American Curls Read online

  American Curls

  By Nancy Springer

  Copyright 2012 by Nancy Springer

  Cover Copyright 2012 by Ginny Glass and Untreed Reads Publishing

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  Previously publishing in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, April 2003.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Also by Nancy Springer and Untreed Reads Publishing

  #20

  Scent of an Angel

  The Boy Who Plaited Manes

  http://www.untreedreads.com

  American Curls

  By Nancy Springer

  The minute Cindy pulled into Samantha’s driveway, she knew something was badly wrong. Both house and cattery doors stood wide open to six inches of February snow, and Samantha would never let that happen. Good grief, the kitties might catch pneumonia and die. Something must have happened to Sam, and there were no neighbors around to help, because an animal shelter always had to be way out in the country. But what could be the matter? Had Samantha fallen and hit her head, maybe?

  Heaving herself out of her ancient Pinto, Cindy tightened her scarf around her thinning mousy hair, hustling toward Samantha’s rancher at the fastest gait her plus-sized body would allow. Footprints riddled the snow, from volunteers and adoption seekers coming and going all day. But among them Cindy saw myriad little paw prints. Dear lord, every kitty in the place must have gotten out. They would freeze and starve and die. Even before she reached the house door and lunged inside, Cindy felt herself starting to cry.

  But she stopped crying the instant she saw Samantha lying face down on the carpet, her caramel-colored spiral curls soaked red with blood. This was a matter too serious for crying. She knelt by Samantha’s side, calling “Sam! Sam? Are you all right?”

  Silence, except for pathetic meows from several directions. Some of the cats had stayed inside, evidently.

  Cindy knew herself to be an idiot. Any fool could see Sam was not all right. With one chubby hand Cindy fumbled at the side of Sam’s neck.

  Yes, there was a pulse, but barely. Yes, Sam was taking a shallow breath now and then.

  Cindy staggered up, yanked an afghan laden with much cat hair off the sofa and blanketed Sam. She called 9-1-1. Then she called Devon, who was the volunteer at the head of the emergency phone chain. Not that Devon was good for much except wielding her cell phone. Devon liked to brush the kitties, not clean up after them, and she never set foot in the shelter without wearing rubber gloves to protect her French-tip manicure. But she was efficient in her country-club way, didn’t waste time being shocked, just said she’d call out the troops. After Cindy hung up, she checked Sam again—still unconscious, but breathing—then headed through the connecting door from the house into the cattery.

  Six or seven cats flowed out of boxes and rubbed her ankles, a swirl of black, white, orange. Cindy felt her eyes fill with tears at the sight of them. Standing at the wide-open door, she called into the wind, “Here, kitty kitty kitty!”

  But no kitties appeared. And oh, lord, the box in the corner was empty. Where were the mamma cat and her litter? Following the feline mother’s instinct to hide her young, Queenie had taken her weanling kittens out in the freezing cold. And already the day was darkening toward nightfall.

  Cindy began to weep in earnest. Okay, Sam had fallen and hit her head on something. But who had let all the cats out? And why?

  * * *

  “She keeps most of them in the house,” Cindy explained to the detectives. Other volunteers wandered the night with flashlights, calling, peering into shrubbery, while Cindy cleaned up the mess in the cattery. “This room is just for the ones that don’t use a litter box.” Ferals, mostly, and the poor declaws. Didn’t want to dig with their mutilated front paws. Several of them crowded Cindy’s ankles, wailing like banshees. Cats were cats, even when they were designer kitties, purebred Himalayans and Cymrics and Russian Blues and Burmillas.

  The cats lamented, and the detectives stood watching, but Cindy worked feverishly, gathering the dirty bedding, filling food and water bowls, then down on her knees scraping poop from the linoleum,. Shock wouldn’t let her sit still. The cops said Samantha hadn’t hit her head. They said somebody had hit it for her. With Sam’s favorite cat figurine, the stylized teakwood Siamese, which might have doubled as a bowling pin. The hospital said Sam was in stable condition, but what if she didn’t get well? What would happen to the kitties? What would happen to them now, poor babies lost in the cold?

