Magical Cool Cats Mysteries Boxed Set Vol 1 (Books 1, 2 & 3 & A Christmas Feral)

by Mary Matthews

  “I never.” Scrooge sputtered.

  “I know. Just joking,” Zeus said.

  “I prefer my own company to all others.” Scrooge reminded him.

  “That’s what most humans think about cats. Truly, I prefer the company of other cats. Feral and domestic. Humans will lie. You can’t trust them.”

  Scrooge nodded in agreement.

  “This is a mess. Where are the servants?” He asked Tatania when they returned to his mansion.

  “The servants died. A great cat named Rodent Terminator was meant to come into the world. Unless humans shot at his ancestors. Neither human nor animal can outrun gunshots when cornered. His mysterious line should have continued and silently lived among feral communities, and kept the world’s fragile ecosystem in check. But if Rodent Terminator never enters the world, the rodents will overtake Coronado, and a plague will be upon it. You, your niece, and Tiny Tim will die.”

  “I don’t see a grave stone.” Scrooge looked around.

  “You’re too cheap to buy one.” Zeus replied.

  “Even the most magnificent beings cannot outrun a bullet all the time. Look at trophies humans bring back from Africa,” Tatania explained.

  “What do cats have to do with people dying?” Scrooge asked. He remembered his ruling and trembled.

  “When Europe killed feral and stray cats, the bubonic plague came and wiped away lives. Generations of families ended with the plague. Some say coincidence. Some say divine retribution. Some say killing cats upset the world’s ecological balance. When humans interject themselves in the natural food chain that exists between animals, disaster consumes the earth. Cats have always lived heroically among humans and other animals. We look like we belong in ancient temples and art deco theaters. We go with any architecture,” Tatania said.

  Zeus rolled around on the ground.

  “This disaster must be stopped. My niece may tell distasteful jokes but that doesn’t mean I want her to die.”

  “Zeus is a descendant of the cat you had as a little boy. You’re killing the line of cats that helped your Mother when she was so ill. They’re going to die because of you.” Tatania jumped on Scrooge’s shoulder.

  “No,” Scrooge said.

  Zeus looked sadly at them from across the bay. And then began to walk towards Coronado Tent City, wailing.

  “No,” Scrooge said.

  “I must stop this. It’s not too late. Is it?”

  “I can’t hear you,” Tatania said.

  “Is Tiny Tim okay?”

  “I can’t hear you,” She reminded him.

  “I’m going to change things.” Judge Scrooge vowed.

  • • •

  Judge Scrooge woke up and sat down at his Smith Corona typewriter. He hadn’t typed one of his own opinions in years, preferring to bark out dictation to a hapless clerk, but there was no time to waste. He considered sending it by telegram.

  “Injunction granted. Illegal to kill cats in Coronado. $500 fine.” He typed. Then he ran over to the Western Union office at the Hotel del Coronado to telegraph it to Her and Her opponent.

  It wasn’t too late. He’d pick up seafood for the black and white tomcat. And give Tiny Tim something from Santa. Maybe he’d even dress in a Santa Suit. He stopped at the front desk and spoke briefly to the Hotel del Coronado manager.

  “You’re not cooking today.” He told his cook when he returned home.

  She coughed delicately.

  “I”m feeling better, Sir,” she said turning red in the face, stifling the cough she feared would cause him to fire her.

  “We’re all ordering room service from the Del. I’ve made arrangements for delivery. All it took was a big tip.” He shrugged.

  “Open the door. I hear a cat meowing,” Judge Scrooge said to his butler, handing him a menu.

  “I’m going to hire gardeners tomorrow. I want to build trees for the cats. And call an architect to design plans for a cathouse for the winter. Maybe I’ll ask my neighbors, the lovely young couple, for a reference. It will require an electrician to build. My cats shall have heat in the winter. And their own Christmas tree to climb. With all the ornaments they can swat.” Scrooge smiled.

  And the butler opened the door, and Tatania strolled inside, to a place of honor before Scrooge’s fireplace. A fireplace he’d keep lit to warm the cats during the winter months.

  “Call my niece and her family and ask them to join us for dinner. Everyone can order whatever they want. I shall pay for it all. It will be my honor.” Scrooge walked outside.

