Catnip (Dunbarton Mysteries Book 1) (12 page)

Alicia had agreed to meet Andrew
at the Tim Horton’s by the highway. Her heart was beating a mile a minute and
her palms were sweaty as she drove to the doughnut shop. But not in
anticipation, she realized. More like dread. And she knew why. Chris.

She hadn’t been able to look at
him when she left. He knew what had happened that last spring. What would he be
thinking? That she would run to Andrew’s arms, given the chance? Even she didn’t
know the answer to that. Did she really still have feelings for the man or was
it just the memory of those feelings? And what about her feelings for Chris?
She had thought they were real. It was like a bloody soap opera, she thought.
Tune in tomorrow for the continuing saga.

Damn Andrew!

She parked at Tim Horton’s and
walked in the front door. He was sitting at a table by the window but stood up
when he saw her come in. He looked just the same - tall and lanky, wearing blue
jeans and an Irish knit sweater. As usual, his sandy hair was falling over his
eyes and she remembered how she used to love to brush it back. His smile was
the same too. No, he hadn’t changed. But she had. Suddenly the knot in her stomach
was gone and she strode confidently to his table.

“Hi, Al,” he said and hugged her.
“You look great.”

“So do you.”

They sat down. He’d ordered her a
coffee - a large double double - just like he used to when they’d meet to study
together at the Tim’s in Guelph.

“I couldn’t believe what I read
in the paper about you and your family, and the cat. What a farce! How are you
holding up?”

“It hasn’t been easy but we’re
managing.” She couldn’t believe he’d driven all that way just to talk about the
lawsuit.

“You know you can count on me if
you need anything.” He reached for her hand. “I hope we’re still friends.”

She nodded but wondered if that
were really true.

He seemed to be trying to say
something else but was hesitating, as if unsure of her reaction.

“How are your parents?” she
asked, trying to get past the awkward silence.

“They’re great. They send their
love. You know they’ve always been very fond of you.”

She knew that. It was one of the
reasons she had been so sure of Andrew. Not just because he had pursued her so
relentlessly at first when she wasn’t that interested in him, but also because
he had introduced her to his family so early on in their relationship.

“There was another reason that I
wanted to see you, Al”

Well here it was at last, she
thought.

“I felt I owed you an explanation
of why I left the way I did. I started to call you a hundred times over the
past two years, but each time I couldn’t bring myself to do it, and the more
time passed, the harder it became.” When she didn’t say anything, he went on. “I
was in love with a girl in high school. Her name is Julie. I wanted to marry
her when I finished college but my parents wouldn’t hear of it. They threatened
to disown me if I did.”

“Why? What was wrong with her?”
she asked without stopping to consider her words.

“There’s nothing wrong with her,”
he said huffily. “My parents didn’t want me to marry outside my culture, and
Julie is a Chinese Canadian. I love my family and didn’t want to lose them, so
I broke up with Julie and went away to college. I decided to make sure that my
next girlfriend would be someone my parents would approve of. And when I met
you, I knew you were perfect.”

The impact of what he was saying
started a slow burn in Alicia.

He went on, oblivious to the effect
his story was having on her, determined to finally get everything out in the
open. “I was right. They loved you. And for a while I thought I did too. But I
was fooling myself. The closer we came to graduation, the worse I felt. I knew
where we were heading and that you would be expecting me to start talking of
our future together. But I couldn’t. I loved Julie. I decided that, no matter
what, if she still loved me, we would get married. If my family objected,  then
it would be their loss. I went home after graduation to find Julie and thank
God she still felt the same. We’ve been married for two years now and my
parents have come to love her. We have a baby girl, Emily, that they adore and
we’re all very happy.”

He gave a deep sigh as he
finished and then looked up at Alicia as if expecting congratulations.

“You creep!” The other customers
in the shop looked up in surprise as the words exploded from her. She went on
regardless of their stares. “Chris said you were but I just couldn’t see it.
You led me along for almost four years knowing you were in love with someone
else, dumped me without warning or explanation, and now expect me to be happy
for you that your racist family has decided to accept your wife and baby?”

“Look, Al, there’s no need to
insult my parents. They always liked you.”

“Of course they liked me. I was
the Stepford girlfriend. Made-to-order. Blond, white and stupid.” Her anger
boiled over at the thought of the years she’d wasted loving this man who had
been so willing to sacrifice her to his family’s bigotry. She wanted to throw
something, or better still, hit him. Only the thought of the field day the
press would have stopped her.

