The Big Kitty

3

Mike’s dire warnings turned out to be groundless. When Sunny let Shadow out into the backyard the next morning to do his business, the cat didn’t come back.

At breakfast, Sunny’s father breathed a loud sigh of relief. “I guess we can burn that,” he said, gesturing toward the living room and the improvised bed.

“I’d like to keep it around,” she said. “He might turn up for another visit.”

But over the next few days, Sunny didn’t get a return appearance of her gray-furred hitchhiker, although she caught occasional glimpses of a feline figure from her office window and in the neighborhood.

“Cats on the brain,” she told herself sternly.

But if she had struck out with Shadow, Sunny hit a home run when it came to publicity for Ada Spruance and her lottery ticket—far more than she’d expected. Ken Howell had led with the story when the Harbor Crier made its weekly appearance on Thursday, available for free all over town.

And the story had appeared at the end of a slow news week. The Portsmouth paper had picked it up on Friday, along with all the local network affiliates. Ada’s ticket couldn’t have become more famous.

But Ada herself hadn’t called with any good news.

So when Saturday morning came, Sunny found herself staring at a bleary-eyed image of herself in the mirror. Once upon a time, that look would have been the result of hearty partying. These days, though, it came more from insomnia, checking the bedside clock at least once an hour from two a.m. onward.

But other than puffy eyelids and the beginnings of dark circles, Sunny had to admit she was looking pretty good these days. Sharing her dad’s low-sodium, low-fat, and low-sugar diet had honed away a bit of pudge and enhanced her cheekbones. While she didn’t have Mike’s piercing gaze, her eyes were wide and blue. Her brown hair had a generous helping of her dad’s curls and a hint of her mom’s auburn coloring. As she pulled her hair back and into a scrunchie, though, Sunny grimaced. She really had to get this mane cut—but she’d yet to find a local stylist who could deal with her wild hair.

Well, no sense worrying about that right now, she thought, tucking her unruly curls under a battered baseball cap. Sunny gave a rueful smile at the rest of her ensemble—a stained long-sleeved T-shirt, a pair of rubber boots she’d dug up from the basement, and her oldest jeans. A pair of heavy-gauge rubber gloves dangled from her back pocket.

All set to go Dumpster diving, she decided and quietly headed downstairs, leaving her dad to sleep undisturbed. She went out the front door and walked along the street. Ada’s house was only around the corner and a few blocks away. Wild Goose Drive was quiet at almost half-past eight. The real early risers were long up and headed off to whatever Saturday activities they intended to do. The rest of the neighborhood seemed to be still in bed.

She passed only a single pedestrian—Mrs. Parker, one of the local widows, out power walking. Sunny gave the older woman a friendly nod, even as she inwardly cringed at the look Mrs. Parker gave her cleaning getup. Then she got a little annoyed. If she’d gotten her husband to power walk, maybe he’d still be around and she wouldn’t be chasing after my dad.

Reaching the corner, Sunny took a quick right, walked two more blocks, and then crossed the street. Almost there. The Spruance place, a large Colonial Revival, had been the finest on the block in its day. Now it had a curiously mottled appearance, with patches of silvery wood revealing where paint had flaked off the siding and darker stains suggesting the beginnings of mold. Knee-high grass fought an infestation of weeds in the unkempt yard.

As Sunny came up the cracked walkway, she saw the undergrowth shaking in something’s wake.

Please let that be a cat, she prayed. It’s still too early to deal with wildlife.

The mover and shaker popped out ahead of her—Shadow!

“Where did you get to?” She bent to pet the cat, only to see him glide back into the strawlike growth. “You eat our tuna and then just disappear. Or do you just like Ada’s dry food better?”

She turned to the scabby-looking door, trying not to think of the alternate theory she’d developed, where Dad had trapped the cat and ejected him from the house.

The doorbell was a tarnished mass that stained the wood around it. Sunny knocked on the center panel, wondering if she should put her gloves on right away.

No answer.

She knocked again, louder, calling Ada’s name.

The only response was a faint “meow” from inside.

Sunny tried to peek through the dirty glass of the living room window. She jumped back, nearly tripping among the weeds, when she came face-to-face with a golden calico cat peering out and making a mournful noise.