  “Where is Tatania?” Grace asked, expecting their magical feline to appear when she thought of her, and continued pouring champagne. She waited for the faint brush of the cat winding through her legs.

  “Jack, she’s not here.”

  He kept decorating the tree on the lot where they’d build their home.

  “She always comes home.”

  Grace sipped a glass of champagne. And Jack licked her lips.

  “Maybe Tatania had a better offer. She could spend Christmas in a home. Instead of an empty lot.” Grace felt her heart wouldn’t fully beat until Tatania returned.

  “When you, Tatania ,and I are together, we are home,” Jack said.

  He twirled Grace around the tree. Grace’s pearls swung wildy, and her cloche hat fell on the ground. And then he dipped her, and all she could see was the bright blue Coronado sky.

  “Jack, is this lot really ours?”

  “It will all be ours, Grace.”

  Tatania appeared and wound through their legs in her magical way. She never shed fur. Jack picked her up and she put a paw on Grace’s head.

  “Neighbors,” Scrooge called out. “Come join my niece Elizabeth and my nephew Edward for Christmas dinner. And bring your lovely cat. The more the merrier. I’m treating everyone to the Hotel del Coronado’s finest food and wine.”

  Tatania strolled onto Scrooge’s property again like she owned it. He reached down to pet her.

  “You’re a masterpiece.” He whispered.

  “I think Leonardo da Vinci said that.” He winked at her.

  Tatania looked up at him and understood. Zeus was nowhere in sight. He left as silently as he arrived. She looked back at the trees and bushes where she knew the feral cats hid during the day. They worked at night. And the whole universe remained in balance.

  “Shall we bring some champagne?” Jack asked.

  “No, I have plenty here. My own Prohibition wine cellar. You’re welcome to anything you want. My wine is your wine. And if you’d like to light your tree electrically, I’ll help you hook to my utility cables. Or my new electrician will do it.” He smiled.

  Grace and Jack stared at the Judge they barely recognized. He looked twenty years younger. Joy could be the greatest beauty secret.

  “And let me know where I can find a kitten. I want to get Tiny Tim his own kitten.”

  “There are always kittens looking for nice homes. We’ll find one for you,” Grace said.

  “It looks like Tatania already found one.” Jack pointed to Tatania, carrying a black and white kitten into Scrooge’s house.

  She lay the kitten next to Tiny Tim. He laughed when the kitten pulled one of his shoelaces.

  And Scrooge would forever wish blessings to cats and humans alike on Christmas Day each year, bountifully handing out toys. Tiny Tim stroked his kitten and Tatania next to the hearth, and they watched the color return to his cheeks.

  “And may God Bless us all,” Tiny Tim said.

  Cher Ami

  Chapter One

  It’s not easy to get seven years of sleep in each year. Cats do their best. Since cats live seven years for each human one, naps are mandatory. Tatania, a fluffy white deaf Persian, and Zeus, a black and white with a little pink nose, were napping when the commotion began in Coronado Tent City. They sprawled across the bed’s middle.

  Grace slipped on a sleeveless dress with a scalloped hemline.

  “Feels a little chilly,” she said,
rubbing her shoulders, “should I put on a sweater?”

  “With the heat I generate, you won’t need one. Just stick close to me,” Jack said.

  She slipped a feather headband over her wavy bobbed hair and smiled at all six foot two inches of him. He opened the door for her.

  “Good looks before age.” Jack motioned for her to walk ahead of him.

  “Thirty’s a good age, Jack. It’s one of my favorites for champagne.”

  “I know you like two kinds of champagne. Foreign and domestic.” Jack took her hand when they walked through the bustling Hotel del Coronado lobby. Kids raced to the Crown Room for breakfast while the elderly shuffled. The streetcar clanged to a stop outside where passengers disembarked, eager to begin their day in Coronado.

  With a cat’s keen hearing, Zeus could hear his favorite human voices carry from across the street.

  “Should Tatania have her own room?” Grace asked.

  “Tatania will choose any room she pleases,” Jack replied.

  “Sometimes I miss sleeping in the middle of the bed,” Grace said.

