Cat by Any Other Name (9781101597729) (8 page)

Chapter 13

“Claire, I like my women to show up early. I like to see them waiting for me.”

I took the empty barstool next to Detective Rothwax. “Well, I'm not early,” I said. “I'm merely on time. And you're not calling me from Retro now—my name is not Claire!”

“Why so snappy, Cat Lady? I'm the one who took the big risk.”

“I'm sorry, Detective. I didn't sleep well, and my nerves are a little frayed.”

This had to be the darkest bar I'd ever been in. But it was hardly anyone's idea of a romantic hideaway. From some faraway corner, a static-filled radio droned.

“Why don't we take care of first things first?” Rothwax said. “What are you drinking?”

“I don't know. Nothing heavy. A bottle of ale might be nice.”

“No bottled ale here,” he said.

“Whatever they have then.”

When my stein of beer arrived, I noticed that it had practically no foam. It smelled a little stale and looked a little thick. But I didn't complain. As I don't like beer, and knew I would only have a few sips, it made no difference.

“You don't look very comfortable,” Rothwax observed. “Maybe this place is a little too downscale?”

I noticed the smirk on his face, but I let the comment pass. Apparently, Detective Rothwax was incapable of passing up any opportunity to tweak me.

“I prefer to think of this place not as seedy but . . . what? . . .
mysterious.
Know what I mean? And besides, you seem like the kind of actress who could get into studying the down-and-outs.”

I sipped my drink and asked, in a calm tone of voice: “Do you have something for me, Marma-duke?”

He turned on his seat to face me then. “Yeah, I do. But I just want to ask you one thing first.”

“Which is?”

“Is this Roman guy your number one—in addition to being your number-one suspect?”

“I have no intention of discussing that with you,” I said, more prissily than I'd intended.

His laugh was short and dirty. “Watch your step, Alice. That's not very professional.”

I attempted to say something else to put him in his place, but he cut me off and launched into his report.

“First of all, your number-one friend—the bereaved—filed a divorce action two years ago. But it was never executed. I don't know why. Anyway, the action was withdrawn.”

I sat up very straight.

“I take it you didn't know that?” he said.

I shook my head, silent.

“Ready for fact number two?”

“Go on,” I said.

“Mr. Roman uses a mail drop.”

“What's a mail drop? Something like a post office box?”

“Sort of. Let me explain it to you.” He said that as though my ignorance of these matters was some sort of moral failing. “Okay. You're a cat-sitter, right? Imagine that you want to expand your business. You put an ad in the paper. But you don't want to use your real name for some reason, and you don't want all the replies coming to your apartment. So you go downtown to the city clerk's office. There, you file a paper that says from now on you'll be doing business in New York as the Bombay Cat Company. You pay a fee to do business in the city, and you get a certificate and a tax number. Now you take the tax certificate to a place that is going to be your mail drop—say, 507 Fifth Avenue. You show them the certificate and pay another small fee up front and agree to a monthly charge of twenty bucks, and you can receive as much mail for the Bombay Cat Company as the suckers—customers—want to send. And you get a listing in the lobby. All you have to do is show up every few days and collect your mail.”

“And Tim Roman does that?” I asked, not sure how all this nonsense applied to Tim.

“Right. He has a mail drop at 500 Fifth Avenue under the name of Oak Tree Designs.”

“Well that makes sense, I suppose. He
is
a furniture designer.”

“I guess. But there's a complicating factor.”

“What's that?”

“This company name he uses, ‘Oak Tree,' which isn't really a company at all, just a mail drop, leases an apartment.” Rothwax smiled again. “Just stop me if I'm telling you anything that you already know.”

“I don't know of any apartment other than the one he lives in—lived in with his wife.”

“Well, this one is in the Village. A walk-up on Bedford Street, which is a couple of blocks east of Hudson.”

One surprise after another. Tim was full of them. I felt a little sick. I copied down the address Rothwax gave me, and then asked, “How long has he had this place?”

“Six years.”

I calculated the odds of Barbara's having known about that apartment. I calculated the odds that Tim and Renee had been lovers for all those years. The odds that all Tim and Barbara's friends had been hoodwinked into believing they'd had a wonderful, serene, trusting, ideal marriage.

“Was any of that helpful, Cat Woman?”

“Very much so, Detective. Very much so.”

