Chez Stinky (12 page)

Blinking in the light, the cat scratched the drywall more forcefully to emphasize that he’d like to leave his hidey hole in the wall. “Hi, kitty. Is that you, Tripod?” Kat asked. She jumped down from the chair, sat on it, and crossed her arms. “So what’s the best way to get him out of there?”

Joel paused for a moment and said, “I could cut a small hole at the bottom of the wall, so he can just walk out. That’s probably the easiest thing to do. I think he has enough room down there where he’s settled so that I wouldn’t hit him with the saw. Plus, I can use a small hand saw and cut slowly and carefully.”

Kat looked into his eyes. They were a forest-green color, not hazel as she’d originally thought. The irises were deep green with flecks of hazel and rimmed with a darker green. “Yes, that sounds like a good idea. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“If you could watch from the top to make sure the cat is okay while I’m sawing, that would be great. Maybe you could talk to him too, if it seems like he’s scared.”

Kat got back up on the chair with her flashlight. She looked down at Joel, who was crouched at the bottom of the wall. As he gathered the various implements of destruction to begin the process of cutting yet
another
hole in her wall, Kat watched his shoulders move under his flannel shirt. They were rather nice shoulders, in fact: broad, muscular, and proportioned just right.

In general, when evaluating the male form, Kat was a ‘shoulder person.’ Unlike some women who focused on butts or legs, she found shoulders riveting. After careful deliberation from her perch on the chair above him, she had determined that Joel had mighty fine-looking shoulders. As he began sawing, she attempted to return her focus to the task at hand: the cat in the wall. “Are you okay down there, Tripod? We’re trying to get you out.”

The cat, who had been oddly quiet except for scratching the drywall, mewed in response. Fortunately, he had backed away from the wall when Joel started sawing.

Joel looked up at Kat. “Is the cat okay?”

“He’s moved back a bit, so I think he’ll be fine. He seems to know that saws should be avoided.”

“Good plan, kitty.” Joel chuckled as he continued to saw the drywall.

Kat continued her vigil, peering down the hole in the wall until at last Joel was able to pull out the square of drywall.

As soon as the escape hatch was opened, a silver ball of fur zipped by, leaping gracefully over Joel’s leg. Tripod could seriously move out when he was sufficiently motivated. The gray-and-white tabby crouched under the kitchen table, assessing his rescuers.

“You’re welcome,” Joel said.

Kat raised her eyebrows. “I think he’s happy to be liberated. Should we do something about the hole? I’d like to keep the critters out of the walls, if possible. Bud is out hunting and didn’t say when he’d return.”

“Bud could be gone for a while. His eyesight isn’t particularly good, and if the rumors are true, he tends to miss a lot. Everyone in town knows that it’s not a great idea to go hunting with him.”

“Do you hunt?” Kat inquired.

“No. I went hunting once when I was in high school and I didn’t enjoy it. My friends convinced me to go, and they killed a rabbit. The hike was fun, but I didn’t enjoy the experience of killing something. I guess that’s not a particularly macho thing to say is it?”

“I suppose not. But I’m okay with that. I’m a vegetarian, which makes hunting pointless, unless you like to stalk carrots.”

Joel laughed, unfurled his long legs from the pretzel-like position he’d had them in, and stood up. “Yes, those rascally carrots. You need to watch out for them. I’ll go see if I can find some wood outside to cover up the holes in the short term. Make sure no one decides to hibernate in there while I’m gone.”

Kat nodded her head and leaned the square of drywall next to the hole Joel had cut. She couldn’t figure out why Tripod would have been interested in the wall, but attempting to understand the workings of the feline mind was usually futile. Murphee had taught her that long ago.

Joel left the house and Kat replayed the conversation in her mind. He didn’t like to hunt? That was interesting. Although she hadn’t said it, Kat was glad he didn’t like hunting. Maybe it was a wimpy girly thing, but all that blood and killing a beautiful wild animal just sounded awful.

But what did Joel do for a living? The guy had to make money somehow. He wasn’t hunting, so how did he afford to eat? Most people in Alpine Grove had small service businesses like Cindy’s or worked in the woods doing logging or construction-type work. Joel seemed to be in good shape, but he didn’t strike her as the logger type. Would it be too nosy to ask? Was he just being polite by laughing at her dopey carrot joke or did he think it was actually funny? It was hard to tell what he was thinking.

Joel opened the door, interrupting her reverie. He was carrying two grayish pieces of what looked like an old pallet. “I found this. It’s not very good wood, but this fix is temporary, so it should work for now.”

“Thank you. I really appreciate you helping me out. There probably are tools somewhere, but I haven’t found them yet. Mostly, I’ve been cleaning and breaking things.”

Joel held the board up to the wall and said, “It’s okay. My sister is the Queen of Destruction, so she calls me all the time asking for help. It drives me crazy, but I can’t say no. I guess it’s an older brother thing. I’ve been fixing her messes for so long, it’s a habit now.” He hit the nail with the hammer, driving it into the wood.

“She mentioned that she breaks stuff. I don’t usually have this type of problem. At my apartment, most things just work. If something falls apart, I just call the apartment manager. It’s easy. Until today, I didn’t appreciate how easy.”

Kat paused for a moment while Joel whacked the nail with the hammer a few more times. Unable to resist, she asked, “So when you’re not helping damsels in distress, what do you do?”

Joel plucked out the nail he’d been holding in his mouth and replied, “Not much at the moment. I worked for an aerospace company in the city as an engineer. I did a lot with computers and was working on a huge government project. Then the project was canceled, and I was riffed.”

