Nine Lives: A Lily Dale Mystery (3 page)

“Yes. I’m Doctor Bailey.” His scrutiny flicks from her to Max to the cat and settles on Max again. “And you are?”

“I’m Max, and this is—”

“No need for animal introductions, Max,” he cuts in brusquely. “I see you’ve brought your pet pig, Penelope, for her daily weigh-in.”

Startled, Bella double-takes on the man’s gaze and spots a gleam amid the sternness.

“She isn’t a pig,” Max contradicts, “and she isn’t a duck either, even though my mom thought she was.”

“Young man, I don’t know who you’re trying to fool, but I believe
I’m
the animal expert here, and I know a pig when I see one.” Doctor Bailey is deadpan.

“She’s a
cat!
”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! Plus she’s got more cats in her belly.”

“Is that so? Then it appears
you’re
the expert here. What should we do next? Have a look at her?”

“Yes!”

“All right, come on in, and can you please be sure to lock the door behind you, Max? Otherwise, we’ll have all kinds of critters trying to sneak past reception now that my assistant is gone for the day. I hate when that happens.”

“Does that really happen?” Max whispers to Bella, wide-eyed, as they follow Doctor Bailey over the threshold.

He answers the question before Bella can: “All the time, Max. I used to leave a clipboard on the desk overnight with the paperwork so that they could sign themselves in properly. The cats were very efficient, as were the unicorns, but the kangaroos were too jumpy, and the skunks . . . don’t even get me started on the skunks.” He pinches his nose with his fingers, and Max laughs. Bella finds herself smiling, too.

The waiting room is small, with a creaky wooden floor covered in a threadbare runner. The reception desk is slightly battered, with papers stacked tidily on its top and a wooden chair neatly rolled beneath it. The only other furniture in the room is a park bench with a wooden slatted seat and wrought iron arms. Above it is a bulletin board topped by a sign that reads,
Happy Tails,
and is covered in photos of smiling people clutching furry creatures.

Definitely not a sophisticated operation, but a friendly one.

Doctor Bailey flips on the light in an exam room the size of a small walk-in closet. All business again, he looks at his watch and then at Bella, gesturing at a chair. “Here, sit and hold her. I only have a couple of minutes. I’ve got a puppy in the next room about to wake up from anesthesia after emergency surgery, and I can’t leave her alone for long.”

“What happened to the puppy?” Max wants to know.

“Someone found him in the woods and brought him to me a little while ago. His leg was badly hurt.”

“How?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Whose puppy is it?”

“I’m not sure,” Doctor Bailey says again, unperturbed by the questions but clearly focused on the cat now.

He kneels beside Bella—so close she can smell his soapy scent—and gives the cat a brief once-over, which mostly seems to consist of patting her here and there and letting her nuzzle his hand.

“She’s pregnant all right.”

“How many kittens are in there?” Max asks.

“Quite a few. And they’re due pretty soon.”

“How soon?”

“I’d say within the next week or so. But other than that, she seems perfectly fine. Here, I’ll scan her.”

“We’ll leave the room,” Bella says quickly. The word
scan
brings to mind futile, difficult days seeing specialists with Sam. He endured endless CAT scans and PET scans and bone scans, with progressively bleak results.

“No, you can stay. It only takes a few seconds.” He picks up an electronic wand and waves it along the cat’s head. “See? All done. She has a chip.”

“A chip?” Bella echoes. “A bone chip?”

“Maybe a chocolate chip,” Max suggests. “I like chocolate chip ice cream.”

Doctor Bailey smiles at him and then, for the first time, directly at Bella. “She has a
micro
chip. In her ear. That’s what I was scanning for. Whenever someone brings in a stray, I check for one. Most pet owners have them implanted in their pets’ ears so that they can be traced if they wander. Which is what our gal here must have done.” He reaches into a plastic container, grabs a handful of kibble, and holds it out to the cat, who nibbles greedily from his hand.

“So you know who the owner is?”

