Meow Mayhem

by Lickel, Lisa;

“I got in fine,” Elvis said. “It was blocked later on. And remember—the door was boarded from the inside.”

  “What are you talking about?” Adam asked, shining the lantern in the direction of the room.

  “That’s right,” I said. “You weren’t here. We checked out the doors when Lucy told us about this shop being the midway point. A tunnel system goes along the river. She learned about it from Mrs. Green at the museum.”

  “Related to Bob?” he asked me.

  “His mother. She’d know—she was born and raised in Apple Grove. Bob’s family goes way back, Marion said.”

  Adam went up to the door to peer inside the room. “Well, that makes sense, I suppose. How’d you get in?”

  “We pulled,” Lucy said.

  Elvis brushed at his hair again. “And I’m afraid the door’s broken. I thought it was just rusty. Turns out it was braced from the other side.”

  Adam traded the lantern for the flashlight and ducked into the room. “That’s odd.”

  I followed.

  Adam leaned over, as the slope of the ceiling couldn’t have been more than six feet high. There were no windows, nothing of note in the concrete and stone room. It could not have measured more than six by six feet, either. I shuddered. Like a tomb. A gaping hole about three feet square took up a good deal of space on the outer wall. Pieces of dried brittle board cast eerie shadows in the glow of the lantern.

  “This is a day of surprises.” Adam beckoned with the torch for me to precede him into the main room of the basement. I expected him to show more curiosity. We were a sober group as we stood there, knowing farewells were imminent. “So, you said you crawled maybe ten yards, Elvis?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Timing can certainly make or break our best-laid plans, can’t they?” Adam commented. “We all wish we could have found this earlier, I suspect. I’d welcome you back whenever you would be able to come.”

  I was glad we could have this time together as a group to say our good-byes. I could hear the creak of the floorboards upstairs as people walked around in the store. I shivered again in the cool dampness. The back of my neck felt prickly, which was a familiar sign to me that something wasn’t quite what it seemed. A blocked-up tunnel with a door closed from the inside. That made no sense.

  Lucy’s gaze slid toward the gaping tunnel room. “What will you do next?”

  Adam looked at me. “We still don’t know why Donald was killed or what happened to Tut. Perhaps we’ll learn more from his wife. However, you three did uncover some valuable information regarding his family. We’ll watch what happens with the grant money. That’s our best lead for now.” He put his arm around me. “And, of course, we hope that you learned something about police procedure.” He waved the flashlight at the steps. “Lead on.” Adam followed and pulled the basement door shut.

  “Say good-bye to Memnet for me,” Sonja said as we gathered about her little car.

  “I will.” We shared affectionate hugs and handshakes.

  “I’ll call if I find time to come and poke around some more,” Elvis said to both of us. “I like Apple Grove.”

  “And a certain granddaughter of a certain historical society matron,” Lucy chided.

  Elvis blushed.

  I obviously missed something. “I look forward to seeing you again any time,” I told him.

  They stuffed themselves into Sonja’s car and we waved them off. We walked arm in arm back into his shop. “Are you sorry to see them go?” he asked me.

  “Yes. I’m used to being alone, so sharing the house took some getting used to. But they were all so nice and tidy.” We halted in front of the door to the basement. I tilted my head to the side. “I thought you closed this door.”

  Adam dropped his arm from my shoulders and frowned. “I thought I did, too.” He examined the latch, twisting the little knob. “I suppose it didn’t catch.”

  14

  Only two customers remained, chatting in front of the big window.

  The crowd outside on Main Street had dispersed.

  Colleen had come today instead of her usual Saturday duty. She paged through a catalog while she stood at the counter, ready to serve.

  “Everything go all right?” Adam asked his young assistant.

  She beamed. “Just fine, Mr. Thompson. Most of them were gone anyway.” She grabbed the last piece of candy from the dish in front of her. “This sure is good chocolate. Are we stocking it? A lot of kids would love it.”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  Dr. Bailey came in. “So, I have to come book shopping if I want to see my daughter anymore.” Her smile belied any sense of accusation.

