Catnip (Dunbarton Mysteries Book 1) (9 page)

No more fish! This time he was
playing it smart. The guy in the pet shop said cats
went
crazy for these treats. He’d just sprinkle a few around, wait for him to show
up, and into the bag with him.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” he
whispered in what he thought was an irresistible tone. “Come and get your nice
little treat! Here kitty, kitty!”

It didn’t take long for his plan
to get results. Gotcha, he thought smugly as a cat sauntered across the lawn
heading for the cat treats. He was about to bag it when he realized it was the
wrong cat.

“Get outta here,
t
hey’re not for you!” He kicked at the cat who spat at him
and left.

Just in time
- a
nother
was on its way. And another! And another! That guy at the pet shop was right.
Hoards of cats. But not one of them was the right one.

“Damn cats!”

The night of the party arrived,
cloudless and star-filled, and the front walk was scented with roses and
nicotine and the woodsy odor of pine. Through the French doors drifted piano
music like heavenly echoes, haunting, yearning, drawing Chris irresistibly to
its source. Light streamed from the windows, illumining the shadows and marking
his way as he crossed the lawn to the conservatory door. Inside, Alicia played
lightly, so deep in concentration that she failed to hear him as he passed
through the conservatory into the parlor, pausing in the doorway to watch her
unobserved. She was like the moonlight, entrancing, bewitching, and he knew
that he loved her.

Almost as soon as the realization
struck
, the world came to drive it away again. Alice
walked into the room, carrying a vase full of chrysanthemums and spotted him.

“Why, Chris, I didn’t hear you
come in.” Alicia stopped playing mid-bar and turned to him, smiling
self-consciously. “Alicia, dear, why didn’t you tell me he was here?”

“I didn’t know myself.”

“That’s my fault. I heard the
music and came around the side and in through the conservatory. It was so
beautiful.”

“Thank you. I was
practising
my pieces for the party. I don’t want to make any
mistakes and it’s been years since I performed in public.”

“It sounded perfect to me.”

“Well, it wasn’t, but I’m glad
you thought so.” She smiled gratefully.

A man could drown in those eyes.
Turning abruptly to Alice, he asked, “Is there anything I can do to help? I
came early, just in case. I don’t want to just stand around, getting in
everyone’s way.”

“Thank you. To start with, you
can go into the butler’s pantry and bring out the other vase of flowers and put
it on that table over there. And if James is in there, tell him to stay away
from the meatballs. Honestly, if I didn’t keep my eye on him, there wouldn’t be
a single one left.” She was beginning to look a little frazzled and Chris said
so. “Don’t worry about me. We’ve almost an hour until the guests start arriving
and I’m all ready except to put on my dress. I’m going upstairs right now. You
just get those flowers,
a
nd keep James away from the
meatballs.”

“Okay. Where’s Marmalade?”

“He’s in the kitchen with Mrs.
Stuart. She’s going to keep him out there all evening.”

“Good idea. I’ll go get those
flowers.”

James, who was finishing off
another meatball as Chris walked in, gulped guiltily, hiding the plastic skewer
behind him.

“Oh, it’s only you, Chris. I
thought it was Alice.” He grinned sheepishly and speared another meatball.

“She told me to keep you away
from those. Are they good?”

“Um,
t
ry
one.” He handed him one, his mouth full.

“You’re right. They’re great.”

He was reaching for another one
of the mouth-watering little gems when the kitchen door opened.

“Mercy me, are you in the
meatballs again?” Mrs. Stuart rushed in and put the silver cover back on the
chafing dish. “Now the pair of you, out! Anyone would think we starved you all
week. Away wi’ ye!” Grabbing the flowers as he went, Chris retreated to the
safety of the living room.

Alice had gone to dress, so
Alicia took the flowers and placed them on an end table, rearranging the ones
dislodged in his flight from the pantry.

The evening began beautifully.
The guests began arriving at eight o’clock and eyebrows were definitely raised.
All the guests were visibly impressed with the house and fevered whispering
could be heard from the silver-haired brigade.

“It’s about time.”

“It should have happened decades
ago.”

“They must have spent a fortune.”

“Yes, Amanda Dunbar’s fortune.”

“I heard that Alice has been
dying to do this for years but old Mrs. Dunbar wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Well, no love lost there, you
know.” With knowing looks they sipped their wine and scanned the room to see
who had and, more importantly, had not been invited.

But for the most part, the
response was overwhelmingly positive.

Alice, beaming with pleasure, was
the perfect hostess, a role she clearly gloried in.

