Probable Claws

by Clea Simon

  “Sounds good.” When Violet woke up for real, I’d have to talk to her about this. At this point, in Rachel’s chair, she was breathing deeply, almost snoring. Rachel went back to jotting notes. I picked up another folder and began to skim. The words I read—“kill,” “pests,” “bomb”—jerked my head back.

  “Yow, what are these?” I held the folder gingerly, as if it were contagious.

  “The usual.” Rachel barely glanced up. “Nut jobs and people with more time than sense.” I flipped past the one I’d started reading. Sure enough, the next one was written in crayon, though the vocabulary was startlingly adult. “I’d toss them, but the board says I should hang onto them.”

  I nodded. “Makes sense to me. I didn’t know you could spell ‘murderer’ with an ‘a.’” Rachel gave a ladylike snort. “Don’t you think you should give them to the cops, too?”

  “The board does. That bomb one, especially, and so we did. But, you know, it wasn’t specific. It was printed out on the kind of printer that every library in the city has. And there was no return address, so it wasn’t like there was much the police could do.” She looked up, her dark eyes blinking from the change in light. “Dr. Massio, over at WellPet, has all his mail screened, but they’re private. They’ve got money. That was the only one that spooked me, but it’s been weeks since that came in. Now we’re just getting the normal kooks. People telling us we should get rid of all the ‘pests’ in the city, or the ones that call me a murderer because I do euthanasia.”

  “Euthanasia?” Violet jumped up with a start. “I thought you were going to stop—”

  “Hey,” Rachel turned to face her. “We do what we can. Sometimes animals come to us in such sad shape that it really is a mercy.”

  “But, what, like ninety percent of all animals euthanized in shelters are perfectly healthy and—”

  “I know.” Rachel was glaring. “Believe me, I’m hearing it. I have the letters to prove it. The calls, too. Kitten season is just starting and we’re already near capacity. So, yes, I know it’s a crisis. We’re trying, okay?”

  “Euthanasia.” Violet spit out the word, and I jumped in before she could go further.

  “I always thought that would be a good band name,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. It was a small office. “You know,” I made air quotes with my fingers to separate the words, “‘Youth in Asia’?”

  “Been done.” Vi didn’t look amused, but at least she sat back down. Rachel accepted the truce, as well, turning back to her microscope, and for a few minutes quiet reigned.

  “So, you talking to the folks at WellPet?” Violet’s query had an edge I couldn’t identify. “You thinking of going for-profit?”

  “We’re colleagues, Violet, that’s all. Wait, I think I have your problem here.” Rachel motioned us over to her microscope, but even when I was able to focus on what looked like crystals, I didn’t understand.

  “What is it?” Violet adjusted the sights. “Did something go bad?”

  “Not naturally.” Rachel raised her glasses and began sealing her slides in plastic bags. “Someone put some kind of alkaloid on the kibble. I don’t know what yet, but my best guess would be theobromine, probably from cocoa or chocolate, or some derivative. I’m surprised they ate it. Maybe there’s something else in there, too, but it fits with the vomiting. You’re lucky you didn’t have any cats with weak hearts.” She reached for a label and started scribbling. “These will have to go to the city health lab, but I’ve seen enough to guess that’s what made your cats sick last night. How did theobromine get into their food anyway? I assume you got this closed?” She held up the bag. KittyLuv: a popular brand.

  “Yeah.” Violet reached for the bag. It was heavy paper and appeared intact. “This is the good stuff, too. Pricey.” She paused to think. “Not what we would have bought. This must have been a donation.”

  “Some gift.” Rachel pulled off the gloves. “I don’t think there was enough there to kill a cat, but it doesn’t look good. And who knows what would’ve happened if any one particular animal had pigged out—or was already in poor health. It sounds like you’ve passed the crisis, but we should schedule a housecall anyway. Talk to Amy.” That was the receptionist. “Tell her two hours for all the cats. And watch for any more vomiting or even excessive purring.”

  I looked up at that, and Rachel noticed.

