Who's Kitten Who? Read online

  “Damn,” she muttered, pulling out her phone and checking the caller-ID screen. “I thought everyone knew I was coming to a wake today.”

  “Apparently not,” her escort muttered, looking embarrassed.

  “Yes, Harvey, what is it?” she snapped into the phone, stomping toward the other end of the coffin and stopping when she reached Simon’s feet.

  “You’ll have to excuse my wife,” the man apologized, stepping away from the coffin to allow other people to drift over to pay their respects. “She’s been under a lot of stress lately.”

  I moved away, following him. “People express their grief in different ways.”

  He laughed. “You’re much too kind.”

  “It sounds as if you and your wife were close to Simon.”

  “We were business associates,” he said. “Not that we weren’t fond of him. We both were. But we were planning to produce She’s Flying High on Broadway.” He extended his hand. “I’m Sheldon Stone. And that’s my wife, Gloria.”

  My eyebrows shot up involuntarily. Even I recognized those names. Sheldon and Gloria Stone weren’t just Broadway producers. They were the Broadway producers. Long before I’d joined the theater world, Betty had talked my ear off about how influential the couple was. At the moment, they had no fewer than four phenomenal hits on and off Broadway.

  “It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Stone,” I said sincerely, wanting him to know I knew who he was. “I’m Jessica Popper.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you too. And call me Sheldon. Or Shel. Tell me, what do you do when you’re not onstage?” he asked with a kind smile.

  “I’m a veterinarian. I have a clinic-on-wheels, and I travel all over Long Island, treating animals.”

  “How fascinating!” he exclaimed. “You must find that rewarding. I admit, I’m an animal lover myself. In fact, my wife and I happen to be owned by an extremely engaging bull terrier.”

  Just then, Gloria came bustling over. “Shel, you’re not going to believe the games Harvey’s lawyers are playing. He just told me—”

  “Gloria,” Sheldon Stone said calmly, “we’re at a wake. I suggest we behave in a manner that’s appropriate for this sad occasion. You can conduct all the business you want once we’re on our way back to the city.”

  She cast him a scathing look but refrained from finishing her sentence. Instead, she set her mouth into a thin straight line that convinced me that later on she’d have more to say about being chastised in front of someone else—even a suburban someone else.

  “I just noticed Sutton and Nathan over by the front door,” Gloria said abruptly. “No doubt they’re here because they’re still hoping She’s Flying High will go to Broadway. Not that either one of them is even remotely right for the show. But I should go over and say hello anyway. I mean, they did come all the way out to the sticks just to impress me.”

  “Be my guest,” her husband replied. “I’ll join you in a minute.”

  As she stalked off, he smiled at me woefully. “I should be off as well. Good luck, Jessica. I’m sure you’ll be terrific as Anita Snook.”

  “Nice meeting you,” I called after him.

  He’d barely disappeared into the crowd when Betty joined me, her eyes clear and her face dry. “I see you were talking to Sheldon Stone,” she commented. “Is he as nice as people say he is?”

  “He seems to be,” I replied. “Too bad I can’t say the same for his wife.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard that Gloria Stone is as nasty as her husband is charming. But apparently she’s an amazing woman. Rumor has it she can tell whether a show is going to be a hit within the first five minutes.” Ruefully, she added, “Or a flop.”

  The viewing room was filling up, so after Betty took a few moments to say good-bye to Simon, we nudged our way toward the front room once again.

  “I’m sorry, Jessica,” Betty suddenly said. “I know we just got here, but I think I’ve already had enough. Would you mind if we didn’t stay?”

  “That’s fine, Betty,” I assured her. “We can go right now if you’re ready.”

  I had to admit, I’d pretty much had all I could stand of this mob scene myself. Still, I was glad I’d come. What I’d seen had reinforced that what I’d heard about Simon Wainwright being on the verge of great success hadn’t been an exaggeration.