“Riffed?”

The look in Joel’s eyes turned hard and cold. “Yes. Reduction in force. That’s the government’s way of telling you you’re fired. Your job has been eliminated. You’ve been made redundant.”

Apparently, he was still annoyed at the memory. Now Kat was really curious. “So why are you here in Alpine Grove? I can’t imagine many engineering jobs are located here.”

Joel looked over at her, “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”

Kat shrugged her shoulders, “I’m just curious. My sisters call me nosy. It’s okay if you don’t want to answer. I just didn’t think you’d be an engineer. I’m a technical writer, and I guess most of the engineers I’ve met aren’t like you.”

“Oh?”

Kat certainly wasn’t going to say “most of them aren’t cute like you are” and paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to respond without sounding like a moonstruck idiot. “Um, most of them are more difficult to talk to than you are.”
Nice save.

“That’s funny. Cindy always calls me Mr. Spock because she thinks I’m inscrutable. Not that she’d use the word inscrutable, but I think you know what I mean.”

Kat giggled, “Yeah, I get it. All through high school, I was the weird girl with glasses who never said anything. Talk about inscrutable. Everyone thought I was a priss, but really I was just too shy to talk to anyone. I know; I was such a loser. I can’t believe I’m even telling you this.”

Joel gave the nail a final whack and looked over at her. “A priss? I haven’t heard that term in a while.”

“What can I say? It was the 80s. High school was stupid for a lot of reasons.”

Joel grinned, “You’re making me glad I wasn’t in high school then. Anyway, I think we’re done here. All holes are sealed, and as far as I know, nothing alive is back there.”

“I don’t suppose you brought something to fix the shower, did you?”

“Yes, I had an old fixture left over from some work I did on my cabin. I can see if it fits.”

Kat led Joel up the stairs to the bathroom. She opened the door and shooed Murphee back with her foot. “No Murph, you need to stay in here. We don’t want a repeat of your fight with Dolly Mae.”

The bathroom wasn’t very large and Kat picked up Murphee and wedged herself next to the sink so Joel would have some room to examine the shower-fixture issues. “The water is all still off,” she volunteered.

“Good. That was my next question.”

“So will it work? I really want a shower. You have no idea.”

Joel glanced at her appraisingly, “It looks like you’ve had a long day.”

Kat cringed inwardly. She probably did look scary. After wandering around the forest with dogs, spelunking through ancient foodstuffs, dealing with a cat fight and cleaning dog barf, she probably didn’t smell good, either. How mortifying. “Yeah, I don’t always look like this. I promise.”

Joel smiled faintly, “You look okay. Better than I did the other day when Cindy dragged me out here to deal with her stupid car. Because she’s given the car a name, she can’t seem to part with it. She always says that she and Myrtle have been through a lot together and she owes it to her. It doesn’t make sense. It’s a
car
, for God’s sake.”

“I guess you and your sister don’t get along?” Yes, she was being nosy again, but she didn’t care. As Joel reached up to screw the new shower head onto the pipe, Kat noticed the way his back muscles flexed as he twisted the nozzle.
Nice.

“She drives me nuts,” he said. “But she’s my baby sister. When she was little, she was this adorable little girl with blonde curls. No one could resist her bubbly enthusiasm, and she’s always gotten what she wanted. That led to some problems when she got older, though.”

Joel turned around from the shower to look at Kat. “Well, it looks like the shower head I brought fits, so it should work. I don’t have a knob that is compatible with this style of single-lever handle, but I can leave you a pair of pliers so you can turn the valve that way.”

“Could we turn on the water to make sure? This shower and I have a bad relationship. I have a big bruise from falling on the floor after it committed suicide.”

Joel raised his eyebrows, “I don’t see a bruise. Let me turn the valve off first.”

“Good idea.” Kat certainly wasn’t going to volunteer that the bruise was on her butt. The last time she looked, it had been turning a glorious shade of purple.

The pair walked downstairs, and Joel flipped the well pump switch back on. Kat listened for the sounds of rushing water and was relieved to hear nothing. They went back upstairs, tested the water, and everything seemed fine.

Joel said, “It looks like everything works. I should be going now.”

Kat was surprised to discover that she didn’t want him to leave. “Are you sure? I should make you dinner as a thank you.”

“That’s okay. I had something to eat before I got here.”

Maybe he somehow knew about her fear of the stove. Given her bad experience with water, he probably didn’t want her near fire. She walked with him to the door. “Thank you again. I know I said that, but I really appreciate you coming all the way out here.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll probably see you around town sometime. Have a good night.”

As Joel picked up his things and walked out the door, Kat wished she’d had more time to talk to him. Even with all her nosy questions, she still never discovered why he was here in Alpine Grove. But she’d find a way to talk to him again and get the rest of his story.

Chapter 4

A
fter walking the dogs and making another sandwich for dinner, Kat checked the bedroom to see if there was a cat under the bed. Although she did not see any eyes in the darkness, she found another collection of dust dinosaurs and what appeared to be a pile of desiccated cat turds under there. Apparently, Dolly Mae or Louie spent more time under the bed than she thought.

She found some sheets that looked at least moderately clean, made the bed, and went to get Murphee and her paraphernalia from the bathroom. She set up Murphee’s food and litter box and then crawled into bed. It had been a long, complicated day. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the warm rhythm of Murphee quietly purring next to her.