached her, and I heard her say, “Sweet boy, what on earth are you doing out here? You’re not by yourself, surely.” She glanced around and saw us approaching. “Well, thank goodness. I was going to read you the riot act, Charlie Harris, if you’d let this baby out in the garden by himself.”

  She didn’t appear in the least self-conscious. She must have realized that we were in the garden while she was involved in her conversation with Paul Bowen, but she gave no sign that there was any kind of a problem.

  Helen Louise and I both hugged her and asked her about her trip to Asheville.

  “We spent the night in Atlanta, then drove on over to Asheville yesterday,” Melba said. “Paul’s car is the most comfortable thing I’ve ever ridden in, and thank the Lord, he doesn’t drive like a speed demon.” She scratched Diesel’s head and received a happy purring sound in return.

  “Sounds like a pleasant trip.” Helen Louise shot me a sideways glance.

  If Melba was upset with Paul over something, there was no indication of it in her demeanor now. Perhaps we had misread what we had seen a few minutes ago.

  “We drove over from Gatlinburg this morning,” I said. “Such a beautiful area. I’m so glad we came.”

  “I’m really looking forward to this.” Melba gave the garden an appreciative glance. “I’m thinking it sure would be nice to have coffee out here in the morning, or a drink in the evening.”

  “As long as the weather stays like this, it would be,” Helen Louise said.

  “What is Paul up to?” I asked, unable to restrain my curiosity. “Didn’t we see him with you a minute or two ago?”

  Melba gazed at me with narrowed lids. “He had to make a business call. Why are you so interested?”

  I shrugged. I should have been more subtle with my question. “Just wondering. I expect we’ll see him later on.”

  Helen Louise surprised both Melba and me with a sudden question. “Do you know Denis Kilbride?”

  “What on earth made you think of him?” Melba asked, obviously puzzled.

  “He arrived earlier, before we came out to the garden,” I said. “Maybe half an hour ago.”

  Melba looked thoughtful. “I know him. He’s been bird-dogging Ellie for the past few months. I can’t believe he followed her all the way here.”

  “He told the desk clerk, Arthur, that Ellie is his fiancée,” Helen Louise said.

  “That’ll be news to Ellie, I expect.” Melba snorted derisively. “She’ll have a fit when she finds out he’s here.”

  “Is he a stalker?” I asked bluntly.

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far.” Melba seemed hesitant. “He’s used to getting what he wants, and he wants Ellie.”

  “How well do you know her?” Helen Louise asked.

  Diesel strained at the leash suddenly, catching me off guard. I dropped the leash, and the cat shot off toward a corner of the garden.

  “Diesel, you come back here.” I rarely raised my voice to the cat, but this kind of behavior frightened me. He had probably seen a bird or a squirrel.

  When I caught up to him a few minutes later, he was rooting under a bush. I picked up the leash and admonished him. “Bad boy, Diesel. Bad boy.” I flapped the leash lightly to get his attention.

  “Everything okay?” Helen Louise spoke from behind me. I turned to see her steps away, Melba nowhere in sight.

  Diesel removed himself from under the bush and chirped and warbled at me.

  “No harm done, I guess,” I replied. “He must have seen a critter and couldn’t resist going after it.”

  Diesel now sat at my feet and gazed up at me, looking innocent and carefree, except for a smudge of dirt in his whiskers.

  Helen Louise chuckled and reached down to brush the dirt away. Diesel’s nose twitched, and he sneezed. “You were a bad boy to run off like that, sweetie,” Helen Louise told him, her tone soft despite the words. “You’d better not do that again.”

  He warbled, managing somehow to look both sad and contrite.

  I chuckled. “Rascal. That’s what I should have named him.” I gave the leash a gentle tug. “Come on, boy. Let’s go back inside.” I glanced at Helen Louise. “Is that okay with you?”

  She nodded. “I could use a glass of water right about now.”

  “Same here. Let’s go back to the room. I noticed complimentary bottles of spring water on the counter.”

  I waited until we were back in the room, our thirst quenched, before I queried Helen Louise about what I had missed when Diesel bolted. “What did Melba have to say about Ellie Arnold?” I removed Diesel’s harness and leash as we talked.

  “She’s known her since she was a little girl.” Helen Louise laughed. “You might have known. Evidently she used to babysit her. Ellie’s family lived on the next street, or something like that.”

  “Where Melba is concerned, Athena is a small, small town,” I said. “It never fails to amaze me how many people she knows, or at least has heard something about from somebody she knows well.”

  “She’s better than the Internet,” Helen Louise joked. “She knows things you won’t ever find searching the net.”

  “Did she tell you anything more about Ellie and Denis Kilbride?” I drained my water bottle and set it on the coffee table.

  “Kilbride isn’t an Athena native,” Helen Louise said. “He moved there about a dozen years ago, and Ellie was already working at the bank. Not as a loan officer, though. That came later. That’s how they met, actually. A while after Ellie got promoted, Kilbride came into the bank to get financing for one of his business plans, and she handled it.”

