Cat Tales (4 page)

“It looks like every volunteer on the list came running,” Cindy blurted at him just because she was uncomfortable with his silence.

He nodded, but didn't say a word as he headed back outside.

“I lied,” Cindy told the kitties purring in her arms, nestled against her ample chest. “Devon's not here.” Which was not surprising. Devon was a fair-weather volunteer. Didn't like to take her brand-new Beemer convertible out of the garage in anything less.

Another middle-aged woman stumbled in from the snowy night with a cat under each arm. “Padiddle and Rapunzel,” she announced, setting down a one-eyed feral and a yellow longhair. “Has anyone found Queenie and the kittens?”

“No! Where in the world did she get to?” How far could the little gray tabby have gone with a litter of six? Cindy bit her lip. “I can't understand it.”

M
UCH LATER, Cindy got home — her home for the time being, anyway. A rather impressive Tudor in the best old neighborhood. Mrs. Heckmaster was sitting in the front room working on one of those memory books with the fancy pages and the stickers and lettering from the craft store. “My goodness,” she said, glancing up as Cindy stamped snow off her feet in the entryway, “what's the matter, dear? You look like you need a cookie.”

Mrs. Heckmaster was a little old lady with blue poodle curls, and Cindy did not like her. But she didn't need to like her, just keep an eye on her and run errands for her. Living with Mrs. Heckmaster earned Cindy her room and board while freeing Mrs. Heckmaster's family, which happened to consist of Devon, the fair-weather volunteer from the shelter. Devon Heckmaster, back to her maiden name and getting richer by the day off alimony, whereas Cindy felt herself getting poorer. When Mrs. Heckmaster graduated to a nursing home or croaked, Cindy would have to find some other person to live with as a nanny or a pet sitter or a caregiver.

Forty-six years old and homeless. But in Cindy's experience, it was people like her, the ones with the least, who did the most for animals. Well, with the exception of Devon . . . but Cindy volunteered for the SPCA, the horse sanctuary, the Dalmatian rescue and the Humane Action League, and she knew Devon was an anomaly. She knew of no other rich country clubbers who tried to help animals. Just ordinary folks. Like Samantha.

“It's Sam,” Cindy told Mrs. Heckmaster. “Somebody hit her and let all the cats out.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Mrs. Heckmaster leaned forward, predatory, an old vul ture feeding on other people's excitement. But Cindy so badly needed to talk that she stuffed her butt into one of Mrs. Heckmaster's armchairs and told her all about it.

“We got most of the cats back inside by the time I left,” she concluded, “but there's a few ferals still missing. And the one with kittens.”

“I thought they spaded all those useless cats.”

Spayed,
Cindy thought.
Or neutered.
“They do. But Queenie was knocked up when she came.” Yet another dumped pet. People like Mrs. Heckmaster thought they should be killed. They didn't understand.

“And the doctors think that sentimental fool Samantha is going to be all right?”

“That's what I heard.” According to one of the volunteers, the doctors were keeping Samantha in a coma until her brain swelling went down.

Mrs. Heckmaster returned her attention to the memory book she was working on, a gift for her daughter, featuring news clippings about Devon's honors at various cat shows.

Devon was a cat fancier who raised American Curls, which was a weird new breed of cats with the ears bent over backwards. Cindy vaguely remembered hearing Devon talk about how the breed started with a mutation, like all those woolly Rex cats and those ugly hairless Sphinx ones and some others that Cindy couldn't remember. But Devon knew all about them. Which kind of explained her involvement in the cat rescue . . . no, it didn't. None of the other cat fanciers seemed to give a doo-diddle-dah about the strays Samantha took in.

“Do they know who hurt her?” Mrs. Heckmaster asked.

Cindy shook her head, silent, thinking about the retarded girl; could she have hit Samantha, maybe not understanding the consequences? Or what about that one male volunteer, so silent, so expressionless?

