Critters of Mossy Creek Page 3

  The latest item to disappear is the emerald and diamond ring Ben’s mother left me when she died. The stone is the size and color of the bottom of a Coke bottle. I never have occasion to wear it. I should have put it into the lock box at the bank, but it’s on an insurance rider, and I never got around to it. It’s always kept in the jewel case on my dressing table. Even if the cats knew it was there, they couldn’t possibly have lifted the lid of the case to get it out.

  I worried and stewed and searched most of the afternoon I discovered it was missing. I planned to leave the ring to Marilee and then to Josie, so I was feeling guilty that I had in some sense shirked my responsibility to Ben’s family.

  If I couldn’t find it in a reasonable time, I’d have to make a police report to Amos. The insurance company would demand it. I definitely did not want to do that.

  When the snuff box disappeared, I reluctantly called Ida. Our mayor is good for any emergency, civic or otherwise. Her definition of her mayoral duties is broad. “I’m afraid she’s at it again,” I said.

  “Who?” Ida Walker, a fiftyish bombshell of womanhood, speaks with the crisp Southern drawl of an army general.

  “Millicent.”

  Millicent Hart is who I want to be when I get old. Well, older. Tough, feisty, believes that the best defense is a good offense. And takes things. I have never known her to take anything of real value, however. “I don’t want to accuse her falsely,” I told Ida. “As a matter of fact, I don’t want to accuse her at all. I simply don’t know how to go about finding out if she took my snuff box and get it back.”

  “When did you lose it?” Ida asked.

  “The Garden Club met here last week, despite the dust from downstairs. What should I do?”

  “I’ll check around.”

  “How are things with you and Amos?” I am incorrigible when it comes to gossip about Ida and the Chief’s romantic life.

  “Who?” she said grimly, and hung up. Not a woman of talkative instincts.

  Then the thimble went missing. None of the Garden Club members, including Millicent, was in my house during that period. So I couldn’t blame Millicent, then.

  The other possible solution to the thefts was one I didn’t even want to contemplate. Arturo Sanchez came into my house for coffee every morning before he started work, and I’d given him a key to my house the first week so that he could access utilities and breaker boxes when I wasn’t home. Arturo is a fine young man and to the best of my knowledge, his family is squeaky clean.

  Arturo is a Hispanic newcomer not only to the United States but to Mossy Creek. I simply could not accuse him or his sisters without ironclad proof. I consider myself a good judge of character. I liked Arturo and did not believe him willing to jeopardize his new status by stealing something as identifiable as my humongous emerald ring, a thimble or a cloisonné snuff box. I couldn’t even ask him without making him feel I suspected him. At best we’d both be uncomfortable. At worst, he’d quit and leave my basement half-finished.

  He really didn’t need money, although he claimed he did. We’d become friends over coffee, and he told me that the economy was cutting into his construction business. Still, his adopted mother, Opal Suggs, had a very healthy bank account, according to rumor. No one knew how she kept it growing. “Investments” was all she’d ever say. The rumor mill had her betting on NASCAR races, but I never believed that. I’d never known anyone who considered gambling as a steady source of income.

  But even though Opal had money, the machismo inherent in most Hispanic males kept Arturo too proud to rely on it. I admired him for making his own way in the world.

  “Consuela, my sister will have her Quinceanera in a few years,” he told me one morning. “You know, the party that is traditional when a Latino girl becomes fifteen.”

  Apparently it’s a combination debutante ball, Bat Mitzvah and non-marital wedding reception rolled into one.

  “My sisters want a big party with music and much food and decorations and a band for dancing.” He sighed, the way Ben had sighed when I talked about Marilee’s wedding. “Everyone must have new clothes. My sister must have a very beautiful dress. It all costs a great deal of money.”

  “I hope what you’re doing downstairs will help with the expenses,” I said.

  He brightened. “Oh, yes, senora! The apartment will be beautiful. We will finish very soon.”