“I have the microchip number. I’ll see where it traces. Be right back. You can be on treat duty, Max.” He hands over the container and disappears.

Max looks at Bella. “Should I feed her some of these?”

“Sure. She’s eating for two. Or maybe for five or six . . . or more.”

“How many babies do cats have at once time?”

“A lot.”

“Like a hundred?”

She laughs. “No, not that many.”

“Twenty seven?”

“Not that many either,” she says, sensing that they’re on the cusp of a conversation where he’ll throw out arbitrary numbers until she agrees with one of them.

She changes the subject back to ice cream until Doctor Bailey returns a few minutes later, harried. “I have to get back to the dog. She’s regaining consciousness.”

“What about—”

“Here you go.” He holds out a piece of paper. “Her name is Chance.”

“Chance the Cat,” Max says.

“Exactly.” Doctor Bailey flicks a glance at Max and hesitates, as though he wants to say something, but doesn’t. “She belongs to someone named Leona Gatto. I tried to call her, but it bounced into an electronic recording that the voicemail box is full. That’s her address—she’s over in the Dale—so you can just bring the cat there.”

“To . . . the Dale, did you say?”

“Lily Dale.”

“Is that a town?”

Something flickers in his eyes. “You’ve never heard of it?
Where
did you say you live?”

She didn’t. He never asked.

“We don’t live anywhere anymore,” Max informs him. “We have to sleep in a tent because my dad is dead and my mom lost her job and we don’t have a house and we don’t have any money and we—”

“Max!”

“Is that true?” Doctor Bailey asks Bella.

It is, but . . .

“We’re in the process of moving,” she explains, avoiding his gaze, “and we’re making a little vacation out of it, so we’re going to camp out tonight over at Summer Pines. That reminds me—”

“Where?”

“What?”

“
Where
are you camping?”

“Oh. Summer Pines. The campground. It’s right near here.”

“It can’t be.”

“Why can’t it?”

“Because I’ve never heard of it.”

Resisting the urge to remind him that he can’t possibly know everything about . . . well,
everything,
she plucks the piece of paper from his hand. She was about to ask him about service stations, but forget it. She’ll ask Leona Gatto.

“How far is Lily Dale from here?”

“Only about twenty, twenty-five minutes. I’d take her myself, but I don’t like the looks of my puppy pal in the next room.” He rakes a worried hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end above his forehead much like Max’s cowlick, and Bella forgives his arrogance.

“I’m sorry,” he adds. “But I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be leaving here tonight.”

“It’s okay. We’ll take her. Let’s go, Max.”

“Can I carry Chance the Cat?”

“Sure, but be gentle.”

Max hoists her into his arms. “Come on, Chance the Cat. You get to go home now.”

His wistful tone tugs at Bella’s heart. Is he wishing he could keep the cat or wishing he, too, were going home?

Following him to the door, she turns back belatedly to ask Doctor Bailey, “How much do we owe you?”

“Not a cent. You did a good thing. Most people would have driven right by her.”

Bella gives a tight laugh. “Yeah, well, she kind of wouldn’t let us. Thank you, Doctor. Good luck with the puppy.”

“You, too. Good luck with . . . everything.”

The rain started falling twenty minutes after they left the animal hospital. This little detour to drop off Chance the Cat, as Max insists on calling her, means they’ll be pitching a tent on muddy ground tonight. But at least the car sounds better after its brief rest, and according to a sign, Lily Dale is just a mile ahead.

The road winds past rustic homes to the right and Cassadaga Lake to the left, bordered by a narrow grassy strip with an occasional weathered private pier. The opposite shore, hilly and wooded, isn’t far off.

In the back seat, Chance is curled up on Max’s lap again. They’re such a contented pair that Bella aches every time she glances into the rearview mirror.

Maybe she’ll be able to get a cat for Max when they’re settled. She only wishes it could have been this one.

