Going Out in Style (10 page)

It was a bitterly cold day in late January, and she was wearing the mink coat. She got out of her car and, pulling it tightly around her, walked in a slow and stately fashion up her front walk.

She imagined the neighbors staring, peeking from behind their curtains and saying, “Look, there’s Harriet MacGregor, with
the most fabulous black mink coat
—!”

She unlocked her door and went in. She walked over to her closet and began to take the coat off; then, hesitating, she pulled it back on. No need to take it off so soon, she thought. Not so soon. She could wear it a little while longer.

In fact, she wore it as she watched the evening news, then as she prepared her small dinner—just mashed potatoes and a little salad and a chicken leg, she never seemed to have much appetite anymore, even when she had cooked and cleaned for other people all day long. After dinner she made herself a nice cup of tea with milk and two lumps of sugar, and settled down in her favorite armchair to watch TV. She had taken off the coat while she ate dinner—she was afraid of spilling food on it—but now she pulled it across her knobby knees as a luxurious lap rug and stroked it happily as she watched a documentary about African wildlife.

She had always wanted to travel—although even when her husband Ian had been alive they had never had the money to go to Europe or Africa—and she watched eagerly as the camera panned across the African veldt. She
lost herself in visions of giraffes moving majestically, their heads bobbing, across the plains. Elephant babies were so big, fancy that, she thought. So cute with their little trunks waving. A lion roared at the screen and she shook with a pleasurable twinge of fear. The lionesses hunted and the male of the species lay around all day stuffing himself on their spoils. She permitted herself a haughty sniff. Not unlike some human males she knew. Why, her friend Lottie had told her recently that old Mr. Thayer over on Cabbage Avenue had never worked
a day in his life
…!

It was somewhere between the new hospital show and the MacNeil/Lehrer report that her hand, gently stroking the dark mink fur, suddenly paused. Harriet MacGregor sat up straight in her chair, a bewildered look on her face.

“Well, now, that’s odd.…” she said to herself. “Very odd … very odd indeed … I wonder why
that
would be—?”

The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour
continued with a report about sperm whales, but Harriet MacGregor was no longer listening. She sat with her head cocked to one side, her mind slowly clicking over, a strange expression on her face.

Well, now, she thought. That really was
very
odd!

Bernard stopped typing and put his head down on his desk. He felt himself to be dangerously close to tears. For crying out loud, the handsomest rat in Ratdom! He lay there for a while, his head cradled in his arms, thinking long weary thoughts.

It was pitch dark in the study where he sat. He worked best in the dark. Many of his finest works, including his most popular book of all,
Mrs. Woolly and the Bengal Tiger
, had been conceived and executed in the dark. He was an expert in touch-typing and could keep up to one and a half pages at a time in his head. He found, more and
more, that it interfered with his creative work if he could actually see what he was doing. When the sunlight filtered through the closed blinds, filling the room with a pale diffuse light, he would often type with his eyes closed.

Now he felt close to despair. He could not concentrate on his work at all. Visions of talking rodents and intelligent sheep danced the tarantella in his head. He lay there, his eyes closed, his brain weary and confused.

Suddenly the lights were switched on, and a voice said, “Ah, Bernard. Work going well?”

Bernard sat up. “Just fine.”

“Taking a little break?”

“I was just thinking over a few small details,” Bernard said coldly.

Snooky sat down and smiled at him over the clutter.
Bernard’s desk was a massive cherrywood antique that Maya had found in a dusty little store in Vermont. It was covered with books, papers, quick sketches of rats and sheep, erasers, pencils, pens, giant paper clips which Bernard had once (in a moment of idleness) linked together into a fifteen-foot chain, one of Misty’s old flea collars, and a small silver-framed photo of Maya.

“How’s it going, Bernard?”

“Fine, thank you.”

“I am here to tell you something which will fill your heart with joy. I have just received an invitation to Aunt Etta’s eightieth birthday party, and guess what?”

