Lending a Paw(68)

“For your information,” I said with exquisite politeness, “I was trying to keep my cat from falling in the water.”

Gunnar scoffed. “You don’t have a cat. You were intentionally eavesdropping. Admit it.”

A low rrrrrrr noise came from underneath the chaise.

“What was that?” Gunnar slapped his big, meaty hands on his railing and loomed over me. “No more of your little-girl games. Tell me the truth and there’s an outside chance I’ll let this episode—”

Eddie hissed, a long indrawn breath that raised the hair on the back of my neck. I’d never heard him make a noise like that. Not ever.

Gunnar drew back. “But you don’t have a cat.”

“I didn’t.” I smiled up at him. “But I do now.”

“You can’t,” Gunnar said. “Not a cat, not right next door to me.”

Eddie spat. Hissed again. Gave a long, low growl.

I hunched down. “You okay, pal?” Even in the dim light I could see that he was puffed up to half again his normal size. “Shhh, it’ll be all right. No one’s going to hurt you, okay? Shhh.”

Eddie subsided and let me scratch the back of his ears. He came out from under the chair and I scooped him up for a snuggle. With a sigh, I decided the right thing to do was introduce cat to human and human to cat. “Eddie,” I said, turning to face my irate neighbor, “this is . . .”

But Gunnar was gone.

• • •

When I got out of the shower, my skin was a splotchy pink from the heat. Swimming in Janay Lake was one of my favorite summer things to do, but swimming in yucky marina water had never been on any of my mental lists.

“List of things to avoid, maybe,” I told Eddie.

He was lying on the narrow shelf that ran above the bed. In former summers, I’d decorated the shelf with vases of dried flowers, Petoskey stones, and bits of driftwood. Early on in my life with Eddie I’d discovered that these things are all cat toys. Of course, when you got down to it, everything was a cat toy if a cat chose to make it one.

Eddie stretched out a front paw and rearranged himself on the shelf. He was a teensy bit too wide to fit comfortably, but that didn’t seem to bother him. Apparently he didn’t care if his back leg hung over the edge. At times it seemed he even liked it.

“Wonder how you’re going to like it at the boardinghouse?” I asked him.

He didn’t say anything.

“Well, we won’t move until October, so—” The floor under my bare feet crinkled. I peeked out from underneath the towel I’d been rubbing my hair with and saw that I was standing on Eddie’s papers. Or what had become Eddie’s papers after he’d decided to shred my Grice-Hamilton genealogy research. “Done with these, I take it?”

Since he didn’t say no, I herded the bits into a pile and dumped them into the wastebasket. “I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t mistake those for your litter box.”

Eddie gave me a look that was obviously meant to say I should be grateful for a lot more than that.

I slid on undergarments, shorts, and a T-shirt and chucked him under the chin. “I’m always grateful for your presence, pal, but especially tonight. Did you see Gunnar’s face?” I giggled. “Mr. Big Shot Consultant Don’t Mess with Me or I’ll Sic My Lawyers on You is scared of cats.”

Eddie yawned, showing his sharp teeth. I grinned. If Gunnar had seen those, he would have run for his life.

“And that’s his style,” I said, pulling my fingers through my wet and unruly hair. “Lawyers. If someone gets in his way, he’d hire a battalion of attorneys to fight for him. He wouldn’t do any fighting himself.” My fingers caught on a snarl and I yelped as I tugged through. “Still, did you hear what he said about Stan?”

Another yawn came from the Eddie quarter. He jumped down, made a beeline to the wastebasket, and started rubbing the side of his face against it.

“Cut that out,” I said. “I just filled that. With your mess.”

He rubbed harder and the wastebasket tipped over, sending small bits of paper halfway across the carpet.

“Oh, good job.” I knelt down to clean it up a second time. Eddie sat tall as an Egyptian cat statue and watched me work. “I’m spending twice as much time cleaning up this research as I did doing it.”

“Mrr.”

“Yeah, well, thanks for your comments, but the suggestion box is closed. Try again next . . .” My voice tailed off as I looked at the piece of paper in my hand. It was the only piece still intact and it was kind of a flowchart I’d made of names. I’d added circles and arrows and scrawled questions that had led to no answers whatsoever.