Cat Me If You Can

by Miranda James

  “Great description, Johnny Ray,” I said.

  “Thanks, Charlie,” he replied.

  “Speaking of Patricia Wentworth,” Miss Dickce said, “is anyone planning to talk about her and Miss Maud Silver?”

  For a moment there was only silence. Then Celia responded in a grudging tone that she guessed she could, since Burdine had scooped her on the Lockridges.

  “That’s great,” Miss Dickce said. “I was hoping someone would.”

  “If you’d rather talk about her yourself,” Celia said, “I can come up with someone else.”

  I thought she sounded determined to be negative and hoped that we weren’t going to be treated to this kind of behavior all week. I suspected that if she kept it up much longer, Miss An’gel would give her a good talking-to, as only she could. She wouldn’t let Celia disrupt the meetings in this way.

  “No, no, you go ahead,” Miss Dickce said. “I’m eager to hear what you have to say about Wentworth. You probably know more about her than I do.”

  That last sentence was aimed at Celia’s vanity, and it apparently hit its target. Celia brightened visibly.

  “Patricia Wentworth was a pseudonym,” Celia began, but got no further.

  The door opened, and Denis Kilbride strode in, his expression stormy. He gazed around the room until his eyes settled on Zac. He advanced upon him, paying no heed to Miss An’gel’s attempts to forestall him.

  “I don’t know what the hell kind of game you think you’re playing, but if you don’t stop, I’ll put an end to it, and you won’t like the way I do it.” He brandished his right fist.

  Zac stood and pushed back his chair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, you raving baboon. But you come on at me, I’ll have you crying for mercy in three seconds.”

  Johnny Ray surprised everyone in the room by jumping up from his chair, grabbing Kilbride by the shoulder, and spinning him around. Then, with a neat right hook, he put Kilbride on the floor.

  SEVEN

  “Looks like he’s out cold,” I said, shocked by what had occurred seconds before in the meeting room.

  Johnny Ray Floyd rubbed his knuckles and appeared quite satisfied with himself. “I’ve been wanting to do that for six months. I’m glad the jackass gave me a good reason for it.”

  Zac Ryan laughed. “You saved me the trouble. Thanks.” He extended a hand over the prone man, and Johnny Ray took it. They shook briefly, then both stepped back to let Ellie Arnold drop to her knees beside Kilbride.

  She patted his cheek gently. “Denis, are you all right? Speak to me, Denis.”

  In the meantime, Miss An’gel had evidently called the front desk, because Arthur came sauntering in. I would have thought he’d gone off duty by now, but here he was.

  “What is going on here?” Arthur looked to Miss An’gel for an answer after he spotted Denis Kilbride on the floor. “What do you expect me to do about this?”

  “This man burst in on the group and behaved in a rude, somewhat threatening manner,” Miss An’gel said tartly. “I expect we might possibly need the services of a doctor or nurse. Do you have anyone on call for such things?”

  Arthur goggled at her. “Yes, there is a doctor I can call, but wouldn’t it be easier to call 911?”

  “No need to call either.” The shaky voice came from the man on the floor. “Get me some ice, wrapped in a towel, all right?” While shooting daggers at Johnny Ray and Zac, Kilbride endeavored to sit up with Ellie’s assistance. “My back is killing me. I’ve got to get upstairs to my room.”

  Helen Louise had remained by my side during the altercation, but I suddenly noticed that Diesel was nowhere to be seen. My heart beat furiously at the realization. Had he bolted out the open door of the meeting room?

  “Help me find Diesel,” I said to Helen Louise. “You look in here, and I’m going to see if he’s run out of the room. Please, Lord, let us find him quickly.”

  I had barely reached the door before Helen Louise called out to me. “Here he is,” she said, the relief obvious in her tone. “Under the sofa.”

  I rushed back to her and got down on my hands and knees to coax my cat out from under the sofa. “It’s okay, boy. Everything is all right. You can come on out.”

