Swan Dive

the cat’s name and getting a mewling sound from the back. ”Oh, she must have got all tangled up again.” She darted down the hall.
    Hanna said, ”You like something to drink, maybe?”
    ”No, I—”
    The screaming cut me off. Hanna veered and raced the way her daughter had. ”Vickie! Vickie!”
    I caught up with them at the entrance to a rear bedroom. Vickie’s face was burrowing into her mother’s stomach, her screams muffled by Hanna’s dress. Hanna’s eyes were closed, and she was saying, ”Don’t look, don’t look.”
    I pressed by them into the room. Although the wallpaper was dingy and scaly, there were some bright yellow curtains around the window and a yellow blanket covering the twin-size iron frame bed. The window itself had a pane of glass missing, and the broken shards were scattered on the sill, bed, and floor. But that wasn’t the major damage.
    Centered on the bed was a stained white kitten. The stain was red, from the blood that was still seeping into the blanket. Someone had taken a knife to the creature, peeling back its fur to expose musculature, bone, and an organ or two where the blade had slipped.
    Cottontail looked up at me, squeezed its eyes shut, and let out a heartrending yowl.

I called the Peabody police emergency number. The sergeant on duty said he thought the closest animal hospital was in Saugus . I dialed the hospital and was told to bring the kitten in immediately. Hanna wrapped Cottontail in the blanket, and I drove with flashers and horn while the cat cried on Hanna’s lap in the front seat and Vickie cried in the back.
    A veterinarian with long brown hair and warm brown eyes met us at the door. She pointed toward an admissions desk and rushed the cat into a back room. Hanna tried to comfort Vickie in the reception area while I filled out the paperwork. The woman behind the counter graciously allowed me to use her phone. I called the Peabody police back and provided some details on the break-in. They said they’d send someone that evening. Then I got the number for the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds in Lowell and punched it in. I told the paging operator there that it was an emergency.
    About a minute later, Chris said, ”This is Christides. Who is this?”
    ”John Cuddy, Chris.”
    ”What the hell’s the emergency?”
    I told him.
    ”Jeez, John, I don’t know what I can do about that.” I must have looked at the telephone receiver as if it were an alien artifact. ”What do you mean?”
    ”Well, from what you said, there’s no real proof that Marsh did this.”
    ”Proof? Chris, we were just with the guy for two hours, remember? He did everything but pull a gun.”
    ”Yeah, but I doubt that’ll be good enough for the cops.”
    ”Why not?”
    ”Look, if Marsh did it, he’s smart enough to use gloves and all. There won’t be any physical-type evidence at the scene.”
    I ground my teeth. ”What about the divorce court, then?”
    ”It’s like I said before about the court, John. It doesn’t have any jurisdiction because we haven’t filed anything yet.”
    ”Which adds up to what?”
    ”Which adds up to there’s no order of the court yet that Marsh violated. Assuming he did the cat.”
    ”Jesus, Chris, you’re the lawyer, not me. There must be something you can do about this.”
    ”Well, I can call Felicia and put her on notice.”
    ”Notice? Chris, the guy’s a nut! Understand? Normal people don’t do things like this. He’s obviously trying to scare Hanna into giving in on the house. If he gets away with this, he’ll just escalate till he gets everything.”
    ”John, you—what?” I could hear Chris saying something off the telephone, then, ”Jeez, John, I gotta get back to this closing here, the bank’s attorney is gonna—”
    ”I don’t give a rat’s ass about the bank’s attorney.” I lowered my voice. ”I’m sitting in an animal hospital with your client and her hysterical little girl who just saw her first pet flayed alive.”
    ”All right, all right. I’ll call Felicia right now. Just don’t expect much, okay?”
    He hung up. The receptionist looked at me with a sympathetic shrug. I apologized to her, and she said it didn’t sound like it was my fault.
    We waited for another forty minutes. I hadn’t been in many places less conducive to passing the time comfortably. I asked the receptionist if I could use the phone again. This time the paging operator couldn’t raise Chris. I depressed the cutoff button,