Gerry claimed to have lived in Athena when the subject arose during my first encounter with her—yet Melba didn’t know Gerry Albritton, and Melba knew everyone who had lived in Athena over the decades.
“Only Albrittons I know don’t have a single Geraldine in the family,” Melba said, obviously puzzled. “I could be wrong, of course, but none of the Albritton boys our age married a Geraldine, either.”
“That’s the name she claims now,” I said. “Maybe she used to go by a name besides Geraldine.”
Melba frowned. “Maybe, but I don’t think so. If I got a good look at her, I could probably figure out who she is.”
“I asked her if she’s related to the city councilman, Billy Albritton,” I said. He did not represent my district, but I had seen him around town, and his picture turned up in the local weekly newspaper on a regular basis. He was around seventy, I thought.
“I know Billy and his sister, Betty,” Melba said. “I’ll ask him if he knows her. I don’t get along well with Betty.”
I didn’t want to delve into Melba’s potential feud with Betty Albritton, so I didn’t inquire why the two didn’t get along.
“Talk to Billy, if you like,” I said. “Gerry professed not to know him, though. Said it must be a different set of Albrittons.”
Melba snorted. “All the Albrittons around here are one big family. Some of them are pretentious as all get-out, but that’s another story.” She locked gazes with me. “What’s all this interest in another woman, anyway?”
I hesitated. “I’m curious about this woman because something seems off about her.” I didn’t want to tell Melba about the flirting, or she might take it into her head to confront Gerry Albritton herself on Helen Louise’s behalf. Melba was fiercely protective of her friends.
“Like what?” Melba asked.
I shrugged. “I can’t really say. She seems fake somehow. But maybe I’m making way too much of the whole thing.”
Melba shook her head. “No, you’ve got great first instincts about people. If you’re feeling like something’s off about this whoever-she-is, then something sure is off.”
I had to smile. Melba never failed to support me, and her friendship all these years was a blessing I never took for granted and hoped I never failed to return.
When I came out of my reverie I discovered that my plate was empty. I noticed that Azalea stood by the stove, and she was staring at me.
“I don’t reckon you heard me,” Azalea said.
“Sorry, I didn’t. What did you say?” I asked.
“Wanted to know if you wanted another biscuit and more ham.”
“Gracious me, no, thank you. I’ve had plenty.” The truth was, I would happily have eaten another biscuit or two, packed with ham, but I had to make some effort to keep my waistline under control.
“If you’re sure.” Azalea gazed at me a moment longer. When I didn’t respond, she sighed and turned back to the stove.
Diesel had resumed batting the crumpled invitation around the kitchen, and I knew I had to take it away from him. I couldn’t ignore the invitation, much as I would have liked to. No, I would probably have to give in and accept. But only if Helen Louise was available to go with me, I decided. The invitation had said and guest.
I heard the front doorbell ring, one sharp, quick note. I pushed back from the table and rose. “I’ll get it,” I said.
Diesel preceded me. He loved visitors and was invariably first to the door.
I opened the door, a smile of greeting ready, but no one waited on the other side. I was about to step forward onto the porch, but Diesel’s growl alerted me.
As I halted and glanced down, I heard faint sounds of mewling from the area near my feet. I had been about to step into a box containing five kittens.
TWO
Two days after The Great Kitten Rescue, as Stewart insisted on calling it, my new four-legged boarders came home from the veterinarian’s office. Dr. Romano, Diesel’s vet, had checked all five kittens thoroughly. She estimated they were about eight or nine weeks old, ready to be weaned. They were healthy and had obviously been cared for before they wound up on my doorstep.
Prior to my discovery of the note in the box with the kittens, I considered taking them to the local shelter. I didn’t think I could cope with five additional felines in the house. The note changed my mind, though. In block print, it read, He says he’ll drown them. Please take care of them for me. The emphasis on that first pronoun bothered me. I immediately imagined a heartless father or stepfather who didn’t want to feed five cats. The poor author of the note was desperate to save them.
The paper with its ruled lines had been torn from a school notebook, and that made me think the person who wrote it was young, perhaps an adolescent. The letters were well-formed enough that I figured they weren’t written by a young child. I showed it to Dr. Romano, but since the paper contained no real clues to the identity of the writer, she shrugged and confessed to being as puzzled as I was.
The upshot was that I had five more mouths to feed. I had been worried that Azalea would have a fit with more cats in the house, but after she held one of the kittens, an orange tabby, I knew the battle was over. Azalea pretended to be gruff and tough much of the time, but at heart she was kindness itself. I suspected that at least one of the kittens might go home with her, if at all possible, once I resolved the mystery of their sudden appearance in my life.
In addition to the kitten Azalea favored, there were two other orange tabbies. The remaining two kittens were tabbies also, but dark gray with black markings. These two reminded me of a much-loved cat I’d had once, named Marlowe. She was named for the Elizabethan playwright, and I had adored her. I decided that I’d call one of these kittens by her name. Fortunately for me, Dr. Romano had determined the sex of each kitten. There were three males, the orange tabbies; and two females, the gray tabbies.
The two females were easier to tell apart. One was darker than the other, and that was Marlowe. I decided to call her sister Bastet, in honor of the cat in Elizabeth Peters’s Amelia Peabody books. Two of the boys looked almost identical and were dark ginger. After some thought, I settled on Fred and George, the names of the ginger-headed Weasley twins from the Harry Potter books. The other was lighter, and I named him Ramses, again in honor of a character from the Peabody books.
Azalea was one major concern. Diesel was the other. He had been around other cats occasionally, like Endora, the Abyssinian belonging to the Ducote sisters and their ward, Benjy Stephens. Adult cats were one thing, however. Five kittens—five active kittens—were quite another matter. Diesel exhibited a lot of curiosity about the brood. He was tall enough to look over the side of the box they arrived in, and while I stood at the door staring down at them, he regarded them for perhaps thirty seconds before he turned his head to look up at me. He meowed, and I would have sworn he was asking me, Well, what do we do now?
“That’s a good question,” I responded, looking down at him. “First thing is to bring them into the house because it’s chilly out here.” Diesel moved back when I bent to pick up the box. The kittens squeaked and mewed in alarm, and I spoke in soothing tones to them. “It’s all right, little ones, you’re safe. We’ll look after you.” Diesel warbled as if to reinforce my promise.
From then on, Diesel stayed near the kittens whenever possible. I first considered keeping them in the utility room—until I remembered the tendency of kittens to find tight spaces to squeeze into. The utility room offered several such possibilities, none of them particularly salubrious for small fry. I discarded that idea because I didn’t want to have to move appliances in order to rescue stuck felines.