Scratch the Surface

widower! Would the murderer be there? In any case, if Coates’s funeral had been set for tomorrow, the postmortem must be complete. Why had she been foolish enough to arrange to have dinner tonight with Ronald, when she could have invited Dave Valentine to share a meal? And to share the autopsy results, too. Even if Valentine failed to attend the funeral, it wouldn’t be a complete waste of her time to go. To the best of her recollection, she’d never written a Roman Catholic funeral mass. She hoped that the church had stained glass windows, dark recesses, and an odor of incense strong enough to overpower anyone except Prissy LaChatte.
    After her morning shower, Felicity kept her promise to Ursula Novack to inquire about the blood donor program in which Edith was enrolled. A quick Web search informed Felicity that Boston’s famous Angell Memorial Animal Hospital had changed its named to the Angell Animal Medical Center. She also found its phone number and learned that it was on South Huntington Avenue in Jamaica Plain and was thus a short distance away. The drive from Newton Park to Angell would take perhaps twenty minutes. Having ascertained that Edith’s participation wouldn’t cut deeply into her writing time, she dialed the number and was eventually connected to someone in the blood donor program.
    “I am the new owner of a cat that participates in your program,” Felicity said. “And Eve been advised to call you for information.”
    “Which of our cats is this?” asked a young-sounding woman.
    “Her name is Edith.”
    “Oh, Edith! Edith is a lovely cat. And she’s an ideal donor. I hope she’ll still be participating.”
    “I need to know what’s involved.”
    “Well, not a great deal, and there are a lot of benefits. You just bring her here in the morning and pick her up in the late afternoon. You’ll need to get her here between seven -j and eight, and she’ll be ready to go home at about four. Let me send you some material.”
    When Felicity asked to have Edith and Brigitte listed as her cats, and gave her name and address, the woman did not exclaim, “The Felicity Pride?” She did, however, again promise to mail the information and went on to say, “But you won’t need to do anything right now. Edith was just here on Monday, so she can’t donate again for at least six weeks.”
    “Monday?”
    “I think it was Monday. Let me look. Yes. The third. That was Monday.”
    “Good lord!”
    “Is something wrong?”
    “No. Never mind. Just send me the information.”
    “If you have any questions about it, give me a call.”
    “Oh, I will. I definitely will,” said Felicity, who doubted that she’d have questions about the blood donor program, but was certain that she and the police would have a great many questions about Edith’s visit to Angell on Monday. For example, at what time did Quinlan Coates pick up Edith? At what time did he leave Angell? Was he alone? If not, who was with him? But the important point was that she, Felicity Pride, with the assistance, more or less, of her cat, Edith, had discovered where Quinlan Coates had been only a few hours before he’d met his unnatural death. At about four o’clock in the afternoon, he’d been at the Angell Animal Medical Center on Sou th Huntington Avenue in Jamaica Plain. No wonder the detective had asked whether there had been dogs in her house and whether Bob and Thelma had owned a cat. Coates had been at Angell, where animal fur must have attached itself to his clothing. About four hours later, his dead body had been in her vestibule. Oh, hurrah! Hurrah for Edith! Just like Morris and Tabitha, she had “communicated” information vital to the solution to the murder! Felicity hastily called Detective Dave Valentine. She no longer needed a pretext. Now, thanks to Edith, she had a real reason to call.
     

 
    Felicity reached Dave Valentine. As soon as she heard his voice, she announced that she had important new information and needed to see him as soon as possible. If a mystery writer wasn’t entitled to be mysterious, who was? To her delight, he said that he’d be right over. After hanging up, she realized that her news might not be news to the police; maybe every investigator from the attorney general on down already knew that Quinlan Coates had been alive in the late afternoon, when he’d gone to Angell to get Edith. Felicity’s self-doubt worsened when she checked her kitchen and found nothing wonderful to serve