French Polished Murder (4 page)

I looked at the dish. The babies were still squeaking under the dish towel, and still moving but the movement was less frantic. I wondered if they were warm enough? Too warm? “Good to know,” I said impatiently. “But I really need to give them to someone experienced in looking after rats.”

“We don’t have anyone,” he said. “Most people . . . er . . . kill rats.”

Which I completely understood, given my reaction on finding them. I might even have brought myself to do it, had they been adult. Though this was doubtful, since during the very brief suburban idyll of my marriage I’d found out I had trouble even buying ant poison to clean up the anthills in the yard. “Right. But I don’t want to kill them. I want to raise them.”

“Perhaps . . .” he said, hesitantly, “if you call pet shops? My book says that the best care for rats is a foster mother. They might know breeders who have a foster mother with a litter the right age.”

“That’s it?” I said.

“I’m afraid so,” he said. “Rats are outside our provenance.” And, as if he just couldn’t help himself. “We also don’t care for cockroaches.”

Hah hah!Funny.
I would have told him so, but he had hung up.

Cursing under my breath, I looked through the phone book again. Three pet shops. Bird Beauty, the first one, seemed vaguely horrified I wanted to do anything at all with rats. Apparently rodents were beneath them. They sold birdseed, they informed me—only birdseed. Gourmet birdseed.

I hung up wondering what kind of birds were gourmets. And did they take their seed with caviar.

Next up on the list was Fluffy Friends animal store. They treated me to a long diatribe on the evils of pet shops that actually sold pets and tried to intimate I was running a rat mill. I informed them, primly, that I didn’t even own a loom, and hung up.

But, of all three of them, the worst was the third, Pets To Go. As soon as I mentioned, tentatively, that I’d found a litter of baby rats, they said, “Alive?”

“There wouldn’t be much point calling you if they were dead.”

“Well, we can’t give you much,” the guy said. “Only fifty cents apiece.”

“Oh,” I said, since I hadn’t been thinking of money at all. “So you have a foster mother?”

“No, no, no. As food.”

“You’re going to give me fifty cents for the rats to eat?”

A long exasperated sigh was my answer. I had a feeling he was thinking I was the ultimate in dumb from the sneering tone in which he said, “No. Fifty cents per rat as food for pet snakes.”

I hung up on him. Look, I realize that snakes have to eat, but I wasn’t about to sell baby anything to be eaten alive. I still had to sleep with myself at night.

Right. This left me with—well, it left me with a bunch of baby rats that I didn’t want to kill, but who were going to die if I didn’t take care of them as surely as if I killed them. So . . . I had to figure out how to feed them and look after them. I had the vague idea that if I looked on the Internet, I could find a dozen sites telling me how to care for rats. The problem was that my laptop had died shortly after my marriage, and I had yet to find the money to replace it. Ben had a laptop, of course, but not at my house.

I called Cas—at work, something I rarely did. I got the receptionist I always thought was much too cheery for what she actually said, “Goldport Serious Crimes Unit! How may I help you?”

Though it always seemed to me like she was the perky teen operator at a catalogue-ordering center, I refrained—at great cost in will power—from telling her she could mail me three murder cases and five burglaries. Something for which I felt I should get a medal. “I’d like to speak with Officer Wolfe, please. Tell him it’s Dyce Dare.”

There was the muffled shuffling talk that one hears when someone else has covered the telephone receiver with a hand. And then there was Cas’s voice, “Hi, Dyce. Are you ready?”

For a brief, disturbed moment, I thought that he expected me to have the piano all done now. Then I remembered we were supposed to go out to dinner, which was part of the reason that Ben was at my place. Because he was supposed to babysit E. Of course, he was not supposed to arrive three hours early, alphabetize my pantry, color code my hairpins, and generally make himself a borderline OCD nuisance. Except that this was how Ben behaved when he was between relationships. “Oh. That. Not yet.”

“Oh,” he said. “But we have reservations for six.”

I looked at the clock. It was five thirty. This meant that Ben and E had been gone for more than two hours. Weird. Normally they didn’t stay out that long. Mind you, I wasn’t worried that something had happened, because Ben was very competent at keeping people safe, having practiced on me for years. On the other hand . . .

“Ben took E out,” I said. “And they’re not back yet.”

