Cat in a Bag

by Angela M. Sanders

  Warren showed her the basement storage units he’d carefully labeled and the laundry chutes on both sides of the building. She noted a rack of sequined and feathered gowns labeled with Gilda’s name. He walked her through the cook’s larder, complete with a ham airing in the cooler and a shelf full of cookbooks. A chalkboard carefully laid out the month’s menus and the residents’ dietary restrictions.

  They ended the tour in Warren’s office. He unlocked a closet, revealing a computer with two screens. “Here’s the Villa’s security center.”

  “For what?”

  “We have alarms set up at the entrances and a few special systems depending on the situation. Remember when the police arrived?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t hear an alarm.”

  “Remember an announcement on the P.A. system about a call from Mr. Copper on line one?”

  She smiled. “Clever.” They really had thought of everything. Even how to hide an escaped criminal, she reminded herself. She pointed at the grocery sack of novels on the floor. “Those your books?”

  He folded his arms. “Yes, I like romance novels. So what?”

  “I didn’t say anything. I think it’s sweet.”

  “They’re going to the cafeteria for the others to read. Then I’ll take them down to Twice-Told Tales to trade for new ones.” He picked up a book featuring a voluptuous woman in an empire-waisted gown and a man in a kilt holding a sword. “Do you believe in love at first sight?” He partially turned away. “I don’t know why I asked that. You don’t have to answer.”

  “Warren,” she said and waited until he faced her again. “You don’t have to be embarrassed. It’s a good question.”

  When she’d first seen Oliver Degraff, her professor, he’d stridden into the classroom late. The students already sat at their easels in a circle. From the first moment, she couldn’t tear her gaze away from him. He was so sure of himself, so confident in how he snatched a stick of charcoal from one student’s hand to demonstrate the proper line and turned another student’s easel toward the rest of the class and drew a fat “X” through his drawing.

  He mesmerized all the students, but he chose her. Almost immediately he singled her out, asking her to stop by his office after class. Her stomach had roiled with nerves, and she’d jealously watched his interactions with other women. She’d been desperate for him to feel the same overwhelming need for her that she’d felt for him.

  It had happened at first sight, all right. But was that love?

  “I don’t know,” Adele said. “What do you think?”

  Warren had been watching her turn it over in her mind. He dropped his gaze and busied himself straightening the books. “I don’t know, either. Just a question.”

  To change the subject, Adele picked up a framed photo on his desk of a pit bull lounging on a bed next to a tabby kitten. “That’s the dog in your tattoo, isn’t it?”

  “Goldie. My old dog and my ex’s cat.” He took the photograph and smiled. “She was a tough-looking dog, but had a heart of gold.”

  She raised her eyes to him. His ex. Interesting. He had a lot in common with his dog, too, at least heart-wise. “What happened to her?” Adele asked.

  “She was chasing a squirrel and got hit by a car. I still can’t bear to remember it.”

  “I’m sorry. I meant your girlfriend.”

  “Oh. Her.” He dropped his arms and nudged the bag of books with a foot. “Didn’t work out.”

  “I see.”

  “You” —he swallowed, and his cheeks pinked— “uh, would you like a cup of tea?”

  A flowered teapot sat on the credenza behind his desk. Instead of the matching teacups she’d expected, he had a John Deere mug.

  This was the tipping point. She felt it all the way through. If she accepted his mug of tea, she was committing to knowing him better. They might talk about death, and life, and maybe even the future. They would cross a line, whether they explicitly recognized it or not.

  Had it been another day, she might have taken him up on his offer. She would have wanted to get to know that romantic part of him as well as the part that was so handy with boilers. She might ask him about the hook-shaped scar on his thumb or what tricks he’d trained Goldie to do. She hadn’t learned anything yet about his family, where he went to school, what he planned for the future. If anything.

  But she’d only be at the Villa for a little while longer. As soon as she knew her paintings were taken care of, she’d leave. As for the surgery the Villa’s residents were so keen on her getting, she wasn’t counting on it. Convincing a famous brain surgeon to operate on an escaped felon was a tall order. But she was strangely calm about the fact.

