Manhunt. Volume 4, Number 6, June, 1956

Dead Man’s Cat by Sylvie Pasche

The coroner’s verdict was accidental death, and no one questioned it. Except, apparently, this cat.

“The things that happen,” Stella used to remark as she went over her notes. Her desk was between Ed’s and mine, and we lapped up anything she cared to say. Actually, we had taught her how to be a reporter. “I tell you, fellas, half the facts you run across in your work you couldn’t use as fiction. They’re too unlikely.”

It was a fine conviction for a newspaperwoman to have, and we cheered her on. It didn’t occur to us — at least, not to me — that we could be involved in such facts ourselves. Before we were, however, a couple of other things had to take place.

First, Stella married Ed and left the Evening Record. Then Ed, who was top rewrite man on the paper, arranged for a year’s leave of absence, so that he and Stella could “explore the world.” I was to act as his stand-in during that year. So far, there was nothing sensational.

But the morning after Ed left the paper, his body was found floating among the barges and fruit ships in the inlet under the Third Street Bridge.

Those on the paper were shocked to consternation. Ed had once been a waterfront reporter, and after becoming a desk man he had always been drawn back to his old pastures — the smoke-filled taverns, the formless blocks of freight warehouses, bustling by day, at night an eerie, dark, deserted world of vague shacks, railroad sidings, and motionless boxcars. Ed had last been seen in a bar not far from the bridge; he had left the bar around one A.M.

A number of us from the Record had been there with him, but the others had left earlier. I had gone only some fifteen minutes before Ed had; my home, a furnished apartment, lay in a different direction from his. I was the last of his friends to have seen him alive.

Ed, as we all knew, had been given to walking across the bridge at night, dropping down the three steel steps from the street to the narrow pedestrian walkway. Since his marriage, he used to explain that it helped to dispel the fumes, and that he preferred getting to Stella in a fairly lucid condition. But he also liked to stand and look out over the inlet. He had always been fascinated by the dark water reflecting here and there a yellow light, and also the black shapes of the boats with their dimly-lit decks.

Late at night, the only traffic crossing the bridge was the Third Street bus, running every fifteen minutes, and an occasional car. Ed would catch the bus on the other side of the bridge, or a taxi on a more travelled street, and finally get to his stylish home in St. Francis Wood. This time he never reached the other side of the bridge.

Foul play was the first thing everyone thought of. But Ed had no enemies, as far as anyone knew. Nothing was missing from his pockets and there were no marks on him. His brain, the autopsy revealed, was saturated with alcohol. Death had been induced by drowning. The railing along the walkway was not very high, and it was easy to imagine a man, more or less drunk, possibly sick, leaning over too far and losing his balance. Ed couldn’t swim. The coroner’s verdict was accidental death, and no one questioned it.

The only thing I could do was see that the paper covered the story with decency and reticence. And, besides joining the staff in “flowers for Ed,” I sent on my own an arrangement, for Ed had been my best friend. Somehow, I was not particularly worried about Stella. I knew she had married Ed for his money.

I was jolted when I saw her at the funeral. Her black clothes and subdued make-up could account for her pallor, but there was something else contributing to it — something way below the surface. Standing on the sidewalk afterwards, with people practically offering condolences to me, too, I kept thinking about the way she looked.

I wonder how many hours on a psychoanalyst’s couch I’d need to find out just how I feel about Stella now. But I don’t want to go into that.

She had blown into the office of the paper one day, some five years or so ago, a tall, somewhat athletic girl who still managed to be cute. She was fresh out of college and she had romantic ideas about what it was to be a reporter. Very soon she was talking of her “hunches” and her “leads,” and she played them to the hilt. She had a quick eye, and a dramatic sense that often spilled over into the melodramatic. And unflinchingly, she took on the goriest of murder cases.

Between Ed and me, we pretty well monopolized her. As soon as we could, we got her that desk between us. We gave her all the tips we knew and made sure she wasn’t asking advice from anyone else or going out with anyone else. She had one of those figures that every man takes note of, which means that our relationship couldn’t stay on a high Platonic level, and after some hemming and hawing around, Ed and I began dating her separately. It didn’t get us anywhere. I don’t know which one of us first starting talking about getting married, but I know she gave the same answer to both of us, because she discussed it all at the office, sitting at the desk between us. Without mentioning names, of course.

