Lawyer for the Cat, page 16
The retrievers have settled down but Carmen’s whimpering. I sit for a minute at the kitchen table, stroking her under her chin. “I can’t stay, honey. Not tonight.” When I try to leave she lifts her head and howls—a desperate wailing that sounds almost human—and she won’t stop until I reach for her leash on the hook beside the front door. She holds her head still while I attach it to her collar, as if she knows I need all the help I can get.
* * *
The beagle and I share the elevator with a man I remember from the home owners’ party. He’s too young for this place, I had thought. Maybe he was thinking the same thing about me. I chose this place because it was quiet, blessedly devoid of college kids and their all-night parties, but the longer I live here the more it seems like a retirement home.
“I hope you found your mother!” He smiles. He’s handsome, black hair graying at the temples, dark eyes, skin a deep bronze. There’s a stethoscope around his neck. At the party he’d tried to start a conversation, but I was too busy looking for Mom.
“Yes. She didn’t go far.”
“Nice dog,” he says, nodding at Carmen. When the doors open he turns, doesn’t notice when the stethoscope falls to the floor. I call after him, “Wait, you dropped—”
“Thanks … Long day.” Then his eyes snap to attention. “Aren’t you … You’re the lawyer for the cat, right? I saw you on CNN.”
The doors close before I have a chance to answer.
* * *
What I need tonight is what I never have anymore—the apartment to myself. Even in those first few months after the divorce, when it felt strange not to see Joe’s face across the dinner table, I took guilty pleasure in my solitude, in eating whenever or whatever I wanted, savoring the hours before bedtime, reading a novel or, if I was too tired, mindlessly watching TV.
Maybe I’m unfit for anyone’s company but my own, I told Ellen then.
Don’t be ridiculous.
I mean it. I miss Joe, but I don’t miss having to—it’s hard to explain—negotiate over everything.
She laughed. I know what you mean. But Hank and I don’t do that much anymore. I have my sphere of influence, he has his. We’ve worked it out.
You’re a nicer person than I am.
I’m just realistic. Two people can’t occupy the same space without a lot of compromise. But if you find the right person, you can work it out.
But until Tony, I’ve never come close to cohabitation again. There was the sexy carpenter who built new cabinets for the condo. I’ll just leave my tools here until the job’s finished, he said. He’d pick up something for dinner and have it waiting for me when I got home from the office. He had a nice muscled chest and took pride in his work—both the carpentry and the lovemaking—but when he started hinting about moving in, I panicked. I couldn’t imagine living with him for the next year, much less the rest of my life. And by then I had my mother.
“Good heavens!” she says as I come in with the beagle. She only says ‘Good heavens’ when she’s trying to impress someone. Even “Good Lord!” is to be avoided in polite company—like Ed Shand, who’s sitting next to her on the sofa, his arm over her shoulder. The living room’s dark except for the TV. He jumps to attention, mumbling something about Humphrey Bogart. I flick on the ceiling light. Delores, who’s stretched out in Mom’s recliner, opens her eyes.
“Sorry I’m running late,” I say.
“We’ve been doing fine here,” says Ed. “Your mother just loves Casablanca.”
“Ed cooked dinner for us,” says Mom, patting the beagle’s head. “He’s such a splendid cook! Don’t you agree, Delores?”
“Spending the night?” says Delores, eyeing the dog.
But my mother misunderstands. “Oh, no,” she says, blushing. “We aren’t—”
“Not that I wouldn’t jump at any chance to spend more time with your lovely mother,” Ed says to me, “but I should be going. Looks like you have a full house tonight, anyway.” He kisses my mother’s hand. “Good night, Margaret. Thanks for the advice, Delores. Good night, Sally.”
“What advice?” I ask Delores when he’s gone.
“I told him he better be careful,” she says.
“Good.”
“Stop that!” she says to Carmen, who’s sniffing her shoes. “You go on, now, get away from me!”
