Stepping down from the chair, Kat sat down to ponder her options. Clearly, the cat couldn’t get back up to the hole. Maybe it was Tripod. Given that he had only three legs, it might be more difficult for him to extricate himself. And it wasn’t like she could throw down a rope for him.
She’d been putting it off, but it was obviously time to call Bud and ask about the hole. Maybe in the process of repairing it, he could remove the cat. She picked up the phone and dialed his number.
“Hi! You’ve reached Bud. I’ve gone huntin’ and I’ll call you back once I got something in my freezer. Leave me a message!”
Kat sighed. “Hi, Bud, this is Kat Stevens. I was wondering when you’d be able to come back to my house and fix the hole in my wall. Thanks.”
That failed. Now what?
Maybe the lawyer had cat-extracting tools. It was a long shot, but why not? She called Larry and had a nice chat with his answering machine. It must be a hot night in Alpine Grove. Maybe he had another date. That might be a fun topic of conversation for tomorrow night.
The only other local number she had was Cindy’s. Kat felt a little funny about calling her, since the dog walker had so obviously wanted to leave Chez Stinky and never return. But the poor kitty in the wall couldn’t stay there forever.
“Cindy? Hello, this is Kat Stevens over at Abigail Goodman’s house.”
Cindy paused for a moment before saying, “Oh, hi. How are you? Are the dogs okay?”
“Yes, they’re fine. Thanks for asking. But I do have a little problem with a cat.”
“I’m a dog person. I don’t know much about cats.”
Kat rolled her eyes. She was becoming less and less fond of this woman. “Yes, I know you walk dogs, but I was hoping you might have some tools. One of the cats here seems to be in a wall.”
Cindy somewhat unsuccessfully suppressed a snicker. “Are you serious? In a wall? How did it get there?”
“I don’t know how he got in there. The handyman guy—Bud—cut a hole in the wall to remove the thing…animal…varmint…whatever it was, out of the wall, so it wouldn’t smell anymore. But he didn’t patch the hole back up. I think a cat got curious and fell down there. It might be Tripod, since I haven’t seen him anywhere. The poor little guy might be hungry by now. He’s been scratching on the drywall, but he can’t seem to get up and out of there. It’s a long way up from where he is.”
“Well, Tripod is missing a back leg, so I guess that would be tough. But the thing is, I can’t leave right now. I’m here with my kid, and I can’t leave him alone. And I can’t fix stuff anyway. I break stuff. Ask my brother Joel. He’s always saying I’m mechanically declined since I can’t even get my can opener to work half the time. I call him when I break things. Hey, I can call him! He can help you.”
Kat wasn’t sure how she felt about having Cindy’s grumpy brother dragged into this, but she didn’t have many other options. “Okay, if you think he won’t mind. That would be great.”
“I’ll call him and send him over!”
Kat hung up the phone and leaned back in the chair. This evening was likely to be supremely awkward: dealing with a mildly stupid and definitely embarrassing situation, and making small talk with a surly guy she hardly knew.
A few minutes later Joel called Kat to make sure his sister wasn’t pulling some type of stunt or playing a trick on him.
“So you really have a cat in the wall of your house?” he asked.
“Yes. I really do. It would be great if you have a saw or something, so you can help me get him out.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“If you happen to have pliers and any plumbing fixtures handy, that would be great too.”
“You also have a plumbing problem?”
Kat had to admit that although her first impression of him hadn’t been that great, Joel certainly had a marvelous phone voice. Deep and resonant, his voice sounded like he should be on talk radio. She could listen to this guy talk all day. Or all night. “Yes. I had to turn off the water to the house because the shower self-destructed today. The knob broke off and the shower head exploded. It hasn’t been a great day.”
Joel agreed and promised to bring lots of tools and supplies. Kat ran upstairs to the bathroom, looked at herself in the mirror, gasped, and rummaged around frantically for her brush. The term ‘bad hair day’ didn’t begin to describe the catastrophe on her head. As Kat attempted to wrestle her unruly locks into a somewhat more respectable French braid, she had to admit that the day had been just as hard on her emotions as it had been on her hair.
