French Polished Murder (6 page)

E smiled and mumbled, “Peegrass,” and the cat looked even more apologetic, as though he were afraid I’d be jealous of him. I petted him. “Just don’t pee floor,” I whispered, as I pulled a light blanket over E, and went back to the kitchen.

Where Ben, to what should not have been my surprise, had claimed the coffee-making honors. It shouldn’t have been a surprise because—possibly because of how much time he’d spent at my house in the last six months, and his exasperation with my coffee—his gift to me had been a huge, industrial-looking coffeemaker, that could make coffee, espresso, latte, and—for all I knew—dance, do dishes, and sing the blues.

Officer Nick—or, I guessed, since he was off duty, just Nick—was trying resolutely to keep up a conversation, which was being met with mumbles and occasional nods from Ben. I wondered if he’d been playing this hard to get while we were gone, too, and felt like shaking him. Okay, not that I think that Ben should fall for every guy who talked nice to him. And not that I even knew if Nick was hitting on him. But Nick was trying to establish some sort of conversation, and being if not rebuffed at least mostly ignored.

“Normally,” Nick said, and cleared his throat, “I prefer Greek coffee, you know, with the grounds in.”

“I’ll be quite happy to pour the grounds in the cup,” Ben said, and I couldn’t tell if his answer was playful or ill humored.

Clearly Nick didn’t either, because he gave a half chuckle and said, “No, it has to be a particular kind of coffee for that, not just . . .” He petered out and moved forward to help Ben retrieve the cups—tall ones, so I presumed we were having coffee, not espresso—from the cabinet above. A short-lived cooperative effort, since there were only four cups, and each of them got two and set them on the counter, and then Nick had to step back.

“Nick’s parents own The Golden Fleece in Denver,” Cas said. He sounded helpful, but he still looked very amused. “They used to have a restaurant here, but they moved there when Nick was in his last year of high school. So he stayed with my parents and me for his senior year.”

I don’t have any idea what either Cas or Nick expected Ben to do with this information, but what he did was start passing out coffee cups and sort of herd us toward the table, where he proceeded to set out sugar and in a blue glass creamer, which he’d also given me, cream. He looked grave as he brought coffee spoons to the table and sat down.

There were enough chairs, because Cas had given me two more for Christmas, to complement my initial two. He said that sooner or later E would start sitting at the table, not in a high chair, and Ben came over often enough.

Ben hesitated before sitting down. I got the impression he didn’t like the only seat open, which was between Cas—who had claimed the seat next to me—and Nick. He had a slightly mulish look on his face that reminded me of when his mother tried to interfere with his attire in high school. I knew that Ben was stubborn enough that any pressure met its proverbial immovable object in him.

“So,” I said, as silence lengthened, “you got an aquarium and a cat litter pan?”

Ben nodded. Apparently the silent treatment would also extend to me.

“Before or after Officer Nick arrived,” I asked him, now determined to needle him out of his silence.

“Before,” Ben said. “That’s why I wasn’t here when he called. When I came home with E and Pythagoras, he was parked at the curb, waiting.”

“I didn’t have anywhere else to be,” Nick said, apologetically. “I’d left work and I thought I’d stop by on the way home.” He frowned slightly. “I live alone, so I wasn’t delaying anyone’s dinner.”

If there was just a hint of something in his look at Ben, it went completely unanswered. Ben sipped his coffee in silence.

Once more it was left to me to fill the conversation gap. “I found a very old letter today,” I said. “It seems to talk about, well, if not a murder, then a situation that could have lead to it. I told Cas at dinner that I was sure there had been a murder and we should investigate.”

“And I told her we had enough trouble with present murders, without imagining old ones,” Cas said with a smile.

“Uh . . . yeah . . .” Nick said. “I doubt we would have the resources . . .” He sipped his coffee. He was still frowning.

 

 

“What was that all about?” I asked Ben as the door
closed behind Goldport’s finest.

