Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 34, No. 3, February 1974

The Catnip Caper by Robert Turner

He had stolen my wife, my future, my life. Now he would pay for it — my way.

Len Mason got the idea that lazy summer afternoon when his wife, Gracie, brought home a box of catnip as a special treat for Hugo, her big black cat. He watched curiously as she spooned some of the stuff into Hugo’s eating dish.

“What does it do for him, Gracie?” Len asked.

She shrugged. “I don’t know, really. I mean, I guess it just makes him feel good.” She laughed lightly. “It sort of makes him a little high, would be the best way to describe it. Haven’t you ever seen a eat after he’s had it?”

He shook his head. “Uh-uh.”

“You watch,” she said. “It’s really funny to watch.”

Hugo sniffed at the small pile of what looked like powdery chaff and then began to lick it up. He moved away after the catnip was half-consumed, shaking his head violently. With little leg-shaking leaps, Hugo then galloped out into the living room. Len and Gracie followed.

There, the cat began to wash his face with a paw. Every once in a while he glanced around with a glassy stare. Then, suddenly, he began to roll over and over, back and forth across the rug. Next he got up and ran around in a circle, performing small leaps into the air. Then he again went back to crazily rolling around on the rug.

“See!” Gracie cried, delightedly. “He’s really having a good time, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Lennie said. His deep blue eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “He sure acts like he’s stoned. I wonder what’s in that stuff. Must be some kind of dope or something. I mean, at least it affects cats that way.”

Suddenly, he turned and went out into the kitchen. He returned a moment later, carrying the box of catnip. He began reading from the label.

“Listen to this. It says: ‘A fine blend of catnip leaves, blossoms and stems. Its stimulating effects will promote ideal exercise and enjoyment for your cat...’ ”

He poured some of the tiny light brown dried twigs and sprigs onto the palm of his hand, raised them to his nose and sniffed. He shook his head. “No odor to it.”

“What does that mean?” Gracie asked.

He ignored the question. “Stimulating effects, the label said but really doesn’t tell you what the ingredients are. What is catnip, anyhow? Let’s check it out.”

The encyclopedia called it: “Catmint or catnip, common names for a hardy perennial herb, Nepeta Cataria, of the mint family. It is a native of Europe but a common weed in North America. Its sharp fragrance is attractive and exciting to cats.”

“Uh-huh,” Len said. “Marijuana’s a common weed, too. Maybe I’ve got something here.”

He left the room and returned a few minutes later, carrying the catnip box in one hand and a packet of Zigzag cigarette papers in the other. He sat down at the cocktail table, poured some of the catnip onto a cigarette paper, then expertly rolled it, licked the glued edge to seal it into a tube and twisted the ends.

“What on earth are you doing, Len?” Grace asked, frowning. “You’re not going to smoke that stuff!”

He showed her his slightly crooked, boyish grin. “Why not? It can’t kill me.”

He stuck the tube into his mouth, struck a match and applied the flame to the other end of it. He pulled a deep draft of dry tasting smoke and expelled it. He thrust his face into the cloud of smoke, sniffing deeply. Then he stared wonderingly at the smoking tube in his hand.

“Far out!” he said. “Smell that! It smells exactly like weed.”

“Like what, Len?”

“Like grass. Pot. Marijuana. Can’t you smell it?”

He took another drag and blew the smoke at her. She sniffed and nodded. “Yes. Yes, I suppose it does at that. But so what?”

“So this. I couldn’t tell the difference. That means neither could anybody else. Like, I mean, even The Man would think it was weed being smoked in here, if he came in.”

“What man, Len?”

“Oh, come on, Gracie. The Law. The cops.”

He took another drag and inhaled it deeply, sucking in air along with the acrid smoke. He shook his head, marveling. “It even tastes like grass. It could fool me. Now let’s see if it has the same effect.”

After several more puffs, Len snubbed out the catnip cigarette into an ashtray.

“Nothing,” he said. “Well, maybe a slight hit but that might just be my imagination.”

Gracie clucked her tongue impatiently, her sweetly pretty face frowning a little. “I just don’t know what you’re getting at, what this is all about.”

