Douglas Nelson - Cat On A Blue Monday

She glanced from time to time at her docile passenger, as if to comfort it against the miasma of human emotions now churning around them both.

But the cat was calm, only the people were agitated.

What a good thing that cats couldn't really know what was happening to them! Temple hated to think that Blandina Tyler's cats might sense that they had been disinherited, or that Midnight Louie might somehow know that he was about to get an unwanted roommate before it happened.

That was the great thing about animals; they never laid any burdens on their human companions. All they asked for was food, shelter and affection.

Come to think of it, they weren't too different from your average self-sufficient human being, either.

Chapter 26

Cat Inquisition

As soon as my dear departed Miss Temple Barr is safely off to the cat show Sunday afternoon, I whisk out the French doors to do some investigations of my own. I cast one quick glance at the penthouse before I put the Circle Ritz in my wake.

I dare not let my thoughts linger on the elevated occupant of that address, for that might tip her off to my itinerary. Much as I would hate to admit it to the object of my spiritual anxiety, the Sublime Karma (as opposed to the Divine Yvette, the object of my carnal devotion), I have found the clutter of cats she was

yammering about being in danger just days ago.

I am bound--not to the animal pound, or even to the Humane Society shelter for the poor and infamous. I am headed into Hierophant territory, off to Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose name I hear bandied about in recent days by my dear soul mates at the Circle Ritz. I include Mr. Matt Devine in that group, now that I and Miss Temple Barr have been seeing more of him.

The cathouse I am in search of should not be hard to find, with three key pieces of information in place: from what I overhear, it is very near Our Lady of Guadalupe Church; the grievously attacked Peter was a next-door neighbor, which means that his sadly diminished spoor should be all over the place; and it is home to seventy-some residents of the feline persuasion, which means that the super sniffing powers of my nose alone could find it from a six-block radius.

I have overlooked a fourth tattletale clue, ring around the collar, so to speak: a yellow police tape reading "Crime Scene: Do Not Cross" circles the house and tends to give away the location just a teensy.

I slip past it like a fleeting shadow. Getting in is another trick. These feline pensioners were not intended to get out. I explore the no-man's-land between the place and a neighboring house that no doubt is the convent famed in song and story, as I have been overhearing it lately. Sister Seraphina and her calling nuns. Or called-upon nuns, to be more precise.

The house is old by human standards, but I am a veteran at finding my way in and out of forbidden places. Some crumbled stucco near the rear leads to an under-porch crawl space. If there is anything I am into faster than a flesh-hungry flea, it is a crawl space.

I box aside spider webs and occasional spiders the size of a well-fed mouse. I range over broken boards and rats' nests and a whole subcontinent of creepy-crawlies, including scorpions. I finally find an opening and push my way through into what people call a utility room via the dryer vent pipe, which is not only loose, but just the size of my circumference.

After sneezing my way past a colony of dust bunnies the size of chihuahuas, I shimmy between the shiny white walls of washer and dryer and am home free. Actually, I am free to take measure of this home, which is now entirely occupied by my own kind.

A thousand rich scents sprinkle the air with fur, dander, and perfumes mostly neuter. Quelle disappointment! This is a house of eunuchs! At least I know that no physical force will be called for with either sex. I am torn between triumph at finding so many of my kind safe and sound and consternation that the price of safety is censorship in the ultimate degree.

Oh, well, we cannot all be tough, swaggering, fearless examples of our species.

I wade into this wilderness of my kind, swimming like Jacques Cousteau amongst an exotic cornucopia of creatures--cats striped and spotted, shaded and solid, black- and white- and zebra-striped; caramel-colored and brown; white and cream; calico and rum-tum-tiger; long-haired and short; tailed and tailless; big and small, tall and squat; male and female, and most often, neither.

I am struck by the vast variety and the noble sense of community among my kind. On the street, it is one for one's self. Never have so many coexisted so peacefully. The house, with its two stories and many rooms, is a sort of rookery, a shared territory both crowded and oddly orderly. I am humbled by this refugee community, this coagulation of every kind and kin until survival and mutual dependence have overcome the more territorial urges of instinct. Young voices mew while older ones purr caution.

I am greeted by open meows showing sharp teeth and line-fine whiskers.

No one heeds my progress. I am the ultimate outsider. The inspector-general. The cop. The Lone Ranger. I am recognized, but not claimed, so finally I must get down to business and start taking testimony.

No one has bothered to interview these key witnesses to many crimes. I hear tales of telephone calls, closely observed. Of an old woman growing older and more tremulous with each cowardly attack by ring and by wire.

I hear of her rushing to the closed windows and doors, watching, Her anxious cane occasionally impinging on an innocent extremity. Of long night vigils, of lights teasing the edges of the house.

I hear of the coming of the Chubby Lady With Birman Breath, distracted and worried, and oddly resentful of the cats coming to stroke her legs. Of the Sister Ladies, who are cheerful and loving with each other as well as with those of our species, who pet and coo and feed, whether it is the dear old Keeper or the numerous Kept they tend.

I hear, with some pride, of the sweet efficiency of my current roommate, who is known as Delicate Heels, and who has never spiked an inconvenient extremity to a floorboard and whose litter-box dredging abilities are second to none.

Speaking of none, none of these residents has been confronted with Free-to-be-Feline. Luckily, Delicate Heels has left the cooking to other, more experienced hands--such as Friskies and Yummy Tum-tum-tummy--during her tenure.

And I hear voices of worry, telling of having heard hissing over the telephone with their sensitive ears.

What kind of hissing, I ask. Like a snake's?

No, not like a snake's.

Like a fellow or sister feline's?

No, most definitely not.

Like a machine's?

They pause to consider that, and I recall the hiss of a television set that is not properly tuned to a channel.

Not like that, Mr. Midnight, they cry in chorus.

Then what is it like? I demand.

Like nothing, they say in cat concert. Like nothing on earth.

Perhaps that dratted Karma is right. We are not dealing with natural disasters here, not even with ordinary murder--for I trust the testimony of my kind's ears above their eyes and mouths--but with unearthly chaos.

This murderous snake may hail from beyond Eden to Gehenna itself.

Chapter 27

A Face Card from the Past

It was a scene from an English mystery: the principals gathered for the all-important Reading of the Will.

Temple wriggled her skimpy, tender derriere deep into the well-upholstered behemoth of a chair just like the other chairs gathered around Father Hernandez's now-familiar desktop.

Her dangling toes brushed the floor as she swung them all the better to kill time and to admire neat, Charles Jourdan navy pumps piped in red, so smart for the unexpected country-house killing, even though they required--ugh--pale gray pantyhose on a hot day. Miss Barr with a humid spike heel in the rectory. Ooh.