“I’m sorry you had to stay late.” I tell her about the missing cat. “But she’s okay. Maureen—the vet’s receptionist—has her.”
“Good. We don’t need no cat around here. And not another dog, neither.”
I’m too tired to argue. “Have a good weekend, Delores. See you Monday.”
Before she goes, Delores whispers into my ear, “I told Mr. Ed Shand about your mama’s sickness, how her mind’s all messed up. I told him he best be careful, ’cause if he breaks her heart, I’m gonna break his skinny little neck.”
“You said that?”
“Not those exact words, but he got the message!”
Making the Best of It
It takes forever to settle them down, the beagle and Mom. As I help her into the shower she’s still prattling on about Ed’s antiques, talking loud enough for me to hear her through the rush of water. Carmen won’t stop barking until I get Mom out, licks her wet legs until I shoo her away. Mom pulls the towel tighter around her breasts. “Don’t let him see me naked!”
“Carmen’s a girl,” I say, as if that makes any difference. “Let’s get you into your nightgown.”
“I told your father, maybe we could get a little dog, like a Chihuahua. Now look what he’s done! Gone and gotten himself a hunting dog!”
“I don’t think Carmen’s a hunter.”
“It’s in his blood, though. You wait. He’ll be trouble. But I guess you can keep him if you promise to take care of him.” The dog has made herself at home on the end of the bed. “I don’t want to clean up after him.”
“Carmen’s a she, Mom, and she’s housebroken.”
“Before you know it, we’ll have a litter of puppies.”
“No puppies, Mom. She’s been fixed.”
“I knew we’d end up with a hunting dog. Your father never listens!”
I won’t remind her that her husband’s been dead for almost forty years. I read her a chapter of Travels with Charley, turn off the bedside lamp, wait in the chair beside the bed until I hear her snoring.
* * *
I’m almost asleep when Tony calls back. “Oh, sorry,” he says. “I forgot the time difference. What’s this about the cat?”
“She wasn’t there—at your house, I mean. Maureen left a note, says Beatrice is okay, but I’m worried. You have her cell number?”
“Wait a minute.… Here it is.… What about the dogs. They okay?”
“The retrievers are fine. Carmen’s acting a little strange, like she knows something’s wrong.”
“You’re getting pretty good at reading animal minds, aren’t you?”
“She’s nervous, and when I started to leave she got really upset, so I brought her home with me. By the way, your friend’s car wasn’t out front.”
“I forgot to tell you,” he says. “She decided to give her kid his Christmas present early.”
“The whole thing really freaked me out.”
“Sorry.”
“How’s your visit going?”
“Okay, I guess.” He doesn’t sound convincing.
“He’s with you now?”
“In the other room, playing a game on his iPad. We’re at a motel. I miss you.”
“Did you see the interview?” He hasn’t seen it, which is good, because I don’t want him to hear this news on CNN. “I might keep Carmen, if that’s okay.”
“Sure it’s okay.… It was my idea in the first place, remember? Wait a minute.… I’m closing the door.… Does this mean we’re divorcing?”
“What?”
“You say you’re keeping Carmen. I guess that means we’re not going to be living together anymore.”
“Tony, we don’t live together.”
“But we’ve been talking about it.”
“Talking isn’t the same as doing.” I’m surprised at how mean I sound. “Sorry, I’m really exhausted.”
“I’ll let you go, then,” he says. “If there’s any problem with the cat, Beverly McKee is covering my emergencies.”
* * *
But the problem with the cat isn’t anything a vet can fix. “He said he was from the Probate Court,” Maureen explains when I finally reach her. “He showed up at the clinic just before closing. He had a court order. Something about a new guardian.”
“Did he give you a copy of the order?”
“No, but he showed it to me. It looked legit,” she says.
“So you didn’t get a copy?”
“I just didn’t think—”
“He has Beatrice?”
“Did I screw up?”
“What about a card? Did he leave a card?”
