Scratch the Surface

thus smoothing a series potentially chopped up by discrete murders. In some cases, the author found it useful to unite the duo in a consummated affair or in marriage, thus allowing the amateur gumshoe ready access to information otherwise known only to the police; it was far easier to write a little pillow talk than it was to invent complex subterfuges whereby the amateur protagonist discovered the results of a postmortem, learned which suspects had or lacked alibis, or became privy to the secret of exactly what bewildering object the murderer had left as a signature at the scene of the crime. Ah, love! What a splendid literary convenience!
    Thus at six-thirty that evening, after Felicity had recounted the $120,555 in the fireproof box and added 1,353 words to her new Prissy LaChatte book, she was delighted to find Detective Dave Valentine at her back door. Having left her phone off the hook and her cell phone off, she was, not however, surprised. He’d have to reach her somehow, wouldn’t he?
    “Come in,” she said. “You got my message?”
    “Your phone’s out of order,” he said. “And you must’ve had your cell phone turned off. But I take it that you got there first.”
    In more ways than one, Felicity wanted to say. “I didn’t touch anything except the book on the coffee table. I had to get Quinlan Coates’s other cat. The one that was left here is Edith. They’re Chartreux cats. I took Edith to the vet this morning, and it turns out that she has a microchip. The number on the microchip was registered to the breeder, who’s in California, and she had his name and address. She made me promise to get his other cat right away. That’s Brigitte. They’re Edith Piaf and Brigitte Bardot. He was a professor of Romance languages.”
    Possibly in response to the sound of her name, Brigitte flounced into the kitchen. Picking up speed, she leaped onto the counter by the sink and began to sniff the salmon fillet that Felicity had been seasoning.
    “You see? She was starving.” As Prissy would have done, instead of asking whether Dave Valentine would like to share the meal, she told him to have a seat and set about fixing food for two. “It’s not for her. Cats need cat food. It’s Scottish salmon.” She turned the heat on under one of Aunt Thelma’s expensive new skillets.
    “Smoked?”
    “No. Farm raised. I tried it out of loyalty, but it really is good.” She paused in the hope that he’d mention the Highland Games or, indeed, anything else about Scotland. “Besides, it was on sale.”
    He laughed. “How much more Scottish could it get?”
    “I have to confess something,” Felicity said coyly. “I saw you at the Highland Games.”
    “Making a fool of myself.”
    “Not at all!”
    “In a skirt. And I’m only three-quarters Scottish.”
    “Me, too. But I’ve been to Scotland. Have you?”
    “Never.”
    “It’s beautiful. Everything is wonderful except the food. The food is horrible. Microwaved potatoes. Salmon is the only thing Scottish cooking doesn’t ruin.” With that, Felicity poured a little olive oil into the skillet, waited a moment, and put in the salmon fillets. Then she set the table with Aunt Thelma’s new place mats, napkins, plates, and stainless steel flatware.
    When she set a place for Detective Valentine, he didn’t object, but he did abandon the topic of their shared heritage. “I need to ask you a few questions.”
    When Prissy conversed with policemen, they often warned her off her investigation or sought her brilliant insights. They didn’t just interrogate her. Felicity reminded herself that fiction was to real life as Scotland was to everywhere else: better.
    As Felicity tossed salad, he said, “Quinlan Coates was a professor at B.C.” The abbreviation for Boston College pleased Felicity, to whom it suggested collaboration in the investigation. “His speciality was French. Does anything about that connect with you? Did you go to B.C.?”
    “No. It’s only about a mile from here. I drive by it all the time. Nothing else.”
    “Do you speak French?”
    “A few words.”
    “You don’t own a dog, do you?”
    “A dog? No.”
    “Have you had any visitors who brought their dogs with them?”
    “What is this about? No.”
    “Your relatives who left you this house, the Robertsons. Did they have a dog? Or a cat?”
    “No. A long time ago, when I was a child, Aunt Thelma had a cat. As far as I know, that was the last pet they had. They had a house in