“What?” he asked. The way he asked it—sulkily—told me he knew quite well what I was talking about. He had brought the small suitcase that he normally used when he was spending a couple of nights. He’d also brought a pair of sheets and a light blanket, with which he was transforming the sofa into a bed. I would probably have been offended at his bringing bed clothes from home, if I didn’t realize he was doing it to save me money and time. He owned a washer and dryer—and most of the time sent his laundry out—while I had to tote the dirty clothes and E to the Laundromat around the corner.

How he could be at the same time so considerate and so pigheaded was beyond me. “You know very well what. Poor Nick!”

Ben gave me an intentionally blank stare. “What, because he has a penis, I’m supposed to go over like nine pins?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I said, picking up the mystery book from the coffee table and doing my best not to throw it. “He was trying to be friendly. Make small talk.”

Ben glared. “He was trying to be way too friendly. Does your boyfriend think that just because his cousin is gay I will obviously be smitten with him?”

“You seemed to be doing fine when we came in.”

Ben shrugged. “He was helping with the rats. I needed an extra pair of hands.”

I bit my lip, to abstain from giving the reply that crossed my mind.

He sighed—his well-known sigh of exasperation that he deployed whenever he didn’t know what else to say to me. “Look, Dyce, he’s not my type, okay?”

“Oh, of course not. Your type is blond and imbecilic. To such stunning success.”

“Dyce!” he said. It was the warning voice, the one that told me I was about to cross all boundaries and risk having him at the very least sulk at me for weeks.

“Fine!” I said. “Are you going to look after the rats during the night?”

“That’s the idea,” he said. “That’s why I’m staying. I put the screen cover that came with the aquarium over them and I got them a little heat thing the pet shop recommended. Mind you, I don’t think Pythagoras will try to hurt them, but it’s safer to have the cover on.”

There was nothing left for it, but for me to slink off to bed.

Where, after a few minutes, I heard a
mmmmmr,
followed by a
euuu
as the heavy body of a less-than-aerodynamic cat landed on the top of the bed. I turned around to watch him walk hesitantly toward me. It was the first time I watched a cat pick his way, as if unsure of himself. When he got close enough, he reached out with claws retracted and tapped my arm with his paw. It was the sort of tap that meant, “May I cuddle?” the meaning as clear as if he’d spoken. I turned his way. “Come on.”

Pythagoras jumped up and started kneading at my arm, making a sound like a faulty motor. It was rather nice, and something Fluffy had never done.

I woke up to a sound like . . . digging. For a moment, in utter confusion, I thought someone was digging a grave. Don’t even ask why I was dreaming of graves. I just was. Then the sound of digging and flying earth became the sound of scraped plastic. Paws. Scraping on plastic. I realized it was Pythagoras, in the bathroom, digging in the box, and apparently trying to dig through the bottom of the box to China.

For the first time it occurred to me that my son might not see a difference between the litter box and the sandbox, and I rushed out of bed and into the bathroom, because E has a way of being awake at the most inconvenient times.

I should have trusted Ben. The box—or what I presumed was the box—sat inside a grayish tent. A little cat head poked, distractedly, through the opening in the tent and gave me that “Do you mind?” look cats give in such circumstances.

“Oh, sorry,” I mumbled, and retreated to the bedroom, where I found I was too awake to go back to sleep. I came back to the bathroom, where Pythagoras was now standing outside the tent looking in, while the tent made some distinct mechanical noises. My parents had always talked of getting a mechanical, self-cleaning box for Fluffy. It would be like Ben to be that practical. Even if he was the most annoying creature who had ever drawn breath since the beginning of human history. I frowned remembering his treatment of the Secondary, Auxiliary Officer Hotstuff, Gay Division. Annoying man. Not his type!

Humphing
under my breath, I turned on the water and took a quick shower, then dressed in my working jeans and T-shirt. I fully intended to wake Ben and tell him to keep an eye out for E, but found it wasn’t needed.

He was in the kitchen and he looked exactly as if I was sure I had looked the first week of E’s life—like someone had dragged him through Hell by his heels, taking care to hit the spiniest places and the roughest ground. His hair stood on end. His eyes had dark circles. And I had to point out he was presenting the eyedropper to the wrong end of the rat he held.