But even while she fumed, she
knew that, in the end, it didn’t matter. She’d realized the moment she saw him
that she had no feelings for him anymore. It was merely her sense of outrage at
the injustice of what he’d done, and the years she had wasted pining for him,
that made her want him to pay for his callous disregard of her feelings.

She stood to go. “Good-bye,
Andrew,” she said with frosty dignity. “Thank you for finally doing the decent
thing.” She emphasized the ‘finally’. “I hope you and Julie, and Emily and your
parents, will all be very happy together.”

Yeah, right!

As she drove away, she realized
that, as painful as it had been to hear, Andrew’s confession had freed her from
the past once and for all. A bit like having a tooth pulled without freezing,
but definitely better in the end. The last of the wall she’d built around
herself crumbled. The past was just that - past - and she was heading for her
future.

Chris’ car was parked outside his
apartment when she got there. He opened the door at her knock. Her smile told
him all he needed to know.

They continued to search for
Marmalade and occasionally caught tantalizing glimpses of a bundle of orange
fur disappearing around the corner of a building or down some dark lane, but
they never managed to get close enough for identification.

Chris’ family had been told of
what was happening early on, as he didn’t want them hearing it on the news, and
were going through their own kind of hell, but they managed frequent phone
calls that were consistently reassuring and encouraging, no matter how worried
they actually felt. They, too, offered financial support. He hoped it would
never come to that.

“You know, Chris, if this weren’t
so serious, it would be farcical.”

They were toasting marshmallows
over a fire in the den. Alicia seemed determined to eat her way through the
crisis.

“I feel like we’re in an old
movie, you know, like ‘The Thin Man’ - Nick and Nora Charles - William Powell,
Myrna Loy ...”

“And Asta. Don’t forget Asta,” he
reminded her.

“Well-dressed, sophisticated
sleuths. She was born to wealth and privilege. He was pretzels and beer - no, martinis.”
Alicia laughed delightedly. “I remember watching those old movies on the late
show and wishing I could be that witty and sophisticated. Nora was always
beautifully dressed.” She sighed. “But their pet was safe at home, not the
cause of all their troubles.”

“Yes, but don’t forget, he was
married.”

“To Mrs. Asta. I remember.”

He jumped up and grabbed her
hand. “Come on, Nora, we’ve sleuthing to do.”

“Yes, Nicky dear. Don’t forget
your hat and trench coat. And you’d better start growing a mustache if you want
anyone to take you seriously as a detective.”

*   * 
*

November rolled around and they
began to make Christmas plans. Chris wasn’t going home to his family as he
usually did, but was invited to spend the holiday with the Dunbars. They were
determined that no matter what happened, nothing would spoil the festivities.

It was to be a real country
Christmas and many happy hours were spent making plans. It kept their minds off
less pleasant matters and buoyed their spirits considerably. The preliminary
court hearing was scheduled for the second last week in November.

The hours Alicia and Chris spent
exploring the town, tramping the woods and wandering the shore made him realize
how much he’d come to love the town and its way of life, and how much he’d miss
it if he had to leave. Without him realizing, it had become home.

The unfairness of the situation,
the cost in terms of his career and reputation and the happiness of the Dunbar
family infuriated him, made him curse the day he’d allowed himself to become
involved in that hare-brained trusteeship. But then he’d remember that if he
hadn’t, he wouldn’t have met Alicia, and despite all that was happening and all
that was in jeopardy, he couldn’t wish away anything that might wish her away.

The Thursday before the hearing
Alicia and Chris spent beachcombing. The winds had been fierce the night
before, whipping the waves to white-caps that pommeled the shore and clawed at
the tree-line as if to capture the slender birch saplings and carry them back
to sea. The wind had died to fitful bursts that snatched briefly at hats and
scarves and then retreated to lie in wait awhile. The sand was wet and they had
to dodge small pools and errant waves as they collected bits of driftwood to
dry for the fire.

Alicia tucked cold fingers into
his. She’d been unusually quiet all morning. “Chris?”

“Hmm ...” He dropped a light kiss
on the soft crown of her hair and waited.

“What will you do if the case ...
goes against us?”