“No, he seemed like he was in a hurry to pick up the cat. I was getting ready to close up for the afternoon, so I told him, ‘You just wait here in the parking lot, I’ll go pick her up.’ But he said he wanted to follow me over there, save me the trouble of driving back to the clinic.”
“He followed you to Tony’s house?”
“Right.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall. Heavy—not fat, just, you know, bulky. Dressed nice, in a suit and all. Late forties, early fifties.”
“That’s all you can remember?”
“He had real thick, black eyebrows,” she says.
“Did he give you his name?”
“I didn’t pay much attention since he showed me the order. Maybe Johnson, or Jones.”
“What did the order say?”
“It said something about granting him permission … no, I think it was ‘possession’ of Beatrice. I’m really sorry if I screwed up.”
It’s almost midnight. Tomorrow is Saturday. The Probate Court won’t be open until Monday. Even if I can find Judge Clarkson’s home number, I’m not going to wake him at this hour. And I know what he’s going to say: He doesn’t know anything about this.
Randall Mackay has the cat. Real thick, black eyebrows.
I try to go back to sleep, but my imagination is wide awake:
Maybe Randall is one of those sickos who enjoys torturing animals.
Maybe he’s already killed her. Poisoned her. Shot her. He’s a hunter. He has guns.
But Beatrice would try to defend herself, wouldn’t she? Scratch his eyes out. Bite the hell out of him. Run away, if she could.
Be logical, I tell myself. If he wanted to kill the cat, he’s already had his chance. Beatrice was there when he left the note on Tony’s kitchen counter. He didn’t even touch her.
But now he’s gone a step further. And what did old Gordon Houck tell me once, that time I sought his advice in a particularly nasty divorce case? We lawyers pride ourselves on our ability to predict outcomes, but it’s dangerous, predicting the behavior of crazy people—whether their insanity is temporary or permanent. That doesn’t mean you have to give up on logic, it just means you’d better be prepared to react when logic lets you down.
The woman answering at the sheriff’s office is irritatingly soothing. She’s trained to deal with all kinds of emergencies but also skilled at handling nut cases: “Yes, ma’am? A missing cat? He was impersonating an officer of the court? Yes, ma’am, I’m taking this information down. I’ll turn it over to the duty officer, but it may be tomorrow before you get a call back.”
Carmen follows me to the kitchen, where I make myself a cup of chamomile tea and give her a bowl of food, stuff I have left over from Sherman. She eats some of it, but nervously, as if I’m going to take it away from her. The tea does nothing to calm me, either.
Trust Enforcer
The beagle is a restless bedmate. She migrates from the foot of the bed, where I feel the rhythm of her diaphragm against my feet, to the middle, where she burrows under the bedspread, and then up to the pillow, her nose under my chin. At last she’s still, and I try to fall back to sleep, but it seems no time at all before she’s standing beside the bed, licking my hand.
“Lie down, honey.” When I close my eyes, she lets out a sharp little bark.
“You need to go out?” I put on some jeans and a sweatshirt, slide my feet into flip-flops. “Okay. I’m coming.”
We ride the elevator down to the lobby and she trots to the main door. Outside I hold the leash while she arches her back in a strip of grass near the entrance. She hesitates; she’s not accustomed to the leash. My bare toes are freezing. “Go on,” I coax her. “It’s okay.” Finally she relaxes, accomplishes her task. I remember the notice on the bulletin board: Residents are reminded to clean up after their pets. Scoop your poop!
I’ll have to get a scooper, and I’ll have to figure out a way to accommodate Carmen’s needs without leaving Mom alone. This morning she’s still fast asleep when I get back upstairs, but I’ve broken the rule I established for Delores and Shenille: Never leave Mom in the condo alone, even for five minutes.
* * *
“Better be glad you’re my best friend,” says Ellen when I call to tell her about the missing cat. “You know it’s not even seven yet?”
“I was hoping you might have Judge Clarkson’s home number. It’s not listed.”
“Why would I have his home number?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m not thinking straight.”
“Why don’t you try Joe? He might have it, or maybe he can get it.”
