The Tell-Tail Heart: A Cat Cozy (Cattarina Mysteries)

by Shaughnessy, Monica

  I waited, hoping I wouldn't be discovered. A spry human with a bed sheet could've caught me here, given the cramped space and lack of escape choices. My gaze traveled to the ceiling. What luck! The floorboards of the bedchamber hadn't given way, increasing the odds of my deception. If need be, I would stay here all night and slip out in the morning. I'd just settled into my predicament when I recalled the basement door. I'd left it ajar.

  Footsteps struck the wood overhead with irregularity. Thud, clack, thud, clack.

  If escape was my first priority, evidence finished a close second. I couldn't leave without a piece of Mr. Uppity. Setting aside my disgust, I clawed loose the body part that would convince Eddie: an eye. If I made it out alive, I would show it to him, he would show it to the constable, and my killer would be caught. I grasped the item gently between my teeth and headed for the door.

  Thud, clack, thud, clack. The villain stood in silhouette at the top of the stairs. A match strike. The hiss and crackle of a candlewick. I narrowed my eyes to protect them from the light.

  "Hello, kitty cat. What'cha doing here?"

  Mr. Limp. What was he doing here?

  "I see you found Mr. Ferris. We've been keeping peculiar company since last night, me and him." He sat on the top step and took a flask from his pocket. "He talked like a book, that one, always calling me a border ruffian. Wobbled his chin about President Tyler and the guv'ment so much, a body couldn't think. So I heshed him up. But he still makes noise." He swallowed, sliding his Adam's apple along his throat. "You know what I'm talking about, don't you? I can see it on your face. You heard it, too." When he unscrewed the lid and took a drink, I sneezed and dropped the eye. I recognized the smell at once from Shakey House and the plateau of Fairmount Water Works. Eddie sampled the occasional dram of hard alcohol, but none carried this strength.

  "I see corn liquor's not to your satisfaction." He grinned. "That Abbott fella didn't like it either, 'specially when I spilt it on him in the tavern. Damn fool had it coming, though. Made me drop the old bat's eye afore I could give it to Mr. Ferris. I looked under the bar for the damned thing, but never found it. What else could I do? I had to steal another." He took a sip and grimaced. "Hoo! Mother's milk to a miner, ain't it? Also comes in handy for washing blood off knives and hands…and such." He laughed louder and longer to himself than he should have.

  Mr. Limp had changed since rescuing me in the park. And it wasn't the alcohol. Madness had overtaken him, dimming his eyes, turning them dark. "I declare. This new leg a mine's giving me terrible blisters." He tucked the flask away and pushed up his pant leg to reveal a shiny metal prosthetic with springs at the knee. This had caused the change in his cadence, different from the night we'd met. "Like it? The invalid who owned it afore just laid in bed all day." He let the hem drop, covering the limb again. "What call did he have to use it? None, I tell you. None."

  I slunk across the plaster mound and picked up the eye again. Light from the candle shone down upon his jacket collar, illuminating the red stain I'd seen that night at the park. I'd initially thought it my own blood. But now I realized it had come from the poor woman he'd killed earlier that day. I'd found my murderer, or rather, he'd found me.

  "What'cha got there, kitty cat?"

  I took the bottom steps, thinking to dash past him when I reached the top.

  "If that's what I think it is, I can't let you leave." He stood and held out his arms to grab me.

  We stared at one another.

  Then I ran.

  I darted between his legs and into the kitchen with the precious evidence still in my mouth. He rattled and squeaked behind me on that metal contraption, gaining momentum in the hallway. By the time I reached the parlor, only a few paces separated us. Freedom, however, was mine. I leapt for the window, hit the glass, and fell back to the ground.

  "Closed it when I got home," he said with a wink.

  Still clutching my proof, I flew past him and up the stairs, thinking the climb would slow him down. And it did, just long enough for me to secure the last bedchamber on the hall. Even more barren than the first floor, the second held no furnishings in which I could hide. What's more, I'd begun to salivate, making the eye that much harder to hold. Rounder and fuller than its glass counterpart, it occupied my mouth to the roof.

  Thud, clack, thud, clack. "Here, kitty, kitty," Mr. Limp said. He laughed again—a maniac's laugh—as he strode hallway.

