Nancy J. Bailey - Furry Murder 01 - My Best Cat

by Nancy J. Bailey

  “Hi Babykins!” I said, and his tail quivered with joy.

  “Cecilia?”

  I turned to see a short man standing with his hands in his pockets. He was probably only in his mid-thirties but he had already suffered substantial hair loss. His stance was timid, apologetic.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Wesley.”

  I knew who he was. Roxanne had warned me about the awful way he and Max had treated their cat during a terrible co-ownership stint. She said that Rusty had become emaciated and sickly, and they brought him to the shows with goopy eyes. After repeated warnings, she had been forced to take him away. I had seen Wesley and his partner around at the shows, carrying their Bobtail kitten; poor thing. Who knew what kind of life she was in for?

  “Hi.” I turned to Kenya and opened the cage door. He obligingly hopped inside. I closed the door, and turned back to find Wesley, to my alarm, squatting near me, hunkered down close. He held out a business card and I took it.

  “I had your kitten’s daddy,” he whispered.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Ah. So you have heard some version of the story then.”

  I looked around, but Roxanne was nowhere in sight. There was nobody close by that I could call in as a distraction.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I am not trying to make you uncomfortable. It’s just that, well, I would really like to talk to you. That person you are co-owning with… She - she is not a good person to be involved with.”

  I sat there holding the card.

  His face was becoming flushed, and his voice was a little shaky. “I know she seems very nice. We liked her a lot at first. She didn’t just suddenly snatch Rusty. It was a gradual thing. We should have known something was wrong when she stopped listing our names in the show catalogs and had him down as just her cat. We thought it was an oversight.”

  I didn’t say anything. My name was in the show catalog.

  “I really shouldn’t go on about this here. Please call me when the show is over. Max and I might be able to help you.”

  Help me with what? His eyes kept darting hungrily in Kenya’s direction. Then he would look back at me as if correcting himself.

  I glanced around the show hall again. Still no Roxanne. I wished she would finish up with whatever she was doing with Jack and get back here.

  Wesley stood up then, and I noticed his hands were trembling. He rubbed his legs, his knees making an audible click as they straightened. He laughed weakly. “Remember when we were kids, how easily we unfolded?”

  I attempted a smile.

  “Cecilia, please do call us. We would very much like to be friends. Please call, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  He went away.

  I sat looking at the card. It was gray, with a sort of marbled background, had a picture of a Japanese Bobtail on it, and the words, “Reza Cattery. Japanese Bobtails of Distinction. Wesley Taft and Max Brewster.”

  I looked back in his direction, but he was gone.

  I tore the card in half and threw it over my shoulder. Kenya sat in his cage and watched the pieces flutter to the floor.

  Chapter Nine

  Tracy Pringle

  Thursday Morning

  The rings go in alphabetical order and they call Abyssinians first. That means Baloo has to be in tiptop shape first thing in the morning. Unfortunately he had hacked up a hairball this morning and gotten some on himself. Pete was nowhere in sight, so I had to take care of it myself. I was not one bit happy about that. Not one little bit. Baloo had splashed it all over his forepaws and walked through it. I had to take him into the restroom to rinse him out. While I was in there, that weird mother and daughter pair were blow drying their Persian.

  I knew who they were, because they were from my region and I saw them at shows a lot. They were bankers – public servants. I had actually gone to the daughter for investment advice shortly after I was fired. Of course, I didn’t tell her I’d been let go. She was basically no help anyway, in that regard. I wanted something that would make the most for my dollar, as quickly as possible. She suggested mutual funds and IRAs and other such nonsense.

  “I just don’t have that kind of time,” I had told her.

  “Making money isn’t like making cats, you know,” she said with a little ironic grin. “The gestation period is a lot longer.”

  She was, overall, a creep, but I actually found this statement pretty funny. She wasn’t as big a dumb ass as I’d originally supposed. She might be of some use to me.