  Diesel didn’t appear to believe me, but I kept talking to him while the conversation buzzed through the room. I tried to block it out. My sole concern at the moment was Diesel, and I didn’t want to have to wait until everyone else had vacated the room to get him to come out.

  After three rounds of my litany of reassurance, Diesel crawled out, his leash trailing. I hadn’t realized I had let go of it, or he never would have been able to bolt. I sat back on my heels and gathered him closer. I stroked his head and murmured to him. Helen Louise got down on her knees on the other side and also spoke soothingly to him. By the time I thought Diesel was calm enough to release, the room around us had quieted considerably.

  I resumed my seat on the sofa, alongside Helen Louise, and Diesel settled by my legs. Denis Kilbride had left the room, along with Ellie Arnold and Arthur the desk clerk supporting him. Everyone else now watched Diesel and me.

  “Is Diesel doing okay now?” Miss An’gel’s expression of concern touched me.

  “He’s fine, I think,” I replied. “He was startled by the loud argument.” I glanced over Helen Louise to Johnny Ray on her other side. “You sure seemed to enjoy that.”

  Johnny Ray laughed. “You bet I did.” He shot a quick look at Miss An’gel. “That jackass did me dirty a few months ago, and I’ve been looking to pay him back.”

  “What did he do to you?” Burdine Gregory asked. “He doesn’t own a plumbing company, does he?”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Johnny Ray said. “He does go around buying up property, though. I was looking to expand my premises a few months ago, and the empty lot next to my place finally came up for sale. I agreed to the asking price and was all set to finalize it when that bas—um, that jerk came in and offered the seller about twenty percent more, if what I heard is true.”

  “That’s terrible,” Burdine said. “Is the property worth that much?”

  “Nope,” Johnny Ray said. “At least not as an empty lot. Can’t figure out why he’d pay so much more than market value for it, unless he thinks there’s oil on the property.”

  “Utterly absurd,” Miss An’gel said. “I thought he was a sharp businessman.” She frowned. “Did he have any reason to do it out of spite? I have heard he doesn’t like being crossed.”

  Johnny Ray grimaced. “He doesn’t like me, because he tried to bully me when I did extensive work on one of his properties. Tried to con me into doing the work at cost, telling me he’d make sure everyone knew I’d done the work. Free advertising, he called it.”

  “That’s outrageous,” Helen Louise said, angry on his behalf. “You don’t need that kind of advertising. Your reputation is one of the best in Athena.”

  “That’s what I told him, but he still acted like I owed him a favor,” Johnny Ray said. “Finally had to threaten to sue him to get him to pay me what he owed me.” He glanced at me and grinned. “I sicced my lawyer, Mr. Sean Harris, on him, and he paid up pretty quickly after that.”

  “I’m glad my son came through for you,” I said. I remembered now that Sean had made brief mention of a case a month or so ago about a businessman refusing to pay a debt, but he hadn’t told me the names of anyone involved. Sean had called the recalcitrant businessman worse names than jackass, as I suspect Johnny Ray would, too, except for the presence of women in the room.

  “Aren’t you concerned,” I continued, “that he could bring charges against you for assault?”

  Johnny Ray shrugged. “He came in behaving in a threatening manner, and I think I was within my rights to do something about that.”

  “He wasn’t threatening you, though,” Zac Ryan said. “He was threatening
me.”

  “Don’t matter,” Johnny Ray said. “He threatened me a couple times back when I was trying to get the money he owed me. Idiot didn’t realize I recorded him when he called me. I think all I’d have to do is bring up suing him, and that would be the end of it.”

  I thought he might be overly optimistic in that regard, but I wasn’t going to argue with him.

  Melba then put forth the question I thought several of us really wanted to ask. “Zac, why on earth was he threatening you? You’re a professor, not a businessman.”

  Zac shrugged. “Beats me. He must have me confused with someone else.”

  His tone came off as a bit too nonchalant, I thought. I wasn’t convinced by his words, and I imagined that no one else was, either. I fully expected Melba to laugh, but I saw Paul Bowen touch her lightly on the arm. The Ducote sisters eyed him speculatively, and Burdine looked ready to challenge him.

