Kittens Can Kill: A Pru Marlowe Pet Noir

by Clea Simon

  “Pru.” I turned. This early, the bar was nearly empty. I hadn’t seen Mack come up. Then again, the back booths are dark for a reason.

  “Mack.” I raised my glass, then turned away. Life hadn’t been easy for my onetime beau, and I didn’t like to see him this way, strung out and grubby.

  “Want to join us?” His voice still had that lilt in it. That bit of a tease. I wasn’t interested, but I turned to be polite. Sure enough, there were two others in one of the four booths that lined the wall. Men I knew from around. Nobody I wanted to know better.

  “Thanks, no.” I faced the bar. Happy—or whatever his name was—kept busy, wiping down the glasses. That was okay. I didn’t need his help.

  “Suit yourself.” Mack slid onto the stool beside mine and nodded toward Happy. The barkeep remained stone-faced until I nodded, too. Mack and I went way back. I could stand him a drink.

  “Thanks,” Mack said, his voice low. He closed his eyes while he drank, like he’d needed it. “You look good,” he said, finally. “How you been?”

  “Good.” It wasn’t like I could confide in Mack, but he was easier to lie to than Creighton. “Work’s good.”

  He nodded, like he knew. “I hear you’ve been getting jobs over on the east side.”

  “Albert tell you that?” Albert was a regular at Happy’s, kind of a mascot. He’d probably spun giving me the Wilkins job, making himself the boss and me the worker bee.

  Mack smiled, the old, slow smile. Only now the creases in his face emphasized how thin he was, how worn. “I still have my connections, Pru. In case you ever need to draw on them.”

  He was still confident, I’d give him that. Plus, he had given me an idea. “Yeah, maybe.” I looked over at Happy again. I wasn’t flush, but I could pay for information. He brought the bottle over and filled both our glasses. “You have any dealings with the Canadays?”

  Mack perked up at that, or maybe it was the drink. “Old man Canaday? Yeah, he wasn’t one of the Happy’s gang, but I knew him, if we’re talking about the same guy.”

  “Lawyer? East side?” I paused. He probably knew. “Recently deceased?”

  Mack nodded. “Yeah. Guy I know did some time with someone. ” I waited, but he’d stopped. “Long story. At any rate, he was out of my price bracket, even on those rare occasions when I did get caught.”

  He was flirting again, his voice lifting. I put it down to the drink, more than my interest, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t use it. “What about his daughters?”

  The smile became wider now. “Why Pru, I didn’t know you swung that way. Though maybe it explains some things…” He leaned in, the invitation implicit.

  “Are the Canaday girls gay?” This was interesting. I didn’t know if it meant anything, though.

  “The oldest? Who knows.” He leaned back on the bar. “She’s the kind who’s happy with any attention. Something wrong with that one. The second girl? She was a looker. Kind of reminded me of you.” A sidelong look, one I’d have fallen for a year or two before. “There was another, too.”

  “Jill.” I filled in the blank. Mack was quiet. Remembering, I thought, or maybe just lost in a bourbon daze. “Jackie was the oldest, then Judith.” I said to prime the pump.

  “Judith, yeah.” He nodded. “She used to come in here every now and then. It was slumming for her, though. Not like you.” He turned, and for a moment, I felt it. Those eyes. Even now, threadbare, he still had it. Then he smiled again, wider than before, and I saw the space where a tooth had gone missing. Saw the wear and tear. “Then you left, too.” The smile faded into the melancholy of the serious drinker. My window of opportunity was beginning to shut.

  “What else can you tell me about them—the girls or the father?” I nodded to the bartender, but also held up my hand. I wanted Mack to know I’d see him right, but not just yet.

  “The father was a hard ass, like I said. Real strict, real law and order.” A snort—half laugh, half belch—as he heard his own words. “I mean, more than some lawyers around here.”

  Happy came closer. I put my hand over my own tumbler. It was still half-full, and I wasn’t going to need any more. “And the girls?”

