Read Scratch the Surface Online
Authors: Susan Conant
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths, #Detective and mystery stories, #Detective and mystery stories - Authorship, #Cats, #Mystery fiction, #Apartment houses, #Women novelists
Scratch the Surface (10 page)
Brigitte eyes the
food dish, which is empty, as is the water bowl she customarily shares with Edith. Having repeatedly checked the bathroom and kitchen faucets, she knows that they are not dripping.
food dish, which is empty, as is the water bowl she customarily shares with Edith. Having repeatedly checked the bathroom and kitchen faucets, she knows that they are not dripping.
How long can a cat safely go without water? The question never occurs to Brigitte, who nonetheless jumps to the kitchen counter, scampers to the sink, and trains her amber eyes on the faucet. Just in case.
THIRTEEN
“I’m so surprised
you’re here,” said Janice Mattingly, who had finished unpacking the plastic glasses, the bottles of wine and soft drinks, and the cheese, crackers, and fruit offered to members of Witness in the social hour before the meeting began. Her eyes were not on Felicity but on a mummified foot that formed part of the display set out by the evening’s speaker, a forensic expert whose presentation Felicity had intended to skip. Her fellow Witnesses evidently failed to share her distaste; perhaps thirty were milling around, each wearing a name tag. Happily, the gruesome objects and photographs were on one table at the back of Newbright Books, the refreshments on another. It occurred to Felicity that the fruit, especially the chunks of melon, might easily have gone on either table without seeming out of place. The watermelon had turned a sick red, as had the strawberries, and the honeydew looked slimy. “Me,” Janice continued, “I’d be so shaken up!”
you’re here,” said Janice Mattingly, who had finished unpacking the plastic glasses, the bottles of wine and soft drinks, and the cheese, crackers, and fruit offered to members of Witness in the social hour before the meeting began. Her eyes were not on Felicity but on a mummified foot that formed part of the display set out by the evening’s speaker, a forensic expert whose presentation Felicity had intended to skip. Her fellow Witnesses evidently failed to share her distaste; perhaps thirty were milling around, each wearing a name tag. Happily, the gruesome objects and photographs were on one table at the back of Newbright Books, the refreshments on another. It occurred to Felicity that the fruit, especially the chunks of melon, might easily have gone on either table without seeming out of place. The watermelon had turned a sick red, as had the strawberries, and the honeydew looked slimy. “Me,” Janice continued, “I’d be so shaken up!”
Janice was twenty years younger than Felicity and cursed with a day job. As Felicity had once done, she taught school. A hatred of classrooms was something the two had in common. Felicity had taught kindergarten in Wellesley, whereas Janice taught seventh graders in Brighton. Janice had shoulder-length brown hair and bangs, and although chalk was no longer ubiquitous in classrooms, her skin was white and powdery. In Felicity’s judgment, her lipstick was too red and her eyebrows were overplucked. She favored handwoven garments and the color red.
“I
am
upset!” Felicity said.
am
upset!” Felicity said.
“You probably won’t be able to write for weeks. Maybe months. Or years!”
When the City of Somerville had torn up the street in front of Felicity’s apartment building, the jackhammer hadn’t stopped her from writing. She had worked despite the ends of love affairs, the pain of a broken wrist, and the discombobulation of the move from Somerville to Newton Park. The alternative was a return to classroom teaching. She had written two pages this same afternoon. “Well, if that happens, I’ll file a civil suit against the murderer and retire on my settlement,” she said.
“Can you do that?”
Felicity was about to say that one could indeed file such a suit when she noticed the object Janice had just picked up. “Janice, put that thing
down!
” The thing was the mummified foot, which Janice was absentmindedly fondling. Sounding like Naomi, she said, “You could catch something from it!”
down!
” The thing was the mummified foot, which Janice was absentmindedly fondling. Sounding like Naomi, she said, “You could catch something from it!”
“It’s dry. Actually, it looks like it’s been varnished. Bacteria grow in warm, moist environments.”
“Janice,” said Sonya Bogosian, “you aren’t supposed to touch the exhibits. And that thing is disgusting. I don’t know why you’d want to touch it, anyway. Hi, Felicity. How’s your murder coming along?” Felicity had returned Sonya’s call, but had had to settle for leaving voice mail.