  Good. No matter how carefully one tries to keep out the dust from construction, somehow it filters into the rest of the house, even when it’s on a different floor. And although Arturo was careful, he did track mud and dirt in every morning.

  “I thought you had cats,” he said one morning. “I have never seen them.”

  “They’re not really into strangers,” I said.

  “I am sorry. I like cats. You do not have a dog?”

  “The cats are plenty for one woman.” I had not seen so much of the cats myself since the construction started. They stayed as far away from the noise as possible, and Dashiell stalked around in a simmering rage until evening when the Arturo left for the day.

  So, Arturo and his family needed money. I hated the idea, but I decided to drive into Bigelow and check some pawn shops. There aren’t any in Mossy Creek.

  I had never been in a pawnshop in my life, but I pulled out the Yellow Pages and made a list. I’ve been to Thieves Markets in Paris and Rome, and I know that many people who have items stolen routinely go to the markets to buy back their own goods for a fraction of their value. I was willing to do that so long as the fraction was a tiny one, although the theory enraged me.

  ooo

  Dashiell

  The noisy one should be gone by now. “They” don’t like thieves. Neither do I. One’s food and toys should be sacrosanct. Even Sherlock with his insatiable appetite knows better than to attempt to eat out of my dish. His left ear is still ragged from the bite I gave him when he was a kitten. He is much larger than I now, of course, but he doesn’t realize that. He still sees himself as the frightened little scrap he was when he came to live with us. Good.

  The selection of items was initially simple to acquire. I have often heard Peggy tell visitors about her thimble and snuffbox and how precious they are to her. The green ring thing, however, required skill. At length after several tries while Peggy was out shopping, Marple managed to insinuate her small paw under the lid of the jewel case and open it far enough so that Watson could insinuate his larger paw inside and open the lid, then he took the thing, probably because it was the shiniest object in the box.

  I had difficulty making him put it into our hiding place. He wanted to play with it and refused to understand when I explained that if Peggy found him batting it about, she’d simply put it back and lock the case. He is still grumpy.

  Although Peggy and I have lived in this house for a very long time, she has never discovered my hidey hole under the bathroom sink. Oh, she knows we all disappear inside the cabinet, but not that there is an aged mouse hole in a back corner that we have enlarged over the years and now use as a cache for things we do not want her to find. Needless to say, the mouse that carved out the hole and his descendants have long since been dispatched to mouse heaven. One does one’s job when one can.

  Reluctantly, Watson shoved the green thing inside our cache to join the little box, the thimble, two blue circles from the top of milk bottles, a ball of aluminum foil, two small bells (which I loathed and got rid of as soon as I could after Peggy put them on my collar) and a plaster bear Sherlock detached from last year’s Christmas tree. Since the hole decants onto the tile floor beneath the bottom shelf, it is quite commodious and could hold more booty should it become necessary.

  Surely Peggy will send the noisy one away now. She must believe that he is a thief. In the event that she does not, however, we four are scouting for other possible items to steal and hide.

  ooo

  Peggy

  For obvious reasons, the Bigelow Pawn shops are in seedy areas. Claude swears there a
ren’t any seedy areas in Bigelow. As if a background of luscious Appalachian mountains erases all possibility of ordinary urban crime. Hah! I dressed as casually as I could without actually looking like a bag lady, parked my car and began my quest.

  Before I’d finished speaking to the small man who looked after the first shop, I felt my eyes begin to tear. So many dreams pawned! How could a musician give up his guitar? Or a woman her wedding ring? Not all of the wedding rings displayed could have come from victims of nasty divorces. I say I would never pawn the ring Ben gave me, but what if I were starving? What if my children were starving?

  All of the shops had lists of items that had been stolen and swore they kept a weather eye out for them. But of course I hadn’t yet reported my thefts, not even to Amos Royden, Mossy Creek’s very able police chief. The pawn shop owners were amazingly nice, however, and promised to keep an eye out for the items I described, particularly the ring, especially after I offered a sizeable reward.

