I wasn’t sure whether the shriek came from a human being or an animal—I just knew that whatever creature had made that noise was in some kind of agony.
And it had come from somewhere upstairs. I hurried up to the second floor and stopped in the hallway, listening.
Maybe it had been a fox. When we’d first moved to the country, I’d been alarmed at how often I heard ghastly screams coming from the surrounding woods. I knew now that it was only the foxes’ mating calls. But even knowing that I was sometimes alarmed when I heard them. If this was only a fox …
But no, it hadn’t sounded as if it was coming from the wood. It had sounded closer. In the house.
There it was again, sounding even more agonized—and coming from the third floor. I raced up and stood at the top of the stairs, willing whoever had made the noise to do it again. Long seconds ticked by. I was about to go downstairs again, to fetch my main key ring, which had a master key. I could start opening all the doors and—
The shriek came again, and this time I heard a human voice, almost drowned out by the shriek.
“I think she’s dying!” the voice said.
I recognized the voice—Rhea. And it seemed to be coming from the room now occupied by Maeve—the room with the excellent view of our backyard bird feeders.
I strode down the hall and knocked on the door.
“What’s going on?” I said.
A pause.
“Nothing.” Maeve or Angela, I wasn’t sure which.
“Yeah, right,” I said. “I heard someone screaming in agony. Let me in or—”
The door opened, and Rhea stood in the doorway.
“It’s fine,” she said. “We’re only—”
I pushed past her into the room. Maeve and Angela glanced up, startled. They were both kneeling on the floor, one on each side of a copier paper box.
In the box was a cat. The pregnant yellow tabby who’d been hanging around the Methodist church. She was alarmingly tiny, and by contrast her pregnant belly seemed enormous. She looked up at me with an expression of helpless misery. Then her body tensed, and she yowled in agony—though not as loudly as before. She seemed to be running out of energy.
“She’s having labor pains,” Angela said.
“I figured that out,” I said. “How long has this been going on?”
“A little while now,” Maeve said.
“Two hours,” Rhea said
“She only just started screaming,” Angela said. “I don’t think it’s going well.”
Understatement. From what I could see, the cat hadn’t even bothered to push with that last labor pain. Not a good sign.
“We need to take her down to the vet,” I said. “Come on.”
“Noooo!” Angela grabbed the box, and Maeve leaned over as if trying to put her body between me and the cat.
“We don’t want her put down,” Rhea said. “She’s—”
“No one wants to put her down,” I said. “I’m talking about saving her life. She’s incredibly small. Way smaller than any other pregnant cat I’ve ever seen, which could mean the kittens are too large for her. And it looks as if she’s given up trying. She may need medical help—possibly even a C-section. So let’s get her downtown so our very skilled town vet can save her. Unless you want to stay here and watch her die.”
Angela and Maeve exchanged a glance, then drew away from the box. I picked it up and headed for the stairs.
“If any of you want to come with me, run ahead and get your wraps,” I said over my shoulder. “And get my coat. It’s the—”
“I know which one.” Rhea ran past me. Angela and Maeve followed.
By the time I reached the front hall, they were all ready to go. I handed the box off to Rhea, pulled on my coat, and led the way to the Twinmobile.
It was snowing more heavily now, and I could see that our road hadn’t been plowed all that recently. Not surprising. Caerphilly only had two snowplows for the entire county. With this much snow Osgood and Beau, the drivers, were probably having trouble keeping up, and the more traveled roads in town took priority. I hoped we didn’t get stuck in a snowbank on the way to town.
We set the box in the back seat, with Angela and Maeve on either side to steady it. Angela kept talking to the cat with a constant stream of soft, comforting words. Maeve appeared to be saying the rosary. Both good ideas, provided we accompanied them with a quick trip to see Clarence.
Rhea climbed up front with me, and I handed her my phone.
“Take this,” I said. “I need to focus on my driving. Call Clarence Rutledge—the number’s in my contact list. Tell him to meet us at his clinic.”
Rhea nodded and began calling. I launched myself on the road, which was getting nasty. Surprisingly slippery.
Rhea reached Clarence, who was out at a farm at the other side of the county. He promised to head back as soon as he could.
