Scratch the Surface Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN.

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  “MYSTERY LOVERS KNOW A CHAMPION WHEN THEY SEE ONE.”

  —Carolyn G. Hart

  Praise for Susan Conant’s

  Dog Lover’s Mysteries

  “Hilarious.” —Los Angeles Times

  “A real tail-wagger.” —The Washington Post

  “A fascinating murder mystery and a very, very funny book . . . written with a fairness that even Dorothy Sayers or Agatha Christie would admire.” —Mobile Register

  “The dog lovers’ answer to Lilian Jackson Braun’s The Cat Who series.” —Rocky Mountain News

  “Tastier than liver treats. [Bride and Groom] undoubtedly will teach readers something new about their canine companions.”

  —Booklist

  “Extremely funny.” —Midwest Book Review

  “Sheer bliss awaits the dedicated dog lover.”—Kirkus Reviews

  “An absolutely first-rate mystery . . . and a fascinating look at the world of dogs . . . I loved it!”—Diane Mott Davidson

  “Dog lovers will lap this up.” —Publishers Weekly

  “For lovers of dogs, people, and all-around good storytelling.”

  —Mystery News

  Dog Lover’s Mysteries by Susan Conant

  A NEW LEASH ON DEATH

  DEAD AND DOGGONE

  A BITE OF DEATH

  PAWS BEFORE DYING

  GONE TO THE DOGS

  BLOODLINES

  RUFFLY SPEAKING

  BLACK RIBBON

  STUD RITES

  ANIMAL APPETITE

  THE BARKER STREET REGULARS

  EVIL BREEDING

  CREATURE DISCOMFORTS

  THE WICKED FLEA

  THE DOGFATHER

  BRIDE AND GROOM

  Cat Lover’s Mysteries by Susan Conant

  SCRATCH THE SURFACE

  Gourmet Girl Mysteries

  by Jessica Conant-Park and Susan Conant

  STEAMED

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr. Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  SCRATCH THE SURFACE

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2005 by Susan Conant.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form

  without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in

  violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-436-28770-8

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design

  are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Carter, in loving memory of Clementine,

  who gave us seventeen years of feline perfection.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My profuse thanks to Dru Milligan and Jolie Stratton, Ajolie Chartreux, who introduced me to the Chartreux cat; and to GRP Janvier Pandora Spocks of Ajolie (K.C.) and Ajolie’s Shadow Dancer (Shadow Celeste), known herein as Edith and Brigitte. For support and advice, I am grateful to Jessica Park, who is my beloved daughter, my dear friend, and, as Jessica Conant-Park, my sometime coauthor. Jean Berman, Annette Champion, Laury Huessler, Renee Knilans, Phyllis Stein, Pat Sullivan, Margherita Walker, and Corinne Zipps generously helped with the manuscript and the proofs.

  For answering technical questions, my thanks to Tina Paar, Jamie Wiley, and Bonnie Walker. Special thanks to my agent, Deborah Schneider, and my editor, Natalee Rosenstein, for trusting a dog writer with cats.

  ONE

  According to the newsletter of Newbright Books, Felicity Pride would visit the store on Monday, November 3, from six to seven to read from her latest mystery, Felines in Felony. In promoting the event, the store’s proprietor, Ronald Gershwin, had described his friend Felicity in her own words: “The prizewinning author of the bestselling Prissy LaChatte series of cat lover’s mysteries, Felicity Pride is a member of Mystery Writers of America, the National Writers Union, and Sisters in Crime. She serves on the board of the New England Chapter of Witness for the Publication. One of our favorite local authors, Felicity lives near Boston.”

  As Ronald knew, Felicity had last won an award at her high school graduation thirty-five years earlier. She still had the prize, a Latin medal embossed with the words Labor omnia vincit. From time to time, when Felicity came upon the medal in the top drawer of her bureau, she wondered about the truth of the motto. Was it really work that conquered all? And not love? On balance, the medal, however, brought consistent pleasure, proving as it did that she truly had won an award. As to Felicity’s characterization of her Priss
y LaChatte books as “bestselling,” it was true that each addition to the series made the top-ten list at Newbright Books. What’s more, all the books in the series ranked high on the sites of the major online booksellers in the sub-subcategory of mysteries about cats. Felicity often reminded herself that “bestselling” didn’t necessarily mean the New York Times.

