An Unthymely Death (6 page)

“I’m looking for Khat,” I said. “Have you see him?”

Vivian’s face darkened. “If I had,” she said shortly, “I’d have taken the flyswatter to his royal backside.” She gestured. “Just look.”

“Oh, dear,” I said. I bent over and peered at a dozen small green plants—broken, mangled, and flattened, their roots drying pitifully in the sun. I picked a leaf and sniffed it. “Catnip,” I said.

“You don’t have to tell me what they are,” Vivian said resentfully. “I planted them myself, a whole dozen, just yesterday. And this isn’t the first time they’ve been destroyed. Last year, I put a few in a window box, but the cats climbed the wall and uprooted every plant in the box, along with two scented geraniums and some parsley. Last month, I set out another batch, and the next morning, the bed looked as if a tornado had romped through it. This time, I put chicken wire over the plants, but the durn cats tore up the wire, hid it behind the garage, and
then
tore up the catnip.” She made a plaintive noise. “Wretched beasts. Why can’t they leave it alone?”

“On behalf of Khat and his colleagues,” I said ruefully, “I apologize. But the problem is that cats
can’t
leave it alone, Vivian. They’re genetically programmed to react to the volatile oils. If you want catnip, you might try raising it from seed.”

Vivian leaned on her hoe, frowning. “From seed?”

I nodded. “Ever heard the old saying, ‘If you set it, the cats will get it. If you sow it, they won’t know it’?” When she looked doubtful, I explained. “If you set out transplants, the leaves inevitably get bruised. The oils are released and the cats come running. If you start catnip from seed, the plants may be able to grow to maturity before some passing kitty discovers them.”

“I guess I could give it a try,” Vivian said. She glanced at me from under the brim of her hat. “You say you’ve lost your cat? That big, beautiful Siamese?” She sighed. “He’s no gentleman where catnip is concerned, but otherwise, he’s a charmer.”

“I haven’t seen him for two days and I’m really worried,” I said. “Call me if he comes around, will you?”

“Sure,” she said. “By the way, would you tell Janet I’m looking forward to Friday’s luncheon. I hear she’s serving marinated bocci balls.”

“Bocconcini,” I said. “Mozzarella cheese balls.”

“Is that what they are?” Vivian said dubiously. “Well, I’m sure people will like them just the same.” She frowned. “Probably.”

 

 

By Thursday morning, I knew I had to do something more productive than simply riding my bike around the neighborhood. I scanned a photo of Khat into the computer, ran off several dozen flyers, and began posting them. My first stop was at Cavette’s Grocery, a couple of blocks down Crockett Street.

Cavette’s is one of those old family markets that have been almost completely obliterated by the Safeways and Krogers of this world—a small shop with wooden bins and wicker baskets of fresh fruit and veggies lined up on the sidewalk. The Cavettes buy organic produce from local growers, newly baked tortillas from Zapata’s Tortilla Factory, and fresh herbs from my garden, in season. It always gives me a lift to see cellophane packages of fresh rosemary and basil and sage, prettied up with a green ribbon and the Thyme and Seasons label.

“Hello, China,” young Mr. Cavette wheezed, straightening up from a box of fresh Fredericksburg peaches he was putting out. Young Mr. Cavette must be close to seventy and is bald as an onion. His father, old Mr. Cavette, who sits behind the old-fashioned cash register and rings up all the sales, recently celebrated his ninetieth birthday. The youngest Mr. Cavette, whom everybody calls Junior, is middle-aged and makes deliveries on his red motorbike. The three Cavettes, father, son, and grand-son, live next door to the store.

“Hello, Mr. Cavette,” I said. I held up my flyer. “Have you seen my cat?”

He took the flyer and held it up to his nose, peering nearsightedly at it. “Well, sure,” he said. “This cat shows up whenever Old Pete brings in a batch of fresh fish. Has a special liking for catfish.” He grinned and handed back the flyer. “Doesn’t care for shrimp, though, or scallops. Just catfish.”

“Have you seen him
lately
?” I persisted. “He’s been lost since Tuesday.”

“Oh, too bad,” Mr. Cavette said, sounding sincere. “Lost, huh? Good-lookin’ cat like that, somebody prob’ly cat-napped him.” He looked down at the peaches in his hand. “Say, didn’t Janet tell me she wanted me to save her some fresh peaches and melons for that lunch y’all are havin’ on Friday?”

“I guess,” I said, dispirited. I hated to think that anybody would be nasty enough to steal Khat. But it’s certainly true that customers admire him. When they bend over to pet him, lots of them croon, “Would you like to come home with me and be my very own kitty?” Maybe somebody thought he said, “Yes.” But I couldn’t let that possibility stop me. “Is it okay if I post this flyer in your window?”

“Sure,” Mr. Cavette said. “Pete’s bringin’ in some catfish this afternoon. If your cat shows up, I’ll tell him to scat on home.” He picked up a bag. “How many peaches do you reckon Janet wants?”

“A dozen,” I hazarded.

He handed me the bag. “Tell her I couldn’t get any of that bocorooni stuff she wanted.”

“Bocorooni?” I asked. “Do you mean bocconcini?”

He frowned. “Whatever. Olives I can get, artichoke hearts, no problem. I even got them sun-dried tomatoes she wanted, even though they don’t look like much to me. We got fresh ones a lot nicer. But botticelli, no way. Janet wants weird specialty stuff like that, she’s going to have to drive to San Antonio.”

“I’ll tell her,” I said.

 

 

An hour later, I had worked my way to Courthouse Square, posting flyers as I went. I only had two left, so I stopped at the Old Nueces Street Diner and asked Lila Jennings if I could put one in her front window. The Diner, which has a fifties look, is where you go when you’re hungry for down-home Texas cooking. You can get breakfast all day, or meat loaf and gravy, chicken and dumplings, pot roast, fried catfish, and Lila’s famous jelly doughnuts.

