The Cats & the Riddle

by Jan Fields

  In spite of herself, Annie was soon caught up in the crochet. The little toy was simple, but it still required Annie’s attention since the rows were short and changed lengths often. Annie was so caught up in the counting that she jumped when Kate put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Kate said as she slipped into the chair beside Annie. “I love these little toys you’ve made for the bazaar. I need to do more quick crochet items. Did you come into the shop for help with these? It doesn’t really look like you need any.”

  “No, these are easy,” Annie said. Then she added, almost in a whisper, “I came to talk about the mystery.”

  Kate’s eyes widened. “Really. Have you learned anything new?”

  Annie nodded. “Two new cats and maybe a theory. I was waiting until the shop was empty.”

  “It’s coming up on lunchtime,” Kate said. “We tend to get a lull while everyone is eating lunch.”

  Annie looked around. The bustle had thinned down to two women rummaging around the pattern racks. Finally the women settled on a pattern and carried it to the counter. Annie folded her crochet hook into the toy she was working on, rolling her scrap-craft pattern book around the whole thing and slipping the rubber band that she’d had on her wrist over it. Annie had found that keeping an active project rolled up in the pattern book at least slowed Boots down when she managed to find the project bag unattended.

  The two customers chatted happily with Mary Beth at the counter. Mary Beth managed to avoid sounding impatient, but her eyes darted toward Annie several times. When the women finally left, Mary Beth practically launched herself from behind the counter. “What’s up?” she asked as she crossed the room.

  Annie blinked at her innocently. “I was just working on a bazaar project—unless it’s too late to add anything.”

  Mary Beth stopped and put her hands on her hips. “It is pretty late. If you finish more toys, just bring them to the bazaar, and we can tag them at the table. But I know you’re not really here for that—something’s up. Kate looks as excited as I feel.”

  Annie relented and fished the little box out of her bag. “Look what I found on my porch today.”

  Mary Beth opened the box and both women cooed over the miniature version of Boots. “It looks like the artist definitely knows about Boots.”

  “That’s too much resemblance to be a coincidence,” Kate agreed. “So it must be someone you know.”

  Annie shook her head. “Not necessarily. Look at the card. It’s someone Gram knew.”

  “And Betsy Holden knew every soul in Stony Point,” Mary Beth said with a groan.

  “There’s more,” Annie said. “I’m certain that the person who wrote that card is Candace Caine.”

  Now Mary Beth and Kate both gaped at her. “What makes you think that?” Mary Beth asked.

  “The library assistant in the children’s section showed me one of Candace Caine’s picture books, and the handwriting on the card matches the writing in the illustrations,” Annie said. “Plus, Gram had two Candace Caine books in the attic. Alice and I checked—they match these cards too. One of the books had an inscription and that writing matched too. Candace Caine is definitely the one giving these little cats.”

  “How does this mystery woman manage to be everywhere in Stony Point?” Mary Beth said. “It’s like having a ghost. She comes and goes, and no one knows who she is.”

  “I wondered if it might be Nancy from the Garden Club.” Annie said.

  Mary Beth laughed. “No. Really? Why?”

  “Well, Adam Smithfield said Candace Caine was an American, but she lived several years in England,” Annie said, “and Nancy told me today that she’d spent several years in London. Plus, you told me that she could do the tiny crocheted lace on your cat’s pillow. And she clearly loves cats. She had a pet carrier at the vet’s today with more than one cat in it.”

  “She definitely has cats,” Kate said. “I had to sit beside her at a church luncheon once, and my allergies acted up so badly I could barely breathe. I asked her if she had a cat, and she said she had four!”

  “Well, sure, she has cats and can make lace,” Mary Beth said. “But there’s a huge difference between being able to make lace and being able to make these little cats. I just can’t see Nancy doing that.”

  “Adam also described Candace as a little woman,” Annie said, “but not as skinny as American movies showed. That tends to fit Nancy.”

  Mary Beth crossed her arms. “That also describes me.”

