The Cat Between Page 8

  She’d just passed St. Anne’s Church and was beginning the small descent toward her house when something low to the ground streaked across the road followed by Harriet the husky. Gerry hit her brakes, the car lurched to the right and off the road. She felt it tilt as it sank into the ditch. Gingerly, she climbed out.

  “Harriet! Where have you gotten to? Harriet!” Jean-Louis, wielding a large flashlight, found Gerry standing at the end of his driveway. “What happened?”

  “Harriet chased something across the road so I braked. And slid. As you see, I’m stuck.”

  “My apologies, Gerry. I let her out for a pee and suddenly she took off. I will pay for a tow truck. Let me just catch my bad dog and I’ll call for one.”

  But there was no need for catching as the bad dog came bounding up, grinning happily, tail wagging, huge ears flattened, a seductive grin on her face. Gerry hugged her as she jumped up. “I’m so glad I didn’t hit her.” Harriet licked her chin. “I wonder if she was chasing the animal that savaged my neighbour’s cat. Have you met him?”

  “Who? The neighbour or the cat? Or the savage animal? Harriet, don’t jump,” Jean-Louis said somewhat brusquely. “I’m supposed to be training her but sometimes—all right, good dog. Good dog. Harriet, heel.” To Gerry’s amazement, Harriet did. “Come to my place. We’ll call for a tow.”

  They edged around Gerry’s car, its nose in the ditch, its rear in Jean-Louis’s driveway, and walked toward his cottage. It was quiet. Ice and snow crunched under their boots. “Who clears your driveway?” she asked.

  “The Hudsons,” he replied.

  She looked up at the sky and a small “ah” escaped her lips. The stars in their beauty glittered over their heads. She dropped her gaze to his face. The steam from their breath mingled.

  He began, “Gerry, I—” She grabbed his arm and pointed.

  A fox, trotting across the field that abutted the driveway, stopped, suddenly aware of them. Harriet, happily snuffling for rabbits in the hedge on the drive’s other side, didn’t see it. As they watched, the fox decided they were harmless and trotted on its way.

  “Beautiful,” Gerry said softly.

  “Very,” Jean-Louis agreed, but whether he was looking at the fox or somewhere else, only Harriet saw. Before they entered the little old farmhouse, Gerry noticed what looked like a snowmobile under a tarp beside a woodpile.

  She nodded toward it. “You ever use it?”

  “Not really. It came with the house. I prefer to get some exercise when I go into the woods.” Inside, Jean-Louis phoned for a tow and made cocoa. He held up a bottle of brandy. “Why not?” Gerry agreed. “But just a tablespoon. Otherwise I won’t be able to taste the chocolate.”

  She looked around appreciatively. The farmhouse was completely wood finished inside and had a wood stove in its one ground-floor room—a kitchen-cum-living room. Jean-Louis bent and threw in a couple of logs.

  “Fantastic heat,” she said, holding her hands out to it.

  “Much more efficient than a fireplace,” he said briskly.

  “Huh. I did not know that,” she admitted.

  “Radiant heat. With an open fire, much of the heat goes up the chimney. You have a fireplace?” She nodded. “You should get one of these. You just put it on the hearth and its chimney pipe goes inside your brick chimney.”

  “But I love the open fire.”

  He swung open the door of the wood stove and placed a screen over the opening. “Tada! You can also get one with a glass window.”

  “Wow!” Harriet came over and lay down with a sigh in front of the flames. Gerry rubbed her tummy with a foot. “Cozy. I wonder how much it costs.”

  He rearranged the logs with a poker and replaced the screen. “Not too much, I think. Buy a wood stove for a couple of thousand, then the labour of fitting the pipe. You’ll use less wood. Pays for itself in a few years.”

  Both their heads jerked toward a window where the revolving light of the tow truck pulsed. Gerry jumped to her feet. “No, Harriet,” Jean-Louis remonstrated. “You stay here.”

  “Thanks for the hot chocolate, Jean-Louis,” Gerry said.

  “You’re welcome. And call me J-L, eh?”

  The tow truck made quick work of hauling out the Mini, which appeared intact. Gerry drove it the few hundred feet to her driveway and let herself into the house with relief. Energy drained, she fell quickly asleep.