“Always happy to help a lady open a can of worms, you know. Now, how about another drink?”

I shook my head.

As Detective Rothwax inhaled his sandwich, I thought back to that last evening of Barbara's life, when Renee had told us about trap gardening: You trap garden pests by luring them away from their primary goal. I decided to do a little trapping of my own.

Chapter 14

Ava was throwing a tantrum in the peppermint patch. We were all in the herb garden, along with three neighborhood children who were garden helpers.

Ava was holding something up and yelling out: “I know these things are killing the peppermint. I know these ugly creatures are going to destroy the whole garden before we get it all harvested. I know it! I know it! I know it!”

Renee, Sylvia, and I stood gaping at the small object in Ava's hand. It appeared to be some kind of worm or slug—white and undulating.

“I
must
know what this is. I have to know!” Ava cried out.

“It's Uncle Wiggly,” Sylvia commented wryly, “tunneling his way to Connecticut.”

Ava shot a furious glance her way.

Returning to her own work, Renee called over her shoulder, “Kill the bloody thing.”

As she said it, I looked closely at her dark, lovely face.
Kill the bloody thing.
The words had a certain ugly resonance. Could she have pronounced Barbara's fate in that same cold-blooded, matter-of-fact voice?

Dark women threw me, particularly if they were intense—and Renee certainly was that. Since childhood I had had that old romantic nonsense rooted in my head that light-haired women could be ice maidens or bubbleheads, but dark women knew the secret things—the things that count. Growing in me now was a radiating rage toward Renee and her lover. But with that rage, confusion. Why was Tim sleeping with both of us? Why had he started up with me? Did Renee know? And had Barbara known about Renee?

“Where there's one, there are many more,” Ava was still raving. “They're down there right now, destroying.” Then she flung the wriggling slug away, as hard as she could, but because it was so small we couldn't see where it landed.

“You're the one who's always quoting those dumb horticultural books you read.” Ava hurled those hostile words in Renee's direction. “Why can't you tell us how to get rid of these horrible, slimy creatures?”

It was odd how all of this animosity had surfaced so suddenly. The ghost of Barbara's love was definitely not hovering about the garden today. The four of us were like the survivors of some horrible accident, trying to forget what had brought us all together in the first place. Without Barbara, it was becoming painfully clear how little the rest of us had in common.

“Listen, dear,” Renee was saying carefully, trying to defuse Ava's anger. “Peppermint is very hardy. The books say it's plagued by very few pests. Besides, when it was introduced here after the Civil War—”

“But peppermint
is
American,” Ava cut in haughtily.

“Hardly,” Renee shot back. “It most likely originated in Hindustan, and then was carried to Egypt, and from there to England.”

“You know so much,” Ava said bitterly, “but you can't even identify a worm that's going to kill all our plants.”

That's when I stepped in. I shouted at the top of my lungs, as if to call time-out before a game broke into fistfights.

“We are all tired and on edge! I am declaring an official break! I want you all to come to my apartment for lunch today!”

There were no takers at first. Everyone had an appointment, a duty, a headache. But I wore them down.

“Just for an hour or so. Come at twelve thirty. We'll be done by two. I think it's a good idea to meet in another setting once in a while. We're at each other's throats today. And we're supposed to be friends. After all, didn't we decide to finish what we started here at the garden because of our friendship with Barbara?”

They hesitated, looking sheepishly at one another. I watched Renee's face. She was the key. The trap had been set just for her. I wanted to find out once and for all if she and Tim had been, or continued to be, lovers. And whether they'd been responsible, in any way, for Barbara's death.

“Well,” Sylvia finally said, “it's fine with me. But don't go to any trouble, Alice. It's too warm to eat, anyway.”

“Yes,” Ava agreed. “I'd love to meet Bushy, though.” She smiled. “Barbara told so many funny stories about him.”

Renee looked at me strangely, almost slyly, I thought. I couldn't tell whether she suspected that I was up to something. “It's very kind of you, Alice,” she said. “Of course we'll come.”

I noticed the grin on Sylvia's face then. She was looking and pointing to the far side of the garden, where one of the neighborhood children, hardly more than a toddler, was helping another with the weeding of the basil.

“Isn't that divine?” she cooed. “Imagine how happy it would have made her to see that.”