  “It can be a sign of discomfort or pain. Nobody knows for sure, but it may be a way for an animal to comfort itself, or comfort others. I’ve heard it myself when we get injured animals in.”

  “Purr therapy?” I had an image of a Musetta lying next to me on a couch. “I like it.”

  “It is being researched.” Rachel was less fanciful. “But for now, we’ll stick with Western medicine here. Now, ladies?” I didn’t realize I was still holding the letter file until she reached for it. “Some of us have work to do.”

  As she walked us out, I managed to ask Rachel about Musetta. Was my kitty at risk from food poisoning, too?

  “You’re halfway through a bag and she’s not showing any symptoms?” I nodded. “Same thing with the cans—same brand, no problems?” I waited. “I think you’re fine. This looks like an isolated contamination issue. One bag, perhaps one batch. Watch her, though. Vomiting—I mean more than usual. Excessive thirst. If she stops grooming, straining at the litterbox. Anything like that, you give me a call.”

  “I’ll be doing that anyway, Rach.” She looked back at me. “She’s due for to have her teeth cleaned.”

  Rachel nodded once. “See Amy.” She turned to go, but called back to me. “And no worrying about excessive purring!” I resisted the urge to salute. If Rachel held to a near military mode, it was because only her efficiency kept the shelter running. That she could see me or Violet, or private patients like Musetta, was all a bonus, the payback for giving up small talk now.

  ***

  We left the cans with Rachel; she’d send them out for further testing, but the dry food seemed the likeliest candidate.

  “So, how do you think that stuff got into that bag?” As I climbed into Violet’s van, I breathed easier. What had happened was horrible, sure, but, as Rachel had said, it seemed to be isolated. A mug of cocoa overturned at the wrong moment, maybe.

  “Who did I get that bag from, you mean?” Violet shoved the old vehicle into gear with a vengeance, and I realized how angry she was. “Who would want to poison my cats?”

  “So you still think it was intentional?”

  She shot me a look.

  I sighed, and pieced it together. The bag wasn’t watertight, but it had been sealed. “Kill off the cats with a so-called gift? That’s pretty harsh.” I glanced over at my friend for a reaction.

  “Yeah, well, you saw what type of nuts are out there. And that was only Rachel’s mail bag.”

  “I thought you were asleep back there?”

  Violet shrugged and reached for the CD player. Her transmission might need attention, but the old van’s sound system was up to date. “It’s no big deal. Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Those letters.” I’d almost forgotten “Anything in them about poison?”

  She shook her head. “That I would’ve told you about. Just the usual creeps and haters.” I waited. As a lesbian couple, she and Caro took some grief, even in super-liberal Cambridge. Instead of explaining, she turned up the volume. I was expecting a guitar attack, something raw and loud. What I heard was a distorted funk bass line, rubbery with wah-wah. “Reach out…” A feather-light falsetto, vintage ‘70s, soon topped the beat.

  “What’s this?” I wanted to push Violet about the threats, but she’d talk when she was ready and not before. Besides, I was intrigued and started poking around for a CD case. Vi dug one out from between our seats.

  “Buzz Grammers, real old school.” Her eyes were back on the road, but I had a feeling she was watching me in the mirror. “Bill had him at his place last night. Didn’t you go?”

  I looked out the window. Not
only hadn’t I been there, I hadn’t even known about the show. “Nope. I had a gig last night, the Infallible Mystics.” Not that far back, Bill would’ve told me if he was having an act he thought I’d like. Not that long ago, I’d dropped by regularly enough to know what shows were on the bill. “I gather you did.”

  “Caught some of the sound check, before we left for Worcester. But I thought—” She fell silent. I didn’t feel like answering. “Theda? I know it’s none of my business.”

  “I had to work last night. I’ve got my job, too. Let’s leave it at that, okay?” She shrugged. We’d been friends long enough for her to know I’d talk when I was ready, too. Instead, I turned the volume even higher and let the singer tell me about love and happiness.

  ***

  “May I borrow this?” As Vi pulled up to the shelter, I popped the CD out. It wasn’t just the music. At some level, I wanted a reminder of what Bill hadn’t told me.