  Colleen’s cheeks blossomed pink. “So true. But you also see me at summer swim,” she reminded her mother.

  “You must have been busy with all that excitement. I just heard the news from Bessie Wilberforce and came on over.”

  “Bessie’s our neighbor,” Colleen said to us. “She has this ancient Chihuahua named Tiger that she brings in to see Mom, like every other week.”

  “Mostly for company,” Dr. Bailey said. “I don’t mind, if I’m not busy.” She looked at me. “As I was earlier in the week. I do apologize for having to miss your appointment. You said Memnet seemed better.”

  “That’s all right. My young friend Sonja planned to bring Mem in. She really wanted an excuse to spend more time with my cat, I think. We also wanted to know how many stray cats had been rounded up, and if any of them were sick.”

  Isis whizzed past our ankles in a blur. Dr. Bailey’s head swiveled to watch her. “What’s gotten into her? We’ve had a couple dozen dropped off by various people. I got two very mild positives so far. The round up will go on for the rest of the year, though.”

  I followed Isis’s flight back toward the basement stairway, where once again, the door stood ajar. I opened my mouth to say how odd that was since we’d just closed it.

  “She’s in an excitable mood right now, with all the activity of the morning,” Adam said, shaking his head faintly in my direction.

  I closed my mouth.

  Dr. Bailey’s eyes narrowed briefly as she glanced between Adam, me, and her daughter. “Well, then. Colleen, you’re on duty until 6:00 tonight, is that right? Friday’s the night the store’s open a little later? How would it be if I came back here then and took you out to eat?”

  “Sure, Mom, as long as it’s not Tiny’s. His food makes me sink in the pool.”

  “I think I’ll go home, check on my messages,” I said.

  “Would this be a good time to check in on your cat now, Miss Preston? I won’t charge extra for a house call.”

  I wanted to speak to her anyway. “Sure,” I replied. “If you’ll give me a fifteen-minute head start, I’ll just get my business out of the way. You have my address?”

  “Yes, I do. I remember Mark and Lee Pagner, who used to own your house. They were expecting their first baby when he got transferred and needed to move. Nice couple. Nice little Yorkie named Scotty. Sure, that sounds fine. I have an errand to run, myself, so it might be a little more than fifteen minutes.”

  “Good. I’ll expect you. See you later.” I waved to Adam and Colleen then walked past the wooden door to the basement one more time on my way out the back to get in my car.

  I confess I was nervous to host the veterinarian alone in my home. “You’ll protect me, though, won’t you Mem?” I stroked his ears and he obligingly chortled his happy noises for me.

  When I let Dr. Bailey in, she walked right up to Memnet and picked him up.

  I would normally have taken affront at this bold behavior if this had not been a professional house call.

  More surprisingly, Mem allowed it.

  I ushered her into the living room where she gracefully perched on the sofa, Memnet still in her arms. He seemed to be bemused by the doctor, if I read my friend correctly. After being together nearly twelve years, Memnet and I understood each other quite well.

  She fu
ssed over my spotted pet. She looked in his eyes and tried to check his sensitive ears and felt all along his underside.

  My Mau suffered this examination with the barest of patience, leaping down from her lap when he had enough.

  Dr. Bailey laughed. “Oh, he’s all right,” she said. She sat back and crossed her long legs. I guessed she was not in any hurry.

  “Thank you, Doctor. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Call me Addy. Yes, that would be nice. Water is fine with me.”

  “I’ll be right back.” I spent a frantic minute in the kitchen putting ice in tall glasses and trying to come up with questions to ask the doctor—Addy. Our scheduled appointment wasn’t until next week, so I hadn’t put much time into thinking about it yet. I tried to recall why she was a suspect in the first place. I’d been very upset after my house had been robbed while Mom and I were out, and my beloved Memnet drugged. At least he had not been killed. And that was the problem with the scenario. Only some weirdo cat lover would not have taken out the attack cat that foiled his or her earlier plot. I grabbed our glasses of ice water, took a deep breath, then hiked back into my living room.

