The Whiskered Spy (6 page)

F
ather Sam’s
place turned out to be a bust, though. Sneaking in through the cat flap, we were both shocked and dismayed to find that Sam had omitted to fill Stevie’s cat bowl. The thing was empty! Even his water bowl was empty. And I was still shaking my head in dismay at so much negligence from a cat owner, when I noticed Father Sam had also neglected to clean out Stevie’s litter box. I had trotted tither in hopes of taking a tinkle, when I saw to my disgust that the box contained at least a week’s worth of Stevie’s doo-doo. Yikes.

Stevie joined me with a shamefaced expression on his hairy mug. “Sorry about that,” he mumbled.

“Something is very wrong here,” I deduced. “Father Sam never used to be like this.”

He sighed as he led me into the pantry. “I know. He’s been very distracted lately. Hasn’t even groomed me for ages.”

I watched on as Stevie picked away at a 30 pound bag of Chicken Meal Formula. Finally the bag ripped and the wholesome grain-free and gluten-free manna from feline heaven flowed onto the floor. Stevie bade me to dig in but I insisted he go first. He was, after all, the host and I a mere guest.

His mouth full of kibble—rich in all the necessary vitamins, minerals and nutrients and recommended by the veterinary society—he said, “He’s been working on the same sermon for ages.”

“Must be some sermon.”

“I know. And the odd thing is, he frequently locks himself up in his study and won’t come out for ages. I hear him mumbling in there—probably practicing parts of his sermon—then there’s the sound of crumpling paper and the wad hitting the wastepaper basket and from time to time even soft sobbing.”

“That’s bad,” I said. “Every time Zack starts sobbing it usually means he’s fallen in love again and the thing ended badly.”

“Do you think Sam has fallen in love?”

I started playing with a piece of chicken-shaped kibble. “Who knows? Human males are weird that way. They’ll fall in love with just about anybody.”

“But Sam is no ordinary man,” said Stevie. “He’s a priest. They’re not supposed to fall in love.”

“Oh?” Of course I knew all about the topic, for Zack had once been a priest too. He’s retired now, of course. Though from time to time I still catch him fingering his clerical garb when he thinks I’m not looking.

“No. Some humans—all men—pledge allegiance to another human—also a man—hanging from a cross, and from that day forward they’re not allowed to even look at a woman let alone sniff her butt.”

“Weird.”

“Tell me about it. Imagine someone telling us not to sniff a girl’s butt.”

“No way.”

Stevie and I pondered for a moment about the idiosyncrasies of humans. They really are a weird species. Then Stevie said something that made my ears flap. “Could you repeat that?” I said.

“I said that the girl’s name is Bluebell. At least, that’s the name Sam keeps mumbling when he’s alone in his study working on his sermon. I put my ear to the door once and it was Bluebell this and Bluebell that the whole time. That’s why I’m telling you he’s fallen in love, priest or no priest.”

“Bluebell,” I said, frowning, for the name had rung a bell, though which one I wasn’t sure yet.

“Odd name for a girl, don’t you think?”

Then it struck me. Not only had Zack mentioned the name Bluebell earlier that evening, but it had also occurred in the last will and testament of the ghost of Lucy Knicx as read to me, Dana and Stevie. In my excitement I almost knocked over the entire bag of cat food. “It’s a clue!” I vociferated.

“That’s what I keep telling you,” said Stevie with mild reproach. “Sam’s gone and gotten himself entangled with some dreadful female listening to the name Bluebell. And let me tell you, Tom—can I call you Tommy?—that this spells nothing but woe, wretchedness and—”

“No, listen—”

“—worry for all involved. For once a woman enters Sam’s life he won’t be the Brookridge priest much longer. He’ll resign or quit or whatever it is that priests do, and he’ll move away from Brookridge for he won’t be able to stand the disgrace and the gossip and the—”

“No, but listen—”

“—fingerpointing. We’ll probably move to some ghastly back alley in some ghastly town and the new lady of the house won’t like me and will kick me out of the house and I’ll be forced to roam the streets where I’ll suffer and struggle and die.”

“But Bluebell is not a girl!” I finally managed to say.

“It’s not?”

“No! Jesus, I’ve never met any cat who can talk so much.” Apart from myself, perhaps.

“Thank you,” said Stevie, and he seemed genuinely touched. “I aim to please,” he added modestly.