It was a question he’d asked
myself, or tried to avoid asking, at least a hundred times a day since
Thanksgiving. She was watching him surreptitiously from beneath lowered lashes
as she absently picked up a wide flat stone and skimmed it across the water. He
watched it bounce three times and sink before answering.

“I suppose that will depend on
whether they decide to charge me with breach of trust. If they do, and are
successful, I face disbarment. That’s a possibility but it may not, probably
won’t, come to that. They’d have to prove intent. It’s more likely that I’d be
found negligent or derelict in my duties. I’d still be able to practice but ...”
There was no need to add that there was little market for a negligent lawyer. “At
any rate, I’d have to leave town. Perhaps try to start my own practice in
another town when things had quieted down.”

“Oh, I see.” She skimmed another
stone. This one hit with a splash and sank to the bottom. She began hunting for
another skimmer, carefully avoiding his eyes as she scanned the ground.

God knows it certainly wasn’t the
time to propose to a girl, with prospects that ranged from bleak to
non-existent, and he was in no position to tell her that things would work out
so long as they hung on to each other and fought like hell. Certainly it wasn’t
reasonable to promise her that nothing would hurt them if only they stayed
together. And he didn’t.

Maybe he should have.

With so much at stake, Alicia
found it increasingly difficult to do nothing.

She was between customers in the
tiny bookstore where she worked mornings, Monday to Friday. In truth, the small
shop barely supported one person but its owner, who had started the business
when Diefenbaker was Prime Minister, had decided two years ago that life should
be more than four walls lined with books. He had hired Alicia to open the store
at ten o’clock - nine during tourist season - and work until one o’clock. He
looked after things until five. Saturday he opened at ten and closed at four.
Sundays he didn’t open at all. The schedule suited both of them. The store was
rarely busy and today was no exception. She had plenty of time to consider
their next move.

They’d searched the whole town,
time and time again, offered a reward for information, put up posters and run
ads in the local paper, but it wasn’t enough. And it wasn’t just her own and
her family’s futures she was concerned about. She truly loved Marmalade, and
the thought of him alone and cold, hungry, maybe hurt, kept her up night after
night.

Why didn’t he come home? She didn’t
believe he would willingly stay away this long. The only logical conclusion was
that someone must have taken him, but if it had been someone just looking to
make a quick buck, he’d have been returned for the reward or they would have
had a ransom letter. It had to be someone with more to gain. They’d wasted
enough time assuming he’d run away. She was tired of feeling helpless and at
the mercy of others. It was time to take action, to take their fate in their
own hands. If only she knew what that action should be.

“I know we didn’t do anything to
Marmalade,” she said aloud. “That’s the advantage I have over the police. I don’t
have to consider us. So if we assume he didn’t run away, who would want
something to have happened to him?” When she thought about it that way, the
answer seemed obvious.

There was one way to find out.
She picked up the phone and dialed.

*  *  *

After a long morning of chasing
down false Marmalade sightings, Chris had come to the same conclusion. It was
too small a town for someone not to have seen something of him by now. Someone
must have taken him. But who?

Driving down a side street, he
saw a familiar figure raking a lawn. Wilf Mitchell, the gardener, smiled and
waved as he drove by. Wilf certainly got around.

And then the lightning struck!
Wilf! How could he have missed it? Wilf knew the cat. He had access. And, this
was the clincher, he’d witnessed the signing of the will so he would have known
the provisions it contained. He must have been blind not to see it before.

There was no time to lose. He
drove around the corner, parked and slunk back to watch Wilf from behind a row
of cedars.

As he watched the older man
bagging the pile of leaves, what had seemed a certainty a few minutes earlier
now seemed ridiculous. Sure, he had knowledge and access, but Chris couldn’t
get around one thorny fact: if Wilf had taken the cat, why hadn’t they had any
demand for money?

Feeling foolish, Chris turned to
leave, but seeing Wilf gathering up his tools, he decided to wait until he’d
left to avoid being seen.

Wilf put his tools into the back
of a rather dilapidated truck, got in and drove off towards the main street. As
he drove by, Chris noticed on the passenger seat a very large bag of something
he was only too familiar with – a national brand of cat food.

Without further thought, he ran
to his car, jumped in and pulled out onto the road a few cars behind the,
thankfully, distinctive old truck. He had never had occasion to tail anyone
before and he discovered it was surprisingly difficult to stay close enough to
keep his quarry in sight without drawing attention to himself.

