Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives

I got in the front seat of the Bronco and sighed. Except for a catnap in the middle of the day, I’d been up since five in the morning, and my head felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. The roadblocks were still up, and it didn’t look like they were clearing them out anytime soon. What remained of Baldy’s convertible was sitting in the middle of the road, and probably the landscape truck would have to be towed away, too. I was thinking I’d have to ask the cops to move the barricades so I could go home, but I knew they already had their hands full and I didn’t want to get in their way.

Just then I looked up and saw a familiar sign on the front of one of the shops up the street. It read BEEZY’S BOOKSTORE—NEW AND USED.

“Well,” I said to myself, “I’ve done crazier things.”

I reached in the backseat and grabbed Ethan’s black hoodie. It fit me like a king-sized mattress cover, but it did a nice job of concealing my bloodied clothing, and I planned on whipping into the store as quickly as possible and picking out the first book that caught my eye.

In a small town like this, you always have to consider the possibility that you’ll bump into somebody you know, but if I was lucky I could be in and out in five minutes and no one would ever see what a whack-job I looked like. With one more check of my reflection in the car window, I zipped up the hoodie, smoothed my hair back, and headed off for Beezy’s Bookstore.

If I’d known better, I would have gotten right back in the car. In fact, if I’d known better, I would have gotten right back in the car, calmly backed out of the parking space, shifted into gear, crashed through the police barricades, sped out of town like a bat out of hell, and never looked back.

Instead, I went shopping.

3

The front window of Beezy’s Bookstore was one of those big rounded affairs that the old shops used to have, with thick iron muntins framing glass panes so old they look like they’re melting. There were all kinds of books in the display, some old, some new, all artfully arranged and lit by two hanging lamps with milky glass shades. In one corner was a small terra-cotta urn with an impossibly vigorous devil’s ivy spilling out in every direction. It weaved in and around all the books, climbing up both sides of the window and intertwining again across the top. In the window pane just next to the door was one of those old OPEN signs with a little clock face and movable hands.

In the other corner, the one farthest from the door, was a stack of old dictionaries about two and a half feet tall, on top of which was a fluffy coating of fur, as if the books had sprouted a thick head of orange hair. I knew right away that hiding somewhere inside was a very lucky, very furry tabby cat.

When I pushed the door open I heard a little tinkling bell over my head and immediately felt a rush, as if I’d just gone down a slide. It had to be the same bell that was there when I was a child, because all kinds of memories came rushing into my head, memories of being sprawled out under a big claw-foot table in the middle of the store, my head resting on a stack of books-to-read, holding whatever was my current favorite aloft over my head, lost in its world.

I felt like I’d stepped out of a time machine. The place was virtually unchanged from how I remembered it. Just inside the door to the left was an antique cash register, sitting on top of a dark, glossy wood counter with burled edges and brass corners. There was an old metal-backed stool with a well-worn cushion behind the counter, surrounded by stacks and stacks of books, old ledgers, boxes of receipts, and paper bags brimming over with magazines and comics.

A narrow aisle led down the middle of the store, lined on either side with antique bookshelves reaching almost to the ceiling and overflowing with books of every size, shape, and color. It had that intoxicating bookstore smell you’ll never find surfing around one of those online megabook Web sites: a delicious mixture of vanilla, stale popcorn, dust, cedar, and coffee.

Immediately I felt like I was home, and then just as fast I felt a twinge of guilt for staying away so long. Mr. Beezy had probably passed away years ago, and here I hadn’t even bothered to notice. I’d grown up and moved on, gone to school, joined the sheriff’s department, started my own life … and then things got very busy and very complicated. Life does that to you sometimes.

One thing was new, though: On the ends of all the shelves were pictures, framed in glass and hung one on top of the other in a vertical row. At first I thought they were just copies or pictures torn out of a magazine, but looking closer I realized they were originals—pen-and-ink drawings—and absolutely exquisite. I leaned in to inspect one particularly nice portrait of a young woman holding a tiny kitten in her lap. She was wearing a ring with a diamond the size of a ten-cent gum ball. In the corner of the drawing was a signature: L. Hoskins.

I paused in the middle of the store. There, just as I remembered it, was a large, round claw-foot table. It was piled high with all kinds of books: romances, poetry, nature journals, science fiction, reference volumes, graphic novels, mysteries—every type of book imaginable—all tumbled together in a great big wonderful mess.

When I was a little girl, it never occurred to me that all those books weren’t there for my own personal pleasure. That was thanks to Mr. Beezy. He never once complained to my grandmother that I needed to either buy a book or get out. He’d let me lie there on the floor for hours, only occasionally sneaking up to quietly lay down another book he’d picked out for me.

Now I had that same old feeling again, like a kid in a candy store, except I was beginning to think I was the only one there. All the lights were on, but the thought crossed my mind that maybe the shop was closed and whoever was in charge had gone home for the day and forgotten to lock up.

“Hello?” I called out. “Anybody home?”

Just beyond the last aisle was a waist-high, carved-wood railing with a swinging door that stopped about a foot above the floor, almost like the doorway to an Old West saloon. Beyond that was a small office space, with a big antique mahogany desk and a polished-brass lawyer’s lamp sitting next to an ancient automatic coffeemaker. The room made an L shape to the left, and I could see part of an overstuffed Victorian sofa jutting out from around the corner. It had dark green velvet upholstery and gold tassels hanging off its arms.

Timidly, I tried again. “Hello?”

I was beginning to think maybe I’d better leave when suddenly an orange blur shot out from under the swinging door and went streaking past my feet toward the front door. Sure enough, it was a big fat tabby with an impossibly fluffy, white-tipped tail. It slid to a stop at the register, took a couple of quick looks around, and then zipped under the front counter. That’s when I heard a dull thud from the back room.

I called out louder this time, “Hello? Anyone here?”

“Yes,” a creaky male voice came from the back. “Be right with you!”

I let out a sigh of relief. “No rush, I just wasn’t sure you were open.”

He mumbled something unintelligible as I looked at my watch. It was 6:04. I hadn’t even thought to see if the shop’s hours were posted in the front window, but of course it was probably closing time. On a weekday, most shopkeepers in town go home at sunset, and it was almost dark outside now.

“Never mind Cosmo!” the man called out. “He’s always racing around like that.”

That should be easy, I thought as I wandered down one of the aisles, tilting my head to the side so I could read the titles. Cosmo had absolutely no interest in me. I was sure by now he’d taken up his spot back on top of those furry dictionaries and settled in for a cozy nap.