“If I ever get married,” she would say dreamily, leaning back in her chair and gazing at the ceiling, “it will have to be with a bang. It will have to be a life more interesting than I have now, not less. Why give up an exciting job like this for household chores? If I ever get married, I’ll want us to be able to explore the world from the Paris night-cellars to the opium dens of Hong Kong. I surely won’t want to be just a housewife.”

I figured she talked like that to both of us together so we’d know she wasn’t playing any favorites. She would never commit herself when I was alone with her, but she was very nice to me. Indeed she was. And since I was taller and better-looking than Ed, I was sure that at bottom she preferred me.

But then that uncle of Ed’s died. If I were to live a thousand years, I’d never forget the day Ed came in and told us. He seemed stunned. He was getting something like two hundred and fifty thousand, after taxes.

Stella’s reaction was perfectly simple. You coudn’t even find fault with her. After the to-do was over and Ed was finally alone at his desk again, she leaned sideways toward him and with a wide, downward sweep of her arm, said “And now do you still want me?”

So they got married. And they bought the house. But before they could start on that world tour, Ed went off the Third Street Bridge.

If Ed and Stella had expected me to fill the part of friend of the family, I disappointed them. At first Ed kept asking me out, and I went once, but it was more than I could take and I didn’t go again.

But with Ed no longer there, it was another matter. There was no reason why I shouldn’t see Stella, who, moreover, no longer needed to look for money in the man she married. I’d wait a decent period before asking her, of course. Meanwhile, it was natural that I should go out to see her. She went away for a while after the funeral — to her folks, I believe. During that time I was given Ed’s job on a permanent basis.

When I heard Stella was back, I called her up.

“Oh yes, Bob” she said. “Sure. You must come out. I’ll be glad to see you.” But there was a listlessness in her voice that set me back. Did she feel she had to play the part of the bereaved widow?

I found her looking listless, too. There was no denying it. Although she no longer wore black, she seemed to have the mark of someone who has gone through a shattering experience. She led me into a living room that gave the impression of an interior out of Harper’s Bazaar, and we sat down in deep upholstered chairs.

“I’m so glad you came, Bob,” she said. “I was afraid you might not. You’ve been keeping away pretty much, you know. But I do need all the friends I’ve got. And you were once one of the best.”

I was trying to get used to the flatness in her voice, and I didn’t know what to say. She made a gesture with the hand that held her cigarette. “It’s all right, Bob, you don’t have to answer. I know why you didn’t come. Now will you fix us drinks.”

I fixed her a drink the way I knew she liked it, and poured myself some rye. Bottles and mixers and ice were all ready on a low table, the way they have them on the stage.

Then I sat down again. And the cat came in.

It was not much more than half-grown, and an ordinary alley-cat, mostly white with black-and-grey striping on top. It walked in slowly and straight up to me and sat down on its tail in front of me and fixed me with its big, unblinking eyes.

“You have a cat,” I said, to say something.

“I can’t exactly say I have a cat,” Stella said. “That’s Mona. She belonged to Ed. He picked her up near—” she paused and then went on, “—that bridge on Third Street.”

My glass nearly slipped out of my hand.

Stella went on in that flat, absent voice, “He brought her home one night inside his coat. She was tiny, and filthy, and starved, and he set about rehabilitating her. I was almost jealous of the amount of care she got. But she was devoted to him. I think she still looks for him nights.”

The creature sat staring at me, never moving and never blinking, and Stella didn’t seem to see anything odd in this behavior. I tossed down my rye and poured myself some more.

“I really never did know cats before,” Stella was saying. “Mona is my first experience. I never thought a cat could dote on a person the way she doted on Ed. Besides, I sometimes think she’s got second sight.”

I almost asked what made her say that, but I didn’t really want to hear about Ed’s cat and her second sight. Then the phone rang and Stella went to answer it, and I made a lunge at the beast.

“Skat!” I said under my breath.

She took her eyes from my face long enough to follow the motion of my hand. It passed within an inch of her, but she didn’t even blink.