In answer to my question about posting the flyer, she said, “You just go right ahead, honey bun, and tape up that flyer.” She swiped at the red Formica counter with a wet rag. With her ruffled pink nylon apron, red lipstick, and penciled eyebrows, Lila also has a fifties look. “I been missin’ that sweet ol’ tomcat, too,” she added. “I always put out a little something for him around lunchtime.”

“You do?” I asked, surprised. I hadn’t realized that Khat was such an all-around Pecan Springs favorite.

“Why, sure. He’s crazy about French fries and cream gravy. Goes after it like he ain’t had a good meal in a week.” She frowned. “He hasn’t been around for a few days, though. Don’t suppose he crawled off sick somewhere, do you? He could stand to lose a few pounds, if you ask me. It ain’t good for cats to be too heavy, you know.”

I agreed. But if Khat was eating Lila’s French fries and cream gravy for lunch, I could see why his low-calorie cat food hadn’t done a thing for him. “If you see him,” I said, “please put him in a closet and call me right away.”

Lila arched her skinny eyebrows. “Put that cat in a closet? It’d be like tryin’ to shut a mountain lion into the privy. But if I see him, I’ll sure let you know.” She poured herself a cup of coffee and dumped sugar into it, giving me a quizzical look. “What’s this I hear about Janet cookin’ up some sort of married cheese stuff for the Friends of the Library?”

“It’s marinated cheese,” I said. “Little balls of mozzarella, soaked in basil vinegar. They go in a salad.”

“Cheese in vinegar?” Lila gave a delicate shudder. “Don’t sound just real good to me. Is that girl sure she knows what she’s doin’?”

“Of course she does,” I said defensively. “Janet’s been to cooking school.”

Lila gave me a look that said, plain as day, that cooking school was part of the problem. She leaned against the counter, sipping her coffee. “Well, if the Friends turn up their noses at married cheese, you just send ’em on over here. Friday is meat loaf. I ain’t no gourmet cook, but nobody ever has a bad word to say about my meat loaf.”

I was taping my flyer in the window when Hark Hibler came along, headed for a cup of Lila’s coffee. Hark is the managing editor at the
Enterprise
, Pecan Springs’s newspaper, which is owned by the Seidensticker family. A while back, he asked if I’d take over the Thursday Home and Garden page, so strictly speaking, he’s my boss. Of course, he wouldn’t be my boss if the
Enterprise
had continued to be a weekly, as it had been for decades. But last year, Arlene Seidensticker decided that Pecan Springs deserved a daily, which means that Hark is always hard up for news. He frequents the Diner because it’s the best place in town to plug into the grapevine and get an earful of the local stories making the rounds. Where the grapevine is concerned, Lila is like one of those old-fashioned telephone operators, sitting at a switchboard with a direct line into every household in town. What she doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing.

“Lost your cat, huh?” he grunted, glancing at the flyer I’d just posted. “I’ve got a hole at the bottom of tomorrow’s page three. How about if I run a story on him?”

“Oh, would you?” I said gratefully. I handed him my last flyer. “I’ll go home and get the photo so Ethel can scan it into the computer.” Along with becoming a daily, the
Enterprise
added a couple of computers. Hark wasn’t happy about that, either, but he and Ethel Fritz, his assistant editor, couldn’t put out even a little daily if they had to do it with old-fashioned equipment.

Hark peered at the photo. “I know this cat,” he said. “He’s not exactly the sort of animal you pass by without noticing.”

“Everybody else in town knows him, too,” I replied testily. “Mr. Cowan throws zucchini at him, Vivian Baxter is waiting with a flyswatter, Mr. Cavette feeds him catfish, and Lila makes sure he gets French fries and cream gravy for lunch.” I was beginning to feel that Khat was public property. “So what’s your connection to him?”

“Oh, no connection. I just mean that I saw him. Last night, maybe? No, it was this morning—I think.”

I stared. “This morning! Where?”

“In a tree. On my way to the gym, maybe? No, on my way to work.” Hark pulled at his moustache. You’d think that a newspaperman would have a head for dates and places, but Hark sometimes has a problem with details. “I can’t remember exactly, but—”

“Try,”
I said urgently. Hark’s bachelor pad isn’t far from the
Enterprise
office, or from the gym, for that matter. Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to remember where he’d seen a big Siamese perched in a tree.

Hark shifted from one foot to the other. “I think it was that pecan tree at the corner of Comanche and Pecos,” he said finally. “Beside the vacant house—the old Gillis house.” He paused, frowning. “Except it’s not vacant anymore. Somebody moved in last week. I saw a moving van parked out front, and a woman carrying some boxes—”

But I was already racing for my bike.

The Gillis house is one of those places you’d love to inherit, if only it wouldn’t take the entire national defense budget to make it livable. It’s been vacant for three or four years, ever since old Mrs. Gillis died, and it needs a new roof, a new front porch, windows, doors, and probably a fortune in paint, plumbing, and wiring. But Hark was right. Somebody had moved into it. Sheets were hanging over the vacant front windows, and there was a pile of empty moving boxes on the front porch. The pecan tree was empty, however, except for a flock of Mr. Cowan’s rabble-rousing grackles. There was no sign of Khat.

I knocked at the front door, waited for a moment or two, and then knocked again. No answer. I went around to the back, and found a car parked in the old garage—risky business, I thought, because the garage roof looked as if it could collapse if so much as a leaf fell on it. I knocked on the back door. No answer there, either. I made a fist and banged, loudly, and this time I thought I heard something. A meow?