A Novel Way to Die

A Novel Way to Die - By Ali Brandon


ONE


“MADISON, THIS IS A GREAT RESUME.”

Darla Pettistone tossed her single auburn braid over her shoulder and scanned the page again. “Not only do you have a brand-new degree in English literature, but you spent all your holidays and summers working at one of the major book chains. You’ve got retail, and you know the classics. But you do realize that this is a part-time position that you’re interviewing for, right?”

“Part-time would be awesome,” the plump blonde declared and gave an eager smile. “I live with my parents, so there’s no rent to worry about. And in addition to working at the local women’s shelter, I do spend a lot of time involved in community organizing. If there’s a protest in town, I’m there! So I really can’t fit a full-time job into my schedule.”

“Well, I can certainly understand that,” Darla replied, managing not to roll her eyes.

When Darla was Madison’s age—a dozen years ago—she’d locked down a full-time job with a major corporation a good six months before graduating with a business degree. She had paid her own rent on a furnished duplex during most of her college time, managing to also pay off a little compact car a year earlier than her loan schedule. The full scholarship had helped her make ends meet.

And, like Madison, she had worked part-time at a bookstore . . . though Darla’s hours had been after classes and weekends, leaving her scant time to save the red-tailed chipmunks or protest for the universal right to tip jars. Later, she’d kept busy enough at the marketing firm where she worked that her charity efforts had been limited to the annual walks sponsored by her company.

Of course, that had been back home in Dallas. Maybe it was a generational quirk, or maybe things in Brooklyn simply were different. She’d found many such disparities in the eight months since she had inherited the restored brownstone, which housed two apartments as well as her bookstore, Pettistone’s Fine Books.

“All right,” Darla went on, determined not to hold the girl’s off-hours activities against her, “let’s see about your stock knowledge. Suppose I’m a customer looking for that famous book about the girl in overalls, but I can’t remember the author or title. What do you give me?”

“To Kill a Mockingbird?”

“Bingo! What if I want the controversial new novel that my book club is reading?”

“Fifty Shades of Grey,” she replied, her faintly disapproving tone indicating she did not consider it book club material.

Darla nodded. “Very good. Now, the one with a tiger on the cover?”

“The Jungle Book. Oh, wait, no . . . Life of Pi.”

“Last one. How about the book about the guy who fights all the time?”

“The Art of War, by Sun Tzu,” Madison answered with a triumphant smile.

Darla smiled back. “I have to say, I’m pretty impressed. You seem to be just what we’re looking for.”

Then she sobered and added, “There’s just one thing more. We have a shop cat, and he’d have to approve you first before I could consider hiring you. His name is Hamlet.”

Hamlet.

Darla shook her head. If someone composed a soundtrack to her life at the shop, then every mention of Hamlet would be accompanied by shrieking violins and an ominous dum-dum-DUM stinger. A stereotypical bookstore feline would curl picturesquely in a wicker basket near the front door and greet customers with a purr. But Hamlet stalked the shelves like a miniature Genghis Cat, black fur gleaming and green eyes as cold and sparkling as emeralds. The store’s regulars all knew the drill—knew, as well, where they stood in his feline rankings—while first-time shoppers quickly learned their places in the hierarchy.

Big spenders, once-a-week customers, and those who read classic literature got the paw print of approval, meaning they were allowed to fawn over him and occasionally scratch his chin. Genre fiction readers (unless they fell into the big-spend, once-weekly category) were not allowed to touch him, though he would condescend to send a small meowrmph their way in appreciation for their business. Customers who shopped once a month made up the next lower tier, meaning they were tolerated, and nothing more (though, on days when he was in a particularly good feline mood, he might deign to give them a whisker flick). Those who attempted to return their purchases got his patented Cat Stare of Death and moved down a notch from whatever rank they’d previously held.

Unabashed browsers and magazine-only customers were treated to his kiss-off treatment: a flop on the floor followed by one hind leg flung over his shoulder and a lick to the base of his tail.

Madison, of course, knew nothing of this. No doubt she’d already conjured the cat-in-the-basket image in her mind.

“Oooh, a kitty!” the girl squealed. “When I was little, I had a white Persian named Mr. Cuddles. Mommy got allergies, so we had to give him away to my uncle and aunt, but I’ve always loved cats.”

“Well, that’s important, but what’s more important is that Hamlet loves you back,” Darla replied. Though, given Hamlet’s persnickety nature, “love” was something of a stretch. “Tolerate” would be more appropriate.

Bad enough that she had to hire a new part-time employee. She never would have suspected that the true challenge lay in finding someone who could get along with Hamlet, the official black cat mascot of Pettistone’s Fine Books. Darla had been shocked earlier that year to learn that she had inherited Hamlet along with the building and business from her late Great-Aunt Dee. It wasn’t as if she’d been close to the old woman. They’d actually interacted only a handful of times over the years; still, Great-Aunt Dee was the original Darla Pettistone, for whom Darla had been named.