“What if he doesn’t make it in time?” Angela whispered.
“Call my dad,” I told Rhea. “And tell him what’s going on.”
“Right.” Rhea poked buttons until she found Dad’s number and dialed.
“I thought your father was a medical doctor,” Maeve said.
“He is,” I said. “But he’s also an animal lover. He helps out all the time, at Clarence’s clinic and out at the zoo. He did an emergency C-section on a leopard once—I think he can handle this.”
As I expected, Dad was eager to help out our pregnant cat—and he was already in town, having taken a hypochondriac aunt to the ER to reassure her that she wasn’t actually having a heart attack.
“I’ll meet you at Clarence’s clinic!” he said.
“Thank goodness,” Angela breathed from the back seat.
“I wish you had told me sooner that you had her,” I said. Which would probably make them feel guilty—well, maybe they should feel guilty. Maybe they’d have more common sense the next time something like this happened. “Given how small she is, and how close to her term, we could have had her under observation at Clarence’s all evening. Much safer for her. Especially since Clarence would probably have realized how close she was to giving birth, and would have stayed up with her.”
“We weren’t sure if we should tell you,” Angela said, “since we figured out you don’t exactly like cats.”
“Why on earth would you think that?” I asked. “We have two of our own—on top of five llamas, several dozen chickens, four resident dogs and any number of visiting ones. We’re not exactly averse to animals.”
“Yes, but you exile your cats to the barn,” Rhea said.
“Skulk and Lurk are ferals,” I said. “Clarence rescued them and neutered them, and we adopted them as our barn cats because he thought at their age they were too set in their ways to be good candidates for house pets.”
“Oh.” Maeve looked chastened. Angela was crying softly.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “We misjudged you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said.
Maybe I should have let them keep worrying. Half a mile farther on we came to a dead stop. A rental car full of tourists and Deacon Washington’s farm truck were tangled up together in the middle of the road, totally blocking traffic. Clearly this was one reason Beau and Osgood hadn’t been able to plow our roads recently.
The deacon was standing and shaking his head at the truck. Nearby was his grandson, the one who had been driving him around since his eyesight got too bad to drive.
“Can’t you get by on the shoulder?” Rhea asked.
“There’s not really much of a shoulder in this stretch of the road,” I said. “Just really deep ditches. Stay here.”
I set the emergency brake, jumped out, and strode closer to the wreck.
“Anyone hurt?” I asked.
“We’re all fine,” the deacon said. “But I’m blessed if I know how I’m going to get home.”
“I’ll carry you if I have to, Gramps,” his grandson said.
I glanced back at the Twinmobile. Rhea and Maeve were staring out with stricken looks on their faces. Angela was still crying.
Just then a police cruiser pulled up on the far side of the accident. Vern Shiffley stepped out.
“Vern!” I called. “Veterinary emergency! Can you take me and the patient into town?”
“Hop in,” he said.
“But what about our car?” one of the tourists wailed.
“The tow truck is right behind me, ma’am,” Vern said. “And if any of you have any injuries you want treated, I can run you into town right quick.”
I ran back to the Twinmobile, grabbed my tote, and opened the driver’s side passenger door.
“I’ll take the cat,” I said. “Rhea, can you run Deacon Washington home? He can show you the way. At his age he shouldn’t be standing around in the cold. By the time you do that they will probably have cleared the accident and you can join us at Clarence’s.”
“Okay.” Rhea jumped out and began circling around to the driver’s side.
“I’ll come with you,” Maeve said.
Carrying the cat’s box we carefully picked our way around the perimeter of the accident—there was barely enough room for pedestrians to avoid the ditch—and hopped into the back of Vern’s car. Which reeked of vomit. I saw Maeve’s nose wrinkle.
“Sorry about the smell, ladies,” Vern said as he began turning his car around. “Picked up a pair of drunks earlier this evening.”
“It’s not really that bad,” Maeve said in a brave tone.
“Yes, it is,” I said. “Vern, can you crack the windows?”