  “How many cats did she have?” a detective demanded.

  “Ninety some.”

  “Good lord.”

  “You see it all the time,” said the other one, who was shorter and stockier. “Little old lady with too many cats.”

  “Whacked on the head?”

  “Okay, so this one’s a little old lesbian. Running a cathouse.”

  Cindy felt every overweight muscle tense. Samantha was not little, and not much older than 50, and as for her being a lesbian, so what? Sam ran a cat shelter, for mercy’s sake, fully accredited, with records, volunteers, adoptions…these cops were jerks. Cindy slammed her poop scraper into the sink and grabbed the scrub bucket.

  “You’d know,” the taller detective called to Cindy. “Who was her lover?”

  Filling the bucket, Cindy just stared at him. She knew nothing of Sam’s personal life and didn’t care to.

  “Okay,” he tried again, “did she have a live-in?”

  “Nobody else lived here.”

  “Any frequent visitors?”

  Cindy stared again, wishing she could do it more like a dragon and less like a cow. Luckily, just then one of the volunteers, the retarded girl, came in roaring softly to herself. Apparently this made the detectives uncomfortable. They retreated, ambling back into Sam’s house. There wasn’t much detecting for them to do, anyway. When Sam woke up she would tell them who had hit her.

  The retarded girl set down an armload of snow-powdered cats. Cindy plopped herself on the floor, gathering kitties onto her lap to warm them and comfort them. And herself.

  From time to time other volunteers tramped in, almost all middle-aged women like Cindy. Stamping and sniffling, they talked to the cats in their arms. “Watcha think you’re doing out there? Doncha know how cold it is?” Only one of them was a man, an odd, silent young fellow who said nothing as he turned his cats over to Cindy.

  “It looks like every volunteer on the list came running,” Cindy blurted at him just because she was uncomfortable with his silence.

  He nodded, but didn’t say a word as he headed back outside.

  “I lied,” Cindy told the kitties purring in her arms, nestled against her ample chest. “Devon’s not here.” Which was not surprising. Devon was a fair-weather volunteer. Didn’t like to take her brand-new Beemer convertible out of the garage in anything less.

  Another middle-aged woman stumbled in from the snowy night with a cat under each arm. “Padiddle and Rapunzel,” she announced, setting down a one-eyed feral and a yellow longhair. “Has anyone found Q
ueenie and the kittens?”

  “No! Where in the world did she get to?” How far could the little gray tabby have gone with a litter of six? Cindy bit her lip. “I can’t understand it.”

  * * *

  Much later, Cindy got home—her home for the time being, anyway. A rather impressive Tudor in the best old neighborhood. Mrs. Heckmaster was sitting in the front room working on one of those memory books with the fancy pages and the stickers and lettering from the craft store. “My goodness,” she said, glancing up as Cindy stamped snow off her feet in the entryway, “what’s the matter, dear? You look like you need a cookie.”

  Mrs. Heckmaster was a little old lady with blue poodle curls, and Cindy did not like her. But she didn’t need to like her, just keep an eye on her and run errands for her. Living with Mrs. Heckmaster earned Cindy her room and board while freeing Mrs. Heckmaster’s family, which happened to consist of Devon, the fair-weather volunteer from the shelter. Devon Heckmaster, back to her maiden name and getting richer by the day off alimony; whereas, Cindy felt herself getting poorer. When Mrs. Heckmaster graduated to a nursing home or croaked, Cindy would have to find some other person to live with as a nanny or a pet sitter or a caregiver.

  Forty-six years old and homeless. But in Cindy’s experience, it was people like her, the ones with the least, who did the most for animals. Well, with the exception of Devon…but Cindy volunteered for the SPCA, the horse sanctuary, the Dalmatian rescue and the Humane Action League, and she knew Devon was an anomaly. She knew of no other rich country clubbers who tried to help animals. Just ordinary folks. Like Samantha.

