Forgotten Anniversary

Dressed for Mr. Right

MYSTERY/SUSPENSE SHORT STORY  

MURDER ON SQUID ROW

by

Irene Estep 

Maggie Lang's husband, Bixby--an amateur aquatic fanatic--had a fetish for collecting fishy pets. Swimming among the many varieties of squid he'd managed to acquire was his latest addition.  Octopus apollyon was a small but deadly variety of blue-ringed octopus he'd found while diving off the California coast.

Maggie’s husband didn't like her to mess around in his so-called lab, his private domain. But she liked to do things he didn't like, even if he didn't know about them. She found interesting things here. Like the literature Bixby had been reading on case histories of people bitten by his tiny new creature.

One incident described a young soldier in 1967 who'd held the less than six inch octopus on the back of his hand for a minute or two and had no sense of being bitten.  He felt a prickling sensation around his mouth, shortness of breath, but no pain. Within minutes he was almost completely paralyzed. The soldier lived, because he was young and in good health and he was taken to a hospital in time. A middle-aged fisherman wasn't so lucky when he unwittingly used the octopus for bait.

Whatever could her husband be thinking bringing such a dangerous thing into their home? Indistinguishable bite marks, she read, nearly impossible to trace in a water affected body. She glanced over at the Jacuzzi that Bixby recently installed for his personal use. He didn't want his wife sharing his hot-tub, either. Truth was they shared little these days, not even a bedroom. His idea not hers. He'd given some flimsy excuse about not wanting to disturb her with his infernal snoring, but she knew the real reason behind his sudden lack of sexual interest in her.

Maggie snorted in disgust, remembering the photos she'd found in his lab of a red-haired hussy in various stages of indecent posture.

In other ways her husband was a demanding, overbearing chauvinist. This morning had been typical of their life together for the past thirty years. Maggie flipped the pancakes onto a plate, hiding the slightly charred side underneath. She simply hadn't been concentrating well on taking care of her household responsibilities of late. Bixby said so. Actually, the words he'd used were she'd become a miserable old slouch who shirked her responsibilities.

"Maggie! What the hell did you do with my paisley tie?" Bixby yelled down the stairs.

She cracked two eggs over the skillet onto the sticky burned spot. "Whoops," she mumbled when a little shell got mixed in. She smiled and stirred the mixture together. "Look on the tie rack in the closet, dear."

She poured a cup of coffee that could float ten penny nails. Bixby liked his breakfast ready when he came down in the mornings, and she had always been a dutiful, if not, attentive wife.

"I see you found your tie, dear," she said when Bixby entered the kitchen and sat down.

He snapped the front page of his newspaper open and grunted. She placed his breakfast in front of him. He cut into his pancakes and frowned, chewing slower and slower until he swallowed. He forked up a bite of scrambled eggs, then gave her a disgruntled look over the top of the paper. When he absently took a sip of coffee, he spewed it all over his paper.

"Goddammit, Maggie, what are you trying to do, poison me?"

That's when the thought occurred to her. Why not? She remembered all the things she'd read about that cute little octopus. "I'm sorry, dear. Did I get it too strong for you again? Would you like me to get you another cup?"

"Don't be ridiculous. How can another one be any better if it comes from the same pot?"

"You're right, of course." Bixby was always right, she thought. "I don't know what I was thinking."

"Jesus, you're a hopeless case. I'm warning you, Maggie. I'm about fed up with this crap."

"I know, dear." Maggie smiled pleasantly, picked up her spoon and took a bite of cold cereal.

"Christ! You're a nut cause." Bixby scrapped back his chair and stood. Folding and slapping the paper down on the corner of the table, he said, "I'm going to work. Have my Jacuzzi turned on for me when I get home. At least, that's one thing you haven't found a way to screw up yet.

"All right, dear.”  Maggie followed her husband into the foyer.  She waited until he slipped on his suit coat, then she said, “Uh, Bixby. Mother's having a Tupperware party tonight.  I promised to go over early and help her fix the hors d'oeuvres. Do you mind? "

Bixby started to object, but remembering his mother-in-law's place was on the other side of town, he said, "What time will you be home?"

"Probably not until around ten or eleven. If you'd rather I not go, I'll call and beg off."

He straightened his tie and buttoned his coat, checking mirrors that lined the foyer to make sure he looked just so.  "You can hardly go back on your word if you've already promised."  He turned to go, then hesitated near the doorway. "You know, you shouldn't be driving across town so late at night, Maggie.  Why don't you stay over?"

