The Cat Claws

That cat came with the house, according to my Aunt Lenora’s Will. She’d stated it plainly on the first page, under a header called The Cat Clause. Her lawyer removed his reading glasses and shot me a smug gaze; he and my aunt had been lifelong friends, and when she’d received her diagnoses, she’d contracted her best friend and lawyer Georgie Pine Rudriger the second to draw up her last Will and testament.

I sat across from him in his little office on the east side of Perdiville, across from the antique store and next door to a barber shop. Downtown Perdiville dated back to the early 1800’s, and except for a few businesses, the town hadn’t changed much.

           “Really, she said that?” I asked, expecting Mr. Pine to laugh. He didn’t.

           “Yes, it says it right here on page four,” he told me, pointing at the second paragraph.

Aunt Lenora’s Will had been as long-winded as her stories were; she’d been a novel writer after retiring from teaching elementary school. No one could tell a story like my aunt Lenora could.

           “Alright, well that’s not a problem, except for the fact that she knows- knew- I’m allergic to cats.”

The lawyer stared me down, and I immediately felt as small as a grain of rice. My generous, estranged aunt had bequeathed me her beach house-worth millions in the current real estate market- and I was whining about a cat. The nasty thing would probably die in the next few years, anyway. I detested cats.

           “Well, Mr. Pine, thank you for your time,” I said, gathering my briefcase.

The lawyer heaved his considerable body from its ancient chair and shook my hand, wishing me the best of luck. I glanced back at him on my way out the door, curious what he meant. It sounded ominous.

_#_

A week had passed before I’d made it out to the beach house. The little bungalow boasted flowered window boxes and a rust-colored roof. The exterior was an ivory color, and the front porch overlooked the ocean. The only yard was in the front, a small plot of land with excellent view. I estimated it to be less than a quarter mile from the sand, with an unobstructed view of the water.

           Pulling the key ring from my pocket, I sifted through them until I found the one for the front door, which was painted a cheerful yellow. I inserted it into the lock and turned it, hearing the telltale snick of the locking mechanism. In my peripheral, I saw the eyelet curtains move in the front window, giving me pause. No one else should have entered Aunt Lenora’s house. Pushing the door in, I surveyed the interior, satisfied to find it empty.

           I stepped in and closed the door behind me. The living room sat to my immediate left, gleaming wooden floors with colorful furniture arranged in appealing lines around the living area. An ornamental fireplace occupied the far wall, an oversized portrait of an orange cat wearing a bowtie mounted above it.

           Aunt Lenora had been eccentric, but that was one of her best qualities.

After a cursory walk through the living area, I made my way into the kitchen, which was to the right of the door. The floors were white linoleum with tiny blue flower print, and the counters tan and granite. The window above the sink had been left open to admit the fresh ocean air, and the curtains fluttered in the gentle breeze. Everything was polished and squeaky clean, thanks to the maid service the lawyer hired. Madriga’s Maids had been paid to clean the house and fill the cat dish every week.

The cat.

I could feel my grimace as I poked around in search of the little beast. He was bound to be around here someplace, unless he’d done us both an unexpected favor and gone out the window. Just as I’d finished searching the last room- Aunt Lenora’s bedroom, something cried out and shot across my feet with uncanny speed. I yelped and stumbled back, grasping for something sturdy to break my fall. My hands found the old dressing mirror my aunt kept standing in her room, and as I fell, it did, too.

The mirror’s frame hit me on the head and shattered across the hardwood floor. Glass shards were everywhere, and my head throbbed as a sizeable knot formed there. I narrowed my eyes when I caught sight of two glowing orbs hiding underneath the bed skirt.

“This means war,” I declared.

_#_

Reluctantly, I packed up a few of Lenora’s personal belongings and hauled them away in my car. I’d even filled the cat dish, despite my growing dislike for the animal. Another week went by before I returned to the house. It looked just as it had the first time I’d entered it, with gleaming counters and floors and a fresh ocean smell drifting throughout. Armed with experience, I stepped very carefully through the hallway, cognizant of large furniture and dark corners. I’d suffered a mild concussion from the previous incident, and the maids had phone to complain about the mess.

“Where are you, you little rascal?” I growled, ducking to check underneath the bed.

I could hear the faint scraping of something nearby, and I spun and exclaimed as a small, orange streak shot behind the floor-length curtain on my aunt’s bedroom window. Closing the door quietly, I opened the metal door of the cat carrier I’d brought with me. Aunt Lenora wouldn’t know the difference, and it was better for the cat, anyway.

“Come here, kitty kitty,” I chanted, creeping closer.