There’s something special about Chance. She’s dignified yet affectionate, and though she’s delicate in her fragile feminine state, she radiates a quiet strength. Bella is reluctant to part ways with her, but when she thinks of her mother-in-law’s sterile apartment, she knows there’s no other option.

Maybe if the campsite is affordable, they can put off getting to Chicago for another day or two. This is such a picturesque area, and she wouldn’t mind exploring a bit—as long as they’re at Millicent’s before the weekend, so that Max can see the fireworks at Navy Pier . . .

Sam used tell Max and Bella about the incredible Independence Day displays over Lake Michigan. He promised they’d make the trip now that Max was older.

“There are so many things I want to show him,” he told Bella last spring, when he first started feeling sick. “I think we should do a road trip this summer.”

He wanted to take his son to a Cubs game and the Lincoln Park Zoo. He wanted him to taste deep-dish pizza. He wanted to sit him high on his shoulders at the crowded Navy Pier beneath the rockets’ red glare on the Fourth of July . . .

The only thing that stopped them was the prospect of spending a precious holiday in his mother’s company. Bella wanted to go anyway and not tell her, but Sam pointed out she’d be hurt if she ever found out.

“I don’t know why she insists on our staying with her when she obviously doesn’t enjoy company,” Bella grumbled.

Max had been a toddler on their last Chicago visit. She and Sam spent the entire time worrying that he’d hurt himself in the apartment Millicent refused to childproof. Millicent fretted about the disruption and scolded her grandson every time he tried to touch—well, anything.

We thought there’d be plenty of time for a road trip when Max got older,
Bella remembers, swallowing another bittersweet lump.
We thought it would be easier in a year or two—on him, on Millicent, on us . . .

Tears well in her eyes. She reaches over to turn on the radio, needing a pleasant distraction. After scanning past enough static to let her know they really are in the middle of nowhere, she finds a music station.

Elton John is singing about the Circle of Life.

Terrific.

Abruptly, she silences the radio and swipes at her eyes with a fast food napkin from the console.

From the back seat: “Are you okay, Mommy?”

“I’m fine, sweetie.”

The highway blurs, and she wipes again with the soggy napkin.

If you don’t snap out of this, you’ll need to pull off the road for a good cry.

Saved by the GPS: “Turn . . . right . . . in . . . one . . . hundred . . . feet.”

Chance, whose reverberations of contentment have punctuated the drive from the animal hospital, is purring even more loudly now.

“Listen to her, Max. Maybe she knows she’s going home.”

“You said animals are psychic. And the cows were right about the rain.”

“They were. I wish they’d tell us it’s going to stop soon.”

“I don’t see any cows. All I see is a tiny house. What does that sign say?” he asks as the road opens up to reveal a little hut flanked by stone pillars, topped by an arched sign.

She reads it aloud: “Lily Dale Assembly.”

“What’s ‘assembly’?”

“I’m not sure.”

She hears a loud meow from the back seat and turns to see that the cat is up on her hind feet, paws on the window as she peers out.

“She knows she’s home!” Max exclaims, and Bella smiles as she turns right and drives slowly between the pillars, past the unmanned guardhouse.

Branches of ancient trees sway high overhead as she bears left at the fork toward Cottage Row, following the GPS instructions. The wipers sweep away the raindrops, and she gazes through the windshield, wondering whether she made the wrong turn. This gated community looks like none she’s ever seen back in the New York City suburbs, or anywhere else, for that matter. There are no sidewalks, the pavement is rutted, and the houses . . .

The houses are more like cottages, really. Victorian gingerbread cottages with shutters and porches and gables, crowded into a network of narrow lakeside lanes. Some are shabbier than others, and all exude an unconventional charm. One is painted purple, another has bright turquoise trim, and nearly all are surrounded by bright flowers spilling from pots, planters, and beds. Tiny patches of yard are well-tended and host more than the usual share of birdhouses and birdbaths, seating areas and garden statuary.

“What kind of town
is
this?” Max asks.

“Just . . . you know . . . a regular town.”

“It doesn’t look like a regular town.”

