Raining Cats & Dogs (A Melanie Travis Mystery) (15 page)

“And now?” I asked.

“My lawyer got the arrest record expunged. That’s supposed to mean that it doesn’t exist anymore. It’s off the books. But of course some enterprising police detective could probably still find it, if he was tipped off where to look. That’s what Steve’s been threatening me with, revealing something that I told him in confidence that could potentially get me in a whole lot of trouble.”

“But you were never charged,” I said.

“Like that would matter. I was arrested for manslaughter. Judging by what I read in the newspaper, the police don’t have any idea who killed Mary Livingston. You don’t think they’d love to have a suspect hand delivered to them? Someone who’d admitted to committing an earlier murder, and who was on the grounds at the time? They’d be all over me in a minute.

“You were right about what you said earlier, I
have
moved on. I have a good job, a new circle of friends. None of them know anything about my past. None of them need to. Bringing it all back out in the open now would ruin my life. And for what possible purpose? I didn’t kill Mary. I don’t have any idea who did. All I want is to be left alone to live my life in peace.”

Abruptly, Minnie stood up. She nudged Coach with her toe and the Schnauzer rose, too. She hesitated before walking away, though. She seemed to be thinking about something.

“I’m not the only one in that obedience class with skeletons in her closet,” she said finally.

“Who else?” I asked. If Minnie wanted to supply me with leads, I didn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t take them.

“Talk to Julie.” Minnie cued Coach into position by her side. “That’s all I’m saying, all right? Just talk to Julie.”

“I
’ve been thinking,” Sam said later that night. “We should invite Amber and James to dinner. You know, to welcome them to the neighborhood. We could ask the Brickmans to come, too.”

Alice and Joe Brickman lived down the street. Their son, Joey, was Davey’s best friend, and Alice and I had been pals since we bonded over baby playdates eight years earlier.

“Great idea,” I said. “But we’ll have to figure out a time when James is actually here. What do you suppose is really going on with him?”

“What do you mean?”

“For starters, where is he?”

“On the road somewhere, apparently.”

“Even on weekends?”

Sam shrugged. “I’m just glad I don’t have his job.”

“Whatever it is,” I muttered.

Sam shot me a look.

“Import/export,” I said. “Could Amber have been any more vague? Actually, she didn’t sound as though she even
knows
what he does for a living. He’s probably into money laundering, or he’s an illegal bookie—”

“I doubt it,” Sam said with a laugh. “James probably has a normal, perfectly boring job, and you’re letting your imagination run away with you.”

“Like that would be something new. You’ve had years,” I said. “Haven’t you ever noticed that trait before?”

“Before was different.” Sam reached out and pulled me closer. “Before you weren’t my wife.”

I leaned into him, perfectly happy to snuggle closer. “And now?”

“Now I want to know everything there is to know about you.”

“I hate to have to tell you this, but I’m no great mystery. I think you’ve pretty much figured me out already.”

Sam chuckled again. I could feel his chest rumble beneath my cheek. “Trust me, Mel, there isn’t a man in the world who would believe that.”

I tipped my head back and tried out an innocent look. “I can’t imagine why not.”

Sam started to reply, but I missed what he wanted to say. Abruptly, I drew back and sneezed. Once, twice, then again. By the third sneeze, Sam was looking at me with concern. My eyes had begun to water.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I think so.” My nose was still tingling. “I can’t imagine what brought that on.”

“Look, Mom,” Davey said from the doorway.

I turned to see what he was up to. Then froze. Davey was holding Felix, the big, fluffy orange cat from next door, in his arms. The feline was nestled against my son’s chest, eyes half closed, purring loudly. Felix looked utterly content. As his hooded eyes fastened briefly on mine, the cat also looked thoroughly smug.

I pushed away from Sam and stood up. “Davey, what’s that cat doing in here?”

“I had a great idea.”

It was not very likely, I thought, that any idea involving cats inside my house was going to sound great to me. Davey, however, was looking very pleased with himself. I figured I might as well hear him out.

“What was it?” I asked.

“You know how Mrs. Fine’s cats were bothering you?”

“Yes.”

“I figured it probably wasn’t the cats that were the problem. It was that they kept coming over here and making the Poodles bark and run around. That’s what was making you nuts.”

Aside from the nuts part—which was a vast overstatement of the facts—my son was very astute for an eight-year-old. Then the full implication of his words hit me.

“Hey, wait a minute,” I said, looking around the living room.

Four of our five Poodles were lying on the floor around the couch. Only Tar was missing; I could hear him drinking water out in the kitchen. Several of the dogs had lifted their heads when Davey entered the room, but none had bothered to get up. Though they had to have noticed Felix, they hadn’t reacted at all.

