The Cats & the Riddle

by Jan Fields

  “So everyone in Stony Point knows where it is except Annie and me,” Alice said.

  Ellen giggled. “It does seem like a lot once you start really thinking about it. Still, I expect it was a visitor who just got lost. So, is there anything else I can do for you? I need to do some quick filing before I head home. Is it still raining out?”

  “Off and on,” Annie said.

  “We’ll head on out now,” Alice said. “Call me if you want anything from the catalog. Or would you like to have a party? It’s a nice way to get free hostess gifts.”

  Ellen’s eyes lit up. “I’ll think about it.” She laughed again. “Especially now that I’ve figured out how many people I see every day right here at the church. I ought to be able to get quite a crowd for a party.”

  Annie and Alice wove through the halls until they reached the side door again. The rain had stopped completely, and Annie could see that the afternoon sun was trying to peek through the clouds. “Maybe it’ll be a nice day tomorrow,” she said.

  Alice looked up. “That would be great. I’ll spend it working on my flower beds. I saw your azaleas were full of buds.”

  “Yes. They really should be beautiful any day now,” Annie said. “My favorite point in the spring is when the azaleas bloom. They remind me of my home in Brookfield, even though our azaleas there would be bloomed and past by now. Here we’re still seeing crocuses and snowbells.”

  They chatted more about flowers and the differences between seasons in Maine and Texas on the way home. When Annie dropped Alice off at her house, her friend leaned in the car window and said, “Don’t forget to call me immediately if you hear of any clues from Mary Beth. Oh, and do you want me to go to the vet with you tomorrow?”

  “Only if you want to,” Annie said. “Though it would have to be after lunch. I promised Tartan a beach run if the weather is nice.”

  “I would offer to go with you to the beach, but Ian’s dog makes me tired,” Alice said. “I only feel old when I’m around that schnauzer. I should be around the house tomorrow if you want to grab me before you check out the vet.”

  “Great,” Annie said. “Thanks.”

  As soon as she dropped Alice off, she remembered that she’d left Tartan inside at Ian’s, so she drove over to give the dog another short walk before putting him in the run for a couple of hours. “I’ll be back soon,” she told him, “and you’ll get three walks today after all.”

  Annie spent the rest of the afternoon scouting around the yard at Grey Gables and making a list of projects she needed to tackle. All the plantings around the house had been overgrown and weedy when Annie inherited the well-loved Victorian. They’d been a constant rebuke to Annie, reminding her of how she’d been inattentive to her grandmother’s failing health. Of course, Gram never complained in any of their many phone calls, Annie reminded herself.

  The hours Annie had put into the yard in the last three years really showed, and Annie knew Gram would be proud of the way Grey Gables looked, inside and out. It was the comfortable family home Annie remembered from her childhood summers again.

  As the afternoon drew into evening, Annie took Tartan for the promised third walk. They circled Ian’s neighborhood twice at a fairly brisk pace so that Tartan could use up some of his energy before being shut up for the night. “I’ll have to tell Ian what a good boy you’ve been,” Annie told the dog when they got home. “I know you must be tired of me by now.”

  By the time she got home, Annie was glad for a chance to shower and curl up on the sofa to finish John’s cap. Since she’d showered off her last encounter with Tartan, Boots even consented to sit in her lap for a while.

  Annie read over the color-changing directions several times before they began to sink in, and she realized she still felt a little too restless to focus. She redoubled her effort to concentrate, but finally gave in and set the cap aside. She went to her room for her laptop. She brought it to the living room and set it on the sofa.

  Once it had booted up, she did a Web search for “Friends of St. Francis.” There was always a possibility that someone—maybe a past volunteer or someone who had gotten a pet from there—had posted information about the group. She found many groups related to St. Francis and animals, but nothing about the group she was looking for.