“That’s not what I meant,” I started to say, then decided this wasn’t an avenue I wanted to pursue with Stevie, and dropped the subject. “Zack was talking about Bluebell before—”

“Then it’s definitely a girl,” said Stevie. “You know what Zack is like.”

I knew very well what Zack was like. In fact I think it’s safe to say I’m the number one authority on all things Zack. My master, for lack of a better word, is what I would call a serial infatuator. He falls in love fast and very frequently, and whenever he starts dropping names around the house with a strange cow-like look in his eyes, I know it’s that time of the month again. But this time there were extenuating circumstances.

“I do know what Zack is like, and if not for Lucy Knicx mentioning the same name in her farewell speech, I’d say you were right on the money.”

There was a pause, as Stevie processed this information. I could see from the way he screwed up his face that his brain was working overtime. “Lucy Knicx?” he said finally. “Lucy Knicx mentioned the word ‘Bluebell’?”

I nodded, and started striding away from the pantry. Fond though as I am of any place where the food is plenty and there simply for the taking, I thought the time had come to investigate further into this matter of Bluebell, and what better place to start than right here in Sam’s place.

“
S
how me Sam’s study
, Watson,” I said, for though I knew the Sherlock-Watson simile wasn’t as pertinent as I should have liked, it still had a nice ring to it.

“So Bluebell isn’t a girl, then, is she?” said Stevie, who came tripping in my wake.

“At this point in our investigation, Bluebell could be anything,” I said, as we traversed the presbytery corridor. We had arrived at a sturdy oak door barring entrance into Sam’s inner sanctum: his study. It was here that the great man wrote his sermons, pieces of eloquent prose that inspired the Brookridge masses week on week, or so they tell me. I must admit never having been present during Mass, cats not being allowed in Church as a rule. Not that I mind. Though Jesus was a fisherman, I have it from authoritative sources no actual fish is ever served there.

“Now what?” I said, as I gently pawed the closed door. One of the disadvantages of being a cat is that we have a hard time handling doors. Then again, one of the advantages of being a cat is that we usually find a way around this. Stevie’s next words were a testament to that.

“Follow me,” he said, with a roguish glint in his eye.

“Aye, aye, sir,” I said. We were in Stevie’s lair now, and even though I had my doubts about my new partner’s intelligence, he wouldn’t be much of a cat if he didn’t now the ins and outs of his own place. He led me up a creaking staircase covered with a worn-out oriental runner. On the landing he disappeared into a bathroom that had also seen better days and hopped onto the toilet seat. From there he took a quick leap and disappeared into an opening in the wall where once a vent had been.

“Are you coming?” his voice echoed from inside the wall.

“Yup,” I said, and in two bounds I had joined him. We were now inside the wood paneled wall and were heading South again. As I took in the sights—dust and mouse droppings—I asked him the one question that had been on the forefront on my mind. “Any good mice around here?”

“Nah,” he said, looking over his shoulder before taking a leap from one supporting beam to the next. “Sam’s a great Christian, or at least that’s what everyone tells me, but the part of his scripture about turning the other cheek, doesn’t seem to apply to mice. He’s managed to chase them all away by putting mousetraps everywhere. Word about these heavy-handed tactics spread fast—mouse to mouse so to speak—and pretty soon they stopped coming.”

I shook my weary head. This deplorable attitude towards members of the rodent population pained me and I said as much.

“I know,” he said, with a dejected twitch of his tail. “But what can you do? I rip open a garbage bag once in a while, but before the little buggers can catch a whiff of the stuff, Sam has fixed them with one of his traps. Ah, here we are.”

He slid gracefully through a small crack in the wall and we came out behind an old gas stove in the corner of what I assumed to be Father Sam’s famous study. Instantly Stevie hopped up onto an outsized desk taking up most of the space, and I took a closer look at that wastepaper basket Stevie had been telling me so much about. The one with all the discarded drafts of his sermon.

“Nothing here,” said Stevie from his perch on top of the desk. In the meantime I was having better luck sorting through Sam’s trash. I had smoothed out a few of his crumpled drafts and my eye had spied the magic word not once but dozens of times on every page: Bluebell was pretty much ubiquitous. I read the first sentence aloud—yes, cats can read. You didn’t know that, did you?

“Oh, my love. I yearn for you with every fiber of my being. I lust for you with every corpuscle in my body. I long to hold you in my arms and hug you, caress you, kiss you, love you with every—”

“Please,” said Stevie, holding up a paw. “If you don’t want a mess on the carpet better stop it right there.” He made a gagging sound and I saw what he meant. It was pretty soppy stuff.