A knock came from the door and Kat ran to answer it. She had done what she could with her hair, but as the mirror had suggested, she was still looking bedraggled after the events of the day. As she opened the door, she found Joel standing on the blue-carpeted stair landing holding a large red toolbox. He looked far different than he had the other day.
Wow, he certainly cleaned up nicely. Like almost every male Kat had seen in Alpine Grove, Joel was wearing a flannel shirt and jeans. But instead of looking like he’d just rolled off the wrong side of an uncomfortable camp bunk, today he looked like he’d walked out of an ad for Stetson cologne.
Kat gawked at him for a moment too long before saying, “Hi, Joel, thanks for coming over so quickly. I appreciate it. Please come in.”
Joel smiled and walked by her. “Okay, so where’s the cat? I’ve gotta see this.”
Kat felt a blush rise to her cheeks. Joel had shaved and had an amused twinkle in his eye. When he smiled, he was downright cute. Yowza. ”Um, the hole in the wall is over here. The cat is down at the bottom of the wall. I think it’s the three-legged cat, Tripod, so he probably can’t climb up to get out. I’m not sure a four-footed cat could, either.”
Kat climbed up on the chair and shined the light down behind the drywall so Joel could take a look. At 6-foot-1, Joel was tall enough that he could peer down into the hole and see without the aid of the chair. As they looked down the hole, they brushed shoulders, and Kat flinched slightly at the contact. It had been a long time since she had behaved like a dorky teenager mooning over a cute guy. Hopefully, he didn’t realize how attractive she thought he was. She really needed to get out more. Too much time alone here in the woods and she’d turn into some kind of bizarre hermit.
Blinking in the light, the cat scratched the drywall more forcefully to emphasize that he’d like to leave his hidey hole in the wall. “Hi, kitty. Is that you, Tripod?” Kat asked. She jumped down from the chair, sat on it, and crossed her arms. “So what’s the best way to get him out of there?”
Joel paused for a moment and said, “I could cut a small hole at the bottom of the wall, so he can just walk out. That’s probably the easiest thing to do. I think he has enough room down there where he’s settled so that I wouldn’t hit him with the saw. Plus, I can use a small hand saw and cut slowly and carefully.”
Kat looked into his eyes. They were a forest-green color, not hazel as she’d originally thought. The irises were deep green with flecks of hazel and rimmed with a darker green. “Yes, that sounds like a good idea. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“If you could watch from the top to make sure the cat is okay while I’m sawing, that would be great. Maybe you could talk to him too, if it seems like he’s scared.”
Kat got back up on the chair with her flashlight. She looked down at Joel, who was crouched at the bottom of the wall. As he gathered the various implements of destruction to begin the process of cutting yet another hole in her wall, Kat watched his shoulders move under his flannel shirt. They were rather nice shoulders, in fact: broad, muscular, and proportioned just right.
In general, when evaluating the male form, Kat was a ‘shoulder person.’ Unlike some women who focused on butts or legs, she found shoulders riveting. After careful deliberation from her perch on the chair above him, she had determined that Joel had mighty fine-looking shoulders. As he began sawing, she attempted to return her focus to the tas
k at hand: the cat in the wall. “Are you okay down there, Tripod? We’re trying to get you out.”
The cat, who had been oddly quiet except for scratching the drywall, mewed in response. Fortunately, he had backed away from the wall when Joel started sawing.
Joel looked up at Kat. “Is the cat okay?”
“He’s moved back a bit, so I think he’ll be fine. He seems to know that saws should be avoided.”
“Good plan, kitty.” Joel chuckled as he continued to saw the drywall.
Kat continued her vigil, peering down the hole in the wall until at last Joel was able to pull out the square of drywall.
As soon as the escape hatch was opened, a silver ball of fur zipped by, leaping gracefully over Joel’s leg. Tripod could seriously move out when he was sufficiently motivated. The gray-and-white tabby crouched under the kitchen table, assessing his rescuers.