  Finally, Boots began pawing the keyboard in a bid for attention, causing the computer’s Web browser to shut down several times. Annie put the cat on the floor, only to have her hop back onto the table. Finally Annie gave in. Boots was definitely more stubborn. “OK, back to cuddling the cat,” she said as she shut the computer and Boots became her new laptop. They sat together while Annie’s mind raced over the scant clues she had so far, until the ringing telephone jolted her out of her reverie.

  Annie stifled a yawn as she picked up and said, “Hello.”

  “Hi Mom,” LeeAnn said. “Am I calling too late?”

  “Of course not,” Annie said, instantly alert. LeeAnn knew that Annie wasn’t exactly a night owl, so if she called late, it was important. “Is something wrong?”

  “Nothing major, so don’t panic,” LeeAnn said. “But John knocked a tooth out at the park today.”

  “Knocked a tooth out!” Annie repeated, alarmed.

  “He fell off the climbing tower ladder,” LeeAnn said, “because he was hanging from it like a pirate. Apparently his face smacked the rope ladder on the way down. At any rate, the dentist said he knocked the tooth out cleanly, and he’s going to be fine. It was one of his last baby teeth, and it was loose already. You know how late he teethed, and they say the later a child teethes, the later he loses them.”

  “Still, it must have been scary for both of you,” Annie said.

  “It was,” LeeAnn said. “I’d had Herb drop us at the park on the way to an interview because my car is still in the shop. The twins were off school for a teacher workday, and they were feeling a little cooped up. Anyway, when John fell, I had no way to get to the dentist, and his mouth was bleeding like crazy. Luckily there were two other moms there that I knew. One drove John and me to Dr. Mansfield’s office, and the other stayed at the park with her little girl and Joanna so she could let Herb know when he showed up. I didn’t want to call and interrupt his interview.”

  “I’m sure he would have understood,” Annie said.

  “That’s what he said,” LeeAnn agreed. “But I didn’t want him to be worried and distracted in the interview. You know nothing is more important to him than the kids. I had mostly gotten the bleeding stopped by the time we got to the dentist’s office. Dr. Mansfield took us right in and everything was fine.”

  Annie laughed. “Well, I’m glad it worked out OK.”

  “It did, and you know what?” LeeAnn asked. “I realized something from it. We had this minor crisis, and I had friends right there at the park and a dentist who has known the kids since they cut their first teeth. I guess I had taken our home here for granted. It’s nice to be surrounded by people who you can count on.”

  “So does that mean you’re not going to try to talk Herb into moving to Maine?” Annie asked.

  “Pretty much,” LeeAnn said, her voice sheepish. “I really was a little out of control there for a while.”

  “It’s understandable,” Annie said, stifling another sudden yawn.

  “Oh, Mom, I’m keeping you up,” LeeAnn said.

  “No, no, I’m fine,” Annie insisted, though another yawn suggested otherwise.

  “Look, I’ll call again soon,” LeeAnn said. “I just wanted you to know about John, and to know that I think we’re going to be fine.”

  “I’m glad,” Annie said. “I have faith that all of this will work out. I love you, LeeAnn. Give the twins and their daddy a hug for me.”

  “I love you too, Mom,” LeeAnn said.

  After she hung up the phone, Annie scooped up Boots and said, “Now that I know everything is going to be just fine, I think it’s time we went to bed.”

  16

  Thursday morning dawned brigh
t and warm, so Annie picked up Tartan for the promised romp on the beach. She was surprised to find that the normally overactive dog sat quietly in the car and simply looked out the rolled-up window during the drive.

  Annie snapped on Tartan’s leash through a slightly cracked car door. She knew better than to give the little dog a chance to rush out; she’d never catch him.

  As she crossed the parking lot, she spotted Adam Smithfield’s rental car. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to talk to him. She was never really good at keeping secrets, but she wasn’t ready to let him know that Candace Caine was almost certainly in Stony Point and giving gifts all over town.

  The storm was past, but its remnants made the waves higher and rougher than usual, not that Annie had any interest in getting out in the icy water. She barely braved wading in the hottest part of summer.

