Scratch the Surface

One of the small luxuries of Felicity’s postinheritance life was an automatic garage door opener attached to the visor of the Honda above the driver’s seat. With a sense of pleasure in causing one thing in life effortlessly and reliably to do her bidding, Felicity pressed the button on the garage door opener as she turned the Honda into her driveway. In contrast to the old houses on Norwood Hill, which had long, steep driveways and garages inaccessibly placed in back of or under the houses, Newton Park had been designed for New England winters; short, flat drives led to garages attached to the sides of the houses. The concept of a service area screened from public view was prominent on Norwood Hill and nonexistent in the Estates, where garage doors were, in effect, continuations of the facades of the houses.
    When Felicity’s lefthand garage door had obediently done her bidding, she drove what she still thought of as Aunt Thelma’s Honda into the garage, which was clean, white, and empty except for a large yellow trash barrel, a green recycling bin, an orange plastic snow shovel, and a pail of ice-melting crystals. Felicity didn’t participate in any sports that required the sort of equipment stored in garages; she didn’t ski and hadn’t ridden a bicycle since the age of eleven. After parking and locking the car, she ignored the door that led directly into the house, an entrance that she used mainly when she’d shopped for groceries or bought large items. As she’d done in taking the long route home, she took the long but appealing route along a stone-paved path, and up a slightly sloping bluestone walk and a flight of bluestone steps to the outer door of the vestibule. The house, like Thelma’s car, seemed to belong to wealthy relatives. In using the front door, Felicity felt a bit like a visitor but also like the mistress of the house, a person who didn’t have to use the servants’ entrance but could enjoy surveying her impressive domain.
    Although Felicity had brought with her to the suburbs the urban habit of always locking all doors, she made an exception in the case of the outer door to the vestibule. In late September, soon after she had moved in, two boxes containing her author copies of Felines in Felony had been delivered during a storm and, because the outer door was locked, had been left out in the rain. Since then, she’d always kept the door unlocked to provide refuge for materials sent by her agent and her editor, and packages containing items she had bought on eBay.
    On that damp, chilly November night, the vestibule contained two bodies, one dead, one alive. The dead body was that of a small man in a gray suit. Wide strips of silver-gray duct tape covered his nose and mouth, as if someone had made a grisly effort to match the tape to his clothing. He was curled on his side with his head at an odd and uncomfortable-looking angle. His hair was gray, as was his only prominent feature, long, thick, bushy eyebrows. Snuggled next to the man’s belly was a large shorthaired blue-gray cat, its eyes closed, its belly rising and falling in evidence of breath and thus of life.
    Felicity froze in place. In her books, Prissy LaChatte managed to investigate murders without encountering the horror of corpses. In the rare scenes in which Prissy viewed a victim’s remains, the decedent was usually on civilized display in a funeral home. Even then, Prissy avoided the casket. The corpse in Felicity’s vestibule was in no condition for public viewing. To say nothing of the stench. Such was Felicity’s policy in writing about death: Say nothing of the stench! As to the blue-gray cat, it had no place here asleep at her doorstep, dwelling as it did in a sphere of existence where, in Felicity’s opinion, cats did not belong; in nasty contrast to the feline characters in her books, the cat was indisputably real. Indeed, the entire scene was one she would never have written: It was monstrous. And it was right here in her vestibule.
     

 
    Edith dislikes anything new, but is accustomed to this mild grogginess and usually enjoys it. It wears off quickly, leaving her in the mood for a lovely nap. This evening, the slight dopiness that remains is unpleasant, as is this place, to which Edith has four principal objections. They are big ones.
    First, she has never been here before. Her characterological mistrust of unfamiliar locations has been reinforced by experiences in them. In particular, despite her