  “I think you should know that I have stock in Better Pet Food, whose parent company is MerriFood,” Addy said.

  I deposited her glass on the square trunk I used for a coffee table. I dropped into one of the chairs across from the sofa, not sure why she was using my house as a confessional. With a shaking hand I gulped from my glass.

  “Margaret’s family helped put me through graduate school,” she said, watching me. She dressed somewhat formally for her profession, I thought, in a beige silk skirt and jacket with a white shell underneath. She blended well with the furniture. “We weren’t that close as far as I was concerned, but I was one of the few people Margaret could count as a friend while we were at school. I bought stock in MerriFood as I could afford it based on her recommendations.”

  I cleared my throat, thinking that the TV killers usually made this kind of tell-all commentary right before they…you know. “Oh?”

  “May I call you Ivy?”

  “Of course.” I tried to appear casual as I glanced around for anything I could use to defend myself.

  “Ivy, I know you’re aware of Margaret Bader-Conklin’s sudden appearance in Apple Grove today after a lengthy, mysterious absence.”

  I bit my lips. “She has a right to grieve in her own way.”

  “Huh. Donald contracted with Feli-Mix, the cat food company, to build a factory in Apple Grove. He invited some of his friends to move here to help build up a dying city that he loved. When Margaret found out about this, she hit the roof. So to speak. Her family’s a founder of MerriFood. You probably knew that, too.”

  “But—”

  Addy held up her hand to stop me. “I have even advised MerriFood on some of their nutritional value mixes. They paid me. That’s a matter of public record. I will also tell you that Margaret—who is a benefactress of my clinic—asked me about tranquilizing small animals. She said Donald’s cat had been acting anxious without him and she wondered if we could safely dose Tut with something to calm him. At the time I didn’t realize Tut was absent, along with Donald. I told her what I could do for him. I’m telling you this because I realize you might think I drugged Memnet the day you were robbed.” She turned to stare out of the picture window facing the street.

  I took another deep breath. And let it out. Now what?

  We sipped our water, both of us edgy, waiting for the other to speak.

  I cracked first. “Donald usually took Tut with him on trips. Addy, what would happen if we took this information to the police?”

  She shook head, her cascade of dishwater blonde hair rippling. “I don’t know.”

  “I can’t understand why the thieves didn’t just kill Memnet.”

  “Doing something like that always leaves some kind of evidence. A drug might be identified, traced to its maker and distribution records. A weapon leaves traceable marks. And it’s messy.” She smiled at me. “Sorry to sound so cold. I don’t like this business one little bit. And I’m tired of catering to Margaret’s whims. I’m also worried about Tut.”

  “No one’s found a Mau to turn in, then. Yolanda Toynsbee’s granddaughter chased a cat down by the river a couple weeks ago. She described it to me. I would say she saw Tut.”

  “Maybe,” Addy said.

  “What do you mean? I checked around down there but didn’t see any place a cat could hide.”

  “I could get in a lot of trouble for saying this. My business, my reputation…I have a daughter who’s about to go to an expensive college. If not for Colleen, I wouldn’t care. MerriFood has long arms and the Baders have power behind their money.”

  Breathe, breathe, I reminded myself. I got light-headed anyway. “Wait, Addy—”

  “No, Ivy. I just have to tell you this. Please, let me tell you my side of the story. After, I’ll—I’ll trust you to do the right thing.”

  I sank back into the wings of the chair and closed my eyes briefly, then focused on the agitated woman in front of me. “Go ahead.”

  “To pay some of my expenses in school, I worked in an animal shelter, euthanizing unclaimed strays.” She made it sound horrible.

  I guess it was. “So? Someone had to do it.”

  “Sometimes there were mistakes in the records. Not all of the animals were unclaimed. They were mislabeled and euthanized.”

  “Accidents happen. Everyone understands that.”

  “The shelter owner was a drug addict.”

  I waited, hoping my suspicions wouldn’t ring true.

  “The main reason for the huge amount of mistakes in record-keeping—Doug’s hazed state of mind. One evening he showed me his list of druggie friends. They included some of the top VIPs of the area around the university, government, too. If I helped him, just made a few drops, he’d pay me well. We used the excuse of doing work for the shelter as a cover. I did this for eight months.”