  “Do any other customers jump to mind with that description?” Annie asked.

  “A few. I could make a list,” Mary Beth said. “Kate can help.”

  “We’ll have to keep in mind that weight can change,” Kate said. “You know, when you combine shortness and the ability to do that fine crochet, Nancy does fit.”

  “She may fit the clues,” Mary Beth said, shaking her head, “but I can’t picture anyone following Nancy to the ends of the earth.”

  “It’s hard to say what love will do,” Kate said.

  Annie sighed. “There is one other area where Nancy doesn’t fit. Adam was certain that wherever Candace is, she must be working with children. And Nancy doesn’t seem to work with children. From my chat with her, she didn’t seem to like them very much.”

  “I suppose she could be pretending not to like kids,” Kate said, doubt clear in her voice.

  “I don’t think Nancy is that subtle,” Mary Beth said. “Or subtle at all.”

  “Well then,” Annie said sadly, “that leaves me with a sad lack of suspects.”

  “Wait a second,” Kate said. “You told me there were two new cats. Yours is one, who got the other?”

  “Norma showed me one at the post office,” Annie said. “You’ll have to go by and see it. She’s so proud of it that she’s actually pleasant. The little cat is sitting in the tiniest letter carrier’s bag. The attention to detail in all of these sculptures is amazing.”

  “Well, since everyone in Stony Point goes to the post office at one point or another, that doesn’t exactly help us narrow down our suspects. The list is still basically every woman in Stony Point.”

  “Well, I’m certain it’s Candace Caine, and that she’s not using her real name here. Norma told me that no one in Stony Point named Candace Caine gets mail.”

  “We keep piling up clues without really getting much closer to the answer,” Mary Beth said.

  “That’s exactly how I feel,” Annie admitted. “I’m beginning to think this may be the mystery we never solve.”

  19

  “You know,” Mary Beth said as her eyes turned back to the tiny cat in her hands. “There’s something very familiar about this writing.”

  “Isn’t it the same writing that was on the card with your cat?” Annie asked.

  “Yes,” Mary Beth said, her eyes still on the card, “but it’s more than that. It’s the capital I. I didn’t have a capital I on my card. I’ve seen this before. It’s really quite unique compared to the other letters. See? It’s much more ornate.”

  Annie stood and looked at the card. The writer had put more of a flourish on her capital I. “Maybe Candace Caine wrote you a note sometime. She might have started with I.”

  “Maybe,” Mary Beth said dubiously, “but I still think I saw this recently, and I don’t get a lot of notes from customers. Let me think about it for a while. It’ll come to me. So, you said you saw Nancy with a pet carrier; were you at Dr. Martin’s?”

  “I was at the clinic, but I didn’t get to see the doctor because she was so busy. She’s supposed to call me this evening,” Annie said. “This mystery seems to leave me almost making connections all over.”

  “Well, I thought of another near connection,” Mary Beth said. “I asked one of my older customers about the Friends of St. Francis this morning. She remembered them, though she never went there. But a friend of hers volunteered for them.”

  “Oh! Maybe I could talk to the
friend,” Annie said.

  “I’m thinking you could,” Mary Beth said with a smile. “It’s Josephine Booth.”

  Annie blinked in surprise. “Well, that’s great. Someone I know I can go talk to. Thanks, Mary Beth.” She looked down at her watch. “I should be able to catch her, so I’m going right over to the library.”

  As Annie hurried down the sidewalk toward the library, she shivered. The pleasant morning was settling into a chilly afternoon. She glanced up at the sky and spotted gray clouds on the horizon. “I’ll have to be sure to get Tartan’s second walk in soon,” she murmured.

  At the library, she quickly found Josephine sorting through a pile of books. She turned a warm smile on Annie. “You look like a woman on a mission,” Josephine said.

  “I actually wanted to ask you about the Friends of St. Francis,” Annie said. “You volunteered there, right?”

  Josephine nodded. “That was a while ago, of course. I never felt like I really had the time to devote to a pet of my own, but I was able to help out by offering a temporary home to a cat now and then.”

