Cat in a Bag

by Angela M. Sanders

  “Get out of there!” Gilda yelled from the hall. “You’ll be roasted alive!”

  Ellie’s head jerked up. She ran into the corridor and turned toward the emergency exit. A shrill whoop-whoop-whoop sounded through the halls, and a muffled explosion in the closet told her the oxygen tanks were going fast.

  The last thing she saw as she turned to run was the elderly redhead, flanked by candy stripers, hustling in the opposite direction. Running wouldn’t make the dog bed come back. The Booster Club’s plans were finished.

  Victory.

  36

  Adele retraced her steps to the hospital’s front desk. The receptionist gave her Dr. Lancaster’s office number without a second glance.

  She crossed the hospital’s courtyard. It was turning into a glorious spring afternoon, and a flowering plum tree dropped petals into a fountain. She breathed deeply. She might not taste warm fresh air for a long time.

  Consulting the number the receptionist had written on a slip of paper, she made her way to his suite. She opened the door and went to the counter.

  “May I help you?” The receptionist didn’t even look away from his computer monitor.

  “Yes. I’m” —she paused a moment to gather courage— “I’m Gloria Curtis.” She steeled herself. “My real name is Adele Waterson.”

  The receptionist didn’t even flinch. “You’re late. The doctor’s been expecting you.” He picked up the phone and pressed an intercom button. “Ms. Curtis has arrived.”

  So, the police were in the back. That’s the way it was. They would do it the civilized way, then. She pulled at the hem of her shirt and followed the receptionist to the rear.

  “In here,” he said and opened the door.

  Despite her determination to turn herself in, her heart jackhammered against her ribs. Maybe she’d have her aneurysm right here and die. Wouldn’t that be rich? She stepped through the door.

  “Ah, Adele.” A short, middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed beard sat behind a wide oak desk. He didn’t bother to rise. The disgust on his face made it clear why.

  The doctor. The massive desk. A filing cabinet. A few framed prints of tomatoes. And that was it. No police.

  “Where are they?” Adele asked.

  “Who?”

  “The police.”

  For a second, he looked flummoxed. “And how would I get my dog bed?” He pointed to a small chair across from him. “Sit.”

  “I’d rather stand, if you don’t mind.”

  “You make me nervous. Sit.”

  She sat.

  “Yes, I cancelled the operation.”

  “I know. You see—”

  “But not to arrest you. I was tempted to call them, of course. Who wouldn’t be?”

  Adele waited without speaking.

  “You stole a valuable artifact. Marie Antoinette’s dog bed.” He examined a fingernail. “Well, her country dog bed, anyway.”

  “I know.” Adele’s voice was barely audible.

  “A national treasure.”

  “I thought it was French.”

  Dr. Lancaster fastened her with a clear, cold gaze. “I didn’t say which country’s treasure, did I?”

  Adele relaxed a bit. Art was not the only loot trafficked illegally. “Where did you get the dog bed, anyway?”

  He dropped his voice and turned away from her. “That’s not your concern.”

  “I get it. You have legitimate papers for it, I assume.”

  His skin colored under his beard. “We’re not here to talk about the lit de chien. We’re here because of your surgery. I cancelled it because you don’t need it.”

  “What?” Adele halfway rose, but the doctor motioned for her to sit again. “I saw the scan. I have an aneurysm at the base of my skull. The doctor explained it all.”

  “That doctor got his degree in a box of cereal. His license should be revoked.”

  Adele stared at him. “It was very clear.”

  “You don’t need an operation. Not from me, not from anyone.”

  “But my aneurysm—”

  “It’s not an aneurysm.”

  She leaned back and crossed her arms. “I don’t believe you. You’re just trying to get out of this.”

  “Why would I? To me, operating on someone’s brain is like you faking a quickie Picasso sketch. Not that it’s easy, but it’s routine. I’ve done it a thousand times.” He turned to his computer screen. “Come over here. Let me show you why your brain is fine.”

  Adele moved to his side of the desk.

  “When your associates demanded I operate on you, I needed your CT scan. I can’t just cut willy-nilly into your skull, you know.”

