Cat by Any Other Name (9781101597729) (5 page)

Chapter 7

The morning sun was brilliant, robust, cleansing. And the ragged old tenements seemed to be gift-wrapped in its buttery light.

I was standing at the gate of the herb garden, looking on silently at the other women as they toiled. Renee hovered over the dill. Ava was in the far bed with the coriander. And Sylvia was weeding in our main cash crop—catnip.

I was going to have to be cautious and gentle with these three women, who had loved Barbara just as I had. But I would eventually have to tell them that it looked as though our friend had been murdered. Which wouldn't be nearly so difficult as telling them that they all made excellent suspects. One of them had probably killed her, unless . . . unless I was precisely the grief-stricken, paranoid egomaniac I'd been accused of being.

I entered the garden, closed the gate behind me, and walked over to Renee. She noticed me approaching and beckoned wildly to me.

“Quick, Alice! You've got to see this. Bend down here and look.”

I dropped close to the ground, beside her.

“Just look, Alice. Isn't it great?”

The dill plants were a riot of gorgeous yellow flowers. Truly beautiful.

Renee whipped a tattered pamphlet out of the pocket of her jeans. “To paraphrase the bible,” she said, holding the book up, “the leaves should be picked right after this little host of golden whatevers bursts forth.”

I caught a glimpse of the cover of her “bible,” a guide to herbs published by the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. Like most writers, Renee loved to quote other writers—no matter what the subject, no matter what the context. She was very literate, like all of Barbara's friends. Except me—I just have an exceptional memory.

“But the plants look too lovely to touch,” she continued. “How can I strip these poor flowers naked? I mean, it just seems a shame.” She was clucking her tongue, half joking, but only half.

I looked down at the plants, my mind not on them at all. I had other things to discuss right now.

“Listen, Renee,” I began, turning to her. “Did Barbara ever talk to you about God?”

She frowned in answer, obviously not sure she'd heard me correctly.

“You mean . . .
God
?”

“Yes.”

She stood then, and I stood along with her.

“What a bizarre question, Alice.” There was a trace of a smile on her mouth, as if she thought I was making some sort of joke. “Why do you ask?” The smile disappeared as quickly as it had come.

“I don't know. Maybe I just want to flesh out my memories of her, complete the picture.”

“I'm sure,” she said deliberately, “I don't know what you mean by that, Alice.” I knew then that I had upset her. “But isn't it a little soon to be making up things about her, mythologizing her? Isn't she fresh enough in your memory?”

I nodded apologetically and began to withdraw.

“Just a minute,” Renee called to me, already back at work on the plants. “The answer to your question is no. No God.”

“You mean for her or for you?” I inquired.

She glared at me. What a madonna-like face Renee Lupo had, even when she was angry. She was one of those women who become more exotic as they age. Her hands, her neck, her feet—everything about her was precise and lovely and sculpted.

“Why don't you get to work like the rest of us?” Renee asked.

“I will, shortly.”

“You're too full of yourself, Alice,” she said.

“What do you mean by that?”

“What I mean by that is that you have an overinflated view of your own thought processes.”

“I have good reason for asking the question I did, Renee.”

“Everybody has good reasons for stupid questions. Why ask any questions at all, Alice? Why not just mourn silently, like the rest of us? Why not just finish the garden?” She seemed to be getting more and more hostile. She fiddled with the top buttons of her blouse, which now hung over the sides of her jeans. Her anger saddened me.

I walked over to the plant bed where Ava was working intently. She was, as usual, beautifully if inappropriately dressed beneath the gardening smock I recognize as one of Barbara's. Today's outfit was a soft ecru jumpsuit. Ava was a very handsome woman.

When she saw me, she plucked a coriander leaf, then waited until I came close enough for her to thrust it under my nose. “Isn't it strange, Alice, that a plant with such wonderful seeds has such a vile-smelling leaf?”

No argument from me. The odor was indeed awful.

“Seeds aren't ripe yet,” she added, turning the leaf over a couple of times before she let it fall to the ground. “Are you okay, sweetie? You look tired.”

“I'm all right, thanks. Ava . . . ?”

“Yes?”

“How are the kittens?”

“Oh, they're quite wonderful. Quite mad. They run all day and all night. And in between they collapse. But never all at the same time. Winken runs. Blinken collapses. Nod watches. Then the cycle starts again. They're exhausting, but so much fun!”

I'd been stalling, of course, with that inquiry about the cats. It was time to be direct. “Ava, can you tell me if Barbara ever talked to you about religion, about God?”

She caught her breath then. A minute later she began to speak, but then could not. The tears started to roll down from her eyes. She said, “Oh, Alice. Do you know what Barbara was always talking about these last few months? You. She talked about you all the time. She was so taken with you, so happy about your friendship. She loved you . . .” And then Ava seemed to crumble from the sadness. She reached out for me and we stood holding each other.

I was two-for-two, as Basillio might say. So far the inquiry had proved a fiasco. Renee was angry; Ava was desolate. This was not the way I'd planned it.

A few moments later, her tears dried, Ava left the plants temporarily to get a glass of water. I could see that Sylvia, too, had taken a break and was standing at the fence, through which she was engaged in conversation with one of the neighbors who often came by to check on our progress.