  “I could design a bigger bed,” Jack’s brother, David, suggested helpfully.

  David drew the plans for their home in Coronado. It wasn’t like he was already an architect. He was still studying at USC and hadn’t taken his boards to become a full fledged architect. Jack was still budgeting to build the home and wasn’t a full fledged paying client yet.

  “Thanks for designing the place, David. Feel free to design a room for yourself,” Grace said.

  “Right. We may not let you stay there. But go ahead and design a room for yourself,” Jack joked with his little brother.

  “I love this view so much. I could live in a tent here. Couldn’t you Grace?”

  “No, I could live here in the gorgeous Italian Renaissance home David designed.” Grace smiled at Jack.

  “Isn’t your heart at home with me?” Jack asked.

  “Yes. And my heart’s with you in this place.” Grace pointed to David’s plans, blowing slightly in the ocean breeze. The lot was mere steps away from a glistening bay filled with boats. The boathouse that matched the Victorian Hotel del Coronado jutted out from a pier.

  Across the way, next to the Hotel del Coronado, lay Coronado Tent City, known for among other things, being the only Tent City you’d want to join. Other tent cities may exist for those mired in poverty. Coronado Tent City boasted a Dance Pavillion with its own Tent City Band, shops, arcade games, saltwater bathing pools, restaurants, a Merry Go Round, and direct transportation from Ferry Landing on a double decker streetcar. Cottages offered lodging by the night, week, month, season, or year. And Coronado Tent City News, its own newspaper, offered delicious gossip.

  An ambulance wound its way around the auto traffic and pedestrians to Tent City Cafeteria.

  “I’ve never had that bad a meal there,” Grace said.

  “Me neither.” Jack said with his stomach clenching slightly. His body remembered the Great War. Carried by ambulance, and then by ship to England to recover from his wounds, his injuries healed but remained forever imprinted on him.

  “How did you two get this lot? It’s the cat’s pajamas.” David looked appreciatively at the mansion built by one of their neighbors, John Spreckels. At least in San Diego, John Spreckels reigned second only to God in wealth.

  “We got a sweet Finder’s Fee on our last case. We found a special collection of missing emeralds, diamonds, and amethysts for a wealthy and appreciative woman.” Grace reminded him.

  “Leaving Pinkerton Detective Agency when they wouldn’t hire Grace because she’s a dame may have been one of your smartest moves.” David looked back at his brother.

  Jack nodded. “Opening Wentworth and Brewster was the other one.”

  “If only we had another case. I want to build our house with marble like Mrs. Spreckels has in her mansion. I want a house built with resolute stone. A fortress for us.” Grace loved having her very own part of Coronado.

  “Is that another ambulance?” Grace turned towards Tent City.

  They heard the siren that preceded another ambulance winding its way to Coronado Tent City.

  “Lets chase it,” Jack said.

  Chapter Two

  Tatania and Zeus were already on the scene. An elderly woman convulsed on a stretcher. The attendants grunted when they lifted her into the ambulance. The manager of Tent City Cafeteria, Enrico, stood wringing his hands, speaking Italian words that were beyond the scope of Grace’s Finishing School education.

  They walked in Tent City Cafeteria. A man jostled Grace against a Coca Cola cooler on his way out.

  “Excuse me, Miss.” He apologized.

  “I’m alright. What happened to the lady in the ambulance?”

  “She collapsed. And before her, about a half hour ago, an old guy fell down convulsing and died. I don’t think I’ll eat here again. I recommend the Japanese Tea Garden next to the bath house.” He tipped his hat to Grace.

  Patrons were running out, leaving their food untouched. The workers looked panicked. People stopped eating. It was bad enough to see people lying on the ground, convulsing and frothing at the mouth. If they’d just eaten at the same place as you, it was really bad.

  With no one at the buffet, Jack went over to look at its dishes: sea bass, mackerel, sardines in cream, yellow tail, poppy seed rolls, jello, orange slices sprinkled with coconut, and a meat he couldn’t identify.

  Tatania jumped from table to table, sniffing the food the patrons were leaving behind. Deafness made all her other senses especially keen. Zeus, seeing Grace and Jack, ran to them, rolling around at Grace’s feet in greeting. Tatania groomed a paw. The black and white cat acted like a puppy with his favorite humans. It was unseemly.