  But as it turned out, she didn’t have any hard and fast suggestions in the money department. I was kind of disgusted when I left the bank that day. What were these facilities for, if they couldn’t be helpful to people at times like this?

  It was after that, that we decided to do the mortgage.

  The restroom was getting quite humid now. It really was most uncomfortable, and I wasn’t thrilled about Baloo getting a steam bath at this point. I sighed and leaned against the wall, but they didn’t seem to get the hint. They just kept up their fervent grooming on that brainless Persian. The daughter held the cat’s rump under the dryer on the wall, while the mother brushed like a madwoman. The smell of anal glands – or maybe it was B.O. – wafted across the room. My first impulse was to walk out, but I was running out of time. The mother looked up at me.

  “This is what we get for having a white cat!” she grinned.

  I smiled but did not answer her. My meeting with the daughter hadn’t raised my opinion of them, overall. They were trash. They were big campaigners and that white kitten was running hard for a grand this weekend. She was going to be stiff competition. An Abyssinian was not a minority breed, but blue was a minority color, sort of, and a white Persian was so standard. Any judge with no guts would use a white Persian in a final. No challenge there.

  They had a gimmick, too, with that “Sound of Music” thing. With as nauseating as it was, it made them recognizable. It was good advertising. I had tried to start a gimmick, with the Jungle Book, but it didn’t seem to be taking off as well yet.

  “What a beautiful Aby! What class is he in?” the lady asked. She was going to persist in talking to me.

  “He’s a champion,” I said.

  “He’s lovely. I’m sure you won’t have any trouble granding him.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What is his name?”

  “He’s Baloo. He’s my Baloo Bear.”

  “Oh, like from the Jungle Book?”

  “That’s right.”

  She was clearly a genius. I couldn’t wait to get out of here.

  “Well, good luck to him,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  “I just love the blues,” she added.

  “They are a challenge to work with, but it definitely helps to have a good one. Like Baloo Bear, here.”

  The daughter was looking at her cat’s britches, pointedly ignoring me. I could tell she was threatened by Baloo. I leaned over the sink and turned on the water, testing to see it was not too hot. Baloo’s ears flattened and he squirmed.

  “Need a hand?” the Persian lady asked.

  “No thank you,” I said.

  This was going to be a pain, washing his legs, because I would have to re-powder the stripes before his first ring, and that meant they had to be not only clean, but completely dry. I hoped those two were almost finished with the dryer. The smell was nauseating. They continued to fluff the cat’s britches. I wished I had someone to hold Baloo under the dryer for me. It would be so much easier that way. But there was no way either of them was touching my cat. Persian people were the worst. They always had ringworm. True, I’d had ringworm, but I couldn’t guarantee that it hadn’t come from a Persian person. I pictured them having stacks of crates and cages, floor to ceiling, holding cats of all ages and colors. Maybe shaving the Persians they weren’t showing, to keep the grooming efforts down. Or maybe not. Who knew what germs and viruses lurked in a Persian cattery. I was quite
sure I had seen a watery eye on their white girl. At least, I could hope so. Maybe they would pull her from the competition.

  I had learned long ago not to take guests into the cattery. They poked about, asked too many questions. They thought it cruel to keep cats in cages. They didn’t understand that the cats liked it. It was the only way to run a cattery. Fortunately, they didn’t need a whole lot of space. Keeping the litter clean was a challenge, but that was Jack’s job. I fed them and did the paperwork. There was only so much space, so after a while we started housing two and three together in a cage. It was fine, as long as they got along. At times it was difficult to tell who had sired what litter. I got pretty good at fudging birth dates and pedigrees. What did it matter anyway? The important thing was, to produce enough kittens to have a selection.

  Someone had told me that only one out of twenty-five kittens would be grand champion quality. I found this statistic to be pretty accurate. Since Abyssinians generally only had two or three kittens per litter, and a queen (or female) could only bear about three litters a year, this required the storage space for a sufficient number of cats.

