Catnip (Dunbarton Mysteries Book 1)

C
ATNIP

by

Valerie
Tate

CATNIP © 2012 Valerie Tate

All
rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the copyright owner.

‘C
ATNIP
’ is published by Red Cottage Books

‘
CATNIP
’ is the copyright of the author, Valerie Tate, 2012.
All rights are reserved.

All
characters are fictional, and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is
accidental.

For
my mom, in loving memory.

Many thanks to Yan Moyaux for the
cover photo, Bradley Wind for the cover design and Judy Hodgkinson for her
creative advice.

The fictitious
town of Dunbarton was inspired by Kincardine, Ontario, which is located on the
beautiful shores of Lake Huron, and all of the best things about Dunbarton are
found there. Thankfully, though, no catnappings or murders.

But
thousands die without this and that,

Die,
and endow a college, or a cat.

Alexander
Pope

This story should open, ‘It was a
dark and stormy night when the will was read in the country house on the edge
of a desolate moor.’

But it wasn’t.

Instead it was a sunny afternoon
in a law office in a restored Victorian on the sandy shores of Lake Huron.

No dark and disturbing
foreshadowing of doom. No Ides of March. No crows flying backwards. No hounds
baying at a blood-red moon. Not even a black cat.

So much for omens.

I, Amanda
Dunbar, widow of Robert Allan

Dunbar, do hereby declare this
to be my last

will and testament.

He’d met Amanda
Dunbar only once - an autocratic old lady with a shrewd expression and an
underlying core of steel that showed through in the piercing blue eyes,
strength of mouth and jaw, and proud lift of her nose. A lady not to be trifled
with. If he had known that meeting would set in motion events that would send
him on a tumultuous ride, one that would change his life forever, would he have
gone?

Not even he could answer that
one!

Since, by the
time this is read

I shall be dead, it will be my

final opportunity to tell my

‘loving’ family exactly what I

think of them.

The old lady had
died only two days before, but her daughter-in-law, over-riding the protests of
her husband, had insisted that the reading directly follow the interment.

For the past
twenty-six years the

four of us have lived together
in

my house to the great
discomfort

of us all. That I have chosen
to

tolerate the chronic
irritability

of my daughter-in-law, the
infuriat-

ing ineptitude of my son, and
the

vague placidity of my grand-daughter

is as much a wonder to myself
as

anyone!

None of the
family had been present at his meeting with his client in the large Victorian
house in a once fashionable part of town. She had seen to it that they had been
absent, unwilling for any but themselves to know of her intentions. It was with
some curiosity and a little trepidation therefore, that he had anticipated the
meeting in his office that day.

Alice Mayhew Dunbar sailed into
the office at precisely two o’clock with the assurance of the flagship of the
fleet. Handsome - had the expression on her face and the look in her eyes been
different, one might even have said, beautiful - well-preserved, and about as
warm as a Huron January. There was an air about her of barely-controlled
anticipation, a gleam in her Ice Queen eyes that said she was about to get
everything she had been waiting for, exactly what she deserved. If she grieved,
she hid it well.

In her wake trailed her husband,
James Allen Dunbar, a man of average height who seemed, following his assertive
wife, smaller than he actually was. His hair that had once been black, thick
and wavy, was now silver at the temples. He should have been a striking man but
with his air of patient melancholy he seemed to fade into the wallpaper beside
his more flamboyant spouse. There was little resemblance to his strong-minded
mother.

And then there was Alicia. She
drifted in behind her parents, gazed around her with a disinterested air, then
melted gracefully into a chair by the wall and waited. Her hair was the first
thing he noticed - a pale gold cloud that caressed her ivory face like a kiss.
But then she looked at him and... ‘Atlas Shrugged’!

Her eyes were a pair of
exquisitely matched turquoises - a rare blue-green flecked with gold - large
and dreamy. Cat’s eyes … witch’s eyes ...  enchantment! Fringed with dark,
smudgy lashes, they were set in the perfect oval of her face under brows that
arched like wings in flight. She was the stuff of fantasy, of fairy tales, of
chivalric stories, the stuff of dreams and dreamers.

Her grandmother had described her
as a Sleeping Beauty waiting for her prince to come and awaken her, but he
couldn’t help hoping that behind those dreamy, turquoise eyes was more than
just a fairy tale.

With that off
my chest, I feel

free now to make the following

bequests:

To my daughter-in-law, Alice,
I

bequeath two gallons of
vinegar, in

hopes that it will sweeten her

disposition.