  “The girls were, well, what would you expect?” He pushed his glass toward Happy, unaware of how hungry he looked. “Judith, yeah, she was the one. Put that much pressure on a girl, and she’s going to bust out.”

  “I gather her father wasn’t pleased when she went to L.A.” I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. Something that would explain these women.

  Mack nodded. “There was some kind of a blow up, I know that. Funny thing was, I’d thought she’d straightened out. She stopped hanging out here, anyway.”

  “She have something else going on?” I asked. He shrugged, and I motioned for Happy. I was losing Mack, and I needed more. “You think she could have hurt anybody?”

  I was thinking of Laurence Wilkins’ wife. Wondering why she’d left.

  Mack’s answer surprised me. “I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d taken a shot at her dad,” he said, his words beginning to soften and slur. “Turned them against each other, their dad did. Sisters are supposed to be close. That’s what I’d always heard. Those girls looked out for each other, at least at first, when their mom died. By the time Judith left, they were on each other like wildcats. Man, women can be vicious.”

  “Thanks, Happy.” I turned away as the bartender poured, unwilling to see the naked thirst on my ex’s face. I’d never loved Mack. Never trusted him, entirely. But we’d been running partners as much as lovers, off and on for quite a few years. If he said that Judith was capable of killing her father, I had to take that seriously. As for the sisters turning on each other? That I’d already witnessed.

  Life in a small town wasn’t for everyone. Men like Canaday and Wilkins can master it. Others, like Mack, get crushed beneath its wheels. Seeing him this way made me all too aware of what I might have become, except for a few small twists of fate. Spending time with him made me long for Creighton, for his straight-ahead nature, for his solid charm and lack of decrepitude.

  All the reasons why I couldn’t have any kind of a future with him, not and be honest about who I am. I stared into my glass, knowing that I wouldn’t see anything at the bottom. And when Happy came back one more time, I let him fill me up.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  I woke with a start, my heart pounding. Alone, I was glad to see, and as I licked my dry lips I remembered why. My feral ex had shown more enthusiasm for the bottle than for turning my self-pity to his advantage. Well, my mother always said I should be grateful for small blessings, though I doubted this was what she meant.

  I clambered out of bed, desperate for some water, and tried to reconstruct the night. Mack kept drinking, I knew that, and while I had enough sense not to match him, I’d clearly gone too far. I’d pushed him on the Canadays, I recalled. Not that it had gotten me much more: the sisters had fought. Jackie had been the dutiful one. The one who stayed. Mack had hinted at something more—called her a dark horse, in fact. When I’d pursued, though, he’d backed off, leaving me to wonder if he had just been talking to hear himself speak. To keep the bourbon coming.

  Judith was more interesting to him. She was the wild one, the one who had gotten away. But even Mack had sounded puzzled by her defection. Said she’d seemed to settle down before she left. Before the big blowout with her dad. He didn’t know anything about her working for Wilkins, though. Certainly nothing about Wilkins’ wife. And I didn’t want to share my suspicions with the bar.

  That left Jill, the baby. By the end, she had been her father’s favorite, not that he’d been easy on any of the girls. Beyond that, she was a blank. That could have meant anything. She didn’t drink, or didn’t drink at Happy’s. Didn’t party with Mack or any of his friends. In a way, those two were synonymous. All Mack had really cared about was the bottle. Ev
en I, his former flame, seemed most compelling when I signaled for one more round.

  Mack had always lived on the edge—mixing handyman work with the kind of shady deals that come through a small town. He’d gone too far in recent years, at one point turning up as a suspect in a drug-smuggling ring. But he’d kept his easy charm throughout, leaving me to hope that he’d surface, maybe on the arm of a wealthy widow, somewhere down the line. I couldn’t see it now, not with that damaged smile. His sunken cheeks, the hollow look in his eyes, seemed to foretell what waited for me if I couldn’t find a way to make peace with this world. That, I thought, taking another long drink of water, must have been what woke me. That, and my painfully dry mouth.

  Thirst sated, I returned to bed, pausing only to remove the few clothes I had fallen asleep in. My wallet was still in my jeans, I was glad to note. Not that I expected there to be any money left.