  People who think cats are clean animals are out of their minds. Cats are pigs. The kittens especially are messy little heathens. When they are learning to walk, they will sometimes eat their litter, and they crap and then walk through it.

  Cats are constantly getting sick, sneezing, and the hairballs are a nightmare. They barf up their food, they barf into their water bowls. The shedding and clawing and noise, ugh. Some days I couldn’t even bear to look in the basement.

  For awhile we had hung diapers on the walls of the stud cages, for them to target their spray. Nothing smelled worse than stud spray. Cats loved peeing on plastic, for whatever reason, so the diapers were attractive to them. I am sure that the local grocery store thought I was a busy new mom. But then that got expensive, and the upkeep was messy. So after awhile we just let them spray the walls. We figured eventually we would just cover it with a coat of paint, and that would seal the odor out as well as covering the stains.

  It was tricky, but we did it. We had a system, Jack and me. He was the brawn, so to speak, and I the brains. It may sound chaotic, but I had a system. Each cage had the cat’s name and pedigree hung on the door. I had also computed inbreeding coefficients and color charts for each cat, so that I could predict the statistical outcome, color-wise, of each litter. Of course there were surprises now and then, but for the most part, when you breed for fawn, you can get a fawn. Gender is a little more difficult. I wanted males. Females were harder to grand so I didn’t bother with them as much. My intent was to have a National Win in each color of the Abyssinian. The dilute colors – blue and fawn – were more difficult so I was going to get those over with first.

  So that was how I came to have Baloo. He sat hunched in the sink with his ears sticking straight out to the sides. He wasn’t happy. His legs were clean now, and those idiot Persian people were still monopolizing the hand drier. I had brought in a couple of towels, so I rubbed his legs as best I could. Fortunately, the leg hairs were cooperating pretty well. I might even be able to towel him all the way. In which case, I might as well go back to my grooming area.

  “Did you need this?” Momma Von Trapp said. I looked up and she was gesturing to the drier.

  “If you don’t mind,” I said. But inwardly, I was seething. The idea of Persian people not coming prepared with their own blow drier! That was just stupid.

  Daughter Von Trapp glared at me, but she picked up the Persian and moved aside. I smiled. “Thank you.”

  I picked up Baloo and swept past them both. There was no mistaking their submission. The writing was on the wall. They knew they were going to have to make way for me.

  Chapter Ten

  Wesley Taft

  Thursday Afternoon

  Max was waiting for me by SuMe’s cage when I came back from meeting Cecilia.

  “I talked to her!” I was out of breath even though I hadn’t done anything more physical than walk across the show hall.

  Max put a burly, hairy paw on my shoulder. He squeezed it briefly and said, “What did she say?”

  “She was really nice! We talked about her kitty mostly. I got a little choked up though. It was just hard being over there so close to him. It brought back memories.”

  “I know. I’m sure it did. But what did she say about Roxanne? Did you tell her about our situation?”

  “Not too much. But she’s going to call us!”

  “She is?”

  “Yes! I think that is better than trying to talk about it here, you know. Don’t you? Maybe we can fix her dinner or something!”

  “Absolutely.” His face split into a wide grin. “Oh, that is terrific! Good for you! Here I was afraid she would be offended, or put off or whatever. I should have known you would handle it. Man, you are just a wizard with people.”

  I blushed. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

  “Seriously. This is a touchy situation. You know, if we can come out of this with having helped someone to avoid going through the same thing, it would almost……” He paused.

  “Almost be worth it,” I agreed.

  But he was looking over my shoulder. “Uh oh,” he said.

  I turned around. Cecilia was approaching us, head down, and with a purposeful stride she rounded the last row of cages. She marched up to me and held out my business card. Her hand trembled a little.

  “Here,” she said.