“This isn’t Joe’s problem.”
“He wouldn’t mind making a call or two to help you out,” she says, “if you really think this is an emergency.”
“I need someone to send a deputy out there.”
“Out where?”
“Randall Mackay’s house. On Edisto Beach.”
“Well, that complicates it. Most of the Edisto Island is in Charleston County, but there was some weird political thing, and the beach is actually in Colleton County, so our sheriff doesn’t have jurisdiction there.”
“But if I have an order from our Probate Court, won’t they enforce it?”
“I’m telling you, if you want a deputy to get involved, you’re better off going through a judge; otherwise you’ll get mired down in interdepartmental bullshit. Wait a minute! What about that woman who lives out there … the caretaker for the old lady. She knows Randall, right? Maybe she could help you out.”
“I thought about that, but I don’t want to get her involved. He’s too unpredictable. At this point, I need a judge.”
“So, call Joe.”
* * *
I’m not prepared for Joe’s wife to answer his cell phone, so what I say sounds dumb: “Oh, hi, Susan. This is Sally. Sally Baynard. I’m trying to get in touch with Joe.”
“He just got out of the shower.”
“I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Oh, no. I’ve already finished my morning run.”
“It’s about Judge Clarkson,” I say, feeling the need to explain myself.
“So sad, isn’t it?” she says.
“What?”
“That he just keeled over like that, a couple of weeks before his retirement.”
“When did—”
“Oh, I assumed you’d heard. Yesterday afternoon, in his office. At least it was mercifully quick.”
“That’s awful.”
“Poor Julia, she really depended on him. She’s been so ill.… Listen, I’ll have Joe call you back. I know he wants to talk to you about something. He has your cell number?”
“Yes.”
“Nice to talk to you,” she says. “And Sally … this is a little awkward, but I want to tell you … Joe and I are doing just fine.” She reminds me of my mother, the way she states something in that chirpy, lilting voice, full of charm and confidence, as if just saying it will make it true.
“I’m glad,” I say. “I really am.”
* * *
An hour later Joe picks me up in front of my office, where I’ve gone to get up my copy of the order appointing me as trust enforcer. He’s driving a shiny new Mercedes, dark blue. “You didn’t have to do this,” I say.
He eyes the beagle. “You lose a cat and gain a dog?”
Carmen balks when I open the back door. “Come on, honey, get in.”
“No point in resisting, Carmen,” Joe says. “If Sally Baynard wants you to do something, you might as well give up and do it.” The dog won’t budge. I lift her up, put her on the backseat. “I guess this is the one you were talking about on CNN?”
“Oh, you saw that?”
“Me and the rest of the country.”
It’s strange to sit in the car beside him as we turn the corner onto Lockwood. “If I’d known you had a new car, I’d have brought a towel. She sheds a little.”
“Don’t worry about it. So, you’re going to keep her?”
“I guess so.”
“What do you mean, you guess so? Now that you’ve announced it all over the country, you can’t exactly give her back, can you?” He smiles. “Especially when you’re advertising yourself as animal lawyer extraordinaire!”
“That was Gina’s fault. Anyway, thanks for doing this. I just wanted some help getting a deputy—”
“I know Randall. He’ll just weasel his way around a deputy, but he’s not likely to try any nonsense with me.” Joe adjusts his sunglasses. “This cat client of yours sure is a lot of trouble. Black cat, bad luck, right? Poor old Judge Clarkson, maybe she put a curse on him or something.”
“That’s not funny.”
“He didn’t get to enjoy even one day of retirement,” Joe says. “Tough situation for his wife. She’s bedridden. He was totally devoted to her.”
“That’s what I heard.”
“They were one of those special couples. You just couldn’t imagine one without the other.” Only someone who knows Joe well would notice the change in his voice, the way he clears his throat, straightens his back. “So now, counselor, tell me why you think Randall Mackay is the perpetrator.” He listens to the evidence, nods. “I hope we’re not too late.”