  Adele nodded. “Go on.”

  “I had to get your scans from the prison” —he spat out the word like it was grit in his spinach— “but obviously couldn’t reveal your identity. I told the chief medical officer I was conducting a study of brain health and requested all their CT scans from the past three years. Clever, if I do say so myself. Among them was yours.”

  Gilda hadn’t seemed all that concerned about Dr. Lancaster getting the records he needed. She must have known he’d figure out something. “Good thinking.”

  “Yes. Well, here they are.” He clicked the keyboard. “All twelve CT scans.” A cloudy film filled the screen with a brain’s topography laid out in white. “See that?” He tapped a pen at the base of one scan. “Looks like an aneurysm, doesn’t it?”

  It did. “Is that one mine?”

  Without responding, he clicked to the next screen. “There’s another.” He tapped its base then advanced another screen. “And another.”

  “We all have aneurysms?”

  “In short, if we layer the films, we see the exact” —he tapped his pen on the screen— “same” —tap, tap— “abnormality.” With a final tap, the pen’s cap flew off and landed behind her.

  Now she understood. “It’s the machine, isn’t it?”

  “This doctor has diagnosed twelve aneurysms in three years.” Dr. Lancaster swung his chair to face her. “I’ve reported it, naturally.”

  “But….” Everything she’d done over the past few weeks had been because an artery in her brain could explode. The trouble she’d dragged the Booster Club into, the relationship she’d started and destroyed with Warren, the schemes to get back her forgeries—it was all based on a lie. “Why didn’t the doctor catch it? Twelve aneurysms in the exact same place seems like a real coincidence.”

  “Dr. Bradley.” Dr. Lancaster shook his head. “Not very bright, but thorough.”

  She remembered Dr. Parisot saying almost the exact words. “You mean, I’m not going to die?” Her numbness had to be shock. The truth—that the aneurysm was a computer glitch—she couldn’t quite absorb yet.

  “Of course you’re going to die. Just not right this minute,” he said, in another echo of Dr. Parisot.

  “But my headaches.” She looked up. Yes, the headaches.

  “Where do you feel them?”

  She clapped her hands to her temples. “Here.”

  “And the world seems a bit fuzzy right before one comes on?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re intensely sensitive to light and sound when you have one.”

  “Yes.” She was still in a daze. “So I’m going to die, right?”

  “Migraines. I can write you a prescription for something that will help.”

  Adele slumped into a nearby chair. She wasn’t going to die. A mix of elation and fear filled her. Now what? What would she tell the Booster Club?

  “Now that we have that settled, I’d like my lit de chien back. Please.”

  An alarm shrieked through the office, and both Adele and the surgeon jumped. “Code 9, code 9. Please evacuate the building. There’s been a fire.”

  37

  Adele got off the bus and walked the few blocks to the Villa. After the hubbub at the hospital—fire engines racing in, lights ablaze, more alarms and recorded messages to evacuate tha
n she’d ever heard—Adele had huddled with Dr. Lancaster in the parking lot. At last they’d negotiated that as long as Adele returned the dog bed to the doctor’s house by that evening, he wouldn’t report her. The doctor had even given her a few bucks for bus fare.

  Warren didn’t look up when she came in the Villa’s front door. He mumbled a greeting but didn’t stop reading. She might have been just another of Gilda’s Bad Seed delivery boys.

  “Did Gilda make it back?” she asked.

  “In the cafeteria.”

  A handful of Villa residents were watching news of the fire on TV. They turned when she came in, and Red ran over to hug her.

  “Adele, honey. We were so worried,” Gilda said. “You’re all right? Father Vincent thought we should call the county detention center, but I knew you’d make it out okay.”

  The warmth of their greeting was more reassurance that she’d done the right thing by trying to protect them, even if it hadn’t been necessary. She glanced through the cafeteria.

  “Where’s the dog bed?”

  The Villa’s residents looked at each other. “Dog bed?” Grady asked.

  “Yes,” Adele said. “The Marie Antoinette dog bed.” Something was up.