  After three hours, I was exhausted and miserable. I had not told Marilee I’d be in Bigelow. She’d demand to meet me for lunch and would see at once how upset I was. I couldn’t take the chance of having lunch at any decent restaurant in Bigelow for fear I’d run into her.

  I decided to drive home and eat a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. As I was walking to my car, I looked in the shop windows along the way. A shop that recommended I get a tattoo and have some unusual portion of my anatomy pierced sat beside a shop that advertised old LP disks for bargain prices.

  I had no idea what the next shop sold until I read the small sign over the door. Spies R Us. No merchandise of any kind in the windows, just discrete gray drapes.

  On a whim, I took a deep breath and went in. There was very little merchandise on display inside either. A tall, incredibly thin young man with bad skin and a scraggly beard looked up from the graphic novel he was reading and smiled at me.

  “Do you have nanny cams?” I asked.

  “Sure.” He closed the magazine and laid it on the counter. “How big and how expensive?”

  “Small and not very.” I hesitated. “And I’d like to be able to install them myself.”

  “With or without audio?”

  “With audio.”

  “To run, say eight hours? While you’re at work?” He came around the counter. “Who you checking up on? Nanny, husband? Caregiver?”

  “Caregiver for me?”

  “Or your husband or whoever. None of my business,” but he smiled so that I didn’t take offense. He really meant it was none of his business.

  I had been prepared to spend a small fortune, but I was amazed at how inexpensive the equipment was. And teeny! I settled on two cameras, one for the bedroom and one to cover the library and kitchen. We considered one for the downstairs construction area, but I figured that the thefts were taking place upstairs and that with construction going on downstairs, the possibility that they might be discovered was much greater. If Arturo was not guilty, the last thing I wanted was for him to know that I had suspected him.

  The instructions had obviously been written by a demented Mongol who spoke only Tibetan, but my new friend Archimedes—not his real name, he told me—spent the next hour showing me how to set the things up and play them back. He offered to drive to Mossy Creek if I got into trouble, for an extra charge, of course. I said I’d try to muddle through on my own and call him if I needed him.

  I was ravenous by the time I got home. Since it was well past lunchtime, Arturo’s truck sat at the lower end of my driveway. I could hear the banging and bumping before I got into the kitchen. Dashiell glared at me.

  “He’s a nice man,” I said. “He’s going to help me make some extra money. Get over it.”

  Then I set about installing the cameras. The house has elaborate ceiling molding, so I was able to set up one of the cameras in a corner of my bedroom so that it covered the bedroom door, my dressing table and dresser, and the door to the bathroom. I tested it and was elated when it worked perfectly.

  The one in the living room wasn’t so easy. I was halfway up the ladder when I heard Arturo clomping up the stairs. I nearly broke my neck getting down and hiding the camera and appurtenances under the sofa cushions before he came in.

  “Hey, Senora Peggy, you should not be on a ladder. What you need? I will fix it for you.”

  “Uh, no thanks, Arturo. I was putting a book on top of the cabinet. I’m all through.”

  “Me too,” he said with a broad grin. “Maybe not through-through, but close. A couple of days, then we walk through, do a punch list, I finish up and it will be complete.”

  “Great!” He’d be out of my house, I’d have my key back. Assuming he hadn’t made one while he had mine. I felt guilty, but relieved as well. “You think I can start advertising in the Mossy Creek Gazette and the Bigelow paper next week?”

  “Senora Louise has the furniture for the apartment?”

  “In Charlie’s workshop, waiting to be picked up.”

  “Then I think you can put an ad in the paper Sunday after this Sunday.”

  I hugged him.

  Then I set a trap for him.

  Over our coffee the next morning I told him that I’d be spending the day shopping for things like wastebaskets and towels for the apartment, so if he needed to get in to the house to connect anything, he’d have to use his key.

  I was waiting at the door to the bank when it opened. I don’t have a great deal of good jewelry, but for our twentieth anniversary, Ben gave me a lovely platinum chain with one of those journey pendants—the ones with the diamonds in a squiggly row. These were fairly large diamonds and first quality. He’d gotten a big bonus that year.

