Douglas Nelson - Cat On A Blue Monday

The unforthcoming Peter, with prodding, reveals more: a damp cloth was slapped over his kisser, he recalls, that smelled "sweet" and "heavy, like a baby diaper."

I diagnose a dose of chloroform, and Peter also admits that he was not conscious during the distasteful deed of hammering his extremities to the door.

Was the perpetrator infected by mercy--or by a desire for quietude and swift action? I favor the latter, not finding much mercy in the method of Peter's suspension.

After I pull what I can from the poor dude, I lean back to mull over the few pathetic facts I have obtained. One, Peter was plucked unwilling to be the object of this experiment in suspended animation; he did not stumble into the perpetrators hands. Two, the perpetrator was prepared to execute just this act; it was not a spur-of-the-moment impulse. Three, the perp is either one sick puppy, or he---or she--had some unsuspected hidden motive in mind, beyond terrorizing Miss Tyler and any inadvertent passersby, which happened to include my good friend Miss Temple Barr and her good friend (and getting better) Mr. Matt Devine. There is nothing like shared shock to bring persons of the opposite sex closer.

It is a pity that the shock of awakening to be whisked off to a vet's office to have blood drained does not do much to endear the feline sort to the aforesaid whisker-offers.

Chapter 21

Mortal Complications

When the phone rang, Temple awoke, aware that stilettos of moming light were stabbing through the mini-blinds on the French doors to impale themselves in the bare wooden floor.

She wanted to lurch upright to answer the phone, but King Kong was sitting on her chest. Her mildly nearsighted eyes strained to focus. Holy cats make that Kitty Kong! And make that her entire torso, not just her chest. Midnight

Louie was arranged thereon, tail end pointedly trned to her face, front paws kneading her abdomen in alternating rhythm.

"Ooof." Temple struggled up. "Off!" She caught the phone on the fourth ring, before her answering machine could kick in, but she was panting.

"Hello?"

"Miss Barr?" By then, Temple had felt for her glasses on the nightstand and clapped them to her face. The clock read seven.

"Yes."

"Sister Seraphina O'Donnell," the voice cut in, using such an eflicient tone that Temple unconsciously sat up ramrod-straight in bed.

Beside her, Louie remained lying on his side, where he had rolled when she had risen, licking his disheveled fur and casting dirty green looks over his shoulder at his ex-mattress.

Too bad that wasn't his ex-mistress, Temple thought in irritation. She never did wake up well, God and the Mystifying Max knew for very different reasons.

"How did you get my number?" she asked.

"The yellow pages, you are listed under public relations, you know."

"Oh, and Matt mentioned my profession yesterday," Temple remembered. "You don't forget a thing."

"I hope not." Sister Seraphina sounded grim. "I shall have to remember a great deal shortly. And you as well." She sighed. "I'm sorry to call so early--"

"And I'm sorry I forgot to call last night," Temple interrupted. "Sister." She found the title awkward. Using it as an afterthought separated from the preceding sentence didn't help hide that. "Peter is going to be fine?"

"Good." The nun's tone was strangely flat.

Before Temple could react to this odd disinterest, the nun's voice was crackling over the phone with brisk sentence after sentence, each one more shocking than the next.

"I'm afraid that you'll have to come to the convent again. Miss Tyler was dead when Rose stopped by to collect her for six-o'clock Mass. It could be a . . . suspicious death. We called the authorities. Lieutenant Molina wants to question you as well." There was a pause. Temple could hear a rustling sound as Sister Seraphina covered the phone receiver with her hand to listen to someone else at the other end of the line. "Actually," her voice amended when it returned, "Lieutenant Molina doesn't want to question you, but fears that she must." the nun reported dryly.

"That's me, the obligatory interviewee. What about Matt?" Sister Seraphina paused for a long moment. "I haven't told him yet. He'll be upset. It would be better for you to tell him when you collect him. Lieutenant Molina wants to see him, too."

Temple noticed that statement required no amending, and she couldn't blame Molina. If the lieutenant had to interview people about a murder at seven in the morning, beginning with Matt Devine was as pleasant a prospect as any.

As soon as Temple clicked down the interrupt button to end the call, she lifted a forefinger and punched in Matt's number, which she was beginning to know by heart, Beginning? She had memorized it the first time she saw it.

When the phone stopped in mid-ring as it lifted off the hook, Temple winced. This time Matt had had only three hours of sleep. He sounded like it.

"Yes?"

"Temple."

"Temple--?"

"I know this is the middle of the night for you, but we're wanted by the authorities."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your favorite long arm of the law, Lieutenant Molina."

"Temple, what's going on?"

"Miss Tyler died during the night. Make that passive tense: was probably killed."

Now he was strangely quiet, so Temple went on.

"Apparently Molina is conducting interrogations at the convent. As some of the parties who were the last to see the victim alive, I imagine our testimony will be of high interest to her."

"She'll be highly interested in our testimony, period."

Matt sounded chagrined. "My cover's really blown now, isn't it?"

"Well, yes," Temple admitted, "but l won't tell anyone about your ax-murdering days, l promise."

"Thanks- Did Sister Seraphina say how Miss Tyler died?"

"No. Maybe we're supposed to be surprised."

"I bet we are," Matt said. "Give me three minutes and I'll be ready--or at least dressed."

"Too bad," Temple muttered as she hung up. Things were all backwards lately; she and Matt were always getting each other out of bed instead of into it. Given the recent revelations, that was probably for the best.

"Another golden dream pounded to glitter dust," she told Midnight Louie as she swooped her legs over his grooming bulk and to the floor.

He favored her with a glance implying that anyone so cavalier about his comfort deserved some discomfort of her own. Then he resumed stroking his glossy side, red tongue raking along black fur under a flare of white whiskers.

Temple shivered in the tepid air conditioning. However groggy, she was not too dazed to realize that an old woman was dead. She had just met Blandina Tyler, but somehow she had spiraled deep into the old lady's life--and now death. She wondered what Molina would make of that. She wondered even more what Molina would make of Matt now.

They were both too sleepy and too stunned to say much in the car.

Matt turned to her when they were halfway there and announced, "I applied for my driver's license yesterday. I figured I didn't need one until I got a car, but now I see that it could come in handy in an emergency."

"You mean every other day."

He smiled at her. "Looks like it." Then he sobered.

"Much as l . . . blamed Seraphina for overreacting the other night, it's a good thing I did the anointing. That turned out to be Blandina Tyler's last rite."

"So it was worth coming out of the closet for?"

His glance was grim. "We'll see. Now Lieutenant Molina will be on my case."

"Yeah!" Temple wiggled her toes in her high-heeled sandals and grinned. "Maybe not mine, for once."

By the time the Storm crept along the curb in front of the convent and stopped, terminal sobriety had set in again. She and Matt sat in the car for a few seconds after she'd killed the motor.