It must have been his shopping
day, because the old man made a series of stops along King Street: the bakery,
the supermarket, even the new micro-brewery that had just opened. If he hadn’t
been so busy tailing Wilf, Chris would have stopped in there himself. He’d been
meaning to try it out.

Finally, however, he seemed to be
done. Turning off the main street towards the lake he headed for the beach road
that meandered along the shoreline. It was a drive Chris normally loved,
winding slowly through trees, past cottages and campgrounds, always with the
spectacular view of the white sand beach and the white-capped water of the
lake. But on that day, the narrow winding road made keeping the truck in sight
difficult. There were numerous roads leading off of it that Wilf could turn
onto, and with no other traffic for camouflage, Chris couldn’t risk getting too
close.

Coming out of a bend in the road,
he was just in time to see the truck turn into a driveway on the lakeside.
Chris continued past, getting enough of a look at the small cottage to make
sure he would recognize it again, and then pulled off into a parking area a few
cottages down. Thinking fast, he pulled off his shoes and socks, and rolled up
his pant legs. There was a public walkway down to the beach. Hopefully he would
look like a man going for an impromptu stroll along the water.

The sandy path led through stands
of nearly barren birches and Lombardy poplars that gradually gave way to tall,
waving dunes of native grasses that had been recently reintroduced along the
shore to prevent further erosion of the beach sand that had been the result of
a previous municipal government’s decision to remove the original dunes to ‘clean
up the beach’.

The sand stretched for miles in
both directions. In summer it hosted sun-worshippers of all ages as well as
picnickers, Frisbee and volleyball players, surfers and those who just loved to
frolic in the cold, clear water as it rolled onto the shore in great, crashing waves.
Some were lucky enough to own one of the many cottages that were nestled among
the trees. It appeared that Wilf was one of the lucky ones.

Strolling casually along the
water’s edge, Chris stopped to skim a stone. He wished he was there just for
the pleasure of it – the smell of the beach, part sea, part land; the pounding
rush of the waves on the sand; the raucous cries of the gulls on their
never-ending quest for food; the sight of clouds like mountain ranges in the
distance, sketched with charcoal against a dove-gray sky; the crisp air
slapping his cheeks and nipping his toes; the feel of the wet sand under his
naked feet – all of these sensations enveloped him. Then he spotted the cottage
Wilf had gone into.

Made of fieldstone and gray
clapboard, with a shake shingle roof, it was something out of a child’s fairy
tale. Like all of those along the shore, the front of the cottage faced the
water with the driveway and the back of the house along the road. Trumpet vines
grew up a trellis at the side of the front porch which was encompassed by a
white spindle railing and held wicker chairs and a swing. Sunny yellow storm
shutters framed the large bay window.

It didn’t look like a kidnapper’s
lair but appearances could be deceptive.

He continued to skim stones as he
moved slowly up the beach towards the cottage. There was no one in sight and
so, as he approached the cottage, he headed for the long grasses of the dunes
and then, pretending to roll his pants a little higher, he slipped into the
grass and lay on his stomach facing the wooden screen door. He really didn’t
know what he hoped to see or do from there, but he didn’t have a better idea.

Lying in the sand on a hot summer’s
day is glorious. Lying on the sand on the shores of Lake Huron in mid-November
is not. The sand was damp and smelled of fish and other things he preferred not
to identify. He was sure there were probably sand fleas and other creepy
crawlies as well. Fortunately, before he was completely chilled and covered in
bites, the screen door opened and Wilf came out. He was wearing a track suit
and runners and, leaving the porch, set off up the beach at a brisk walk.

Chris would never have a better
opportunity. Slithering on his stomach through the sand and tall grass, he
reached the porch steps. He checked to make sure there was no one in sight, and
took the steps two at a time and sprinted across the tongue and groove floor of
the porch to the door. But there his luck ran out. It was locked. Even if he
was willing to illegally enter the cottage, and he wasn’t sure that he was,
that decision had been made for him. Frustrated, he was about to leave when he
heard a noise from inside. He thought it sounded like a meow. Peering in the
window he saw cats, lots of them, sprawled on various pieces of furniture
around the room. Was one of them Marmalade? He couldn’t tell but he was damned
if he was going to leave without finding out.

He was considering his options
when he saw Wilf making his way back up the beach. With no other way out and no
way to explain his presence on the porch, he leaped over the railing and ran
out the back way to the beach road. Walking back towards his car, he thought
frantically. He needed a plan to get into that house.