  She breathed deeply, smelling salt air and a faint fishiness that just avoided being unpleasant. Tartan trotted along beside her, his nose to the sand. He was so caught up in the smells that he didn’t spot the gathering of gulls on the sand ahead of them until they took flight. Tartan pulled at the leash, barking wildly at the big flapping birds.

  “Sorry, Tartan,” Annie said as she bent to pet him. “Even if I let you off the leash, I don’t think you could quite manage to fly.”

  Tartan gave a last small yip and returned to sniffing along the waterline. Now and then he sniffed a bit too close to the surf and had to stop to snort and sneeze salt water out of his nose.

  As Annie and Tartan walked toward a tall rocky ridge that extended into the water, she saw Adam Smithfield standing on one of the rocks, his face turned toward the churning water. Tartan either caught Adam’s scent or saw him, because he began barking excitedly and tugging Annie toward the rocks.

  Adam looked down at them, and his lined face lit up in a smile. “Annie Dawson, you do keep popping up wherever I go.”

  “Not intentionally,” Annie said. “Are you looking for something up there?”

  Adam shook his head as he began to make his way down from the rocks in little hops from rock to rock. Despite his height and look of gawky awkwardness, he was surprisingly surefooted. He landed in the sand and bent to scratch Tartan’s ears. “I find the rugged coastline restful,” he said. “It’s like seeing my way home. And since I’ve had quite a frustrating visit to your lovely town, I can use the restfulness.”

  “No progress on finding your friend?” Annie asked.

  Adam shook his head. “And yet, despite that, I can practically feel her here. Do you believe in premonitions?”

  “Not exactly,” she said.

  “I never did either,” Adam said. “But it’s almost like I’m about to run into her. When I walk into one of the shops here, I feel as if Candace just left. Of course, I suppose that could be wishful thinking from a rather foolish man.”

  “Can you tell me more about Candace Caine? My grandchildren are big fans of her work.”

  “She would love to hear that,” he said. “She always loved kids and animals. She filled her schedule with school and library visits so she could read to the children. She said it helped her keep her vision sharp.” He sighed deeply. “I asked at the library. I thought for certain that if Candace were here, she’d have volunteered to do the library reading hour, but they have a young woman doing that.”

  “Yes, I’ve met her,” Annie said.

  “Of course, Candace was quite young when I saw her last, or she seemed so to me,” he said, turning his gaze out to the surf again. “She was such a little thing, though a bit plumper than the terribly skinny American women one sees in the movies.”

  “The movies aren’t exactly indicative of the average American woman,” Annie said.

  Adam turned a smile her way. “Movies never are,” he said. “They’re like dreams. You know sometimes that’s how I feel about my memories of Candace. They’re like dreams as well.”

  “Do you know why she left?” Annie asked gently.

  “A misunderstanding,” he said. “I’m not really good at talking about my feelings. Or talking at all, I suppose. I just took Candace for granted. She was such a quiet, steady ray of sunshine, and I thought she would always be there. Or at least until I was willing to tell her how I felt … until I was willing to share my secrets with her.”

  “It sounds like she was very important to you,” Annie said.

  He nodded. “Maybe I’m just fooling myself with this search. Sometimes when one misses a moment, there’s no catching up with it again. I suppose I should go back to England and focus on my work like a sensible person.”

  Annie felt the secret of the little cats pressing on her. If she told him about the mysterious gifts, he would certainly not leave until he tracked down the answer. Finally, she looked straight into his troubled face. “I think you should stay a little longer,” she said. “I think it’s too soon to give up.”

  His countenance lightened. “You really think so?”

  “I do.”

  He smiled slightly. “You’re a bit of sunshine your own self, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know about that,” Annie said, laughing. “But I guess I like every story to have a happy ending.”

  “Wouldn’t that be lovely?” he asked.

  Tartan had been sitting in the sand looking patiently back and forth between Annie and Adam as they talked, but clearly the schnauzer had used up his daily supply of patience, because he suddenly jumped up and began tugging hard at the leash.