  Frantic, I scaled the drapes, cleared the curtain rod, and dove—physics be damned—onto the candelabra that hung from the ceiling. I wobbled and kicked with my back legs, depositing my bottom in the shallow brass bowl that formed the fixture's base. My luck, however, did not hold. A single taper fell to the ground with a clatter.

  Mr. Limp entered and spied the candle at once. He lifted his gaze. I swung several lengths above his head on a most precarious perch. Mr. Uppity's ceilings were higher than those in the Poe house, and they provided my salvation. He jumped, missing by a comfortable margin. "We're gonna dance now, you and me." He jumped again. His fingertips grazed the lower arm of the fixture and swung it round, making me queasy. But I held fast, each claw grasping as it never had before.

  "Think you can outsmart me?" He grinned, flashing pointed canines. "Mr. Ferris thought he could outsmart me, too. Just 'cause I'm a poor coal buster from the Allegheny don't mean I can't think for myself. Don't mean I can't fall in love with the young lady of my choosing."

  How I longed to understand Mr. Limp's arguments, the last to grace my ears for eternity. For despite my peril, I wanted to know why he'd killed those women. I trilled, prompting him to speak again.

  "Hesh up, now. I wasn't born a murderer." He rubbed his face, thick with blond stubble. "The whole thing was Mr. Ferris's idea. Paid me to cut those women and take their eyes. 'Look for the petite ones,' he said. 'Look for the ones with the smallest sockets.' I didn't want to at first, but after I met his niece…" His gaze drifted to the floor. "I couldn't refuse an angel like that. No man could." After a moment's reflection, he sat down and began unstrapping the artificial leg from his misshapen thigh. "I tell you, once a body starts killin' it's hard to stop. Mr. Ferris shore found that out."

  Mr. Limp pushed himself to standing using the prosthesis as a crutch. Slowly and carefully, so as to maintain his balance, he lifted the metal limb and stood below me on his one good leg. He had more control of his muscles than I'd thought possible and didn't sway, as one would expect. "The old man had no call to stop our courtin'. No call! 'Owen,' he said, 'leave Caroline alone. She's a Ferris, and she's not for you.' And now he's mocking me from the Great Beyond." He rubbed the blisters on his stump and grimaced. "I know you heard it. Bump-bump, bump-bump. That's his heart beatin' beneath the floorboards. Don't know how, after I cut him up, but it keeps a goin'."

  I cocked my head. He must have heard the rats, too.

  "Bump-bump, bump-bump. That's why you can't leave with even one piece of that man before I can send him to hell. If you do, he'll haunt me till I'm old and gray."

  I should've waited for Midnight. I should've waited for Eddie. I should've done a great many things that were no longer possible, now that I dangled from a brass lamp.

  "Don't you see? To stop that infernal sound, I have to burn the house down. With or without you in it, kitty cat." He shouldered the metal prosthesis. His intentions couldn't have been clearer. "Now give me that eye!" he growled.

  That I understood. I would've given it to him, too, if I thought he'd let me leave without harm. But he'd sunk too far into his mania. I held my breath and waited for the shattering swing of the leg. And it would have come, had it not been for the front bell.

  Tail's End

  I dropped the eye into the lamp base and yowled for Eddie with all my being, hoping to breach the windowpane. He must have noticed me missing after his return from Shakey House and left straightaway to find me. The fact that I'd gone to Mr. Uppity's home must have been an easy one to deduce for a man of his intellect. I screeched agai
n for good measure.

  Mr. Limp strapped on his leg and paced the bedchamber floor, slapping the side of his head at each turn. "What do I do? If it's the constable, I should escape. Sprout little bird wings and fly away. Ha, ha! But how? And what if it's nice Mrs. Bellinger from next door? Do I ask her in? Do I kill her? Do I serve her for supper? Ha, ha! The three little pigs will be next. I'll huff, and I'll puff…" His speech devolved into a stream of gibberish that sounded less human the more I listened.

  Another knock, this one insistent.

  Mr. Limp gave me a warning look before disappearing down the stairs. "Don't get riled!" he shouted to the visitor. "I'm coming!"

  My elation subsided when I pictured Mr. Limp, half out of his wits, bashing Eddie over the head with the silver leg. Thinking to warn my friend, I retrieved the evidence, hopped to the ground, and padded downstairs as the door opened. The caller in the bonnet could not have shocked me more.

