“If you like her so much, you live with her. If I hear her George Michael tape one more time, I’m going to shred it with these very claws.” She flashed her impressive talons. “Furthermore, the girl will make herself deaf—and me, too—if she doesn’t turn down that boom box. Sometimes I think I’ll walk out the door and never come back—live on field mice.”
“You’re too fat to catch mice,” Mrs. Murphy taunted her.
“I’ll have you know that I caught one last week. I gave it to Market and he went ‘O-o-o.’ He could have thanked me.”
“They don’t like mice.” Tucker slurped at her bone.
“Try giving them a bird.” Mrs. Murphy rolled her eyes. “The worst. Harry hollers and then buries the bird. She likes the moles and mice I bring her. I break their necks clean. No blood, no fuss. A neat job, if I do say so myself.”
Pewter burped. “Excuse me. A neat job . . . Mrs. Murphy, the human murders were messy,” she thought out loud.
“Why?” Tucker sat up but put her paw on her bone just in case. Pewter was known to steal food. “It’s not efficient to kill a person that way. Throw one in a cement mixer and tie another one to the railroad track. Originally, it was a neat job. After they were dead the killer ground them into hamburger.”
Pewter lifted her head. “The killer’s not a vegetarian.” Then she dropped her head back and laughed.
Mrs. Murphy pushed Pewter with her paw. “Very funny.”
“I thought so.”
Tucker said, “The police aren’t revealing how Kelly and Maude died—if they know. The mess has to be to cover up something inside the bodies or to divert us from what the people were doing before they died.”
“That’s right, Tucker.” Mrs. Murphy got excited. “What were they doing in the middle of the night? Kelly was at the concrete plant. Working? Maybe. And Maude willingly went out to the railroad tracks west of town. Humans sleep at night. If they were awake it had to be important, or”—she paused—“it had to be something they were used to doing.”
30
“Mrs. Murphy and Tucker are at the back door.” Susan interrupted Harry, who was sorting the mail and telling all simultaneously.
“Will you let them in?”
Susan opened the back door and the two friends raced through, meowing and barking. “They’re glad to see you.”
“And in a good mood too. Market handed out bones today.”
“We think we’ve got part of the puzzle,” Mrs. Murphy announced.
“They were in cahoots, Kelly and Maude, with something—” Tucker shouted.
“In the nighttime when no one could see,” Mrs. Murphy interrupted.
“All right, girls, calm down.” Harry smiled and petted them.
Mrs. Murphy, discouraged, hopped into the mail bin. “I give up! She’s so dense.”
Tucker replied, “Find another way to tell her.”
Mrs. Murphy stuck her head over the bin. “Let’s go outside.” She jumped out.
Tucker and the cat dashed to the back door. Tucker barked and whined a little.
“Don’t tell me you have to go to the bathroom. You just came in,” Harry chided.
Tucker barked some more. “What are we going to do when we get out?”
“I don’t know, yet.”
Harry, exasperated, opened the door and Tucker nearly knocked her over.
“Corgis are a lot faster than you think,” Susan observed.
After replaying yesterday’s conversation with Fair one more time, both Susan and Harry were depressed. Harry shook out the last mailbag, three-quarters full. Susan made a beeline for the postcards. They both held their breath. A series of Italian postcards scared them but there were no graveyards on the front, and when turned over they revealed a number in the right-hand corner and the signature of their traveling friend, Lindsay Astrove. They exhaled simultaneously.
“I’ll read you Lindsay’s cards while you finish stuffing the mailboxes.” Susan sat on a stool, crossed her legs, put the postcards in order, and began.
“‘Being abroad is not what it’s cracked up to be. I took a train across the Alps and when it pulled into Venice my heart stopped. It was beautiful. From there, everything went downhill.
“‘The Venetians are about as rude as anyone could imagine. They live to take the tourists for all they can. No one smiles, not even at each other. However, I was determined to transcend these mortal coils, so to speak, and drink in the beauty of the place. Blistered and exhausted, I tramped from place to place, seeing the Lord in painting after painting. I saw Jesus on the cross, off the cross, in a robe, in a loincloth, with nails, without nails, bleeding, not bleeding, hair up, hair down. You name it. I saw it. Along with the paintings were various other art forms of the Lord and his closest friends and family.
“‘Naturally, there were many, many, many pieces of the Virgin Mother. (A slight contradiction in terms.) In all of Venice, however, I was not able to find a snapshot of Joseph and the donkey. I could only conclude that they are ashamed of his stupidity for believing Mary’s story about her and God and the conception thing and they only bring him out for Christmas.
“‘I did arrive at one possible conclusion. Since all of this artwork looks exactly alike, maybe one man is to blame. I find it plausible that one man did all of it and used many names. Or maybe all the little Italian boys born between 1300 and 1799, if their last name ended in “i” or “o,” were given a paint-by-number kit. I am sure there is a logical explanation for all this.
“‘One closing thought and I will move on to my visit to Rome. I am grateful that Jesus was Italian and not Spanish. All of that art would have been Day-Glo on velvet instead of oil on canvas.
“‘On to Rome—the Infernal City.
“‘Rome combines the worst of New York and Los Angeles. The one thing the Romans do well is blow their horns. The noisiest city in the world. The Romans rival the Venetians for rudeness. The food in both cities is not nearly as good as the worst Italian restaurant in San Francisco.
“‘As you can probably guess, I got to go to the Vatican Museums. I also got to leave the Vatican Museums because I proclaimed in an audible voice that it is just disgusting to see the wealth the church is hoarding. On the interest alone, they could cure cancer, AIDS, hunger, and homelessness in less than a year. All of a sudden the people who did not speak English were fluent in the language. I was ushered out. I didn’t even get to see the Pope in his satin dresses.
“‘The rest of Rome was no big deal either. The Colosseum was in shambles, the Spanish steps were littered with addicts and drunks, and the Trevi fountain was like any cruise bar.
“‘The designer shops were a delight. A designer outfit is one that does not fit, does not match, and does not cost less than your permanent residence. Did not shop in that city.
“‘I left Rome wondering why the Visigoths bothered to conquer it. However, Monaco was fabulous. The people, the food, the attitude, the absence of Renaissance culture!
“‘I’ll see you all in September when I will have soaked up about as much of the Old World as I can possibly stand. I’m beginning to think that Mim, Little Marilyn, Josiah, and company are gilded sheep to rave on about Europe, furniture, and a face-lift in Switzerland. Oh, well, as you know, I think Mim impersonates the human condition. And don’t show this to Mrs. Hogendobber! Do show Susan.