When the conversation was finished and Sylvia had been left alone, I headed over to her. She was staring past me now, at the lonely-looking Ava.

Sylvia was still putting on weight, and her short-cut hair accentuated that fact. She was wearing the skirt to a spinsterly woman's suit, the kind Margaret Rutherford used to wear in the old Miss Marple films. As usual, she looked exhausted; maybe that was the price you paid for having an alcoholic husband who needed a lot of indulging. But Sylvia remained a very smart and kindly woman.

“What's the matter with Ava?” she asked, the concern evident in her voice.

“I'm afraid I upset her,” I said, “with a question I asked about Barbara.”

“What question?”

“One I planned to ask you as well,” I said, feeling a bit sheepish, but determined to go through with it anyway. “I wanted to know if Barbara ever talked about religion; about, well, God.”

Sylvia's reaction was certainly underplayed, compared to the others'. She smiled a little at me. “Grief is a strange thing,” she said. “Faulkner said if there was a choice between grief and nothingness, he'd choose grief.”

“I don't think I understand what that means.”

“I think it means one shouldn't kill oneself,” she said wryly.

Sylvia reached down to retrieve her trowel from the ground. Then she said, “To answer your question, Barbara never spoke to me about God. But I remember talking to her about it—Him—once, in a way. A couple of years ago. Virginia was at the vet's for an operation, and I was very worried about her. Barbara came over to spend some time with me. Pauly was away at the time. Anyway, when Barbara arrived she found me reading Simone Weil. Ever hear of her?”

I shook my head.

“She was a radical intellectual who starved herself to death out of allegiance with the . . . with all of suffering mankind. She wrote: ‘Every time I think of the Crucifixion, I commit the sin of envy.'”

Sylvia paused to tap the trowel against the wire fence and shake off some caked earth.

“But Barbara,” she continued, “didn't want to talk about Weil. All she said was that she knew absolutely that the cat was going to be all right. That I shouldn't worry.”

She banged the trowel savagely then. “You know, sometimes I think we should just raze this stupid garden. I know Barbara would have wanted us to follow through, but it just makes no damn sense without her. None!”

The implement clanged back to the ground, and I bent down to pick it up. Sylvia brought both her hands to her head and pushed backward along the sides, as if she had long hair that was in her way.

“Barbara
should
have talked about God,” she said, “because she was the holiest person I ever met. She was, wasn't she? There wasn't one mean or spiteful or jealous bone in her body. She was selfless, you know? For instance, about five years ago Barbara and Tim were in big trouble financially. Now, I have more money than I know what to do with. And when I wanted to lend her—not lend, just give it to her—ten thousand dollars, she said no. She wouldn't accept it. But not out of pride. No. You know what she said? She said she was ready to be poor for a while, if that's how it was meant to be.”

Sylvia shook her head and took the trowel back from me. “I'm going to get back to work now, Alice. Join me when you want to work up a sweat.” She walked slowly back to the catnip.

This part of the investigation had been a study in miscalculation. If I continued in this way, I'd manage to do the one thing I wanted most to avoid: alienate Barbara's best friends.

I turned my back on the garden and looked out at the street through the high fence.

There had to be a better way to proceed, I knew. A more logical way. Start at the beginning. Start with the person who had brought me those jogging clothes and set the whole thing in motion—Tim Roman. I didn't know why I hadn't thought of that first. Because Basillio had disappointed me? Rothwax had dismissed me? At least he had cautioned me against an investigation that proceeded from “feelings.” But I had fallen into that trap anyway, foolishly, childishly.

We were all—all of Barbara's friends—like children in one respect, it seemed. We all wanted to shut our eyes tight, then open them suddenly and see Barbara standing there again.

But of course that would surprise the hell out of the one who had killed her.

Chapter 8

It was nine days later, and I had not yet phoned Tim Roman.

My visit to the herb garden to interrogate Barbara's closest friends had brought nothing but unhappiness. It had been a sobering, chastening experience and had caused me to question all my convictions about Barbara's death. And now, as I lay all the facts and assumptions and unknowns out on the table, I knew I had very little. I was more and more inclined to let the dead stay dead.

In the nine-day interval, I got a new cat-sitting job. I was also called for an interview with an executive from one of the cable channels who was thinking of producing a three-part serial, à la
Masterpiece Theater
, about the doomed poet Sylvia Plath. He was considering me for one of the voiceovers; I'd be reading her poems over the live action. And one day was completely taken up with capturing Pancho and getting him to the vet to be treated for his pancreatic insufficiency.

Each time I'd picked up the phone to call Tim Roman, something had prevented me from completing the call. It was my conscience. The idea of prying into his and Barbara's life together, trying to trap him, was just too much to bear. I imagined putting the same question to him that I'd asked the women at the garden—“Did Barbara ever talk about God or religion?”—and the mere thought sent shivers down my spine. I could just see him dissolving with grief again or maybe even flying into a rage at me. Even more terrible, I could envision myself telling him that Barbara had been deceiving him, that the jogging story had only been a cover for her planned conversion to Catholicism. And I hated all of it.