  “We’ve got some bad news.” Bobby stole a glance at Mort.

  “You left the dog bed back there?” Mort jerked a thumb at the television behind him, still showing fire hoses pointed at the hospital. “When were you going to tell me?”

  “After dinner,” Gilda said. “I thought you’d be more mellow after the cassoulet.”

  “You’ve got to be joking. The dog bed?” Mort said.

  “Gone, I’m afraid,” Bobby said.

  “Worse than that,” Gilda said. “It was the cause of the fire.”

  Mort groaned. “All that work.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, Mort. You see, we were trapped in a supply closet with some candy stripers, and Ellie knocked over some rubbing alcohol, and one of the candy stripers was smoking, and—”

  “You’re saying the dog bed is burned up. Gone,” Adele said. “Are you sure?” She held her breath and prayed Gilda was mistaken.

  “I’m afraid so,” Gilda said. “I saw it with my own eyes. Spectacular, too. Once the flame hit it, it—”

  “No.” Mort flattened his hands over his ears. “I can’t bear it.”

  So that was it, then. Without the dog bed, Dr. Lancaster would make sure they paid the price. The best she could do was to find him and turn herself in. Beg for mercy. She’d never rat out the Villa or the Booster Club. Maybe he’d be satisfied with returning her to prison.

  “Why so glum, darling?” Gilda said.

  Adele collapsed against the wall. Red steered her to a chair. “We needed that dog bed. For Dr. Lancaster.”

  “But the—” Father Vincent started.

  Gilda held up a hand. “Let her finish.”

  “After you left, I went to find the doctor—”

  “Why?” Gilda said, her chair rattling with her indignation. “He was set to turn us in. You heard the admissions clerk. No operation.”

  “Now look who’s interrupting,” Father Vincent said.

  The Villa’s residents were rapt. Adele even noticed Warren lurking at the group’s edge.

  “You were trying to save us, weren’t you, honey?” Red said.

  Adele tilted her chin and said, “That’s not why the doctor cancelled the operation. He looked at my CT scan. I don’t have a brain aneurysm.”

  It took a moment for this to sink in. From the corner of her eye, she caught Warren stepping back and disappearing into the hall.

  “Don’t be so hasty about that,” Bobby said. “Didn’t Dr. Parisot look at your records? He said it looked like an aneurysm to him.”

  “It did look like that. Thing is, Dr. Lancaster got all the prison’s CT scans for the past three years, and they all had that exact same mark. It’s a problem with the scanner.”

  “Well, I’ll be darned,” Mary Rose said from the back of the room. Adele didn’t even know she’d been listening. “Cook!” Mary Rose yelled. “Break out the champagne.”

  “He didn’t want to tell us, because he wanted to make sure we showed up with his dog bed.” Adele’s voice quieted. “I don’t know what he’s going to do now. You stole it for nothing. Now that it’s destroyed—” She didn’t finish her thought. “I’d better go pack.”

  “She’s worried about the dog bed, bless her heart,” Gilda said.

  “Well, it was a damned fine piece of work,” Mort said.

  “Not yours. The real one,” Gilda said.

  Adele wasn’t sure she understood. “The copy went on the decoy ride with Father Vincent, right? And you brought the real one to the hospital.”

  “Why would we do that? We wouldn’t have any leverage,” Gilda said.

  “But….” Adele’s voice drifted off.

  “Get the good coupes, too,” Mary Rose yelled toward the kitchen.

  “We sent the prototype with Father Vincent. That’s the one the police saw when they raided us,” Gilda said gently. “It’s an old con. A swap. The cat in a bag. You promise a pig, and you show him something like a pig, but in the bag is a cat.”

  “Cats don’t have as much meat,” Mary Rose said.

  “As if we’d eat a cat,” Mort added.

  “Anyway, we took the copy with us,” Gilda finished.

  “You don’t think I work up a copy just like that, do you?” Mort snapped his fingers. “I wanted Ruby to have a real nice bed for her rescues, so I did a prototype first. Prototype, then the copy.”

  “So there were three dog beds,” Adele whispered.

