Scratch the Surface

lampshades.
    On the only clear surface in sight, the top of the coffee table, sat a single hardcover book, which proved to be an anthology of short stories presented in English and in French, English on the left-hand pages, French on the right. The editor of the collection was Quinlan Coates. Although the term “crime writing” always struck Felicity as an absurdity when applied to cozy mysteries, especially her own, she had attended enough presentations by forensic experts and law-enforcement personnel to know that the first rule for behavior at crime scenes was: Don’t touch anything! It was also the second rule, the third rule...
    But was the apartment really a crime scene? And she’d already touched the door and a light switch. What’s more, having picked up the book and leafed through it, she’d already contaminated it and was therefore free to examine it yet more, as she promptly did by flipping to the back flap of the dust jacket, which showed a photograph of Quinlan Coates, Ph.D., Professor of Romance languages at Boston College, who was unmistakably the small gray man. The weirdly long and thick eyebrows were the clincher; they were as prominent in the photograph as they’d been on the deceased Coates’s face. Why on earth hadn’t he had them trimmed? One of Naomi’s assistants did a splendid job on Felicity’s eyebrows, and there was no reason Quinlan Coates couldn’t have had comparable care taken of his, not that he should have had his brows waxed and plucked until they arched, but why had he chosen to go through life looking bizarre?
    But Quinlan Coates’s eyebrows were a trivial concern except to the extent that they established the identity of the murder victim. Felicity retrieved her phone from her purse, found Detective Valentine’s number, and dialed. She’d been tempted to conduct a thorough search of the apartment before calling the police but had felt that it would be just her luck if Detective Valentine and his associates, all on their own, were to put a name to the body as she was looking over Coates’s possessions. Besides, the police wouldn’t arrive instantly. She’d have time to find Brigitte and investigate the place, too.
    Luck was on her side. Unable to speak directly to Valentine, she left a message that consisted only of Quinlan Coates’s name and address. Then, remembering not to touch anything, she began to search for Brigitte—and, incidentally, for anything else of interest she might spot. Through a large archway was a dining room with a mahogany table and chairs, and a matching sideboard, all at least eighty years old. Displayed in a built-in cupboard with glass doors were sets of venerable china and glassware. The contents of the room proclaimed inheritance from a grandmother. Few men would have wanted these possessions, which Felicity guessed to be a woman’s family treasures, probably those of an unknown Mrs. Quinlan Coates, of whom she’d seen no other sign. The dusty table bore the marks of plates and glasses. Through another and smaller archway was the kitchen, which was obviously a major source of the foul odor that permeated the apartment. The sink was full of dirty dishes, but the stench probably emanated from every surface. The walls and counters were coated in grease, and the old linoleum floor was so filthy that Felicity’s shoes almost stuck to it. Two stainless steel bowls on the floor were empty.
    Returning to the living room, Felicity tried to open a closed door, but found it locked. She decided to pursue her investigation and her search for Brigitte in the three rooms with doors that stood ajar. One proved to be a bathroom so disgusting that she did no more than peep in; the caulking around the tub was black with mold, and the white fixtures and tiles were stained yellow. The second room was the only clean area she’d found so far. Its furniture and most of the items in it were for cats. It contained two plush cat beds, a carpeted cat tree that rose to the ceiling, two large litter boxes in need of scooping, and dozens of small cat toys. Also in the cat room was a canister vacuum cleaner that had obviously been used here and nowhere else. A bookcase held a large collection of cat mysteries, including what seemed to be the complete collection of Isabelle Hotchkiss’s Kitty Katlikoff series, many of Lilian Jackson Braun’s The Cat Who... books, and works by Rita Mae Brown, Shirley Rousseau Murphy, Carole Nelson Douglas, Marian Babson, and,