  Grace picked up the little boy cat and kissed his pink nose. He wrapped his paws around her neck. Jack could hear him purring with contentment.

  “I knew that man. Luke. He fed the pigeons everyday.” The voice sounded familiar. Grace saw Julia, her late uncle’s mistress, talking to a busboy behind them.

  It might seem odd that Grace was friends with her late uncle’s mistress. Unless you’d known her dreadful former aunt. And when she’d discovered they’d had a baby, Grace became fond of Charlotte, named for Uncle Charles. It would have been hard to begrudge an affair to anyone married to former Aunt Alice. When she looked at Charlotte, she saw life continuing and a new cousin.

  “Julia, are you okay?” Grace asked.

  “He was such a good man. And his son and daughter in law were just awful to him.” She began sobbing and sank down on a chair. Grace reached for Charlotte.

  Tatania climbed on Julia’s lap and mewed in sympathy. She gently kneaded Julia’s sparkling dress and purred.

  The busboy explained. The pigeons congregated everyday outside the cafeteria. They waited for the man who’d just collapsed. He came at varying times with bread for them. The pigeons’ instinct for his arrival was unerring.

  He would sit on a bench amidst the pigeons, waiting for a bird to fly to his arm. One pigeon would eat out of his hand while his friends chirped impatiently. Hopping up on the bench, beaks open, they’d flap their wings.

  He’d softly say, Cher Ami.

  Then he’d scatter more bread around and the pigeons always devoured it. The busboy would look away when the man entered the cafeteria. His routine was the same. He’d pick up a cup of joe. Then he’d sit down at a table and pull a piece of bread out of his pocket. They were supposed to throw out customers who brought in their own food. The old man had a dignity that wouldn’t let them do it.

  So he would finish clearing the tables and watch the man begin eating his roll from his peripheral vision. Except today, the man collapsed, convulsed, and died. Then, he heard a thud about thirty minutes later, and saw an old lady on the ground convulsing.

  “Cher Ami,” Jack said.

  “What does that mean?” Julia wiped her eyes with a napkin.

  “It means dear friend in
French,” Grace replied.

  “Cher Ami was a special pigeon who served in the Great War,” Jack said, “Cher Ami got hit by a round of German bullets and sank about fifty feet. Everyone thought he was a goner. The Germans kept firing at him. And he climbed again. He flew twenty-five miles in twenty-five minutes. Cher Ami was shot twice in the breast. And his heart still beat.

  Major Whittlesey’s lost battalion needed Cher Ami to carry their message home. The allies didn’t know Major Whittlesey’s lost battalion’s exact location. We were shelling our own battalion. All their other carrier pigeons were shot down. Cher Ami was the only one left. Major Whittlesey sent Cher Ami off with a message tied to his leg. The message said the Allies were shelling Major Whittlesey’s battalion and ‘For Heavens Sake Stop it’.”

  “Would a soldier being bombarded really say ‘For Heavens Sake Stop it’?” Grace asked.

  “Do you think soldiers swear like sailors?” Jack smiled at her.

  “At least as well, I would hope, Jack. What a grand bird. Where is he now?”

  “He died in 1919. He’s preserved by taxidermy at the Smithsonian. That bird had the heart of a lion. He made it home with the message on the last remaining tendon of his leg. He’d been battered badly. He saved two hundred lives. The bullets kept hitting him and it looked like he couldn’t rise. And then he’d fly up again. Nothing could keep him from flying home that day.”

  Chapter Three

  Julia, calmed by Tatania, held Charlotte on her lap again. Her racoon fur had slipped past her shoulders. Grace lifted it up for her again.

  “You don’t want to get a chill. We should get you home,” Jack suggested, helping Julia up. Julia’s home was a yacht named Charlotte courtesy of Grace’s late uncle.

  Julia began crying again. Then Charlotte, her baby, also known as Grace’s cousin, began crying too. “I’d noticed him before, feeding the birds, and looking at Charlotte and me at the Merry Go Round.” Julia handed Charlotte to Grace who began to rock the baby.