“The furry spongers have been fed.”
“Ah.” I followed her into her apartment, still worried about Alvin’s head injury. What had I stirred up? I wanted to spend the evening thinking about a strategy to flush out a killer without creating a new batch of victims. I wanted to make sure Alvin didn’t end up dead because of me.
Instead, I found myself perched on Mrs. Parnell’s leather sofa holding a full glass of Harvey’s Bristol Cream. I was still jittery, and it seemed to me that she was too. Behind us, the peach-faced lovebirds twittered.
“Here’s to your health,” said Mrs. Parnell, downing her sherry in a gulp.
I tried to sip and noticed my hands trembling.
“Well, Ms. MacPhee,” she said, following a discreet burp, “now that you’re sitting down, I have two things to mention to you.”
“Mrs. Parnell,” I asked, feeling a sense of déjà vu, “how did you get into my apartment again?”
“Ah, make that three things.”
“Go ahead. Let’s hear them.”
“First things first.” She topped up her glass.
I shook my head when she offered me a refill.
“Well, would you like the good news first or the bad news first?”
“The bad news.” I always want the bad news first.
“Okeydokey. Then, remember when you had five cats?”
“Six cats. Not that they’re mine. Five remaining.”
I felt pretty stupid discussing cats when my life and Alvin’s might be in danger.
“Not any more,” said Mrs. Parnell. “That’s the bad news.
The little three-coloured one seems to have disappeared.”
I don’t even like cats, but my stomach clenched. The little calico was an extremely naïve animal, capable of taking a liking to the worst kind of people, myself included. Could she have…?
“I spent hours checking your apartment, the hallway, everywhere. I knocked on every door on the sixteenth floor. No one has seen the damn thing.”
“But how could it have gotten out?”
Was that a little flicker of guilt on Mrs. Parnell’s grey face? She stuck another cigarette into the long holder and lit up.
My voice rose a bit.
“Did you come over to my apartment to snoop, and let the little cat escape?”
Her head drooped. “It is possible, I suppose, while I was tending to the others, she, er, slipped out the door.”
“They didn’t need tending. I left them plenty of food and clean litter too. What are you suggesting, I don’t take care of them?”
“No, no. I didn’t see you all day, and I thought that perhaps something had happened to you. I went over to see if you needed help. The cats were just an afterthought.”
In a strange way, it felt comforting to have someone in the same building looking after my well-being, checking to see if I needed help. On the other hand, I value my privacy and I didn’t want Mrs. Parnell exploding through the door every time she imagined things were a little too quiet in my apartment.
“You still have a key?”
She grinned.
“The Super didn’t ask for it back?”
After a pause, she admitted: “I had a copy made.”
I held out my glass for a refill.
“I’ll make a little notice for the elevators and the laundry rooms. I don’t think that cat could get out of the building, do you?” she said.
“No. Not unless somebody took her.”
We looked at each other. Somebody had already killed one cat… Maybe the same someone had plans to use this cat to intimidate me or Robin in some way. We have your cat and if you don’t… I shook my head. Too far-fetched.
“You never know,” Mrs. Parnell said, as if she’d read my thoughts.
The lovebirds kept on twittering. Very edgy, those birds.
“The good news, though,” she continued, “is I think I know what the Hon. Deb Goodhouse didn’t want to make the papers.”
I waited for her to tell me but it appeared I had to come right out and ask.
“What?”
“Well, seems she’s been in and out of these places, fat farms, you know, where they try to program you to lose weight. Treat it as a psychological problem. Lotta bull if you ask me, but nobody ever does. Anyway, turns out she’s had a couple of visits, paid for by the government, and she’s a bit sensitive on the subject. The legitimate press doesn’t cover that sort of thing. But the late Ms. Brochu would have made hay out of it. And apparently she’d intended to.”
Bingo. I could just imagine it. Deb Goodhouse was still a large woman. Mitzi could have had fun with that. Before and After pictures, the same size. She would have included the costs for extra zing.
“Potentially quite humiliating,” I said.
“You bet. Although I’m not convinced it’s enough to send a sensible and successful woman, as Goodhouse appears to be, right over the edge. At least, we know she had a new reason to be upset with Mitzi.” Mrs. Parnell rewarded herself with a healthy belt of Harvey’s. “God, this is fun!”
I turned down another refill. It was time to head home and think a bit.
“I’m sorry about your cat,” Mrs. Parnell said at the door.
“I’ll find her for you.”
Back in the living room, the birds kept twittering.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into them,” she said, turning back and leaving a trail of smoke.
As I crossed the hall, I wondered how I could tell Robin that she now had two ex-cats.
As the lights went on in my apartment, they went on over my head too. Did this have to be my problem? I called Ted Beamish, since he always wanted to help, and assigned him a chore intended to get me out of the situation.
The cats alternated between surrounding me and disappearing for the rest of the evening. When I took my bath, all four joined me in the bathroom. When I felt like a cuddle, they vanished. When I snacked on a tuna fish sandwich, they all tried to sit in my lap. So what else was new?
I sat at the table by the window and worked once more through the tangle of motives and clues. I knew one thing— Alvin and I had aggravated the murderer all right. Pushed him or her to action. But just which one of them was it? And what would he or she do next? Was I sure about Large-and-Lumpy? Could Jo Quinlan or her new husband or even Deb Goodhouse have followed Alvin and me?
I never would have noticed. A chill ran through my body.
I’d never thought about who was stalking me. I’d been too busy playing detective.
The buzzer jolted me out of my chair. Edwina. I buzzed her in.
Two minutes later she stormed through the door, followed by Stan, who was lugging a cast-iron planter exuding vivid geraniums. I knew Edwina was there to give me hell. The geraniums were just a consolation.
Mrs. Parnell’s shadow rippled behind her half-opened door.
“We must talk,” Edwina said, gesturing to Stan.
Stan grunted on toward the balcony with the geraniums. That cast-iron container must have weighed thirty pounds.
“Great