Six Cats a Slayin' Read online

  “I don’t reckon you heard me,” Azalea said.

  “Sorry, I didn’t. What did you say?” I asked.

  “Wanted to know if you wanted another biscuit and more ham.”

  “Gracious me, no, thank you. I’ve had plenty.” The truth was, I would happily have eaten another biscuit or two, packed with ham, but I had to make some effort to keep my waistline under control.

  “If you’re sure.” Azalea gazed at me a moment longer. When I didn’t respond, she sighed and turned back to the stove.

  Diesel had resumed batting the crumpled invitation around the kitchen, and I knew I had to take it away from him. I couldn’t ignore the invitation, much as I would have liked to. No, I would probably have to give in and accept. But only if Helen Louise was available to go with me, I decided. The invitation had said and guest.

  I heard the front doorbell ring, one sharp, quick note. I pushed back from the table and rose. “I’ll get it,” I said.

  Diesel preceded me. He loved visitors and was invariably first to the door.

  I opened the door, a smile of greeting ready, but no one waited on the other side. I was about to step forward onto the porch, but Diesel’s growl alerted me.

  As I halted and glanced down, I heard faint sounds of mewling from the area near my feet. I had been about to step into a box containing five kittens.

  TWO

  Two days after The Great Kitten Rescue, as Stewart insisted on calling it, my new four-legged boarders came home from the veterinarian’s office. Dr. Romano, Diesel’s vet, had checked all five kittens thoroughly. She estimated they were about eight or nine weeks old, ready to be weaned. They were healthy and had obviously been cared for before they wound up on my doorstep.

  Prior to my discovery of the note in the box with the kittens, I considered taking them to the local shelter. I didn’t think I could cope with five additional felines in the house. The note changed my mind, though. In block print, it read, He says he’ll drown them. Please take care of them for me. The emphasis on that first pronoun bothered me. I immediately imagined a heartless father or stepfather who didn’t want to feed five cats. The poor author of the note was desperate to save them.

  The paper with its ruled lines had been torn from a school notebook, and that made me think the person who wrote it was young, perhaps an adolescent. The letters were well-formed enough that I figured they weren’t written by a young child. I showed it to Dr. Romano, but since the paper contained no real clues to the identity of the writer, she shrugged and confessed to being as puzzled as I was.

  The upshot was that I had five more mouths to feed. I had been worried that Azalea would have a fit with more cats in the house, but after she held one of the kittens, an orange tabby, I knew the battle was over. Azalea pretended to be gruff and tough much of the time, but at heart she was kindness itself. I suspected that at least one of the kittens might go home with her, if at all possible, once I resolved the mystery of their sudden appearance in my life.

  In addition to the kitten Azalea favored, there were two other orange tabbies. The remaining two kittens were tabbies also, but dark gray with black markings. These two reminded me of a much-loved cat I’d had once, named Marlowe. She was named for the Elizabethan playwright, and I had adored her. I decided that I’d call one of these kittens by her name. Fortunately for me, Dr. Romano had determined the sex of each kitten. There were three males, the orange tabbies; and two females, the gray tabbies.

  The two females were easier to tell apart. One was darker than the other, and that was Marlowe. I decided to call her sister Bastet, in honor of the cat in Elizabeth Peters’s Amelia Peabody books. Two of the boys looked almost identical and were dark ginger. After some thought, I settled on Fred and George, the names of the ginger-headed Weasley twins from the Harry Potter books. The other was lighter, and I named him Ramses, again in honor of a character from the Peabody books.

  Azalea was one major concern. Diesel was the other. He had been around other cats occasionally, like Endora, the Abyssinian belonging to the Ducote sisters and their ward, Benjy Stephens. Adult cats were one thing, however. Five kittens—five active kittens—were quite another matter. Diesel exhibited a lot of curiosity about the brood. He was tall enough to look over the side of the box they arrived in, and while I stood at the door staring down at them, he regarded them for perhaps thirty seconds before he turned his head to look up at me. He meowed, and I would have sworn he was asking me, Well, what do we do now?