The look he gave me seemed to imply that I had somehow rotated the little rat on him. He muttered something from which the words
insatiable
and
glad I’ll never have kids
emerged. I felt somewhat mollified. I mean, he was still an unholy pain, but he was an unholy pain who’d foregone sleep to look after baby rats. “I’ll go work on the piano for a couple of hours,” I said. “And then I’ll take rat duty for a while so you can sleep, okay?”

I thought he said yes, though frankly, when people growl like that it’s very hard to tell. So, I went out back and stripped the top of the piano, and then started on the sides. I would need, I realized, to figure out how the heck one applied French polish.

Asking Cas to look it up on his computer was out of the question. If he looked it up, he would know I didn’t know how to do it, and then he’d go all weird about it. So . . .

So, I thought, as I finished all the work I could hope to do without leaving the poor rats at the mercy of a man who was as likely to give them breakfast as a formula enema, I would have to go to the library. Around noon, perhaps, once Ben had slept some. I’d go to the library and look up French polishing on their computer. And then I could look up Jacinth Jones, too, I thought brightly. If I was going to be at the library, anyway . . .

With a song in my heart and virtue in my mind, I came back inside, where the little rats were screaming bloody murder. Ben was on the sofa. He slept like a mummy, all wrapped up and immobile, and that was exactly what he was doing, only this time the mummy had a look of serene stubbornness, like he was determined not to hear the crying of the rats, and no one could make him.

So I did what I had to do, going into the kitchen and feeding the rats, one by one, then rubbing their stomachs with moist cotton balls to make them pee and poop.

There were letters written in black marker on the rump of each of the little rats. The largest one had RTL, then the chubbiest one had RTS, the next one, which was almost black, had FNK written on his tail, the only place it could be seen because there was no black fur. The next rat, all white, had FAC on his rounded rump. The next rat was completely black, so you had to squint to make out darker black letters YDR. The next one had written on his rump NEST. And the next one said TAIL, which was funny because it had a slightly bent tail as though it had been caught in something and kinked.

I considered waking Ben to ask him about the writing on the rats, which seemed like the sort of thing no one should do while sober. But I remembered his growling at me, and I thought better of it. Instead, I spent the time making a pile of pancakes for breakfast, then feeding Pythagoras—who by then was looking somewhat hopefully at the baby rats. Ben had bought a load of cat food and put it in the pantry cabinet. Alphabetized, of course. I upended a can of tuna into a tea saucer and left Pythagoras to it, while I returned to feeding baby rats.

I was finishing this when E came dragging into the kitchen, looking like he, too, had been up all night. His pajamas were askew and his little fluffy golden hair stood on end. He looked at me out of bleary eyes, crept up to the table, climbed on a chair, and put his head on his arms on the table.

“What’s wrong, baby bunny? What do you need?” I asked brightly, as I finished wiping up the rat with TAIL on his rump, and setting him back in the aquarium, being careful to set the lid back on it.

E opened an eye and glared at me. “Need coffee anna cigarette.”

He sounded like he meant it, too, though I had no idea where he might have learned it. And though I might often give him less than organic, home-cooked food—which he got at All-ex’s house—I was not about to try for the Worst Mother In The World competition.

“How about a glass of milk and a pancake with chocolate syrup?” I asked.

The offer was graciously accepted, and I heard Ben get up from the sofa. I looked at the clock, amazed it was only nine o’clock. Mind you, most of the time, even when he stayed over, Ben was long gone by this time of day. He worked as a financial planner for a local firm and took his job very seriously, which probably accounted for his doing very well at it—but the whole company had closed down for Christmas week and Ben had decided to take the two weeks after as vacation, perhaps because all of us had been telling him he was more wound up than a slinky in a tourniquet.

Of course, we—or at least I—had expected him to actually do something with his vacation, instead of hanging out at my house, desperately trying to impose some sort of order on my arrangements. However, Ben was who he was, which I supposed also accounted for his behavior the night before. . . . not that much accounted for that, actually. Because while I didn’t expect Ben to fall madly in love with the first decent-looking gay man who crossed his path, I did expect him to at least be polite. And he’d been skating the edge there yesterday. I wondered what exactly had caused that.