  "Hello, I'm looking for a Mr. Gideon Ferris. I've come about his niece."

  Mr. Limp gasped and took the woman by the hand. "Caroline? Is that you?"

  "No. You have me confused with someone else. My name is Virginia. Mrs. Virginia Poe."

  He pulled her into the entryway and fell to his knees. "Don't deny it's you, Caroline! It's you!" He hugged the bell of her skirt and began to weep. "I knew you'd leave the hospital when you found the strength. Now we can be together. Forever."

  Besotted and more than a little confused, Mr. Limp didn't see me enter the foyer behind him. He'd evidently noticed the similarities between Sissy and Caroline and had mistaken one for the other. In the midst of his bewilderment, I ran to Sissy and dropped the eye at her feet.

  Her face tightened at my offering. But she did not scream. "Y-yes," she said to Mr. Limp. "I have returned to you…my love." She tried to loosen his arms, but he held her fast.

  "Oh, Caroline! It's over! I never wanted to kill those women, but your uncle made me. Said he couldn't afford glass eyes, so we had to get 'em other ways." Mr. Limp dried his tears with her skirt. "You understand, don't you? We did it for you. I did it for you."

  Sissy laid her palm on the man's head, her fingers trembling. "I understand."

  I stared at her. Did she not realize our situation? This was no time for sentiment. I nudged the eye closer with my nose.

  "And the fella in the hospital… that was on me. Guess I wanted to be whole, too." He lifted his gaze, his eyes glittering with tears. "Killin' does things to a man. Frightful things. I'm not the Owen you fell in love with." He tapped his head. "Once that worm finds a way in, it turns and turns…"

  "I understand," Sissy repeated, her voice brittle. He let out a high-pitched laugh, a most inappropriate response, and she flinched at the sound. Given her frail constitution, I feared for the girl.

  "Caroline, dear Caroline, I beg your forgiveness. I had to tuck your dear Uncle away," he said, "just for a spell. But don't be afeared. His heart still beats. Can you hear it? Bump-bump, bump-bump."

  Sissy addressed him sternly. "Let me go now! I insist!"

  "Hold on," he said. "You're not thinking straight." He eased back and lifted up his pants leg, keeping one hand on her skirt.

  "I most certainly am," she said. "I'll have no more of this. Take your hands off of me this instant or I shall scream!"

  "Can't do that." He began to unlatch the dreaded prosthesis.

  Curse him; I would not suffer that threat again. I arched my back and hissed, flattening my ears and bushing my tail in a frightful and fearsome display.

  Sissy glanced at me beneath the hood of her bonnet, then addressed him with a voice as soft as a kitten's belly. She'd clearly heeded my warning. "No, my love, you are not thinking straight. I need to pack my belongings at the hospital before I can return here. If you don't let me go, I can never be yours."

  He offered a tender gaze before releasing her. "Hurry back."

  She snapped her fingers to call me along, and we left, each having saved the other's life. I thought it wise to leave the eyeball. When we returned a short while later with the constable and a posse of watchmen, Mr. Limp locked himself in the house and begged for "one last glimpse of Caroline" before they hauled him away. Another member of our hunting party, Detective Custer, protested. By the by, he and Constable Harkness argued most of the way over in the carriage, flinging phrases like "city jurisdiction" and "district lines" and "not my damn fault."

  Sissy, compassionate to the end, spoke with Mr. Limp through the front window under Constable Harkness's watch. I hopped on the windowsill to oversee the conversation as well. "You must go away," she told Mr. Limp. "But I will think of you often, and you of me. And we will be together here—" She touched her heart. "Forever."

  "I can't leave you," Mr. Limp said. He took her hand, prompting Constable Harkness to step closer. "Can't we visit a little longer?"

  "No, we can't," Sissy said. She tried to pull away, but he squeezed her fingers, turning them whiter.

  "Unhand her, sir," Constable Harkness said. "Or I shall be forced to set the watchmen on you."

  The three grew silent. I sensed the change in energy.

  I gave Mr. Limp a piteous look, baiting him. I had no doubt Constable Harkness would dole out punishment on behalf of Philadelphia. But frankly, Philadelphia hadn't been at the mercy of an artificial leg all afternoon. And Sissy and I needed to go home. Mr. Limp lifted his free hand to stroke me one last time, and when he did, I bit him to the bone. Before he could loosen me, I latched onto his arm and dug in with my back claws, kicking and scratching like a madcat. Auntie Sass would've been proud.