“I’m not too sure, myself,” he told her. “For one thing, I had a crazy notion that catnip might contain marijuana, but now I doubt it. However, tomorrow I’m going to the county seat at Midburg and have a lab check it out.”

“For what?”

“To make sure the stuff doesn’t contain any type of narcotic and is strictly legal to possess.”

“But what on earth for?”

He gave her an enigmatic smile. “We’ll see, baby. It just may be that I’ve figured out a way to get back at that lousy hick town constable of ours for busting me a couple of weeks ago. And picking up a big chunk of money at the same time.”

“Oh, Len,” she said. “Why don’t you just forget about all that. Why keep brooding about it? It wasn’t really Constable Bisby’s fault. He was just doing his job. You knew it’s illegal to possess marijuana. I don’t see how you can blame Jim for arresting you when he caught you breaking the law, right out and out and no two ways about it.”

“Oh, sure,” Len said. “Just doing his job, doing his job,” he parroted. “Only, I thought he was supposed to be a friend of ours. You even went to school with him. Well, I mean, I guess I knew he was no friend of mine, really. I could tell the way he sometimes looked at me that he figured I was just a no-good bum, living off of his wife. Well, maybe so. But that’s a lot smarter than being a two-bit hick lawman. Especially when he’s independently wealthy and doesn’t have to hold down a stupid job like that.”

“Well, it keeps him busy,” Gracie said. “And Jim likes law work.”

“Oh, I’ll bet he does!”

“That’s not fair, Len. You know he seldom has to make any arrests. And someone has to keep peace in the town.”

“Yeah. Well, I wasn’t breaking any peace and he busted me. I’m just driving along, minding my own business, having myself a small weed to relax and what happens? Big Joe Law stops me, he says, to tell me my rear license plate is hanging loose. Then he smells the smoke in the car, discovers the roach I’d stepped on. Hell, I figured he was so dumb he wouldn’t even know what the smell was. But, oh no, on something like that he’s got to be smart!”

“Please, Len,” she said. “I’ve heard all this. Why do you have to keep bringing it up?”

“Because I’m the one it happened to, dammit. It’s important to me. I’m the one who spent two nights in that stinking county jail before you bailed me out. I was lucky I drew a fine and suspended sentence, instead of time in the pen. Just because that Toonerville-type judge said he felt sorry for you and thought it was about time I started supporting you for a change and made one of the conditions that I get a job and keep it.”

“Supporting me, Len? On the sixty dollars a week that you make at the gas station? When you spend most of it on liquor and get drunk every night?”

He waved his hand. “What do you want me to do? Go nuts with boredom? I don’t dare take a chance on smoking pot any more. And after pumping gas for a bunch of small town idiots all day, I got to do something for relaxation, don’t I?”

“Well, we... we could play Canasta or Quinto or Monopoly, Len, like we used to all the time. Or even have some of our friends in once in a while.”

“Oh sure, Gracie. Way out! What kicks! Only I got sick of Canasta and Quinto and Monopoly. And your damned stupid friends. Your friends, not mine. Me, I’m an outsider in this hokey little town, always have been. They all think I’m putting them down because I’ve got a few brains, a decent education and haven’t spent all my life in Yahoo County. Plus the fact they all think I married you only because you have a nice little piece of property here and a comfortable fixed income the rest of your life from your mother’s estate.”

Her eyes, big and brown and gentle, looked squarely into his.

“Well, didn’t you, Len?” she asked softly.

“Didn’t I what?”

“Marry me because of that.” “Oh, come off it, Gracie. If I wanted to marry somebody for their money, it wouldn’t be some little broad with a house in a small town and five hundred a month income. That’s peanuts. I’m a big, good-looking guy and if that’s what I wanted, I could have found some rich little old lady with a few hundred thousand, at least.”

He walked over to her, put his hand up under the smooth brown fall of her hair.

“Come on, baby,” he whispered. “This doesn’t sound like you. You know I’ve been crazy about you from the first moment we met. Before I even knew you had a nickel. Look, what are we quarreling about? Just because I said I wanted to get even with Bisby? What’s wrong with that?”