  “Whatever the issue is,” Miss An’gel said firmly, “I trust you will work it out privately. The group really cannot have this kind of interruption. We came here to enjoy ourselves and share our love of the genre with one another.”

  Even Burdine, who sometimes misread conversational cues, couldn’t misread that one. Zac shot Miss An’gel a look of gratitude, and I wondered what it was he was so anxious to keep covered up.

  I knew it was none of my business, but I had begun to get that uneasy feeling there were some potentially dangerous undercurrents in the group. Kilbride was an outsider, in that he wasn’t a member of the group, but he obviously had connections with Ellie and Johnny Ray. Apparently with Zac as well. I had to wonder about Paul Bowen, since he was a banker, but I didn’t know about Elmore and Burdine. As I recalled now, I’d heard them mention a son, Todd, their only child, who had died recently.

  Perhaps there was some kind of triangular relationship, with Zac interested in either Ellie or Kilbride. That could explain the argument we had interrupted earlier today between Zac and Ellie. But maybe my imagination was running away with me, as it often did.

  I tuned back in to hear Helen Louise say, “Are we going to wait for Ellie to come back?”

  Miss An’gel and Miss Dickce exchanged glances. Then Miss An’gel responded. “No, I don’t think so. Perhaps Celia would like to talk about Patricia Wentworth now, unless either Melba or Paul is ready.”

  Melba shook her head, and Paul deferred to Celia.

  Celia offered a gracious smile. “Thank you, Paul. Patricia Wentworth was the pseudonym of Dora Amy Elles Turnbull. She was born in India during the time of the British Raj. I forget exactly where.” She paused for a breath. “Her father was a general. She eventually returned to England and at some point started writing novels. Her contribution to the genre was a female professional investigator, Miss Maud Silver. Miss Silver spent many years as a governess, but she decided that she would turn her talents to solving mysteries. Thus she became a private inquiry agent, as she styled herself. She appeared two years before Christie’s Miss Jane Marple. The books are about as English and cozy as you can get. Miss Silver knits frequently, usually making something for one of her niece Ethel’s growing family. She is extremely sharp and often gets to the solution before the policemen in the case. They, naturally, are in awe of her, and one of her former pupils from her governessing days is one of the policemen she generally encounters.”

  “I think you’ve hit the nail right on the head,” I said. “The Miss Silver books are as cozy as they come. If you want to retreat from the world, brew yourself a pot of tea and settle down with Wentworth.”

  Celia nodded approvingly. “Perfect escape reading. Though she’s best known for the Silver books, she wrote just as many books, I believe, without her—all mystery or suspense stories.”

  “Thank you, Celia,” Miss An’gel said.

  Before she could continue, Ellie came back into the room. She went straight to Miss An’gel. “I’m so sorry about all this. I had no idea Denis was going to show up here.” Her hands clenched. “I’m horribly embarrassed that he should have caused such a scene.”

  “Ellie, dear,” Miss Dickce said, “it’s not your fault. You are not to blame for Mr. Kilbride’s poor behavior.”

  “Sister is right,” Miss An’gel said. “It was an unfortunate scene, but it might have been far worse if Johnny Ray hadn’t intervened.” She cast a stern glance at Johnny Ray.

  Ellie forged ahead. “If you’d like me to forgo our activities this week, I’m fully prepared to pack up and head home tomorrow morning.”

  A chorus of protests arose. I don’t think any of us held Ellie to blame, but for my part, I did hope she, or someone, could persuade Denis Kilbride to behave more circumspectly. We couldn’t have him barging into our meetings threatening violence.

  “I don’t think you need to do that,” Miss An’gel said. “I will have a talk with Mr. Kilbride in the morning and make it plain that any further such behavior will not be tolerated.”

  Ellie, as well as everyone else in the room, had no doubt that Miss An’gel would put the fear of God into Denis Kilbride. She was the most formidable person I’d ever known, and if anyone could get through to Kilbride, Miss An’gel would.

  If he didn’t shape up, his goose was cooked.

