Cat Raise the Dead (8 page)

The grounds of the Prior estate were well tended, the lawn thick and very green. To the left of the old original house lay a wood, and they could see dark old tombstones between the trees.

“Family burial plot,” Clyde said, “from when families were laid to rest on their own land.” He parked the Bentley just opposite the front door. The cats could smell jasmine flowers, and the rich aroma of meat and
chilies from somewhere deep within the house. Clyde picked up the two of them unceremoniously, carried them to the Packard, and deposited them in the backseat.

But on that brief journey as she was carried, Dulcie took in every possible detail she could see through the broad front windows of the house, a glimpse of library with walls of leather-bound books; pale, heavy draperies; the gleam of antique furniture; oriental rugs on polished floors. Dulcie's green eyes shone with interest, her pink tongue tipped out, her dark, striped tail twitched.

The mechanic, slipping over into the passenger seat, turned to look back, watching the little cat, puzzled. As if he'd never seen a cat so interested in fine houses. And quickly she began to wash, trying to look uninterested and dull.

She had no idea that her interest in the Prior home, her desire to see inside those elegant rooms, would soon be more than satisfied—and in a way she would not have imagined.

Susan Dorriss regarded her lunch tray, which had been fixed across the arms of her wheelchair, with disgust. At least she'd wangled a meal alone in her room, though to gain that privacy she'd had to pretend a pounding headache. Solitary meals were against policy at Casa Capri unless you were fevered or throwing up. The home's owner-manager considered anyone who liked to be alone as mentally crippled or suspect. “We put a high value on everyone making friends; we're one big family here.” The longer she was in Casa Capri—and Thursday would mark her second month—the less she could abide this enforced closeness. The whole structure of Casa Capri seemed to her rigid and heavy, reflecting exactly Adelina Prior's overbearing manner.

And today the food was just as unpleasant, the plate before her loaded with a pile of overdone roast beef and gluey mashed potatoes and canned gravy that smelled like sweet bouillon cubes. She knew she was being a bitch, but why not? There was no one to hear her even if she grumbled aloud.

Usually the meals were wonderful, when Noah was in charge of the kitchen. Lunch would be a fresh salad, plenty of fruits, and a variety of crisp greens, and for the entree something light and appealing, a small portion of light lobster Newburg or a nice slice of chicken with asparagus or sugar peas. You paid enough to live in this
place that the food ought to be thoughtfully prepared. She'd forgotten this was Noah's day off.

She ate some of the hot bread and forced down a bite of limp salad swimming in Thousand Island dressing, then pushed her plate away. She set the dessert aside, shoving the heavy bread pudding onto the night table next to her glasses and a stack of books. She was watching
Tootsie
, an old favorite. She loved the fun Dustin Hoffman had with this role, loved the way he handled his disguises. Bonnie had brought the video yesterday when she came; her daughter knew which movies she liked and she brought several each week.
Tootsie
would finish up about one-thirty, and Bonnie would arrive at two with Lamb.

The big, chocolate-colored poodle was Susan's ticket to freedom for a little while; it was Lamb who would take her out of here, away from the nurses and the regimentation and rules.

Bonnie had organized the Pet-a-Pet program mainly for that purpose. With the accompanying favorable publicity for Casa Capri, there was no way Adelina could refuse. Publicity meant money, and money was what Adelina Prior was all about.

On Bonnie's first Pet-a-Pet visit, Lamb had been so happy to find Susan, had been so playful, overjoyed, acting as if she'd been hiding from him. And she'd had no trouble at all teaching him, that first day, to pull her along the deserted lanes of the adjoining, wooded park, using the harness Bonnie had fashioned. The acreage beyond the Spanish-style complex was large, and the path through the oak woods was shaded and pleasant, scented with the perfume of rotting leaves, peopled with a dozen varieties of birds flashing among the oaks and rhododendron. And with the cool wind, and with Lamb's damp nose nudging her hand, after those afternoons she returned to the villa refreshed, renewed, quite ready to be calm and patient for a few days.

And then after the Pet-a-Pet session Bonnie had
taken her out to dinner, folding her wheelchair into the backseat, tucking Susan herself into the leather front seat and gently fastening the seat belt around her, careful of the bones that had been broken. Dinners out were a real treat since she had come to Casa Capri. The evenings they spent sipping wine and enjoying lobster or scallops at The Bakery, or cosseted within the luxury of the more expensive Windborne, those evenings, and these afternoons with Lamb, were what made her long days at the nursing home bearable.