  “I’ve got to stop living like this.” I spoke to the ceiling.

  “You’ve got to stop drinking,” a voice responded.

  “Wallis.” It wasn’t a question. “At least I no longer think I’m going mad.”

  A small snort, as the tabby landed on the bed. “That’s why you’re sleeping so soundly?”

  She was pissed, I could tell. When I toss and turn, she can’t spend the night on the bed.

  “I’m sorry, Wallis.” I could close my eyes now without the room spinning. “I was just thinking about Mack.”

  “Mack, huh.” She was kneading the comforter now, so I didn’t bother apologizing again. “It’s not me you want to make peace with.”

  “What?” When you’re trying to get back to sleep, a voice in your head can be most annoying.

  “You’re going to keep having nightmares.” More kneading, until she plopped over on her side. “Not that a furry-tailed rat would bother my conscience at all.”

  “You don’t have a—” I sat up, suddenly awake. It wasn’t Mack. It wasn’t even my own overconsumption that had caused me to toss and turn until I woke up, pre-dawn, with a dry mouth and a throbbing head. “The squirrels.”

  Wallis turned slowly, an appraising look in her cool, green eyes. “Like you care.”

  “I don’t, but…” The protests. The voices I’d worked so hard to suppress. Either my inebriation had lowered my defenses or, more likely, my increasing alcohol intake had been insufficient to block out what I had heard—but not wanted to take in—earlier at Laurence Wilkins. That squirrel? The one who had made a nest inside his roof? She wasn’t simply complaining about having to move. And I wasn’t simply ousting a female and her adult offspring. I’d been wrong. Whether because of the long, cold winter or some other variable that I hadn’t taken into account, I’d been wrong in my flip decision. Since when do animals consult calendars? Since when do I expect them to obey our rules? No, the cries of distress I had tried so hard to block weren’t as simple—or as minor—as I had believed. They were the sounds of a mother, crying for her young. For her infant, trapped to starve and die alone, by the one human in town who ought to have known better.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  I made myself wait. I couldn’t be scaling people’s houses in the pre-dawn dark, not unless I wanted to get shot. That meant—I checked the clock—one hour, maybe two, and to pass the time I stared in the darkness, waiting for the cracks in the ceiling to appear. Fighting the urge to close my eyes. Sleep wasn’t an option, though my alcohol-soaked brain needed the time to recover. I wouldn’t let myself, even as Wallis curled up for a late-night snooze. Now that I’d let myself hear the desperate cry, I could barely stay in my skin. I lay there, staring at the ceiling. Had my mother felt such pain at losing me? I doubted it. Then again, she knew I could take care of myself. I had left home of my own volition. Left her, too.

  It was too late to make any kind of amends in my own family. Maybe not too late for the squirrel. Despite a stirring that let me know Wallis’ thoughts on my belated sympathy, I had to try. I had to…

  My eyes snapped open. The room was bright. I’d slept—actually overslept—fatigue and booze overcoming guilt. Pulling on last night’s jeans, I tore outside. Growler—and Tracy Horlick—would have to wait. I was heading toward the road.

  Where I stopped. An unmarked car, Creighton’s, blocked my driveway.

  I got out. Jim Creighton was in the driver’s seat, head back, mouth open. When I rapped my knuckles on the window, he blinked awake and started his car to roll the window open.

  “Good morning.” He may have spent the night in his car, but he looked in better shape than I felt.

  “Jim, what the…” I drew back, suddenly aware of my breath. “Look, I have places to be.”

  “Did you say you were making coffee?” He smiled as he sat up. “Why thank you, I’d love to.”

  “Jim.” He didn’t wait for me to answer. Closing the window, he once again turned the key, leaving his car, parked in front of my driveway. I stepped back as he opened the door, but I wasn’t about to give in. “Jim, what are you doing?”

  “Coffee, Pru?” He made a show of pocketing his keys, and then turned toward the house. “Or do you really want to risk your license with a sobriety test right now?”

