Motherhood Is Murder

by Carolyn Hart

  They’d wondered some about Daryl Spalding, when Rebecca went to work for him. Daryl wasn’t long out of law school. He was younger than his wife, and a site better looking. But Rebecca’d told Martha, she liked her job too much to date Daryl and spoil a good thing.

  “She didn’t run off,” Florie Mae said. “You’ve seen her and Tommie together.”

  Martha wiggled deeper under the light cover. The upstairs windows were open but no breeze came in, the night was as still and close as a cook oven. “Might be those old gossips are right, that she’s having a last fling with someone, just gone off for a few days?”

  Florie Mae rose up and looked at her. “It’s nearly two weeks. She wouldn’t hurt Tommie like that.”

  “Albern Haber was plenty mad when she and Tommie got engaged,” Martha said. That was when Albern started hanging out at the Blue Saddle. Got arrested three times that month for DUI. But after three overnight stays in the Greeley jail, folks thought Albern would mend his ways. The Greeley jail was over a hundred years old, with damp stone walls, no heat, and plumbing so bad that all the cells stunk.

  “Well she can’t be with Albern. He’s been right here in town the whole time, since she disappeared. He’s out with the men tonight, was in the store three times last week.”

  “Maybe she’s staying somewhere else, and he…”

  “He commutes?” Florie Mae said, laughing. “He commutes to a secret love nest?” She sat up in the darkness, looking at Martha. “I only wish,” she said sadly. Then, “Who would hurt her?” she said softly. “Who could hurt Rebecca?”

  “Maybe she had a last fling with Grady or Lee Nolton or Eric Farlon,” Martha said, “and Tommie caught her.”

  “Tommie wouldn’t hurt her. He might kill whoever she was with, but he wouldn’t hurt Rebecca.” Florie Mae shook her head, a soft rusting in the darkness. “Tommie’d just go away his ownself, he’d be real crushed if that happened.”

  “Who else would be so jealous? Who else couldn’t stand for Rebecca to belong to another?”

  “Every male in Greeley,” Florie Mae said, smiling. “Take Grady—Grady Coulter thinks he should have the pick of the crop.

  “Herald Fremkis was always hanging around. And that Tom Sayers, works in the courthouse.”

  Martha snorted with laughter. But then she turned on her pillow, looking at Florie Mae. “Herald tortures dogs.” She shivered.

  “He does more than that. Granny says there are two children she knows of, in town, knows for a fact they aren’t their father’s babies, that they’re Herald’s.”

  Martha giggled. “How could she know that?”

  Florie Mae shrugged. “How does Granny know anything? Lived all her life in Greeley. Granny goes back to Noah and the flood.”

  “But who could…what woman could stand to be with old Harold Fremkis?”

  “Someone hard up, I guess. Someone whose own husband is…who doesn’t have enough love at home,” Florie Mae said. And she went quiet. Someone whose husband is just too tired, she thought, ashamed of her own needs, whose husband works all day till after dark hauling and stacking heavy bales and tending to the hundred things needed in the store—who does all that for us, for me and Granny and the children, so he’s just wore out at night. And Florie Mae turned her thoughts away, didn’t want to follow the path their talk was taking.

  She thought instead about Lester. He was only a boy, just seventeen. But she thought how flustered he’d been with the news about Susan Slattery. Lester, dragging in the newspaper, dropping it on the counter unable to talk or look at her. Same as he’d been, exactly the same, when Rebecca disappeared.

  But Lester was like that, always had been, he wouldn’t hurt a flea. His embarrassed ways was no more than shyness, Lester had watched Rebecca no different than Grady or Albern Haber and their friends, no different than Herald Fremkis with his beer gut and roving eye, or than any other male in Greeley—but now with Susan Slattery missing, with two young women missing, the horror of what could have happened to Rebecca seemed a thousand times more real; and, thinking about Rebecca lying somewhere dead, she put her face in the pillow and shook with silent, convulsive weeping, shook, hugging her pillow, until she dropped into grieving sleep.

