Клер Донелли - The Big Kitty

The constable shook his head. “This stuff cuts bad smells, and I’m sure we’re going to find some in there.” He offered her the jar. “Try it. I’ve seen guys use it when they had to check out overripe corpses.”

“Great,” Sunny muttered, dabbing a little salve in place. “Now I’m going to have morbid associations whenever I have a cold.”

They went around to the backyard, peering into the darkness beyond the cellar door. “Gordon?” Sunny called. “You in there?”

A screech almost as loud as the one from her damaged car door came in answer. Then hurried footsteps pattered down the cellar stairs, and Gordie Spruance came into view. He wore old jeans, a flannel shirt buttoned all the way up to the neck, a watch cap, and a surgical mask.

Well, there goes our chance of checking out the pantry door, Sunny thought. That could get chalked up just as bad luck. But as her eyes got used to the dimness, she saw black garbage bags piled up around the spot where Ada Spruance had fallen. Well, if it was a crime scene, it’s certainly all disassembled now. Sunny remembered the suspicion that had led her to publicize the winning lottery ticket in the first place. Either very convenient—or very clever.

Right now, though, Gordie didn’t look very clever. Red-rimmed eyes stared at Sunny for a moment. “Oh. Sunny, right? Mom said you’d be coming over to help her. But—”

“I know,” Sunny put in gently. “I’m the one who found her this morning.”

“Sorry for your loss,” Will added.

“We just thought we’d come by and … see how you were doing,” Sunny improvised. “Seemed like the neighborly thing to do.”

“It’s just a big mess.” Gordie made a helpless gesture, his eyes darting around at the garbage bags. “Even worse than it was when I left.” He looked at Sunny. “I had to move out—I’m allergic to the damn cats.”

So we don’t know if those red eyes are due to grief or cat dander, she thought.

“Come up and see.” Gordie abruptly turned and headed upstairs.

The steps up to the pantry were steep and thick with disturbed dust. Will used Sunny for cover, trying to get a good look at them in the gloom. Sunny wasn’t exactly sure what sort of marks a falling body would make on such a coating. She imagined a person tumbling down the steep stairway would pretty much leave traces on every step. Here it seemed that the dust was very disturbed at the bottom, but the higher she got, the more there seemed to be just scuffed foot marks. So either poor Ada had gone more than halfway down the stairs she never used and attempted a swan dive … or been thrown some distance before actually hitting the treads.

At the top of the stairway, Will Price directed a significant look at the pile of paint chips on the floor beneath the door leading into the kitchen pantry. Clearly the door had only recently been forced open.

But did that happen when Ada went through—or when Gordie did? Sunny wondered.

The door screeched open, and they moved through a skinny, shelf-lined space into the kitchen itself. While the appliances were old, they looked reasonably well kept: the stovetop was clean, as was a small tray table and chair by the window where Ada had apparently taken her meals, at the edge of a lighter spot on the linoleum where a larger kitchen table must once have stood. The remaining open space had been used to create a sort of feeding station for the cats. At least a dozen metal bowls of dry food and fresh water stood in a row along the wall.

Will stepped over to the open kitchen cabinets, eyeing the empty shelves, their contents stacked on the counter.

Gordie pointed to the piles. “It’s mostly soup and canned cat food. I’ve read about old folks living on that stuff—you don’t think Mom was, do you?” He shook his head, not waiting for a response. “It’s just that I know she was pretty hard up lately.”

He led the way into the living room. Clearly, Ada had done some housekeeping in the areas she’d used—or maybe that she could see. A small island of orderliness surrounded the overstuffed chair and ottoman with the reading light behind, and the television. The rest was given over to dust, the furniture shaggy with cat hair. Gordie must have been busy in here, too. Half of the couch looked almost normal, a vacuum cleaner leaning against it.

Gordie gave the machine a kick. “Damn thing clogged up.” He ran his forearm in front of his face, muffling a cough. “It’s even worse upstairs. Except for her room, the cats took over everywhere. You can’t believe the stink up there.”

Worse than this? Sunny wondered. Even here, where at least some effort had been made, she couldn’t mistake the sharp, pungent reek of cat pee making itself known through her protective menthol salve. Will didn’t seem fazed by the assorted stinks, but she didn’t even want to think about where that other odor of decay she smelled might be coming from.

Sunny suddenly found herself wishing she had a mask, too.

“I dunno what I’m going to do.” Gordie’s eyes darted around the room, then settled on Sunny again—now an unfriendly gaze. “Your boss from that tour place, Barnstable? He came by—I guess one of his big-shot pals called him with the news. I see him all the time, driving around here in that stupid Land Rover of his like he’s some big-game hunter. ’Cept what he’s hunting for is houses he can snap up for chump change. He’s been oozing around Mom for I don’t know how long, saying he wanted to ‘help.’ Now that she’s dead, he tells me that all of a sudden the place is worth less than half of what he’d been offering her.”

Sunny raised her hands in a “what can you do?” kind of gesture. Ollie the Barnacle wasn’t one to let finer feelings—or any emotion at all, for that matter—get in the way of potential business.

“I may have to accept it anyway. Gotta pay off—” Gordie suddenly broke off, glancing over at Will Price as if just realizing the town constable was there. “So, you were going to help Mom look for that ticket,” Gordie said, changing the subject and concentrating on Sunny. “Did she have any ideas about where it might be?”

Well, here was a development Sunny hadn’t expected. If Gordie was after the ticket, she’d have thought he’d have gotten hold of it before doing anything to his mother. Unless, she thought, this is the setup for a miraculous discovery just before the damned thing would have expired.

“Sorry, Gordie,” she said. “Your mom had no clue. That’s why she was asking for help.”

“So what now?” Gordie strode over and flung open the heavy drapes over the front window, revealing grimy glass—and a very startled cat who’d apparently evaded Animal Control by hiding out there.

Shadow? Sunny thought. Then her eyes adjusted to the brighter light and she could see the white markings on the gray coat. This cat was smaller than Shadow, too.

Blinking in the sunlight, Gordie didn’t make out the cat at first. When he did, he recoiled almost like a vampire confronting a cross.

“I thought they got rid of all of you!” He reached out to roughly grab the cat, who lashed out with his claws. Gordie drew back with a yelp, instinctively putting his wounded hand to his mouth, forgetting about his face mask—and only succeeding in smearing blood on it.

The cat went for altitude, swarming up the heavy velvet drapes and releasing clouds of dust into the air. He’d gotten just about level with Gordie’s head before the man managed to latch on to the spotted gray body.

“Gotcha, ya little—” He tried to pull the cat loose, but his captive dug in his claws and held on for dear life. “Come on!” Gordon gave a mighty heave … and brought down the cat, the drapes, the curtain rod, and even the brackets that held it to the wall—all in an even bigger cloud of dust and plaster.