“Um…” I hesitated to clothe my next thought into words. “Are you sure this is the draft of a sermon?”

“Of course it is. Sam doesn’t work on anything else. He’s devoted to his flock.”

I pursed my lips. I’d heard of a priest’s devotion to his parishioners before, but this was really taking things to the next level. I tried to break it gently. “Sounds to me like a love letter, Steve.”

Stevie let out an agonized wail. “So it is true after all! The silly goop has gone and fallen in love with some ghastly female. I knew it!”

I didn’t know what to say. “Tough luck,” I finally managed to mumble, and put a comforting paw on Stevie’s back. I sympathized with the poor sod, having gone through the same horrifying experience many times myself. In fact every time Zack falls in love—once a month, like clockwork—I fret and worry until the danger passes. Luckily so far it always has, but one never knows that some day some half-witted member of the opposite sex will take a fancy to the silly poop, move in and boot me out on my red fanny. I suppressed a shiver at the mere thought.

“I’m done for,” sighed Stevie, stooping his shoulders in dejection.

“Yah, well…” Then something occurred to me. “Look, have you ever seen the wench? I mean, actually seen her come round here?”

Stevie shook his head. “Only Zada Sellar drops in from time to time. She’s one of Sam’s most faithful parishioners. And Mathilda Bladder of course. Chairwoman of the church council. But as far as I can tell Sam has never harbored any romantic notions about either of them.”

Since Zada Sellar is about a hundred years old and Mathilda Bladder the worst gossipmonger Brookridge has ever harbored, this didn’t surprise me. “It occurs to me that perhaps it’s not too late yet. I mean, if he’s still in the writing stage of the proceedings, it stands to reason nothing has happened yet.”

He looked at me with hope and confusion nicely blended in his clear blue eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you know how it goes. When humans fall in love they start writing letters, dozens of them, each one soupier than the next.”

“Like this one.” He pawed the exhibit with distaste.

“Exactly. But this is only in the early stages of the disease. Once the virus spreads, and they’ve gone on several dates together, there’s the kissing stage—”

He closed his eyes. “Please. Spare me the details.”

“—and then, finally, they move in together.”

His tail quavered visibly. “Must you remind me?” he said, pained.

“All I mean to say is that the letter-writing stage is usually situated somewhere between the kissing stage and the cohabitation stage. Which means…”

His eyes lit up. “Which means there’s still hope!”

“Sure there is,” I said encouragingly.

“And then there’s the fact that Zack was also murmuring the ghastly female’s name.”

I started at these words. I’d forgotten all about that. “I wouldn’t exactly say murmuring,” I corrected this misinterpretation of the facts pertaining to the case.

“I do say murmuring,” he went on. “And I’ll say more. Zack can’t stop thinking about the Bluebell menace, Sam can’t stop writing her long and ghastly letters and Lucy Knicx mentions her as she heaves her dying breath—”

“It wasn’t her dying breath,” I corrected him once again. “She was already dead.”

“Still.”

“Still,” I agreed. He had a point there. Now that I came to think about it, Zack had indeed muttered the Bluebell name like he does when he’s just fallen truly, madly, deeply in love again.

“I’ll bet you a can of tuna that the Bluebell is one of those
femme fatales
who waltz into a place and leave a pile of dead bodies and broken hearts in their wake.”

“You know what?” I said, musing. “I think you’re on to something there, Agent Steve.”

“Of course I’m onto something,” he said very immodestly. “And you know what we’re going to do, Agent Tom? We’re going to find out who this Bluebell dame is and put a stop to this femme fataling she’s been doing.” He extended a claw. “One. We solve the Lucy Knicx murder, which is probably some sort of
crime passionnel
.”

I was impressed Stevie had words like
crime passionnel
in his vocabulary.

He extended a second claw. “Two. We drive the Bluebell out of town and…” He extended a third claw. “… three. We save our homes from being wrecked and our butts from being evicted. What do you say?”

I had to hand it to him. It sounded like a good scheme. I only saw one flaw. “How are we going to drive La Bluebell out of Brookridge?”

He deflated a little. “That’s… something we need to think about.”

“Let’s first find out more about her, shall we?” I suggested. “We can figure out the rest as we go along.” I still thought the girl was an enemy spy but since I didn’t want to blow Stevie’s bubble, I refrained from saying so.

“Great scheme!” he said.

And it was as we sat congratulating one another on a fine piece of espionage work, that the door suddenly opened and Sam walked in.