I logged on to my favorite search engine, then typed in the key words, “Tommee Frack & Associates.” My melancholy reverie disappeared when Cat padded over. I pulled her into my lap, then watched as she climbed up onto the computer keyboard. I couldn’t help but smile as she pranced over the keys, intending to make herself the center of my attention but sending my computer into a frenzy.
“We’ll have to get you a keyboard with paw-sized keys,” I told her, laughing as I maneuvered her down into my lap. The commotion we were making set Prometheus off. He launched into a hardy rendition of “Yo-ho-ho-oh, the pirate’s life for me!” A souvenir of Nick, whose boyhood passion for the book Treasure Island had inspired him to teach my bird the entire song one night, after deciding to dress up as Captain Kidd the very next time we were invited to a costume party.
I pushed the memory away, giving Cat a quick kiss and retyping my request. My computer spent an unusually long time thinking. While I waited, I fondled the softest ears in the entire galaxy, taking care to avoid the nick, which had never stopped being sensitive. Finally, a stark screen with the discouraging words “Can’t Find Website” popped up.
“Hmm,” I muttered. “Somebody over there is on the ball.”
I needed something more general. I tried the key words, “Long Island Business.”
Within a few seconds, I discovered there was a website called libusinessbeat.com. When I clicked on it, it turned out to be the site of a weekly publication.
I scanned the home page, learning that Long Island Business Beat claimed to be the only magazine that completely covered Long Island’s business scene. “Works for me,” I said, typing in the words, “Tommee Frack & Associates.”
“Yes!” I cried when a dozen different entries came up on the screen. Cat’s ears perked up at my excitement.
Merrilee Frack had told me that if I wanted to understand Tommee, I should talk to his business associates—and that included his employees. And the numerous short pieces from the magazine’s weekly “People on the Move” column gave me the names of the people who had joined his firm over the past three years, along with their changes in title and responsibilities. It also contained short write-ups of the people who had left Tommee Frack & Associates, presumably to work at other firms.
I jotted down the names, along with the companies at which they currently worked. I also wrote down any other personal information that was listed, like what town they resided in. I knew, of course, that I couldn’t very well just call these strangers up and start asking them questions about the now-deceased PR mogul whose name happened to be on their résumé. Nick had been right about that.
But he had also underestimated me. Even though the man had shared my bed for over three years, he clearly had no idea just how devious I could be.
To prove my point, I dashed off a quick E-mail to Vanda Jackson, a friend of mine who worked in the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets in Albany. She’d been a great source of help to me in the past, and I was optimistic about her willingness to help me out now.
I clicked “Send,” muttering, “Nick Burby isn’t the only one with friends in high places.”
I logged off, listened to my voice mail and responded to half a dozen messages left by clients. I also followed up with several others whose animals I’d treated in the past couple of days. Midnight, I was glad to learn, was on the mend—and Mr. Sutter happily reported that he’d made a friend of his own at the park, a retired electrician who was teaching him how to play chess. My last call was to Skip, the manager at Atherton Farm, who reported that Stormy Weather’s fever had broken and the stallion was doing much better. By the time my dogs and I got on the road, I’d completely reshifted my focus to the afternoon of house calls that lay ahead.
I always enjoyed visiting Winifred Mack, the quintessential cat lady. In addition to the seven living, breathing cats sprawled across her doorstep, along her windowsills, and in her flowerbeds, every corner of her house was decorated with pictures, figurines, pillows, and mugs with a feline motif. She even had a stained glass cat hanging in her front window.
“Hell-o, Dr. Popper,” Winifred sang as she entered the van. Her abundant form was draped in a flowing purple caftan, and her jet black hair, lit up with dramatic streaks of gray, was piled in a loose knot on top of her head. An ankh, the Egyptian symbol of life, dangled from a long gold chain hanging around her neck, while another necklace linked silver charms I recognized as symbols for all twelve signs of the zodiac. Her prodigious chest also served as the backdrop for at least half a dozen strings of colorful beads.