And then a thought struck him
that stopped him in his tracks. Wilf had no idea that he suspected him of
anything. Mentally slapping himself on the forehead, he realized that he had
let the whole ‘detective’ thing cloud the situation. He could just casually run
into him on the beach and take it from there.

There wasn’t much time if he was
to meet Wilf before he was back in his cottage, so for the second time he
sprinted to the public walkway and down through the trees and dunes to the
beach. Stopping briefly to take a deep calming breath, he walked casually out
onto the sand once more.

Wilf was just climbing the steps
to his porch when he spotted Chris walking along the water’s edge.

“Mr. Mallory! What are you doing
here?” he asked in a tone of pleasant surprise.

“Hi, Wilf. I just felt like
taking a walk on the beach. It won’t be long before it’s too cold. Is this your
place? It’s terrific.”

“Thanks. I’ve lived here for more
than forty years. My wife and I bought it when we were first married. Would you
like to come in? I just bought some beer from that new brewery in town. We
could open a couple of bottles and try it out.”

On the drive home, with frozen
feet, what he was sure were flea bites on his ankles, and sand in incredibly
uncomfortable places, Chris tried to remember a time when he had felt more
foolish. He couldn’t think of one. Wilf wasn’t a catnapper. He was a cat
rescuer. He’d been lonely after the death of his wife and had started to take
in strays for company. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement, the old man
needing companionship and a reason to get up in the morning, and the cats
needing security and someone who cared about them.

Thankful that no one would ever
have to know about his brilliant piece of detective work, Chris decided to drop
by Tim Horton’s on his way home. A bowl of hot chili, a donut and coffee might
help erase the embarrassment of having thought that kindly old man was capable
of such a dastardly plot.

He parked in the lot and started
for the door, but as his hand reached for the handle, what he saw inside made
his heart stop. Alicia was sitting inside with the Investigator from the APS.
What was his name? Jameson? While he watched, she laughed at something the guy
said, touched his arm and flipped her hair. She was flirting with him!

Chris turned and numbly walked
back to his car. He drove home in a fog, not even remembering how he’d gotten
there, and walked slowly upstairs to his apartment. Once inside, he sat slumped
in a chair, sick at heart, forgetting to take off his coat.

How could he have been so wrong?
He’d thought she loved him as much as he loved her. True, he hadn’t said
anything when he’d had the chance, but it just wasn’t the right time. He couldn’t
ask her to tie herself to a man with no prospects. After all, she was a
beautiful, intelligent woman. She deserved more.

It was hours before he could drag
himself to bed and almost morning before he finally fell into a troubled sleep.

The phone woke him at nine o’clock.
Groggily, he picked it up and mumbled something unintelligible.

“Wake up, sleepyhead!” Alicia’s
cheerful voice came over the phone. “Can you come over, ASAP? I’ve something to
tell you and I don’t want to do it over the phone.”

His stomach contracted painfully
but he said he’d be there after he’d showered.

“Can you stop at Tim Horton’s? I’d
love some coffee and a cinnamon bun.”

He’d wanted to ask her if last
night’s hadn’t been enough for her, but all he said was, “Sure. See you in an
hour.”

An hour later, he stood at the
door with a tray of coffees and a bag of cinnamon buns. Pressing the buzzer
with his elbow, he waited until Alicia swung it wide and made a grab for the
buns. They went into the library where James and Alice were waiting.

“All right, Alicia, now that he’s
here can you please tell us what you have been so mysterious about?” Alice’s
voice contained a little of the vinegar Chris remembered from their first
meeting. It showed how the strain was getting to everyone.

Washing a cinnamon bun down with
her coffee, Alicia curled up on the sofa with a self-satisfied smirk on her
face. She looked a little surprised, though, when Chris, instead of sitting
beside her, went to stand by the fire.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I’ve found out something really
important, something that could help us. Yesterday, I was trying to figure out
who would have a reason to take Marmalade.” Chris really hoped she wasn’t going
to say Wilf. “And the obvious answer,” she continued, “is the people who have
something to gain if this lawsuit goes against us.” She looked expectantly at
each of them but no one offered a suggestion. Exasperated, she said, “The
Animal Protection Society, of course. They are the ones who benefit if we can’t
find Marmalade.”