  Bob’s whiskers tickled her face. She pretended to be still unconscious and felt the smooth pads of one of his paws tapping her cheek. When he got to her eye, she couldn’t help herself and put up a hand. “You win, Bob,” she groaned and sat up.

  The promise of last night’s clear starry sky had been fulfilled: it was a sunny day. Gerry yawned. She trudged downstairs and did the usual chores, then took her coffee upstairs, ostensibly to get dressed. But bed proved too inviting and she crawled back in. She reached for her book, The Darling Buds of May by H. E. Bates, first published in 1958. Reading it was like visiting another planet.

  Set in the fifties in England’s agricultural heartland in summer, the book pulsated with the lives of the Larkin family and their neighbours, moving from one gorgeous meal or event to another. The contrast between the book’s exuberant celebration of summer and the Canadian stoicism facing winter was almost painful. Gerry was hooked and had the four other books in the series piled on her bedside table waiting to be read.

  As the tax inspector Mr. Charlton allowed himself to be led away by the luscious eldest daughter Mariette to explore the farm, the book slipped and Gerry fell back into sleep.

  Harriet the husky leapt from tree to tree, gnashing her teeth on witch’s brooms. Far below, a tiny Gerry called and called.

  She woke. Someone was ringing the doorbell. “Argh! What now?” She hurried downstairs and peered at the female form hovering on the front porch. No one she knew and yet—she opened the door.

  The woman looked her up and down with a dour expression on her face. Gerry, secure in her own house, albeit in a Winnie the Pooh robe and SpongeBob slippers, flushed and held her ground. “Yes?” she said, somewhat haughtily.

  “Shrike,” the woman announced. “Mrs. May I come in?” She was dressed completely in brown, her hair dyed the same colour. She was painfully thin. In her sixties, Gerry thought.

  “Um, yes,” Gerry replied. “I was napping. My car got stuck in a ditch last night…” She let her voice trail off. Mrs. Shrike was obviously not listening. She’d entered the foyer eagerly, looked around with a sharp appraising eye.

  “Very nice house,” she said with an English accent like the one BBC newscasters used. “Very nice things.” She lifted a vase that sat on the hall table and Gerry could have sworn she struggled not to turn it over to look for a mark.

  “Will you have tea?” she asked doubtfully, adding, “I didn’t know your husband but I’m sorry for your loss.” She wondered, why is she here?

  Mrs. Shrike peeled off brown gloves and removed a brown beret. “That would be very nice.” Gerry sat her in a rocking chair by the living room hearth, put on the kettle and took the other rocker. The cats, alerted to the presence of a new person, drifted by one by one, carefully smelling the guest. Only a few—Bob, the boys, Harley and Kitty-Cat—remained in the room after that and (or was Gerry imagining it?) they remained uncharacteristically alert, staring at Mrs. Shrike from unblinking eyes.

  The woman seemed not to notice them, except to say as she accepted a cup of tea, “I heard you had a lot of cats. More of a dog person, myself.” She refused the shortbread Gerry offered her. Gerry, hungry after her nap, munched away, again noticing Mrs. Shrike’s thinness and trying to feel pity.

  “You’re wondering why I’m here, I suppose.”

  Gerry nodded. Mrs. Shrike watched Gerry for a few seconds. Suddenly, Gerry knew how the mouse felt just before the cat pounces. She took another cookie.

/>   “I understand you entered the house where my husband, where Nolan—” For the first time, a little of Mrs. Shrike’s self-composure drained away and left her looking bewildered.

  Gerry thought she should make some sort of statement. “I’m very sorry I went inside, but my elderly neighbour, Mr. Parminter, was worried about his missing cat and my cat, Bob there, seemed to be indicating we should try looking inside.”

  Bob stared at Mrs. Shrike. When Gerry said his name he turned his head, blinked at her as if to indicate, “You got that right,” then refixated on the other woman. Gerry continued. “I also saw a little hole at the bottom of the rear wall, near the back door, and thought the cat might have…” She let her voice trail off.