  She touched Warren’s hand. Her finger rested on the callused edge of a thumb. “Thank you, but no. I’d better get to bed.”

  Warren dropped his gaze. She couldn’t miss his disappointment. “Good night,” he whispered.

  She slept fitfully. Her thoughts, full of “what if?” kept her from dropping into the rest she needed. Occasionally noises—steps in the hall? The stairwell door opening?—nudged her from the shallow rest she managed.

  In her head, the dull ache began to grow.

  23

  Finally, the last lights flicked off in the Villa. Ellie lowered her telescope. She’d give the geezers another hour to settle down, then she’d investigate in person.

  She mixed herself a Manhattan as she waited out the time in the dark. Too bad the school’s food offerings weren’t as good as its liquor. She’d already tidied the school kitchen so that no one would suspect her having been there when classes started in the morning. Naturally, she’d packaged up some food to go for Josiah, the poor little brat. What kind of parent left her kid to wander the neighborhood like a stray dog? Honestly.

  By two in the morning, according to the digital watch she’d pilfered from the lost and found box, Ellie was ready to go. She wasn’t going to muff it this time. Before she called the police, she’d have rock-solid evidence that the art forger was there.

  She slipped out the school’s side door, carefully sticking a strip of duct tape over the lock to keep it open. The spring night was cool, and a fine mist permeated the air. In the distance, a car engine rumbled, then passed. Not a single light was on in the row of houses facing the Villa.

  Keeping to the school’s wall, Ellie hurried to the street, then up to the Villa’s side entrance. Oh, she knew better than to simply pick the lock and enter. She examined the door with the pen light she’d taken from the nurse’s station. There it was. A tiny wire, barely perceptible, ran down the doorframe to the door’s latch. She snipped it and bit off a laugh. They thought they were so smart. Working with her body over the latch to muffle noise, Ellie easily picked the lock. She was in.

  She was on the first floor corridor running the Villa’s length. She knew from floor plans that on her right beyond the wall was an office, then, moving down the building’s length was the hall to the front entrance, then the kitchen and cafeteria. On her left were two public rooms, a hospital room, and the elevator. Immediately to her left was the staircase to the second and third floors, where the bedrooms were. And where the art forger—if she were here—most likely slept.

  Breathing through her mouth to keep from making the slightest noise, Ellie turned the door handle to the stairwell. The door opened without a creak. She mentally tipped her hat to whoever maintained the place. On the second floor, the door opened just as soundlessly.

  Carpet lined the second floor’s corridor. A single ceiling light shone by the elevator, but otherwise the floor might not have been inhabited, for all she could tell. But she knew each room held some old person dreaming of denture cleaner or President Eisenhower or whatever old folks dreamed about. Seniors were supposed to be light sleepers. It didn’t matter. She wouldn’t make a sound.

  Each door had a nameplate beside it. She raised her penlight. “Red,” this one said. Then “Grady,” “Mary Rose,” and others. At the end of the hall, the
side opposite the school and furthest from the street, the room’s nameplate was empty.

  Ellie’s nostrils quivered. Turpentine. That’s what she smelled. Turpentine and oil paints. A shot of joy more potent than Miss Morris’s rum hit her bloodstream. The art forger was here all right.

  Just then, on the opposite side of the building, a door creaked, followed by a shuffle across the carpet. Someone was coming. Ellie swallowed a curse and flattened herself against the wall. Her heart beat so loudly she was sure it would awaken everyone along the corridor. The person—it looked like a man—hitched slowly to the elevator and pressed the call button. The elevator hummed to the second floor and opened. Ellie wanted to close her eyes to shut out the inevitable, but she couldn’t. She stared toward the man.

  Just as he went into the elevator, he turned his head toward her end of the hall. She didn’t know if she was deep enough into the hall to be lost in the dark. She could only hope in her black outfit, her hands pressed behind her, she melted into the shadow.

  He didn’t flinch. He showed no signs of having seen her.