They had shared similarly round faces and snub noses, though the old woman’s red hair had come courtesy of Miss Clairol, while Darla’s wavy auburn mane was strictly her own. The octogenarian had also originally hailed from Texas, just like Darla. However, about sixty years earlier, the then twenty-five-year-old had fled north, renaming herself Dee to put distance between her new life and her country roots. Despite the twangy Texas accent that she could never quite lose, Dee had apparently settled in surprisingly well in Brooklyn. Perhaps it was due to her three native–New Yorker husbands—all of whom had been wealthy and had thoughtfully predeceased her—that she’d sequentially married over the years.

Hamlet had appeared on the scene long after, coming to the store as an abandoned kitten. He’d been named for the tragic Shakespearean character . . . or, rather, for the copy of the play that he’d pulled down off the bookshelf and made into his personal little kitten bed.

Hamlet had split his time between apartment and bookstore for almost ten years now. And since Dee had been Hamlet’s caretaker (Darla never thought of the cat as being owned), this meant that Darla technically was as close to a blood relation to Hamlet as a human could be. It also meant that they—feline and woman—were pretty much stuck with each other. And given that Darla had never been much of a cat person, her learning curve in this relationship had been steep. Still, she had grudgingly concluded she could only hire an employee that Hamlet liked . . . or, at least, one that he wouldn’t feel compelled to systematically terrorize out of a job. Unfortunately, he’d already ix-nayed the first few candidates she had interviewed.

“Let’s get this over with,” Darla told the girl. “Go ahead and bring your things”—she’d learned not to let a potential hiree leave behind anything they’d have to come back for later—“and we’ll go down to the main store to find him. While we’re looking, I’ll show you around the place a bit.”

She had been conducting the interview with Madison on the shop’s two-room second floor. The front area, which overlooked the street, was designed as a lounge. In this space, Darla hosted the occasional writers’ groups and book clubs, though the rest of the time the area served as a reading room and employee break area. In one corner, a small galley kitchen lurked behind an Asian-inspired screen, allowing for a bit of cooking and washup.

The shop’s storeroom was housed in the rear room, where packing materials vied with cartons of books awaiting shelving. Housing her storeroom on the second floor was not the most convenient of arrangements, but Darla found that bribery (in the form of coffee and pastries) usually worked well enough on the delivery drivers to get them to haul one or two hand trucks’ worth of books upstairs. And if her baked goods didn’t suffice, well, there was an old-fashioned dumbwaiter that went between floors. Though slow, it was sturdy enough to accommodate a case of hardcovers—or, as she’d discovered as a child, objects quite a bit larger!

As they made their way down the steps, Madison clutched her pink iPad case to her ample chest and gave an exaggerated sigh. “I think your shop is wonderful! It’s nothing like a chain store at all. It’s, well, quaint . . . just like your accent, Ms. Pettistone. Where did you say you were from?”

“I’m from Dallas. A Texan born and bred.”

“Well, I think it’s adorable,” the girl confided, as if she were the elder of them. “The accent, I mean. Boys just love girls who talk all cute like that.”

“Good to know,” Darla replied, trying to keep the sarcasm from her tone.

She wasn’t exactly in the market for a “boy.” A couple of years ago, she’d finally gathered the gumption to divorce the inferior specimen she had married and was presently enjoying her independence.

Turning the subject back to the shop, Darla said, “Our main room started life as the brownstone’s parlor. See on that wall, how we still have the original mahogany-mantled fireplace? Now, if you go through that broad arch there”—she pointed toward the rear of the store—“you’ll see what was once the dining room. That’s where most of the classics and reference books are stocked. We keep the fast movers and the gift items up here so we can keep an eye out, if you know what I mean.”

The girl nodded wisely. Having worked in retail, she’d probably seen her share of shoplifters.

Darla continued her quick tour, Madison on her heels. Beyond the old dining room lay the back door, which in turn led to a tiny courtyard where Darla and her staff often took lunch when the weather permitted. She pointed out to Madison how all the doors lined up. In fact, the floor plan reminded Darla of what they called a “shotgun shack” back home in Texas, meaning one could walk a straight line—or fire a shotgun—from front door to back without hitting anything in between.

Or, rather, one could’ve if the shop’s rooms had been empty.

Instead, a maze of oak bookshelves filled the place, the tangle practically requiring a map to negotiate and technically defeating the single-shotgun-blast-traveling-from-door-to-door concept. Great-Aunt Dee had eschewed the concept of optimum use of the available space, choosing instead to make clever little alcoves of the shelves. The old woman also had left most of the rooms’ original ornately carved wooden built-ins intact, so that they served as additional shelves for both books and an eclectic collection of vintage miscellany.