“Maybe she’s in the back,” Sunny told herself. She worked her way over to the driveway and around the house, discovering she had an escort again. Shadow had reappeared, trailing about a foot behind her.

The backyard was just as poorly maintained as the front. Sunny found a few pebbles and tossed them at the kitchen window, calling Ada’s name.

Nothing, except more meowing—louder meowing, too, as if several cats had taken up the call.

“I don’t suppose you know where she is,” Sunny asked Shadow, who stared unblinkingly up at her. She was torn between annoyance at being stood up after dragging herself up early and worry for the older woman—not to mention a mild case of the creeps from all the cat noises filtering out from the kitchen. Cursing the strict New England upbringing that wouldn’t let her take the easy way out (like leaving after she’d promised to show up and help), Sunny approached the only other way into the house—the slanting cellar doors whose hinges had rusted in the open position.

The aromas wafting up from that hole in the ground were anything but inviting. Sunny found herself thinking of those kitty-litter ads that boasted about their product’s ability to hide the presence of multiple cats.

Obviously Ada Spruance wasn’t using that particular brand.

Sunny brought her rubber boot down on the first step—and had to restrain herself from kicking out with the other as Shadow now planted himself underfoot. He added his voice to the meowing chorus, but it managed to sound more like a warning than a hungry complaint. He rose up until his paws were at knee level, trying to stop her even as she carefully stepped around him to descend another step. Still, he kept making unhappy noises.

She pulled on her gloves, held her breath, and worked her way down the rest of the stairs. They were damp and a bit spongy. The only light came from the doorway behind her. Sunny blinked a few times, trying to accustom her eyes to the dimness.

A shaft of stronger light came in as a cloud moved off the sun.

Sunny gasped, then coughed at the almost solid stink that attacked her throat and nose. Her eyes watered, but she definitely saw something at the foot of the other stairway in the cellar—the stairs that led up to the kitchen.

It was too big to be a cat.

And anyway, she’d never heard of a cat going around in a worn, flowered housecoat.

*

Shadow watched warily as the young woman made her way to the huddled figure on the cellar floor. He’d tried to stop her. Now he crouched low, his ears instinctively going back. From his experience, these two-leggity types made a lot of noise when they came across dead things.

This young woman surprised him. She got close enough for a good look at the Old One—the Dead One, Shadow corrected himself—took a single, deep breath, coughed, and then quickly headed back up the stairs.

Shadow followed her, opening his jaws wide to let the rank, green smells of the backyard wash away the scent of old decay—and worse—lingering in his mouth and nose.

The Young One didn’t stop to enjoy the change. She dug out one of those strange, bright things that humans liked to talk into and spoke quickly in a high, excited voice.

The Dead One had one of those gadgets, but it was heavy and clunky, mounted high on the kitchen wall, a clumsy place to leap at.

But the Young One’s talking-thing was small enough to fit in her hand—cat sized. Shadow’s paw itched at the idea of getting that gleaming gadget on a nice floor—like the shiny floor in the Young One’s kitchen, so good for sliding along—and giving it a good bat …

A sharp click got Shadow’s attention. The woman had finished talking, hiding away that interesting toy. Now she paced back and forth in the yard, overgrown grass stalks lashing against her shins.

Was she annoyed? Without seeing a tail, he didn’t have enough information to be sure—and Shadow wasn’t about to risk a kick by coming closer to see her response.

Instead, he stretched low and closed his eyes, enjoying the sunshine. But the quiet didn’t last. Long before Shadow managed to drift off into a nap, he found himself raising his head. A car was coming—one that didn’t belong here.

*

Sunny stopped short as a furry gray form zipped across her path, almost over her toes. She followed Shadow to the corner of the house, where he peered around.

By the time she joined him, she could see what had attracted the cat: a dusty black pickup truck turned onto the weed-choked driveway and came to a stop. The driver’s door opened, and a tall, rangy guy in jeans and a denim jacket got out.

One of creepy Gordie’s creepy friends? Sunny suddenly became very away that this guy was standing between her and the street. She narrowed her eyes. What was that bulge on one side of his jacket—a gun?

She took a step back when the stranger’s hand came up, but it went into his breast pocket, extracting a leather case. He flipped it open to reveal a badge.