  “That’s a good question,” I responded, looking down at him. “First thing is to bring them into the house because it’s chilly out here.” Diesel moved back when I bent to pick up the box. The kittens squeaked and mewed in alarm, and I spoke in soothing tones to them. “It’s all right, little ones, you’re safe. We’ll look after you.” Diesel warbled as if to reinforce my promise.

  From then on, Diesel stayed near the kittens whenever possible. I first considered keeping them in the utility room—until I remembered the tendency of kittens to find tight spaces to squeeze into. The utility room offered several such possibilities, none of them particularly salubrious for small fry. I discarded that idea because I didn’t want to have to move appliances in order to rescue stuck felines.

  Finally I settled on the living room for the daytime. I moved furniture around in order to clear a corner of the room. Using two small, wide bookshelves turned on their sides, I created an effective barrier to contain the quintet. At least for a week or so, I told myself ruefully, before they learned how to climb over the barricade. If we had already put up the Christmas tree in the room, I would have probably put them in the den. But our family tradition was to put it up on Christmas Eve. Perhaps by then I would be able to find out where the kittens belonged.

  Inside the kitten corral, I placed two litter boxes and two cat beds, along with water and food bowls. The space was large enough for play, plus Diesel could sit atop one of the shelves and monitor the activity of the inmates. He appeared to enjoy this task. In fact, he didn’t want to leave the kittens when I was ready to go to work on the second day we had them.

  “I suppose it’s just as well he’s staying here today,” I told Azalea as I gathered my briefcase and my coat. “He can help babysit so that you don’t have to worry about them climbing out somehow and getting lost in the house.”

  Azalea chuckled. “Suits me fine, Mr. Charlie. You go on to work and don’t worry about us.”

  I nodded. “Call me if you need anything. I can run by the grocery store when I come home for lunch if necessary.” I headed out the back door into the garage.

  As I backed down the driveway to the street, I kept my eyes on the rearview camera in my new car. My previous car hadn’t had this device, and I was still getting used to it. Suddenly a flash of movement on the screen startled me, and I hit the brakes as I was about to back into the street.

  My heart thudded from what might have been a near miss. I turned to look back and saw a smartly dressed young black woman standing on the sidewalk a few feet away. She was waving at me. I put the car in park and rolled down my window.

  “Good morning, Mr. Harris.” She stepped closer and stooped enough so that I could see her face without craning my neck out the window. “Sorry if I startled you, but I saw you backing out, and I wanted to catch you before you got away.” She smiled.

  I tried not to sound grumpy when I replied, but I might not have been completely successful. “What can I do for you, ma’am? If we’ve met, I regret to say I don’t remember your name.”

  The young woman, who I judged to be in her late twenties, smiled again. “Oh, we haven’t met, but I know all about you. My employer, Mrs. Albritton, told me about you. Actually, she sent me out to catch you.”

  I suspected a trap. I had avoided face-to-face contact with Gerry Albritton for the past couple of days because I had still not made up my mind about the blasted holiday party sh
e was throwing. I had no doubt she had sent this young woman to get an answer out of me.

  Gerry’s assistant continued to speak. “My name is Jincy Bruce.”

  “Nice to meet you, Ms. Bruce.” I repeated my question. “What can I do for you?”

  “Gerry wanted me to ask you about her party,” Jincy replied. “She knows how busy you are, but she’s trying to nail down the guest list before she gives the caterer the final numbers. She needs to do that this afternoon.”

  I interpreted the smile that accompanied this message as apologetic. Was chasing down guests part of Jincy Bruce’s regular duties? I wondered.

  I was tempted to say that I had other plans, simply to be contrary, but I realized that was a childish response. So I forced myself to smile before I answered.

  “Please tell Gerry that I will be delighted to attend and that I will be bringing my partner. I believe the invitation was issued to me and guest.”