The curtain swayed slightly as the rounded little body behind it prepared to bolt. I dove, hands extended, planning to wrap them around its body and haul it upwards.

“Aha!” I claimed, as my fingers closed around a soft body with limbs that flailed and fought.

A shrill cry pierced the air, muffled by the heavy curtains, and the animal dove toward me, yanking the curtain off the wall, rod and all. The rod tapped the top of the neighboring bookcase and rolled, falling directly on top of my head. I growled and released the little savage on instinct, staggering away. I shouted a nasty expletive, chagrined when I spotted the elderly neighbors just outside the window, lounging in their own yard. I waved, ignoring their quizzical expressions, and scrambled back onto my feet, working quickly to replace the curtains.

The score was currently:

Cat: 2

Me: 0

When I’d finished with the curtain rod, I stood back to look at the results- my foot sinking into something suspiciously soft. I closed my eyes and drew in a couple of deep breaths, counting down, like my therapist taught me. Lifting my foot, I nodded grimly, having confirmed my suspicions. The cat eyed me from the bathroom counter and yowled. Shuffling toward the bathroom, I sidestepped the animal and removed my shoes, using the bathtub faucet to clean off the excrement. I’d had quite enough of this animals’ tactics; I was beginning to think I would need to hire a professional- cat wrangler? Animal control, perhaps? They would laugh me out of the building.

Then, I got an idea.

When I returned two days later, my neighbor’s Rottweiler sat panting in the front passenger seat of my car. Chauncey loved the salty sea air, and was exceptionally well-behaved, per his owners. I hadn’t fully explained my reason for borrowing him to my neighbors; I’d simply told them I was doing a photo shoot for the local shelter as part a charity function, which they’d believed. I was, afterall, a professional photographer.

Glancing all around the neighborhood, I opened the front door using the key from Lenora’s lawyer, whistled for Chauncey, and waved him into the house. Chauncey, accustomed to being an indoor dog, bolted inside, nails scraping across the floors as he hauled his massive body through the space. I whistled and leaned casually on the doorway, listening for sounds of a scuffle. I doubted Chauncey would truly hurt the little fella; but he would surely chase him away, unburdening me from my aunt’s stipulation.

Inside, Chauncey barked and stumbled along in a frenzied pattern, his feet sliding while he moved. The cat shrieked and a great scuffle ensued, their sounds muted and coming from down the hall. I whistled louder, nodding at the mailman who stopped to listen, waving him off. I smiled at the pair walking their poodle toward the sand, and the little girl riding her bicycle. When all was silent in the house, I eased inside and shut the door, following the trail of fluff from the pillow cushions and disheveled furniture.

My stomach fell when I found Chauncey tangled up in the shower curtain of the master bathroom. Somehow, the dueling pair had managed to break the faucet, and water shot out from the hole where the handle had once been, flooding the bathroom tile. Chauncey whimpered and tried to extricate himself from the downed curtain. I turned slowly, feeling his eyes on my back, staring at me with a wicked air of victory.

He sat perched on the top of the tall bookcase, his rounded body unscathed. With a sigh of resignation, I began unwrapping my neighbors’ dog and searched the phonebook for the number of a good plumber.

_#_

Three weeks had passed. Apart from a few broken things and an angry maid, I hadn’t made any headway at the house on the beach. I’d decided that the best way to defeat an enemy was to learn about it, so I phoned Mr. Pine from my home office late Friday evening.

“Mr. Pine, this is Will Hughes, Lenora’s nephew.”

I could have sworn I heard him chuckle.

“Mr. Hughes, what a pleasant surprise! What can I do for you?”

I spun in my office chair as I considered the best way to word my little problem.

“Aunt Lenora’s cat…” I hedged.

“Tom?”

Tom. Ha ha, Aunt Lenora.

“Yes, Tom- where did she get him, anyway?”

“I believe she adopted him from a neighbor,” he told me.

“I see. Which neighbor is it, do you know? I’m just wondering if given the circumstances, they might want the animal back. Poor Tom hardly knows me at all,” I added.

“Unfortunately, his previous owners have died. Your aunt discovered him when she discovered their bodies.”

“E-excuse me? She- say that again?”

“Didn’t the two of you ever speak?! Your aunt found Tom’s owners murdered in their homes. To this day, police haven’t identified a cause of death. They just… died.”

“And my aunt, she just… took the cat home with her?”

“She was very fond of animals, Mr. Hughes. And she said she admired his grit.”

Grit my round rear-end.