  So, at ten minutes after seven on the evening of Monday, November 3, Felicity Pride had finished reading selected passages about Prissy LaChatte and her feline companions, Morris and Tabitha, to a smaller group than she’d have liked. These local events never gave her the crowds she drew at out-of-state bookstores and at conferences for mystery fans, but she could hardly have refused to do a reading and signing for Ronald, who, for all his oddity, was as close as she came to having a best friend. She had sold some books, and it was pleasant enough to sit in the cozy armchair at the back of the store and autograph Felines in Felony for the buyers who had lingered after the reading. Felines was, after all, a hardcover, which is to say that for every copy sold, her publisher’s royalty department would credit her with a decent percentage of the book’s satisfyingly high retail price. With that happy prospect in mind, Felicity glanced down at the title page of the book she’d just autographed. In bold marker, Felicity had drawn a line through the printed version of her name. Her horrified gaze, however, revealed that instead of merely replacing the cold, impersonal letters with her florid signature, she had written three mortifying words beneath it.

  She snapped the book shut, slipped it behind her back, smiled at the woman who’d handed it to her, and said, “Well, I’ve botched that one. Let’s try again. Are you sure you don’t want it signed to you?”

  “Just your name, please,” said the woman, whom Felicity saw not as the plump, nondescript individual she was, but as a representative of the adoring public who clung with catlike claws to Felicity Pride’s every written and spoken word. “I collect modern firsts,” the woman explained. “They’re more valuable without an inscription. At least while the author is alive. As you are, of course. Obviously.”

  Felicity waited for this unprepossessing representative of her worshipful readership to add some suitably flattering expression of happiness on that account: Not just obviously but luckily! Or maybe, And thank heaven you are alive, because we devotees of Prissy LaChatte and dear Morris and Tabitha would be utterly bereft without you!

  To Felicity’s disappointment, the collector of modern first editions remained silent, as did the four women who waited in line behind her. Had Felicity written the scene, all five women would have borne subtle and charming resemblances to cats of various types: perhaps a plump gray Persian, a petite marmalade, a sleek calico, a silver tabby, and a striped alley cat with facial scars. Felicity herself would have been a long, lean Siamese with a patrician bone structure and an air of elegance and savoir faire. In reality, there was nothing especially feline about the book buyers, and far from looking like a Siamese, Felicity was short and had a sturdiness of build and feature more suggestive of muscular human peasantry than of feline aristocracy. She was, however, tidy and well groomed. Her charcoal wool pants and cashmere sweater were neither too old nor too young for her age, which was fifty-three, and the blonde highlights in her straight, blunt-cut hair effectively covered any white strands that had the nerve to emerge from her scalp. Felicity would have been happier to live with head lice than with gray hair.

  “Still alive,” said Felicity, who was used to looking after herself. “Luckily for me. And I know what ‘Just your name’ means. You collectors! Some of you don’t mind having the date added.”

  “Just your name, please,” repeated the woman as she handed Felicity a fresh copy of Felines in Felony from one of the piles that Ronald Gershwin had stacked on the table next to Felicity’s armchair.

  The next woman in line was not buying Felines in Felony. Rather, she wanted Felicity’s signature on a paperback copy of Out of the Bag, which had just been released in what publishers referred to as the “mass market edition.” The term always struck Felicity as a wild overstatement, at least in the case of her own paperbacks, which sold well enough, she supposed, but could hardly be said to have “mass” sales.

  The three remaining women turned out to be major fans who’d come to Felicity’s reading together and deliberately waited at the end of the line for the chance to talk with her. Mindful that her readers irrationally persisted in seeing themselves as individuals and preferred, albeit unrealistically, to be so viewed by their favorite author, Felicity took careful mental note of their names when she inscribed their books. She subsequently made a point of addressing each of the women, Linda, Melody, and Amy, at least once by her first name. Although mnemonic devices had failed her in the past, she nonetheless tried envisioning Linda, who had a dark and mottled complexion, with ashes smudged on her face: Linda the Cinder. In the Boston accent that Felicity had labored to banish from her speech, the words rhymed. Melody, who wore a round-collared white blouse, was easy to see as a choir girl, her mouth open in song. Amy meant beloved. The association posed a challenge, since this Amy had a pinched face and a sour expression, but Felicity still succeeded in imagining her in the arms of a Hollywood leading man from a thirties movie, his dark hair slick with grease, his eyes heavy with passion.