Bogosian
was Sonya’s married name. Her coloring was Scandinavian. Her long, naturally blonde hair was secured in a bun at the base of her neck, and, as usual, she wore so many layers of loose, flowing garments that her appearance suggested a well-scrubbed bag lady. “You know, if you don’t mind my asking, I have a little professional curiosity about something. The blood. Would you say it looked like ketchup? Or more like red paint?”
Bogosian
was Sonya’s married name. Her coloring was Scandinavian. Her long, naturally blonde hair was secured in a bun at the base of her neck, and, as usual, she wore so many layers of loose, flowing garments that her appearance suggested a well-scrubbed bag lady. “You know, if you don’t mind my asking, I have a little professional curiosity about something. The blood. Would you say it looked like ketchup? Or more like red paint?”
“Sonya, it’s going to depend on whether it’s congealed,” said Hadley O’Connor, who’d joined the little group. Hadley was Felicity’s junior by ten years and almost ridiculously handsome, with wavy brown hair, bright blue eyes, and hard muscle. Five years ago, when he’d moved to Boston and begun attending Witness meetings, Felicity had had a brief fling with him that she’d ended as soon as she’d belatedly sampled one of his books. She occasionally read private investigator novels, especially hard-boiled mysteries so undercooked as to be barely coddled, and had wishfully supposed that Hadley’s novels would suit her palate. Ten pages of gore and sadism had disillusioned her. She had, however, remained on cordial terms with Hadley. In fact, she went out of her way to be pleasant to him, mainly because the contents of his mind frightened her senseless.
“There wasn’t any blood.” Felicity made the admission with a sense of shame and inferiority, as if she’d had the bad luck to get a third-rate corpse. A first-rate one would have been mutilated, maybe even decapitated. Decapitation was hot these days, wasn’t it? Second-rate would’ve been gory: brain matter and blood. The little gray man had been third-rate: He’d been just plain dead. Still, the duct tape counted for something, didn’t it? “His mouth was sealed with duct tape,” she hastened to add, lest anyone think that her very own corpse had simply had a heart attack after being frightened to death, a method favored by Isabelle Hotchkiss. “But the police have asked me not to share the details with anyone.” Except hair stylists, who were clergy of sorts. Thank heaven for freedom of religion!
Her eyes eager, Janice asked, “What did he die of then? Asphyxiation?”
“No one knows yet,” Felicity said smugly. “When the results are available, I’ll be among the first to know. Obviously. I mean, this was not some random crime, although how it connects to me is, if you’ll pardon the expression, a complete mystery.” To Hadley, she said, “There was a cat left with the body. In my vestibule. I think I’m allowed to tell you that.”
“Dead?” he inquired hopefully.
“Alive! She’s with me now. Well, not here and now, but at my house. She was horribly traumatized, but she’s beginning to recover. And she’s just as sweet as she is beautiful. Ask Ronald! He met her last night. He came rushing over as soon as I called him.”
“The poor cat!” Janice exclaimed. “I don’t know what Dorothy-L would do if something like that happened to her.” At Janice’s first mention of her cat, Sonya and Hadley turned to the refreshment table. Janice was well known to be tediously devoted to the cat, who was named after Dorothy-L, an Internet list for mystery fans, which was, in turn, named in honor of Dorothy L. Sayers. “Her health is fragile enough as it is. I thought her thyroid was okay with the medication, but now I’m starting to think that maybe she needs the radioactive iodide treatment after all, even though it would be awful for her in the short term. They have to be isolated, and then even when they come home, you can’t touch them because, of course, they’re radioactive. I really don’t—”
In desperation, Felicity said, “Any news about your book?”
Tailspin
was a cat mystery that Felicity had weaseled out of blurbing by pleading a deadline. (“I don’t have time to read my own manuscript, never mind someone else’s!”)
Tailspin
was a cat mystery that Felicity had weaseled out of blurbing by pleading a deadline. (“I don’t have time to read my own manuscript, never mind someone else’s!”)
“Sonya did a wonderful blurb for me,” Janice said. “Really cute.”
“I’m sure,” said Felicity.