She edged away from him, ducking under his hand. “I just don’t want any more trouble, that’s all. What’s over is over.”

“Not always. Anyhow, my idea might not check out, so we’ll skip it for a while, anyhow. Okay?”

It did check out, though. The sample Len took to a testing laboratory in the county seat the next day was certified to be nothing more than common catnip, to be found on the shelves of any market and absolutely did not have any illegal drug content.

Driving back, Len was jubilant, began working on the details of his plan. That night he explained the whole thing to Gracie. When he finished he said: “What do you think?”

“I think it’s a terrible thing to do to that poor man,” she said. “Deliberately misleading him into arresting you again on a marijuana charge and then when the stuff turns out to be nothing but catnip, suing him for false arrest.”

“That poor man?” Len repeated. “That big dumb honky of a cop, you mean! How can you feel sorry for him? So I sue for a hundred grand and maybe I’ll get awarded ten or fifteen. He’s worth a hell of a lot more than that, I understand. He can afford it. And if he loses his job, so what?”

“Well, I just don’t think it’s fair.”

“Yeah, well maybe this will change your mind. Remember I promised you that one day I’d take you on a nice long vacation trip to Europe, to all the places you like to read about?”

She nodded, said resignedly: “Yes, I remember, Len. When you asked me to marry you. You said you had an idea for a great novel and married to me, with no financial problems, you could finally get to writing it. And I was naive enough to believe you. And when the book made a lot of money, you said, we’d take that trip. Yes, I remember. Only we’ve been married for two years now, Len, and you haven’t written line one. I don’t think you ever will.”

“Okay, okay,” he said. “So I’ve been putting it off. Only I am going to do it. As soon as we get back from that trip. That’s what’ll really do the trick for me, seeing all those exotic places, the different ways of life. A writer needs to travel. And you’ll be there, sharing it all with me. It’ll be good for you, too. You need to get away from this house, this crummy little town, for a while.”

“Not really, Len. I’m not like you. I like it here. I was born and raised here and I’ll probably spend the rest of my life here. Maybe I’m just a dumb small town girl but I’m not ashamed of it.”

“Of course not. But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t enjoy a nice trip like that.”

“Maybe it does, if it’s at the expense of someone I know and like, someone like Jim Bisby, who’s been a good friend all my life and in fact a man I once considered marrying.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Len said. “You told me all about that, how if you didn’t have to take care of your sick mother, you might have married him. You also told me that it was just a crush and that you probably weren’t really in love with him.”

She sighed. “I guess so. I’ve often wondered, though, why he hasn’t married somebody else. I’m sure he’s had the chance; he’s not bad-looking and he’s kind and good. He would make a good husband for somebody.”

“Yeah and bore ’em to death. You’d go crazy after a month of being married to that meathead. One thing you can say about me, baby; I’ve never bored you.”

“I guess that’s true, Len. You’ve only made me sad.” She looked at him thoughtfully.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I hate to see a man waste his life. You’re goodlooking and intelligent, Len, and likeable — when you want to be. You could have made something of yourself.”

“I still can,” he said. “All I need is a break. And if I can nail Bisby for a big chunk of bread, maybe that’ll be the break I’ve needed.”

“You’re really going to go through with it, aren’t you, Len? You’ve made up your mind.”

“You’re damned right.”

“Well, you can count me out. I won’t have any part of it.”

“You don’t have to. You won’t even be in the house. You’ll split before it happens. So don’t worry about being involved.”

She didn’t answer. She just shook her head wearily and got up and walked out of the room.

Alone, Len went over the plan in his mind once more. At the same time he told himself that Gracie didn’t have to worry about taking any trip to Europe. In the first place, he wasn’t going. When the court awarded him a nice settlement from Bisby, he was going to leave this town and Gracie, far behind.

He didn’t yet know where he would go. It didn’t matter. He only knew that he’d had it up to here with the town and with her. Who needed her any more, once he had a big chunk of cash? She’d changed in the past six months or so. She was less and less the sweet, loving wife she’d been at first. She was moody a lot and often cold and too critical.