  “It’s Sam,” Cindy told Mrs. Heckmaster. “Somebody hit her and let all the cats out.”

  “What? What are you talking about?” Mrs. Heckmaster leaned forward, predatory, an old vulture feeding on other people’s excitement. But Cindy so badly needed to talk that she stuffed her butt into one of Mrs. Heckmaster’s armchairs and told her all about it.

  “We got most of the cats back inside by the time I left,” she concluded, “but there’s a few ferals still missing. And the one with kittens.”

  “I thought they spaded all those useless cats.”

  Spayed, Cindy thought. Or neutered. “They do. But Queenie was knocked up when she came.” Yet another dumped pet. People like Mrs. Heckmaster thought they should be killed. They didn’t understand.

  “And the doctors think that sentimental fool Samantha is going to be all right?”

  “That’s what I heard.” According to one of the volunteers, the doctors were keeping Samantha in a coma until her brain swelling went down.

  Mrs. Heckmaster returned her attention to the memory book she was working on, a gift for her daughter, featuring news clippings about Devon’s honors at various cat shows. Devon was a cat fancier who raised American Curls, which was a weird new breed of cats with the ears bent over backwards. Cindy vaguely remembered hearing Devon talk about how the breed started with a mutation, like all those wooly Rex cats and those ugly hairless Sphinx ones and some others Cindy couldn’t remember. But Devon knew all about them. Which kind of explained her involvement in the cat rescue…no, it didn’t. None of the other cat fanciers seemed to give a doo-diddle-dah about the strays Samantha took in.

  “Do they know who hurt her?” Mrs. Heckmaster asked.

  Cindy shook her head, silent, thinking about the retarded girl; could she have hit Samantha, maybe not understanding the consequences? Or what about that one male volunteer, so silent, so expressionless?

  “I bet it’s got something to do with her being light in her loafers,” said Mrs. Heckmaster with relish.

  Good lord, the old biddy reasoned just like the cops. Cindy got up to fetch Mrs. Heckmaster’s bedtime meds, and as soon as her back was turned, she rolled her eyes.

  * * *

  Ten minutes before visiting hours the next day, Cindy lumbered into the hospital Ladies’ Auxiliary Gift Shop.

  “Why, hello, Cindy,” said a familiar voice. “Have you come to see Samantha?”

  Cindy blinked at Devon, who was speaking to her from behind the counter. Devon, with sleek blonde hair that had never been flattened by a scarf, every curl in place. Devon, so slim she made Cindy feel like a garbage can on feet. Devon, in a sage green wool dress so simple it must have cost five times what Cindy made in a week.

  Cindy blurted, “I didn’t know you worked here!”

  “I volunteer here. I like to volunteer,” said Devon with a little too much emphasis.

  “Maybe you’ve heard, how’s Samantha doing?”

  “They say she’s stable.” Whatever that meant. “Did you want something to take to her?”

  Cindy looked around the shop at pretty, useless stuff that made her yearn to have money: silk pansies in hand-painted country flowerpots, votive candles in cut-glass holders, miniature stuffed animals, winsome crockery kittens and puppies holding “Get Well” signs. Stalling for time, she asked, “Is she still in the coma, or did she wake up?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been to see her yet.”

  “Devon,” called a woman from the shop’s back room, phone in hand, “I’ve got a delivery order, huggy bear with daisies to room 402.”

  “I’ll take it up in a minute.”

  Cindy wanted to get Sam a get-well kitten, but they were too expensive. She settled for a pansy pot (“Pansies Are For Thoughts”) and headed off to find Samantha.

  Eventually she located the room on a busy hallway with nurses rushing up and down. Sam’s door was closed, which might mean the doctor was in there, or maybe they were giving her a bath. Cindy waited a while, but nobody came out. She knocked. Got no answer. She hesitated, then turned the knob and pushed the door open softly in case Sam was sleeping.

