Critters of Mossy Creek

by Deborah Smith

  I fed my desperate lodger, then decided a phone call to Darva was in order. I couldn’t let our conversation in the Piggly Wiggly end as it had. She’d seemed worried about something. Best friends didn’t let each other down.

  But a secret? Mercy. I rubbed my palms up my arms. To consider the secret my mother had kept for so long made me sad, and yes, even angry. Hadn’t she trusted that I might like to know about my father?

  I’ve come to understand that she hadn’t the courage to tell Beau at the time. My granddaddy had been the one to convince Beau to stay away from my mother. (I suspect a shotgun may also have been involved.)

  But why not let me in on the truth instead of manufacturing the motorcycle accident story?

  Beau Belmont had learned I was his daughter the same time I learned he was my father. Had Beau not arrived in Mossy Creek to sweep my mother off her feet during production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream, I might have gone through life never knowing the truth. That was the part that really stung.

  It appeared Mom and Beau had picked up where they’d left off over two decades earlier, happy in each other’s arms and stealing kisses when they thought no one was looking.

  So where did I fit into the picture?

  Colonel Mustard in my Brain wielding Doubt.

  Certainly whatever secret Darva was dying to tell couldn’t be as life altering as a new daddy. I bet it had to do with Jason. That look of utter adoration. And then she’d clammed up right there in the Piggly Wiggly. Was Darva in love? But that was no secret; it was something we always shared with one another. Heaven knows we’d been through crushes, infatuations and dalliances aplenty.

  Picking up the phone, I set it down when the doorbell rang.

  Darva stood out on the step. Her curls worked double-time. Before I could invite her in, Cato rocketed through the room and landed—sprong—wrapped about my thigh.

  “Hey, Mia, what the heck is—” Darva’s eyes grew wide. “Eek!”

  I grimaced through the pain. “Did you just say eek?”

  “Yes, Mia, I said eek. It means ‘oh no!’ and is used as an exclamation of shock or bestartlement.”

  “I know what it means. I just never heard a real person actually use it. I think you have to be a cartoon character to be allowed usage of that exclamation. And bestartlement is not a word.”

  “Duly noted.” She pointed at Cato. “Is that the—? Oh, my goodness gracious, it is the cat I stole!”

  A deduction seeped into my brain, slow yet sure as molasses creeping over a stack of steaming flapjacks. I twisted my leg to better display my catch. “Is this the secret you wanted me to keep, Darva?”

  She nodded mutely, her eyes comically fearful.

  “That’s the insane cat!” Darva burst out. “The one that got away. The crazy, wild, snarling creature from the deepest depths.”

  “The depths—? I do believe I’ve missed out on something since Colonel Mustard wielded the Candlestick and Miss Lavender found the Hoe in the Garden. Come inside and fill me in, Darva.”

  “B-but it’s a secret.”

  Again, I twisted my leg to display the furry orange barnacle. Cato purred sweetly, but gave no indication of wanting to detach from his post. “A secret? Not so much anymore, Darva. Not so much anymore.”

  ooo

  Darva relayed her adventures in catnapping, which took place last night after I’d left her alone with the Clue game board and a half-empty bowl of honey pecan popcorn.

  Seems she’d been planning a particular heist for a couple weeks, but didn’t know I’d be home on vacation at the time, else she would have asked for my help.

  “You couldn’t have done it alone,” I guessed as I strode to the kitchen, Darva in tow, to scavenge for another bottle of root beer.

  “Well . . .”

  Ah. Secrets are always much more complicated than one initially suspects.

  As Darva twisted one leg and she screwed up her mouth sweetly and eyed the ceiling, I made another deduction. This one wasn’t so easy as the first, but the grocery store conversation did add another piece to the puzzle.

  “Aha!”

  “What aha?” Darva protested all innocent. “You can’t aha me like that after I’ve been so open with my secret.”

  “A secret that grows more twisted and intriguing.”

  “Do tell,” Darva challenged.

  “You weren’t alone on the heist. You had help.”

  Darva lifted her chin. Impudently.