Maggie could see the wheels turning in his head. Probably he'd call Misty as soon as he arrived at work. A hot tub, a whore, and if she remembered correctly, he had an expensive bottle of wine stashed away in the back of a file a cabinet in the lab.

That afternoon, Maggie hummed as she scooped up the little cousin of the Hapalochlaena maculosa into one of the containers Bixby used when cleaning out the tank. She held it up to the light and watched it bounce around like a little rubber ball. "Tsk, tsk, such a cute little thing. If I had time I'd put sea water in the Jacuzzi. But then that might be too conspicuous, wouldn't it? Well, too bad, too sad," she said and dumped the container into the water. She turned on the jets, but not the heater. If everything went according to plan, Bixby would be in too much heat himself to notice. She wondered how long the octopus would last in fresh water. Hopefully, it would be long enough.

Around nine the next morning the phone was ringing when Maggie came in the door. It was Bixby's secretary, Nell, wanting to know what time Bixby intended to come in this morning. His first appointment had been waiting for over an hour.

"Let me check in the lab, Nell. You know how distracted he gets with his little creatures of the deep sometimes."

Maggie looked in and saw the two naked bodies. They looked like they'd been in the throws of passion and drowned each other. She saw the octopus near the surface. It was hard to tell if he were dead or alive. She used the same container as before to scoop him out and return him to the aquarium. She worked up a little passion of her own before she went back to the phone. Altering her voice to a distressful pitch, she said, "Nell, something terrible has happened."

PERCY THE P.I., OR, A CAT KILLING TIME

By

Irene Estep

Chapter One

Percy was the coolest cat in Pickle Herring Street.  His mistress told him that all the time.  He often wondered which of his fine attributes made his mistress think him so debonair.  Was it because of his sleek black coat? Or, maybe his piercing amber eyes?   His winning ways?  Yes, of course, that must be it! 

Actually, when he came to think of it, he was the only cat in Pickle Herring Street that he knew about, and he’d been out Tomcatting around enough at night to know.  He’d had to go clear over to Five Foot Lane to find any companionship.  The female felines honed in on him like radar on speeders.

Percy was perfection itself.  Well, he did have one tiny, little flaw.  Percy got bored easily, and boredom sometimes got him into trouble.

If only his new mistress had children, then he would have someone to play with.  A child would doubtless welcome him into their warm, cozy bed at night.  As it was, Percy had to live in a drafty old warehouse and make do with paper shavings from discarded packaging materials for bedding.  He slept little at night, because the place was infested with rats-- Well, admittedly he was working on the infestation problem.  But who wanted to spend all night, every night chasing rodents. It had been fun for a week or two, but now it was simply a pastime, like his former master playing video games when he didn't have a date.

The front door rattled.  Hurrah, breakfast time!

Chapter two

Percy jumped off his high perch and raced into the store at the front of the warehouse.  He paced impatiently, counting the many locks that clicked and thunked before his mistress opened the door and marched into Papershea Imports. 

“Percy, you have been busy, haven’t you?”  Miss P asked.

There were three mice lined up near the threshold.  Percy had lost his appetite for the little critters since Miss Marcy Papershea started feeding him tuna fish. But every time a rat went running across the floor she went into hysterics and admonished him for not doing his job.  So he figured out that Miss Papershea was something like a housewife of a hunter, she liked the meat, but didn't want to go hunting.

He was a little disappointed when Miss Papershea didn’t jump around and get as excited about it as she had that first time he'd left them on her threshold.

        Her nose only twitched slightly as she calmly picked up each of the mice by the tail and one by one went outside with them.  Instead of devouring the critters, she discarded them into a trash dump.  Saving them for later, he supposed.

When she came back in for the last time, she zipped open the small can of tuna fish.  Percy’s mouth watered as she dumped it into the tiny feeding dish.  As he lapped up the food, she stroked his back and said it again,  “Percy, you are the coolest cat in Pickle Herring Street.”

She likely didn’t know he was the only one, but he preened with pride, anyway.  Of course, Marcy Papershea might be a tad prejudiced, since Percy saved her life last month when he’d warned her there was a gas leak in her office. 

Percy had been residing in the warehouse of Papershea’s Imports for six months before the incident, unbeknownst to its owner.  His former master dumped him willy-nilly into Pickle Herring Street after he’d snagged his paws on a stranger’s pantyhose.  She’d entered into their dwelling unannounced and alone.  How was Percy to know she was his master's new sweetheart?