“I bet it's got something to do with her being light in her loafers,” said Mrs. Heckmaster with relish.

Good lord, the old biddy reasoned just like the cops.

Cindy got up to fetch Mrs. Heckmaster's bedtime meds, and as soon as her back was turned, she rolled her eyes.

T
EN MINUTES before visiting hours the next day, Cindy lumbered into the hospital Ladies' Auxiliary Gift Shop.

“Why, hello, Cindy,” said a familiar voice. “Have you come to see Samantha?”

Cindy blinked at Devon, who was speaking to her from behind the counter. Devon, with sleek blonde hair that had never been flattened by a scarf, every curl in place. Devon, so slim she made Cindy feel like a garbage can on feet. Devon, in a sage green wool dress so simple it must have cost five times what Cindy made in a week.

Cindy blurted, “I didn't know you worked here!”

“I volunteer here. I like to volunteer,” said Devon with a little too much emphasis.

“Maybe you've heard, how's Samantha doing?”

“They say she's stable.” Whatever that meant. “Did you want something to take to her?”

Cindy looked around the shop at pretty, useless stuff that made her yearn to have money: silk pansies in hand-painted country flowerpots, votive candles in cut-glass holders, miniature stuffed animals, winsome crockery kittens and puppies holding “Get Well” signs. Stalling for time, she asked, “Is she still in the coma, or did she wake up?”

“I wouldn't know. I haven't been to see her yet.”

“Devon,” called a woman from the shop's back room, phone in hand, “I've got a delivery order, huggy bear with daisies to room 402.”

“I'll take it up in a minute.”

Cindy wanted to get Sam a get-well kitten, but they were too expensive. She settled for a pansy pot (“Pansies Are For Thoughts”) and headed off to find Samantha.

Eventually she located the room on a busy hallway with nurses rushing up and down. Sam's door was closed, which might mean the doctor was in there, or maybe they were giving her a bath. Cindy waited a while, but nobody came out. She knocked. Got no answer. She hesitated, then turned the knob and pushed the door open softly in case Sam was sleeping.

Afterward, she wondered whether she didn't have a premonition or something. But she didn't. Not an inkling.

She saw the pillow first. And fanning out from underneath it, caramelcolored spiral curls. Sam's hair.

Then she saw Sam's hand. Denim blue.

She screamed.

A nurse came running, pushed past her, made an unprofessional sound and rushed to lift the pillow from — from Samantha's face, very still, blue like Lake Placid. After that, Cindy didn't notice much. Nurses and doctors swept in and out, but Cindy stood where she was and stared at that blue face nested in spiral curls amid the bitterly bright room rife with get-well cards, bouquets of flowers, a knick-knack on the bedside table. . . .

Eventually, someone led her away to an office, where she sat. Time passed. She didn't notice.

“You again,” said a male voice.

Cindy blinked and focused on the tall detective sitting across a desk from her.

“You found her,” he said. “Again.”

Cindy whispered, “She's dead.”

“Yes, she is. Somebody finished the job. And I just have to wonder whether it's a coincidence, your being here.”

Cindy didn't react. One good thing about being big was it helped her look stolid. She had a lot of inertia.

“Somebody smothered her and left the pillow in place,” the detective said, watching her. “Might be some sort of kinky sex thing.”

Cindy shook her head. Her thoughts had begun to move again, slowly but surely, like deep water. She blurted, “Did you get any prints off that cat statue they clubbed her with?”

The detective gave her a blank look. “I couldn't say.”

This meant “No,” Cindy reasoned, or he'd be inking her fingers this minute. “They wore gloves, right? Can you tell whether it was rubber gloves?”

He peered. “What makes you ask that?”

“One of those ceramic get-well kittens. In Sam's room. Who brought it up from the gift shop?”

B
UT IT WAS ridiculous to suspect Devon, Cindy scolded herself as she drove toward the SPCA. What possible motive could Devon have to kill Samantha? Still, Cindy felt agitated enough to double as a washing machine. With no idea what to think, she trudged into the SPCA for her weekly volunteer stint, wheeled the mop out and started to scrub, hoping the drudge work would calm her down.