In her arms, she cradled James, a Himalayan-Persian cross with one of the most gorgeous coats of thick, smoky-gray fur I’d ever seen. “Thank you for coming so quickly,” Winifred continued in her lilting voice. “You know I never call unless there’s a real problem. And something’s just not right with James.”
“It never hurts to check.” I focused on the cat in her arms. “Hey, James! How’s my favorite pussycat today?” I scratched him under the chin with one finger and was rewarded with deep, satisfied purring. “You said he’s limping?”
“He was lame on Sunday, but then he seemed just fine. But today is Thursday, and he won’t walk at all. You can see that his front leg is swollen.
“They talk to me, you know,” she confided, lowering her voice. “Oh, not the way you and I are talking. I’m not that looney. But my cats and I have a way of communicating. And James tells me he’s in great pain.”
You didn’t need a psychic connection to see that was true. The cat’s entire body was swollen. I already had a theory about the cause.
“Let’s put him on the examining table.” I picked him up gently, taking special care not to cause him any more pain than he was already putting up with. “What’s up, James?” I asked him in a soothing voice. “Your mommy’s very worried about you. You haven’t been fighting, have you?”
When I touched his spine, he let out a howl. Max and Lou, lying side by side in a small patch of sunlight near the front of the van, both pricked up their ears. Even I cringed, regretting that I’d hurt him and wishing I could explain that it was part of trying to make him better. At least he didn’t hold it against me. He was surprisingly cooperative about letting me take his temperature. It was high. A healthy cat’s temperature is 101, and James’s was 104.5 degrees.
“I think James has an abscess,” I told the anxious Winifred.
“Oh, dear,” she whimpered, her hands so fidgety that the dozen or so thin silver bracelets running up her forearm jangled. “That sounds serious.”
“It needs to be treated right away.”
“Whatever you say, Dr. Popper. I know cats’ souls, but their bodies are totally mysterious to me.”
“I’m going to anesthetize James. I’ll need you to hold him while I inject him with a sedative-analgesic cocktail. It’ll keep him from feeling any pain.”
Winifred winced as I stuck the needle into the cat’s thigh. I never liked causing my patients pain—and hurting their owners, even vicariously, was just as unnerving. But my initial suspicion proved correct. When I lay his limp body on the table and shaved off the fur on his leg, I found two punctures.
“Another cat bit him,” I explained, showing her the wound. “Are there any strays in the area? Or do you think he might have been fighting with one of your other cats?”
“I have noticed a big tomcat hanging around . . .”
I opened the puncture holes with a hemostat, gently, thankful that James couldn’t feel a thing. Thank God for the wonders of modern veterinary medicine. “I’m going to sew this piece of rubber tubing in place to drain out the pus,” I told Winifred, “plus give him a shot of penicillin. I’ll leave you with a two-week supply of pills, too. If he’s been fighting, he should be given a booster shot for leukemia and feline AIDS when his fever is gone. In the meantime, keep him isolated from your other cats. I’d like to do a blood test to see if he’s been infected with either.”
“Whatever you think, Dr. Popper.” She fluttered around me nervously. “You know I only want the best for my cats. They’re my family.”
After I’d revived James by injecting an antidote to the sedative, I had to fight off Winifred’s insistence that I come inside for green tea and a “nice long visit” with her cats. I still had several appointments ahead of me.
Still, I was glad to be keeping busy. In the back of my mind, the plans I’d made with Jimmy for Saturday night loomed ahead of me. An intimate dinner for two was one of those things that had seemed like a good idea when I’d first decided to do it, but was beginning to feel like more than I could handle.