One time when they had a big fight, she’d even mentioned something about a divorce but he’d put her down fast on that one. He’d asked her what grounds she would use? He didn’t fool around with other women, — he didn’t beat her; she’d married him, knowing she would have to support him while he worked on his book and just because he hadn’t yet gotten around to doing that, didn’t really mean anything. And that was the end of that. She never brought the subject up again.

When this was all over and he was gone, he couldn’t care less what she did. Let her get her divorce then, if she wanted to. In the meanwhile — and the false arrest suit could take quite a long time — he still had a good meal ticket.

Two nights later, Len Mason put his plan into effect. Everything went smoothly. He rolled seven catnip cigarettes while Gracie watched him with a sort of moody fascination. A few minutes later, he sent her off to the local movie theater. Next, he smoked two of the cigarettes, walking about the room to make sure the smoke was well distributed. He had already shut all the windows and front door. Then he made his phone call to Constable Bisby’s office.

Holding a handkerchief over the mouthpiece and speaking nasally, to disguise his voice, he said:

“Bisby, this is a neighbor of Len Mason’s. I have reason to believe that rotten no-good is smoking that filthy weed again — and right in his wife’s house this time, while the poor woman is out, somewhere. Isn’t that illegal?”

“What makes you think that’s what he’s doing?” Bisby asked.

“Well, I saw his wife leave and then he shut the front door and all the windows. Why else would he do that on a hot summer night. I think you ought to look into it.”

“Perhaps you’re right. I’ll check it out.”

Mason hung up and then lit another cigarette, blowing the smoke about the room. He was just about to snub out the butt when there was a knock on the door. He pushed the butt into an ashtray, leaving it smouldering there and went and opened the door.

Constable Jim Bisby and his young deputy, Art Chisolm, were standing there, both of them looking grim. They sniffed the smoke-laden air drifting out and glanced at each other knowingly.

“Mason,” Bisby said. “We’d like to come in and talk with you.”

“Well, uh — couldn’t you make it later? I... I’m very busy right now.”

Bisby shook his head. “Right now, Mason. We have good reason to believe you’re breaking the law and we have a right to investigate. Move out of the way. We’re coming in.”

He moved aside and they pushed past, into the house. Bisby moved toward the cocktail table on which stood the ashtray containing butts of the three cigarettes Mason had smoked and next to it, the rolled, yellow-papered tubes of four more, still unsmoked.

“Let me have that envelope, Chisolm,” he said.

The young deputy took a folded Manila envelope from his hip pocket and passed it to the Constable. Bisby dumped the contents of the ashtray into the envelope, picked up the four unsmoked tubes and put them into the envelope, too. He then sealed it and handed the envelope back to Chisolm. Turning to Len he said, his round, good-looking face solemn:

“Leonard Mason, I herewith place you under arrest, charged with the use and possession of illegal drugs. You have the right to remain silent until you obtain counsel. Now, please come with us.”

Len Mason shook his head. “I don’t believe it,” he said.

“Your doing this to me. I wasn’t hurting anybody. What’s the point?”

“The point is, I’m an officer of the law. I have a duty to perform, regardless of who’s involved. I can’t much feel sorry for you, Mason. You were warned that this kind of thing won’t be tolerated in this town. We’re a clean town. Now, come along.”

With the one phone call he was allowed to make, Len Mason talked with Mark Cantrell, Grade’s attorney. He told Cantrell what had happened but that Gracie needn’t bother to bail him out, that he’d be free in a day or two, anyhow, as soon as the lab reports on the evidence Bisby had picked up, were returned.

“How’s that?” Cantrell asked.

“I mean, they got me on a bum rap. There wasn’t any marijuana. Just catnip, Cantrell. You hear that? Simple, harmless catnip. It looks and smells, when burning, like the real stuff.”

“Really?” Cantrell said, surprised. “I didn’t know that.”

Len chuckled. “Nor do a lot of people, including Bisby and Chisolm. But they’re about to find out, the hard way.”

“Did you tell them that’s what it was?” Cantrell asked.