At least I was leaving them all in a more agreeable mood—for the moment, anyway.

I headed for the cheese shop on Second Avenue. Waiting in line, I saw a tall man who reminded me of Tim. An awful thought came to me: What if Tim called or—far worse—decided to drop in while all the ladies were lunching? We'd have the makings of a real drawing-room farce then. Or the closing scene in a Charlie Chan movie.

I made a couple of other quick purchases—fresh berries, water biscuits, real cream—and by the time I'd reached Twenty-Third Street I had everything I needed except the pastries. Those I would obtain in the chi-chi patisserie around the corner from my place.

But when I walked through the door and saw the dazzling array of goodies, I was hit by a sudden and paralyzing loss of will. I simply didn't know what to get. I stood in front of the counter for the longest time. Then it became clear: For the moment, I was my Gram. My grandmother was a strong woman who had run a Minnesota dairy farm all by herself. She was plain and tough, but she also had her own aesthetic. And she would have been appalled by the ostentation and overkill of a place like this. She might have accepted a choice between white bread and black bread, but a third or fourth choice would have struck her as being the height of frivolity. Having gained a new perspective on the matter by becoming my Gram for a moment, I quickly selected four raspberry tarts and one kiwi from the tray that the smiling young woman behind the counter was holding up for me. She boxed and tied them with a flourish, then sent me on my way with a cheerful “Bon appetit!” The truth was, I wasn't my Gram! I appreciated the good things of life too much for that.

Out I strode, to cover the final block to my place. I hadn't gone three steps before I realized what I'd just done. I'd purchased five tarts, when there would only be four for lunch. The fifth was unlike the others, and I'd bought it for Barbara.

At that moment I knew I
had
to solve the mystery of Barbara's death, justice and revenge and ego and jealousy and all else aside. Because if I didn't do that soon, I was going to go all the way around the bend.

Chapter 15

I could hear them laughing as they made their way slowly up the stairs. They were three wealthy women. Every one of them lived in a building with an elevator. I could tell from their voices that the climb up to my apartment both tired and amused them. It was a kind of adventuresome slumming—like going to a play in an out-of-the-way loft.

They were all a little breathless when I admitted them. All still dressed in their gardening duds, three elegant farmers on a coffee break.

I gave them each a tall glass of iced coffee to refresh them.

“Oh, dear,” Ava exclaimed, looking ruefully down at her three-hundred-dollar boots. “We should have taken our shoes off. I'll bet there's loads of dirt from the garden we're tracking all over Alice's home.”

“Don't worry,” I said. “I'm under no illusion that this is a Japanese restaurant. And besides, even actresses own vacuum cleaners.”

They laughed at that, but it was really Sylvia who set the tone for the luncheon. “I'm so glad you asked us over for this little repast, Alice. You were right—we needed to get out of the garden for a bit. And I for one flatly refuse to discuss anything pertaining to that place this afternoon. Not fertilizer, not worms, not how many packets sold. Not anything!”

She was roundly applauded.

“What a beautiful table!” Ava had strode over to my long table, which stood against the far wall and which was now laden with goodies.

Sylvia and Renee followed suit, their hands and eyes running over the table. It was the only piece of real furniture in my apartment. The other pieces amounted to little more than a grab bag assembled over the years by a perpetually out-of-work actress who used to move every time the lease was up and sometimes before.

But this table had been my grandmother's. And it was the only large memento of her life and times on the dairy farm that I still had.

She had used it as a kitchen table. It was well over two hundred years old and originally had come from France. Gram had bought it at an auction when she was first married. The table was made of cherry wood, and it was so tough it probably could withstand a nuclear attack. There were sliding drawers and planks all around the sides.

“It was my grandmother's,” I told Ava, “and the only thing I have left from her farm.”

“Look,” Renee said, running her hand over old circular scars near the far end of the table. “Your grandmother must have put up a lot of fruit.”

I smiled at her. It was strange to hear a sophisticated urban writer using “put up”—the country term for canning and preserving.

“My grandmother,” I replied, “turned canning into an art form. She used to consider color and shape as well as function. She would can green beans with two flawless rows on top of each other. And she would get the pickles exactly the same size and lay them in two rows around the pint jar. And beets? She would preserve the juice to keep the dark color, and she would get all the little beets the same size. She used to warn me that when I grew up and started to put up cooked beets, I must remember to leave the stem in or they'd bleed to death and turn white.”

