Notable ailurophiles include Albert Einstein, Florence Nightingale, H.G. Wells, Sir Winston Churchill, Pope Benedict XVI, George Burns, John Lennon, Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, Queen Victoria, Nostradamus, and Vanna White. Freddie Mercury of the band, Queen, phoned home to his cats when he was on tour.
A red leaf fell from the vine maple and landed light as a whisker in the pond.
“I can’t believe it’s fall already,” I told Frannie as she handed me a glass of sparkling lemonade.
“Time goes faster when you get to our age,” she replied, taking a sip of her own cold drink. “Besides, you missed a lot of the summer being sick in the hospital.”
Being sick was a polite euphemism for: trip one, broken leg and bashed head; trip two, drugged, kidnaped and left to die on a mountain; and trip three, gunshot wound grazing the left shoulder, dislocated kneecap, and various batterings and bruisings. I had to agree it had kept me pretty busy for those three short months.
The last event had been by far the worst. I was still recovering, both physically and mentally, from Cristine Sinclairii’s raving assault. The shoulder wound had been superficial, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like the dickens. The knee was uncomfortable and unpredictable. Even with the brace that I nearly lived in, it would decide out of the blue that it didn’t want to work right, and then I’d be down for the count until it said otherwise.
I didn’t care; I was alive, and so were my cats. Some people might have crawled into a hole after what I’d been through, but then they’d be missing a great party.
“What’s the occasion?” asked Patty, my neighbor and new cat-sitting best friend. “The invitation was a little vague.”
“Does there have to be an occasion?”
“Well, no, but...”
“Life!” I broke in. “Life, love, and the pursuit of happiness. I figure I owe a lot of people a big thank you for their help and consideration during my bad times. And what better way?” I gestured around the garden, where friends and family gathered to eat, drink, and be merry. “Besides, after the medical bills, a party was all I could afford, though each and every one of these people deserves a whole lot more.”
“Oh, come on,” Frannie said with a slight blush illuminating her perfect makeup. “We’re your friends. We just did what anybody would do.”
“You know that’s not true. Not everyone would come over at the drop of a hat to spend the night with a bunch of traumatized cats because their mom’s in the hospital.” I turned to Patty and Jim. “And not everybody would think twice about a cat meowing at their door in the middle of the night, let alone construe it as a sign of danger and call in the police.”
“Your friend called the police,” Patty deferred.
“But you called Denny, right?”
She nodded.
I looked around for Special Agent Paris and found him talking shop with Connie and Frank. “And Denny, of course, is watchdog to all his four-legged friends, but this time he went the extra mile for this two-legged one.”
“What about me, Grandma?” Seleia piped up as she floated by with a tray of bruschetta. “I stayed the night when you broke your leg. And my friends and I cleaned up that horrible mess the cops made when they thought you’d killed those guys.”
I raised an eyebrow—subtlety wasn’t one of Seleia’s strong points—then I grabbed her and gave her a hug. “You bet, girl. I couldn’t have made it without you.”
A young man with the face of Adonis and thick brown shoulder-length hair came over and put his arm around Seleia’s other side. Seleia giggled and melted into his protective grasp. The two would have made a great toothpaste advertisement.
“Isn’t she the best?” Vinnie said proudly.
“She is that.”
The young couple wandered off to pass out some more bruschetta and joy. My gaze followed them; I tried to remember if I had ever been that young, and failed.
I caught my mother looking at me from across the garden. Was she thinking the same thoughts? At eighty-three, does fifty-nine seem young? I supposed it did. I gave a little wave; she waved back. There are no words that could express how thankful I am that my mother is still in my life. I watched her for a little while. She had gone back to a deep discussion with her roommate, Candy. Probably trying to solve some great television crime mystery, I conjectured. I couldn’t balk though; without her quick wit, I would never have thought about enlisting Denny’s help to get me off the murder rap.
Denny again. It always came back to Denny.
“Denny!” I called out. “Can you come over here for a minute? You too, Connie, Frank.”
The investigators looked up from their conversation, then sauntered over. Denny was in uniform because he was on his lunch hour; soon he would have to put on his hero hat and go back to work. Frank and Connie were off duty and dressed comfortably in jeans and tee shirts.
“We were talking about friends and thanks and how much everyone’s helped me these last few months. Especially you.”
Denny started to get his aw, shucks look, but I wasn’t going to let him bow out this time. He had saved my life—more than once—and deserved to be acknowledged for it.
“Friends!” I said loudly.