With a little more indirect questioning, I ended the call, more frustrated than I’d been to begin with. So, the little monster was a murderer, too. I’d known it from the start, of course. Leave it to my aunt Lenora to adopt the little beast and leave him to me in her Will. Deciding to switch tactics, I scrounged around in the pantry for a can of tuna and drove down to my aunt Lenora’s beach house.

Dusk settled on the horizon, and the light carried across the water in golden waves. The beachgoers had begun packing away their tents and radios and folding up their blankets. This time, I’d come prepared, wearing a borrowed hard hat and heavy gloves. My arms still bore the scratched from last week’s scuffle, and I couldn’t afford to suffer any more head injuries.

I opened the can wordlessly and tapped it on the plate, making extra noise while I scraped the insides out onto the dish. I spotted Tom on the chair beneath the table, glowering at me from beneath the hem of the tablecloth.

“Tom, let’s start this whole thing again,” I reasoned. “I’m Will. I’m Lenora’s nephew.”

The cat regarded me silently, eyes darting to fish on the plate.

“Tuna?” I offered, extending it out to him. Gingerly, I placed the dish onto the tile and backed away in surrender.

“Is that safe catch tuna?”

I froze.

Tom eyed me from his place beneath the table, his yellow eyes staring me down.

“What- d-did you just-“

Tom cleared his voice.

“I said is that safe catch tuna?” he asked with elaborate patience.

I sank down to the floor. My knees trembling and my heart rabbiting in my chest. Perhaps my concussion had progressed, somehow. I racked my brain for good excuses and came up with none. The cat- Tom- sighed and rolled his eyes, leaping down from the chair. Prancing up to the dish, he began lapping up the tuna.

“That wasn’t terrible,” he complimented, as he cleaned his front paws.

“You’re talking to me,” I breathed.

The cat leaned closer and whispered, “yes.”

I screamed and scrambled back, hitting the wall. Tom continued his bath while I continued my metal break on the kitchen floor. The clock ticked quietly in the background, and I could almost feel Aunt Lenora laughing at me from wherever she was.

“Did Lenora know you could speak?” I asked, sometime later.

“Of course she did.”

“Did you kill them?” I blurted. Tom stopped cleaning and blinked at me.

“Kill who?!” he demanded.

“Your last owners.”

This time, he scoffed.

“Don’t be an imbecile. They died of a gas leak! By the time the fire department got there, it was too late.”

“Mr. Pine said it was unknown causes.”

“Mr. Pine? Oh, that ignoramus? That man couldn’t tell a hot dog from his own hand. It was all over the evening news. Check it yourself. It happened in October three years ago.”

“How did you manage to survive?”

“I’d just come in from my time in the yard,” he said, resuming his bath. “I smelled the odor and found them lying in the living room. I dialed 911 and reported the leak, then waited outside. There was nothing else I could do.”

The sun dipped below the horizon and the interior of the house fell dark. It was oddly companionable, having a conversation with my aunt’s cat on her kitchen floor.

“Chauncey is afraid of cats now,” I reported.

“Good. He should be. That animal is ninety-nine percent fur and one percent brain,” he complained.

“He wears an anxiety vest.”

“You won’t catch me crying about it.”

“So, what happens now?” I asked Tom.

The feline stopped cleaning himself and stared me down.

“The way I figure it, Will, you and I will have to come to some sort of an understanding,” Tom began. I cocked an eyebrow.

“An understanding?”

“Very good!” Tom taunted.

“And what are the terms of your-our-understanding?” I ground out.

“For starters, Will, I rather enjoyed that brand of tuna. I’d recommend purchasing it in bulk. I can put away two cans a day. Second, I’d like a pet door installed so I can come and go as I please. I’m tired of using the window.”

I nodded, finding the first two demands reasonable.

“And the third?”

“And third, no more attempts to get rid of me. I’ll outlast you, Will,” he told me.

Tom crept up and climbed up my right leg, coming nose to nose with me.

“I’m smarter, I’ve proven that. This is my home. You aren’t the only one who lost Lenora, and unlike you, I actually cared for her.”

“I cared!” I argued.

Tom narrowed his eyes.

“Prove it.”

“How?”

“Follow her instructions.”

“You mean… you’re referring to her Will?”

Tom rolled his eyes again.

“No, Will, I’m referring to her cake recipe. Yes! I’m referring to her Will! The Cat Clause.”

Tom and I stared at eachother and the clocked ticked patiently. Lenora’s smiling face beamed at me from across the room, her photo mounted on the wall beside the clock. Lenora always liked collecting odd things, and Tom was definitely odd. I wondered about the alternatives, and recalling the head injuries, the dog, and the plumber’s receipt, I decided the answer to my problem was obvious.

“Deal,” I told him.

I was beginning to like this cat.