  They were deep asleep when the raucous noise began. The screams jerked Florie Mae awake, jerked them out of bed: cat screams. The shrill, enraged and terrified cries of cats fighting in the store below. The screams of the mother cats defending their young. Florie Mae and Martha near fell over each other racing down the stairs, Martha snatching up the red plaid robe like a weapon. Behind them Granny emerged from her room with her shotgun. The baby began to howl. Bursting through the kitchen and into the store, Florie Mae flipped on the lights.

  The on–off flicker of the fluorescent tubes flashed pulsing reflections from a pair of glaring eyes. Then the light stayed on, illuminating the enraged glare of the tomcat. He was backed against the shelves of trowels and garden gloves, a dead kitten dangling from his teeth, a tiny white kitten.

  The two females were at him, pausing for only an instant, their ears flat to their heads, their tails lashing.

  They hit the tomcat together, tore into him, their screams filled with blood-lust, raking and biting him, clawing at him, a dervish of flying fur and screams. In their rage, the dead kitten was tossed aside. The cats didn’t separate long enough for Florie Mae or Martha to grab any one cat. To reach into the flying whirlwind trying to save the mother cats could be lethal.

  Martha threw her robe over the tom as Florie Mae grabbed up gunnysacks. The instant the three cats were covered they became still, their fighting reduced to enraged growls. Neither Florie Mae or Martha knew which cat was poised beneath her own pressing hands—until an orange paw appeared under a fold of cloth.

  Pulling back the gunnysack no more than an inch, Florie Mae let Goldie slip out, then pushed the cloth down fast.

  Goldie went straight to her dead little kitten, picked it up, and carried it back to the box.

  As the snarling continued, Martha slid a red plaid corner of cloth back, trying to see under. The cat responded with a scream like attacking tigers that made her cover the beast again.

  The next move was so well coordinated they could have practiced for days. While Florie Mae guarded her side, holding the gunnysacks in place, Martha lifted another corner, revealing a black tail. Pulling the cloth higher, she pushed Blackie from above.

  Streaking out, Blackie fled for the kitten box. What was left under the burlap was a cyclone. Bundling the corners of the bags together around the storm of snarling, yowling fury, Florie Mae and Martha each held a fistful of cat securely through layers of burlap.

  Carrying the bundle between them, much as a bomb squad might carry a package of TNT, they fought open the back door and ran across the dark, concrete yard to the back sheds.

  At the trap, Florie Mae snatched off the bungie cord. She held the spring-loaded door open as Martha shoved the cat in.

  “Now!” Martha hissed. The bundle was through. Florie Mae released the door as Martha jerked her hands away. It snapped closed scraping their fingers. The bundle within heaved and thrashed.

  “He’s choking. He can’t breathe.”

  Martha looked at her. “Do you care?”

  Florie Mae got a bamboo stick that she used in the nursery, shoved it through into the cage, and worked at the burlap. Inside, her red robe, mixed up with the burlap, was already in shreds and still ripping. She was still pulling at the burlap when it flew apart and the tomcat burst out tumbling, spitting, panting for air.

  Martha knelt, watching him, as Florie Mae headed back inside the store, sick at heart, fearing what she would find.

  She knelt over the box, touching and stroking the kittens.

  She could see no blood and no wounds. The kittens were all lively and feisty, nosing at their mothers. Goldie and Blackie lay among them licking their babies madly, turning from one kit to the next, and back again. Only the mother cats’ own blood stai
ned the healthy kits, and there was blood on the box where they had struggled back in, after the fight. Goldie had a long gash down her neck, and one ear was torn. Blackie had a four-inch square of skin off her shoulder, and was lame where the tom had bitten her, his teeth going deep into her leg.

  At four in the morning, an hour before dawn, Martha and Florie Mae left the veterinary’s office carrying Blackie and Goldie. The two mother cats were shaved and sutured, but both were alert. The town of Greeley might be small and backwoods, but Dr. Mackay used the latest methods. The inhalent anesthetic he had give the mama cats had worn off almost at once, and there would be no trace to get into their systems, to mix with their milk. The doctor had wiped the two cats down with damp cloths, to take away the smell of the tomcat and of the medications. Florie Mae put the mamas right in the kitten box, in the camper shell of Martha’s pickup. They had carried the box into the store, behind the counter, and were watching the hungry babies nursing when Martha’s cell phone rang.