Frannie clinked a big citrine ring against her glass for attention. The chatter wound down and smiling faces turned toward me.
“Friends, thanks so much for coming today. I just wanted to say...” I paused. What did I want to say? Thank you? I love you? All of the above? I took a deep breath and it all poured out.
“I just wanted to tell everyone... to remind everyone that life is a gift. That you never know what might happen next. That even the worst situation can suddenly turn around and become something amazing. That we can do things together we can’t do alone. That every moment is precious.
“I sound like a walking platitude,” I said aside to Frannie.
“No you don’t. You sound very...”
“Serene,” put in Halle who had just come through the garden gate looking cool and crisp in an ecru linen suit, “and very wise.”
I grinned at my clan-mate-slash-attorney, another friend without whose help I would have shriveled up and died. “I don’t know about the wise part, but there is a certain serenity that’s come into my life.”
“To life,” said Carol, holding up her lemonade.
“To Lynley,” Seleia furthered.
There was the clink of glasses and smiles and hear-hears from the older faction who still knew what it meant.
The pledges over, people began to drift back into their little circles. I had to sit down; my knee was not in a party mood. Halle, Frannie, Denny, Carol, and Patty joined me around the glass-topped table.
“Well, here we are again,” Carol noted.
I gave her a questioning look, then understood her reference; with the exception of Patty, it was the same group that had sat around another table at another time, plotting and planning how to get me off the hook for the murder of the Badass Brothers.
Halle put her hand over mine. “Well, it’s been a long haul, hasn’t it, hon?”
“It sure has,” I agreed. “Crazy!”
“So what happened?” Patty asked. “I can’t quite put it all together.”
I’d told the story so many times to so many people I couldn’t keep track of who knew what, but the diva in me didn’t mind going through it once more for the benefit of a new audience. I gave my neighbor the short version: the theft of the Cats’ Eyes diamonds; the antipathy between sister and brothers; the mistaken belief that I had the stones; the final conflict that resulted in double fratricide. I skipped the attack of the lunatic Cristine; Patty had been there, front and center, for that part.
“So you had two priceless diamonds in your possession and you didn’t even know it?” Patty asked, her pixie face alight with intrigue.
“Well, I can’t really say they were in my possession since I didn’t know they were here, but yes, literally I suppose I did.”
“Amazing those little rocks could create so much turmoil,” Halle mused.
“They weren’t so little,” I remarked. “Some sixty carats each.”
“Were they very beautiful?” Patty asked, that diamonds are a girl’s best friend glint in her eye.
I shrugged. “I guess. They were rough so I never had an inkling they were anything but pretty rocks. I’m sure they’ll be spectacular when they’re cut, though.”
“Did they ever find the one that was lost? The one the sister thought you had taken?” asked Carol.
“Yes, I hear they did. The guy who owned them had a trained search team out walking the woods until they turned it up.”
“Which one was it? The Burma or the Babylon?”
“No idea. I never could keep them straight.”
“So they were finally returned to the owner,” said Halle, running her fingers through her spikes, which were more of a wine color today. “Do you think he went ahead with the Portland gem cutter or sent them off somewhere else with better security?” She snickered.
I propped my leg on a vacant chair and made a little sigh-groan. “Who knows? The local man is supposed to be the best.”
“I wish I could see them when they’re done,” Patty said longingly.
I envisioned the Cats’ Eyes with all those glittery facets and the dark, pupil-like inclusions. “They’re trying to match the eyes of his own prize cats. Hence the appellation, Cats’ Eyes.”
I turned to my shelter buddy and feline authority. “Frannie, what breed of cat has copper eyes? I couldn’t think of one.”
“Bombay cat,” she said without hesitation. “They’re a hybrid of the black American shorthair and the sable Burmese. Cat Fancy says the bright copper-penny eyes are its signature feature, along with its deep midnight coat.”
“Oh yes! I forgot all about the Bombay cat. I bet that’s the one.”
Carol frowned thoughtfully. “What I don’t understand is why the Sinclairii brothers would leave the diamonds in your pond for so long. It doesn’t seem prudent. I can see them stashing the goods when they were being chased by the cops, but you’d think they’d want to come back and get them asap.”
“I don’t know. They were hiding them from their sister as well as from the police. Maybe they needed to make some arrangements before they could pick up and go. That car they had waiting for them at the boat dock for example—it didn’t appear out of nowhere. Besides, they weren’t the smartest cats in the kennel; especially George.”
“So how come the sister thought you had one of the stones after Brother Larry tossed them out the window up on the mountain?” Frannie asked.