  “It really is a shame it burned up. That was some topnotch craftsmanship,” Father Vincent said.

  “I suppose I could build Ruby another one, although the carving really cramped my fingers.”

  The day had brought almost too much for her to absorb. She didn’t have a brain aneurysm. And now she didn’t have to go back to prison, as long as they returned the real dog bed. She glanced toward the door for Warren, but he was gone. “So, let me be clear. The Marie Antoinette dog bed is okay.”

  “Sure,” Gilda said.

  “Of course,” Bobby said at the same time. “Locked up in the fake water heater where it’s been the whole time.”

  Adele’s mouth moved, but nothing came out.

  “Look at that. She can’t believe it. I told you that bed was good work,” Mort said. “Think you could set me up with a forgery job, Adele?”

  “Hush, Mort. We’d better get the real dog bed to Dr. Lancaster.”

  38

  Dinner at the Villa was over, and Gilda was clearing the last bite of cherry pie from her plate, but she didn’t really taste it. Adele was safe and healthy, Claudine was working on rounding up the paintings—less the one that had been destroyed—and the dog bed was with Dr. Lancaster.

  Bobby and Gilda had returned it. Adele had wanted to come along, but Gilda thought it was too risky. There was still the chance they were being set up. B. E. Lancaster had practically cried when they carried the bed to the door. He’d put on white cotton gloves and gently set the bed on the hall carpet, telling his wife to stay way back.

  And that had been that. Once he was sure the bed was safe, he hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye. The door clicked shut in their faces, and they returned.

  All in all, a satisfying conclusion. But it wasn’t over yet. Ellie was still out there. They wouldn’t be safe until she’d dropped her vendetta against the Booster Club, and, so, the Villa.

  “Gilda, what’s wrong?”

  She’d been so absorbed in her thoughts—and, truth be told, tuning out Bobby’s arguments over their post-dinner card game a few tables down, that she hadn’t heard Claudine come in.

  “Hi, Deanie. Honey, it’s great to see you.” Gilda rose and wrapped her arms around Claudine’s neck. She smelled cool and damp and slightly green, like spring. “Want to check if Cook has any more pie?”

&nbs
p; “No. I just stopped by after work to give you an update on Adele’s forgeries.”

  “Wonderful,” Gilda said, but she thought, that’s all?

  “And to say hello, see how you’re doing. I hope you don’t mind if I drop by from time to time.”

  Gilda’s smile widened. “That’s sweet of you.”

  Claudine looked so professional in her plain black suit. On Gilda, the suit would have looked like someone stuck a bunch of sweet peas in a tin can. Claudine’s austere—but still somehow romantic—features elevated even wool gabardine.

  “I like your hair that way,” Claudine said. “It’s modern but suits you.”

  Gilda ruffled her new hairstyle, a variation on the one she’d worn to the League Lodge. “Thanks. Adele helped me with it.”

  “Should we get her?” Claudine asked.

  “She’s had one heck of a day. We all have, actually.” Gilda led Claudine to a table and motioned for her to sit. “I’ll fill her in later.”

  Claudine moved to the chair across from her. “What happened?”

  “What hasn’t happened, is more like it. Adele was supposed to have surgery today, but it turns out she doesn’t have an aneurysm after all. Just migraines. Then we accidentally started a fire at the hospital—”

  “Don’t tell me.” Claudine almost smiled. “Maybe I’d better not know.”

  Red stopped by to pat Claudine’s back. “Deanie, great to see you. Don’t be a stranger, you hear?” Red winked at Gilda and settled with Mary Rose in front of the television.

  “It’s probably for the best that Adele’s not here. I’m not sure she’s going to be happy.” Claudine drew a list from her leather case. “Basically, the museum still refuses to give up their forgeries, and they’re making noise about buying up the rest. The insurance company will happily broker the deal so they don’t have to pay out.”

  “You’re right. Adele won’t be happy. She insists her forgeries are disrespectful to the masters.”

  “That’s just it. The museum says they’re not forgeries at all. They’re works of art in their own right.”