  EIGHT

  Miss An’gel had instructed us at the end of our meeting last night that we had to be on our minibus and ready to go no later than seven-thirty this morning. Anyone who turned up late would miss the Biltmore tour. We were being admitted at eight a.m., an hour before tours for the general public began, and we must be on time.

  This strict insistence on punctuality didn’t bother me, nor did it irk Helen Louise. Unpunctuality has long been one of my pet peeves, and Helen Louise, as a successful business owner, was perfectly aware of the value of time. The two of us and Diesel were on the bus and settled by seven twenty-five, along with Melba and Paul. Miss An’gel, Miss Dickce, and Benjy greeted us when we came aboard.

  I figured at least one person would miss the departure time, because in my experience of groups, there was always one person who had not the least regard for time. I have always considered it excessively ill-mannered to keep people waiting. I knew Miss An’gel felt the same and took it as a personal insult when she encountered what we both felt was rudeness. Naturally, there were times when persons were unavoidably detained, but when certain people invariably showed up late, the consistency of the behavior argued for a personality trait, not a constant state of emergency.

  To my surprise, however, every member of the group made it onto the bus with a minute to spare. The last to arrive was Ellie Arnold, and her appearance shocked me. She looked like she had barely slept during the night, and she had been less than careful with her toilette this morning. I nudged Helen Louise, and she nodded. Leaning toward my ear, she said, “Rough night. I wonder if she had it out with Denis Kilbride.”

  If she and Kilbride had argued, they were too far away from our suite for us to have heard anything. “I wish he would go back to Athena and leave her, and the rest of us, alone. This is supposed to be fun.”

  Down at my feet, Diesel must have sensed my irritation. He shifted uneasily and meowed. Helen Louise rolled her eyes at me as she reached down to soothe the cat. “It’s okay, boy,” she said in a low tone. “Your daddy is a little grumpy, that’s all.”

  I pulled out the small bag of treats I had brought along for Diesel and gave him one. The treats were insurance that he would behave well during the tour and on the bus rides. Once he knew there were treats available, he would be a good kitty and not act out. He knew that if he misbehaved, no more treats would be forthcoming. I rubbed his head after he finished the treat, and he pushed against my hand.

  By this time the bus had started us on our short trip to the Biltmore estate. Miss An’gel informed us that we would be driven right up to the house itself, rather than being dropped off in the parking lot and having to wait
for one of the estate buses to transfer us. Burdine thanked her profusely for arranging all this, saying that she particularly appreciated not having to deal with crowds of people touring the house at the same time we were there.

  The day promised to be warm and sunny, and I too was grateful that we would be through the section of the house open to the public before the hordes arrived.

  At five minutes to eight our minibus pulled up in front of the magnificent structure of Biltmore House, built in the style of a French Renaissance château between 1889 and 1895 by George W. Vanderbilt II. With an amazing footprint of nearly 179,000 square feet and 250 rooms, it was the largest house ever built in the United States. We would see only a small fraction of it, however. I imagined it would take a week of long tours to see everything the building held.

  Our tour guide ran through the customary rules, looked askance at Diesel but seemed reassured by the presence of the cat’s harness and the leash in my hand, and we were soon on our way to view the opulence of the Vanderbilt family home.

  The old saying that the rich were different remained prominently in my mind as we made our way through the house with the guide. So many details to absorb, so much elegance and sheer opulence to see. We were allowed to take pictures with no flash, and in most sections we toured there was sufficient light for me to take pictures on my phone. I got several good photos of Helen Louise and Diesel in various places, particularly in the lovely winter garden that is actually inside the house. I would have called it an atrium, although it wasn’t open roofed, merely vaulted. Whatever one might call it, I found it charming.

  The banquet room, with its table capable of seating sixty-four persons, was the largest room in the house and had a seventy-foot vaulted barrel ceiling. The two-story library contained over ten thousand volumes in eight languages. Apparently George Vanderbilt had wide-ranging interests in classical literature and other subjects. I could happily have spent several hours, if not days, in that library, poring over volume after volume.