  “Sounds like that was some years ago,” I said. “Has he been carrying a torch for her ever since?”

  “It was about four years ago,” Helen Louise said. “I think that’s what Melba told me. After he secured the loan, and everything was set, Kilbride asked Ellie out. He’s an attractive man, and she went out with him. And they’ve been on-again, off-again ever since. Then Paul Bowen appeared, and Melba went off with him.”

  “I hope Kilbride’s being here isn’t going to disrupt the group,” I said
. “We don’t need any emotional dramas going on to ruin everything.”

  “Don’t be so pessimistic.” Helen Louise reached over to give my hand a squeeze. “I know how open conflict affects you, but I’m betting everyone will behave. Now that Denis Kilbride is here, maybe Ellie will forget about whatever issue she has with Zac, or vice versa.”

  “I sure hope you’re right,” I said. Diesel meowed loudly as if in agreement.

  “I think we’ve talked enough about all this,” Helen Louise said. “I’m ready for a real nap. How about you?”

  “Sounds fine to me.” I looked at Diesel. “You stay here, boy, all right?”

  The cat looked at me and meowed. He stretched out on the sofa once Helen Louise and I got up and headed for the bedroom. We closed the door behind us and left Diesel to his nap.

  SIX

  After dinner that evening, the mystery group assembled in the designated meeting room. Miss An’gel and Miss Dickce greeted us as we entered. I had retrieved Diesel from the bedroom and brought him down with us.

  I shot Ellie Arnold a curious look. Denis Kilbride had joined her for dinner, and I wondered whether he planned to join the group for its first meeting. He disappeared upstairs after the meal, however, and Ellie came alone into the room. She avoided looking in Zac’s direction, I noticed, and he paid her no attention, either.

  Miss An’gel, I had little doubt, had the hotel arrange the seating in a loose circle. She and Miss Dickce took chairs side by side, and the rest of us found places on chairs and sofas. Helen Louise and I occupied one of the latter along with Johnny Ray Floyd. Celia Bernardi and Zac Ryan shared the other sofa with Burdine Gregory. Elmore, Benjy, Melba, and Paul Bowen occupied the remaining chairs. Diesel chose to stretch out on the floor beside me at one end of our sofa after greeting most of the group.

  “Now that everyone is comfortable,” Miss An’gel said, “we shall begin. Sister and I are pleased that so many of the group decided to join us on this little adventure. I believe we’re going to have a lot of fun discussing mysteries and their writers, and the highlight might well be tomorrow when we visit Biltmore. Has anyone in the group ever been there before?”

  Helen Louise and Celia raised their hands.

  “I’m sure you won’t mind having a second visit,” Miss An’gel said, “especially with the group. I’ve arranged for Diesel to go along with us, thanks to a special dispensation.”

  Hearing his name, Diesel meowed, and Miss An’gel smiled. “I’m sure he’ll be a perfect gentleman while we’re there. We’ll meet in the morning at eight for a small bus to take us to Biltmore. Now, for tonight, why don’t we take turns talking a little about our favorite classic mystery writers, the ones we’ll each be talking more about during the week. We can move on in a few days to more recent writers.”

  “Sister, you’re forgetting something,” Miss Dickce said, her tone pointed.

  Miss An’gel turned to look at her. “And what, pray tell, is that?”

  “Since Sister has forgotten, I’ll tell you all about it.” Miss Dickce smiled. “The hotel has a list of the best restaurants in town, with varying levels of prices, and all you have to do is ask Arthur at the front desk for a copy. They were supposed to put them in your rooms but that didn’t happen. Those of you who have been wanting to try North Carolina barbecue will have several choices.”

  “Thank you, Sister,” Miss An’gel said. “Now, who would like to talk first?” She looked pointedly at me, and I knew I’d better not ignore the prompt.

  “I’ll go first,” I said at the same moment Burdine Gregory raised her hand.

  “Please do, Charlie,” Miss An’gel said. “Burdine, you’ll be next.”

  “I’m sure none of you will be surprised by my choice,” I said, “because you’ve heard me mention Margery Allingham a few times before. She is my favorite Golden Age mystery writer.”

  Benjy’s hand shot up. He wasn’t a regular member of the group, though I knew he did enjoy reading mysteries. “Excuse me, Charlie, but what is the Golden Age?”

  “Good question,” I said. “It’s the period between the two World Wars when the classic detective story flourished, roughly 1920 to 1940. Some push it a little later, to the end of World War II. It was a time when writers like Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Margery Allingham flourished and thousands of detective stories were published. They were all chiefly what we would call ‘fair play’ stories, in which the authors lay out the clues to allow the reader to solve the mystery along with the detective in the book.”

  “Thanks,” Benjy said. “I’ve read Agatha Christie, and Miss Dickce has some books by a writer named Anthony Gilbert I’ve read. I think he fits the period.”