  It was also on an insurance rider, but since Ben put it into the lock box before he died, it wasn’t loose in my jewelry box the way the ring had been. I took the necklace and pendant home and laid it conspicuously on my dressing table.

  I turned on the nanny cams and went off to spend the day with Louise.

  When I got home at four, Arturo had already left. I prayed the necklace would still be where I had left it. Eventually I forced myself to look. My heart sank. No necklace. No one but Arturo had been in my house all day.

  I sat on the bed and burst into tears. After I ran the day’s accumulation of camera stuff I’d be forced to call Amos, as much as I hated the idea. Not only would Arturo lose his green card and possibly go to jail, he’d be deported and never allowed back into the United States.

  “Arturo, you idiot!” I yelled. “I’d have lent you the money!”

  I took the tape from my bedroom into the den and plugged it into the television the way Archimedes had shown me. I was prepared to wait through hours of fast-forward. I was very tired, but I’d never be able to nap until I knew.

  I nearly missed it. I had to back up the tape and re-run it to be certain. At first I thought it was a bad spot on the tape, it was so small.

  Then it moved. A single gray paw lifted over the edge of my dressing table and patted around blindly as I watched in fascination. The gray paw belonged to Watson.

  But he had an audience. Sherlock, Dashiell and Marple sat behind him watching him avidly.

  After at least a minute, the paw hooked the chain on my diamond pendant. Slowly he inched it over to the edge of the dressing table until it fell. All four cats jumped back.

  They inched forward to sniff the necklace, but Watson brooked no interference. He stole it, so he owned it, he seemed to say. He tumped over on his back and kicked it into the air, then rolled over so quickly that he found himself wrapped in the chain. He left out a bleat of terror. Dashiell pressed a paw into his chest and held him down while Marple carefully teased the chain from under him. Sherlock watched, confused as usual.

  They played for a good ten minutes with the necklace before Dashiell called a halt. He picked it up in his teeth as delicately as a courtesan nibbling an ortelan and trotted off through the bathroom door with it. I heard the door under the cabinet open, and a
ll four cats disappeared. A couple of minutes later, I heard the door shut again and they walked out in single file like an army column. They looked like the proverbial cats who had swallowed a whole flock of canaries.

  I laughed until I cried. Literally. Relief, I suppose.

  I found all four cats asleep in the library. Butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths.

  I didn’t even acknowledge them. I simply shut them out of the bedroom and went down on my hands and knees on the bathroom rug. My knees cracked, but I was too excited to notice.

  The single shelf under the sink was completely empty. I know they like to hide there, so I’ve never filled it up with extra toilet paper or cleaning supplies.

  No necklace. I fetched the big mag light I keep in my bedside table, managed to get my arthritic knees down on the floor again and went over that cabinet inch by inch.

  Still, it took me over five minutes to find the hole and even longer to enlarge it so I could reach in with a couple of fingers. I hoped I wouldn’t encounter a mouse, and I didn’t.

  The first item I brought up was the last hidden. The necklace. Next came a silver demitasse spoon I didn’t even know was missing from the silver chest, a couple of small bells—I knew Dashiell had removed them, but didn’t know he’d hidden them—several other small items and then the emerald ring. I couldn’t get the snuffbox or the thimble, but I could feel them.

  I sat back on my heels. “Now why on earth did you rapscallions do this?” They couldn’t possibly have known how much danger they’d put poor innocent Arturo in. Cats weren’t vindictive.

  Were they?

  I remembered how long it had taken them to warm up to Carlyle. They never did like him to spend the night. He’d asked me to marry him and move to Seattle with him after he retired. I think he was glad I declined. We were fond of one another, but we weren’t in love. No way could I pull up stakes, leave Marilee and Josie, and discommode the cats.

  Had they seen Arturo as another threat to their well-being? He was here often enough. He made noise and tracked in dirt. They always hid when he showed up.