  “Your partner?” Jincy looked confused for a moment; then she grinned as if struck by something amusing. “Oh, I see. Thanks, Mr. Harris, I’ll let Gerry know. Bye, now!” She waved as she turned to hurry across the street.

  I sat there a moment, puzzled by Jincy Bruce’s reaction to my statement. What had she found so amusing? Was it my use of the word partner? What was so funny about that?

  Still puzzled, I put the car in reverse and continued backing into the street. Had the day not been on the chilly side with a hint of rain later on, I might have walked to the Athena College Library. The drive took less than ten minutes because the campus lay so close to my neighborhood, and it was an easy walk when the weather complied. Today, however, I might need the car, not only to run an errand later but also to stay dry if the rain came as predicted.

  Going to work at the archive without Diesel felt odd. Over the years since I found him, wet and shivering in the bushes of the parking lot at the public library, he had rarely missed a day accompanying me. I knew Melba would be disappointed not to see her little buddy, but she would get a kick out of hearing about Diesel the kitten-sitter.

  I stuck my head in Melba’s office to wish her a good morning. She looked up from her desk with a grin—that slowly faded when she realized I was alone.

  “Good morning, Charlie.” She got up from the desk and walked toward me, her expression anxious. “Where’s Diesel? Is he sick?”

  “No, he’s fine.” I grinned. “He decided he’d rather stay home with the kids today.”

  Melba laughed. “Has he decided to be their nanny?”

  “Looks like it,” I replied. “Frankly, I’m relieved that he has taken to the kittens so well. I was worried that he would be upset with five more cats in the house.”

  “He’s such a sweet boy,” Melba said. “Have you found out any more about who left those babies on the doorstep?”

  “No, not yet. I haven’t really had much time, other than to make a few calls around the neighborhood. So far nobody knows anything about them. Or at least, that’s what they’re saying.”

  “They’re probably better off with you, anyway,” Melba said. I had told her about the note I had found with the kittens. “Imagine someone wanting to drown those five darling little babies.” She shook her head. “That’s one mystery that maybe you shouldn’t solve.”

  “Maybe not.” I had considered that option but hadn’t made a final decision yet.

  “Speaking of mysteries, though,” Melba said, “I’ve been doing some calling around of my own since you first told me about that new neighbor of yours, Ms. So-Called Geraldine Albritton.”

  From her tone, I figured Melba had not dug up anything yet.

  “I managed to get a hold of Billy Albritton, and he says he doesn’t know any Geraldine Albritton. He couldn’t talk but a minute, though, so I didn’t get to ask him anything else.

  “Then I talked to a couple more Albrittons I know, and not a single one of them has ever heard of a Geraldine in the family. And you know what that means?” Melba fixed me with a stern gaze. “It means that woman is an impostor. You’d better find out who she really is and what she’s up to before she causes any serious trouble.”

  THREE

  “I’d swear she told me she’s lived in Athena all her life.” I frowned. “Why would she lie about that?”

  Melba shrugged. “Maybe she’s not lying about it. Maybe she did grow up here. I bet you what she’s lying about is her real name.”

  “What can she be trying to hide? Jail time, for example?” I could come up with numerous lurid possibilities based on the thousands of mysteries I had read since childhood.

  “Could be. What if she’s hiding from an ex-husband or a stalker?” Melba asked. “Maybe she’s really from somewhere else, and she came here under a new name to get away from an abusive man and just happened to pick Albritton.” She shrugged. “If you want to get real crazy, maybe she’s in some kind of witness protection program.”

  “Hold on a minute,” I said. “Let’s not get too carried away and get the FBI involved. She could very well be hiding from someone, but if she is, then that’s her business.”

  “Unless she’s running from the law.” Melba looked grim. “She could be wanted for the Lord knows what somewhere else, and here she is, trying to hide out in Athena to keep from going to prison. We don’t need a dangerous criminal right under our noses.”

  I knew if I laughed I would hurt Melba’s feelings, but she was getting more and more off-the-wall with her speculation. After a cough to cover an inadvertent snicker, I said, “There could be some offshoot of the Albritton clan that people have forgotten about. Didn’t you tell me that it’s a big family?”

