Софи Райан - The Whole Cat Аnd Caboodle

I changed into a black sweater and my favorite pair of gray suede pull-on boots. A loud meow came from the chair by the window.

I looked over at the cat. “This is insane,” I muttered.

He narrowed his eyes at me, and his tail slapped against the seat of the chair. Then he looked pointedly at the television again.

I checked my watch, even though I didn’t really need to. I knew exactly what time it was. What I didn’t know was how Elvis knew what time it was. And he definitely did know.

I grabbed the remote off the nightstand, turned on the TV and changed the channel just in time to hear Johnny Gilbert announce, “This is Jeopardy! ”

Elvis made a noise that sounded a lot like sigh of contentment and stretched out on the lounge chair, chin on his paws.

The cat was a Jeopardy! junkie, something I’d discovered about a week after I’d brought him home. Elvis had been eating when suddenly his head came up as though maybe he’d heard something. He’d tipped it to one side like he was listening and then he headed purposefully for the bedroom. Curious, I’d followed him.

He had parked himself on the floor in front of the television and looked at me. When I didn’t do anything he’d made a sharp meow. So I’d turned the TV on. The cat had studied the screen for a moment and then meowed again.

“What? You don’t like Star Trek reruns?” I’d said.

That had gotten me a look that I would have called withering if Elvis had been a person. So I started working my way through the channels. It was strange enough thinking that the cat wanted to watch TV, so it wasn’t that much weirder to think that he had a specific program in mind. The moment he’d seen Alex Trebek, Elvis had jumped up onto the chair and stretched out.

The same thing happened the next night, although I didn’t channel surf. I went right to the show. The third night was a Saturday. When Elvis started for the bedroom, I’d said, “It’s Saturday. No Jeopardy! ”

He’d stopped in his tracks. I’d waited to see what he’d do. After a moment he’d turned and come back to his bowl. Not only did I have a cat that liked to watch quiz shows, but somehow he also knew it was a weeknight thing.

Luckily, the TV had a sleep timer so I could set it to turn off in thirty minutes, when the show was over. I pulled my hooded red sweater over my head and grabbed the beaded bag Jess had given me for my birthday.

“I’m leaving,” I said to Elvis.

His eyes didn’t move from the screen. His tail twitched once and he made a low murp that was probably the cat equivalent of “Okay. Fine.”

The streets in North Harbor were spread out in no pattern that I’d ever been able to figure out. It seemed that as the town grew, streets were laid down wherever they seemed to be needed, so it wasn’t always easy to get from one place to another in more or less a straight line. But that was part of the town’s charm, too. I was only three blocks from the harbor front. An easy walk.

Jess had already snagged a booth along the back wall when I got to The Black Bear. One elbow was on the table, head propped on her hand, and she was staring at a basket of Sam’s spicy corn chips.

“Why are you torturing yourself?” I asked as I slid onto the seat opposite her.

“It’s not torture,” she said, without looking up. “I’m expanding my sphere of willpower.”

“Just because you’re trying to eat healthier doesn’t mean you can’t have the occasional corn chip, Jess,” I said.

Jess was trying to live a healthier lifestyle but it kept getting derailed by her love of all things deep-fried and her loathing for any activity that made her sweat.

“I don’t want a corn chip,” she said in a flat voice, like she was repeating some kind of mantra. She was concentrating so hard there were frown lines between her blue eyes.

“Okay,” I said. I reached over and pulled the basket across the table. I knew the crisp little tortilla triangles would be spiced with cracked black pepper and lemon. I grabbed two. They were delicious, still warm from the oven. I ate a third one.

“How can you sit there and eat those right in front of me?” Jess asked, an exaggerated aggrieved edge to her voice.

“I’m removing temptation from your sphere of willpower,” I said, reaching for another chip.

She made a face at me and leaned against the back of the booth. She was wearing her long brown hair loose with a pumpkin-colored sweater, jeans and brown knee-high boots. She had a funky, eclectic style and she could find humor in just about anything.

Jess had grown up in North Harbor but we really hadn’t been friends, probably because I was a summer kid. We’d gotten close when I put an ad on the music-department bulletin board at the University of Maine, looking for a roommate. Jess had been the only person to call. She’d been studying art history and I’d been doing a business degree and taking every music course I could fit into my schedule, but we’d hit it off. After we’d been living together for a couple of weeks she’d confessed that she’d taken the ad down about five minutes after I’d pinned it up.

“I would have put it back if I hadn’t liked you,” she’d said.

“What if I hadn’t liked you?” I’d countered. We’d been out on the lawn, painting a trash-picked table we’d carried half a mile home, walking on the edge of the road like a couple of nomads.

Jess had grinned. “Now, what were the chances of that ever happening?”

“How was your day?” she asked me now.

I blew out a breath. “That’s a long story,” I said, looking around for a waitress.

“I already ordered for us,” Jess said, waving one hand dismissively at me.

“Why?” I asked as I pulled my sweater off over my head. It was warm inside The Black Bear. Even though it was a Monday night the place was about half-full. Three tables had been pushed together in the center of the room for what I was guessing was a group of tourists, at least a dozen. There was another tourist, a woman wearing a Red Sox cap and sunglasses, in the booth behind Jess. The folded map on the seat beside her was a dead giveaway,

“Because I know you like Sam’s fish chowder and Sam said they seemed to be having a run on it tonight. Did you want something else?”

I shook my head. “No, that’s good. Did you order me some of those little cheese biscuits?”

She nodded. “I told Sam you’d figure out your own dessert.”

I smiled at her. “Thanks.”

She laced her fingers behind her head. “So, tell me the long story about your day.”

“Let me see if I can sum it up for you,” I said. “I got a great price on two boxes of Fiestaware. I saw a seventy-five-year-old man naked. And Charlotte and I discovered a dead body.”

Jess blinked. “Wow,” she said. “That beats the heck out of a seagull stealing my French fries at lunch.” She leaned forward again, forearms on the table. “Start with the dead body.”

“His name is—was Arthur Fenety.”

“Wait a minute. Does he have a sister named Daisy?”

“Yes,” I said, stretching my legs under the table. “Why? Do you know her?”

“I altered a dress for her. Silk. Beautiful, beautiful fabric. What happened to her brother?”

“I’m not sure,” I said carefully. I explained how Charlotte and I had ended up at Maddie’s house.

Jess shook her head. “Poor Maddie. She’s such a nice person. You know those buckets of tulips that are out in front of the shop?”

I nodded.

“She helped me plant all of them. She gave me fertilizer to put in the water. She even told me when to water them. You know me—I can’t even keep plastic flowers alive.”

Our waitress arrived then with two oversize steaming bowls of Sam’s fish chowder, a plate of cheese biscuits and a little pot of butter.