Scratch the Surface

might almost have been something the cat dragged in. As luck would have it, with him was a handsome and undoubtedly photogenic gray cat that looked almost big enough to have done the dragging. Prominent in Felicity’s musings was the memory of a painful fit of jealousy and selfrecrimination she had suffered five years earlier when it had been publicly revealed that another famous mystery writer had, in her teenage years, served a brief prison sentence for having conspired in the murder of a friend’s mother. What lack of foresight the young Felicity had shown! Ah, squandered youth! Determined to compensate for her adolescent failure to establish grounds for future free publicity, Felicity resolved to make the most of her present opportunity by slipping into the familiar skin of Prissy LaChatte.
    Ambition triumphing over inclination, Felicity set the scene that her readers would expect, which is to say, a picture of greater concern for the live cat than for the dead man. Having received chastising letters about Prissy’s error in giving milk to Morris and Tabitha, Felicity opened a can of albacore tuna, of which she herself was fond, and after mashing the contents in what she hoped was an appetizing manner, placed a dish of the tuna and a small bowl of water on the kitchen floor. In her books, the scent of cat food and the sound of a bowl hitting the floor always sent Morris and Tabitha scurrying in search of dinner; indeed, they often hung around begging Prissy for goodies. Instead of dashing to the kitchen and howling in glee before scarfing up the tuna, the large gray cat failed to appear at all. Damn the thing! Where was it?
    “Here, kitty!” Felicity crooned. “Nice kitty! Here, kitty-kitty-kitty ! ”
    Sirens finally sounded. Time was short if the drama was to open as Felicity had just scripted it. She ran from room to room—there were twenty-two—and eventually found the cat under a guest room bed. Flattening herself on the floor, she cooed in Prissy LaChatte fashion, “Nice kitty! Come on, kitty!”
    Instead of emerging to “communicate” the solution to the murder, the cat hunched itself yet more tightly into a big gray ball of fur.
    Undaunted, Felicity snatched one of the pillows off the bed, ran to the kitchen, and sacrificed her lovely clean pillow by putting it on the floor next to the dishes of tuna and water, thus creating as perfect a picture of the throughly pampered cat as she could achieve in the absence of the cat itself. Whether the damned cat liked it or not, it was going to assist Felicity in solving the murder that beneficent literary luck had deposited on her doorstep.
     

 
    Ears flattened, eyes simultaneously narrowed and closed, Edith huddles under the bed. Her expression is sour, and her heart rate is elevated; neither emotionally nor physiologically has she recovered from the shouting of the dangerous male. At first, the female, too, frightened Edith. The lifting-up-in-the-air females also dressed formally and exuded peculiar and unnatural odors. This female had, however, redeemed herself by squeezing Edith in a reassuring manner.
    Still, the safe course is to remain under the bed. Edith has never before taken refuge under this particular bed, but recognizes beds as such and appreciates the cleanliness and warmth of her present situation. Also, although apprehension triumphs over hunger, she smells tuna in the air.
     

 
    When pressed about the precise location of Newton Park Estates, Felicity and her neighbors described the area as “all but in Newton.” It now seemed to Felicity that if her house truly were in Newton, cruisers and ambulances would have arrived a long time ago. Still, the scene she’d set in her kitchen proclaimed her as the caring and presumably noble rescuer of the poor, traumatized cat, and she was ready to face the public as represented by the Boston police and any emergency personnel who might show up. With luck, these representatives would include members of her very own public, which is to say, avid followers of the somewhat unadventurous adventures of Prissy LaChatte. Should anyone ask why the cat wasn’t actually in view, Felicity had a plausible explanation ready: The poor animal, which had clung to her in its sorrow and terror, had, alas, been frightened away by the wails of the sirens. Cats were sensitive beings, she intended to explain. This one would return to her loving arms once peace was restored.
    Having thus outlined the promotional