It’s not a date, I reminded myself as I wrestled with a mascara wand while leaning over the bathroom sink the following Saturday evening at three minutes to seven. At least, not exactly.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure what it was. I had to admit that I was more than a little attracted to Jimmy Nolan. Or I thought I was. My interest in him could have been rooted mainly in the fact that he seemed interested in me. That made him the first male to pay me any special attention since my breakup with Nick—unless you counted a hormonally challenged English bulldog named Abner who’d instantly developed an obsession with my leg.
Then again, there was surely more to be gained from an evening with Jimmy Nolan than the pleasure of male company. Officer Nolan was my link to my crime investigation.
Which, of course, led to another entirely different set of motives, both conscious and unconscious.
No matter what motivations Dr. Freud might have been able to uncover, I realized that I hadn’t been this nervous over an evening with a gentleman caller since—well, since my first date with Nick.
When I heard an authoritative knock at the door, I jumped, sending my basket of cosmetics flying. Max and Lou, who’d been lounging beside me, immediately skittered across the slippery bathroom floor with all the dignity of a couple of Looney Tunes characters. Lou started barking. Max grabbed my blush brush, probably mistaking it for a small rodent on a stick.
Why can’t I have a normal life? I wondered, chasing after them as they dashed toward the front door.
“Get down! Get down!” I commanded as somehow I managed to push them aside just enough to wedge the door open.
On the other side stood Officer Jimmy Nolan, dressed in jeans and a beat-up leather bomber jacket. Grinning, he thrust a bouquet of wildflowers at me.
“I thought of bringing wine, but I figured you were probably one of those organized types who’d already taken care of it.”
“Do I look organized?” I lunged for Lou’s collar. The leggy Dalmatian was all paws and slobber as he greeted the stranger who’d shown up on our doorstep, acting as if the two of them were long-lost friends.
“Some watch dog you got there.”
Max, meanwhile, dropped my blush brush and started barking his head off.
“I’m obviously in good hands here,” I said. “Definitely better than a security system.”
“Awk! Get down, Lou! Get down! Awk!” Prometheus shrieked as Cat slunk into the room, suspiciously sniffing the air around the stranger who was causing all this commotion before sticking up her nose and taking refuge under the couch.
“Jeez, you’ve got a parrot, too? And a cat? This place is like a zoo! I guess you must really love animals.”
“Most of the time.” I shot Max a dirty look. In typical terrier fashion, he pretended not to notice.
I had no choice but to exile my two hyperactive roommates to the bedroom. As for Cat, I just hoped she wouldn’t use my dinner guest’s leg as a scratching post.
As Jimmy sank into a chair, I said brightly, “Okay. The monsters are safely behind bars.” I pointedly ignored Max’s indignant barks and Lou’s pathetic whimpers. “What would you like to drink? I’ve got wine, beer, Coke, diet and regular, orange juice . . .”
“A beer sounds great.”
“That’s right.” I smiled. “You promised to tell me some of your war stories over beer.”
“Yeah, well, not tonight.” He leaned back in his chair. “It’s my night off.”
I tried not to let on how disappointed I was over his reluctance to talk shop. Instead, I grabbed a Corona out of the fridge and poured myself a glass of wine. I’d try him again later, after I’d had a chance to ply him with Mexican beer and honey-mustard chicken.
“Interesting house you’ve got here,” he said conversationally as I sat down on the couch.
“Thanks. It started out as a caretaker’s cottage.”
“Yeah, I noticed the mansion on the property. That’s some house. Who owns it?”
“A woman named Betty Vandervoort. It’s funny; even though she’s at least forty years older than I am, we’ve become the best of friends. Anyway, she and her husband bought it when they were newlyweds, something like fifty years ago. But it was originally owned by the grandson of Major Benjamin Tallmadge.”
Jimmy frowned. “Should I know who that is?”
“Sorry. Sometimes I forget that not everybody’s a local-history buff. Tallmadge was the head of the Culper Spy Ring, which was based right around here during the Revolutionary War. The spy ring kept track of the British military’s movements.”
“Wow.”