  The elevator door closed. Ellie fled down the hall, down the stairs, and out to the street.

  24

  Gilda dreamed she was on a battleship, far at sea. The ship’s alarm whoop-whoop-whooped through the dark. It was especially annoying since she’d just made a date with Gary Cooper for a trek around the ship’s deck—the long way.

  As consciousness surfaced, she realized she wasn’t dreaming at all. It was the Villa’s alarm system, code two. A break-in. She looked at the clock. Good Lord. Not even dawn. She stumbled for her robe and pushed her walker into the hall.

  The elevator was already filling with the Villa’s residents. Someone had roused Grady, who shut off his hearing aid at night and wouldn’t have been able to hear the alarm. Bobby put in his dentures as the elevator clacked to the ground floor. They filed into the cafeteria.

  Warren was already there, the television’s remote control in hand. His pit bull tattoo was a jarring counterpoint to the teddy bear-covered pajamas. Despite the dark and early hour, he’d closed the blinds. Blessedly, he’d also started coffee brewing.

  “Is everyone here?” he asked. Gilda saw him scan the crowd, counting heads.

  Bobby’s comb-over dangled in strands over his left ear. He patted the chest of his bathrobe, then dropped his hand as if realizing he didn’t have on his usual work shirt with its handy deck of cards. Father Vincent also had on a bathrobe, but a long flannel nightgown peeked from its bottom. In her pink peignoir, Mary Rose dressed better than she did during the day. Grady sat behind her. Mort had somehow managed to grab his pocketknife on the way down and was finessing the ears on a carving of a basset hound.

  “Where’s Red?”

  “Here I am.” Red found a seat and unstrapped off her night vision goggles.

  “What’s going on?” Adele stood in the cafeteria’s doorway, tiny in her oversized flannel nightgown.

  “Break-in, eh?” Bobby said. “Or a false alarm?”

  “Nope. Someone clipped the alarm at the north entry, but they didn’t know about the security cameras.”

  Chills ran down Gilda’s back and arms. Just as she’d expected. Someone was after them. Who? They had two liabilities on hand now, the dog bed and Adele. They’d taken measures to hide both of them. Could someone have found out?

  “Father Vincent, will you dim the lights? Thank you.” Warren pointed the remote at the TV.

  The black and white film showed a small shape, likely a woman, coming down the first floor hall in jerky motion. She wore a long, black dress. The time stamp said three a.m., less than half an hour ago. Warren paused the video.

  “No bag, no tools,” Bobby said. “A thief would come prepared.”

  “But she’s in all black,” Red pointed out.

  “And she picked the side door locks and disabled the alarm,” Warren said. “Signs of a professional.”

  And yet, not. A professional would have anticipated the cameras. “Was anything stolen?” Gilda asked.

  “Not that I can find,” Warren said.

  “Or planted?” Father Vincent asked.

  A good question. Gilda’s pulse quickened. Someone was after them. They might have set up a bug—or planted something worse, like stolen goods.

  “I’ll do a sweep. But watch the film. She didn’t pause long enough to plant anything, at least, nothing carefully.” Warren resumed the video.

  The film showed the woman’s shape disappear into the stairwell. Warren clicked the remote, and the feed shifted. “Third floor,” he said. The shape hesitated a moment outside the staircase door, then moved past the elevator and down the hall.

  Gilda held her breath. “Adele,” she whispered.

  “That’s my room,” Adele said. “I didn’t hear anything.”

  The shape hovered outside Adele’s door. For a few seconds, the fish eye’s view showed she didn’t move. Then, so fast that the camera caught it in only two frames, the woman flattened herself into Adele’s doorway. The Villa’s residents jumped.

  Warren clicked the remote again, and the camera shifted to show Grady, oblivious, getting into the elevator.

  “I’ll be a son of a sea biscuit,” Grady said. “I went to get a liverwurst sandwich. Had no idea at all. My hearing aid, you know.”

  “She’s after Adele,” Warren said. “Right there, in her doorway. If Grady hadn’t shown up….”