  “What made you stop?”

  “I got pregnant.”

  I’ve heard that plenty of times. As if getting pregnant was something people could just buy or something one could catch, like a cold. Nothing would make me ask her any of the details. It wasn’t my business. I just let her go on.

  “When I found out I was expecting Colleen, I realized that I couldn’t act that way, not for me or the sake of my child. But I didn’t turn my boss in, either. In a weak moment, I told my friend Margaret my secrets.” Addy dabbed at her eyes.

  I got up to find her a tissue. When I returned, she had regained her composure. I said, “I take it your friend said she’d keep your secrets and help pay the bills, as long as you’d do her future favors.”

  Addy nodded.

  “So, you settled in Apple Grove to be near your dear friend, who invested heavily in your veterinarian business. I thought Mrs. Bader-Conklin was pretty smart, herself. She’s got a degree in pharmacology. Why would she need your help to figure out how to drug my cat?”

  The veterinarian’s expression closed tight. “You’re assuming she had anything to do with the robbery.”

  “What? You just said—”

  “I have to go.” Addy leapt to her feet and charged through the kitchen, moving as fast and hard as her high-heeled patent pumps would allow.

  “Good-bye,” I called, trying to follow her. “Can I…”

  She was gone. She must have seen my next visitor coming up the sidewalk.

  “Hi, Ivy. Was that Dr. Bailey? She must have had an emergency.”

  “Hi, Marion. Come on in. Um, yeah, I think so.”

  “You look shell-shocked. Is everything all right? Memnet’s OK, isn’t he?” She walked into my kitchen and turned to talk to me as I stood on the stoop outside. I followed her and watched as she made herself welcome, settling her purse and jacket on a chair and opening the cupboard for a cup. “Got any new tea? I just tried—Hey, Ivy? You all right? Wait until I tell you what’s been going on
downtown.”

  I pulled out a chair. “Yes, tell me everything.” For the moment, I catalogued my conversation with Addy Bailey into a neat little slot in my mind, so I could write on Mom’s chart later. I focused on the mayor’s secretary.

  “You probably saw Rupert,” she began. The microwave dinged. Marion went to retrieve our cups of hot water then plunked mine down in front of me, adding a bag of ginger mint. “He really made a stink, but Gene told him there was nothing the police could do in this situation.” She sipped, scrunched her nose. “Too hot. Anyway, he called the television people and the state paper. Honestly. ‘What about the missing person report,’ he asks Gene. ‘She was reported missing,’ Gene replies. ‘By her assistant, Mrs. Grimm, who’s standing right behind you.’” Marion had a gift for putting a different voice with her quoted characters.

  I smiled and toasted her with my cup. “So, what about the missing persons report?”

  “Gene says, ‘She’s no longer missing. End of report.’ ‘What about me?’ Rupert asks.” Marion giggled. “‘Didn’t know you was missin,’ Gene says. You shoulda seen Margaret’s face.”

  “I bet it was a picture.”

  “Yup. Made me wish I owned a camera. Anyhow, she’s waving this paper with a signature on it, claiming Donald said she should act as deputy mayor in his absence. None of it’s legal, or anything, but the police don’t have any precedent to act on. Margaret says Letty will help her, and I should go home. I followed Rupert for a while, but he acted crazy. Walked in circles, waving his arms. Took off his jacket, threw it on the ground and stomped on it. His wife’s not gonna be too pleased with that. Then he went to the bank, of all places. Why the bank?”

  “What did the others in the office do? Georgine Crosby, for instance? Or any of the other council members? Were any of them there?” I set my chin atop my crossed wrists on the table.

  “Oh, there wasn’t anyone there, really. On a Friday? Georgine already had the day off. She’s out of town at her brother’s kid’s wedding. The other council members don’t actually work at the hall. You know that, Ivy.” Marion sipped again at her cooling tea. “Ah, mint and ginger. That’s better. So, how’re you?”