I loved that he was impressed. And I loved telling the story.
“You know, Long Island is the only place in America that was ever occupied, back when we were fighting the British. The occupation lasted seven years. And the Culper Spy Ring played a really important role in the colonists’ victory. A woman named Anna Smith Strong used to hang a black petticoat on her clothes-line as a way of communicating that one ring member, a sea captain named Caleb Brewster, was in town. The number of handkerchiefs she hung indicated which of six landing spots Brewster had docked his boat at.”
“Cool.”
“After the Revolution, Washington came to eastern Long Island to meet the members of the spy ring. Anyway, Tallmadge’s grandson really prospered. He owned several mills in the area, and he made enough money to build this place. And now I’m benefiting by living in his caretaker’s cottage.”
“But it sounds like you spend a lot of time in that amazing vehicle you’ve got out there.”
For a moment, I thought he was referring to my little red VW. Then I realized he meant my other pride and joy, my mobile services van.
“A complete clinic on wheels,” I told him proudly. “Everything a vet could possibly need. Hot and cold running water, X-ray processor . . . I can even perform surgery in it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, in case I ever need my appendix out.” He took a swig of beer from his bottle. “So what made you decide to become an animal doctor?”
“According to family lore, I was always an animal doctor. One of my mother’s favorite stories—one I always found horribly embarrassing, of course—was that when I was really tiny, I used to play with my stuffed animals by wrapping their paws in toilet paper and making them lie in this wooden bed my father made me. Then, a few years later, I started bringing home butterflies and crawly things in jars so I could ‘make them better.’ I even set up a little hospital next to my father’s workbench. I always felt it was my duty to take care of creatures that couldn’t take care of themselves. I guess it never occurred to me to do anything else.”
“So you studied hard, got straight A’s in college and went on to four more years of vet school.”
“That’s pretty much it.”
“And what about the van? Is it yours? Or do you work for some big organization that owns it?”
“Nope, it’s just me. I named my business ‘Reigning Cats and Dogs’ to make it memorable, but it’s really just Jessica Popper, D.V.M.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, how did you ever afford something like that?”
I hesitated, swallowing hard. As always, my throat had instantly tightened up.
“I bought the van with my inheritance.”
“Holy cow! You’re an heire
ss?” Jimmy joked.
“Not exactly. My parents were killed in a car accident a few years ago.”
“Oh, jeez.” His expression had already tensed. “God, I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“I know you didn’t. It’s okay.”
“What happened? I mean, if you don’t mind talking about it.”
“I don’t mind.” And I didn’t, at least not if I could take enough deep breaths to keep tears from falling. “They were driving home from an evening out with friends. It wasn’t even that late. It had been raining, and the roads were a little slippery. . . . Anyway, my father—he was driving—ran a stop sign. And they plowed right into a truck.”
“Was alcohol involved?” Jimmy sounded very cop-like.
“No. It wasn’t that late, either. I mean, it’s not as if my father was falling asleep. My theory is that he and my mother were arguing. They did that a lot. He probably just wasn’t paying attention.”
I didn’t bother to explain that, true or not, this was the scene I’d played over and over in my head so many times that I’d almost come to believe that I’d seen it happen. I desperately needed to understand what had gone on that night, and to me, this scenario made perfect sense.
“My parents spent more time arguing than just about anything else. They didn’t have what you’d call a good marriage.” I hesitated. “In fact, I think that’s one of the reasons animals became so important to me. Whenever they started up, I’d grab my dog, Muffin, and hide in my room. I used to curl up with him in my arms and just talk to him the whole time, as if I could drown out my parents’ yelling that way. Muffin was a good listener. I knew I could always count on him.”
“That must have been rough. Especially when you were a kid.”
“Well,” I said slowly, “it sure didn’t make it easy for me to trust. Relationships, I mean. I didn’t have a very positive view of what married life was all about while I was growing up. I guess the experience left me kind of gun shy.”
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