  The shape on the security camera shot down the hall and disappeared into the stairwell. Warren clicked off the television.

  “Who knows you’re here?” Father Vincent said.

  Adele looked genuinely bewildered. “No one. No one knows I’m here. Except Uncle Larry, I guess.”

  “What about the art supply person?” Mary Rose said.

  “He didn’t have a name, just instructions on where to leave the box.”

  “None of you—” Warren started.

  “No, no,” a chorus of voices and shaking heads replied.

  Gilda’s uneasiness deepened. “The police came yesterday. Someone called them about the dog bed. So it might not just be Adele they’re after.” She gratefully took the cup of coffee Father Vincent handed her, but she left it on the table untouched.

  “You mean someone’s watching us?” Red said.

  “Someone wants to bring down the Villa,” Gilda said. “Somehow, he saw Adele and put two and two together. I’ve looked out all our windows, and I can’t figure out where he’s watching from.”

  “The bigger question is, who is it?” Warren said.

  Mort shook his head. “Someone willing to break in, and someone crafty enough to snip off the alarm.”

  “But not notice the camera,” Bobby added.

  “If this is true, he knows Adele is here. We can expect another visit from the police,” Warren said.

  “At any time. Probably sooner than later,” Red said.

  Adele shrank against the wall. “I’m sorry, everyone. I’ve put you all at risk.”

  It was time. No more monkeying around or relying on their wits, like they did the last time the police came. Whoever it was spying on them wasn’t content with watching from the outside. This time, the intruder had only spent a few minutes in the Villa. But next time?

  25

  When the police arrived just after dawn, they were all in their places. Most of the Villa was down in the cafeteria, talking about their fictional Bingo outing that night. Everyone knew that seniors liked Bingo. The fact that they were up with the birds wasn’t a problem—people expected seniors to be early risers. A few of the residents would be in the TV room loudly discussing the finer points of liquid meals.

  Adele was in her place. At least, she should be by now, Gilda thought. And Gilda was in hers. In Adele’s room.

  “Mr. Copper on line one,” the P.A. system announced. It was happening. Two minutes later Gilda heard the policemen’s steps in the hall, creaking the floorboards under the carpet. Of course, they’d c
ome here first. She wasn’t surprised.

  The door burst open. Gilda leapt back, rattling her walker. “Gentlemen.”

  Two policemen, the same officers as before, filled the door, each with a hand on his gun. “Stay still,” one of them said.

  Gilda lowered her paintbrush. She felt a thrill standing behind the easel, and she’d added a few dabs of paint to brighten the portrait’s diamond bracelet. She even liked the painter’s smock she borrowed from Red, who used it for gardening. Maybe when this was all over, she’d take up painting, too.

  The vacuum cleaner roared in the hall.

  “What’s the idea here? Julia,” Gilda yelled. “What do they want?”

  Adele clicked off the vacuum and ducked her head into the room. “I don’t know, ma’am. They came right in and insisted on coming to your room.” Her wig and glasses, combined with the housekeeper’s dress, made her look like a nerdy maid on her way to chess club. This was Bobby’s idea. He’d suggested that the best way to hide Adele would be to put her in plain sight.

  Gilda stepped from behind the canvas and put her hands on her hips. “You’ve heard about me? Take a look at my work. Not bad, eh?”

  The policemen exchanged glances. “We’re going to need to search the room,” the skinny one said.

  “You painted yourself?” the other one said, looking at the canvas.

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “You take the bathroom,” the dandy cop said. “I’ll search in here.” Keeping an eye on Gilda, he crouched to look under the bed.

  “What exactly are you looking for, gentlemen?” Gilda asked. “Maybe I can help you.”

  “A woman named Adele Waterson.”

  Gilda shrieked in laughter. Deciding she’d overdone it, she cut it off mid-cackle. “You’re joking. You think I’ve hidden someone in here?”

  “We got a citizen’s report. We need to follow up.”

  “What did this Irene—?”

  “Adele. Adele Waterson,” the policeman said.