To my son,
James, who was the joy

of my life until he married
that

woman, I bequeath a can of
starch

to be used to stiffen a
backbone that

hasn’t stood firm for the past
twenty-

six years.

To my
grand-daughter, Alicia, I

bequeath my jewelry in the
hope that

one day she may prick her
finger

and awaken from that perennial

slumber she now enjoys.

There was an
open-mouthed silence when he’d finished and he waited for the explosion he was
sure would come. He was not disappointed.

“Well of all the ...!” Alice
Dunbar, who had initially gone very white, was purple now, with rage. “That old
witch ... She made our lives a living hell for almost thirty years and now this
... this ... this outrage! My God, when I think of how I waited on her! Vinegar
indeed! Twenty-six years of that harridan’s bad-tempered ...!” Fury momentarily
deprived her of speech - could she be on the verge of a stroke? And her husband
was finally able to get a word in.

“Alice, don’t!” James’ eyes
pleaded for understanding. “She was always very good to us, or tried to be. It
was just her way, her values.” There was a world of weariness in his voice and
a lifetime of failure in his eyes.

“For God’s sake, James, you know
how she treated us. She could have helped you out but she didn’t. Just because
she couldn’t forgive you for marrying against her wishes. For marrying me.” It
was as if she’d forgotten there was anyone else in the room. “You know you’ve
worked your fingers to the bone for that company, for her, for your father. And
always in his shadow. Never your own man.”

James, looking ill, sank even
deeper into his chair.

The lawyer glanced over at
Alicia, but she seemed as indifferent as ever, as if neither the contents of
the will, nor her mother’s outburst, concerned her at all. “A sleep-walker
through life,” her grandmother had said.

“Mr. Mallory!” Mrs. Dunbar drew
him back to the matter at hand. “What do you have to say about this ridiculous
state of affairs?”

“If you’ll allow me, I’ll get on
with the reading and I think things will become quite clear.”

She nodded irritably.

“At this point it becomes
necessary to bring in a fourth beneficiary.” Ignoring outraged gasps of protest
from Alice, he pressed the intercom button. “Miss Scott, would you please bring
in our client.” Then he sat back to watch what was going to happen next.

Suzanne entered slowly and in her
arms she carried a large, orange cat. There was a wheeze from Alice Dunbar,
like the sound of air slowly exiting a balloon. She darted a suspicious glance
from the cat, to him, and back again. As for the cat, he spat furiously at the
woman, scratched the secretary who promptly dropped him, and proceeded to strop
himself against Alicia’s leg. The latter smiled gently, stroked his head, and
then turned a quizzical look at him.

“Would you put Marmalade on my
desk please, Miss Dunbar? Thank you.”

She gathered the now contented
cat in her arms and moved with languorous grace towards the desk, while
Marmalade peacefully batted a strand of hair that hung before his face. When
placed on the desk he settled himself comfortably on a pile of briefs and then
proceeded to wash his already immaculate face.

He was a long-haired cat the
color of orange marmalade, hence the name, with a silky white stripe starting
below his chin and running down his stomach. He had a sassy, self-satisfied
triangle of a face, with one ear crooked roguishly forward. His eyes were
brilliant green almonds balanced over a small pug nose. All in all he had an
air of being totally in command of the situation which, as things were about to
become apparent, he was.

Finally, what
you’ll all have

gathered to hear, I give,
devise,

bequeath and appoint my

entire estate, including all

financial assets, properties

and personal possessions

to my only true friend

and companion, my cat,

Marmalade. Furthermore,

since I know my family only
too

well, should anything happen
to

Marmalade that even suggests
foul

play on the part of or at the

instigation of my family, the
estate

then goes to the Animal
Protection Society

to be used take care of
creatures

who are unable to care for
themselves.

However, whenever he does pass
away

from natural causes, the
estate

will revert to the only member

of my family that I have any
use for,

my grand-daughter, Alicia.

Until that time I appoint
Christopher

Mallory of the firm Henderson,
Jukes,

Conroy, and Mallory as
executor of my

estate and trustee for Marmalade.

He will administer all
finances. My

son and his wife are free to

continue living in the house
provided

that they care for Marmalade.
Mallory

will pay all household bills
and

provide James, Alice and
Alicia with

a monthly allowance to be
worked out

with Mr. Mallory, the sum to
be subject

to cost-of-living increases.
If at

any time it is determined that
any of

them has mistreated Marmalade
in any

way, the allowance will cease
and they

will be asked to leave the
house.