Bernard did not show any inclination to guess.

“You’re invited, too. You must have made quite an impression on her at that reception, eh, Bernard? Well, what do you say? Will you go?”

Bernard regarded him thoughtfully. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t go. You know that.”

“But you’ll go this time?”

“No. Of course not. But I want you to go. And keep your eyes open, Snooky. You know as well as I do that one of the people at that party probably murdered your friend.”

“Don’t worry about me, Bernard. I’m like a cat.”

Bernard flinched at the mention of the hated word. “What do you mean?”

“I always land on my feet.”

“Cats don’t always land on their feet. It’s a myth.”

“No, really? Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“How would you know that, Bernard?”

“There are a lot of myths about cats. That they make good pets, for instance. The only good pets are dogs.”

“I don’t agree.”

“I don’t have time to argue with you about it, Snooky.
Just take my word for it. And if you’re going to go to this party, try to be careful. Your sister is worried enough about you as it is.”

Snooky smiled cheerfully. “Oh, I’ll be careful. I’m always careful. And I’ll keep my eyes open, like you said. Who knows, maybe I’ll see something important.”

“Somehow I doubt that very much,” said Bernard sourly.

Snooky wandered into the next room. This was Maya’s study. Like Bernard’s, it looked out over the back lawn through tall, narrow windows, but there the resemblance ended. Whereas Bernard’s study was small, dominated by the big old desk and cluttered with books, papers and oddments, Maya’s study was clean, light and airy. She worked at an antique pine table covered with dark knobbly whorls. The room itself was big and square, the wallpaper was sprigged in blue and violet flowers, and a glowing Turkish rug lay on the hardwood floor. Snooky sank with a sigh of relief into the overstuffed armchair.

Maya looked up from her word processor. “What is it, Snooks? Be brief. I have an article due tomorrow.”

“What’s it on?”

“Quetzals.”

“What’s that?”

“
Pharomachrus mocino
, you dumbhead. A Central American bird. I have to write three thousand words on its feeding habits by tomorrow morning. Kindly state your purpose, then get out.”

Snooky explained about the party and Bernard’s refusal. “But you’re welcome to come if you want, Maya.”

“Thank you, but no. And I wish you’d forget it too, Snooks. I think it’s dangerous to get too friendly with those people.”

“It is not. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not being ridiculous. I’m being practical, a virtue I have in common with William, one which you apparently never inherited. Listen to me, Snooky. You’re an adult now and I can’t tell you what to do, but I wish you wouldn’t go. You know it’s not safe.”

“Please, Maya. Don’t do this. Nobody is out to get me, after all.”

“They might be if they thought you saw something,” she said shrewdly. “And the longer you hang around with them, the more likely it is that you
will
see something.”

Snooky looked away. “Bella was my friend.”

She looked at him. Snooky’s face was set in the stubborn expression she remembered so well from his childhood—the expression she referred to as his you’re-not-the-boss-of-
me
face. She sighed. It was true, she was not the boss of him. She wondered briefly whether she ever had been. Out loud she said:

“Yes. I do understand, Snookers. You go to that party and have yourself a good time.”

Mrs. MacGregor was cackling merrily to herself as she got the broom out of the closet. Aunt Etta said sharply,

“What is it, woman? What’s so funny?”

Mrs. MacGregor cast a sly eye at her. “Nothing.”

“Then why all the giggling?”

MacGregor shook her head mutely and set to work with unaccustomed vigor. Aunt Etta watched critically.

“You’ve missed that spot over there,” she said at last, in triumph. “And over there. Honestly, sometimes I wonder why I hire you, MacGregor. You do a lousy job.”

Ordinarily MacGregor would have bristled at this, and demanded a full apology and a rest break before she went
on. Etta waited in anticipation. Instead, MacGregor simply smiled, shook her head and laughed. Etta felt vaguely annoyed. She drummed her fingers on the sink and said gruffly, “Cup of tea?”