“How come nobody’s barking?” I asked.

“That was my idea,” Davey said importantly. “I brought the cats in the house and introduced them to the Poodles. You know, so the dogs would understand that the cats were their friends and it was okay.”

“You brought the cats inside…?” I repeated faintly.

Davey nodded. Felix had begun to squirm in his arms. The big cat wanted down.

“How many cats?”

“Six. I was going to bring all seven, but I couldn’t find Bunny.”

“Bunny.” I was beginning to sound like an echo. Probably because, at that moment, I was incapable of thinking of anything else to say.

“Bunny’s the calico,” Davey informed me. “She has big ears. Mrs. Fine said she was probably out catching mice. She’s a very good mouser.”

“How nice for her.” The last word ended on a sneeze. It was followed by another. Beneath my shirt, my arms were beginning to itch.

Sam looked back and forth between my son and me. Tears were now running down my cheeks. “Davey, let’s take Felix outside, okay?”

“Okay,” Davey agreed. “But I just wanted Mom to know that she doesn’t have to worry anymore. The Poodles met the cats and now they’re all friends. So it won’t matter if they live next door and they come and visit, because everything is just—”

Growing increasingly impatient with confinement, Felix tried the same trick on Davey that he had with me. He braced both back paws against my son’s chest and pushed off hard. The cat went rocketing out of Davey’s arms and landed on the hardwood floor in the hall.

Unfortunately, Tar had chosen that moment to finish what he was doing in the kitchen and come looking for the rest of his family. He was trotting down the hallway from the other direction, minding his own business, when the fluffy orange cat came flying out of nowhere and landed right in front of him.

Tar wasn’t the brightest Poodle, and thinking fast wasn’t his forte. Another Poodle might have processed the information; Tar merely reacted. He slid to a stop, his head jerking up in the air. His eyes opened wide. His startled bark shook the walls.

Felix responded by humping his back, waving his bushy tail over his body, and hissing loudly.

“No!” I cried, leaping toward them.

Felix had his claws out and ready. One well-aimed swat across the nose from those sharp talons and Tar would be out of the show ring for a month.

My sudden move didn’t help matters any. Not only did the other four Poodles jump up to see what was going on, but Felix apparently decided he was under attack from the rear. He spun around and dashed between my legs.

Standing face to face with Felix, Tar had been frozen in indecision. But once the cat ran, instinct kicked in, and the big Poodle chased after him.

Under normal circumstances, the hallway would have been wide enough for him to go past me. But Tar was so focused on his quarry, that he barely even noticed I was there. As he scrambled by, his shoulder caught my leg and sent me sprawling onto Davey. The two of us went down in a heap.

Felix, meanwhile, dashed into the living room—a strategy that launched him out of the frying pan and into the fire. It didn’t take him long to figure that out. Especially since all five dogs were now milling around barking.

The cat’s first bound took him onto the coffee table; his second, up onto the back of the couch. Before Sam could grab him, the big cat jumped again; this time he scaled a pair of nearby drapes like a mountain climber flying up the sheer face of a cliff.

Reaching the top, Felix swung up onto the curtain rod and balanced there, a feline high wire act. Yet again, I thought, my house had turned into a circus.

I could have gotten up off the floor, but really, what was the point? It was just as easy to lie where I was and survey the chaos from down below.

Five big Poodles pretty much filled up the living room. Especially when they were chasing around in utter confusion, bouncing on and off the furniture, and threatening—if I’d read their canine language correctly—to disembowel the feline interloper who’d awakened them so unexpectedly from their nap.

Felix, mostly safe and crouched just below the ceiling, was still hissing. Every so often, he reached down and gave a low swipe with one of his paws. Those meager attempts at a defense passed at least several feet above the head of his nearest attacker, but they seemed to make him feel better.

Davey was yelling, I wasn’t entirely sure why. He’s eight, after all. Maybe he simply liked the idea of adding to the noise.

Sam, bless his heart, was laughing—doubled over, body shaking, totally beyond redemption, laughing.

I might have been tempted to laugh with him, but, unfortunately, I was too busy sneezing.

“That cat,” I sputtered when I finally managed to catch my breath, “has got to go.”

“Consider it done.” Sam was eyeing the distance between Felix and the floor. And possibly debating whether he’d need a ladder to make the rescue. “Davey, take the dogs and put them out back.”

My son complied, whistling to the Poodles, who followed him through the dining room, into the kitchen, and out the back door. As soon as the dogs disappeared, Felix relaxed visibly. His tail stopped swishing back and forth like a pendulum. He crouched low on the curtain rod and gazed around, appearing to consider his options.