  “And I guess it was one Limping Grocery Store Clerk in the Cereal Aisle with the Ticket Gun.” I thrust out my wounded thigh. “Cat got his leg? The way he’s limping, Cato must have caught him just right on a major muscle.”

  Darva nodded mutely. Then she burst out with the confession. “As we were stealing it, it attacked Jason, then took off like the governor running from Mayor Ida’s shotgun. Jason was as frantic as the cat. He ran like a chicken with its head cut off. When I finally caught up with him, he wouldn’t let me steal a second cat, and insisted we cancel the whole plan.”

  “You’re not making a whole lot of sense at this point. I’m sure you have a good reason for stealing cats. You should have asked me to help.”

  “Well . . .”

  The rising tone of that single word prodded me to make another deduction, but I wasn’t up for it. “Well what?”

  “You are helping, Mia. You’re the fence.”

  “The fence?”

  “You know, the one who holds the stolen goods for the crooks? Every heist needs one.”

  I glanced out to the living room, where Cato snoozed on the velvet sofa before the bouquet of red roses Beau had given Mom last week. “I’m fencing stolen goods. Darva, how did this happen? Why did you steal a cat? And why, of all the cats in the world, would you steal a crazy cat?”

  “I didn’t want a crazy cat,” Darva explained. “I wanted one of those fancy cats Mrs. Pickle keeps in her garage. Do you know she just brought home thirteen show cats?”

  “Show cats? She’s going to breed them? Or she’s starting a cat boarding kennel? So?”

  “She keeps them locked in cages! That’s cruel, Mia, and you know it is.”

  I nodded. Couldn’t imagine anyone trying to contain Cato. No wonder I couldn’t scrape the poor thing from me for any longer than it took to close myself in the bathroom for a few private moments. The cat needed contact. It needed love.

  “You think she’s abusing them?” I asked. Since the deed was already done I didn’t bother pointing out that ditzy Darva could simply have asked the humane society to investigate Mrs. Pickle. I also didn’t point out that since everyone in Mossy Creek knows everyone else’s business, Mrs. Pickle’s caged show cats wouldn’t stay unnoticed for long. Besides, people might not like the idea of cats in cages, but caging them wasn’t illegal.

  “Not sure. But don’t you think owning that many cats and keeping them in cages is abuse? That’s why I did it. I wanted to bring attention to what she’s doing over there. The plan was to borrow one of the show cats, then report I’d found it to the Mossy Creek Gazette. Katie Bell would have a field day with that one. Then we’d all march over to Mrs. Pickle’s house to return it, and voila! The whole town would see how she treats her animals.”

  “Borrow, eh?” I sighed at her well-intentioned but idiotic logic. “You haven’t been so daring since second grade, Darva.”

  “I er . . . got the idea from my partner in crime.”

  “The same partner who abandoned you at the scene of the crime?”

  She shrugged, and I do believe she blushed. “Jason was bleeding, Darva. He took one for the team.”

  “Isn’t he the guy you had a crush on in twelfth grade but he was too busy with the chess club to notice you?”

  “The one and only. He’s noticed me now.”

  “I guess like attracts like. Criminals, that is.”

  “You should talk, Miss I-Fence-Stolen-Goods.”

  I gaped. Me, an accessory to a crime! “Now wait a m
inute. I never agreed . . . and by the way, instead of stealing a cat, you and Jason could have easily taken photographs of Mrs. Pickle’s cat cages to prove your point.”

  “Please, Mia, I know we didn’t think things through very well, but you can’t tell anyone. The heist went wrong. The cat escaped, and we didn’t get our evidence. All we did was set a gnarly, psycho cat loose on the world.”

  “Hey! I happen to like that gnarly thing. Cato is my kind of cat.”

  “Disturbed and manic?”

  “No, desperate for love.” I looked away, gripping the root beer bottle.

  What in heavens? I suddenly felt a little teary-eyed. And for what reason? I had love in abundance. Maybe. Mom had been dividing her time between me and Beau lately. Course, I wasn’t around. And she did call me every single day. Beau never called me. I’d probably hang up if he did. Mom said I had to make the first move, give him a signal.

  Giving signals was sort of like having the moves. Which I don’t. I sighed.