“It’s just smaller than the ones where we live because it’s rural. We live—
lived
—in the suburbs. Oh, look, there’s a library.” She points at a stately, pillared red-brick building as they pass. A library is always a good sign. Libraries remind her of her bookworm childhood and well-worn books with happy endings.

She rolls down her window to lean her head out slightly, squinting into the gloaming. “Can you see the numbers on the houses, Max?”

“I see seven . . . and there’s nine . . . and that house has a sign, and so does that one. What do they say?”

“I can’t tell. Just look at the numbers. We’re looking for sixteen.” Thunder rumbles in the distance, and she resists the urge to drive faster. There isn’t another car on the road, and there are no pedestrians, but there are people scattered here and there, sitting on porches and in a small gazebo on the park-like green. The air is damp and heavy with woodsy greens and bark mulch.

“I see it! Sixteen!”

“You . . . have . . . arrived,” the GPS informs them simultaneously.

She slows to a stop in front of a three-story lavender-gray house with white trim and a wide porch. It, too, bears a wooden sign hanging from a post beside the front walk. This one she can read, and she does so aloud: “‘Valley View Manor Guesthouse.’”

“Where’s the valley?” Max asks.

“Good question.”

“What’s a manor?”

“It’s a big, fancy house.”

He surveys the place. “It’s big, but it’s not fancy at all. What’s a guesthouse?”

“It’s . . . like an inn. A hotel.”

“It doesn’t look like a hotel.”

“No,” she agrees, “it doesn’t.”

“Can we stay here?”

“We don’t have any money for hotels. We’re going camping, remember?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Chance meows loudly, gazing so fondly through the back window that Bella laughs. “I guess that means we’re in the right place. Stay here with her, Max, while I go see if anyone’s there. It seems a little deserted.”

A gust of wet wind rustles leaves in the towering canopy of branches and stirs wind chimes that hang here, there, everywhere.

Wind chimes.

Home.

Sam . . .

Bella shivers, grateful for his warm sweatshirt and wishing she’d worn jeans instead of shorts. They haven’t even crossed a state line and it’s as though they’ve traveled to another climate.

A sign beside the car warns her that this is a no parking zone, for loading and unloading only. That’s fine. That’s all she’s doing, unloading a feline foundling, and then she’ll be on her way.

Thunder, closer this time, rolls off the lake as she hurries up the creaky steps onto the shadowy porch.

Along with a cushioned glider and a couple of chairs, she spots a well-used scratching post and a pair of empty feeding bowls. Okay, so this is must be the place.

She presses the old-fashioned bell and hears it reverberate inside. Then there’s no sound but the rain falling beyond the porch. The damp air is heavy with a strikingly familiar floral scent. It takes her a moment to pinpoint the source: just beneath the side railing lies a mock orange shrub in full bloom.

Just like at home.

Maybe it’s a sign.

Oh, come on . . . a sign of what?

It’s not like you could run down to the garden center a hundred years ago to buy exotic plant specimens. Lots of houses from that era have identical landscaping: lilacs, peonies, hydrangea, mock orange . . .

So really, this isn’t much of a coincidence.

And neither is the cat,
she reminds herself as she rings the bell again and then knocks on the door. No answer. The house has a deserted air about it.

“Can I help you with something?”

The voice is so close Bella jumps. Turning, she sees a female figure standing behind a leafy trellis on the porch next door. She presses a hand against her galloping heart, spooked even though the woman sounds perfectly pleasant.

“Yes, I’m looking for the people who live here,” she calls. “I found their cat, and—”

“You found Chance the Cat?”

Chance the Cat.
How funny that she phrased it that way. That’s exactly what Max has been calling her. On the drive over, when Bella asked why, he said, “Because it’s her name.”

“I know Chance is her name, but why do you add on ‘the Cat’?”

“Because she’s a cat,” he said reasonably.

“I’m so relieved!” the neighbor tells Bella. “We’ve all been beside ourselves worrying about her.”