  How sad that he didn’t live to see his dreams realized, I thought. To see his musical staged on Broadway, to listen to the wild applause as he sparkled onstage in a starring role, to hear theatergoers stream down the aisle humming the tunes that had been written to go with his lyrics—what a tragedy.

  But at that same time, another thought nagged at me: that maybe the timing of Simon’s demise wasn’t simply a coincidence.

  Chapter 5

  “Cats regard people as warm-blooded furniture.”

  —Jacquelyn Mitchard

  The bleating of my alarm clock early on Monday morning was a harsh reminder that there was more to my life than joining a theater company to investigate a murder. True, the day’s to-do list was filled with bizarre tasks like Memorize your lines so you don’t make a complete fool of yourself at your first rehearsal tonight and Find some footwear other than chukka boots for mastering dance steps. But I also had a career.

  After sending Nick off to law school, I climbed into my van. My veterinary practice consists of driving all over Long Island, treating animals at their owners’ homes or, occasionally, at their workplace. Usually, I love every minute, with only a few minor exceptions like cranky clients or patients that are seriously ill. Yet something hung over me all day like a little black cloud. It was the same feeling I got when I had a dentist appointment coming up, that low-level sense of dread that just wouldn’t go away.

  This time, the cause was the imminent arrival of Nick’s parents later in the day.

  According to his phone call with them Sunday evening, they expected to arrive around dinnertime. I was determined that every aspect of the Invasion of the Burbarians would go perfectly. My strategy was to wow them with my hospitality, welcoming them into such a warm environment that they’d immediately accept me as their daughter, rather than just their daughter-in-law.

  All day, my head was swimming with plans. By the time I let myself into the cottage late Monday afternoon, I actually felt I had the situation under control.

  Then I stepped inside and saw what was waiting for me.

  “A-a-r-g-gh!” I shrieked.

  As I took in the chaotic mess in my living room, my first panicked thought was that DEA agents had mistakenly believed this was the home of a heroin dealer or a crystal-meth factory. A throw pillow had been ripped to shreds and its feathers strewn all over the living room, making it look as if it had snowed while I was traipsing around Long Island, plying my trade. Toilet paper streamers were draped across the floor and furniture like snowdrifts. And bird seed was scattered all over the floor in Prometheus’s corner of the room.

  It took me only a second or two to realize it wasn’t federal agents who were responsible for the horrific state of my house. It was my pets.

  As Max came rushing over to greet me, I could see a few telltale feathers stuck in his beard—hard evidence that he was the perpetrator who’d pulverized that poor pillow. Tinkerbell had clearly played the role of sidekick, since she was wearing a few feathers of her own. The seeds were the result of Prometheus overturning his seed dish, one of the ways he liked to amuse himself when he got bored. And Lou had obviously gotten into the toilet paper again, something he hadn’t done since the first week or two he’d moved in. Why he had to revert to such negative behavior today of all days, I couldn’t begin to imagine—unless he was picking up on my high level of stress over the impending in-law invasion.

  “Guys,” I moaned, “how could you? Why did it have to be today? It’s going to take me forever to clean up this mess!”

  Lou just wagged his tail, while Max picked up his pink rubber poodle hopefully, as if he sincerely believed that a few rounds of
Slimytoy could smooth anything over. Cat, regally draped across the middle cushion of the couch—her favorite spot as of late—looked on from afar. Her disdainful expression said she wanted no part of such shenanigans.

  Meanwhile, Prometheus squawked, “I’m gonna give you my love!” While I recognized how impressive it was that he was one of the few birds on the entire planet who knew all the lyrics to every Led Zeppelin song ever recorded, I wasn’t exactly in the mood for a concert. Especially an X-rated one.

  As for undoing the havoc my fun-loving animals had wreaked, I didn’t have time. At least not now. At the moment, I had more important things to do to make this place scream “Welcome” from the moment my future in-laws walked through the door. I also had to shower and change in order to make myself look like a solid, upstanding candidate for the job of Nick’s wife, instead of a hired hand who’d just come in from plowing the lower forty.