“You’re welcome,” Joel said.
Kat raised her eyebrows. “I think he’s happy to be liberated. Should we do something about the hole? I’d like to keep the critters out of the walls, if possible. Bud is out hunting and didn’t say when he’d return.”
“Bud could be gone for a while. His eyesight isn’t particularly good, and if the rumors are true, he tends to miss a lot. Everyone in town knows that it’s not a great idea to go hunting with him.”
“Do you hunt?” Kat inquired.
“No. I went hunting once when I was in high school and I didn’t enjoy it. My friends convinced me to go, and they killed a rabbit. The hike was fun, but I didn’t enjoy the experience of killing something. I guess that’s not a particularly macho thing to say is it?”
“I suppose not. But I’m okay with that. I’m a vegetarian, which makes hunting pointless, unless you like to stalk carrots.”
Joel laughed, unfurled his long legs from the pretzel-like position he’d had them in, and stood up. “Yes, those rascally carrots. You need to watch out for them. I’ll go see if I can find some wood outside to cover up the holes in the short term. Make sure no one decides to hibernate in there while I’m gone.”
Kat nodded her head and leaned the square of drywall next to the hole Joel had cut. She couldn’t figure out why Tripod would have been interested in the wall, but attempting to understand the workings of the feline mind was usually futile. Murphee had taught her that long ago.
Joel left the house and Kat replayed the conversation in her mind. He didn’t like to hunt? That was interesting. Although she hadn’t said it, Kat was glad he didn’t like hunting. Maybe it was a wimpy girly thing, but all that blood and killing a beautiful wild animal just sounded awful.
But what did Joel do for a living? The guy had to make money somehow. He wasn’t hunting, so how did he afford to eat? Most people in Alpine Grove had small service businesses like Cindy’s or worked in the woods doing logging or construction-type work. Joel seemed to be in good shape, but he didn’t strike her as the logger type. Would it be too nosy to ask? Was he just being polite by laughing at her dopey carrot joke or did he think it was actually funny? It was hard to tell what he was thinking.
Joel opened the door, interrupting her reverie. He was carrying two grayish pieces of what looked like an old pallet. “I found this. It’s not very good wood, but this fix is temporary, so it should work for now.”
“Thank you. I really appreciate you helping me out. There probably are tools somewhere, but I haven’t found them yet. Mostly, I’ve been cleaning and breaking things.”
Joel held the board up to the wall and said, “It’s okay. My sister is the Queen of Destruction, so she calls me all the time asking for help. It drives me crazy, but I can’t say no. I guess it’s an older brother thing. I’ve been fixing her messes for so long, it’s a habit now.” He hit the nail with the hammer, driving it into the wood.
“She mentioned that she breaks stuff. I don’t usually have this type of problem. At my apartment, most things just work. If something falls apart, I just call the apartment manager. It’s easy. Until today, I didn’t appreciate how easy.”
Kat paused for a moment while Joel whacked the nail with the hammer a few more times. Unable to resist, she asked, “So when you’re not helping damsels in distress, what do you do?”
Joel plucked out the nail he’d been holding in his mouth and replied, “Not much at the moment. I worked for an aerospace company in the city as an engineer. I did a lot with computers and was working on a huge government project. Then the project was canceled, and I was riffed.”
“Riffed?”
The look in Joel’s eyes turned hard and cold. “Yes. Reduction in force. That’s the government’s way of telling you you’re fired. Your job has been eliminated. You’ve been made redundant.”
Apparently, he was still annoyed at the memory. Now Kat was really curious. “So why are you here in Alpine Grove? I can’t imagine many engineering jobs are located here.”
Joel looked over at her, “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”
Kat shrugged her shoulders, “I’m just curious. My sisters call me nosy. It’s okay if you don’t want to answer. I just didn’t think you’d be an engineer. I’m a technical writer, and I guess most of the engineers I’ve met aren’t like you.”