  Mrs. Shrike looked at the mantel where Gerry usually kept odds and ends along with a few ornaments. She changed the subject. “My husband Nolan came from the same part of England as many of the other original families of Lovering.”

  “He came from Devon?” a puzzled Gerry asked.

  “Devon. Yes. He was even related to some Parsleys back there.”

  “Everybody is,” Gerry remarked absently.

  “What do you mean?” Mrs. Shrike replied angrily, two spots of colour appearing on her lean cheeks.

  “Eh? Nothing. I’m related to some Parsleys myself. There are a lot of them.”

  Mrs. Shrike seemed satisfied that no offence had been meant and calmed down. “I was trying to explain that although we are relatively new arrivals, we have some family connections. People can be rude to newcomers.”

  Gerry had a thought that “people” were more likely to be put off by unpleasant manners and behaviours, but resisted sharing it. “More tea?”

  Mrs. Shrike held out her cup. She took it plain, of course. She sighed. “Nolan should have taken Sharp with him. He might have given warning.”

  Gerry assumed Sharp to be an assistant and waited for further details.

  “Sharp is devastated,” Mrs. Shrike continued. “Lies with his nose on Nolan’s boots, waiting to go for a walk in the woo—” She broke off and looked nervously at Gerry, who couldn’t help picturing an imaginary employee lying on his dead boss’s boots, desolate with loss.

  “Ah. I see. The poor dog,” she hazarded. “What kind of dog?”

  “A foxhound,” Mrs. Shrike sniffed. “Very good nose. Loves to run.”

  “Don’t all dogs love to run?” Gerry replied pleasantly, forgetting about Prince Charles and thinking instead of Harriet. “I have a friend—”

  Mrs. Shrike cut her off by standing. “So you didn’t notice anything? Anything odd in the house when you entered?”

  Ah ha! thought Gerry. The real reason for this visit. She truthfully answered, “No, nothing. Except—why was there a wreath on the door of an empty house? It’s not there now—”

  “Oh.” Mrs. Shrike gave a half-laugh. “That was my idea. To camouflage the house’s vacancy. Put a bow on it,” she said rather bitterly, “and no one will notice. Perhaps it blew away. That reminds me, the old lady just died in a nursing home.”

  “Oh?” Gerry said, then slowly added, “I’m beginning to have a memory of someone very old living over there when I was a child.”

  “She was more than 100.”

  “Yes, I had heard that,” Gerry said politely, walking her to the front door. She hardly noticed that the six cats accompanied them, arranging themselves on the stairs and observing. “I did see you and Mr. Shrike once each before, you know.” Mrs. Shrike, pulling on her brown gloves, stiffened. “At the college. Dropping off your students. I teach part-time there.”

  Mrs. Shrike relaxed, if such a tense figure could be said to ever relax. “Oh. Well, you’ll probably see me there again. One of these days. Thank you for the tea.”

  Gerry looked through the sheer fabric that curtained the windows either side of her front door. There was the big Cadillac—midnight blue—and, sitting in the passenger seat gazing right at her, was a black, white and tan dog. Sharp. She looked over her shoulder as the grandfather clock sounded the hour. The time registered. “Aagh!’ she shouted as she rushed upstairs, scattering cats, who (one would have thought) must be getting used to these sudden alarms.

  9

  “And you wouldn’t believe the price of a can of tuna. Or a bag of pasta. I had to visit the bank every couple of days just to get enough money to buy groceries.”

  Prudence paused for breath and Gerry cast a quick quizzical look at her friend and part-time housekeeper. Apart from a slight tan, Prudence’s narrow face and grey hair worn in a small bun seemed unchanged.

  “Didn’t get to talk to people much, did you?”

  Prudence laughed. “Have I been chattering? Sorry. No. I spoke with the waitresses and sometimes other guests. But you know couples want to be alone together when they’re on vacation. Now, if there’d been another single lady with me—”

  “Do you need to buy any groceries on the way home?” Gerry asked innocently.

  “No. I’ll make do with what I can borrow from Rita and Charlie.”

  Gerry, who knew Prudence’s neighbours had stocked her fridge for her now that her storm-damaged cottage was repaired, smiled. “Do you want to work at my place tomorrow? Or leave it until Thursday?”