“Why should I? They didn’t ask me. They assumed I was guilty of committing a crime and arrested me. They probably wouldn’t have believed me, anyhow. Bad enough being busted without seeming to be a fool, too.”

“I see. Well, I’ll check out the lab reports as soon as they come in and if what you say is true, we’ll have you out of there fast.”

“Great,” Len said. “See you later.”

He settled back to wait.

The morning after the next day, Cantrell visited Len Mason at the County Jail. He was a stodgy little man with a pursed mouth and cold gray eyes. Abruptly he said: “Those lab reports came in.”

“Beautiful,” Len said. “When do I get out?”

Cantrell drew in a deep breath. “Probably not for a long, long time. Second offense and all that.”

“What... what do you mean, man? Are you crazy? What second offense?”

“Possession.”

Len gave an hysterical laugh. “Of catnip?! You’ve got to be kidding!”

“No. Of marijuana. Two unsmoked cigarettes and one of the butts contained the stuff. The others were nothing but catnip but that makes no difference. The three genuine ones are enough to make the charge stick.”

“But that’s impossible Something’s wrong. I rolled those damned things, myself. There was nothing but catnip in any of them. Look, I’m being framed. That damned hick cop must have suspected something and switched in some real joints, just to nail me. They can’t get away with this!”

Cantrell shrugged his stooped shoulders. “That’s highly unlikely. The sworn testimony of Constable Bisby, as witnessed by his deputy, Chisolm, is that the envelope was filled and sealed at your house and not opened again until delivered to the lab at the County Center.

“Then somebody at the lab got things screwed up,” Mason shouted. “It has to be.” He felt his face getting red, his voice choking up.

“Also highly unlikely. They don’t make mistakes like that. I’m afraid you’re stuck with it, Mason.”

Len shook his head unbelievingly. “This is insane! Why would I be smoking catnip when I had the real thing right there if it was? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Constable Bisby thinks so. He thinks you were probably making comparisons to see if the catnip, in addition to smelling like marijuana, might also give you a high that would be legal.”

Mason put his face in his hands. “Oh no,” he said. “Oh no!”

“There’s one other thing, Mason,” Cantrell said. “Gracie asked me to give you a message. She said to tell you that she’s very sorry for you but there’s nothing she can do to help.”

“The hell there isn’t,” Mason told him, shrilly. “She can get me out on bond so I can try to straighten out this crazy mess, myself.”

Cantrell shook his head. “She’s not going to do that. She doesn’t want to see you any more. She’s asked me to start divorce proceedings against you.”

“Divorce? Oh, for God’s sake, Cantrell! On what grounds?”

“You will soon be a convicted felon, under sentence. We think that’s quite grounds enough. I have to go now, Mason.”

Len stared speechless after the little attorney as he got up and walked out of the interview room.

Back in his cell, Len Mason found himself trembling with rage, mixed with fear and bewilderment. He recalled now that after he was arrested by Bisby, he had felt a little stoned

but had put it down to exultation at how well his plan was working. Could it really be that one of those tubes he’d smoked was marijuana? If so, how had it and the other two genuine joints been substituted for the catnip ones? If Bisby and Chisolm hadn’t made the substitution after they left — and why should they, not knowing that he was putting a frame on them — then somebody else had before they came! And only Gracie knew...

Oh no, he told himself. It couldn’t be. Not Gracie! Yet he remembered now that after he’d rolled the catnip, he’d gone to the bathroom. Right then and there Gracie would have had plenty of time to substitute real joints.

But where would she get them? She wouldn’t even know how to roll a joint as well as he did.

Then it came to him. Bisby, as a law officer, could obtain the stuff if he wanted to. With a little practice he could learn how to roll properly. He could have made those joints and given them to Gracie to substitute for the catnip ones, when she had the opportunity.

This could only mean that after Mason told her what he was going to do, she’d gone to Bisby and told him the whole thing. Between the two of them, then, they’d figured this way to doublecross him.

But why?

Could she have been waiting for some solid, legitimate reason to divorce him? And maybe planning, later, to marry her old boy friend, Bisby?

Half aloud, he told himself: “But she couldn’t do something like this to me!”

Then he wondered silently: Or could she?