The entertainment began at nine o’clock.
Everyone sat around the piano and Alicia took her place at the keyboard. The
program began with a trio who did a medley of Andrews Sisters hits, and then a
baritone with a truly magnificent voice excelled in ‘Old Man River’, ‘They Call
the Wind Mariah’, and ‘The Impossible Dream’. Musically, Dunbarton was still
firmly lodged in the last century. A couple of less-than-magnificent performers
followed, Alicia played an exquisite solo selection - Chris categorically
denied any bias in that observation - and then it was time for the highlight of
the evening, a soprano soloist from Guelph who was visiting her cousin, the
P
resident of the Music Society.

Mrs. Harold Johnson was a large
woman in her mid-sixties who, they’d been assured by several gushing women who
had never had the pleasure of hearing her before, but who had been like-wise
assured by an unimpeachable source - that same Music Society President, had the
voice of an angel.

And perhaps she had, twenty or
thirty years ago, but now ... 
d
iscordant,
ear-piercing, glass-shattering
-
any one
of those words
would have been a more accurate description of
a voice that sounded like the noon whistle at the furniture factory.

Alicia and Chris were exchanging
a significant look when the most awful noise began to proceed from the kitchen.
Mrs. Johnson, trooper that she was, didn’t miss a note, but a brilliant crimson
wave began rising up her neck. And still the raucous sound continued, growing
louder with each high note. Chris felt himself going red and glanced over to
see Alice hiding her face behind her program. She rose suddenly, and James and
Chris quickly followed her into the kitchen, hoping to prevent what they were
sure would be a massacre.

The explosion came as they had
expected, but not as they had feared. It was an explosion of rippling,
uncontrollable laughter. James and Chris watched in helpless disbelief as she
sat down and gave into it. Even Marmalade, who had been sitting in the middle
of the floor, his open-mouthed caterwauling filling the room, sat back on his
haunches to watch.

“I’m so sorry, Alice, dearie,”
Mrs. Stuart fluttered anxiously. “I tried to keep him quiet but each time that
old hen cackled it seemed to set him off worse than ever.” She gave the feline
music critic a baleful scowl and returned to loading trays with little tarts
and cream-filled buns. Chris made a mental note to make sure he had one of the
buns.

“Oh, you barmy beast!” When Alice
could speak, she sat up, wiping her streaming eyes. “You have the world’s worst
timing, but you’re so right.” Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she said, “But
be that as it may, I’m afraid it’s the garage for you until everyone’s gone.”
She picked him up and, instead of spitting as he usually did, he curled himself
around her arms and purred. “Chris, will you please take him out. I want to
rush upstairs and fix my make-up before I have to face those people again.” She
headed for the back staircase, muttering, “I can’t imagine what I’ll say to
Mrs. Johnson. I wonder if she’d believe the hot water heater sprang a noisy
leak. Honestly, between cats singing in the kitchen, and singing cats in the
parlor, what next?”

What were they doing to that
animal? All that screeching! It sounded like it was being tortured. It would be
just his luck if they killed it before he could catch it.

No hope of getting him tonight,
anyway. Too many people around. He might as well go home. Get some sleep for a
change.

He’d come back again tomorrow.

The invitations flowed in fast
and furiously after that - parties, clubs, committees. Alice joined the bridge
club, garden club and music society, became a volunteer with the hospital
auxiliary, and provided and delivered a hot meal once a week to several shut-in
senior citizens in the Meals-on-Wheels program. She was never busier and never
happier.

And that applied to Alicia as
well. The ‘Behind the Footlights’ group had taken off and they were busy with a
production of ‘The Boyfriend
’
. Alicia was producing and
directing, as well as playing a small part. It was scheduled to open the
following July, and to run Friday and Saturday nights for four weeks. If it was
a success, they were planning on approaching the Town Council with an
application to turn the old Pavilion by the lake into a permanent summer theat
er
.

As for James, he was a happy man.
Not only was his home life radically changed for the better, but for the first
time in years there was hope for his business. The apprentice program was
proving very popular
and
providing as many workers as
he could handle. Furthermore, there were several exclusive stores that were
willing to handle as much furniture as he could produce, and one of the larger
chains was interested in the new line. He was working long and hard, but now
with the prospect of showing a profit.

It was barely a year since Chris
had had his one and only meeting with Amanda Dunbar and he couldn’t help
feeling that somewhere she was pleased with the progress they’d made.

About the only one who wasn’t
enjoying the current atmosphere of well-being was Marmalade. With everybody out
and busy with his own life, he was left most days with only Mrs. Stuart for
company.

“He looks so forlorn sometimes,”
observed
Alicia
who was cuddled up with
Chris
on the sofa in the library, watching the flickering colors of a driftwood fire.
“Mrs. Stuart told me that some days he wanders from room to room looking for
us, and then, when he doesn’t find anybody, he goes back to the kitchen and
curls up into a sorrowful little heap in his basket by the stove. And do you
know, one day last week Mother came home early in the afternoon, and Marmalade
was so glad to see her, he jumped in
to
her lap and
rubbed his head against her cheek.”