Should this happen, a companion
for

Marmalade will be employed.

One last word, family. Be
warned!

I have filled Mr. Mallory in
on the

exact details of our household
and

family relations. He knows it
all!

So perhaps I’ve had the last
laugh

after all!

Amanda Dunbar

Mrs. Amanda Dunbar, widow of the
late financier, Robert Allen Dunbar, had lived for sixty-four of her
eighty-seven years in a large brick house on Glengarry Lane. Once the most
fashionable street in the small furniture town of Dunbarton, Ontario, it had,
in later years, fallen to the fate of other such streets, becoming an area of
expensive flats and offices. Fourteen Glengarry Lane was its one remnant of the
glory that was.

Dunbarton was named, of course,
after the Dunbar family whose celebrated ancestor, Angus Dunbar of Glengarry,
Scotland had made the arduous voyage across the Atlantic in the latter part of
the eighteenth century and braved the perils of an alien land to carve a home
out of the wilderness on the shores of Lake Huron. The village that had grown
up around his homestead bore the name of that first family, and ‘First Family’
they had remained for the almost 250 years since. Many Scots were to come to
that storm-tossed yet beautiful shore and the Bruce Peninsula boasts of its
proud Scottish heritage in names such as Lucknow, Kincardine and Kinloss.

It was on a crisp autumn morning
several months before her death that Mrs. Amanda Dunbar had summoned him to the
fawn-colored mansion that was her home. Actually, she had summoned Mr. Arthur
Henderson, the founder of the firm, but as he had been dead for several years
and both Mr. Jukes and Mr. Conroy were inescapably tied up, it fell to him, the
newest partner in the firm to answer the call.

Dunbar House was one he’d passed
many times since his flat was in a converted house a couple of blocks away, and
was one which he admired very much. It spoke of a gentler, more gracious age
with its gracefully bowed windows and touches of gingerbread. It was a
two-story structure with a third floor attic under a sloping mansard roof. As
old as the house was, the original copper tile-work was still in place, shining
softly in the sun - semi-circular slate tiles like the sweep of a bird’s wing
in shades of blue and green. On the right side of the house a large bay window
rose into a tower topped by a wrought-iron widow’s walk. A glassed-in
conservatory extended into the garden. The wide front steps led to a covered
verandah, supported by elaborately-carved pillars, which ran from the left side
of the house to the back. An ice-cream and cake concoction, it brought to mind
hot summer afternoons and croquet on the lawn.

An older, grey-haired gentleman
in dusty overalls was busy tending the flower gardens, hilling up the roses in
the oval bed. A bale of straw stood ready to be spread over top once each bush
had been tenderly pruned and covered with soil. The last of the mums still
bravely faced the chill breeze off the lake. Pink and yellow, rust and burgundy
vied for attention with the now crimson maple leaves. Vines, which climbed the
columns and inched across the verandah roof, and which in spring and summer
were covered with purple flowers, were now bare and lifeless.

“Morning, Wilf.”

The gardener looked up and
smiled. He was a well-known figure in town, always quiet and reserved, doing
the work he loved.

“Morning, Mr. Mallory. Miz Dunbar
is waiting for you. Tell her just to call when she needs me.”

Intrigued, he nodded and walked
up the verandah steps to the front door.

Mrs. Dunbar’s suite, as everyone
in town knew, was on the third floor and so when he pressed the button and a
voice from the intercom said to enter and come up, he proceeded straight there.

His swift passage through halls
and upstairs gave him brief glimpses into a bygone time and way of life -
Persian carpets covering gleaming cherry floors, ornately carved sofas,
mahogany tables and rich velvet draperies in an almost overwhelming array of
colors and textures.

A spacious, richly paneled foyer
rose into a gently curving staircase that lead to the second floor. From there
he followed the hall to a second, less grand stairway that brought him to the
third floor, and Amanda Dunbar.

For more than ten years, since
arthritis had confined her to a wheelchair and made even the most elementary of
endeavors a painful struggle, Mrs. Dunbar had lived in the third floor suite of
rooms. The cattier of townsfolk had said, “the better to look down her nose at
all of us”, but the more charitable had replied it was more likely that she
wanted to be able to enjoy the view of Lake Huron which was, he saw for
himself, quite magnificent.