“I would have liked to meet and talk to your grandmother,” Ava said wistfully.

For some reason I was caught up in a flood of canning memories. I could see her working. I could see her in that massive, always cold farm kitchen, the house cats watching her. I wanted suddenly to tell my visitors everything I remembered.

“Peaches were her specialty. She was very careful with them. She would skin them and lay them on top of each other right up to the top to make the jar look elegant. She always lined the lids up. The Ball on the lid with the Ball on the jar. Or the Kerr with the Kerr. In those days she couldn't just go out and buy new ones. She used the same jars for years.”

“Still a country girl, aren't you, Alice?” Ava asked approvingly.

No. I was no longer a country girl. I no longer froze every night of the long Minnesota winter. I no longer cut my fingers in freezing slush taking care of the dairy cows. But I couldn't stop talking for the moment.

“And she made a relish. A wonderful relish. Every year. It was called piccalilli. She made it with green tomatoes and red and green peppers and onions and cabbage.”

I could smell it again: sweet and sour, pungent and beautiful.

“And she was a wizard with jelly. Wild plum and wild strawberry jelly. She hated any strawberries but the wild kind. She wouldn't eat domestic strawberries. She wouldn't even taste one.”

It suddenly dawned on me that I was beginning to talk to my three visitors in the same nonstop, revelatory manner I used to use when talking to Barbara alone. That realization made me feel uncomfortable. It was inappropriate. They were not in my apartment to hear my revelations. They were here because I had set a trap, because I was hoping they would reveal themselves.

I decided to keep my mouth closed and take the group on the ten-cent tour of my apartment. I walked them out of the living room and down the long hallway, past the closets and the kitchen, and through my bedroom at the end of the hall and the large, old-fashioned bathroom next to it.

That finished, we made our way back to the living room and started in on the cheese and crackers. In a few minutes Bushy wandered in, and they all focused their attention on him, resplendent as only coon cats can be. They petted him and aahed and aahed, and he ate it up.

When he tired of the adoration and walked majestically away, I set my plan in motion. We were having a genuinely good time, but I had to do it.

I waited for a momentary lull in the conversation, then began solemnly, confidentially: “I want to talk for a few minutes about something having to do with Barbara.”

At the sound of her name, the whole atmosphere changed. All eyes turned to me. Renee paused in slicing a piece of Stilton; Sylvia regarded me grimly through half-closed eyes; and Ava seemed to throw her head back in a defiant gesture, as if challenging me to continue.

Which I did. “Tim Roman,” I said, “has given me some things to remember her by. I'm sure you've all received some mementos as well.”

There were nods all around.

“He gave me her carnelian bracelet,” Ava volunteered.

“I was given a lovely old cedar chest,” I lied, “which was very thoughtful of Tim. But the strange thing was what I found inside of it.”

“What?” Sylvia asked, and both the others leaned forward to hear my answer.

“A package of letters.”

“What letters?” That was Renee.

“Letters written to me. Written to me by Barbara.” I paused for maximum effect. “Sealed and addressed, but never sent. I don't even know, in fact, whether Tim knew they were there. I found them under a flap at the bottom of the trunk.”

“But why would she do that?” Sylvia asked. “Why write them and not mail them? What did they say?”

“Well, that's the thing, you see. I don't really know what they say.”

“What do you mean, you don't know?!” She was incredulous. “Didn't you
read
them?”

“No, I haven't opened them. Oh, I've started to—a hundred times. But somehow I can't. It's as though they're her private thoughts, even though they're addressed to me. The thing is that she never actually sent them to me. So it's almost as though they aren't really meant for me to read. Do you understand?”

“I most certainly do
not
understand, Alice,” Ava answered. “It's preposterous.”

“It's macabre,” Sylvia said.

“It's ridiculous,” Renee said. “And I'd like to know why you're making this more melodramatic than it has to be. Why
shouldn't
you look at them? Why shouldn't we
all
know what's in them?”

“You will,” I said. “I promise you will—but not right away. I thought I'd keep them, sealed, just the way they are, for a year. And then, on the anniversary of her death, next year, I'll open them and read them all . . . and so will all of you. We'll get together expressly for that purpose. Right here.”

“Well, they are
your
letters. But I think it's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard,” Renee said huffily.