The cat’s “second sight,” I told myself was without a doubt only a figment of Stella’s addiction to the dramatic. It was just the kind of thing she was always thinking up. But that the cat was sitting there staring at me, to all appearances challenging my right to be there, had nothing to do with Stella. I have always rather liked cats, but I could now feel myself breaking into a sweat.

The visit was definitely not shaping up the way I wanted it to. And I made the mistake of taking a third drink. Though this might relax me for a moment, it wouldn’t help in keeping my mind cool.

Stella didn’t help, either. I had decided simply to ignore the cat, when she came back and took up the conversation where she had left it. Somehow I got the impression that she was glad to have a safe subject of conversation.

“As I was saying,” she said, as she sank back into her chair, “Mona has been quite an experience for me. I would never have thought of taking a cat seriously before.”

I was then on the upswing of my drink, and I said with an amused smile, “Now what the hell do you mean, taking her seriously?”

“I mean just exactly that,” she said, flicking an ash. I didn’t care for what she was saying, and yet in a way it seemed good to hear her blazing away with some crazy idea, almost the way she used to do. “Mona never does anything without a reason. You may not see it right away, but it’s always there, and if you wait long enough, and watch carefully, you’ll find out what it is.”

Was Stella going to dream up a reason for that animal sitting there staring at me? I didn’t put it beyond her. Then it suddenly came to me that for something so marked there must be a reason. If there was, I didn’t want to know it. At that instant I wanted to leave the house.

“Besides,” Stella was saying, “I am convinced that she sees through people—”

I got to my feet. “Honey, let’s go for a spin,” I said.

She looked startled. “Spin? Why you only just got here.”

“I know, but it’s fine out. You’ve been pretty much cooped up lately. We can stop off some place for drinks. Do you good to get out.”

“Oh, no, Bob,” she said. “Not now. I thought you came to see me.”

“That’s right. I did. I wanted to drop in and see how you were making out. But if you won’t come I’ll have to run along.” I was already moving toward the door, carefully not looking toward that confounded cat. I wanted to get away quickly, because I didn’t know what I’d say if I got involved in further explanation. And it seemed to me that as I left Stella looked after me with an expression of bewilderment.

As soon as I was in my car, driving along, I started cursing myself. I didn’t know what had gotten into me, but it was too late to go back.

I drank a great deal that night. The next morning it seemed that I must have been imagining things in a big way. I couldn’t make sense out of anything that had happened, least of all my reaction to an attitude that a dumb animal had happened to take. I couldn’t let myself be routed that easily. I called up Stella.

“Sorry I had to leave so soon last night,” I said. “But you’ve got to come out with me one of these evenings. You set the day.”

“I can’t go out, Bob. Really I can’t. It’s impossible. For one thing, how would it look to be gallivanting around with you so soon after — so soon after—” It gave me a turn to hear that she didn’t seem to be able to bring the words out. The thought that she might have cared for Ed now really began to possess and torment me. And it wasn’t like Stella to give so much thought to what people would say. Was she merely playing a part?

The long and short of it was that I went back to see her. I didn’t want to, but there wasn’t any reason I could give her for not coming that made sense.

I was glad the cat wasn’t in the room when I came in. Stella motioned me to the chair I had used the last time. But we hadn’t been sitting more than five minutes, talking sensibly about the people on the Record, when there was a mew behind the door.

“Mona,” Stella said, starting to her feet.

“Does that cat have to come in here?” The words were out before I knew it. I had intended not to show any objection to the cat. I had intended, so help me, to stroke it.

Stella stopped, her eyes wide. “Why, Bob! I thought you liked cats.”

I couldn’t say, “But not this one.” So Stella let the animal in. And I could feel my skin tighten as I watched it, because it did exactly what it had done the last time: swayed slowly across the rug, sat down in front of me, and gazed at me steadily.

I knew that what I should do was say, lightly, something like “What is she staring at me for?” or, “What does she want from me?” But I couldn’t. The next best thing, I knew, would have been to go on talking calmly about the office. Instead, I found myself pleading with Stella.