There was a little silence, and then Cas said, “On the electric bike?”

“Well, E hardly has any room to ride in the house.”

There was a low chuckle. “Dyce, you’re a mean, vengeful woman.”

“I do what I can,” I said modestly. “But right now I need you to look up how to take care of baby rats for me. Would you?”

There was another silence. “Uh—Dyce, I don’t think you should lock Ben in your shed and let rats loose on him. I mean, you can, of course, but I wouldn’t advise it. I am an officer of the law and I—”

“No. If I were to lock Ben up with rats, they’d be big rats. With sharp teeth. Trained to chew on ties.”

“Dyce!”

“Well . . . he did give E that thing. But no, you see, I found a litter of baby rats in the piano.”

“Pet shops will buy them for—”

“No.”

“I see.” I heard him tapping the keyboard. “Um . . . looks like you need to put them somewhere on top of a heating pad on the lowest setting, and shield them with towels, you know, so they don’t get burned.”

I looked at the dish. “Check.”

“Oh, good. You’re also supposed to give them baby formula. Using an eyedropper.”

“I don’t—” I started.

“I figured. I’ll stop by the supermarket on the way there.” I heard him close his laptop. “I’ll be there in about . . . twenty minutes. Can they wait that long?”

“I hope so,” I said. “See you soon, then.”

Having hung up, I was left with nothing more to do. It wasn’t like I could feed the babies until Cas arrived. That meant . . . I looked at the letter. Part of me—the part that had been raised by my grandmother—informed me sternly that ladies don’t read other people’s correspondence. But judging by the color of the paper, the color of the ink, and the pointy, old-fashioned handwriting, I suspected whoever had written this letter, and whoever was supposed to receive it had long been dust in the ground. And come on, I told Grandma’s shade. If people didn’t read other people’s letters, there would be no histories. No biographies. No blackmail. No indictments for conspiracy. All sorts of productive enterprises would never happen.

I sat at the table and opened the letter, pulling out the paper gingerly, so it wouldn’t fall apart. It took me forever to manage to get the sheet open without tearing it.

The writing inside was more faded than it had been on the outside, just a sepia tracery on the yellow page. I had to turn the light on over the kitchen table, to be able to read what it said.

Dear Jacinth,
it said.
I had hoped things would never come to this pass.
Pass was underlined five times.
But I’m afraid my husband knows. Or at least, he has enough reason to suspect. Sometimes he looks at me in such a way that I’m not sure I can stand it (far less survive it). I will meet you next week, at seven thirty, at the fruit stand. I will bring the baby. I am afraid the time has come to take you up on your offer and leave as soon as possible. Yours, always, Almeria.

I looked at it, and confess I felt shocked. Victorian people—and I was almost sure that the letter was at least a hundred years old—weren’t supposed to have complications like a husband while being someone else’s “always.”

Still sitting at the table, staring at the letter, wondering at the long-lost love affair behind it, I heard the front door open and Ben’s all-too-brisk voice saying, “That’s it, E. You bring Pythagoras in.”

Pythagoras? Since I heard the bike almost immediately, I assumed they’d named it, though it seemed like a truly bizarre idea. Then there were sounds of E dismounting, and moments later, Ben’s forced-cheerful voice from the dining room. “Dyce, we’re home. Sorry to be late, but I—” He stopped at the door to the kitchen. “You didn’t have to make dinner. I figured I’d take E for burgers or something.” He crossed the kitchen as he spoke, and lifted the dish-towel. And jumped back.

“Dyce, what the hell? I’m not eating that.”

“Good,” I told him. “You’d have to pay me fifty cents a piece!”

“What?”

“Please cover them. Cas is getting formula and an eyedropper to feed them.”

“They’re rats!”

“Yes, I found them in the piano.”

“Ew!”

“They’re just babies. Don’t tell me I should have killed them.”

“I wasn’t about to tell you anything of the kind. I’ve known you for almost twenty years.” He made a low whistle under his breath. “Uh . . . so . . . you’re raising them.”

“That’s the general idea.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Put an ad in the paper. Sell them or something. For more than fifty cents, so people don’t feed them to snakes.”

Ben pulled a chair away from the table and sat down in it. At this moment, E came bounding in, pulling at my shirt. “Mom, mom, mom. Mom!!!! Cat.”