  I thought I was fine. I felt fine. I couldn’t risk it. And so I returned to my car to fetch my own keys before leading Creighton back up the drive.

  “This isn’t funny, Jim.” I wasn’t fighting him. Didn’t mean I had to like it. “An animal’s life may depend on me.”

  “And what about your life?” He leaned back on the kitchen table as I heated the water, not even starting when I slammed two mugs down with unnecessary energy. “What about the lives of everyone else on the road?”

  “I know how to drive, Jim. Better than most of the tools out there.” I had to stop talking. Counting scoops seemed particularly difficult this morning. “Eight.”

  “That was ten, but I don’t mind.” His voice was even and low. “I like my coffee strong. What I don’t like…” He’d come up behind me. I waited for him to pull me close, to feel his breath in my hair. He stopped before he reached me. “Is you, driving drunk, careening home at all hours of the night.”

  “You’re watching me?” I spun around, spitting my words. “Keeping tabs on me? What, do you think you own me now?”

  He didn’t back away, I’ll give him that. He did, however, look sad, as he slowly shook his head. “No, Pru. I don’t own you. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. And I do worry about you sometimes.”

  I stared, waiting.

  “I saw your car behind Happy’s.” He exhaled in what might have almost been a laugh. “What a name. I can’t believe that place is still around. Anyway, I thought about going in to look for you, but I didn’t, okay? I did some errands, got some dinner, and when I saw your car was still there, I started to worry.”

  “No, I know.” He raised his hand to stop me before I could start in on that one. “I know you can take care of yourself. Even the men who want you are a little afraid of you.”

  I raised one eyebrow, but my straight-living beau wasn’t flirting now. “But I’ve seen you drink, Pru. I think you’ve been drinking more. You’re your own worst enemy. That’s what worries me. And so, yeah, when I saw your car was still there, I waited. Didn’t mean to stay as long as I did, but I did. And when you came stumbling out, sometime after two, I meant to stop you, to give you a ride home. Hell, maybe even see if you wanted some company. But you were too fast for me. You peeled out before I could get into gear.”

  He stopped and stared at me. I heard what he was saying. He’d let an intoxicated driver go.

  “You could have pulled me over.” It was a simple statement of fact.

  He seemed to accept that. “Maybe I should have. I thought about it. I also thought that if you saw my lights, you might just hit the gas.”

  I nodded. He was right.

  “I didn�
��t want to spook you. I also thought, just maybe, I could talk some sense into you. Not when you got home. Man, I’m impressed that you managed to unlock your own front door. But this morning. Only I’d kind of hoped you’d be sober by the time you found me out there.”

  “I am sober, Jim.” I reached for the carafe and carefully filled the two mugs, making sure my hand didn’t shake. “Now I am, anyway.”

  “Good.” He pulled out one of the chairs for me and took the one facing. “So, Pru, you mind telling me what the hell is going on?”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  I’d have loved to, I really would. Sitting and sharing an early morning coffee with Creighton was as close as I was likely to get to another human. But what was I going to say? That I needed to push him away before he found out that I could hear animals? That I thought I could hear animals, anyway? Jim Creighton was a cop through and through, a Boy Scout at heart. No way was he going to accept that my sensitivity was anything other than a major malfunction. Even if he cared for me—and I was willing to believe he did—it wasn’t in his nature to accept the truth. We were doomed either way, and this way I could at least enjoy his company a while longer. And my freedom. No, I’d been hospitalized once before. I wasn’t going back.

  What I ended up telling him was a version of the truth. That I’d had a disturbing visit with two of the Canadays and had needed to blow off steam. And that I’d woken in a panic, realizing that in my distracted state I had miscalculated. I had done the unthinkable. Walled up a squirrel’s nest while ignoring the signs of nursing babies inside. If he’d pressed, I would have come up with some gibberish to account for my certainty: say that I had heard them squealing, or that nursing mothers made some kind of special cry. He didn’t, and as I went on he actually seemed touched by my distress.

  “Why don’t I give you a ride over there?” He reached across the table to put his hand on top of mine.