“What you should do is go out. You’re going to get morbid sitting around the house like this. You look quite peaked. It isn’t like you to worry so much about what people will say.”

Stella leaned back in her chair, her eyes on the wall opposite. “It isn’t just what people will say.” She still talked in that quiet, controlled voice, so unlike the one I was used to. “I don’t believe you understand, Bob.” Her eyes moved and looked directly at me. “I cared a great deal about Ed.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.

“I know you think I didn’t really care because of that money business. But I wouldn’t have married him no matter how much money he had, if I hadn’t liked him a great deal. As a matter of fact, he was the only man I ever would have married. I’m sorry, Bob, but that’s the truth. And you don’t really know a person until you have lived with him. Ed wore better than I ever dreamed he would. The money didn’t change him one bit, and we could have been happy together to the end of our...” Her voice trailed off.

It was a great deal for a man to take at one blow. A very great deal. I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t know whether what was shaking me was jealousy, or something else. And Stella wasn’t through with me. Not nearly.

We sat silent for a moment; then I felt her eyes on me again.

“You didn’t like Ed, did you, Bob?” she said gently.

I gave a violent start of surprise and protest. This was something else. I felt danger about me as if I could touch it. I began to shout: “What makes you think—”

I broke off, stopped by the way she was looking at me. It was a look full of watchful speculation, compounded with horror and pain. Then her glance left me, dropped to the still motionless, still staring cat.

“Do you know why she is looking at you like that?” she whispered.

Involuntarily, I threw myself back in my chair. “How should I know?” I managed to say.

“Do you really not know?” Stella’s voice insisted.

What the hell are you driving at? Honey, are you crazy. The words I wanted to say hung in the air in front of me, but I couldn’t say them. I knew what she was driving at and she wasn’t crazy.

“It wasn’t an accident that killed Ed, was it, Bob?”

I got to my feet and started toward the door. There I turned once more. Why I don’t know. Perhaps to make sure that it was all really so. Stella’s eyes were on me. The cat had jumped into my chair and was sniffing it. I backed out of the door, walked out of the house, forgetting my hat. I got into the car and drove off.

I drank even more that night. Before I finally passed out I kept repeating to myself that Stella really knew nothing, that Stella could prove nothing. And what did it matter what cats knew, since they couldn’t tell anybody?

I was in no shape to go to the paper the next day, and in the afternoon the police came for me at home. I learned later that Stella had called them and told them what she suspected, but had asked them very particularly (she knew them all well down at the station) to do some investigating before they arrested me. This they had done. They had spent the morning going over the neighborhood near the bar, questioning people in specific reference to myself. They turned up a man who had seen me leave the tavern, fifteen minutes before Ed left, as I had said and as the bartender had confirmed. But I had said that I had gone toward Market Street and taken the bus home, and this man swore that I had gone in the other direction, which is the direction of the bridge.

I was incapable of thinking clearly or of making an attempt at denial. I seemed to be in the grip of occurrences against which I had no chance. Before the afternoon was over I had signed a full confession.

First degree murder, of course. I admitted I had planned it all. I even kept pointing out that I hadn’t made a mistake anywhere, that my plans had worked out perfectly.

Long before I got to this row of steel-barred cubicles with the hopeless name, I was able to read, cold sober, the story in the papers.

This time the Record did not go in for reticence. They gave me the works, and, being on the inside, they stridently scooped every paper in town. Stella gave them her part of the story. When I saw her face, drawn and unsmiling, looking at me out of the printed page, I was glad that by making no defense I would be sentenced without trial, and would not have to face her or anyone else again.

She had had no suspicions at all, she said, until I became so unnerved when Ed’s cat kept looking at me. Then, playing one of her hunches, she maneuvered me back to the house so I would confront the cat again. The whole thing started with the cat.

And the cat was a fraud.

That’s what I can’t take. Every paper had the animal’s picture on the front page, with an appropriate caption: “NEMESIS,” “TRAPS MURDERER,” and the like. The Record outdid the field. It ran an enlargement of the two staring eyes, under the title: “THE EYES OF CONSCIENCE.”

But no matter what the picture, the copy under it told the same thing: the cat had a way of staring as it did at anyone who happened to sit in her chair.