  I took the card. She looked from me to Max, and then back again, and said, “I really don’t want to get involved in this. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  She turned around and walked quickly away.

  Max and I stood silently and watched her go.

  “Let me see that,” Max took the card from me and held it up. “Look at this! She tore it in half and then taped it back together with Scotch tape! That little bitch.”

  “It’s okay,” I took the card from him and dropped it into the plastic bag we used for trash. “Maybe I didn’t approach it right. Maybe I should try again.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “But she just doesn’t understand – “

  “The hell with her!” He reached into the trash and pulled the card out. He took his wallet out of his back pocket, flipped it open and stuck the card into it.

  “Oh, now Max – “

  ”No! You tried to help her and you got this thrown in your face. We need to keep this as a reminder of how spiteful people are.”

  “We don’t need a reminder,” I sighed. “I get reminded every time I come to one of these horrid shows.”

  “Then why are we doing this?”

  “I thought you liked showing SuMe.”

  “The amount of pleasure I get from showing SuMe is completely smothered by the shit that happens at these things.”

  I hesitated. “I guess we are still doing this, then, because we wanted her to see she couldn’t drive us out.”

  Max didn’t have to ask who I meant by “her”. He sighed, sat down and folded his arms. “I think that’s the wrong reason. We are not in this for the love of the breed.”

  I laughed, a short, sharp laugh. “Well, who is? Look around you! You think Roxanne Moore is in this for the love of the Somali breed? She’s in it to glorify herself. Look at these people. They’re not here to better any breed. They’re not here to help cats or each other. They are here because they don’t have anything else to do on weekends. Look around you. They spend their money on glittery clothes with cat designs, and furry mice and catnip and entry fees. They live on pizza by the slice and toasted almonds. They get off on jello shots! They’re the walking dead. The cat fancy is its own little universe and everyone here wants to be the center of it. The real world might as well not even exist. Everything they do out there is just to facilitate their existence in here.”

  Max sat there sadly, with his arms folded, but he did not argue with me. He looked around. A pair of heavy-set women
bent over glossy photos of a Russian Blue, discussing background colors and the cost of advertising. A small child, his mouth and cheeks smeared with dark chocolate, lifted the bottom of lacy curtain and peered out from his hiding place beneath the cage. His oblivious mother busily fluffed the tail of her Himalayan. Farther down the aisle, a woman was bouncing a small rubber ball in front of her Birman’s cage. The Birman’s head nodded up and down, up and down, as the ball bounced in perfect rhythm, marking the passing minutes.

  Thunk…. Thunk…. Thunk….

  Chapter Eleven

  Andrew Gilbert

  Thursday Afternoon

  “Really? He talked to you?” I heard my aunt screech. I looked over and saw the Mouth Breather whispering to her.

  “Wow,” Roxanne went on. “That guy sure has a nerve.”

  As I watched, Ginny Robards, the wacky BigWig Persian lady, shuffled over to the wastebasket behind Roxanne with a litter pan and plastic scooper. Her daughter followed closely with a small trash bag. The afternoon was wearing on and people were getting tired and hungry.

  Ginny looked up and smiled and nodded to me, and I waved. She continued digging through the litter pan.

  “That guy has a nerve, approaching you like that!” Roxanne brayed. “Skinny little runt man. You know who I think he looks like? Julia Roberts in Victor-Victoria.”

  “Julie Andrews,” the Mouth Breather corrected.

  At the sound of that name, both Ginny and Liesl Robards immediately stopped what they were doing. Their faces lit up excitedly.

  “Yes! Andrews! Julie Andrews, that no-talent skinny Brit with the bad haircut. I never understood what the fuss was all about!” Roxanne bellered.

  Ginny winced, as if someone had just stabbed her in the hand with a fork. She turned and moved back down the row. But Liesl stood there, holding her trash bag and glaring at the back of Roxanne’s head. I wondered if maybe there was something heavy in the bag that she could fling at my aunt’s skull.