  Prudence replied quickly, “Oh, I’ll work. I bet your place needs it,” she added slyly.

  “You would win your bet.” Gerry took the exit off the highway and turned onto the river road.

  Prudence sighed. “Now I feel like I’m home.”

  The Lake of Two Mountains spread out to their right. Sun shone on its frozen surface where people were pursuing winter sports. Some skied while others skated. A little further along, a miniature village of tiny huts, each with a car or snowmobile parked at its door, showed the ice fishermen were in residence.

  “What do they catch?” Gerry asked.

  “Perch, I think.”

  “Good to eat?”

  “Awfully small, most of them. Some people think ice fishing is just an excuse to drink beer.”

  Gerry laughed. The big bay disappeared as the road curved left. They entered the outskirts of Lovering. Prudence sighed again.

  “Tired?”

  “Mm.”

  “Was it nice there? In St. Lucia?”

  “You would love it. Flowers everywhere, birds, tiny lizards hanging on the walls. The hotel only had five apartments. I had a big living room–dining room–kitchen with a balcony looking at the beach and the Grand Pitons—those are the two volcanic domes that are in every ad for St. Lucia—and the bedroom in the back with air conditioning. The restaurant downstairs was a big open area ten feet from the beach, with tables at one end and loungers at the other. I must have swum five times a day.”

  “It sounds fantastic.” They turned onto Prudence’s road.

  “It was. And, Gerry, would you believe it? There was a cat, a white one, a female. Every day she’d somehow climb onto my balcony.” Prudence looked guilty. “I fed her milk and canned tuna.”

  Gerry laughed. “Couldn’t get away from cats, eh?”

  Prudence continued. “Then she’d find me after I swam and sit on my lap on the lounger in the sun.”

  The car bumped over the tracks and pulled into her driveway. The small white cottage was restored to its former state. “I can hardly believe I’m going to sleep here again. It’s been a month,” its owner said.

  “Well, I hope you sleep well,” Gerry replied. “See you tomorrow.”

  Before she got out, Prudence sniffed. “You know this car smells like french fries.”

  Gerry grinned sheepishly. “Haven’t been doing much cooking.”

  “On holiday,” Prudence teased. “Like me. See you.”

  Back at her house, Gerry fed the teeming throng. Their supper was late and they were upset. “It’ll be worth it tomorrow, cats. Your old friend
is coming back.” She made a fire, got her book and enjoyed her evening.

  The next day Gerry and Prudence returned to their routine. Gerry picked Prudence up and made the reluctant woman drive. She needed the practice if she was ever going to get her licence.

  Prudence took one look at the mess Gerry and nineteen cats had made in one week, rolled up her sleeves and got to work. Likewise, Gerry, thanking the foresight that had made her prepare two art history classes ahead, was able to concentrate on Mug the Bug and got two strips done. She and Prudence ate their lunches separately, but took a mutual break around three for coffee. Min Min was lifted onto Prudence’s lap while, blinking contentedly, Jay sat on Gerry. Bob lay on his back on the hearthrug, displaying his three white triangles.

  “You heard about Mr. Shrike?” Gerry asked, offering Prudence a store-bought shortbread cookie.

  She looked at the cookies with disdain before taking one. “I’m away one week and you forget to bake?”

  “Hey, I was busy! But I went up by the sugar shack and that reminded me: wasn’t there a wonderful maple pie Aunt Maggie used to make? Am I right?”

  “Yes. Pecan maple. I have the recipe if you want it. Are you changing the subject?”

  “Trying to. Is it working?”

  “No. Baking should be a pleasure for the cook as well as those eating her desserts.”

  “Well, I was three days at the college, then there was the murder.”

  “I heard.” Prudence dunked the cookie and reluctantly ate some. “Rita had me over for supper last night. I’m all caught up.”

  “Do you know the wife?”

  “Tall, thin, sour, dresses in brown a lot? Yeah. I’ve seen her around. She takes in students, I think.”

  “Why would someone wear nothing but brown?”

  “Maybe she thinks she’s still a Brownie,” sniffed Prudence. “In uniform.”