Lawyer for the Cat (7 page)

“Word kind of gets around. I was knocked right off my rocker when I heard. I mean, you just look around.” Her hand, dirt under the fingernails, sweeps through the air. “Does it look like she had a lotta money? Anyway, I don't know much about them other two, you know, that she put in the will or the whatever, but you can best believe that me and Beatrice here, we've always been buddies. Just like Lila—Miz Mackay—and me, we was good buddies.”

“I can tell she likes you.” Beatrice's purr is loud enough to hear over the whistle of the hot air going up the flue. “Would you be willing to care for the cat, then?”

“Oh, sure. I'd give her a good home. Billy and me got a three-bedroom mobile over there off Oyster Factory Road, which will be fine until we can build—”

“But you understand that under the terms of the trust, the caretaker must live here with the cat.”

“That just don't seem necessary,” she says. “A cat don't need a big ole place like this, with the ghost and all.”

“Ghost?”

“I never did see him, but Lila did. She always said she wasn't afraid of him—said it was a friendly ghost, but a ghost is a ghost as far as I'm concerned.”

“So you wouldn't want to live here?”

“Like I said, it don't seem necessary, but then again, what am I saying?” She stops herself, biting her lip. “Billy and me, we'll do anything we have to do to take care of this precious animal!”

“How old is the house?”

“Plenty old. Like, about 1800, I think.”

“You work on the island, is that right?”

“Part-time over there at the nursery.”

“You take care of children?”

She laughs. “Oh, no! It's the
plant
kind of nursery. That's how I got to know Lila. She'd come every now and then to buy stuff for her garden—it's not much now, but you should see it in spring and summer—and one time we got to talking about cats, and I told her about my cats and she said she needed somebody to look after Beatrice when she'd go into Charleston overnight, and I said sure, be happy to. And then I started helping her out with the grass-mowing and the garden, and I got really close to her.”

“How did she die?”

“Cancer. Kept that a secret except for me and Billy. Wouldn't do chemo, though from what she told me, it probably wouldn't have done any good anyway. In the end it was a heart attack. A blessing, I guess. Right out there in the rose garden. She loved her roses. Her roses, her writing, and Beatrice here. That's what kept her going.”

“How many cats do you have?”

“Two.”

“So when you'd take care of Beatrice, did you bring your cats here?”

“Billy stayed with them. Lila—Miz Mackay—wanted Beatrice to stay at home, so I'd come over here for a night or two when she went into Charleston. And Billy don't like this house, anyway. I'm not, you know, suspicious … superstitious or whatever, but he was really freaked out when I told him about the ghost.”

“But I thought you said you hadn't seen the ghost.” I look down at my notes so that she won't see the smile that's tugging at the corners of my mouth.

“No, but like I said, Lila told me about him. She always said he wouldn't hurt a flea, but Billy—”

“So you'd prefer not to live here?”

“Not unless we have to. Like I said, Beatrice would be fine at our place, wouldn't you, precious?” Gail strokes the cat's back. Beatrice's eyes are closed, her body relaxed. “She'd get along fine with SpongeBob and SquarePants. They behave themselves pretty good most of the time.… Anyway, I think I could do as good a job as anybody, with Beatrice, I mean. Does the will or whatever say we
definitely
got to live here?”

“The trust states … let me see, I have a copy … that ‘the chosen caregiver shall reside with Beatrice, during Beatrice's lifetime, at my home … and shall endeavor to provide Beatrice with the same lifestyle, routine, and emotional environment as she has become accustomed to in my care.' What do you think that means?”

“Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I thought ‘environment' is about the outside, but Beatrice never did spend much time outside. I know the ‘routine' thing is important, though, for a cat.”

“What's her routine?” I'm taking notes:
Beatrice comfortable with Gail. Gail's affection for her seems genuine.

“She likes to sleep with Lila—I mean, before—but if I take care of her I guess she'll sleep with me and Billy.”

“That wouldn't upset
your
cats?”