  “Yes, it is. Old Mr. Albritton, the one who died last year at ninety-nine, had thirteen brothers and sisters, and they all married and had children, and those children have children, and so on, so you might be right.”

  “You’ll keep digging, I’m sure.”

  “Darn tootin’, I’ll keep digging.” Melba shot me a look full of determination. “I want to know who that woman really is and what she’s after.”

  “Let me know if you find out,” I said in a light tone. “In the meantime I’m going to go upstairs and get to work.”

  Melba nodded, but I could see that her mind was still preoccupied with the mystery of Geraldine Albritton. I knew the problem would worry her until she found an answer.

  I had more than enough to do that day without spending time thinking about my mysterious neighbor. Two graduate students from the history department had been working in the archive recently. One was a master’s degree student, the other a doctoral one. Both specialized in Southern history, and the archive held several collections of diaries and private papers of great interest for Mississippi and for Southern history in general. The students could only work with the documents under my supervision, however. No one was allowed to remove documents from the archive without special permission, and that was rarely given.

  To my surprise, neither student was waiting, as at least one of them usually was. Moreover, neither made an appearance that morning. I finally remembered why. The semester was almost at an end, and their Christmas and New Year’s break loomed closer. This was finals week, and they were far too busy elsewhere. They might even have headed home already for the holidays. I had the office completely to myself. No Diesel, no students.

  With the quiet around me, I decided I would have a productive day with few distractions. That meant I could get on with cataloging a collection of nineteenth-century Southern novels from a recent donation. The donor had collected the work of writers like John Pendleton Kennedy, William Gilmore Simms, Kate Chopin, and George Tucker. I had to resist the temptation to read instead of catalog, though, because—with the exception of Chopin—I had not read these writers. Two of the books even featured inscriptions by the authors, and that made them even more interesting to me. I liked that personal touch
.

  I happily spent a couple of hours immersed in cataloging after I finished checking and responding as needed to my e-mail. A little after ten thirty, the ringing of my office phone pulled me from my absorption in creating detailed notes about the copy of Kennedy’s Swallow Barn from the collection. I laid it aside to pick up the receiver.

  “Charlie Harris. How can I help you?”

  “Hey, Charlie, hope I’m not bothering you, but I wanted to talk to you a minute if you’ve got the time,” a man’s voice said.

  After a moment’s hesitation I recognized the caller as Milton Harville, the owner of one of the pharmacies in town. The business had originated with his grandfather and had remained in the family since. Milton’s daughter Jenny had recently graduated from pharmacy school and had joined her father in the store. The Harvilles had also lived in my neighborhood for several generations, and Milton and I had been in the same class in school. We had been friends since elementary school.

  “Hi, Milton, sure thing, what’s up?” I replied.

  “Well, I feel kinda funny even asking about this, but you and me, well, we’ve known each other forever, besides being neighbors, so I reckoned you might not mind talking about it.”

  Milton, whose house stood in the middle of the block on the street behind mine, had always taken forever to get to the point in a conversation, and today was no exception. He was a nice guy, so I responded in a friendly tone. “Talking about what?”

  I heard an indrawn breath at the other end of the line. Then the expulsion of a sigh. “It’s this new neighbor of ours, Gerry Albritton. You must have met her by now, surely.”

  “Yes, I’ve met her,” I said. “She can be a little overwhelming.” That seemed a safe enough comment.

  “You’re not kidding,” Milton said. “Pushy ain’t the word, I gotta tell you. She’s been after me and Tammy about this party of hers. Tammy don’t want to go, but you know I’m in business, and I can’t afford to offend potential customers. Gerry looks like she wears a lot of makeup, and she could be a real good customer. We sell a lot of cosmetics here, you know. So, I feel like we kinda have to go to this shindig of hers, even if I have to go without Tammy, but I’ll never hear the end of it if I do go without her, so I’m wondering what the heck I oughta do.” He paused for a breath, then hurried on before I could respond.