“Apparently she’d been out searching the hill ever since that day. She managed to find one but not the other. When I picked up the glasses lens...”
“Her glasses lens,” Halle interjected.
I nodded. “...she happened to be hiding in the bushes watching me. Maybe it caught the light and she mistook it for the diamond.”
“Could happen. She had diamonds on the brain.”
“But didn’t she realize you’d handed the thing over to the police?” Patty asked.
“I know she saw me talking with Denny. She asked me if I’d given it to the man. But I doubt she stuck around when the Cowlitz County Sheriff showed up, for obvious reasons.”
“She probably assumed you’d pocketed it, because that’s what she would have done,” Denny put in. “But until she saw you at the county fair, she had no way of knowing who you were or how to find you.”
“Then her seeing me at the FOF booth was a total coincidence?”
“That would be my guess.”
“Just my luck!” I swore.
“I wonder what she was doing there, at the county fair?” Patty reflected. “I mean, it hardly seems in character for a killer.”
Halle shrugged. “Psychotics are people too. Deep down, she was probably just a lost little girl. Her warped sense of devotion convinced her that the things she was doing were right.”
In spite of the warmth of the night, I was suddenly chilled. Even though I’d finally taken Frannie’s—and my doctor’s—advice and begun PTSD counseling, I still had a hard time not falling into the Pit of Evil whenever I recalled that night.
Those nights.
Those days and nights.
Carol saw it right away. “Come on now, everybody,” she said in a lively tone that belied her age in so many ways. “Let’s not dwell on the past. The murderer is caught; the thieves are defunct; the diamonds are back where they belong; and Lynley’s safe. Nothing else matters, does it?”
There was a round of sympathetic consent and a quick switch to other, safer subjects with which I was thankfully distracted. For about a minute.
“You know,” I said thoughtfully. “There’s still one question that was never resolved—the forensic evidence that pointed the finger at me in the first place. How did my blood get spilled on top of George’s in the old station wagon?”
Silence.
I looked at Halle.
She shrugged. “Nobody would tell me, though you have to know I asked.”
“Well, maybe they’ll be more forthcoming now,” I declared impetuously.
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and punched the number for Detective Marcia Croft, which for some prescient reason I hadn’t deleted.
She picked up after the first ring. “Detective Croft. What can I do for you, Lynley?”
“Yes. Hi,” I stammered, always caught off balance when people know who I am before I’ve said hello. “Well, I’m sure you’re busy so I’ll get to the point. I have a question about the Sinclairii case, about my involvement.”
“You have been completely cleared,” she assured me.
“I know. Thanks and all. But when you first thought I might have been your killer, it was because of some evidence you’d found?”
“The blood.”
“Yeah, that. Well, I still don’t understand how it could have happened. The brothers weren’t very nice to me but I don’t remember them doing anything that would have drawn blood.”
There was a stretch of silence on her end. “I am going to have to check my files. I cannot remember offhand.”
“I understand,” I said, beginning to feel a brush-off. “But will you call me back when you find out?”
I was surprised when she said, “No need. I have it up on the computer now... Just checking... Ah-ha, here it is.”
Another break. “Alright, Lynley. I have the forensics report in front of me.”
I waited while she translated the doctor-ese into English.
“It looks as if they found trace amounts of blood on a sleeping bag that was in the back seat of the vehicle.”
“Trace amounts? Like microscopic?”
“As from a pinpoint wound. Possibly the injection they gave you.”
“Oh, right. I hadn’t thought of that.” I considered what she was telling me. “But what about George? Where did his blood come from? Was it old? I mean the sleeping bag wasn’t the cleanest.”
“That possibility was ruled out. Apparently both specimens were intermingled in such a way that they had to have been concurrent.”
“Well, as much as I might have liked to, I certainly didn’t do anything to him. My hands were tied. And I don’t remember Larry being violent. So what happened?”
“There is no way of knowing for certain. Speculation?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“George Sinclairii had no medical knowledge that we are aware of. Maybe in the course of injecting you with the painkiller, he gave himself a needle stick by accident.”
“You’re kidding?”
“No, actually I am not, Lynley. It is very common with the untrained. One sees them in the hospital all the time for follow-up testing. To make sure they did not inadvertently contract a blood-borne disease,” she elaborated.
“Well, I guess George won’t have to worry about that.”
“Now, you must understand,” she appended, “this is only extrapolation—an educated guess.”
“Yes, but a good one. Thanks so much for your time.”