Even with all the windows open it was still a smelly ride, and a wild, cold, windy one to boot, but Vern got us to the front steps of the Caerphilly Veterinary Hospital a lot faster than I could have managed in the snow. Dad and Lucas, Clarence’s assistant, ran out the front door as soon as we pulled up in front of it. Vern carried the box inside, and waited with us while Dad and Lucas examined the cat. Actually, Dad, Lucas, and Grandfather, who must have come along for the ride to keep Dad company.
“I’m not sure we can wait for Clarence,” Dad said. “She might not make it. Lucas, can you prep the operating room?”
Lucas nodded and ran into the back part of the clinic. Vern and Dad followed, carrying the cat’s box. Vern emerged a few minutes later, looking a little green around the gills.
“They’re prepping her for surgery,” he said. “Keep me posted, will you?”
“Will do,” I said.
Vern left. Maeve and I looked at each other, then sat down side by side in the waiting room. Grandfather must have decided to enact the role of surrogate expectant father. He began pacing up and down.
“Whose cat is that, anyway?” He had stopped in front of us and was eyeing Maeve suspiciously.
“Feral,” I said. “Maeve and a couple of her friends rescued her.”
“Ah.” His expression changed to one of approval and he resumed his pacing.
Maeve began crying softly. Few things rattled Grandfather, but seeing women cry was one of them.
“Fine looking orange tabby,” he said, obviously trying to distract her. “I prefer the term yellow, actually, and you’ll also hear them called red, ginger, marmalade, or even butterscotch. Orange cats are always tabbies, and males greatly outnumber the females.”
“Until I met this one I thought they were always male,” Maeve said. I suspected she was just being polite rather than fascinated by these bits of feline lore. She kept glancing at the door that led back into the main body of the clinic.
“The gene for the yellow or orange color is carried on the X chromosome.” Grandfather was in full lecture mode now. “A male cat who inherits it will be yellow, but a female has to inherit the gene from both parents to be yellow, like this one. So male yellow cats outnumber females approximately four to one.”
Grandfather continued to dispense bits of lore about feline genetics, including the differences between the classic, mackerel, striped, and ticked tabby patterns, the reason for the extreme rarity of male calicos, and the fact that the domestic cat shared 96 percent of its DNA with tigers. And it did seem to have the effect of distracting Maeve from her stress—at least enough that she didn’t shed any more tears. Although she was shivering, as if still feeling the bitter cold outdoors. Evidently Grandfather noticed. He went back to check on how surgery was going, returning with two steaming cups of coffee.
“Going well so far,” he said, as he handed Maeve one of the cups. He offered me the other, but when I declined, he began sipping it. It would take a lot more than a slight chill to make me interested in drinking a cup of coffee.
Grandfather was just getting started on sex-linked traits in humans, such as hemophilia and red/green color blindness, when Dad burst through the door from the back area. The sight of his face, beaming with obvious delight, was immensely reassuring to all of us.
“It’s a litter!” he exclaimed. “Six of them! All reasonably sized, and perfectly healthy, as far as I can tell. Want to take a look?”
He led us back through the door into a room that served as Clarence’s main examining room, and then to one of the small side rooms for patients that were staying at the clinic. Clarence preferred small rooms to the large open room full of cages you saw in so many veterinary hospitals—he felt that the small rooms contributed to animals’ faster recovery, since they let him separate dogs from cats, and cats from rodents, and aggressive or noisy creatures from timid or shy ones. The formerly pregnant cat was in a large crate in a small room with no other patients. Lucas was sitting in a stained and battered beanbag chair beside her crate, obviously planning to keep a close watch over her. The cat was purring, and the kittens were nursing—all six of them: three yellow, one calico, and two that would either be black or tortoiseshell—it was hard to tell when they were still slightly damp.
“Mother and kits are all doing fine,” Lucas said. “And I’ll be staying with them until we’re sure she’s recovered from the anesthetic.”
“But what will happen to them?” Maeve looked anxious. Clearly she didn’t know Clarence. Or Caerphilly.
“Don’t worry,” Dad said. “We’ve had a bit of a kitten shortage lately—which is a good thing, actually, since it means our spay and neuter campaigns are working well. And it also means that Clarence has a list of fully vetted potential adoptees for any kittens he comes across. And we should have no problem getting this little lady adopted, either.” He reached in and scratched the mother cat behind the ears. She lifted her head to meet his hand.