  “I can’t keep him,” I said. “He belongs to Mrs. Pickle. Poor kitty. Even if he is gnarly, he doesn’t deserve to be treated poorly and kept in a cage.”

  “Maybe if we bring it back and talk to Mrs. Pickle? There might be a reason for the cages. Or if we found evidence of mistreatment, we could report her to the police. But Darva, stealing isn’t going to save any cats, only see you on a wanted poster in Amos Roydan’s office. Although, if your point is to get publicity, it’ll take Katie Bell less than a day to spread the news about your arrest. You’ll probably be the lead item in her next column.”

  “I know. Though . . . I’ve never been gossiped about, Mia. It might be kinda—”

  “Darva.”

  “All right. All right! It was, well . . . Jason thought it was a clever idea. He’s an Eagle Scout, you know. Last year he spent two weeks surviving alone up on Colchik Mountain. He’s so strong and sexy. And when we were standing in Mrs. Pickle’s garage trying to decide which cat to take, he kissed me.”

  “Oh.” I said it on a sigh, because stolen kisses in inappropriate settings are always worth a sigh. “Is he a good kisser?”

  “If he were popcorn he’d be extra buttery with caramel coating and peanuts.”

  Now that was good.

  “But then that crazy cat dashed out and Jason ran after it. Oh, Mia, I want another kiss. But now Jason is freaked because we lost the cat.”

  “But you didn’t. I’ve been ‘fencing’ it all along.”

  Darva’s grateful smile made me glad I’d let this secret into my life.

  ooo

  So this was the plan. Darva and I would return Cato to Mrs. Pickle. We’d nicely explain we’d found the cat. (No, Darva could not be cajoled into confessing to breaking and entering, and okay, that’s one secret I felt compelled to keep.) While visiting Mrs. Pickle, we’d try to deduce whether she was a cat abuser.

  I served Cato a goodbye meal of milk and Kitty Nibbles. Then I combed his sleek coat with an old brush I’d found in the garage.

  Cato purred appreciatively on my lap. “Bet you’d have no idea what to do with a father either, eh, Cato?”

  The cat stretched out its legs and settled.

  “It’s not that I mind so much, but how do I start? I’ve wanted to have a relationship with him for over twenty years. I shouldn’t waste another year wondering. But . . .”

  But I was nervous. Unsure. Colonel Mustard’s doubt gushed through my veins. Could Beau be as anxious as I about starting a relationship?

  The doorbell rang. Darva had the getaway car out front. Rather, the giveback car. I hugged Cato’s purring muzzle to my cheek. Oh, misery.

  ooo

  Darva let me drive while she held Cato. She was nervous, and didn’t think she could operate heavy machinery just then. Cato took to Darva fairly quickly, considering he was living proof she failed as a cat burglar.

  We cruised slowly through town. It was dark and drizzly and the headlights beamed upon the rain like flecks of falling diamonds. It was pretty, but it made Cato nervous.

  “Should have brought some Kitty Nibbles along,” I said as I pulled to a stop across the street from the Piggly Wiggly. The store was well-lit, and customers were loading their cars from its awning-covered sidewalk to stand out in the rain.

  “There he is,” Darva said in the dreamiest tone.

  I didn’t have to wonder who she meant. That tone can only mean one thing. “Jason?”

  She nodded and hugged Cato. “I did it for love, Mia. True love.”

  I tapped the steering wheel and focused on the limping hunk of muscle sliding grocery bags into the back of a young woman’s SUV. I could understand the love part. I’ve been in love more times than I could count. Sometimes all it took was a kiss to fall head over heels, crashing into promises of forever devotion and scribbling his name over and over on the telephone directory.

  “Lord, don’t do this to me!”

  Darva’s tone changed so quickly I flicked my gaze from her hyperventilating clutch on Cato to the scene across the street. Jason had closed the back of the SUV, and now he drew his hand along the woman’s arm. Suggestively.

  I clicked the windshield wipers on and did an evasive right turn down the street away from the grocery store.

  “Where are you going?” Darva screamed. “Did you see that? The man I love is—was—aggh!”

  Yet another utterance I’d only seen in comic books—but I’d give it to Darva this time.