Once the domain of the
house-servants, the third floor had been completely renovated to create a
spacious, airy, wheelchair-friendly apartment. There was none of the
over-abundance of downstairs, but rather a tasteful collection of a few
treasured pieces. The tones were mellow, with here and there a dramatic touch
of color such as in the cherry-red screen behind the sofa, brought from the Far
East by a sea-faring ancestor.

It was there she spent her days and
nights, rarely venturing beyond her lofty domain, although, he was to learn
later, a small elevator in what had been a closet connected the three floors,
so that if she were a prisoner of the house it was by choice.

All of those impressions were
gathered at a later date for, from the moment he entered the room, his
attention was drawn to and held by the determined gaze of a small but regal
woman seated in a wheelchair. She had soft white hair, a fresh complexion and
the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. Age had not treated her kindly, arthritis
crippling once forceful hands and confining her to the chair but, he was to
soon learn, it had not succeeded in cowing her spirit or weakening her will.
From that first moment he realized that this was a woman who had met life on
her own terms and bent it to her will.

“Mr. Mallory!” There was a
certain satisfaction in her voice, as if she had been right about something. “Come
into the light and let me get a good look at you.” And she proceeded to, quite
thoroughly. “Yes, you’ll do. I thought you would by your voice, otherwise I
would never have let you come. The nerve of that fool Henderson, dying just
when I need him. Why did he think I kept him on retainer for all these years?”
Before he could protest, she went on. “I like the look of you. You’ve a good
firm jaw and a nice straight nose, and somehow I was sure you’d have brown
eyes. Brown eyes and a mellow voice just seem to go together. I didn’t imagine
the curly hair though. Does it run in the family?”

“No, much to the annoyance of my
sisters.”

“Sisters? How many?”

“Three.”

“Do they live in Dunbarton?”

“No, they’re back in Toronto with
my parents. Penny’s completing her M.A. in Anthropology at the University of
Toronto. Angela’s studying television journalism at Ryerson and Connie is in
Veterinary Science at Guelph. She wants to be a horse doctor. I moved here a
couple of years ago to join the law firm.”

“And how old are you?”

“Thirty-three.”

“Thirty-three? Hmph! It seems to
me young man that if you want to get ahead in this world, you’d be better off
back in Toronto, not burying yourself here.”

“You sound like all my fast-track
friends. I’ll tell you what I told them. There are many ways of ‘getting ahead’,
Mrs. Dunbar. I had the rat-race of Bay Street for eight years. It wasn’t for
me. I only stuck it out that long for my parents - they were so proud of their ‘wonder-boy’.
But in the end you have to live the life you want and I couldn’t see spending
the rest of mine somewhere I hated doing a job that left me daily more cynical.
I learned a lot in those eight years. Much of what I learned about people and
the ways of the world I’d like to be able to forget.” He looked her in the eyes
and added firmly, “I wasn’t running away or hiding when I came here. I wanted a
cleaner life, air that I could really breathe, and space. I mean to buy a
house, when I find the right one, marry a nice girl, when I find the right one,
and raise some kids. I’ll never be rich or powerful. I’ll never decide the fate
of people or nations. And that’s just fine with me!” He took a deep breath,
feeling a little foolish, but he was tired of having to justify his decision in
leaving a top, multi-faceted law firm and the high-powered lifestyle that went
with it, for a country practice in a small, farming community.

She met his look steadily and he
had a strange feeling that his future was being decided in that look. After a
further moment of scrutiny, she nodded.

“Well, as I said, I think you’ll
do. For that matter, you’ll have to, since David Jukes is a nincompoop and I
never could abide the sight of that Conroy fellow.”

He smothered a smile and looked
at her expectantly. Such was the force of her personality that it was then, for
the first time, he realized she was ill. The roses in her cheeks owed more to
art than nature. The eyes were as bright and as sharp as those of a much
younger woman, but there was pain in them, and a pinched look to nose and
temple that showed the strain this meeting put her under.