“I guess the day of miracles hasn’t
yet passed.”

The Sunday visits had now become
purely social, their original purpose no longer necessary, and rather than the
bane of his existence, they had become the highlight of his week. Mrs. Stuart’s
cooking could melt a heart of stone, and with the tensions and pressures of
their ill-feeling gone, the Dunbars were one-and-all delightful company.

Fall arrived with a blazing
display of orange, gold, and russet etched against clear azure skies. Days
passed clean, crisp and bright, exhilarating to mind and body. Chris’ family
came to spend Thanksgiving weekend with him and together with Alicia, James and
Alice, they enjoyed the aging splendor of the countryside.

Saturday, they went for a long
walk on the beach, gathering driftwood for the fire and then drove out along
the meandering shore road to the historic lighthouse. It dated back to the days
of the lake schooners that at one time had ruled the waves on the Great Lakes.
Modernized with an automatic light, it was now a museum of Great Lakes lore and
they spent an interesting hour browsing through the exhibits, many of which
detailed the terrible wrecks and the losses of both ships and lives that had
occurred in the past.

Alicia watched Chris with his
family. She could see him in his dad. Samuel Mallory was still tall and slim, a
little
gray
in his wavy brown hair. Caroline, his mom,
was shorter and somewhat plump, with an ever ready smile and laughing eyes.
They were so obviously proud of him it embarrassed him a little. His sisters
teased him mercilessly, and he loved it. She thought how lucky he had been to
grow up in such a happy household.

Sunday evening, Mrs. Stuart
outdid herself, setting before them a ‘feast of fat things’ - vegetable puree
soup, farm-fresh turkey, roasted to golden-skinned perfection, corn-fed ham
spiced with cloves and garnished with pineapple rings and candied cherries,
mashed potatoes and scalloped, giblet gravy, chestnut stuffing, candied yams
and pepper squash, all the overwhelming abundance of the harvest. For dessert
there was pumpkin pie and mince, rhubarb and apple, heaped high with fresh
whipped cream or large wedges of cheddar. When they had finally pushed
themselves away from the table, they had coffee in the parlor where a fire
glowed warmly in the grate. The evenings were becoming quite chill and the heat
from the flames was greatly appreciated.

Memories of another dinner filled
his mind as Chris watched Alice pouring tea and coffee - the dinner in the
gazebo and its disastrous conclusion - and then that fateful meeting with
Alicia and all its subsequent implications.

“Chris? Chris! You look a million
miles away,” Alice was holding a cup and saucer towards him.

“I’m sorry. I’m stupefied from
all that food.”

“Aren’t we all. Mrs. Stuart is a
wonder.”

That lady, beaming in the face of
their over-stuffed appreciation, and despite their protests, hoisted herself
out of her chair to pass around a dish of mint wafers.

“Oh, Mrs. Stuart,” Alice said as
she helped herself to a mint. “While you’re up, I think you should let
Marmalade out of the kitchen. He’ll be feeling left out, shut up in there.”

“Dinna fash yourself, Mrs. Alice,
dear. He went out his wee door a little while ago. He’ll be on the prowl, I’m
sure, and enjoying every minute of it.”

“That’s fine, but if he’s not in
by eleven I think someone had better find him. It’s getting pretty cold these
nights and I don’t like the thought of his being out.”

He wasn’t in by eleven and Chris
was glad of the excuse to go out for some exercise. The yard was black, deep in
the shadow of the pines. A cool breeze whispered through the poplars and
brushed along his skin.

Walking around the verandah, he
stopped frequently to call Marmalade’s name, but with no response.
Perverse
animal!
He thought he heard a scuffling in the bushes and headed towards
the gazebo.

“Marmalade, you stubborn beast!
This is no time for games. Get your tail over here!” Still nothing.
Damn
that cat!
“It’s too cold to be wandering around out here. Marmalade, damn
you. This is the last call!”

And again, nothing.

“That’s it! Stay out there and
freeze, if that’s what you want.”

Turning his collar up to his
ears, he turned irritably and started back to the house, only to stumble over
something small and furry at his feet. There was an infuriated, spitting yowl
of protest, a scrabble of claws and he was gone.

“Chris, for crying out loud!”
James was shouting from the dining room door. “What’s all the commotion? Half
the neighborhood must have heard you. It sounds like you’re killing something.”

“I tripped over Marmalade in the
dark and he’s run off. I suspect he’s hiding in the bushes somewhere. He’ll
sulk for a while and come in when he’s ready, or cold enough, whichever comes
first.”

They left soon after. Chris’
folks and the girls were leaving the first thing Monday morning so that they
could get back to Toronto before the homebound rush.

The phone was ringing when they
arrived back at his apartment.