  I headed straight for the kitchen, where I began by taking the assortment of expensive cheeses I’d bought out of the refrigerator so they could get warmer and putting a bottle of red wine into the spot that had just been vacated so it could get cooler. I’d splurged on that too, buying the best wine I could find from Thorndike Vineyards, one of Long Island’s most acclaimed wineries.

  Part of me was disdainful of the way I was trying so hard to convince Nick’s parents that he was marrying someone who deserved him. Someone who knew her way around a cheese shop, someone whose pets were as well-behaved as our children, if we ever had any, would be—in short, someone who was capable of creating a good home.

  But part of me knew that our first meeting could well define the relationship I had with Nick’s parents forever. In their eyes, the fact that I’d spent my life pursuing a meaningful career that made me feel both fulfilled and proud mattered a whole lot less than what kind of wife I’d be for their son. And that part of me was willing, even eager, to pull out all the stops.

  With such thoughts in mind, I’d decided on the way home that I’d use the time I had before Dorothy and Henry Burby arrived to make brownies. True, it’s generally something I’m foolhardy enough to attempt only once or twice a year, usually when there’s a holiday lurking in the not-too-distant future. But I figured that if anything spelled homeyness, it was the smell of chocolate wafting through the air.

  Which meant the first order of the day was locating my eight-inch-by-eight-inch square brownie pan, which was so rarely used that I tended to stick it in the most out-of-the-way place I could think of.

  If I remembered correctly, that happened to be under the sink. I crouched down, opened the cabinet door, and peered inside. Sure enough, there it was, tucked away with a pie tin that had never seen the inside of an oven and a Bundt pan I’d gotten free with the purchase of some cake mix.

  Before I could reach it, however, I had to pull out a gallon of paint Nick and I had bought a few weeks earlier after deciding that a fresh coat in a cheerful color was exactly what the kitchen needed. But as soon as we opened the can, we saw that that particular shade of orange, one that had looked so warm and inviting in the store, was much too bright. Instead of livening up the room, it would have made us feel as if we’d just walked inside a huge cantaloupe.

  I put it on the counter, out of the way. But Nick and I must not have closed the lid tightly enough when we’d stuck it under the sink, because when I bumped it with my arm and it fell onto the linoleum floor with a loud bang, the cover flew off and bounced across the room. I watched with horror as thick orange liquid sloshed across the floor, splattering into long, menacing fingers that reached into every corner.

  “No!” I wailed.

  My two dogs, who had pretty much been minding their own business up until that point, interpreted my outburst as a cry for help. Either that or they thought something involving food was going on.

  At any rate, they both came loping in. Even though I instantly knew what was about to happen, there was no way to stop it, since there was no actual door in the doorway. Within seconds, my kitchen floor was covered with orange paw prints, both Westie-size and Dalmatian-size.

  “Max, get out of there!” I shrieked. “Lou, stop!”

  Max froze, looking up at me guiltily. As for Lou, the sharpness of my tone sent him skittering across the wet floor. Before either of us knew what was happening, he slipped and ended up lying on his side.

  In addition to large orange smears all over the floor in front of the refrigerator, I now had a large, gangly dog who was orange along the left side of his body.

  What’s black and white and orange all over, I thought morosely.

  I scooped up Max, figuring I’d minimize the damage by getting my dogs out of there as fast as I could. It would have been a good plan, except for the fact that his fluffy white paws had become fluffy paintbrushes, turning my shirt, pants, and most of the skin on my arms the same bright color that everything else was quickly turning.

  Lou began barking furiously, no doubt sensing how upset I was and not having a clue that his canine enthusiasm was part of the reason.

  “Quiet!” I barked back.

  His sweet face tightened into an expression of remorse. I could have handled hurting his feelings, just a little bit. What I couldn’t handle was the fact that he decided to try getting back in my good graces by sitting down in the middle of the paint-covered floor and holding up one orange paw as if responding to the command “Shake.”