  Mr. Limp let go of Sissy. Oh, yes, he did.

  Once they'd removed him from the premises, Sissy and I waited in the parlor while the men searched the basement and tore up the floorboards of the bedchamber, looking for the last of Mr. Uppity. I did not envy their puzzle. Presently, the watchmen took over the heaviest, dirtiest work, leaving the constable and the detective to our company. We met in the hallway, just outside the kitchen: one bonnet, two black hats, one bare head with ears that swooped to an elegant point. I loved my ears.

  "Had it not been for you, Mrs. Poe, we might never have caught the Glass Eye Killer," Constable Harkness said. "The Spring Garden District thanks you for your assistance."

  "As does the City of Philadelphia," Detective Custer said. A clean-shaven man, his good looks had been spoiled by a preponderance of white teeth, which he flashed at every opportunity. "When we incorporate, these jurisdictional problems should go away. But until then—"

  "Until then, criminals are free to commit an act one place, and run home to the other," Constable Harkness said. "Without recrimination."

  "I'm just glad he let me go." She picked me up and hugged me. "Cattarina and I could've been in real trouble."

  "You were in real trouble," the detective said. "But not to worry. Owen Barstow is now a guest of Eastern State Penitentiary, at least until his trial." He stopped smiling for once. "You never said, Mrs. Poe. How did you know to come here?"

  "I think I may have the answer," Constable Harkness said. "You seemed keen on the affair this morning. Did you get the information from your husband?"

  Sissy blushed. "He spoke of the address and well…I could not resist. However, it was what you said, Constable, that prompted my visit." He lifted his bushy grey eyebrows in surprise, a gesture that made Sissy smile. "Yes, you said that Gideon Ferris left for Virginia without saying goodbye to his niece. After all the trouble he went through procuring her eyes, I could hardly believe such a thing. I thought I would find him cowering here, in his home, and flush him out with a ruse about his niece's health. I was set to pose as a nurse from Wills."

  "Terribly clever, Mrs. Poe," Detective Custer said. He patted the top of my head. For Sissy's sake, I let him—but just the once. He would see my teeth if he tried it again.

  "I'm more clever than my husband and mother will appreciate, I'm afraid."

  "Can I give you a ride home?" Constable Harkne
ss asked.

  "Yes, but before we go, I'll request you keep my name out of the papers and away from Mr. Poe. He fears for my health, and my outing today would upset him, to say the least."

  The constable patted her shoulder. "Our secret, madam."

  We arrived home in time for tea, and I'm not sure who was happier: my stomach or me. With all the weight I'd lost, I felt practically malnourished. Sissy entered the kitchen and kissed Muddy on the cheek without any mention of the constable or our harrowing escapade. The old woman yawned, causing me to do the same. I opened my jaws wide and curled my tongue in a fantastic yawn.

  "How was your nap, Mother?"

  "Fine, fine. And yours?"

  "Splendid."

  Sissy winked at me. I winked back.

  The woodstove burned too hot for me today, so I hopped into my friend's chair instead. The women set about their preparations, making tea sandwiches from the breakfast ham and biscuits. When they finished, Sissy requested they make "strong coffee, the strongest possible." Muddy set a kettle on to boil. Not long after, Eddie entered, his cape half flung round his shoulders, his hat misplaced.

  "What glorious weather!" he said. "Abbot says it's going to change next week. He's got a sore toe that tells him these things." He produced a bag of licorice cats and handed them to Sissy. She curtsied. "I asked if his toe knew whether the Whig party would win in '44, and he kicked me. Kicked me! Can you believe it?" He twirled Sissy around the room, humming one of the songs she liked to play on the piano.

  Muddy ignored them and sat down, helping herself to a sandwich. "Tea's on."

  Eddie set me on the floor, thanked me for warming his chair, and joined the women at the table. He frowned at the coffee pot. "If it's tea, then where is our tea?"

  Sissy poured him a cup. "We're out, remember?"

  "Yes, I had forgotten. The neighborhood quilting bee." He stole a piece of ham from the serving plate and handed it to me. The world was right again. "How was your rest, Sissy? Do anything of note while I was away?"