She removed her loaded lunch tray and set it on the bed. Wheeling her chair to the low dressing table, she began to brush her short white hair. She had been so excited about moving down here to Molena Point from San Francisco when she retired from Neiman-Marcus. She had always loved the village, loved its oak-wooded hills and the hillside views of the village's rooftops gleaming red against the blue Pacific. She loved the upstairs apartment she had rented from Bonnie; it had a wonderful view. But she had hardly been moved in, half her boxes still unpacked, when the car accident changed everything.

She had run out to the store for some more shelf paper for the kitchen before she unpacked her dishes, and as she turned off Highway One just north of the tunnel, the truck came around a curve, crossing the center line. The driver hit his brakes, skidded, spun out of control, and hit her car broadside.

When she came to at the bottom of a ten-foot embankment, her car on its side, she had been conscious enough to dig the phone out from under her injured legs and dial 911. Had been very thankful for the phone. She'd given it to herself as a birthday gift, and that day it probably saved her life.

The police never had found the old green pickup. Bonnie said they were still looking, that they still had it on their list. But after all this time, what good? Certainly her insurance company would like to find the truck. Two
weeks in the hospital, four more weeks in a convalescent wing, and then here to the nursing home, and a visit every day from a physical therapist, all this was terribly expensive. She spent an hour a day doing resistance exercises that hurt so badly they brought tears spurting.

But the exercises were strengthening her torn muscles, and that would help support her healing bones. She had metal plates everywhere. Bonnie kept saying she wanted to hug her hard, but she couldn't—a hug would hurt like hell. Bonnie said she was like a poor broken bird one was afraid to pick up, and that had made her tears come in self-pity until she shouted at Bonnie to stop. If Bonnie had a failing, it was too much feeling for others, too much pity.

Bonnie was so much like her father. She had George's way of looking at life just as she had inherited his square, sturdy build, his sandy hair and freckles. She had nothing of Susan's own long, lean body that never seemed to take on weight. Bonnie had always had trouble with weight though she didn't seem to mind. She was always reaching out, as George had, so eager to be with people and to help them.

When Susan came to Casa Capri, Bonnie had been appalled at the sense of depression among the patients. And Bonnie was constitutionally unable to leave any unpleasant situation alone. That, too, had propelled her into organizing the Pet-a-Pet program, though her plan was born primarily so she could bring Lamb to visit. The big, easygoing standard poodle had become as much Susan's dog as Bonnie's. From the day she moved into the hillside apartment, Susan had walked him twice a day, up among the village hills and down among the shops, her pleasure complete at having a dog to walk after so many years in a San Francisco apartment that wouldn't accommodate a big dog. She didn't like little dogs. Might as well have a cat, and her opinion of cats wasn't high.

She loved Lamb's steady, happy disposition. He was
such a delightful and handsome dog. Bonnie's downstairs apartment had a nice yard, and Bonnie kept Lamb's chocolate coat clipped short, in a field cut, no ruffles or pompoms, no nonsense. One of the worst things about the aftermath of the accident was not having Lamb warm and pressing against her leg, looking up at her, sharing her lonely moments.

When the pain was at its worst, she kept thinking,
Why me? Why did this happen to me. What kind of God would let this happen
? But what stupid, pointless questions.

God was not to blame; God had nothing to do with accidents. Things just happened, and no use fretting. If she made the best of it, if she did the painful therapy and got herself back in shape, she'd be out of here.

That was what God looked at, how you responded to the random bad times that might hit. God could see if you were a fighter. He was pleased if you were, and disappointed if you didn't fight back against life's bad luck. She'd always known, ever since she was a little girl, that God didn't like quitters.

And she was tremendously lucky not to be here for good like the other residents. She was only sixty-four and had plenty of plans for her remaining years. She was going to heal herself and be out of this place by the end of summer.

But for now she needed the extra care that the retirement home offered and which Bonnie couldn't manage, working all day. For the first weeks she could hardly move. She'd rather be here with a regular staff who were used to giving care than at home trying to deal with some hired woman. She had spent her first three days in the Nursing wing at the other end of the block-long building, before she was moved over here.

At least in this wing the outer doors weren't kept locked during the day, as they were in Nursing. That had given her the willies. Bonnie had really climbed the fire marshal about that, but he said they had Alzheimer's
patients over there and had to keep the doors locked. He swore that every person on duty carried door keys at all times in case of fire or earthquake.