“Oh?”
Kat certainly wasn’t going to say “most of them aren’t cute like you are” and paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to respond without sounding like a moonstruck idiot. “Um, most of them are more difficult to talk to than you are.” Nice save.
“That’s funny. Cindy always calls me Mr. Spock because she thinks I’m inscrutable. Not that she’d use the word inscrutable, but I think you know what I mean.”
Kat giggled, “Yeah, I get it. All through high school, I was the weird girl with glasses who never said anything. Talk about inscrutable. Everyone thought I was a priss, but really I was just too shy to talk to anyone. I know; I was such a loser. I can’t believe I’m even telling you this.”
Joel gave the nail a final whack and looked over at her. “A priss? I haven’t heard that term in a while.”
“What can I say? It was the 80s. High school was stupid for a lot of reasons.”
Joel grinned, “You’re making me glad I wasn’t in high school then. Anyway, I think we’re done here. All holes are sealed, and as far as I know, nothing alive is back there.”
“I don’t suppose you brought something to fix the shower, did you?”
“Yes, I had an old fixture left over from some work I did on my cabin. I can see if it fits.”
Kat led Joel up the stairs to the bathroom. She opened the door and shooed Murphee back with her foot. “No Murph, you need to stay in here. We don’t want a repeat of your fight with Dolly Mae.”
The bathroom wasn’t very large and Kat picked up Murphee and wedged herself next to the sink so Joel would have some room to examine the shower-fixture issues. “The water is all still off,” she volunteered.
“Good. That was my next question.”
“So will it work? I really want a shower. You have no idea.”
Joel glanced at her appraisingly, “It looks like you’ve had a long day.”
Kat cringed inwardly. She probably did look scary. After wandering around the forest with dogs, spelunking through ancient foodstuffs, dealing with a cat fight and cleaning dog barf, she probably didn’t smell good, either. How mortifying. “Yeah, I don’t always look like this. I promise.”
Joel smiled faintly, “You look okay. Better than I did the other day when Cindy dragged me out here to deal with her stupid car. Because she’s given the car a name, she can’t seem to part with it. She always says that she and Myrtle have been through a lot together and she owes it to her. It doesn’t make sense. It’s a car, for God’s sake.”
“I guess you and your sister don’t get along?” Yes, she was being nosy again, but she didn’t care. As Joel reached up to screw the new shower head onto the pipe, Kat noticed the way his back muscles flexed as he twisted the nozzle. Nice.
Joel turned around from the shower to look at Kat. “Well, it looks like the shower head I brought fits, so it should work. I don’t have a knob that is compatible with this style of single-lever handle, but I can leave you a pair of pliers so you can turn the valve that way.”
“Could we turn on the water to make sure? This shower and I have a bad relationship. I have a big bruise from falling on the floor after it committed suicide.”
Joel raised his eyebrows, “I don’t see a bruise. Let me turn the valve off first.”
“Good idea.” Kat certainly wasn’t going to volunteer that the bruise was on her butt. The last time she looked, it had been turning a glorious shade of purple.
The pair walked downstairs, and Joel flipped the well pump switch back on. Kat listened for the sounds of rushing water and was relieved to hear nothing. They went back upstairs, tested the water, and everything seemed fine.
Joel said, “It looks like everything works. I should be going now.”
Kat was surprised to discover that she didn’t want him to leave. “Are you sure? I should make you dinner as a thank you.”
“That’s okay. I had something to eat before I got here.”
Maybe he somehow knew about her fear of the stove. Given her bad experience with water, he probably didn’t want her near fire. She walked with him to the door. “Thank you again. I know I said that, but I really appreciate you coming all the way out here.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll probably see you around town sometime. Have a good night.”
As Joel picked up his things and walked out the door, Kat wished she’d had more time to talk to him. Even with all her nosy questions, she still never discovered why he was here in Alpine Grove. But she’d find a way to talk to him again and get the rest of his story.
Chez Stinky Page 8