Ben ran his hand backward through his hair, opened his mouth.

“No, honey. They’re rats.”

E looked confused. He shook his head. “Cat. Peegrass!”

Ben closed his mouth with a snap, then drew in a deep breath. “Uh . . . no, uh . . . he means cat.”

“What?”

“Well . . . you see, we found this cat, two blocks away, choking and foaming at the mouth. So we took him to the vet. He’d been given poison. So the vet induced vomiting. So, the cat didn’t have a chip or a tag or anything, and he’s really sweet. Big black tom. So E and I . . .
wethoughtwe’dkeephimandbringhimhome
.”

“What?!”

“Peegrass E’s cat!”

“Benedict Colm, are you out of your ever-loving mind?”

He put a finger inside his collar, as if it had suddenly gotten too tight and actually stammered, “Well, well, y-you see, E really liked him, and he wanted to keep him. I couldn’t say no!”

“Oh, right, hide behind the toddler.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Rats, cats, toddlers, oh my. “You know I never got along with cats.”

“Only Fluffy. And that’s because you set her on fire when you were five.”

“I didn’t set her on fire,” I said. “I just lit the quilting frame and tried to get her to jump through it. If she’d been quick about it, and I hadn’t had to use the shoelace, she’d not have caught fire.”

“Shoelace?”

“Whip. I didn’t have a whip. Couldn’t be a lion tamer without a whip. I had to try something. And anyway, Fluffy never forgave me. She had to take Valium whenever she saw me. And she piddled in my bed whenever I stayed at Mom’s.”

“Which is probably why it’s best for everyone that she’s gone to a better place.”

I abstained from pointing out I wasn’t sure that Mom’s fireplace mantel was a better place, since that’s where Fluffy’s ashes were, inside an urn shaped like a Persian cat. At least the urn didn’t hiss when it saw me.

“So now you can have Pythagoras. Really, he’s a very sweet cat!”

“If he’s so sweet, why don’t you keep him?” I asked.

“Because he’s E’s cat.”

“Peegrass E’s cat!” my son the traitor said, nodding vigorously.

“Right, agree with Ben, why don’t you?”

“Aguee wid Ben!”

“So, Mister Colm, why can’t you take Peegrass yourself?”

Ben squirmed. “He’s black!”

“And? Is your condo color segregated?”

He looked at me like I’d taken leave of my senses. “He would clash horribly with my rugs and the sofas. It’s all white or red! He’d be completely out of place.”

Since this concept of color-coordinated pets had never occurred to me, I was silent for a moment. Before I could tell him to dye the cat a more appropriate color, E had run out of the room and returned carrying a plastic cage with a metal grate door.

He sat the cage on my knees, so that I had to put out a hand to balance it. It weighed at least fifteen pounds. E grinned at me. “Peegrass!”

Pythagoras the cat looked at me through the cage. He was huge and black, and looked exactly like a baby panther. A baby panther in dire need of a corner to hide himself in.

He was apple-headed, with a big, round cranium and the sort of jaw that says, “I can crush you with one bite.” However, his green eyes had an intensely blue center, and crossed ever so slightly. And the expression in his eyes said, “I’m sorry. I hope I’m not trespassing.” And, “Could you please direct me to the nearest corner where I may cower and piddle quietly on myself?” He looked—if such were possible—like a much younger feline version of Woody Allen.

I sighed. I could kick him out into the cold cruel world. Sure I could. Right after I strangled the baby rats with my bare hands and danced on their little corpses.

“Peegrass good cat!” E said.

“Mmmeeeee?” Pythagoras said, in what was clearly, “I’m not intruding, am I? Pay no attention to me. I’ll just sit here and cross my eyes at you.” He put a paw out through the bars and touched my hand, with every claw retracted.

Right. “Ben, I’m never going to forgive you. Never, ever, ever, ever. What am I going to do with a cat and seven baby rats?”

He opened his mouth, and I could tell he was considering telling me that one sort of solved the other, but thought better of it, which meant that despite all appearances, Ben had the capacity to learn. “Uh,” he said. “The . . . the rats are a temporary thing, right? I could . . . I could stay here and . . . uh . . . cat-sit. You know, to make sure they don’t . . . uh . . . come in contact. Until we find homes for the rats!”