  By the time I found a spot to park far enough from sight of the clandestine liaison occurring in full view of Mossy Creekites and the heartbroken Darva, her tears had reduced to sniffles and she stopped shuddering.

  Which was remarkable only because I knew Darva could turn on the waterworks over something so small as a crushed caterpillar.

  When I glanced over, I saw why. Cato snuggled his paws on her chest and nuzzled her tear-stained chin with his moist pink nose. His purrs resembled an outboard motor revving on high gear, but softly muted enough to instill precious calm.

  My heart went out to Darva, and I reached for her hand.

  “He’s st-still very h-handsome,” Darva murmured through sniffles. “And s-so smart.”

  “He is. But I think he’s a player.”

  “Miss Scarlet in the Study with a Lead Pipe?”

  I smiled at Darva’s suggestion. Whenever we were angry or upset with someone we suggested methods for their demise.

  “I suggest the imperious Mrs. Peacock.”

  “In the Library . . .”

  “With the Wrench,” we said together.

  Cato agreed with a meowr.

  ooo

  “Why are we doing this on the sneak?” I asked. “I thought we agreed to talk to Mrs. Pickle as if we’d simply found the cat and are now returning it.”

  Darva pulled a black facemask over her head. It was crooked and one blonde ringlet popped through the left eyehole. “I’m afraid she’ll guess the truth. We can’t risk making her suspicious.”

  “We? Don’t you mean you and Jason?”

  “The cad.” She dismissed the grocery store clerk with a brave pfft. “You did admit to fencing the cat, Mia.”

  “And I won’t recant my confession.” Cato sat nestled in my arms. “It’s all right, Cato.”

  “You shouldn’t call him that, Mia. He probably has a name. Are you sure you can do this?”

  “Of course.” Maybe. “I can’t have a cat at the dorm.” But Mother could keep it. Would she have room for another feisty male in her life? Oh, Mia, give it up. You know deep down that Mother and Beau belong together.. “Me and Cato? Just acquaintances. Not attached at all.”

  I hugged Cato closer. Could I really give him back?

  ooo

  I didn’t want to know how Darva was able to jimmy the electric garage door open. “You act like you’ve done this a time or two, Darva.”

  She shrugged and offered a forced smile. The things we do for love.

  Even more surprising? The empty
garage, sans cages or abused show cats.

  Darva flashed the beam of her handheld around the space. Neat cardboard boxes lined two walls. A shovel, rake and garden hose hung near the door leading into the house.

  “I thought you said Mrs. Pickle had dozens of cats in here?”

  “Maybe she moved them inside.” Darva flashed the light around as she crept about. “Very sneaky, Mrs. Pickle, hiding the evidence. But I know better. I saw the cages. Let’s leave the stolen goods inside the garage.”

  Cato squirmed in my arms. “We can’t leave him alone out here and risk him getting run over by the car when Mrs. Pickle returns. Darva!”

  “Oh, Mia, I’m scared now.” She pulled off the stupid face mask and stuffed it in her jeans’ pocket, then flipped up the flashlight, which hollowed her eyes like a late-night television spook. “I should have never done this in the first place. Sure, it was for love and all—curse you, Jason Cecil! But I was trying to do something good, too.”

  Cato meowed, as if to say, Lordy, but humans can be stupid sometimes.

  “I see what you mean about secrets,” she said. “They can never be good.”

  I shrugged, feeling the need to lessen Darva’s angst. Who was I to claim mastery over a natural human impulse? “I suppose I shouldn’t rule out all secrets. There are some necessary ones.”

  “Really? Coming from Miss I-Don’t-Do-Secrets?” She crossed her arms. “Name one.”

  “Sometimes it is wise to fib about weight and shoe size.”

  “Don’t I know it.” She posed a hand on a hip that was more ample than slender.

  “It’s just, you know the really big ones aren’t right. But I guess . . .”

  Was I going to admit this? Cato nuzzled against my neck, his purring an encouragement that made me stronger, and stand a little straighter.

  “I guess some people keep them because they believe the secret is best. And then when they grow wiser and learn otherwise, they speak it.”