“Will Price, town constable,” he said. “You’re the person who called 911?”

Sunny nodded, gesturing toward the backyard and the cellar door. “Ada—Mrs. Spruance—asked me to come over. When she didn’t answer the door, I went around this way and found—” She broke off. “Her neck—” With that, she ran out of words and just pointed.

The cop went past her and down the stairs. A moment later, he came back up again. “That can’t have been very nice to find.” He took a notebook from the other pocket in his denim jacket. “Why don’t you tell me the whole story, Ms.—?”

“Coolidge—Sonata Coolidge. You can call me Sunny.” She filled in the blanks. “Ada Spruance came to the MAX office—I work for the Maine Adventure X-perience.” She added, relating her meeting with the Cat Lady at the MAX office and their conversation about Ada’s lottery ticket problem.

The cop frowned in disbelief at her story. “Six to eight million dollars? I figured the local gossip mill had just pumped up the prize money.”

“That’s the amount Ada said,” Sunny replied. “I never saw it. The thing was missing. But it seems kind of—” She bit off the word “convenient” and substituted “weird” instead.

She couldn’t help noticing that this guy was pretty good-looking, in a serious, kind of poker-faced way. His face was long, with a strong nose and a sensitive-looking mouth—at least it would be if he didn’t keep it pursed so tightly. He had odd eyes, kind of grayish with light brown flecks. Actually they reminded her a little of Shadow’s.

Sunny looked down to find the cat at her feet, directing an unblinking gaze up at the cop. Kind of the same gaze the cop was giving her.

“It’s just that I was a little afraid for Ada—you know, maybe someone was trying to take advantage of her somehow. So I talked to Ken Howell at the Crier. He ran a story about it, and it got picked up on TV.”

She paused for breath … and an interior wake-up call. She’d conducted enough interviews to know the tricks. The silent approach could be a potent weapon, inducing a subject to spill his or her guts.

Well, it sure worked like gangbusters on me, Sunny thought. Stop. Let him ask a question.

Even so, she couldn’t help the words from coming out. “It was an accident, wasn’t it?”

“I’d like to think so if I were you.” Those lips she’d been admiring turned into a frown. “Especially if I’d helped arrange it so that every lowlife for a hundred miles around knew that a frail old lady was sitting on a huge pile of cash.”

“B-but I was trying to help her—protect her!” Sunny sputtered. She didn’t get any further because another car pulled into the driveway: an official white sheriff’s cruiser.

Sunny recognized Sheriff Frank Nesbit before he even got out of the car. Over the years, his face had gotten rounder and his mustache grayer as he appeared on billboards with each election cycle, always over the same slogan: “Keeping Elmet County Safe.”

As the sheriff came toward them, however, he wasn’t wearing his avuncular election-year smile.

“Aren’t you supposed to be off duty, Constable Price?” Nesbit asked. “I hope you’re not trying to angle your way into some overtime pay.”

Price shrugged. “This is Ben Semple’s shift. Somehow his patrols always take him to the other end of town, where he nails speeders off by outlet-land. Guess Ben’s just very diligent about enhancing road safety—and county revenue. Problem is, that leaves coverage pretty thin around these parts. You can see how long it takes to get here from the county seat.” He looked blandly at the sheriff. “And how was the traffic coming from Levett, sir?”

“Not too bad—especially since this didn’t sound like a lights-and-sirens job to me,” Nesbit replied. “The 911 call reported an accident, not a crime. Even so, I beat the ambulance here.”

The sheriff shifted gears into constituent mode as he turned to Sunny. “And you must be the young lady who called.”

When he heard Sunny’s name, his smile became a bit more personal. “Mike Coolidge’s daughter? I heard you’d come up from New York to take care of him. The old bandit’s doing all right, isn’t he? Good. Now, what happened here?”

Sunny explained about Ada Spruance’s ticket and their date to search the house.

Nesbit shook his head. “Going from an enormous windfall to a fatal fall down the stairs. Very—what do you call it?—ironic.”

“There’s still a question about that,” Price piped up. “Ms. Coolidge suspected the winning ticket might have been stolen, so she attempted to head off the culprit with a good glare of publicity.”

