Софи Райан - Two Tall Tails

Elvis craned his neck to check out the plate of fish, whiskers twitching.

“How did you get those things in your fur?” I asked, reaching out to stroke the top of his head.

“Mrr,” the cat said, looking—it seemed to me—just a little sheepish.

“Poking your nose in somewhere it shouldn’t have been?” I raised an eyebrow and he ducked his head almost as though he was embarrassed. He really was a beautiful animal. The long scar that cut diagonally across his nose gave him a kind of rakish, devil-may-care look that made just about every visitor to the shop want to stop and stroke his sleek black fur and fuss over him a little.

Elvis turned his attention again to the plate with the sardines. I reached for the gardening gloves and pulled one of them on to protect my right hand. The left one was healing and I was slowly getting strength and range of motion back, but I didn’t dare take the splint off. I was going to have to do this one-handed.

“You have one of those sardines and I’m going to try to work those burdocks out of your fur,” I said.

Elvis bent his head over the little fish and I studied the burdock closest to his ear. It was snagged firmly in his black fur. I felt the ridge of another old wound under my fingers, and wondered, once again, who or what the small cat had tangled with before he’d come to live with me and what the other guy looked like.

Holding the burdock—which was rather like holding on to a tiny cactus ball—between two gloved fingers, I worked carefully to get the fur out of it. As if he understood what I was doing, Elvis stopped eating, head hovering over the plate when I came to an especially stubborn spot.

The second burr was harder to remove, snagged even deeper in the cat’s thick black coat. I reached for the peanut butter and smeared a little in Elvis’s fur. Bit by bit I managed to work the spiky seedpod loose, and then used the wide-toothed comb to make sure all the tiny bits of the burdock were out. Elvis sat upright, patient and still as if this was something he’d had done before, and when I was finally satisfied, he almost seemed to smile at me before giving the area a good wash with his paw.

I got to my feet, stretched and decided to make a quick circuit around the yard to see if I could spot the burdock plant Elvis had tangled with. The cat climbed up on the railing, looking as though he were supervising as I searched.

I found no sign of the prickly plant. I knew there were burdocks growing behind both Tom and Angie’s property. I glanced in that direction in time to see Jason Bates come out of Angie’s house. Tom was in his yard, clipping the dead blossoms off his potted geraniums. Jason walked across the grass to the older man and pointed at the copper birdbath on the grass next to the side of Tom’s garage. In the pan sat a gleaming silver gazing ball, a gift from Angie after the squirrels had chased away the birds and begun using the birdbath as their personal hot tub.

I couldn’t make out what Jason was saying but I could hear his tone: belligerent and angry. Tom leaned heavily on his cane and shook his head. Jason gestured in the direction of the birdbath again. The older man continued to stubbornly shake his head.

Jason strode back across the grass and paced off a distance from Angie’s garage to the copper lawn ornament. He stood beside it and said something to Tom. Then he shook his fist at Matilda. The corgi barked loudly at him, pulling at her leash. Tom bent and picked her up. Jason swung around, bumping the birdbath. The silver gazing ball hit the ground, shattering into jagged pieces.

Tom’s body went rigid. He said something to Jason that I couldn’t catch. I did hear Jason’s reply, though. “Screw you, old man,” he shouted. He grabbed the birdbath with one hand and flung it out into the street, then he turned and stalked into the house.

I closed my eyes for a moment and exhaled softly before heading next door. I didn’t like the way things were changing on the street, although I had no idea what to do.

Matilda had stopped barking. Tom was stroking her fur, talking softly to her. His hand was shaking.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. The little dog nuzzled his chin. “But the next time I see that young man, he won’t be.”

Katie joined us then, one hand holding on to Molly’s little hand, the other on her rounded belly. There were tight lines around her blue eyes. “What was that all about?” she asked.

I glanced at the pieces of the broken gazing ball in the driveway. It was hard to miss the symbolism. It felt as though our neighborhood was splintering into pieces.

“The birdbath.” Tom gestured toward the street but didn’t turn to look in that direction. “He said it was encroaching on Angie’s property. I told him it wasn’t, and it isn’t any of his business even if it were. That house belongs to her, not him.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Jason’s a . . . challenging person.”

Katie looked over at Angie’s neat little house. “I can’t . . . if he’s going to be living here all the time, I don’t know if we can stay here.” She glanced down at Molly, who was talking to Matilda.

I didn’t know what to say. I reached over and gave Katie’s arm what I hoped was a comforting squeeze. How had things gotten so bad so quickly?

Tom looked down at Molly. “Sweetie, could you take Matilda for a walk around the backyard, please?” he said. “She needs to stretch her legs.”

The little girl’s eyes lit up and she looked at her mother. Katie nodded.

Tom set the corgi on the ground and handed Molly the leash. She took it in both of her hands. He patted the dog’s head and slipped her a treat. “Good girl,” he said.

Molly headed for the backyard, the smile on her face showing how proud she was to be doing such an important job. Once she’d disappeared around the side of the house, Tom looked at Katie. “Tell Sarah what you told me,” he said, his gaze flicking across the driveway for a moment. “About the carpet.”

Katie chewed the edge of her bottom lip and cleared her throat. “Angie had new carpeting put in her spare bedroom a couple of weeks ago.”

I nodded. I remembered seeing the carpet installer’s van in Angie’s driveway one morning when I was leaving for the shop.

The young mother leaned sideways and waved at Molly as she came past the end of the house, walking in a wide circle in the backyard, both hands still clutching Matilda’s leash. “I asked her about it because we’ve been thinking about putting carpet in the baby’s room.” She put her other hand protectively over her abdomen. “She took me upstairs to show me what the carpet looked like, and when we were coming back down, she told me that they even fixed the place on the stairs where the runner was loose.”

Once again Tom’s gaze moved to the house next door before coming back to Katie. “It doesn’t make sense that Angie fell on a loose edge just after it was repaired,” he said.

“The carpet on the stairs was fine the day I was there,” Katie added.

Tom and Katie were suggesting that Jason was behind Angie’s fall. Was it possible?

“People don’t always do a good job when they fix something,” I said, feeling a little odd to be defending Jason.

“And other people can undo good jobs,” Tom said, the set of his jaw telling me that he had already made up his mind.

The sun had gone behind a cloud, and I suddenly felt a chill. I folded my arms over my chest. “I don’t like Jason,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “but do you really think he would go that far? For what reason?”

“Money,” Tom said. He smoothed a hand over his hair. “Angie asked me to recommend a lawyer when she redid her will. Jason and another niece are Angie’s only relatives, and she told me that they would split her estate when she’s gone. He can’t seem to keep a job. If something happens to Angie, he won’t have to.”