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realized that at any other time I might have considered this whole scene hilarious. And I might even have found comfort in the fact that this was water-based paint, which wouldn’t be all that hard to clean up as long as it didn’t dry.

  But this wasn’t any other time. This was now, when Nick’s parents were due in only a couple of hours.

  “Stay!” I commanded Lou. He gave a hopeful little wag of his tail, as if the fact that I was paying attention to him meant he was back on my A-list. Determined to give it his best shot, he remained sitting, his orange butt glued to the orange floor.

  I took a few steps toward the kitchen doorway and kicked off my shoes, which now had squishy orange soles. Then I carried Max across the living room, opened the front door, and deposited him outside. Cat and Tink watched in silence, as if wondering what poor Max had done to deserve banishment.

  Next I dashed into the bathroom and grabbed the biggest towel I could find, cajoled Lou into lying down on it, and dragged him across the living-room floor so he could join Max in the great outdoors.

  Thanks to two and a half rolls of paper towels, a lot of water, and a bottle of some magical cleaning fluid that smelled like something an undertaker would use, I managed to turn the linoleum floor back to its original shade of grayish-white. Of course, the dangerous chemical smell from the cleaning fluid lingered in the air. I could practically feel the brain cells dying off.

  But at least my kitchen looked as if normal people lived in it instead of Smurfs.

  I’d just gotten the floor back to its normal color—but hadn’t had a chance to even start on my pants and shirt—when I heard a car door slam right outside the living-room window.

  Nick! I thought, overcome with relief. He’s home early. He’s going to help me clean up the feathers and the toilet paper before his parents get here, and then I’ll have time to get those brownies in the oven and rinse out these clothes and scrub my skin back to its normal color in the shower….

  I froze at the sound of a second car door slamming.

  I raced through the living room. But even before I reached the window, I saw a white car I didn’t recognize. Two people had just gotten out: a towering, broad-shouldered woman with short dark hair that looked as if it had been sculpted out of plaster of Paris and a lean, white-haired man who was as gangly as Lou.

  At least seventeen suitcases were piled on the lawn next to their car.

  “Oh, my God!” I cried aloud. “It’s the invasion!”

  The first thing I noticed was that Nick’s mother was dresse
d entirely in white. A white skirt, a white blouse, white shoes, and even a white hat. She looked as if she was on her way to Ascot, not enduring a fifteen-hundred-mile road trip.

  It was at that moment that I noticed she also carried something white in her arms. White—and fluffy. While it could have been a trendy pocketbook, my bet was that it was Mitzi, the Maltese Nick was so sure would be one of the few dogs I couldn’t find a way to bond with.

  I glanced down self-consciously, fully aware that I, on the other hand, had chosen the color of prison garb for my fashion statement.

  A wave of excruciatingly horrible heat rushed over me as I suddenly remembered the whereabouts of my dogs.

  The fear had barely formed in my mind when the nightmare became a reality, right before my eyes. Max, as usual, had run up to greet our visitors. But my friendly little terrier was so excited over having company that he broke the number one rule that I’d tried desperately to impress upon him since the day I’d adopted him.

  He jumped up on Nick’s mother, painting her blindingly white skirt with orange paw prints.

  “Agh-h-h!” she yelled.

  “Max!” I cried, bursting through the front door. I ran over and scooped him up, hardly caring at all that the sharp edges of the gravel in the driveway were cutting into my shoeless feet as if I was undergoing some test of faith.

  When Lou came loping over, I grabbed his collar, trying to exercise at least a little damage control. Then, not quite knowing what to do next, I just stood there clutching my two canines, wondering what the odds were that the ground would open and swallow me up at what would have been a really good time.

  “My skirt!” Dorothy Burby exclaimed, peering downward over Mitzi’s fur. “This…this glop will never come out!”

  She looked at me expectantly. And, I might add, accusingly.