Well, he was better off for it, wasn’t he?  And now, neither cat nor new master considered Percy an eccentric just because he didn’t like strangers. Even strangers who tried to ingratiate themselves to him in unorthodox ways.  A case in point was the would-be thief that had tossed out sweetmeats by the droves trying to get Percy to let go of his backside.  Percy couldn’t be bought with such cheap tricks.            Besides, the sweetmeats would still be there for him to gobble up after the scratched-up stranger took off in his mini-van.  Percy became a veritable tiger when outsiders attempted to steal from his new mistress.  Well, nothing was taken, but he knew that’s what the stranger was up to.  Why else would he climb up a thirty-foot ladder in the middle of the night? 

Chapter Three

 Percy wished Miss P knew about the burglar he’d chased off last evening by attaching himself to the culprits backside.

It had been an exciting night for Percy; one of the best since he'd took up residence here. The sneak had dashed back down the same ladder he climbed up on.  Up to no good, Percy would vouch, but he couldn't wait for the culprit to come back again. 

Why anyone would want to steal the stuffy old clumps of clay, marble and metallic things-- most dug out of some dusty old tomb--was a bloody mystery.  But, his mistress seemed to make a fair living selling the junk from the storefront on the north side of the warehouse.  Consequently, she could afford to feed him tuna fish on a daily basis.  It was his duty to stand guard over the articles that supported him now, wasn’t it?

         Percy purred as Marcy dug her long fingers into the soft spots behind his ears.   He rolled over, hoping to get a little tummy rub to boot.

“Not today, Percy, I have too much to do.”

Drat!  What could be more important than a tummy rub?  Percy meowed and snagged Marcy’s leg when she would have walked away from him. 

“Now look what you’ve done,” Marcy yelped. 

Percy cringed. Marcy had never raised her voice at him before.  She was immediately apologetic, however.  “I’m sorry, darling.  But, this makes the third pair of hose you’ve ruined this week.  I really must get you declawed, mustn’t I?”

He licked the claws in question, then turned and ran into the back of the warehouse as if to say “Not today you don’t.”

Percy found his favorite cozy spot on a high ledge beside one of the push out windows near the ceiling.  This was his lookout point.  He could see everyone that came and went through the back door of Papershea Imports from here.  That was where all thieves made their entry, through the back door, except for that stupid ladder climber. 

Percy couldn’t see out the milk-colored glass, but this window had been left open just enough he could view the entire back parking lot and, also, capture the pleasing odors drifting in off the Thames nearby.  The breeze was filled with delightful fish scents this morning, and the sunlight shown enough to take the chill out of the morning air.  Warm and full, Percy decided to settle down for a nap.  There wasn’t much chance there would be any intruders in broad daylight, anyway. 

Chapter Four 

Marcy tugged off the ruined hose and sighed.  She’d just have to go barelegged again.  She really wouldn’t mind so much, but there was that important client coming today to look at the marble pieces she’d recently acquired.  They were said to be the lost from the Elgin collection shipped from Athens to England in the early 1800's.

“Now where did I put that list?” Marcy shuffled the pile of papers on her desk.  Several fell off onto the floor and she stooped down to pick them up.

“What’s that?” she asked herself when she spotted something under her desk. “Ah, ha!  My list.”

 She picked up the paper with a huge paw print in the middle, sat back on her feet and sighed.  “Percy, I’m going to have to banish you from the premises, if you keep this up.” 

Last week he’d sliced and diced an important bill of lading that Alfred, her part-time assistant, had left on a crate in the warehouse.  She hadn’t blamed Percy entirely; it had been careless on Alfred’s part to leave the papers lying about like that.  She’s thought about taking Percy to live at her apartment, but feared it might not work out.  She didn’t know how well he and Fife would get along.  Fife didn’t like strangers.

Maybe, she should bring the longhaired white pet down here for a trial run.  She would give it more consideration when she wasn’t so pressed for time.  Right now, she had to examine the inventory of the crate containing the marble pieces, which came in yesterday afternoon just as she was closing shop.

She marched out into the warehouse and summoned Alfred as he walked through the back door.  “You’re right on time,” she said.  “We need to get this stuff unpacked before Mr. Biscuiteater gets here.”