  “Apparently I need to get back to my walk,” Annie said.

  Adam laughed. “And I will get back to my search. Thanks for cheering me.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said as Tartan tugged her down the beach. As Annie followed Tartan, she thought about what Adam had told her and marveled at how it echoed some of the conversation she’d had with Alice in the parking lot of the church. Was she acting like Adam, simply assuming that Ian would always be around?

  Annie chased her thoughts in circles as she walked. Suddenly she realized she’d gone quite some distance from the parking lot, and she tugged Tartan in a circle to head back. The sun was nearly directly overhead, and Annie felt a grumble in her stomach. “I’ll get you home,” she told the dog. “And then I think I’d better get some lunch before I head over to the vet’s office.”

  Tartan wagged his tail at the sound of her voice. Annie noticed he wasn’t nearly as bouncy and wondered if she could possibly have finally worn out Ian’s dog. That would be a first, she thought.

  Tartan seemed glad to finally reach the car, and he curled up in the backseat with a sigh. Still, by the time she got to Ian’s, the dog had rallied and demanded considerable petting before Annie left him with fresh water and food. As she bent to pet him, her stomach grumbled so loudly that Tartan looked at her in surprise.

  “Time for lunch,” she told him with a last chin rub. “I’ll be back this evening for another walk.”

  Once on the road again, she briefly considered driving to The Cup & Saucer and grabbing some lunch there, but her shoes felt a little damp and gritty from the walk on the beach, and she really wanted to change them. So she drove home to a chorus of grumbles from her stomach.

  “Goodness,” she said as she stopped to grab her mail from the box. “You’d think I hadn’t eaten in a week.” She began leafing through the mail as she headed up the porch steps and caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye. A small package lay in one of the wicker chairs.

  Since she wasn’t expecting a delivery, she retrieved the box with some excitement, only to see that it wasn’t sent by any delivery company. The box was completely blank with no address labels. Someone had left it on the porch.

  Annie sat down in the wicker chair and carefully slit the paper tape that held the box closed with her fingernail. She opened the box and gasped. In a cloud of tissue paper, a chubby gray cat stood up on its hind legs, batting two white paws in the air. The needle-felted cat looked so much like Boots it was uncanny.

>   Annie gently poked through the tissue, looking for a card. She found it tucked in close to one side of the box. The careful lettering matched all the other cat sculptures. The card read, “Because of Betsy, I survived. I thank her in my heart every day.”

  Annie touched the tiny cat’s soft wool fur and shook her head in amazement. “Where are you, Candace Caine?” she whispered. Somehow this mysterious woman was eating at the diner, worshipping at the church, using the library, and shopping at A Stitch in Time, and no one had any idea who she was. Now she’d been right on Annie’s porch. Had Annie passed her in town hundreds of times without knowing it was her? Could one of the people she saw regularly really be Candace Caine incognito?

  17

  After a light brunch, Annie changed her clothes and washed her hands several times before giving Boots some attention. The cat sniffed Annie’s hand suspiciously and then rubbed against her and purred when she didn’t detect the dreaded dog scent.

  “I know it’s been hard on you,” Annie said, “having to share me with Tartan. He’s really a very nice dog.”

  The fact that Boots continued to purr and rub her face against Annie’s fingers certainly proved the cat did not speak English. Annie sat on the sofa for a few minutes, lavishing attention on Boots. She glanced toward her project bag with a small pang of guilt. She only needed to sew the parts of the cap together and she’d have the twins’ Easter gifts done. If she did it now, she could mail the hats while she was in town.

  As eager as Annie was to chase the mystery, she forced herself to focus on the monkey cap so her stitching would be neat and even. When she finished, she walked back through the house to the small library where she knew she’d left a box. She wrapped the caps in tissue paper, added a note for the twins, and then slipped all of it into the box and sealed it. She carried the package to the living room, collected the little box with the miniature Boots inside, and headed out the door.