“That’s the nickel tour,” Darla ended with a smile. “Now, about Hamlet—”

“There he is.” Madison cut her short, smiling and pointing to the nearest bookshelf. There, beneath a garland of orange jack-o’-lanterns that Darla had draped in anticipation of Halloween, the cat was stretched at full length, snoozing. But Hamlet was not the stereotypical scrawny Halloween scaredy-cat.

Cliché as the notion was, Darla had always thought of Hamlet as a scaled-down panther. He was large for a domestic shorthair and solid black save for a tiny diamond of white on his belly. His paws when fully splayed were the size of a small child’s hand, though far more lethally equipped, since Great-Aunt Dee had not subscribed to the idea of declawing indoor cats. And he was all muscle, as Darla was reminded of every time she tried to dislodge him from somewhere that he didn’t belong.

Before Darla could warn her, the girl hurried over to the cat. She put out one French-manicured hand in his direction, as if to pet him. “What a cute—”

“No!” Darla shrieked, seeing a glimmer of emerald as Hamlet opened one eye a slit. Rushing to the shelf, she all but bodychecked the girl, and just in time. Barely was Madison out of claws’ reach than Hamlet sprang to his feet and swiped.

Darla dodged the claws but managed to step on the girl’s foot in the process. Madison, who had just caught her breath after being elbowed, gave a little cry of pain. Grabbing at her crushed toes and hopping on one foot, she dropped her iPad, which gave a couple of bounces of its own.

“Well, really,” she huffed once she’d regained her balance. Bending to retrieve the fallen tablet, she added in a peeved tone, “If you didn’t want me to pet the darned cat, you could have said—”

She broke off with a gasp as she found herself nose-to-nose with Hamlet, who had lapsed into ninja-cat mode and slipped unnoticed off the shelf. Suddenly he was on the floor, standing between the girl and her property. Green eyes cold and unblinking, the throaty meowrmph that emanated from him dared her to make a grab for the bright pink case.

“Don’t do it,” Darla hastily warned as the girl huffed again and made as if to reach around him. “Let’s walk back to the cash register and give him a chance to leave, and then we can come back for it.”

“And let a cat get the better of me?”

Madison planted her fists on her hips and shot the feline an evil look of her own, earning a bit of admiration from Darla. She’d dismissed the girl as a cream puff—particularly after her Mr. Cuddles reference—but it seemed she was made of sterner stuff. Darla allowed herself a small flicker of hope. Maybe this was a test, and all Hamlet was looking for in an employee was someone who would stand up to him.

Or not.

Hamlet had defeated far more formidable foes than blondes with liberal arts degrees, and it appeared he wasn’t about to let a challenge go unanswered. He walked over to the pink case and plopped atop it, front paws tucked neatly under his chest. Despite her irritation with the feline, Darla found herself smothering a grin. If this had been a chess game, then this had been Hamlet’s official “check.”

Madison’s glare dissolved into a look of pleading. “This isn’t funny. Please make him move, Ms. Pettistone.”

“Hamlet, give it up.”

The cat blinked but remained firmly settled on his prize. Cautiously, Darla edged a foot in his direction, intent on nudging him off. He raised a warning paw, claws fully extended, and she prudently pulled her foot back out of reach again. She’d seen those claws go through shoe leather before. Check, again.

“Hang on, Madison,” she said with a sigh of resignation. “I’ll get the squirt gun.”

She’d bought the toy a couple of weeks into her tenure at the bookstore as a last-ditch cat disciplinary tool . . . say, for times that he stole gizmos worth six hundred dollars plus from would-be employees. The cat version of water boarding never failed to work. The problem was that Hamlet always exacted his own revenge for such tactics—last time, she’d found her store keys buried in his cat box—so she employed this method of persuasion only when she had no other choice.

She headed to the register and returned with the plastic gun firmly clutched in hand. She checked the water level and gave the gun a quick pump. “Last chance,” she warned him, then pulled the trigger.

The instant the first drop of water hit his sleek black fur, Hamlet gave a vertical leap that would have done an Olympic athlete proud. Then, with a hiss that sounded like a combination of a cobra on steroids and a semitruck’s air brakes, he made a beeline for the next aisle, leaving the iPad behind.

Darla bent and scooped it up. “Here you go,” she told the girl and handed over the tablet.

Madison hugged the pink case like a prodigal child returned and managed a smile. “I guess he doesn’t like me much, does he?”

“Maybe he just had a bad day,” Darla assured her. “Should I put you down on the list for a second interview?”

“Well, I—”

She broke off with a look of horror, staring at something beyond Darla. Darla swung about to see that Hamlet had returned, green eyes narrowed to slits as he stood behind her.

