Scratch the Surface

Janice, who lay only a few yards from the spot in the vestibule where she had dumped the body of Quinlan Coates. Janice, however, might still be alive. Perhaps she was unconscious. Perhaps she’d merely had the wind knocked out of her. Felicity made for the revolver. Ever the mystery writer, she pulled the cuff of her right sleeve over her hand before touching the weapon. Knowing almost nothing about firearms, she was unable to identify the safety, but assumed that there was one. On or off? Why couldn’t murderers use poison! Slowly and cautiously, she carried the revolver to the kitchen, opened a cabinet, and hid the weapon behind six bottles of single malt scotch. Then she called 911. She needed the police, she said. And an ambulance. And please tell Detective Dave Valentine!
    After completing the call, she returned to the hallway, where Uncle Bob’s shabby old fireproof box lay on the slate floor by the door. As Felicity had already worked out in detail worthy of the Scot she was, the cash in that box represented the sale of a great many books. The cover price of Felines in Felony was $22.95. She received a ten percent royalty, that is, $2.295 per book, of which fifteen percent went to her agent, Irene, leaving the author $1.95075 for each hardcover sale. Uncle Bob’s cash, $120,555.00, thus represented the sale of 61,799.307 copies of the hardcover edition of Felines. Even with the publicity she’d get now that she’d be allowed to grant interviews about her very own murder, she’d never sell anything close to sixty thousand copies. Furthermore, her calculations about book sales excluded the state and federal taxes she’d have to pay on her royalty income. Uncle Bob’s cash was tax free. Felicity walked briskly to the fireproof box, lifted it with both hands, walked around the motionless Janice, climbed the stairs, and put the box back in its hiding place, which is to say, back where it belonged.
    She returned to the hallway. As she had just reminded God, she was not a heartless person. In learning to love Edith and Brigitte, she had proven herself capable of love. She was also capable of decency to her fellow human beings. To her credit, she regretted never having learned CPR. She did summon the courage to lift the layer of lanky dark hair that covered Janice’s face. One eye was visible. It was open and had a frozen, flat look. Felicity quickly let go of the hair. She had been wrong to touch the body at all.
     

 
    Alerted by an anonymous caller, a major Boston television station sent a crew to Newton Park. The media arrived only moments after the police and the emergency medical vehicles. In the powerful lights, night became day. Because the corpse lay inside Felicity’s house, her abode became an official crime scene. In her interviews with Detective Dave Valentine and with the reporters sent by Boston television stations, radio stations, and newspapers, she modestly gave all the credit for solving the murder of Quinlan Coates to her beautiful Chartreux cats, Edith and Brigitte.
    In describing Janice Mattingly’s fatal fall, Felicity said nothing of the cats’ role. Janice, she maintained, had intended to hold Edith and Brigitte hostage until morning, when Felicity was supposed to go to her bank, withdraw a large amount of cash, and give it to Janice, who, she said, had never specified the amount. Intending to incarcerate Edith and Brigitte in their cat carrier until Felicity had paid up, Janice had forced Felicity upstairs at gunpoint in search of the cats. After failing to find them there, she was on her way back downstairs, just behind Felicity, when she tripped and fell. Yes, the stairs were steep and uncarpeted, and the floor at the bottom was made of slate. Yes, Janice Mattingly had been recovering from acute food poisoning. Against Felicity’s advice, she had consumed a considerable quantity of wine. And, yes, the entire story of Quinlan Coates’s murder and its solution certainly did bear a remarkable resemblance to what one found in Felicity’s own books. The latest, by the way, was called Felines in Felony. It was available wherever books were sold.
    Trace evidence recovered from Quinlan Coates’s body and from his car supported the account of the murder that Janice had given to Felicity. She had left no fingerprints, but an eyelash found on Coates’s clothing matched hers, and his car had contained several hairs from her head. The revolver had belonged to Janice Mattingly’s