“Look,” said Janice, “maybe this isn’t the right time to raise it, but would you mind if I wrote about your murder in the newsletter? I’m always short of material. I’m supposed to be the editor, but people are lazy about sending me material, and I end up writing most of it myself, and it’s hard to know what to say.”
With great self-control, Felicity replied casually, “Well, if it would help you out, I guess I wouldn’t mind, but I have to wait until the murder is solved. I am forbidden to give interviews.”
The membership was now settling in chairs and on the floor in preparation for the business meeting, which would be followed by the forensic expert’s presentation.
“I’ll call you,” Janice said. “For an interview.”
The first of many!
Felicity thought gleefully. “Fine,” she said. “With luck, I’ll be allowed to share the details in a day or two.”
Felicity thought gleefully. “Fine,” she said. “With luck, I’ll be allowed to share the details in a day or two.”
In spite of the welcome omen that her publicity plans were shaping up, Felicity felt suddenly tired and, in any case, had no desire to hear about mummified feet. Excusing herself, she headed for the front of the shop, where she passed the display of Isabelle Hotchkiss’s new book. Instead of feeling the combination of jealousy, envy, and resentment that ordinarily assailed her when she came upon evidence of her rival’s success, she felt an almost grandiose optimism to which she gave voice once she reached the privacy of Aunt Thelma’s Honda. “Kitty Katlikoff, you better watch out! Better say bye-bye to your saccharine, sickening Lambie Pie and Olaf! Because here comes Prissy LaChatte.” She paused and added vehemently, “And Morris and Tabitha, who are going to scratch your rotten eyes out!”
FOURTEEN.
After taking her
first mouthful of coffee—but before putting on her reading glasses—Felicity perused the morning paper. From her optometrically challenged viewpoint, the lead article on the front page began thus:
first mouthful of coffee—but before putting on her reading glasses—Felicity perused the morning paper. From her optometrically challenged viewpoint, the lead article on the front page began thus:
MYSTERY WRITER’S CAT SOLVES HOMICIDE
Felicity Pride, author of the Prissy LaChatte series of feline mysteries, returned home on Monday evening to a scene out of one of her own books.
Feeling somewhat dissatisfied, Felicity fortified herself with a slug of coffee and tried again:
FAMOUS MYSTERY NOVELIST’S CAT SOLVES NEWTON MURDER
Felicity Pride, celebrated author of the bestselling Prissy LaChatte series of feline mystery novels, returned home on Monday evening from a well-attended signing of her latest blockbuster,
Felines in Felony,
to discover a scene straight out of one of her own spine-tingling tales. Or should that be
tails
?
Felines in Felony,
to discover a scene straight out of one of her own spine-tingling tales. Or should that be
tails
?
Once having donned her glasses, Felicity paged through the paper until she finally came upon a short paragraph in a column about local crime:
Police report that an elderly man whose body was found on the front porch of a Brighton home on Monday evening was the victim of foul play. Authorities are pursuing their investigation.
Brighton
home indeed!
Front porch!
No Felicity, no mystery novels, no Prissy, and no cat! Still, the murder had been reported in the paper, no matter how inadequately, and instead of passively accepting her ignominious and anonymous relegation to two sentences deep in the interior of the paper, Felicity decided to act. After all, her first three mysteries hadn’t been hardcovers, had they? No, they had been paperback originals reviewed in the newsletters of three mystery bookstores and nowhere else. But those three paperbacks had been a start. So, too, was this stinking mini-paragraph. Well, if the cat was indeed going to solve the Newton homicide, best to begin with the cat and with her own role as cat-worshiping cat novelist. To begin with, she’d take the cat to a vet.
The late Morris had required nothing in the way of veterinary care and had thus left Felicity entirely ignorant about veterinarians and local veterinary clinics. Clearly, Felicity Pride’s cat must see a posh veterinarian. But how was she to go about identifying one? By address, she presumed. Consulting the yellow pages of the West Suburban directory, Felicity studied the listings and, on the basis of its Newton location and the possibly feline connotation of its name, picked out Furbish Veterinary Associates. Having called the veterinary practice, stated her name, and requested an appointment for a cat, she was only somewhat surprised to be told that Dr. Furbish could see the cat at eleven o’clock this same morning. As Felicity was enjoying what she interpreted as evidence that her name had weight in the world of cats, she was taken aback by the request for the cat’s name.
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