Douglas Nelson - Cat On A Blue Monday

Actually, the occasion that brought them all together here, wondering, was not exactly the reading of the will, although the terms of that will would come to public light here. The meeting's real purpose, and the only reason she was included, along with Matt Devine, was the disposition of the late Miss Tyler's cats rather than her money.

How convenient, Temple thought, that Father Hernandez's office came with just the right number of chairs for such a group. Sister Seraphina sat on the edge of her cushy seat, uncomfortable on the visitor's chair, her sensibly shod foot tapping oh-so-subtly. A woman of action, she barely kept herself from fidgeting at the ahems and haws that proceeded from the church attorney at regular intervals. For a relatively young man, he was uncommonly fussy.

Peggy Wilhelm let her half-glasses lie docilely on her ample chest, suspended by their leash of silver beads. She had no expectations of anything in the will, and was not even ready to cast a cursory eye over its terms.

Peter Burns sat forward, the mahogany-colored calfskin briefcase on his knees serving as a table for his voluminous papers. Oddly, he seemed nervous and expectant, glancing from the priest to the nun, then to Matt and Temple, whom he regarded with obvious disfavor and a look behind his round glasses that said: What are you two doing here? He never even glanced once at Peggy Wilhelm, which spoke to how utterly she had been left out of the will, and out of everyone's consideration, except as convenient cat-tender.

Temple felt a flash of anger at the way Peggy had been overlooked. She was the Cinderella figure in the tale: overworked and over willing, asking for nothing but her fireside ashes and an unshaven cat.

Father Hernandez remained the cipher. Handsomely harried, his features seemed to sink deeper into his skull on every occasion, along with the maroon circles cast by his dark eyes, until the man himself was likely to disappear behind his own hidden worry. Max revisited.

Worry. Matt worried her. Temple glanced at him, his calm as evident as Father Hernandez's incipient hysteria. Ice or instability. Temple couldn't decide which facade was the least healthy.

But she had nothing to worry about. She was mere witness to other people's follies on this occasion, included only because she had shamelessly begged Matt to let her know if anything of the sort should transpire. Besides, somebody had to add a touch of flagrant footwear to this occasion: Matt wore rubber-soled Hush Puppies, as effacing as his everyday manner; Sister Seraphina, her habitual Red Cross battleship-gray model; Peggy, a battered pair of Famolare sandals; and the attorney, brown wing-tip oxfords--in a Las Vegas September!

Temple discreetly turned an ankle to refresh herself with a glimpse of an artfully curved vamp. Shoes were such a comfort, except when they were walked in! Perhaps the spiritual should never be expected to turn physical.

As Burns cleared his throat for the thirteenth time, Temple swept her feet together and demurely touched toes to the floor beneath her chair.

"I presume," Burns said, "that you all know that Miss Tyler did indeed keep and remember Our Lady of Guadalupe in her latest will."

Sober nods all around.

"When was this will dated?" Sister Seraphina asked out of the blue, a vertical line etched between her eyes just above the pale, amber-plastic glasses frame.

He consulted the document itself to make sure, although he obviously knew the date by heart. "August twelfth."

"And she wanted to omit the cats?" "Apparently they had palled."

Peggy Wilhelm frowned in her turn. Mr. Burns was obviously no cat person. Cats were like Cleopatra; age could not stale nor custom wither their infinite variety.

"I knew about her nineteen-ninety-two will," she put in. "The cats were definitely left a bequest."

"For how much?" Father Hernandez asked.

"Twenty-five thousand."

"Perhaps I should allow that sum toward their . . . keep or disposition," he said. "She surely wouldn't have wanted them put to sleep."

"No," Peggy agreed with a shudder.

"Before you commit funds to the cats, Father," Burns offered in an apologetic tone, "I should warn you that Miss Tyler's assets were not as ample as everyone, including Miss Tyler, imagined. She kept her funds in CDs; you know what the interest rates on those have been like in the past few years."

Father Hernandez sighed as heavily as anyone in the room at this comment, reminding Temple of Matt's comment that parish priests were often harried administrators more than they were ministers.

Peggy Wilhelm frowned again. "She was getting forgetful, but Aunt Blandina hinted that she had plenty of money to take care of the cats and the parish, too--at least before she got annoyed with the parish."

"Old people lose touch," Burns said flatly. "Lawyers see this all the time. I still may uncover some unexpected resources; she had notes and unexplained keys tucked into drawers all over the house, as many as cats." He granted Father Hernandez a cautioning glance. "But I wouldn't count my chickens, financially speaking, before I counted my cats.

And I wouldn't count on having much bounty to share with those cats."

"What about the harassment?" Matt asked. "Did that cease with Miss Tyler's murder?"

A thrill ran visibly through the people in the room at this reminder of unexplained events.

"Lieutenant Molina suspects murder," the lawyer said precisely, "but the harassment may have been mostly in Miss Tyler's elderly imagination."

"Not Peter," Seraphina said stoutly. "Not Sister Mary Monica's phone pal."

"Does he still call?" Temple asked.

Sister Seraphina shook her head abruptly. "No. And that worries me more than if he did."

But no one bothered to ask why. Seraphina was another old woman, an unreliable or even insignificant reporter of phenomena. Temple found her fingernails digging into the tapestry-upholstered arms of her fat chair. Why would the caller stop now? Seraphina was on to something. A glance at Matt's still--too still--face told her that he thought so, too.

Scary, she was beginning to read his lack of expression better than any expressiveness.

She was also beginning to guess where he had learned such patient stoicism--in the seminary, where young men were expected to listen and learn and not to challenge authority.

'It's so odd," Peggy said. "Her finally ignoring the cats after all this time, I feel cheated for taking care of them so much if she didn't care--"

"But you, did," Seraphina put in quickly, with a smile.

"You cared."

Peggy Wilhelm's face remained leaden, lost. She nodded without conviction. "Aunt Blandina used to mean what she said. It was the one thing I respected about her."

The young lawyer's pale, manicured hands hit the arms of his chair with a thump of emphasis. "It's too soon to do anything. The police have made no determination. I have possibly not tracked down all the estate assets. Be of good cheer," he urged with a hopeful smile that showed the dull silver flash of metal wire on his front teeth. "Perhaps Providence will find some answer for the cats. Certainly the story in the Review-Journal may help."

"Story?" Peggy wailed in concert with Temple.

Burns looked blank and a little hurt. "A reporter heard about the police report on all the cats, and a rumor that they might be legatees. I didn't see any harm in explaining their possible plight--"

"Oh!" Sister Seraphina seldom sounded disgusted, but she did now. "Mr. Burns. Don't you see? You've brought all the forces of animal control and flaky animal advocacy down on us before we're ready to deal with it."

Father Hernandez swiveled his bulky leather chair away from them all, putting his--and its--back to the desk.

The conference was officially over, with little resolved.