“Oh, they'll be okay after everybody gets adjusted. You want to see upstairs? Everybody always wants to see the upstairs, it being so historic and all.”

“Sure,” I say, though I don't really care for a tour, “but let me finish up with my questions.”

“I guess that's what lawyers do,” she says. “They ask a ton of questions!”

“We were talking about the cat's routine.”

“Right. She wakes up pretty early, wants something to eat. She'll walk around her empty bowl until you give her something, acts like she's starving to death! Lila would always say, wait until supper-time, feed her once a day, but as fat as she is—the cat, I mean—looks like she broke her own rule, so when I had her—I gotta tell the truth—sometimes I spoiled her, gave her a little something in the morning. And then she'd pretty much sleep the rest of the day, unless it was story time.”

“Story time?”

“Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but Lila would read her stories. There's one of the books right there, beside you.” Atop a stack of newspapers there's an old book, with a brown leather cover, faded gold letters on the binding:
Aesop's Fables.
“It's the darnedest thing, I could swear Beatrice understands it. The one about a cat and a fox—that's her favorite.”

“Maybe she just liked the sound of Mrs. Mackay's voice.… You said you work part-time. What about Billy?”

“When he's not shrimping, he takes people out on fishing charters. Right now things are kinda slow.… Let me show you upstairs.” She's insistent. “Kinda run-down, but interesting … all those antiques and all.”

“Okay, sure.”

“We'll just let Beatrice stay right here where it's warm. Don't worry, she'll be fine. Won't you, precious?” The cat opens her yellow eyes briefly as she's transferred from lap to hearth, then closes them again.

I follow Gail up the wooden staircase to the main floor. She moves with a self-assured, muscular grace. It's hard to believe she's afraid of anything, much less a ghost. “You see what I mean?” We've reached the landing, which is really a central hall. “In the old days they built the houses like this—two big rooms on each floor. The kitchen used to be in a separate building, but it burned down a long time ago. That there used to be the living room, I guess, but Lila only used it when she had company. Like I said, in the last few years she spent most of her time downstairs.”

The room is huge, with twelve-foot ceilings. Between the two long windows overlooking the river there's a floor-to-ceiling mirror crowned with gold-painted cherubs; on the opposite wall, a fireplace with a marble mantelpiece. From the chandelier, cracks spread out across the ceiling; in one corner a large chunk of plaster has fallen away, revealing the lath skeleton underneath. Matching sofas—Victorian, I'm guessing—face each other around the fireplace. One's covered with books and papers, the other draped with an old blanket. Along one wall, surrounding both north-facing windows, are glass-covered bookcases crammed with books.

Gail points to the missing piece of ceiling: “It's kind of a maintenance nightmare, this place. Like I said, I can do a lot, but she wouldn't let me touch the plaster, said it needed a specialist. I found a guy in Charleston who could do it but she said he was too high. You know old people—I guess even the ones that got plenty of money, they don't want to part with it. So the house just kind of got away from her. I think that's part of the reason she spent most of her time downstairs—that, and she didn't have to deal with the stairs. She even got to where she slept down there, on the sofa, so she wouldn't have to climb up to the bedroom. This over here,” she continues, leading me back across the hall, “is the dining room, but she quit using it a long time ago.” The table is probably twenty feet long, covered with papers and books. “You want to see the bedrooms?”

We go up another flight of stairs. The banister shakes a little as I steady myself. “Wow,” I say when we get to the top, the landing above the central hall below. The view from the huge window is spectacular: down the wide lawn, maybe a hundred yards, to a point where a dock stretches across the marsh to the river.

“You can catch pretty good crabs off that dock. She used to love to pick crabs. Used to eat them all the time. Weeks would go by and she'd eat nothing but crabs and cole slaw! I used to help her with the net, but then she got too wobbly to walk out there. I said, I'll do it myself, but in the last coupla years she quit eating them anyway, said she couldn't bear to see them go into the boiling water.… Anyway, if you look way, way out there you can see the ocean. Over here's her bedroom, but like I said, when it got near the end she didn't get up here much.” This room is the same size as the living room below, with a high four-poster bed. “She still kept most of her clothes in that chifforobe. There's some fancy stuff in there, but kind of old-fashioned, like those long white gloves ladies used to wear, know what I mean? You want to see?”