  Martha lifted the phone from her jacket pocket. “Who would call at this hour?”

  “Your mother?”

  She answered, listening for a moment and glancing at Florie Mae. “Hold on. Hold on a minute.” She covered the speaker. “It’s Mrs. McPherson.” Martha turned on the speaker so Florie Mae could hear. “Slow down, Mrs. McPherson. When did you see her last?”

  Florie Mae went icy. Had Idola McPherson disappeared? Redheaded Idola was the youngest of the girls they’d run with in high school. But Mrs. McPherson was saying, “I’m sure it’s Rebecca’s cat. That white and gold one, a big gold spot on her side. Your mother said she’s missing and you been looking for her, Martha. Well I just saw that cat, out around where Albern’s been fixing our road. Nearly all white, with a gold circle on her left side? Oh, it’s Rebecca’s cat, she’s always there in the garden or the house when Leatha Duncan has our church group.”

  “Where’s the cat now? Can Idola help you catch her?”

  “She was right here in my garden trying to eat with our cats, trying to eat their food, but they run her off. Likely she’s still around, maybe in among them downed trees that Albern took out.”

  “I’ll be there in half an hour,” Martha said. “Can you try to feed her? Maybe she’ll come to you, maybe you can take her inside? Maybe Idola and Rick could help you?”

  “Idola’s still asleep. Rick’s off helping his cousin move, down in Habersham County. And I have to be to work, you know how busy we are on the weekend. I’ll wake Idola. Maybe we can get the cat inside, shut her in before I leave.” Mrs. McPherson had worked at the savings bank ever since Idola’s father died, five years back, when Idola was fifteen. They stayed open all day on Saturday, that brought in a lot of business. Saturday, as in the old days, was a time to come into town.

  Martha flipped the phone closed. The McPherson place was the other side of town and half way up the mountain, overlooking Goose Lake, a little man-made lake with a few cabins around it. “Why would Nugget go way up there, so far from home? Seems impossible she’d go up there, she’s never strayed like that.”

  Florie Mae and Martha looked at each other. Both thinking the same. Thinking how Goldie would go to Florie Mae when Florie Mae felt sick or had a little tiff with James. How Goldie always found Florie Mae when she was hurting. Thinking how Nugget had done the same with Rebecca. Ever since she was a kitten, how she would curl up with Rebecca when Rebecca was sick or felt bad. How Nugget was always there, when Rebecca maybe needed to cry. They looked at each other, and neither said a word. Florie Mae shivered.

  Together they loaded the caged tomcat into the camper shell of Martha’s pickup, keeping the big trap covered with towels.

  “I’ll just drop him off,” Martha said, swinging into the cab. “Dr. Mackay probably didn’t go back to bed after we woke him.” John Mackay lived next door to the clinic. “Drop the cat off, then go up the mountain to McPherson’s. I’ll call you, let you know if I find Nugget.”

  “It’s Saturday.”

  Martha looked blank. Then, “Oh. Kids’ fishing day.”

  Once a year the rifle and hunting club of Greeley, which consisted of nearly every man in town, stocked Cody Creek with rainbow trout, rounded up all available fishing poles, and conducted a special fishing day for Greeley’s children. There would be a picnic, and there would be pictures in the paper the following week of the children holding up trout near as big as they were. Dr. Mackay was part of the committee to help stock the stream. The men did that first thing Saturday morning so the fish would be hungry but wouldn’t travel away too far. Dr. Mackay always helped haul the picnic tables and chairs over from the church, too, and set them up.

  “Well if he’s already left, if he can’t do it this morning, I’ll just keep the cat in the truck, take him back later. I can shove in some food, and one of those drip water things. That cat’s caused enough trouble. He can stand being in the truck for a while, long as he has plenty of air.”