Yes, thank you, said Mrs. MacGregor. A cup of tea would be very nice.

The two old women were sitting around the table gossiping, as usual, when Aunt Etta said, “I heard from Susan that she gave you Bella’s mink coat. Is that right?”

Oh, yes, said Mrs. MacGregor. And a lovely coat it was, too.

“Beautiful,” said Aunt Etta. “I remember her wearing it. I’m glad you took it, MacGregor; it wouldn’t fit me, I’m too short. So you like it, do you?”

MacGregor looked vastly pleased. Oh, yes, she said. It was so beautiful, that coat. And there was something else … something else it had brought to mind that perhaps she ought to mention.…

“What?”

MacGregor opened her mouth, then closed it abruptly and sat looking at Aunt Etta with a very strange expression on her face. She shook her head slowly from side to side.

Nothing, she replied. Nothing. Except that that detective who was all puffed up with himself the other day wasn’t as smart as he made himself out to be.

“What are you gibbering about, MacGregor?”

MacGregor gave a haughty sniff. The way he asked her whether she had left by the front door or not! Goodness! Why, if he knew what
she
knew …

“What is it, MacGregor? What do you know?”

MacGregor looked at her craftily. Nothing, she said. She didn’t know anything. Or rather, she knew something, but it didn’t make any sense.

Aunt Etta knew that MacGregor was deliberately with-holding
some piece of delicious gossip. It put her in a snappish mood.

“That doesn’t surprise me, MacGregor. Half the things you talk about never do make any sense. I told you to stop pretending you knew something about my niece’s death, now didn’t I? You’ll do anything for a little attention. Now, what do you think Susan gave
me
from Bella’s estate, eh?”

Mrs. MacGregor leaned forward eagerly and said that she couldn’t imagine. The talk turned to a lively discussion of the ruby-and-silver bracelet that Susan had picked out for Aunt Etta.…

A few days later, Jessie Lowell was sitting on her living room floor, surrounded by boxes, wrapping paper, ribbon, and tape. She was holding a flat rectangular box, folding the wrapping paper this way and that, and murmuring,

“Oh,
dear
 … oh, dear, I
knew
I should have asked Gretch to … oh, my, now how does that go? Let’s see, a little bit of Scotch tape here, just to hold it while I fold this over … oh! Oh,
damn
!” The paper had torn. “Oh, dear, I’ll just have to start all over again … what a
mess
…!”

In the kitchen, Gretchen was delivering a strict lecture to Mrs. MacGregor. “Now, Mrs. MacGregor,” she was saying, not unkindly, “I know I asked you to make chicken parmesan, not eggplant parmesan, for dinner tonight. Isn’t that so? And now here you’ve made the eggplant. It’s not that it matters, it’s just that your mind doesn’t seem to be on your cooking today.”

Mrs. MacGregor was looking disgruntled. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. I heard you say eggplant
parmesan as plain as plain can be. If you don’t want it, I’ll whip up some chicken for you and Miss Lowell—”

“No, no, don’t be silly. I just wondered—is something wrong?” She looked at the old woman anxiously. Help was so hard to get, and Mrs. MacGregor was usually so reliable.…

Mrs. MacGregor simpered at her in a singularly unbecoming manner. “Nothing’s wrong. Nothing at all. On the contrary. There’s just a few things I’ve been thinking over in my mind. Just a few things having to do with poor Mrs. Whitaker and the way she went.…”

“Mrs. Whitaker?”

Yes, said Mrs. MacGregor. It was sad to die that young, wasn’t it? Mrs. Whitaker was only sixty-eight, while she, Mrs. MacGregor, was a good seven years older.

Gretchen felt a wrenching pang of guilt. So Mrs. MacGregor was seventy-five, and here she was cooking and cleaning for two women in the prime of their lives? She looked at the older woman doubtfully. Perhaps she ought to suggest retirement—something in the nature of a pension fund … she wasn’t very good at business, but perhaps …