“Is there anything else I can do for you?” she offered politely.
“No, that’s it. Thanks again for all you did.”
“Goodbye,” she said and rang off.
I closed my phone and looked at the people around me, all eyes and rapt attention. I took a deep breath, just beginning to understand how tentative a hold the authorities had on me in the first place. “Detective Croft thinks it might have been from a needle stick when George was shooting me up with the drugs. Only a guess though, there’s no way to know for sure.”
“Serves him right,” said Carol.
“But that would only account for the smallest droplet,” said Frannie.
“That’s all it takes,” Denny assured her. “Forensic science can do amazing things.”
“Yeah, but in this case, it steered the investigation in the wrong direction,” said Carol. “If they hadn’t wasted all that time trying to charge Lynley, maybe they would have caught the sister before she’d had time to do any more harm.”
“What kind of sister shoots her brothers in cold blood?” Patty said with a little shiver. “I can’t imagine.”
“That’s a good thing,” I replied. “If we start thinking like the criminals, we’ll all be in deep shit!”
There was a round of laughter—something about an old lady using the “S” word gets them every time.
Denny pushed back his wrought-iron chair and rose. “All good things, Lynley. Sorry to leave you but I have to go to work.” He came around and kissed me on the cheek. I noted that he smelled like chestnuts, which was a surprisingly sexy scent on a young man. “Don’t get up, I can see myself out.”
I took his hand. “Thanks for coming. And everything else you’ve done,” I told him.
He did his aw, shucks thing, which I enjoyed with relish, then donned his official Northwest Humane baseball cap and strode away to his animal-rescuing destiny. As I watched him walk off into the sunset like a present-day John Wayne, I realized I truly loved that man.
“I should probably be going too,” said Patty, staring around the garden. “I’ve lost Jim. I think he must have slipped back next door. I know he had a few things he wanted to finish up before work tomorrow.”
Ah, work! The bane of the young. I remembered weekends that went by altogether too fast and Monday mornings tearing myself away from the things I wanted to do to go do the things I had to.
“Don’t forget,” she said with an elfin smile, “I’m always available to cat-sit. Since our silly landlord won’t let us have one of our own, I can at least get my kitty-fix vicariously through yours.” She gave a little laugh. “Thanks for the party. From both Jim and me.” She glided out the gate toward the apartments next door.
I gazed around the garden, treasuring the last blooms of summer: a rainbow of fat-headed roses and even fatter-headed dahlias; a flurry of chrysanthemum blossoms in fall yellows, browns, and purples. Soon it would be autumn and then winter but I didn’t want to think about that right now. The sun was sinking into twilight, earlier every day. The strings of fairy lights in the trees were beginning to stand out against the dusk like—well—like fairies.
Suddenly I was exhausted. Completely drained. That happened these days; without warning, I would power down like a robot.
“I’m going inside for a minute,” I said, trying to sound as nonchalant as my wearied voice would allow. “Carol, Halle, would you make sure the party keeps going? I’ll only be a sec. Or two.”
“Fine,” soothed Carol. “Halle and I will take care of everything, won’t we, dear?”
Halle nodded assertively. “You go get some rest.”
“If anyone asks, we’ll tell them you needed a time out,” said Carol.
I laughed. “You make me sound like a willful child.”
“Okay, we’ll tell them the truth then: that you’ve been to the end of the world and back and...”
“I just need five minutes. You don’t have to tell anyone anything.” Carol! Always going over and above, not necessarily in the most beneficent ways.
I wrangled my leg off the chair and stood up. “Five minutes,” I reiterated.
Once inside the house, I fumbled my way to my office. I’d never got around to moving the bed back upstairs after my broken leg, and I sort of liked it that way. The cats certainly approved. Red, Little, Dirty Harry, and Fraulein Fluffs were curled up on the comforter in various states of repose. Solo was underneath the bedside table—I could see the green reflection of her eyes—and Violet lay on her back on the braided rug like a velvet goofball. I had relegated them to this room for the party: too many people; too many open doors. It was easier to put them somewhere safe and forget about it, though I knew Harry was miffed about losing his outdoor privileges.
“Soon, Harry,” I said to the old black and white. He bunted my hand, not seeming too upset at the moment.
Without thought, I collapsed onto the dusty gold bed spread in between Fluffs and Little. In a micro-second, Fluffs had climbed up on top of me.
There was a soft knock at the door. “Lyn, it’s just me.”
“Come on in, Frannie,” I answered, not bothering to get up. “Watch the cats; they’re all here.”