“H-He’s coming today.  But-But, I thought he wasn’t due into the city until tomorrow,” Alfred said.  He bit his nails, a nasty habit that Marcy tried to overlook since he seemed so nervous all the time that he probably wasn’t even aware of it. 

“He called me at home last evening, telling me there’s been a change of plans,” Marcy said.

She wondered what the famous collector looked like.  He had a deep masculine sounding voice over the phone. For some reason it made her think of candlelight and expensive wine.  With a name like Biscuiteater, though, he was probably rotund, old and bald.   She snapped the list onto the clipboard and waited for Alfred to open the crate.

 “I-I’ll get the crowbar,” he said, and quickly disappeared around the corner toward the front of the building. 

Marcy rolled her eyes and her gaze caught on Percy lying beside one of the long row of windows near the ceiling.  She smiled.  He looked so content that she wondered if he wouldn’t be happy to live out his days at the warehouse, snoozing in the sunlight and hunting mice at night.  She noticed the window was open and wondered how that happened. 

Must have been left open sometime last summer.  That’s when the shipment of Mexican pottery had been stacked in a stair-step arrangement that almost touched the ceiling.  The pile had just now dwindled enough to expose the row of high windows to her view.

She couldn’t forget the Mexican pottery fiasco.  Or, the helper she’d fired shortly after he had transposed the totals on the supplier’s order sheet.  He’d written the total vases ordered down to read five hundred and one, instead of the one hundred and five that her client had wanted. 

Elmer Daytime had become real huffy about the dismissal, and threatened to get even.   Marcy had been very nervous at first, but then nothing had happened, so she began to believe his threats had been nothing more than bluff.

Marcy wondered what was taking Alfred so long, and then, she spotted the crow bar propped against the wall next to the crates.  She started to go tell him, when suddenly he popped back into the room. 

“Sorry,” he said, “I forgot I left it here last time I used it.”

          Marcy gave him a look and shook her head.  Why was it so difficult to get competent help these days? 

They completed the inventory and she was pleased by the results.  Five nicely shaped pieces should bring her a hefty price if they were authentic. She had no reason to doubt they were, since she’d dealt with the seller on numerous other occasions and he’d never let her down. 

Mr. Biscuiteather would have the pieces authenticated, of course, before completing the transaction.  She instructed Alfred to unload another of the crates of Mexican vases and line them in the display window in the front of the store.  Gradually, she was ridding herself of the over-shipment. 

She had nothing to do now, but go into her office and catch up with the paperwork while she awaited Mr. Biscuiteater.

Chapter Five

             Something woke Percy from his nap.  He stretched leisurely and glanced down to the crates he always used to climb to his perch.  He noted the stack had diminished somewhat.  He started to dive down when a clang and clatter drew his attention toward the rear door.  Peering through the small opening of the window, he saw a stranger trying to jimmy the lock.  A familiar stranger. Aye, the one he’d met up with last night.  Percy licked his chops. 

To his amazement, Alfred opened the door and signaled the man to enter.  “Quite,” he warned, “Ms. Papershea will hear you.”

“I’m a thinkin’ the chit goes out to eat this time o’ the day,” the stranger said.

“No, the queen is sitting in her counting house counting out her money,” Alfred quipped, glancing around anxiously and biting his lower lip.

“Never knew herself to keep cash ‘round the place,” the stranger said in a very excited voice.

“S-She doesn’t.  It was just a figure of speech, you nodcock.”

The stranger’s gaze shifted about the place uneasily.  “I don’ like pullin’ this off with the dame hanging ‘bout.  She could walk in on us.”

“If you’d done the job the first time, there would be n-no need.” 

“Well, if you is such a brave one, why’d you stay put inside the van?  Besides, twasn’t my fault.  That dratted panther attacked me a’fore I could crawl through the window.”

Percy preened at being compared to a panther.  He jumped onto the top crate and sharpened his claws on the wooden surface. 

“Never mind that now,” Alfred said, twisting his hands together.   “Biscuiteater is due any minute.  We have to exchange the fake pieces for the real one’s before he arrives.”

“I still don’ see as why we can’t just follow the fellow and steal them from ‘im later.”

Alfred rolled his eyes.  “Really, Elmer, you are dense as clay.  No wonder Ms. Papershea fired you.  I have a buyer all lined up for the real marbles, and the dough is nothing to sneeze at.  If Biscuiteater declares the pieces she shows him as fakes, then she’ll never suspect us.  She’ll blame the man who sold them to her.”

