Рита Браун - Catch As Cat Can

The mercury climbed to sixty-four degrees at noon, just warm enough to shed a coat but still cool enough for a midweight shirt. Harry took the opportunity before the weather shifted to hot and hotter to crimp a standing tin seam on her barn roof. The seams separate sometimes. You fold the longer piece over the shorter and squeeze them together. Her father had taught her how to do it. She wore sneakers, the rubber soles helping to give her traction on the roof pitch. Only one seam needed work, which made her happy.

Pewter and Murphy reposed under the large white lilac bush. Tucker slept under the lavender lilac bush. Both cats were awake but stretched on their sides to their full length.

“Do you like bacon?” Pewter reached out to bat at an ant, who easily avoided her.

“You know I like bacon.”

“If you had to choose between bacon and beef bits what would you choose?”

“Beef.”

Pewter rolled on her back. “What about between beef and tuna?”

“Tuna.”

“Tuna and salmon?”

“H-m-m, tuna.” Mrs. Murphy had to think about that one. “Why are you asking me? Are you hungry again? You ate a huge breakfast.”

“When I'm not eating I like to think about food. Food preferences are clues to personality.” This was said with great conviction.

“Pewter, you need sunglasses.”

“Huh?”

“You're getting West Coast.”

“Close-minded,” she sniffed. “Figures. Tuna, a most conventional cat.”

Mrs. Murphy lifted her head. “She's stopped.”

Pewter lifted her head off her outstretched paw also. “What improvement will she tackle next? She's exhausting. She needs to learn to take naps.”

Out of nowhere the blue jay screeched by them, shaking the lilacs. “Mouse breath!”

Pewter leapt up, shaking herself. “Death!”

“Don't go out. Move back. Let's see if we can draw him into the bush. Then we've got him.”

The blue jay turned, flew around the walnut tree, diving for the lilac bushes, too smart to be lured in. He screamed, “Tapeworm host.”

“That does it!” Pewter shot out of the bush but he'd already begun his climb.

To show off he flew in the center aisle of the barn and out the back side.

“If we find his nest we can climb up and kill him.” Mrs. Murphy logically suggested. “If we can't get him or his mate we can push their eggs to the ground.”

“I'd love to hear them splat, little tiny splats since they're little tiny eggs. Death to the next generation.” Pewter's pupils enlarged in excitement.

The only other excitement of the day was Diego calling Harry in the evening. He was back in Washington and looked forward to seeing her the next weekend. Since Fair was taking her to the Wrecker's Ball, he asked her to check her calendar so he could take her to the next dance, picnic, anything. Then he said they'd make their own picnic. She agreed. They'd enjoy a repast Saturday noon and if it rained, they'd eat in the barn just to be halfway outside.

She hung up the phone and began whistling.

“What an awful sound,” Pewter meowed.

“It is,” Mrs. Murphy agreed, running to Harry, begging her to stop.

“Sorry, girls, I forgot how sensitive your ears are.” Harry laughed and stopped whistling.

“Doesn't bother me,” Tucker said. “If you whistle I come running.”

“Don't brownnose, Tucker, it's such an unattractive trait,” Pewter grumbled.

“You know, Pewter, you're so fat I bet there are shock absorbers on your cat box.”

That made Murphy laugh so hard she rolled off the sofa, hitting the floor with a thud.

“Murphy, you're supposed to land on your feet.” Harry picked her up, kissing her forehead while Pewter, enraged, thumped down the hall into the bedroom.

The phone rang again. Harry walked into the kitchen to pick it up. On hearing BoomBoom's voice she squeezed her eyes shut for an instant.

“What worthy cause are you roping me into now?”

“Well—the Special Olympics need volunteers. They're going to be held at Wintergreen”—she named a local resort—“and we need people who know sports. I thought maybe you could be the starter for the races.”

“Oh. Sure.”

“That was easy.”

“I like the Special Olympics.” Harry smiled, then changed the subject. “Think our little trap will catch a mouse?”

“I hope so.”

“I keep forgetting to ask you, how did you meet Thomas?”

“Big party at Vin Mattacia's.” Mattacia had been Ambassador to Spain in the late 1970s. An urbane, outgoing man, he was at the hub of those people retired from the diplomatic corps who lived in the area.

“Oh.”

“Great party. A Valentine's party. I enjoy him but I don't think the relationship will go anywhere. It's just—fun.”

“Oh.”

“I don't know if I ever want to marry again. Some days I think I do and some days I don't.”

“It's a quandary.”

After a bit more chitchat Harry hung up the phone, realized it was getting late, and took a shower.

Pewter, on the bed, ignored both Murphy and Tucker, who sat on the hooked rug by the bed.

“Can you imagine standing in a shower? It's like standing in the rain,” Mrs. Murphy asked the dog, settling down for a good night's sleep.

“It's a human thing.” Tucker half closed her eyes. “It's right up there with using a knife and fork.”

47

Coop breezed in the back door of the post office at seven-thirty in the morning. She tacked up the bogus auction poster on the bulletin board in the front part of the building.

Miranda and Tracy both knew what was afoot. Every single person who came into the post office commented on it that day.

Lottie wondered if the Clatterbucks were that hard up. She then sarcastically said she thought Harry would be in the first row of the attendees since Harry couldn't resist sticking her nose in other people's business.

Mim, just returned from New York, thought it much too soon. One needed time before sorting and selling.

Little Mim questioned who would want to buy bears' paws and the like.

Jim Sanburne merely shrugged. He accepted a broader range of behavior than did the women in his life.

The Reverend Herb Jones thought the whole thing was too sad.

Sean O'Bannon read the notice without comment.

At the end of the day, Rick Shaw listened to Marshall Wells on the phone. The lab report had come back with all due speed. Roger O'Bannon had been poisoned with quinidine, a drug which, taken in excess of one gram, kills within fifteen to twenty minutes. It can be administered in pill or powder form. Unlike most other poisons, this one kills without producing horrible convulsions. It is sometimes given to heart patients to suppress acute arrhythmias.

Coop, standing next to him when he hung up the phone, simply said, “Do we arrest Lottie Pearson?”

“She handed him the coffee. Can you prove she poisoned him? Intentionally? ” He emphasized the word.

“Not just yet. She's not going anywhere.”

At three o'clock that night, a car, lights off, glided down Don Clatterbuck's short driveway. The driver emerged, noiselessly closed the door, and walked to Don's shop. What no one had noticed when they left Don's shop after re-installing the lock was that the tiny red light on the video camera was reflected in the windowpane. The thief noticed and left.

48

The week roared by in a welter of chores, seemingly so important at the time yet quickly forgotten. Fortunately, mail volume was light, so Harry skipped out Friday morning to do her grocery shopping. Miranda, whose refrigerator remained full, gladly gave her the time. Tracy kept Miranda company at work.