“That’s right—the wife mentioned seeing something about a ticket on the evening news.”

Nesbit’s smile at the memory faded as Price went on. “Most likely so did every felon within broadcast range.”

“Is there any evidence of forced entry?” the sheriff asked in a clipped voice.

“None visible,” Price admitted. But he directed his gaze to the hinges on the cellar door, rusted in the open position.

Not much breaking required to break and enter here, Sunny had to admit, looking back at the constable. I thought he was just giving me a hard time about the possibility of a crime. But he’s making a case even though his boss doesn’t want to hear about it.

In the meantime, Sheriff Nesbit went down the cellar steps and returned a moment later. “Obvious accident,” he said flatly. “The door to the pantry upstairs is open. Ada was an older woman. The stairs are steep. It would be easy even for a young person up there to lose her balance.” He headed for the police cruiser. “I’ll call in to make sure the remains are picked up—”

He broke off in midsentence as a furry form burst out of the overgrown grass and ran across the driveway. “And then I’ll call Animal Control. They’ll have their hands full collecting all these fleabags.”

Nesbit gave Price a thin smile. “I’ll leave you in charge of the scene until they arrive, Constable.” From the look on the sheriff’s face, Sunny guessed Price would have a long, uphill struggle trying to get that approved as overtime.

As the cruiser pulled away, Sunny glanced down at her feet. Shadow remained where he was, taking everything in.

“So the cats will be hauled off to a shelter?” she asked. “Do you know if it’s humane—nonkill or whatever they call it?”

Price just looked at her. “That sounds like a very New York City idea,” he said. “Out here in the sticks, the budget goes for animal control, not animal rights.”

Sunny was never sure whether it was a Maine thing in general or a Kittery Harbor thing in particular, that ingrained, clannish belief that local ways were always superior to any idea an outsider might have.

It especially stung since he was treating Sunny like one of those outsiders.

“Well, maybe it seems like an outlandish notion around here, but I don’t like the idea of killing off anything that happens to get in my way, whether that means old folks—or even cats.”

Ignoring the cop’s startled look, she bent to scoop up Shadow and storm off. But the cat undercut her dramatic exit by somehow evading her arms. Feeling foolish, she straightened again with a glare. “Unless you need anything more from me?”

Constable Price shook his head, raising his hands almost defensively. “Don’t think so, ma’am. I’ll just be here guarding the … accident scene.”

Sunny started on her way home. The neighborhood was getting a bit busier, people gearing up for their Saturday activities.

She passed a family loading up their station wagon for some sort of shopping trip and got a laugh from a little girl. “Look, Mommy.”

Sunny glanced down. Her outfit was a bit on the scroungy side, but not that far out of the ordinary. Unless she’d managed to step in something cat related.

The girl’s mother smiled, too, but she wasn’t looking at Sunny. She was looking behind her. Sunny glanced over her shoulder. About six paces from her heels, Shadow sat on the pavement, apparently looking at nothing in particular.

Sunny started walking again. The girl giggled. Sunny turned to find Shadow still seated—and still about six paces behind her, his tail wrapped around his feet.

Taking three more steps, Sunny suddenly whirled on him again. Somehow, Shadow was still six paces behind her, still sitting. Except now, he twisted his own gaze around behind him, as if wondering what Sunny was looking at.

The little girl laughed even harder.

Sighing, Sunny resumed her walk, ignoring any chuckles she heard from her neighbors. Stupid cat wouldn’t let me pick him up, but he trails along behind me, she thought. Maybe Shadow is a good name for him.

She arrived home and held the door while Shadow walked in as if he owned the place. “Guess you’re better off here than dodging nets or whatever the animal control people have in store for you,” she told the cat.

“That you, Sunny?” Her dad’s voice came from the living room. She walked in to find him sitting on the couch with Mrs. Martinson, one of the widowed neighbor ladies. “Thought you’d be busy all morning.”

Mike was talking a bit fast. Sunny quickly realized that wasn’t because she’d walked in to find him entertaining a lady friend. Her dad was trying to brush sugary crumbs off his sweater.

“Nice to see you, Mrs. Martinson. Did you bring some of your famous coffee cake?” The words came out a bit sharper than Sunny meant them to.