She zipped through the door with the little shuffle that discourages darters with its inherent movement and sound. She needn’t have bothered; all feline constituents were perfectly happy right where they were.
Frannie grinned. “You look so cute curled up with your kitties,” she said. “Where’s my camera?”
I petted two or three. “The kitties are cute; I’m not so sure about me.”
Frannie came over and perched on the bed. “You look great considering everything you’ve been through.”
“Thanks, I think.”
She leaned down and scratched Violet’s vast silken belly and was rewarded with a rumble that could have passed for volcanic activity or the beginnings of a thunder storm. I stroked Fluffs’ long gray locks. For that moment in time, we were the only beings in the whole wide universe.
The comfortable silence stretched between us, a warm and fuzzy empathy between friends.
“How are your hoarder fosters coming?” Frannie asked languidly.
“Only one left, and she goes back on Tuesday.”
“Then what?”
“Kerry’s picked out another for me. Tinkerbelle, a ten-year-old stray with a kitty cold. It’ll be a swap.”
Pause. Scratch. Purr.
“You doing the early shift at the shelter tomorrow?” I inquired.
“Yeah, seven till noon. Kennel cleaning, litter pan washing and laundry until ten, then customer service. I hope Misty gets adopted soon. You know, the diabetic kitty?”
“Sure. She’s very sweet. Aside from her medical condition, she’s perfect.”
Pause. Pet. Cuddle.
“I’m sorry you had to go through all this,” Frannie said solemnly.
I sighed. “Yeah, me too.”
Pause. Stroke.
“Do you believe things happen for a reason?” she added.
I shifted Little who had also climbed onto my lap and was grooming Fluff’s fur. “Yes, but I don’t think we’re always privy to what those reasons might be.”
Pause. Purr. Snuggle.
“I guess we should be getting back to the party,” I said with a certain amount of reluctance.
“I suppose,” Frannie agreed with matching ennui.
Neither of us moved.
Suddenly the strangest thing happened. Solo, soundless as a white ghost, poked her head out from under the table. Frannie and I watched in disbelief. It was rare for her to make an appearance when she and I were alone, and to show herself with someone else in the room was a tiny miracle.
Solo prumphed once, then hopped onto the bed. She nosed her way in between Fluffs and Little, circled my lap and curled up, lovingly blinking her green and blue eyes at me. Little sprung down, miffed at being displaced; Fluffs headed over and claimed Frannie’s lap.
Frannie and I looked at each other in amazement.
“Guess we can’t go now,” she observed, scanning the gray bundle reposing on her pink floral skirt.
“A few more minutes couldn’t hurt,” I agreed.
Frannie leaned back and got comfortable. “This might take a while.”
I gazed down at Solo; her eyes were closed now and she didn’t look like she was going anywhere soon. Turning to the window, I found I was quite content to watch the crimson leaves of the maple tree catch the breeze and drift to their eternity. The herald of change.
Strangely enough I was looking forward to the winter. Face it—I was looking forward to anything that put time, space, and seasons between myself and my disastrous summer. Besides, I had some great things planned. Nice reasonable things, bordering on the boring, just as we old ladies like them.
At the end of September was Cat-toberfest at the shelter. (Does anyone know why Oktoberfests are always held the month before October?) FOF had rented a hall and was expecting a huge turnout so we needed to make a good showing.
Over Thanksgiving, my affluent daughter and her husband had arranged a cruise for the extended family: Carol, Candy, Seleia, myself, and the two of them. In some ways I dreaded it: Lisa and I haven’t always had the best rapport. Still, it might be a good opportunity for us to reacquaint ourselves. I didn’t want to go to my grave with our discord hanging over my head, and if I didn’t make inroads soon, who was going to push my wheelchair?
In January, I’m signed up for an intensive seminar in animal communication which I’m really looking forward to. The instructor is world-renowned for her psychic communion with animals of all sorts though she specializes in dogs and cats. She’s written books on the subject which I bought and fully intend to read before the class begins. She only does a few sessions a year, and they’re usually in places like San Francisco or New York, not podunk little Portland, so everyone in the animal world agreed it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and well worth the hundred-dollar registration fee.
I didn’t hold out a lot of hope that I would actually achieve any telepathic rapport with my kitties beyond the vibes I already understood—I’m hungry; pet me; leave me alone—but it sounded like fun. Besides, it was harmless. I mean, what kind of trouble could I possibly get into talking to cats? It’s not like they’re going to tell me some deep dark secret...
Are they?