As if she read his thoughts, she
went on quite matter-of-factly. “Mr. Mallory, I’m dying. No, don’t say anything
kind or soothing. There’s nothing to say. Facts are facts. It’s my heart. I
need surgery but the doctors feel I wouldn’t survive it. There is nothing more
that can be done. I can’t say that I mind. I’m eighty seven and I’ve had a full
life. I married a man I adored and we raised two fine sons. Our oldest, Robert
junior was killed in an automobile accident which James, fortunately, survived.
Well, my husband’s been dead for over twenty years now. My brother and sister
and all of my old friends are gone too, anyone who remembered me when I was
young, the person who I was then and still am in my mind, not the stranger I
see in the mirror.” She sighed. “Old age isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, Mr. Mallory.”
Then she straightened and looked at him sharply. “You’re too young for me to
keep calling you Mr. Mallory. What’s your first name?”

“Chris,” he said, smiling.

“Hmph! Well, Christopher, before
I go I want to change my will.”

“That’s easily arranged,” he
assured her. “If you will just tell me what changes you want made I’ll have
them processed and ...”

“NO! That’s just what I don’t
want! This must be done immediately, in the utmost secrecy. I don’t want one
word of what I’m doing to get back to my family. Do you understand? I’ve
written my own will and have arranged for Wilf Mitchell and another old servant
to be here this afternoon to witness my signature. Both can be relied upon
completely. Wilf is the least communicative person I know and Celia understands
why secrecy is absolutely essential. Also, my doctor, Raymond Harris, will be
here to sign an affidavit attesting to my mental competence. What I want you
for is to check the will over, add any necessary legal language and then
notarize it. I don’t want them breaking it once I’m gone. I’ve arranged for all
of them to be out this afternoon so that they’ll know nothing of your visit.
You and I are the only ones who can know what’s in it.” One crippled hand
clutched his arm convulsively, and he wondered what was so shocking about her
will that she should go to such lengths to ensure her family would know nothing
about it. Little did he imagine.

“You might as well know right
now, Christopher, there’s little love lost between my family and myself. Oh, they
make up to me all right, especially that Alice. It’s ‘Mother, dear,’ this and ‘Mother,
dear,’ that. But I know it’s just because of the money. My husband, Robert left
everything to me. He was ten years older than myself and already a wealthy man
when I married him.

“Do you know anything of the
history of this town, Christopher?” He nodded and she continued. “Then you’ll
know that it was built on two things: the harbor and lumber. The harbor meant
that the Great Lakes ships could dock. That meant access to markets in the rest
of the country and the US. Lumber meant jobs and ultimately wealth for this
area. At one time there was a mill and two large furniture companies in this
town. The Dunbars owned the mill and one of the furniture companies. They owned
the ships that took their products to market. Robert’s grandfather built the
company into a well-respected firm and Robert’s father continued to develop it
when he inherited it. He was the one who had this house built. The finest one
in the area. When Robert inherited the company, he sold the mill. The ships
were long gone by then. He turned the furniture company into one of the largest
in the country.”

Chris nodded. Not only had it
been one of the largest, but also one of the finest as well, renowned for fine
quality and craftsmanship.

“What’s more, he had a flair for
finance. He didn’t believe in putting all of his eggs in one basket. ‘Diversify,’
he used to say, ‘Make your money work for you.’ He bought early into companies
such as I.B.M. If he hadn’t died so suddenly I’m sure he’d have been one of the
wealthiest men in the country by now. And Robert junior was just like him. Top
marks in school, athlete, popular. He had it all. Robert had always planned on
turning the business over to him, but it wasn’t to be. With Robert junior gone
that left only James.” She sat for a moment, eyes distant, remembering.

“James runs the company now, does
he not?” he asked gently.

She started, then snorted. “Runs
it into the ground’s more like it. He has no drive, no ambition. It’s not his
fault, though. He was a man, once, before that woman got hold of him. I knew
the minute I saw her she was wrong for him. But James was smitten. She was a
beauty all right, I’ve got to give her that. Big blue eyes and a pile of golden
hair. They made a handsome couple. Alicia, my grand-daughter, has her mother’s
hair, but those blue-green eyes, they’re her grandfather’s. It gives me a turn
every time I look at her. It’s too bad she didn’t get a little of his spunk,
too. She had plenty of it when she was a youngster, always in some scrape or
another, but lately I’ve begun to wonder if the girl’s all there. She’s bright
enough. She took her degree in English Literature and Theat
er
at Guelph University, but then her mother wanted her home and home she came. At
least she was educated, though, I saw to that. My daughter-in-law wanted to
send her to one of those fancy schools in Europe and then give her a ‘season’
in London or New York, but I’d have none of that nonsense, and since I hold the
purse strings there was nothing she could do about it. She might be able to
manage my son, but not me!”