  “Do you happen to know anything about how Gram got Boots?” Annie asked. “I understand Boots came from the Friends of St. Francis.”

  “That’s right, she did,” Josephine said. “I remember how happy your grandmother was about it.”

  “So Gram came in and picked out the kitten?” Annie asked.

  Josephine paused, her face clouded as she chased the memory. “Yes, she came in with a friend of hers to look over the kittens. I think the actual adoption happened on a different day though. Maybe your grandmother needed some time to think about which one she wanted.”

  “Do you know the name of the woman who was with Gram?” Annie asked.

  “After all these years?” Josephine asked incredulously. “I’m not even sure I heard it, though I’ve seen her around town, of course. She comes to the library now and then.”

  Annie felt a surge of excitement. “Do you know what she looks like now?”

  “Not so different really,” Josephine said. “Thinner, and shorter than me by quite a bit. She isn’t at all chatty.”

  That certainly leaves out Nancy, Annie thought.

  “A lot of our patrons come to the library for a quiet time of reading,” Josephine continued. “We try to accommodate what each person wants. We’ll chat with the chatty ones and leave the quiet ones in peace if they seem to want that.”

  “And she seems to want that,” Annie said.

  “I’m not sure,” Josephine admitted. “She’s very polite, but somehow she seems sad.”

  Annie was struck by how much that reminded her of Adam. Was Candace Caine pining for him as much as he was for her? “Does she help out with the children’s library?”

  Josephine looked surprised. “Oh, no, I can’t imagine. She seems like the sort who would be scared to death of the kids. Our little ones can be a little boisterous.”

  Annie felt a pang of worry. That didn’t exactly match Adam’s assurance that Candace would definitely be involved with children. “Do you know of anyone here who might know the woman’s name?”

  “I don’t know—maybe. You could ask.”

  “It might help if you could be more specific about what she looks like,” said Annie.

  “Well, there’s something about her that makes you not want to look at her too long.”

  “Like a deformity?” Annie asked.

  “Oh no, nothing like that. It’s more like it would be painful to her if you noticed her too much. At any rate, she’s a shorter woman, as I said, with brown hair. About your age, I imagine.”

  Annie went to each of the people working in the library and asked about Candace, as described by Josephine. Although each person said the library had some very shy patrons, and even mentioned a few names, they were always different names. Annie had never imagined that Stony Point had so many shy women.

  “Every town has shy women,” Grace Emory said when Annie voiced her thought aloud in the reference section. “Women who’ve experienced too much pain, too much unpleasantness in life. They just want to be left alone, and I think we respond to that instinctively. We don’t notice them, and the library offers a nice refuge. You can see people, but everyone is occupied with their own reasons for being here. So you can be left alone, if you want.”

  Annie thanked Grace and headed out of the library. As she walked across the Town Square and down the street to where she had parked her car, in front of A Stitch in Time, Annie thought about the other places that had gotten the tiny cats from Candace Caine. Did they offer her the same thing as the library? Did they give her a safe place to be out in the world but not touched by it? Certainly in the bustle of the diner, you could be surrounded by movement but have your own bubble. Annie had often felt that way when she’d stopped there for a cup of tea and a chance to process whatever was going on in her life at the time.

  Annie had reached her car and glanced toward the door of the diner as she thought about it. She wouldn’t mind stopping for a cup of tea, but then she heard a rumble of thunder in the distance. She needed to drive over and walk Tartan before the rain moved in.

  At Ian’s house, Annie found Tartan back to his normal, excited self. “I can’t promise to wear you out again,” Annie said as she snapped on his leash, “but we’d better take a trot around the neighborhood before the rain starts.”

  Tartan trotted obediently at Annie’s side as she walked. She glanced nervously at the darkening sky, hoping they could finish the walk before the rain started. She picked up her pace, and Tartan cheerfully matched it.

  “Annie! Annie Dawson!”

