Моника Шонесси - The Black Cats

Sissy took Eddy by the arm and led him from the fish and flies. I shadowed them, pausing to smell the cat spray on a nearby lamppost: male, geriatric, failing kidneys. Fiddlesticks. This was no way for a huntress to live. We stopped at a table stacked with herbs and assorted cut flowers where Eddy bought a spray of rosemary from a roundish woman in an apron. She rolled the green twigs in a cone of old newsprint and secured the bottom with a piece of twine. Once finished, she presented the bundle to Eddy, who in turn presented it to his wife with a flourish. “For you, Sissy,” he said to her. “May our love be ever green.”

She smelled the herbs and coughed into her handkerchief.

Moving from western to eastern Spring Garden District to sample new air had not been therapeutic enough for Sissy. Eddy’s health had declined these last few moons, too. Was it any wonder? How disheartening to know that despite one’s best efforts, one’s beloved had no chance of surviving. And while Eddy’s appetite had only recently resumed, his thirst for spirits had remained steadfast through the winter. I turned and licked my shoulder, biting at a gnat. In truth, I blamed the drinking more than Sissy’s ailment for his malaise.

I pushed through their legs and headed for the gate, cutting our ramble short. Eddy had spent the dawn hours sipping black tea and pacing the floor—a preamble most familiar. He needed to write, not parade about the market. The humidity, too, had taken a toll on Sissy’s lungs. I turned and paused, fixing Eddy with a stare he could not ignore. The slight downturn of his mouth told me he’d received my message.

He touched Sissy’s arm. “Let’s leave for home, dearest.”

“But we were having such a grand time,” she said. “I thought we might stop by—”

He took the makeshift fan from her and laid it on a nearby stall. “You need to rest, Virginia. Your cheeks are positively flushed.”

She offered no resistance, and we retraced our steps to North Seventh, turning left on Minerva in front of our home. Before we could enter the front garden, voices rang out near Franklin, the neighboring intersection to the west. Eddy led us down the street toward the commotion. We rounded the corner to find a pawful of men in front of Mr. Fitzgerald’s hardware store. Rather, they’d gathered in front of its sprawling sassafras. The colossal tree grew in the unpaved courtyard between his shop and the next, rising up and obscuring the buildings behind its canopy.

“I say!” Eddy called to them. “What’s the trouble?”

“Someone’s hung a cat!” said one of the men.

“God in Heaven,” Eddy said under his breath.

Naturally, with the mention of cat , I thought they referred to me. When we arrived, however, I realized they spoke of a different feline: an unfortunate with matted black fur. The tom swayed from a limb, a rope strung round his neck, one eye gouged from its socket. The Glass Eye Killer came to mind, yet Constable Harkness had locked that murderer in Eastern State Penitentiary. I sat on my haunches and studied the gruesome sight with equal parts anger and sadness, my tail tapping a pattern in the dust. I don’t know what devastated me more—the senseless death or the sullying of my favorite, nay, my only climbing tree. Furthermore, someone had nicked the bark in several places. The marks looked like failed attempts to chop the tree down.

“It’s horrible!” Sissy cried. The spray of rosemary trembled between her hands.

Eddy held her by the arm, steadying her. “Look away, my love. Look away.”

Mr. Fitzgerald, the latest entry on my list of tolerable humans, scratched the top of his balding head as he considered the scene. He’d run from his shop without a jacket and stood before us in his waistcoat and bare sleeves. I hadn’t realized before how thin a frame he possessed. I’d seen fatter scarecrows.

The wind blew, swaying the carcass like a bell clapper, disturbing the flies that circled. I dug my claws into the earth. Was the victim my old pal, Midnight? I circled the trunk and examined the fur on the cat’s chest. It held no white mark like his. Their eyes were different, too. Midnight’s irises were buttercup yellow, much lighter in color than the tom’s lone eye. I purred with relief.

“Who has done this?” Eddy asked the man next to him.

The gent wore all black like Eddy and carried a book, which he held to his chest. “The supernatural is at work here,” he said. “I fear we’ve been visited by the devil.”

The word devil sent a murmur through the crowd. Strange. The only deviling I’d encountered had been that of an egg, and with delicious results. I scaled the trunk, casting bits of bark to the ground, and walked along the branch in question to the knotted piece of rope. A unique piece of workmanship, the cord had been coiled from lengths of brown and tan jute, the former dyed with a bitter solution that smelled of walnuts, the latter left au natural . I sniffed the air. Decomposition—a distinct and unmistakable odor—had not set in. One had only to keep an expired mouse too long beneath Muddy’s bed to understand these things. So the cat had been murdered this morning. I turned to the scents on the rope, learning two things: the killer was male, and he wore a nauseating amount of cologne. If humans bathed as often as cats, there would be no need for copious amounts of lavender and citrus oils.

On the hunt for more clues, I cast my gaze upon footprints below. The courtyard had not been paved, and loose dirt preserved the marks. These prints traveled from the sassafras’s trunk to the steps of Fitzgerald Hardware then disappeared into the alley between his shop and Tabitha Arnold’s cobbler shop next door. I cocked my ears at the curious sound arising from her establishment. Brush, brush, brush. Brush, brush, brush.

Eddy handed Sissy off to the man in black before addressing the crowd. “If anyone knows who committed this atrocity, please step forward. You will face no quarrel with me.”

“Or with Constable Harkness,” someone shouted. “If you can wake him from his nap!”

The crowd tittered with uneasy laughter.

I settled on a higher branch away from the dead cat and the flies. Just thinking about the cruelties my fellow feline suffered churned my stomach. I watched the men through the mitten-shaped leaves. Having moved here three moons ago, I’d encountered most of the humans in the neighborhood and recognized all but the gentleman soothing Sissy. He patted her shoulder and said, “Take comfort in Isaiah. Woe unto the wicked! It shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.” I lifted my head and peered between the leafy branches to spy another unfamiliar face—an old man with a bent spine. He scratched his rear then his elbow then his long, white beard. Fleas. I made a note to avoid him in the future. He loitered between the buildings, away from the turmoil.

“Come now,” Eddy said, “surely one of you saw something?”

Brush, brush, brush.

“Not me,” Mr. Cook said at last. A blustery fool who lived around the corner, his large protruding eyes reminded me of peeled onions. “Ask ol’ Eakins. Cats are his business.”

At Mr. Cook’s utterance of Eakins , the flea-ridden oldster scurried the way of the footprints and disappeared between the shops. Not a soul noticed—not a human soul, at any rate.

“Eakins?” Sissy asked. She’d recovered from the earlier shock and stood near her husband. “I don’t recall anyone by that name, and I’ve met most everyone on our street.”

“He stays to himself,” Mr. Cook said, “for our comfort as much as his.” He surveyed the diminishing crowd. The onlookers had begun to wander. “He was here a minute ago,” he said. “I’m sure of it.”