“Sorry, dear, no.” Helena Martinson didn’t even turn a perfectly coiffed hair as she lied to Sunny. But then, the older woman had always shown a remarkable coolness in any social situation. Back when Sunny was in high school, Mrs. Martinson had been the hot mom all the boys lusted after. And even now, Sunny had to admit that her neighbor still looked pretty darned good. A well-cut pantsuit showed off her trim figure. Her pageboy hairstyle perfectly framed her delicate features, and somehow the silver threads among the gold had simply turned her into more of a platinum blonde.

Mrs. Martinson gave Sunny a bland smile, but Mike had a nervous grin—he hadn’t succeeded in getting rid of all the evidence of his illicit cake eating. Then his expression turned to a thunderous scowl when Shadow walked into the room. “What is that thing doing back?”

Shadow continued to the pool of light from the window and curled up.

Sunny paused for a moment, not sure where to begin. “I guess he’s going to be living here, because he doesn’t have a home anymore,” she finally said. “Ada Spruance is dead.”

Mike looked ready to dispute the idea of Shadow moving in, but Helena Martinson seized control of the conversation. “Oh, my!” She perched forward on her seat, her doll-like face alight with avid curiosity. “What happened, dear?”

No doubt she’s taking mental notes for the neighborhood gossip society, Sunny thought. “I found her as soon as I arrived,” she said aloud.

“Lucky thing you went over there.” Mike shot a dirty look at Shadow. “Those animals have no respect. By din-din time, they’d have been all over her.”

Shadow looked up and blinked at him.

“Don’t go looking at me like I’m some kind of kitty buffet, you damned beast!”

Shadow rested his head back on his paws, closing his eyes.

Before Mike could make some other sarcastic remark, Mrs. Martinson said, “Poor Ada. I guess I was one of the last people in the neighborhood on speaking terms with her. Ada’s house is just down the block a bit from mine and across the street.”

“I spoke to her just last week,” Mike grumbled, “after one of her menagerie mistook my roses for a litter box.”

“You shouted at her, you mean,” Mrs. Martinson replied.

“Sheriff Nesbit says hello, by the way,” Sunny said, hoping to change the subject.

Mike grunted. “He actually came down from Levett? A sure sign election time is just around the corner.”

“Actually, a town constable came first,” Sunny told her dad. “He didn’t seem to get along with the sheriff.”

“Sounds like Will Price.” Mike grinned. “The constables are supposed to report to the sheriff’s office, but Alderman Chase slipped Will in to annoy Frank Nesbit.”

Even after spending the better part of a year back in town, Sunny still didn’t have a handle on all the local politics. “Well, it seems to be working. What’s the problem between them?”

“Who was the sheriff before Frank got in?” Mike nudged her.

Sunny called on fuzzy memories of classroom visits from grammar school. “Sheriff Price. Oh. His son?”

“Stu Price was a good lawman.” Mike shook his head. “He made a mistake on one big case, and Frank just about ran him out of town.”

“Died just a couple of months after the election. Car accident.” Mrs. Martinson pursed her lips. “Or so they say.”

“Will left town—joined the state police way up north, and then wound up on the force over in Portsmouth,” Mike said. “But Chase persuaded him to come back to this side of the river. A lot of people, businessmen like Zack Judson over at the market and Ken Howell at the Crier, are getting sick of how Nesbit preaches about keeping Elmet safe while cooking the crime statistics. Assaults magically become harassment, or cases get pushed to other jurisdictions.”

“I didn’t realize you were so plugged in, Dad,” Sunny said.

Mike shrugged. “Folks talk to me. I’m around here all day with not much else to do.”

Mrs. Martinson cleared her throat. “Do you know how Ada … passed on?” Her sidewise glance at Mike showed the war between her curiosity and her fear of upsetting Sunny’s dad. “I know she’d been complaining about chest pains recently.”

“It was a fall,” Sunny said quickly, unwilling to get into a discussion about cardiac care. “She must have been going down into the cellar from the kitchen pantry—”

“Oh, no, that’s impossible,” Mrs. Martinson interrupted, drawing herself up from her perch on the couch to her full diminutive height. “Ada was deathly afraid of those stairs. She never used them.”