Scratch the Surface

Brigitte and Edith, Isabelle Hotchkiss had transformed Kitty Katlikoff’s cats, Olaf and Lambie Pie, in ways that made them resemble Coates’s cats. How had Isabelle Hotchkiss known Edith and Brigitte? Who was Isabelle Hotchkiss? Felicity cursed herself for having neglected to open the copies of the Hotchkiss books that she’d seen in Coates’s apartment. For all she knew, Hotchkiss had signed them using her real name. Could Hotchkiss be a friend of Coates’s? A relative? The weird woman in the police sketch, perhaps?
    Faced with such frustration, what would Prissy do? Well, she’d do something. As would Felicity. But only when she was dressed to meet her adoring public, a few members of which simply had to work at the newly renamed Angell Animal Medical Center, where Edith was a blood donor, and where both Edith and Brigitte were patients. According to Coates’s neighbor, Coates had never used a cat-sitter, but had boarded his cats at Angell when he traveled. Therefore, the people at Angell knew Coates and knew his cats. If he’d ever been there with the real Isabelle Hotchkiss, someone might remember her. With luck, she’d been with him on Monday only a few hours before his murder.
    Forty-five minutes later, Felicity drove Aunt Thelma’s Honda CR-V past a long brick wall on South Huntington Avenue in Jamaica Plain and made a left turn into the grounds of Angell, which occupied a building far larger than she had expected. And what were all these cars doing here late on a Saturday afternoon? Felicity found a parking space in a lot to the side of the building and, avoiding the MSPCA adoption center—the last thing she wanted was another pet—made her way to the main entrance, where she had to wait while a man gently encouraged a limping dog to pass through the doors. Once inside, Felicity was struck by the resemblance of the animal hospital to what she thought of as a “real hospital.” No one was selling flowers or Mylar balloons, of course; one wall was packed with bags and cases of pet food; and on the long reception counter sat a miniature doghouse with a slot on top and a sign asking for donations to the shelter. Still, prominently posted in this reception area was a list of medical and surgical departments together with the names of veterinarians who specialized in cardiology, oncology, and other familiar fields; and the human clients with their animals were reminiscent of able-bodied spouses and caregivers with ailing human charges at their sides. Some small animals were in carriers like the one Felicity had bought, but most of these carriers were far less spacious and splendid than hers. How many people who escorted cranky or demented relatives to hospitals would be delighted to have the option of locking the difficult human beings in secure cages for transport? As in the hospitals Felicity had visited before, staff hurried around. Here, some wore green scrubs or white lab coats, and others had on blue shirts with the word Angell stitched on the left breast in place of an alligator or a pony. The entire scene was far more professional and complex than Felicity had imagined. Angell was not some slightly larger version of Dr. Furbish’s clinic; it was a big institution where she shouldn’t have expected to be able to drop in for a chat about Quinlan Coates and his cats.
    As Felicity was trying to decide whether to leave, a man with a black dog addressed her. “You look lost.”
    “I am,” she said. “Well, not really. I need to check on my cats’ records. Their owner died, and I need to make sure that the records are in my name now.”
    The man pointed to the long reception counter. “Ask the people over there,” the man said. “They’ll check their computers. What kind of cats do you have?”
    Was it Chartreux or Chatreux ? “Gray,” said Felicity. “Gray cats. One of them is a blood donor here.”
    “What a good thing to do! I’d sign Charlie up”—he nodded at the black dog—“but he has cancer. They’re doing what they can for him. This is the best place there is.”
    “He looks happy.”
    “That’s all you can ask for. Well, good luck.“
    When the man moved away, Felicity took his advice by joining one of the lines at the reception counter and was soon talking with the white-haired woman in front of her whose carrier turned out to contain a gigantic white rabbit that had just been treated for a foot injury. Then, as the woman was paying the bill for the rabbit, a