  “Even better,” she reached for it. “I’ll burn you a copy.” We walked in through the back, and Vi handed me a trash bag.

  “More puke?”

  She shook her head. “Cleaning house.” I followed her into the pantry, as did five eager cats, tails up. Five large bags of dry food were lined up on the lower shelf. She pulled one off and a cream-colored darling, at least part Siamese, stood up to beg. With a deep sigh, Violet ignored him and placed the food into one of the garbage bags. The Siamese questioned her: “Ow wow?” But Violet reached for a second bag. “These were all donations. I can’t take any chances.”

  “Wet food, too?” I held up a plastic-wrapped tray of cans, retail price at least twelve dollars. The cats, no fools, turned to me. A softer touch than Violet, I pushed the tray back on the shelf and bent to stroke the Siamese and an all-black adolescent with green eyes. “Maybe we could wait until Rachel’s tests come back?”

  “Yeah, for now.” Violet looked relieved. The shelter had an endowment from its founder, and Caro and Violet took care of the building themselves. Still, it relied on donations to make ends meet. If she had to start spending cash, Violet would be forced to turn away some of the strays and abandoned animals that the neighborhood kids brought by. “But the dry food? These bags are just not that secure. Until I figure out where that one bag came from—and how the theobromine, chocolate, or whatever it was got in there—I want these out of my house.”

  “Fair enough.” I grabbed a small sack of dry food. It was a store brand and I remembered the bright red and blue KittyLuv logo. “But don’t you have any way of tracing that one bag? Could we find out who it came from?”

  “There’ll be something in my office.” Violet pulled two more bags out. One was open, half gone, and I could see her wrestling with the idea of throwing it away. “But you know my filing system.” The food went into the garbage bag.

  I did. “Hey, I could help you, you know.” I thought through my day’s duties. “Sort through the paperwork, see if I could trace that one bag. And besides, I really would like to see what hate mail you’ve got.” I wanted to believe this had all been an accident, but those letters of Rachel’s had scared me.

  “I’ll see what I can pull together.” Violet looked distracted—and exhausted. “I need a few hours at least.”

  “Maybe you could get a nap in, too.”

  She didn’t answer that, and together we humped the garbage bags out to the curb. It was almost midday by then, the sun was warm, and my feet were sticky inside my rubber boots. Besides, Violet’s charges had made me think of my own little furball.

  “You set for the rest of the cleaning and everything?”

  “Uh huh, Tess is coming by, and she’ll probably bring Francesca.” That was good news; our friend Tess was still fragile, following a stay in rehab for a drug problem that had snuck up on her without any of us noticing. Working with animals would do her as much good as it did the cats. Francesca was another up-and-coming musician who’d begun to do a little volunteering, and probably a little networking, at Vi’s.

  “Okay, but don’t forget those letters. If you don’t have time to get your paperwork together, you can just let me loose in your office.”

  She laughed and we parted. But any plans of getting to work were interrupted as soon as I slipped off my muddy boots and opened my own door.

  “Meh!” Musetta came running up to greet me. “Mrrup.” She pounced on my foot, and I could feel the touch of teeth.

  “No, kitty!” I clapped to reinforce the message and she let go. But as I lifted her into my arms, I knew I was to blame. Sure enough, a small array of cat toys had been deposited by the door. She wanted to play.

  “Miss me, little girl?” On her back, her fluffy white tum exposed, she was the picture of innocence. But a squirm and a kick revealed the power in that small body. And her claws. I put her down.

  “Manicure time.” I reached for the clippers that I keep in my key bowl, but she was having none of it. Instead, she cantered off to the kitchenette, stopping just out of reach to look back at me. “Meh?”

  “Have I been ignoring you?” I came after her and she reached up, catching her claws on the top of the lower cabinet door. “Breakfast, right. Sorry.” I was hungry, too, come to think of it. But the lady of the manor came first and I so enjoyed watching her lap at the fresh can that I almost forgot my own dearth of groceries. A quick survey reminded me: Cold pizza. Peanut butter. A hunk of parmesan from the last time Bill and I had cooked together, already petrifying.