  Afterward, she wondered whether she didn’t have a premonition or something. But she didn’t. Not an inkling.

  She saw the pillow first. And fanning out from underneath it, caramel-colored spiral curls. Sam’s hair.

  Then she saw Sam’s hand. Denim blue.

  She screamed.

  A nurse came running, pushed past her, made an unprofessional sound and rushed to lift the pillow from—from Samantha’s face, very still, blue like Lake Placid. After that, Cindy didn’t notice much. Nurses and doctors swept in and out, but Cindy stood where she was and stared at that blue face nested in spiral curls amid the bitterly bright room rife with get-well cards, bouquets of flowers, a knick-knack on the bedside table…

  Eventually someone led her away to an office, where she sat. Time passed. She didn’t notice.

  “You again,” said a male voice.

  Cindy blinked and focused on the tall detective sitting across a desk from her.

  “You found her,” he said. “Again.”

  Cindy whispered, “She’s dead.”

  “Yes, she is. Somebody finished the job. And I just have to wonder whether it’s a coincidence, your being here.”

  Cindy didn’t react. One good thing about being big was it helped her look stolid. She had a lot of inertia.

  “Somebody smothered her and left the pillow in place,” the detective said, watching her. “Might be some sort of kinky sex thing.”

  Cindy shook her head. Her thoughts had begun to move again, slowly but surely, like deep water. She blurted, “Did you get any prints off that cat statue they clubbed her with?”

  The detective gave her a blank look. “I couldn’t say.”

  This meant “No,” Cindy reasoned, or he’d be inking her fingers this minute. “They wore gloves, right? Can you tell whether it was rubber gloves?”

  He peered. “What makes you ask that?”

  “One of those ceramic get-well kittens. In Sam’s room. Who brought it up from the gift shop?”

  * * *

  But it was ridiculous to suspect Devon, Cindy scolded herself as she drove toward the SPCA. What possible motive could Devon have to kill Samantha? Still, Cindy felt agitated enough to double as a washing machine. With no idea what to think, she
trudged into the SPCA for her weekly volunteer stint, wheeled the mop out and started to scrub, hoping the drudge work would calm her down.

  Working her way between ranks of pens and cages, she patted the yipping dogs and mewling cats, but without feeling. Just reflex. When a little gray tabby rubbed its side against the woven wire, imploring, Cindy raised her hand automatically before several small fluffy movements caught her eye—

  She squealed like an elephant. “Queenie!” she shrieked.

  Queenie answered with a feline trill. It was the lost kitty, all right, complete with her litter of weanling kittens, their baby fur starting to grow out. “Queenie, you never told me your boyfriend was a longhair,” Cindy cooed, because the kittens were turning into puffballs.

  Footsteps pounded up the aisle. Cindy’s screech had brought the manager running from the front desk.

  “What’s Queenie doing here?” Cindy demanded, turning on the woman as if it were her fault that Samantha’s shelter was thirty miles away, in the next county, for God’s sake.

  “The little mama cat? Dumped,” the woman said with fervid scorn. “That country clubber could certainly have afforded to make a donation, but noooo, dump and run.”

  Cindy felt something like a giant fist squeeze her chest, making it hard to breathe. She could force out only a couple of words. “Country clubber?”

  “Yeah, yesterday morning, before we opened. I came in early, saw her hustling away. Blonde in a tennis outfit.”

  Cindy managed another few words. “Was she driving?”

  “Sure. Shiny new car, red and white.”

  “A Beemer?” Devon’s red convertible had a white ragtop.

  “Heck, I don’t know one car from another. Show me a dog, I know dogs.”

  It was ridiculous anyway. How would Devon have gotten hold of Queenie and the kittens? And what for? And why wouldn’t she have said something? It was all nonsense. Cindy turned back to patting the little tabby and her adorable fluffy kittens…

  “So you know this mama cat?” the manager asked.

  Intent on the kittens, Cindy didn’t answer. One kitten, two, three, four, five… “Where’s the sixth one?” she demanded.