U Is for Undertow

upstairs to shower. Once I was dressed, I put the coffee on and then ate a piece of toast while I read the article again. No two ways about it, Walker McNally was in deep shit. So now what?
    On my way in to the office I stopped off at the market. I needed to replace the bug-infested foodstuffs I’d discarded on Monday. I wasn’t likely to cook or bake, but my barren shelves looked pitiful. I stocked up on flour, cornmeal, cereal, and crackers, both graham and saltines, if you really want to know. I also bought baking soda and a container of baking powder. I’d noticed, as I tossed the old one in the trash, that the “best if used by” date on the bottom of the tin was March 1985. On a roll by then, I bought dried bow-tie pasta and long-grain rice, along with cans of tomato sauce, tomato paste, and diced tomatoes with onion and basil. I was shopping only to give my beleaguered brain a rest. I needed a new game plan and I wouldn’t come up with one if I tried to tackle the problem directly.
    I moved to the next aisle, piling tissue boxes, rolls of paper towels, and toilet paper in my cart. I had my hand on a container of liquid detergent when a possible solution occurred to me. I finished my shopping, paid for my groceries, and stowed everything in the trunk of my car. Then I slid under the wheel and took my notebook out of my shoulder bag, leafing through the pages until I found the address Sanchez had given me for the McNally Pet Hospital on Dave Levine Street. At the back of my mind, I’d been playing a little game of “suppose” and “what if” in my quest to find Walker’s dad. I’d thought, What if, on his retirement, Dr. McNally had sold his practice to another veterinarian? The new vet might well know his current whereabouts.
    I fired up my Mustang and pulled out of the lot. I hung a right on Chapel and drove the length of it until I reached the dead end at Miracle, where I turned left for half a block. This put me at Dave Levine Street, six blocks from the point at which it split from State. The address I wanted had to be somewhere to my left. I turned and continued at a greatly reduced speed until I reached Solitario Street. On the far side of the intersection, in a seven-tenant strip mall, I spotted Mid-City Cat Clinic with an address that matched the one Sanchez had given me. I snagged the only parking place available and sat for a moment, hoping the gods would be merciful. A wooden cutout of a Puss in Boots pointed at the clinic door, where the names of two veterinarians were stenciled on the pane—Stephanie Forbes, DVM, and Vespa Chin, DVM.
    I got out, locked the car, and went in. The waiting room was small and neat, with a counter on the right that separated the receptionist’s desk from the clientele. Behind her was a bank of charts, sporting a rainbow of tabs. A wall-mounted chart illustrated the difference between a fit cat and a fat cat. A nearby bulletin board was plastered with snapshots of cats that I imagined had been treated by the venerable Drs. Forbes and Chin. Through a doorway I saw wire cages that held an assortment of felines, some perhaps boarders and some being treated for various kitty ills.
    The receptionist at the desk looked up at me as I came in. She was in her sixties. Her salt-and-pepper hair was heavy on the salt, shoulder length, and blunt cut. Her bifocals had beveled edges, with thin wire stems. The tops of the lenses were tinted blue and the bottoms tinted pink. I wondered how the world looked from her perspective. “Can I help you?” she asked.
    “I’m hoping you can give me some information.”
    “I’ll try,” she said. Her smock was patterned with cats, every conceivable color combination, with real cat hair matted here and there. She looked like someone who’d carry a cat around while the office was closed for lunch. Belatedly, I noticed a small gray cat lying on her desk, curled in sleep like a hairy paperweight.
    “I’m looking for the vet who used to own this facility.”
    “Dr. McNally?”
    “Exactly. Did you work for him, by chance?”
    “No, but he cared for all my animals over the years. Two dogs and I can’t even tell you how many cats.”
    “Do you have any idea how I can reach him?”
    She hesitated. “Why do you ask?”
    “Well, I’ve got an odd little problem and this is what it is.” I recited my strange request without a hitch. I glossed over the surrounding circumstances, not wanting to raise a red flag with regard to Mary