  Had it been two weeks? Three? I used my one good knife to whittle some of the cheese onto the pizza, popped it into the microwave, and tried to figure. Eighteen days, I counted back. We’d gone to a matinee at the Harvard Square and come back to my place for a quick pasta dinner before Bill went off to his club. He’d brought that incriminating hunk of cheese, a good Parmesan-Romano, to jazz up our supermarket sauce. We’d been laughing, I remember that. Holding out a paring for Musetta to sniff and joking about her approval of our meal. The movie had been a good one, too, though I couldn’t for the life of me remember anything about it now.

  So what had happened? The microwave pinged and I retrieved my slice, heading into the living room to eat. Musetta, already finished with her breakfast, was carefully washing one side of her face. The club, it must have been the club.

  When Bill had taken over the Last Stand, back in January, I had tried to be supportive. Not long before we’d met, I’d given up a secure job as a copy editor at the Mail to write full time, freelance, without any kind of a safety net. It had worked out, with a few rough spots along the way, and now I wrote a weekly column for my former employer. After twentysomething years on the force, my sweetheart was retiring on partial disability. He had a nice nest egg, and had earned the right to make the same leap of faith. In his case, that meant indulging a passion for live jazz by taking over a small club.

  I hadn’t thought he’d make a go of it, frankly, but seeing as how I’d jumped off the same cliff only a year before, I’d kept most of my reservations to myself during the planning phases. Besides, the tiny bar he’d bought into had existed long enough as a cop hangout so that I wasn’t too worried that he’d lose all his savings, nor were his pension and disability payments—he’d wrecked his knee—subject to the vagaries of the music scene. And the first month had been fun, all the passion and adrenaline of a start-up, with the added incentive that Bill was, to some extent, entering my world. Clubland.

  Maybe that was it. Because after the first flush of excitement died down, clubland had become his world, too. Maybe more his than mine: I’ve written about music for a while now, been a critic, an important but ultimately peripheral part of the scene. But he owned and ran a live music venue. Hired the musicians I commented on. And even though his specialty was a far cry from the loud ‘n’ fast music I favored, there was enough crossover so that I felt, well, not threatened exactly. But intruded upon. As a single woman who has made her own way, I like to keep my life neat. Was that so big a problem?

  Maybe it
was. I thought back to the pasta night. It had been a Monday, blues night at the Last Stand. Blues being a catch-all for anything rougher, rowdier, or more rock and roll than the club’s weekend fare. Bill had started it in part as a sop to my taste. Mondays were when my friends could come by and jam, and when some of the older musicians we both loved—blues, but also soul and zydeco—would find an eager audience. But, as last night’s show apparently proved, the series had grown to take on a life of its own. Mondays at the Last Stand had a certain prestige; as an off night, they drew a wide range of musicians who came for drinks and conversation as well as to play. And people I’d known for years were starting to ask me to talk to Bill on their behalf. Even Ralph, the Mail ’s pony-tailed staff critic made it a regular stop, quite a stretch for the dyed-in-the-denim rocker. The result was…uncomfortable, at least for me. And when I’d said something to Bill, that night as we slurped up our fettucine, he’d nailed me on it.

  “You’re jealous.” He hadn’t looked at me as he’d said it, which somehow made his accusation worse. “You were hoping I’d fail and that would make you feel better about your success. You can’t believe I’m making it work.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” I’d spat that out by reflex. But even as I said it, I knew I wasn’t being entirely honest. “I mean, okay, maybe a little.” Bill knew I’d had a few months of scrambling, of unpaid bills, before I’d gotten my feet under me. “But it’s not just that. It’s your attitude.”

  “My attitude?” He’d looked up at me then, and I’d had to fight the urge to wipe a bit of red sauce from his chin. I was trying to think.

  “Yeah, I mean, I love the scene.” My feelings weren’t coming together in sentences, or not quickly enough.

  “And I don’t?” He challenged me, and I struggled to find the words. Clubland—the loose community of musicians, fans, and assorted other folks—was home to me. Family. For Bill to just buy a liquor license and barge right in was….