Working her way between ranks of pens and cages, she patted the yipping dogs and mewling cats, but without feeling. Just reflex. When a little gray tabby rubbed its side against the woven wire, imploring, Cindy raised her hand automatically before several small fluffy movements caught her eye —

She squealed like an elephant. “Queenie!” she shrieked.

Queenie answered with a feline trill. It was the lost kittie, all right, complete with her litter of weanling kittens, their baby fur starting to grow out. “Queenie, you never told me your boyfriend was a longhair,” Cindy cooed, because the kittens were turning into puffballs.

Footsteps pounded up the aisle. Cindy's screech had brought the manager running from the front desk.

“What's Queenie doing here?” Cindy demanded, turning on the woman as if it were her fault that Samantha's shelter was thirty miles away, in the next county, for God's sake.

“The little mama cat? Dumped,” the woman said with fervid scorn. “That country clubber could certainly have afforded to make a donation, but noooo, dump and run.”

Cindy felt something like a giant fist squeeze her chest, making it hard to breathe. She could force out only a couple of words. “Country clubber?”

“Yeah, yesterday morning, before we opened. I came in early, saw her hustling away. Blonde in a tennis outfit.”

Cindy managed another few words. “Was she driving?”

“Sure. Shiny new car, red and white.”

“A Beemer?” Devon's red convertible had a white ragtop.

“Heck, I don't know one car from another. Show me a dog, I know dogs.”

It was ridiculous anyway. How would Devon have gotten hold of Queenie and the kittens? And what for? And why wouldn't she have said something? It was all nonsense. Cindy turned back to patting the little tabby and her adorable fluffy kittens. . . .

“So you know this mama cat?” the manager asked.

Intent on the kittens, Cindy didn't answer. One kitten, two, three, four, five. . . . “Where's the sixth one?” she demanded.

“She came with five. Phone's ringing.” The woman ran to answer it.

Cindy closed her eyes a moment, visualizing Queenie's litter. Two tabbies, gray, like Queenie. Two spotted kittens. A black one with a white tuxedo bib. And the pure white one with the funny-looking fur.

She opened her eyes. It was the white kitten that was gone.

It had died in the cold, probably. Or Queenie had somehow lost track of it and left it behind. Or it could have been dropped out of the box. Any number of things could have happened to it, and there was no use wondering about it, was there?

A
T NINE O'CLOCK that night, wearing a black top and black slacks, Cindy approached Devon's stately residence on foot, having parked her rusting Pinto on the next cul-de-sac over. Just as Mrs. Heckmaster lived in the best old section of town, Devon lived in the best new one, in a modernistic house. Getting in would be no problem. Mrs. Heckmaster had keys, and Cindy had appropriated them. On the key-chain was a laminated card with the numbers for the security system. And this was Devon's night for modern dance class. Cindy foresaw no difficulties.

Just the same, she sweated as she unlocked a back door, silenced the alarm system, and slipped into the house through the garage.

She listened, and heard only a meow. She clicked on her flashlight and found herself in an immaculate back hallway the size of some people's apartments, with several cats padding to meet her. Why in the world — oh. Duh, they were American Curls, that was why their ears were inside out. Stupid looking, but they couldn't help it. Cindy whispered to them, “Where's the kitten, guys?”

She had tried to tell the detectives about her suspicions, but had succeeded only in making them look at her as if she had sprouted several extra heads. Jerks.

Silently, like the cats, Cindy padded to the first door and cautiously opened it. Just a storage room. Okay, onward to the next door. . . . Bingo. Cindy surveyed Devon's luxurious cattery, thickly carpeted, with scratching posts and climbing apparatus and a row of frilled, curtained cages for cat shows. From one of them sounded a meow as tiny as the piping of a nestling wren.