“Don’ have to be so catty ‘bout it, Al,” Elmer the stranger said.  “I’ll go an’ get the stuff we’re exchanging.”

Percy took exception to the catty comment.  He crouched low on the crate and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on ends.  The stranger walked back inside struggling with a piece of the fake marble.   Didn’t the fools know that Percy was on guard twenty-four hours a day?  Percy dove.

“Ouch!  Get the beast off me,” the stranger screamed.    The fake artifact fell to the floor and burst into zillions of pieces.

“What in the world is going on in here?”  Marcy stopped short when Percy went sailing across the floor.  He managed to dig his paws in and stop the sliding before he hit the wall.

“Elmer Daytime!” she screeched.  “Alfred, do something.”

Alfred took the coward’s way out and ran.  Elmer yelled at him to stop, but Alfred fired up the van Elmer the stranger had driven in on and speed out of the parking lot.

“Drat it all,” Elmer swore.  “I ain’t gonna leave ‘ere without some satisfaction, Missy Marcy.”

Her eyes grew wide when Elmer reached out and picked her five-foot frame up by the scuff of the neck.  

“Take your hands off me, you brute.”

           Percy leapt at Elmer’s pants leg, clawing his way up the inside of his thigh.  Elmer let out a bloodcurdling screamed and let go of Marcy.  She landed with a thump onto her bottom, and then she grabbed Elmer’s other leg and sank her teeth into the soft flesh behind his knee.  He kicked frantically, first one leg and then the other. 

“Good, God!” a deep masculine voice said. 

Suddenly Elmer went sailing backwards and Marcy and Percy leapt back just in time to keep from being trapped beneath his body.  A red spot swelled below his chin and his eyes were closed.  Elmer wasn’t going anywhere for a while.

Marcy stroked Percy’s back and he purred.  He decided all strangers were not evil.  The new stranger said, “Good, God,” again.  Then he reached his hand out to Marcy.  “Ms. Papershea, I presume.”

“Yes, and you, sir, must be Mr. Biscuiteater.  This scoundrel,” she indicated Elmer, whose eyes were rolling back and forth as if he were following a circle of stars, “used to be in my employee.  I believe he and my current warehouse assistant conspired to rob me of the Elgin pieces.”

Percy purred loudly, but it didn’t stop Marcy from dumping him onto the floor as the gentleman pulled her to her feet.   “You saved the day, sir.  How can I ever repay you?” 

What about me?  Percy meowed and wrapped his tail around his mistress’s ankle, but it was Mr. Biscuiteater who stooped down and picked him up.  “I think this little fellow deserves a treat.”

Right oh, my man.

“I shall take him home with me to live.  Fife will just have to learn to like him.”

“Fife?”  Mr. Biscuiteater asked.  Percy was interested in learning more about Fife, too.

“Fife is my Persian house cat.  She doesn’t take too well to strangers.”

The tall, dark man still held tightly to Marcy’s hand and the adoring looks he gave her made Percy think of mush.  But, for a stranger, he wasn’t so bad.   

“Let’s summon the police, then shall we,” Marcy said.  “I’m sure you’re a busy man, and would like to get down to business.”

           “Business can wait, my dear.  You’ve had a terrifying experience.”

Marcy looked at the handsome Mr. Biscuiteater and smiled.  Percy looked at the two mooning over each other and meowed.  Elmer raised his head up, looked at Percy and passed out again.

Chapter Six

When Percy met Fife, it was love at first sight, for Fife, at least.  She was a cute little thing with her soft, long white hair and big golden eyes.  She treated him like the cool cat he was, too, grooming him with her long pink tongue, and cuddling up next to him on the rug by the hearth ever chance she got.  He could get used to this togetherness stuff.  Just to be friendly he lapped at her nose.  Then, he stretched out his clawless front paws and settled down beside Fife.

Marcy curled up next to Mr. Biscuiteater on the couch.  “Are you comfortable,” Mrs. Biscuiteater? he asked. 

“Quite so,” Mr. Biscuiteater.  She sighed.   “I am truly sorry, the marble pieces turned out to be fakes after all.”

“It is of no consequence, my dear.”  His gaze traveled to the mantel where the smaller pieces rested on plate holders.  “I shall always treasure them because they brought us together.”

 Mr. Biscuiteater leaned down and kissed Marcy on the nose. 

Percy decided he was a good roll model for Mr. Biscuiteater. 

Seems everyone wants to be a cool cat these days.