  Annie stopped and turned to see Nancy hurrying down a driveway just a few doors away from Ian’s house. Annie glanced curiously up at what must be Nancy’s house. Early spring had not yet awakened the cottage-style home’s garden. Annie could tell that the plantings had been carefully chosen to create an almost Thomas Kincaid, English cottage effect—an effect that would reach its colorful zenith in the early summer.

  “Your yard is lovely,” Annie said as Nancy caught up to her, puffing. Annie noticed that Nancy kept a careful distance from Tartan and his slightly muddy paws.

  Nancy beamed. “Thank you! I do work at it. Do you know when Ian will be home?”

  Annie smiled and shook her head. “No, I still don’t know.”

  “Do you suppose you could leave him this note?” Nancy offered a fancy envelope with Ian’s name on it in ornate script. Looking at it, Annie knew that Nancy’s handwriting looked nothing like Candace Caine’s.

  “I’ll be glad to,” Annie said. “I’ll put it right on his desk when I get home with Tartan. Did you happen to email that photo?”

  “Oh no, I forgot,” Nancy said. “I’ll do it right away.”

  “Thank you. We best get back to our walk since I believe it’s going to rain.”

  Nancy looked at the sky in alarm and scurried back into her house. Annie slipped the envelope into her cardigan pocket. “Now this note I’ll be sure to remember,” Annie said to Tartan; he yipped in agreement.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance, and Annie trotted along the sidewalk with the schnauzer. Tartan seemed delighted by the fast pace and was still ready for more running when Annie had to stop to gasp for a minute. He hopped up, putting his paws on Annie’s leg and wagged his tail furiously.

  “You could pretend to be tired,” she said.

  Tartan just barked and licked her hand. They continued at a slightly slower pace with Annie casting nervous glances at the sky. Finally, they finished the lap around the neighborhood and started up Ian’s long driveway. That’s when the sky seemed to open up and rain pounded down on Annie and Tartan.

  Tartan clearly didn’t mind the rain either, though he snapped at the falling drops now and then. They trudged up the long driveway, and Annie tugged Tartan gently toward the side of the house. They’d go in the back door since Annie certainly didn’t want to leave puddles all through Ian’s house. Suddenly
Annie froze at the sound of a car on the driveway. The rain had drowned out the sound of the approaching car until it was very close.

  Annie turned around sharply and saw Ian’s sleek car roll to a stop. With a sinking feeling, she pushed a hank of dripping hair away from her face.

  “Oh Annie!” Ian called, rushing through the rain to her side. Tartan went wild at the end of the leash, lunging for Ian and barking with joy. Ian took the leash gently from Annie’s icy hand. “Let’s get you inside.”

  He began leading her toward the front door as Tartan splashed in all the puddles along the way. “No, Ian,” Annie said. “We should go in the back. We’ll drip all over your floors.”

  “They’re just floors,” Ian said. “We need to get you in out of the cold.”

  Annie gave in and let him lead her into the house. Annie could feel the water running off her in streams. “Hold Tartan here,” Ian said. “I’ll get towels.”

  He disappeared down the hall but came back quickly with thick towels. Annie accepted hers gratefully and rubbed most of the water out of her hair so it would stop dripping freezing streams down her back. Ian briskly toweled Tartan dry.

  “We need to get you into some dry clothes,” Ian said as he stood and looked Annie over. She was certain she must look exactly like a half-drowned rat.

  “It’s OK,” she said. “I’ll just run to the car and head home. I can change there.”

  Ian reached out and put his warm hand on her arm. “Your skin is ice cold. You can’t go back out in the rain until you warm up. Especially since you were only caught out in the rain because you were doing a favor for me. Here, take off your shoes, and we’ll make a run for the bathroom.”

  Annie slipped off her shoes and dashed for the bathroom with Ian. In her bare feet, the drips of water from her still soggy clothes made her slip and slide as she hurried. Several times Ian had to catch her to keep her on her feet. Finally, they reached the tiled bathroom floor.