Douglas Nelson - Cat On A Blue Monday

She had promised Peggy not to tell Sister Seraphina but not Lieutenant Molina. Yet the suspicion was so farfetched, and Blandina Tyler's death could be so innocuous. Old people are prone to debilitating, even fatal, falls.

The phone calls to Miss Tyler and Sister Mary Monica showed the workings of a sick mind, but anonymous callers were the least likely to act out their fantasies, whatever they were.

Or was Peggy Wilhelm shredding slowly through the years? Did she blame the church and her aunt for her disgrace and loss of self-esteem, especially now that attitudes were becoming more enlightened and less censorious?

The last question Temple confronted was the thorniest. She had been confided in. She had, in a sense, received a confession. She had promised not to tell one specific person; did that bar her from telling others?

Temple hashed the matter over until it was so shopworn she could hardly tell one end of the argument from the other.

One thing was clear: Blandina Tyler's intentions were not as cut-and-dried as everyone assumed. Another unavoidable clarity also tugged at Temple's mind and conscience for attention after the day's cleaning expedition: Blandina Tyler collected more than unwanted animals--string, stamps, stockings, maybe even . . . wills.

At four in the afternoon, Temple rattled around the apartment one last aimless time in search of Louie. Nothing. She put on her shiny sneakers and decided that since she had snooped in a dead woman's house, she might as well compound her sin and go snoop in a live man's apartment.

She slipped up the steps in rubber-soled silence and down the curving, dim corridor one floor above until she came to the short hall that led to Matt's door.

She had never been here--had never been invited--but she knew from the number of his unit, Eleven, where it had to be. Right above hers. The carriage lamps beside the doors were kept on day and night, not only for a homey touch, but because there was no daylight in this cul-de-sac.

For the first time, it struck Temple that the Circle Ritz's design, besides being forty years old and quaint, reflected the confidence of a simpler, crime-free time. These private entrances were isolated, and possibly more dangerous than desirable for that reason.

Temple recognized the beige cardboard in the brass frame beside the doorbell as the back of a ConTact card. "MATT DEVINE" was printed on it in ballpoint in the measured block letters of someone who has been carefully taught to be legible in matters of public record.

She rang the bell, surprised to hear the muffled yet mellow ding-dong from within; she had never heard another resident's bell, except Electra's, which was different, being in the penthouse.

Matt answered it, looking rumpled in a beige T-shirt, Bermuda shorts and bare feet.

"Were you sleeping?" Temple asked guiltily.

"No, but I, ah, didn't get to bed until seven this morning."

He glanced at his watch. "Did we have an appointment for a lesson? I don't doubt I forgot--"

"No, no. I'm not up to making like Sue Jujitsu today Anyway, but I wondered--"

He stepped back, opening the door and looking reluctant. "Come in. It isn't much, or rather, I haven't done much with it." .

Temple stepped over the threshold, feeling the move was momentous. A person's rooms could tell you a lot about the resident.

She glanced around, trying to look as if she was not. Bareness hit her like a heat wave: bare wood floors, bare French doors and windows, a secondhand sofa bare of pillows. Bracket-mounted bookshelves mostly bare of books and knickknacks. Boxes serving as tables, or simply clumped here and there as if clinging together for company.

"I'm not used to providing my own decor," Matt admitted with a shrug, ruefully eyeing his warehouse landscape. "And then, I'm not sure how long I'll stay in Vegas."

Temple tried not to look startled. Of course Matt would stay; she was far too interested for him to just fade away on her and move on. And of course her feelings and wishes had nothing to do with what he wanted to do, and would do.

So her sudden pall of disappointment as she stepped into the room so exactly like her own, but so much emptier, was not because of the blank slate of his surroundings, but due to the General Unpredictability of Anyone, which led her back to her conundrum.

"Have a seat." Matt gestured to the black-and-tan plaid sofa, wisely selected to conceal dust, dirt and wear and tear, then corrected himself, "Have the seat."

He sat on a piled pair of wooden crates.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm disturbed about something I can't see around."

"What's that?" he asked, instantly interested. Problems did not dismay him; in fact, they were a kind of security blanket, Temple saw. As long as he could concentrate on someone else, he wouldn't have to look too much at himself.

"I know something about somebody nobody else does," she said, realizing she sounded slightly childish.

"And you're trying to decide whether to go into blackmail or not?"

She wasn't in the mood for humor. "I'm trying to decide if I'm obligated to keep it to myself--or the opposite."

"Why is your knowledge a problem?"

"It's about someone involved with Blandina Tyler."

Speculation ruffled Matt's face like wind on water. "You're usually one to unearth information, not suppress it. Why does this instance bother you?"

"It's . . . very personal, and it's sad, and the person just poured it out to me because I happened to be there at a critical moment."

"Isn't that what crack gumshoes love?"

"I'm not a professional, Matt. I'm not even a dedicated amateur. I can't help it if I keep . . . finding out things about people. And this is so remote, so farfetched"

"Nothing about a possible murder is farfetched."

"I know. That's why messing around in one can do so much damage. And this person has been damaged enough."

Matt's brown eyes grew as distant as such a warm shade can manage. "We're all damaged enough," he murmured as if thinking of someone else. "By the age of three," he added ruefully. His gaze snapped back to her, sharp and intent.

"Look, I'm in the same boat you're in, only my silence has been invoked on professional grounds. I'm still uneasy about it."

"Someone confessed to you?"

"In a manner of speaking. It's not official, but ethically my hands are tied, so I guess I'll just keep sitting on them."

Temple felt her eyes widen and her voice lower. "Matt, do you suppose we're both talking about the same person?"

"I doubt it," he said dryly, "but you've got me awfully curious about who your confider is. You aren't bound by the confessional, Temple. You're free to serve your conscience or your civic duty or your instincts--"

"Or my curiosity," she finished in brittle tones. "Why do people keep telling me things?"

He laughed at her exasperation. "You don't seem like you'll harm them."

"That could make me the most dangerous of all," she said.

He nodded. "Let's hope none of your 'confiders' figure that out, especially if your suspicions are correct."

"Oh, I don't know. I don't seem to be doing much of anything right lately."

"Why do you say that?"

Temple lifted her hand and then let it fall despondently to the sofa cushion she was sitting on. "Oh, Midnight Louie's been gone for a long time. I'm afraid that it's that Humane Society cat I brought back from the cat show."

"You're not surprised about that?" Matt sounded shocked. "No, Louie wouldn't like that. Cats are very territorial."

"But she's such a little darling, and all black, too."

"Color coordination does not soothe the savage beast when his territory is involved. Is she spayed?"

"Not yet."

"Then Louie might overlook the obvious, but you could end up with kittens on your hands."