“No, thanks.” I feel like an intruder already.

“And around here's the bathroom.… There's one in the basement, too, which is the one she mostly used.… And this”—we're on the other side of the house now—“is the guest room. Kind of a wreck, so I guess it'd been a while since she had anybody spend the night.” Another tall bed, this one covered with more books and papers.

“Watch yourself going down these steps.… They built these a long time ago, when people's feet were a lot smaller! You have any more questions, you just let me know. Like I say, Billy and me, we'd be tickled to take care of Beatrice. Speaking of which, where are you, precious?”

Beatrice isn't on the hearth. She isn't on the sofa or in the kitchen.

“Precious!” Gail yells, and when that fails to produce the cat, she begs: “Come here, kitty-kitty. Come to Gail.” Nothing.

“Maybe she snuck past us on the stairs,” I suggest.

But when Gail opens the door to the backyard, there's Beatrice—and she's not alone.

 

It's in My Blood

“Didn't mean to scare you,” he says, grinning—an unnatural grin that displays his prominent incisors, a rim of his upper gum. He's a huge man, I'm guessing over six feet, with massive shoulders and a neck so thick, his blocklike head seems too small for his body. He has the red nose of a drinker, a purplish web of veins spreading to his cheeks. The cat squirms in the crook of his arm, her back legs wedged between his arm and his chest.

“Oh, hi, Randall,” says Gail. “We were looking for her! Watch out, she's going to—” But Beatrice is already clawing her way up his chest, onto his shoulder, and in one spectacular burst of determination she leaps away from him, almost flying, landing behind him in the grass.

“Damn!” he says, “Got a temper on her, doesn't she?” And again that forced grin as he steps toward me, extends a hand. “Randall Mackay. You must be the law-yer.” He says “lawyer” like it's a dirty word.

“I was just leaving,” I say. The cat peers at us through the branches of an oleander, wary.

“Come here, precious,” says Gail. “Come to mama.”

“No need to run away,” says Randall, to me. “Gail will tell you I'm harmless.” He smiles, heavy black eyebrows arching, one higher than the other. He's outfitted for hunting: a green-gray camouflage jacket and matching pants, boots. “You must be a mighty busy law-yer. I left messages.”

I look him straight in the eye. “I
am
very busy, but I should have some time next week, if you'd like to call again and make an appointment.”

“Well,
you're
here and
I'm
here,” he says, “so we might as well take advantage of this, uh, opportunity.” Gail has cajoled the cat into coming out from behind the oleander, has her safe in her arms. “You wouldn't mind watching the cat while we talk, would you, Gail? Maybe she'd like to spend a little time outside while—”

“She don't really like it much out here,” Gail replies. “Cats, you know, they like to be inside.”

“Fine,” he says, “the law-yer and I, we'll go on up to the living room and you and our furry friend can stay down here.” He opens the door, stands back, and gestures for us to go in. “Ladies first.”

I remember what Judge Clarkson said:
Steer clear of him.
But I've been in situations much scarier than this, like when I was a young public defender doing my own investigation on a murder case, knocking on doors in a bad North Charleston neighborhood, asking lots of questions; or interviewing a new client at the county jail, sitting across the table in a tiny room listening to him tell me how he hadn't killed anybody—
You can't kill a witch. She's the devil's handmaiden, put a curse on me, put a curse on my daddy, too. You don't believe me? She's right there behind you, working her curse on you, too!
And there was the time, a couple of years ago, when I received four unsigned letters at my office, printed in a strange, cramped font, warning that I would be sorry if I continued to represent a local doctor in his divorce. That evening I left my office after a particularly stressful day, to find that all four tires on my car were flat. I suspected the doctor's wife—she had mental problems—but I couldn't prove she'd sent the letters.