“Good cat,” Sam crooned. “Come back down the way you went up.”

I levered myself up off the floor. “I don’t think cats are very good at taking orders.”

“No, but they’re great at looking out for their own self-interest. After he thinks about it for a minute, I bet Felix will realize he’s much better off down here than up there.”

Sam was right. And it didn’t even take a minute. Within thirty seconds, the big orange cat was nestled in Sam’s arms. The drapes, unfortunately, were looking somewhat the worse for wear. And I was still sneezing, damn it.

“You know,” I said, “I’ve never been around cats before. I think I must be allergic.”

“You can get shots for that.”

Sam was striding toward the front door. He opened it, leaned down, and deposited Felix on the step. Slowly, disdainfully, the cat sauntered off into the night.

“Or I could stop being around cats.”

“Yeah.” Sam grinned. “You could try.”

He shut the door, and I turned the dead bolt for good measure. Like that was going to do any good. My gaze slid up the stairs. I hoped Davey didn’t have any other surprises tucked away in his bedroom.

“How come my Poodles have to be confined or on leashes and her cats can go wherever they want?”

“They’re cats,” Sam said with a shrug. “It’s the way of the world.”

It was as good an answer as any.

The next day at school, I called Aunt Peg during my lunch hour.

“I have a job for you,” I said.

“
You
have a job for
me
?” I could just picture her brows rising up into her forehead. “That’s different.”

It certainly was. Aunt Peg loves to delegate. And, unfortunately, the person most likely to be delegated to was me.

“I want you to call your old friend, Sylvia Lennox, and find out where Mary’s son, Michael, is staying. Maybe get a phone number where I can reach him.”

“Oh, good,” said Peg.

“Oh, good…what?”

Call me suspicious. Or maybe just pragmatic. But Aunt Peg sounding smug was not necessarily a good thing.

“It’s about time you asked.”

“I only learned of the man’s existence on Saturday.”

“Two whole days.” She made it sound like an eternity. “I all but handed you a prime suspect, and it’s taken you forty-eight hours to show any interest in him.”

“Maybe
you
should have gone and talked to him,” I said mildly.

“Me? I’m not the one who signed up for an obedience class in New Canaan when there was a perfectly good agility group meeting in Greenwich.”

“And of course murders only happen around people who do obedience, never agility.”

I was being facetious, but Aunt Peg took me seriously. “So far, so good,” she said.

“Will you help me?” I asked.

“I already have. I’ve got Michael’s phone number right here. He’s probably expecting your call.”

“Why would he be doing that?”

“Because I told Sylvia all about you, of course. She was only too happy to give me his contact information. I gather the family wouldn’t mind a bit if he was subjected to a little harassment.”

“That’s what you told her I was?” I asked, incredulous. “A source of harassment?”

“Now, Melanie, I got you the phone number, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but—”

“Here it is. Are you ready?”

I sighed and picked up a pen. “Ready.”

Aunt Peg read off the information, then asked what else I’d been up to.

I told her about my visit to Winston Pumpernill the day before. I related the conversation I’d had with Harry Beamish and Sandy Sandstrum. And, saving the best for last, I repeated everything I could remember about what Minnie Lloyd had told me about her past.

Much as I complain about Aunt Peg’s interference, she listens well and often comes up with good ideas. It’s not unheard of for her to pull apart what I’ve said and ferret out some small piece of crucial information that I might have overlooked. Something I knew but hadn’t processed in the same way she did. Aunt Peg might make my life difficult at times, but I never discount what she has to say.

“That’s some group you’ve gotten yourself involved with,” she said when I was done. “I might have to come to class with you sometime just to meet them. Imagine already having a murderer in your midst. That’s quite impressive.”

“Don’t forget the control freak,” I said. “Not to mention the mysterious Julie.”

“What’s her breed?” Aunt Peg asked.

“Doberman. His name is Jack.”

“Black or red?”

“Black,” I said. “Why?”

“No particular reason. I’m just trying to form a picture.”

Dog people. It’s to be expected.

“You can often tell quite a lot about a person by his choice of dog,” Aunt Peg continued. “People who have Dobermans tend to be smart, low maintenance, punctual.”

That sounded like what I knew of Julie, at least so far. Or maybe it was just coincidence. I doubted that Aunt Peg’s hypothesis was grounded in scientific fact. Or even based on empirical evidence.

“I wonder if Michael has a dog?” she mused.

“The way my luck’s been running, he probably has a cat.”

“Now, now, don’t be such a pessimist.”