But locked doors or not, there was really no reason why the Nursing unit should be so strict about visitors. What did Adelina Prior think, that someone was going to pull out a sick patient's IV or feed him poison? No wonder little Mae Rose got upset and let her imagination run wild.

Casa Capri was one of those complexes known as three-stage living. Residents could progress from retirement living in a private cottage, to assisted living here in the Care Unit, with twenty-four-hour service available, then on to Nursing, where you retired to your bed for good.

That was fine for some people, though in her view such careful planning for every remaining moment of your life was like living in a cage.

Many of the cottage residents still drove their own cars and jogged and traveled, but wanted the extra security and services such a place offered. They didn't have to cook, didn't have to worry about housecleaning or maintenance. Old Frederick Weems lived over in Cottages, while his wife Eula lived here in the Care Unit. And who could blame him, with Eula's nagging? If they had the money, more power to him.

But maybe she was unfair in her assessment of Casa Capri. The car accident had allowed her no time to work up a mind-set that would help her adapt to these rigid group rules. She was never much for rules; during her years working in retail sales she constantly had to rein in her passions and her temper.

Now she no longer cared if people thought her abrasive—she'd be rude when she chose. That included, to Bonnie's distress, being rude to Adelina Prior.

If she didn't dislike Adelina so deeply, she'd get friendly and try to figure out what made the woman tick. Why would a woman as beautiful, as expensively
groomed and elegantly dressed, want to spend her life running a nursing home?

But though the puzzle nagged at her, she didn't have the patience to fake friendliness with Adelina. It was all she could do to deal with the pain; that alone, when it was at its worst, could turn her as short-tempered as a caged tiger. She dreamed of being free of pain and home again in her new apartment, she dreamed of wandering the village, with Lamb walking at heel.

She loved the fact that in Molena Point people shopped with their dogs. Anywhere in the village you might see a patient, obedient dog tied outside a shop in the shadow of an oak tree while his master or mistress did errands. It was such a casual, lovely little town. She burned to know Molena Point better, to discover more of the hidden galleries and boutiques which were tucked away in the alleys, to browse the bookstores and enjoy the many small restaurants. These were her retirement years. What was she doing in a wheelchair? She had been so glad to move away from the heart of San Francisco, from its growing street crime, to a village devoid of that kind of violence. Molena Point was a walking village, a safe and friendly place where one felt nothing bad could happen.

It was their first night out for dinner after the accident, the first night she was able to lift herself from the wheelchair into Bonnie's car, that Bonnie told her about the Pet-a-Pet idea. Sitting in the Windborne at a window table, looking down at the sea breaking on the rocks below, Bonnie said, “You need a friend in that place. You need Lamb.”

“I wish. Bring him on over, we can share a room.”

But Bonnie laid out her plan with childlike enthusiasm; she had worked out all the details, even to convincing Adelina Prior of the positive public relations and advertising value of such a venture. The owner-manager of Casa Capri was not an animal lover, not that cold-eyed woman. Bonnie promised Adelina she would get
articles about Casa Capri's exciting Pet-a-Pet venture in several specialty magazines; she had some connections among the clients of the law firm she worked for that would help. No special favors, just casual networking. There was, at the time, a Pet-a-Pet group based in San Francisco, and a branch in Santa Barbara, making regular visits with their well-mannered animals to local nursing homes, and the local newspapers had done great human-interest articles with lots of pictures.

Bonnie said, “Halman and Fletcher is getting me an assistant, and I'll be working Saturdays for a while with John Halman on this land-swindle case. That frees me up two afternoons a week, to bring the Pet-a-Pet group out to Casa Capri. I've already contacted the San Francisco chapter, and they're sending instructions about testing the animals for sweet dispositions and gentleness. They suggested five Molena Point pet owners they thought might like to join us, and one is the reference librarian you met, Wilma Getz.”

The waiter brought their salad and filled their wineglasses; beyond the windows the sea had darkened.

“Lamb misses you, Mama. I swear he's pining, he's so sulky. And you miss him; so what could be more perfect?” She broke her French bread, looking out at the heaving sea, its swells running swift beneath the restaurant's lights. “I have the plan all in place. Three hours each visit, two afternoons a week. One owner-handler for each pet.

“A reporter has already interviewed us. Of course, Adelina was there.” Bonnie grinned. “Guess who took all the credit. The
Gazette
is sending a photographer later, when we get settled in. I don't want the animals bothered until they're used to the routine.”