“Obviously not a feral,” Lucas said. “Some creep must have decided he didn’t want kittens and dumped her off in the town square. There oughta be a law. But Clarence and I know a couple of people who have lost cats recently and might be ready to adopt a new one. They’ll be fighting over her. For now, we’re calling her Merry—as in Christmas.”
“A lovely name,” Maeve said.
We all stood in a circle for a while, gazing at Merry and her kittens, and it struck me that we were rather like a slightly off-kilter live reenactment of the Nativity scene. Lucas made a sturdy, protective Joseph, with Dad hovering in character as the guardian angel. Maeve, Grandfather, and I could fill the role of the shepherds. Although Grandfather would probably prefer being thought of as one of the three kings. The boss king, if there was such a thing, and if there wasn’t, Grandfather would invent it.
“They all look quite vigorous,” Grandfather said in a satisfied tone. He preferred fierce animals to docile ones, which meant he tended to approve of most cats on general principles. And even he probably realized that the kittens were too young to be fierce, so vigorous would do for the time being.
That broke the spell, and we all began talking logistics. Dad planned to stay at the clinic until Clarence arrived and he could hand off his patients—then he and Grandfather would head home. Maeve begged to be allowed to stay overnight and help Lucas keep watch over his charges, and no one had any objection. I checked with Debbie Ann and learned that the accident with Deacon Washington’s truck was still being cleared up.
“But don’t worry,” she said. “It won’t take much longer. Just stay there at the clinic, and as soon as the road opens, I can ask one of the deputies to run you back home. Probably Horace—he’d enjoy the chance to check on Watson. Or maybe Vern, when he finishes cleaning up his patrol car.”
I thanked her and hung up.
Everyone else was focused on the various animals staying here at the clinic. Grandfather was trading stares with an ailing iguana. Dad was talking soothingly to a pit bull as he examined its teeth. Lucas and Maeve were hovering over the kittens.
I suddenly realized that the clinic was way too hot. Which was good for all the ailing or recovering animals, but it was starting to feel oppressive. And the smell was getting to me, disinfectant with a faint undertone of animal waste.
“I’m going to get some air,” I said.
No one argued with me—I wasn’t even sure any of them noticed when I left the back part of the clinic for the waiting room. I donned my coat, hat, and gloves. Then I made sure the front door was unlocked, so I could get back in if everyone continued to be preoccupied, and stepped outside into the snowy night.
It wasn’t snowing all that hard at the moment. But it was a pretty snow, with the flakes spiraling down, glittering in the clinic’s outside lights. I took deep breaths of the clean, cold air and basked in the sudden equally refreshing sense of solitude. The Caerphilly Veterinary Hospital was on the outskirts of town, well away from the tourist-filled environs. In fact, there was even a small woods behind it—only a couple of acres, but that was enough to make the neighborhood much quieter, and the woods made a nice place for exercising the dogs.
Someone had obviously plowed or shoveled the parking lot in front of the building fairly recently—there was only about an inch or so of snow on it. Still, enough to dampen any sounds. I listened for the sound of snowplows, cars, or even shoveling in the distance, but there was nothing to disturb the snow-muffled stillness.
And it was darker now. A few of the nearby houses left their holiday lights on all night, but most had turned them off. A few were enough to add a touch of holiday spirit, I decided, without disturbing the peace and quiet of the winter’s night.
Peace and quiet. No one was asking me to do anything. I’d get plenty of that tomorrow, no doubt—helping the Canadians find their way home, clearing out their rooms so family members staying elsewhere could move in. Thank goodness Nora was here, so my contribution to meals would be limited to grocery runs and other menial chores. And the skating rink should make entertaining our visiting relatives much easier—the skating rink and everyone’s ongoing fascination with finding out which of the chief’s two suspects had committed the murder. But still. It would be busy, noisy, and tiring. Enjoyable. I could feel my holiday spirit returning. Another five minutes and I’d start humming “Joy to the World.”
I was about to turn and go back inside the clinic when something poked me in the back.
“Don’t move,” a voice said. “And don’t scream. If you do, I’ll shoot.”