  “I hope James gets back,” Florie Mae said. “Bobbie Lee’ll have a face as long as a skinned donkey, his daddy misses fishing day.” Fishing day was a much anticipated outing in Greeley. The women brought casseroles and salads and cakes, and some of the men barbequed hamburgers and hotdogs. Harkin’s Feed and Garden would close for the occasion, and James had bought Bobbie Lee his own brand-new bamboo pole. Bobbie Lee talked about nothing else. He had dug up a whole can full of fat worms by himself, and he’d be mighty hurt, his daddy didn’t get home—if he had to go fishing with his mama. Lacie June thought trout would be something like Granny’s rag dolls that she could play with, though they had tried to tell her different.

  Martha said, “I’ll come right on over to Cody Creek from the lake, so you’ll know if I found Nugget. Or I’ll phone—you take your cell phone.”

  Florie Mae nodded.

  “So strange,” Martha repeated, “that the cat would go way up there.” Swinging into her pickup, she left, heading back to Dr. Mackay—to put that tomcat out of commission, at least in the kitten department.

  Florie Mae stood watching her drive away, then went to bury the white kitten. Fetching a shovel, she dug a tiny grave at the far edge of the lot beneath a climbing pink rosebush that would flower and smell sweet all summer. She laid the kitten in, covered it, and put a flat rock over. Then she went back into the store and sat down behind the counter again, beside the kitten box.

  She’d have some doctoring to do, salve to rub on their sewn-up wounds, maybe special food to fix, to get them to eat. The two cats made her feel shaky, the way they’d protected their babies. Leaning down, she kissed each one on top her sweet head.

  Because the tom had got only the one kitten, Florie Mae thought the white one might have managed to climb out of the box during the night. She’d have to fix the box taller. And how had the tom got in? He might could have pushed his way in around the sheets of plastic in the greenhouse, that joined the back of the store. Or maybe slipped in last night before she locked up? Had the mother cats stood him off all night, before he snatched that kitten?

  Well, Florie Mae knew one thing. James wasn’t drowning these kittens, not after their mamas fought so hard for them.

  James never had liked drowning the kittens. But he said it was better than seeing them go hungry and uncared for, and they couldn’t keep ’em all. But this time…she looked down at her mama cats, stroking them.

  It would take all her little stash of pleasurin’ money she’d saved, to have them “fixed,” but she was going to do that. It made her sad to think there’d be no more of Goldie’s babies. Ever’ one of those cats had been so strange and different, just like Goldie. But seemed like there were no more homes wanted a little cat, seemed like Greeley had more cats than people.

  It was a fact, Goldie’s grown kittens was all around Greeley. She’d found good homes for them, too, most with older couples. Clive Garner’s cat stayed on his bed the whole two months when Clive had cancer. They had to shut the cat up before they could take Clive
away to the hospital for the last time, that cat was so wild to protect him. And Nellie Coombs, when she had that hip replacement? Her yellow cat wouldn’t let anyone near her ’cept Nellie’s own daughter, the cat was that watchful.

  Rubbing Goldie’s ears, Florie Mae thought how strange cats were, how much a person didn’t know about them.

  Cody Creek was flowing fast, from rains north of Greeley up around Simms. The newly released trout seemed content to lie in the eddies facing upstream, their flashing tails keeping them in place as they snatched the occasional bit of commercial fish food that the men dolled out to them. Their life in the trout farm had left them far less wary of the noise and the movement of humans along the creek banks than if they’d been raised wild. They were used to people, used to the noise and hustle, used to the piping of children’s voices.

  Along the stream on the open green slopes of the mowed pasture, the tiniest toddlers, too young to fish, giggled, and screamed as their mothers pulled them away from the fast water. But the boys and girls who were set on catching fish were silent and businesslike beside their daddies. James had returned around eight that morning, bone weary from their all night search that had got them nothing but near-empty gas tanks. He’d ate a huge breakfast and was ready to go again, as excited as Bobbie Lee. Florie Mae had the truck packed and a blanket and cushions in the back for her and the children. Granny rode beside James, cuddling little Robert.

  They’d been at Cody Creek for over two hours, and Bobbie Lee had already caught three trout, when Florie Mae began to wonder why Martha hadn’t called. Fetching her cell phone from the picnic basket, where it was stuffed down between the cake box and the sandwiches, she opened it and checked the battery. Its charge was some low, but not clear down. She tried Martha’s cell phone number, but got one of those messages that the phone was not in service at that time.