Wondering who “we’ve all” entails, she asks her when the owners will return and is met by a long pause.

Then the woman says, “I’m afraid Leona isn’t coming back.”

That explains at least part of the situation. Chance’s owner must have just taken off and abandoned her pet.

A loud clap of thunder explodes so nearby that Bella gasps.

Max opens the car door. “Mommy!”

“It’s okay, sweetie, I’m right here.”

As she hurries down the steps toward the car, Max cries out, “No! Chance the Cat, no!”

The cat has leapt through the open door. Moving with astonishing speed for an expectant mama, she zips past Bella and disappears into a clump of bushes.

“Oh, dear.” The plump, older woman next door emerges from the shadows, standing on the top step of her own porch. Her right foot is in a walking cast.

Max, too, is out of the car, hurrying after the cat. Bella stops him, seeing a flash of lightning in the sky.

“Come on over here,” the woman calls from next door.

“But what about Chance the Cat?”

“Oh, she’s under the porch,” the woman tells him. “She likes it back there. Don’t worry.”

“She’ll be okay,” Bella assures Max and pulls him along as the rain turns to a downpour.

“Hurry—this is going to be a doozy of a storm.” The neighbor waves them up the steps, holding the door open for them.

“What’s a doozy, Mommy?”

Bella opens her mouth to answer her son, but the woman beats her to it. “A doozy is a
really
big storm.”

“Is it dangerous?” Max asks anxiously.

“No, that would be a humdinger, which is a really, really,
really
big storm. Don’t worry, we’re not due for one of those for at least a hundred years or so.” She hobbles along, chattering on as she ushers them into a small foyer cluttered with decorative knickknacks. “With a doozy, you have nothing to fear except getting wet. I don’t know about you, but I’m terrified of that. The rain does terrible things to my hair. How about yours?”

Her hair happens to be bright orange, which clashes with her purple cargo pants and the lime-green high-top sneaker on her left foot. Bella notes with interest that she’s also—somewhat fittingly, given the circumstances—wearing red cat-eye glasses and a tiger-striped T-shirt.

After assuring her that his hair is just fine and proudly adding that he’s not afraid of rain, Max asks what happened to her leg.

“Oh, this? I tripped and fell and sprained my ankle.”

“My mom’s a klutz, too.”

The woman bursts out laughing.

“Max! Sorry,” Bella tells the woman. “I’m always calling myself a klutz, and he didn’t mean—”

“Oh, believe you me, he’s a perceptive boy. I’m as clumsy as they come. By the way, my name is Odelia Lauder, and that,” she points at a fat tabby cat dozing in a cushioned basket at the foot of the stairs, “is Gert. Leona’s Chance the Cat is her granddaughter.”

After introducing herself and Max, Bella says, “I’ve noticed that you call her Chance the Cat, and not just Chance. Why is that?”

“I told you, Mommy,” Max says, “it’s because she’s a cat! She isn’t Chance the Dog!”

Odelia laughs. “You’re right about that, Max. And her full name is Chance the Cat, because she was born in the garden in the spring, smack dab in the middle of a bed of Wood Hyacinths that just happened to be in full bloom that day. Those are Leona’s favorite flowers.”

“So why was she named Chance the Cat?” Bella asks, not following the reasoning. “Why not . . . I don’t know, Woody?”

“Oh, Leona doesn’t care for Woody Allen at all.”

Bella blinks. “No, I meant because you said Wood Hyacinths are—”

“But she adores Peter Sellers,” Odelia goes on. “She’s kept in touch with him quite regularly.”

“Isn’t Peter Sellers dead?”

“Oh, yes, for years. Anyway,
Being There
was her favorite of all his movies, so that’s where it came from.”

Bella’s head is spinning. “That’s where
what
came from?”

“The name! Chance the Cat!”

Bella, who never saw
Being There,
is no stranger to Sellers’s
Pink Panther
movies and can’t help feeling a little like Inspector Clouseau right now. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I just don’t get it.”