“Dear God,” Ava exhaled. “You certainly do know how to manipulate an audience, Miss Actress Nestleton. I could use a drink.”

I went to fetch a gin and tonic for her. As I was leaving to do so, I heard Renee excuse herself to the others.

As I served the drink, Sylvia asked to see my clippings from the old days. Barbara had told her, she said, that I'd been the brightest of stars at the Guthrie. I located the scrapbook and handed it to her to share with Ava.

Down the hall, I could hear Renee making a big deal of running the water in the sink, then making much too much noise closing the bathroom door. I waited for her to join us again, and after a minute slipped out of the room myself and headed for my bedroom.

The trunk—which actually had belonged to my mother—was on the far wall of the bedroom. My scheme for rigging it came right out of pulp detective fiction. A small piece of fabric attached from the inside would be dislodged if anyone opened the trunk. The cloth was so small, in fact, that no one would notice it falling to the floor—especially if the lights weren't on.

As I checked out the trunk, I saw quite clearly that Renee had taken the bait. Both little piles of clothing I'd put in the chest were slightly rumpled from her search for the nonexistent letters. I hastily replaced the fabric inside.

This seemed to offer fairly solid proof of the Tim–Renee connection, but I had a long way to go before I could prove murder.

From the hallway, I listened to everyone's comments as they pored over the scrapbook. I called to them that I'd rejoin them as soon as I made fresh coffee. In a few minutes, Ava joined me in the kitchen.

“We're all dying to meet Pancho,” she said. “Where is the dear old loon?”

“I'll try and run him to ground,” I replied. “You keep an eye on the coffee.”

I went back into the bedroom and called out to Pancho, sure he was in his favorite hiding place: a shoebox under the bed. I told him some fans were waiting to see his flying act, but he didn't appear. He could have been any one of a dozen places, though—in back of the stereo or behind one of the high kitchen cabinets or up on a shelf in the broom closet. At any rate I was tired of calling him, down on all fours and talking into the darkness under the mattress. As I started to rise, I caught sight of the little piece of fabric on the floor—where it had drifted, obviously, when someone else opened the trunk.

More than likely, Ava had been the second intruder. Just before she'd come into the kitchen to ask about Pancho.

“No sign anywhere of Pancho the Weird,” I said as I rejoined the group. “You'll have to forgive his bad manners.”

I looked from Renee to Ava, and back again. They both smiled innocently.

“Maybe you have a photograph of him?” Renee suggested.

“Sorry.”

“Is he as crazy as Swampy?” Ava asked.

“Oh,” I said, “Pancho is a full-blown psychotic. Swampy just seems to be an eccentric alley cat.”

“And a very lonely one,” Renee added. Suddenly the cup in Sylvia's hand began to rattle.

“Darling, what's the matter!” Ava rushed to her side. Sylvia had grown pale.

“Nothing to worry about,” Sylvia replied wearily. “No, please don't fuss. It's only my blood pressure.” She leaned back and tried to breathe evenly. “All I need is one of my pills and a little lie-down. Just ten minutes.”

Renee and I helped her into my room. I wet a cloth and placed it on Sylvia's forehead.

Renee said, “She'll be okay, really. I've seen this happen to her before. Just give her a couple of minutes.”

Renee
and
Ava wanted to help with the dishes. Their presence, the two so close to me in the small kitchen, made me terribly uncomfortable. It was as if we were all in Tim Roman's bed together.

I left them putting away the plates and went down the hall to check on Sylvia. She didn't hear me open the door. Somehow, it was not an overwhelming surprise to find the bed empty and to see her bent over the chest, frantically going through the things in it. I stepped back out into the hall, and after waiting a minute or so, I knocked.

After she'd rejoined the rest of the group in the living room, she told us that she felt “tons” better and could make it down the stairs just fine under her own steam.

And so ended my brilliantly conceived luncheon! If I thought Renee's search for the letters proved an affair between her and Tim, then I had also just proved that Tim was sleeping with every single one of us.

Perhaps my guests had all been foolish to swallow that bizarre story about unsent letters. But none was a bigger fool than I.

Seconds after the door had closed behind my luncheon guests, Pancho made a kamikaze leap from somewhere, landing on my old scrapbook.

While I vacuumed, I ate Barbara's kiwi tart.