“Uh, maybe I’d better go,” the girl declared, taking one step back. Hamlet took a step forward. She took another step back, and Hamlet moved forward again. Slowly, she backed up, with Hamlet smoothly pacing her step for step. She froze . . . and he did, too.

That was enough for Madison. With a squeal of horror, she turned and ran. Darla heard the discordant jangle of bells as the front door flew open, and winced as it slammed shut with a glass-rattling thud.

Darla turned to glare at Hamlet. He sat calmly in the middle of the aisle, unconcernedly licking his paw and swabbing it over one black velvet ear.

“Great, another one bites the dust,” she told him. “I hope you’re proud.”

Hamlet looked up from his toilette and gave an innocent blink. Then, with a flick of his whiskers as if to say, My work here is done, he turned and calmly padded toward the children’s section.

“Great,” Darla repeated, this time adding a Madison-esque huff.

Still, she did have one more interview after lunch. Maybe this candidate would appeal to Hamlet, since the ornery feline obviously hadn’t cared for Madison. Of course, he hadn’t cared for any of the other previous and equally qualified candidates, either. All of them—the grandmotherly retired teacher; the middle-aged gay writer; the fortyish female former editor—had suffered one variation or another on the treatment that Madison had just received.

The bells jangled again, and Darla hurried toward the front to see if Madison had perhaps decided to come back for another round. But instead it was her neighbor, Mary Ann Plinski, stepping through the doorway.

The sprightly septuagenarian and her brother, Mr. Plinski (Darla had yet to learn the elderly gentleman’s first name) owned the matching brownstone next door. Like Darla’s building, theirs had long since been converted to apartments above and retail space below. In their case, the shop was Bygone Days Antiques, specializing in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century fixtures and furnishings, along with period jewelry, clothing, and other collectibles.

“Hi, Mary Ann,” Darla called to her and waved her in. “I’ve been meaning to stop by. What was with the moving van in front of your place yesterday?”

“Hello, Darla. I’m afraid that was our garden apartment tenant, Mrs. Gallagher. She was a snowbird”—Darla knew that fanciful term referred to a northerner who lived in the South during the winter months—“and she finally got tired of shuttling back and forth between two homes. She decided she wanted to live in Florida permanently, so off she went.”

“Oh no. I’m sorry to hear that. I only met her a time or two in passing, but she seemed a pleasant enough lady.”

“Actually, she was an obnoxious old biddy,” Mary Ann replied with a polite sniff, “but she paid her rent on time and kept to herself mostly. What’s upsetting is that we have to find a new tenant now. The whole interview process is so taxing!”

“Tell me about it,” Darla said with a wry grin. “But don’t worry, I’ll be glad to keep my eyes open for someone who’s looking for a place.”

“Thank you, dear. But that’s not why I’m here. I wanted to tell you that I think I saw Hamlet outside of the building last night.”

“Hamlet was outside? I never let him out.”

“I know, but these buildings are old. He must have found a way to sneak out.”

“The little devil,” Darla fumed. “Why couldn’t Great-Aunt Dee have had a nice little orange tabby, the kind that would sit on your lap and purr contentedly?”

“Well, to be fair, I did see Hamlet sitting on Dee’s lap many a time, and he’s cuddled on my lap a time or two.”

“He’s never sat on mine yet,” Darla replied, wondering why she felt offended by the slight. “But this slipping-outside thing has me worried. Especially with Halloween coming. You know how the animal shelters always warn people to keep their black cats inside around the holiday in case some weirdo is out looking for a live decoration or something.”

“Maybe he found a spot somewhere in Jake’s place to sneak out,” the old woman suggested, referring to Darla’s own garden apartment tenant.

Darla nodded. “That makes sense. I’m meeting Jake for lunch in a little bit. I’ll be sure to ask her to keep an eye out for any AWOL cats wandering through her place. Thanks for the heads-up.”

Mary Ann smiled. “My pleasure, dear. Oh, and good luck with your interviews for the part-time position. I believe that I may know one of your candidates.”

She left on that cryptic note, but Darla let the comment fly past her. She was more concerned with her warning about Hamlet’s nocturnal wanderings. Of course, it was always possible that the old woman had seen another black cat on the street, but Darla doubted it. Prior to becoming a cat owner, she’d always believed that all black cats looked alike. Since taking custody of Hamlet, however, she had discovered that aside from their fur color, the difference between one black feline and the other was as great as . . . well, day and night. If Mary Ann thought she’d seen Hamlet, it was likely that she had.

Darla shook her head. Bad enough that the feline was playing havoc with her hiring attempts. The last thing she needed was Mr. Hell on Paws loose on the streets. She’d have to put a stop to this, and soon. Otherwise, who knew what sort of mayhem the cantankerous cat might cause?