  Amy immediately ruined the image by digging into a large purse and producing a fat little album packed with snapshots of her three cats, whose names Felicity made no effort to remember. “And Tabitha,” said Amy, pointing to a blurred picture of a black kitten, “is my baby. She came from a shelter, but I’m pretty sure she’s part Siamese. She has that look, doesn’t she?”

  “Definitely,” said Felicity. “She definitely looks part Siamese. And is she named for Prissy’s Tabitha? If so, I’m very flattered.”

  Amy blushed and nodded. “I got my other two cats before I discovered your books, or one of them would be Morris.”

  Linda—Linda the Cinder—then asked what Felicity had come to think of as the second of the Two Inevitable Questions, the first being, “Where do you get your ideas?” The second was: “Do you have a new cat yet?”

  Lowering her eyes, Felicity gave her Inevitable Answer. “I’m just not ready yet. My Morris was . . . my own Morris was irreplaceable. All cats are, of course. I know that it seems as if my grief is prolonged. But the fact is that I’m still in mourning for Morris. He was the inspiration for my books, you know, and, really, writing about Prissy and her Morris and Tabitha is my way of keeping my own Morris alive.”

  Felicity had repeated the myth of her very own Morris so often that by now, her grief for her fictional muse was genuine, as was her fondness for Prissy LaChatte’s Morris and Tabitha, who were adorable, intuitive, and frolicsome. Best of all, when Felicity had had enough of the creatures, she was free to turn off her computer or to set aside her manuscript. Prissy’s cats were thus, as Felicity had often written, utterly purr-fect. Indeed, from Felicity’s viewpoint, the perfect pets were those who existed only in her mind, on the pages of her books, and—a matter never to be overlooked—in the hearts of her devoted readership.

  Linda stooped to wrap a consoling arm around Felicity’s shoulders. “You’ll know when you’re ready.”

  Never, Felicity thought. “Yes,” she said, “I suppose I will. Thank you. And, of course, Prissy’s cats are mine, too, really.” With an arch look, she added, “Prissy is very generous about sharing them with me.”

  The three readership representatives gave gratifying chuckles.

  “That’s why Morris and Tabitha are so real to us,” Linda said. “Because they’re real to you. We like the other cat mysteries—especially Isabelle Hotchkiss—but you’re our favorite.”

  “Thank you,” said Felicity, who didn’t trust herself to comment on Isabelle Hotchkiss, author of the Kitty Katlikoff series and Felicity’s principal competition.

  “Have you ever met her?” asked Amy, who was holding a copy of the new Isabelle Hotchkiss hardcover, Purrfectly Baf
fling .

  “No one has,” Felicity said, “as far as I know. She doesn’t do signings, and she never goes to conferences.”

  “Isabelle Hotchkiss, a lady of mystery,” said Ronald, who had suddenly appeared. As usual, he spoke in a low, apprehensive tone, as if he were saying something he shouldn’t and were afraid of being overheard. With the same air of imparting a potentially dangerous secret, he added, “It’s a pen name. A nom de mystère.”

  “Ronald, we know what a pen name is,” Felicity said. In the female-sleuth novels Felicity read, the protagonist’s best friend was usually a six-foot-tall woman with red hair and a manner so dramatic as to suggest mental illness. In disappointing contrast, Ronald was of medium height and rather paunchy. His thinning brown hair was gathered in a ponytail, and if his furtive manner hinted at theatrics, it suggested a small character part in an amateur production rather than a leading role in a professional performance. Ronald’s sly and even conspiratorial style was independent of the content of what he said. If a customer at Newbright Books asked to be reminded of the author of The Cat Who . . . series, for example, Ronald typically shifted his eyes left and right, lowered his head, and murmured, “Braun, Lilian Jackson.”