  “Yes, Anthony Gilbert does, though she—and she was a woman named Lucy Malleson—continued writing until around 1970.” I glanced around the room. No one was openly yawning, and I took that as a good sign.

  “Back to Margery Allingham. She was the creator of Albert Campion, a private detective who lived under a pseudonym. We find out eventually that he’s actually a member of the royal family, though not in the direct line of succession, as I recall. His family mostly turns a blind eye to his activities. His stock-in-trade is an air of genial idiocy. He also wears large horn-rimmed spectacles. The villains generally underrate him because he appears foolish to them, but he’s actually really clever.”

  “What is it you admire so much about Allingham?” Paul Bowen asked. “I’ve seen the name, but I’ve never read any of her work.”

  “I love her writing and the creative mind behind it. If you read her books in chronological order of publication,” I said, “I think you’ll see the way she grew and changed as a writer. She published her first book at sixteen, and she was younger than the other Golden Age queens of crime like Christie and Sayers. You can see the effects of the two World Wars in her work, I believe, in ways that you don’t in the others. Sayers, for example, stopped writing mysteries before World War II. Christie continued, but the war really doesn’t make much impact in her books. At least not in the way it does in Allingham’s work.”

  “Thank you, Charlie. You know I’m also an Allingham fan, and I think you’ve given us enough to intrigue those who haven’t read her,” Miss An’gel said. “Burdine, who’s your favorite?”

  Burdine leaned forward eagerly. “My favorite authors from this period are Richard and Frances Lockridge. They’re Elmore’s favorites, too.” She glanced briefly at her husband, and he nodded. I had to wonder if they really were Elmore’s favorites, or whether Burdine had decided they were. “They wrote the Pam and Jerry North books, about a sophisticated couple in New York who solved mysteries between rounds of cocktails.” She laughed. “They also had cats. The best known ones are Martini and her kittens, Gin and Sherry. Pam was the one who actually solved the mysteries. Jerry was a publisher and was there in the background. Pam’s logic is a bit screwy, but she always figures things out before Lieutenant Weigand, the New York City cop who’s a friend of the Norths.”

  “Wasn’t there a movie with Gracie Allen?” Melba asked, her brow wrinkled. “I’m pretty sure I saw it a few years ago on some old movie channel.”

  Elmore said, “Yes, she played Pam North in the movie. There was a stage play that was the source for the movie. A radio program and a television series, too. How many of you have read any of the books?”

  I raised my hand, as did the Ducotes and Celia Bernardi. I let my gaze roam around the assembled company. Everyone seemed engaged in the meeting, although I did witness covert glances flashing back and forth between Ellie and Zac now, and Zac gazing at Benjy. The latter appeared oblivious to the attention paid to him by Zac.

  Burdine took over again. “I love the husband-and-wife team, of course, but it’s also that air of New York sophistication and glamor that appeals to me. The mysteries are good, too. Sadly, Frances died in 1963, and Richard stopped writing
the series. He did write other mysteries afterward, and he remarried a couple of years after Frances’s death. His second wife, Hildegarde Dolson, wrote a few mysteries of her own.”

  “I love the Lockridges,” Celia said. “In fact, I was going to talk about them myself, but Burdine beat me to it.” She sounded annoyed.

  “Do you have another author you’d like to talk about?” Miss An’gel asked.

  Celia shrugged. “I’ll have to think about it. Go on to someone else.”

  Johnny Ray Floyd stuck up his hand. “I can go next, if that’s okay.”

  “Certainly,” Miss An’gel said.

  “I love Agatha Christie, and I’ve read some of Ngaio Marsh, too, but my favorites from this period are Americans. Chiefly Rex Stout and Elizabeth Daly. Daly is at the tail end of the Golden Age. She didn’t publish her first mystery until she was sixty-two, and that was in 1940. But Rex Stout fits the period. His character was Nero Wolfe, and Wolfe’s sidekick was Archie Goodwin. They appeared in 1934 and continued on until Stout’s death in 1975.”

  “I love Archie Goodwin,” Ellie Arnold said, a touch of animation in her expression. “Did you see the TV series that Timothy Hutton did? I thought he was great as Archie.”

  “Yeah, he was good.” Johnny Ray nodded. “Got it all on DVD, as well as the one with William Conrad and Lee Horsley. There’s even an Italian series I’ve read about, but I haven’t seen it.”

  “I’ve always thought it interesting that Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin are private detectives,” Miss Dickce said. “Archie also functions like a private eye. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I think I do,” Helen Louise said. “When I think of a private detective, I think of Hercule Poirot, or Miss Maud Silver, Patricia Wentworth’s series character. They operate in a more genteel world, while the private eye, like Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade, operates on the mean streets.”

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Johnny Ray said eagerly. “Wolfe is like Poirot, the eccentric genius, and Archie is more like Marlowe or Spade. He gets out on the mean streets and leaves Wolfe in the brownstone where life is real civilized, with orchids and gourmet food.”