The bottom line was that I could not believe Tim had had anything to do with Barbara's death. So why put him through that?

And so the days passed, and I went about the business of my life.

Basillio woke me at six thirty on the morning of day number ten.

“Hey, Swede. Did I wake you?”

“Of course you did.” I felt no obligation to disguise my irritation.

“Well, good,” he responded. “You have to start being an early riser. It's the early bird that catches the criminal worm, you know.”

I made no reply, deciding not to tell him about my early-morning reconstruction of Barbara Roman's routine. My silence did nothing to dissuade him from rattling on, however.

He was full of witty, self-deprecating comments about his exile in the Connecticut countryside. Then he said mysteriously, “Nan Molina sends her best to you.”

I sat up in bed, still not totally awake. I tried to focus on the name, but it meant nothing to me. The line remained silent until he spoke again.

“Don't you remember Nan Molina?” he prompted cheerfully.

“It's six o'clock in the morning, Tony.”

“It's six thirty, but try to remember who Nan is.”

“No.”

“She wrote
The Vampire of Sixth Avenue
!”

Nan Molina and her play came back to me then. One of the more insane roles I had ever played, the heroine of
Vampire of Sixth Avenue
was a whimsical lady murderess who worked in one of those Sixth Avenue skyscrapers as a receptionist. By the end of the play she had disposed of twenty-one male bosses of all kinds. Actually a very funny farce, it even had music: an offstage harmonica player. The performances had been given in the basement of a Hispanic Pentacostal church on Upper Broadway.

I laughed at the memory.

“Ah, you
do
remember,” Tony said.

“Yes, I do. Send her my regards.”

“I don't like the way you sound, Swede.”

“I'm not at my very best at this time of the day.”

“That's not it, Swede. Are you still brooding over your friend's death? Not accepting it?”

“Perhaps I am.”

“Well, leave it alone, Swede. Just stop it.”

“Don't tell me what to do, Tony. The last time I sought your advice you were decidedly unhelpful. And why
are
you calling me at six in the morning?”

“Oh, I've been up all night with some of these idiot children. Actually, I'm just about to go to bed.”

“Dear God. Grow up, Basillio.”

“Uh, Swede?”

“What?”

“Do you mind if I make a pass at Nan Molina?”

“Let your conscience be your guide, Tony.” I spoke much more softly than before.

He laughed. “You're sexy when you're annoyed, Swede. Call you again. Same time?”

I tried to get back to sleep after Tony's call, but it was no good. I lay there in bed, close to Bushy, who was snoring peacefully on the other pillow. There is only one window in my bedroom, high and narrow, and very little of the morning light had filtered in through it. The room was filled with shadows. I was—I couldn't deny it—depressed.

Too dispirited, for the moment, even to get up and make morning coffee, my thoughts kept on floating.

As for Basillio . . . well, I didn't know. My relationship with him was like one of those shadows. We irritated each other; we flirted; we made love; we parted and then came back together. The ground was constantly shifting beneath us. And just maybe he was seeking my permission for the Nan Molina pass a little bit
after
the fact?

No such confusion with Barbara. No shifting sands, no feuds, no condescension. I couldn't even conceive of Barbara's tearing off to another state to pursue some interest, and then having no time or patience for my concerns. We had had the best possible friendship, but it had been too short. Ended much too soon. I'd been cheated out of it.

While the coffee dripped, I called Tim.

He answered not with a “hello” but a “yes.”

“Tim, this is Alice Nestleton.” Not too businesslike, I hoped.

Nothing.

“Tim, are you there? I hope I'm not waking you.” I glanced over at the clock. It was 7:40.

“No, you're not.”

“How are you, Tim?”

“I'm okay. . . . Well, actually, I'm having a hard time working. Or thinking. I can't do much of anything except stare at the walls—and miss her.”

At first I thought the labored breathing I was hearing must be Tim trying to rein in his emotions. Then I realized it was me. I started to mumble something in commiseration, but he kept talking.

“God, Alice. I can't stand the thought of her not existing anymore. I keep seeing her face in my head, falling, falling, and—”

I cut him off. “Listen, Tim, can we meet?”

“Of course. I want to talk to you.”

“Yes,” I said, “I want to talk to you, too.”

“When?”

“Are you free tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow? Yes. Where shall we meet?”

“You pick the place, Tim. Wherever you like.”

“There's a place on First Avenue. I never remember the name, but it's between Sixty-Eighth and Sixty-Ninth. On the east side of the street. It has a gray awning. We used to go there sometimes just to have a drink before dinner, just to sit and relax. I have an appointment in Midtown and can be there by three. How would that be?”

“Fine. I'll be there.”

I hung up, momentarily choking on my own duplicity and bad faith. But I soon managed to swallow it down.

Something had taken Barbara away from me. Or someone had. As I said before, I'd been cheated. But more important, so had Barbara. There and then I admitted to myself that I didn't give a damn if I had to hurt or alienate all of her friends and family. Maybe it was some lofty justice that I was after—or simple revenge. Or perhaps I was just a hostage to my own arrogance, my “feelings.”

It didn't matter. In my own way, I was going to get her back.