IT ALL STARTED WITH A DEAD CAT...

It was a warm, sunny September day, a perfect day to be outdoors and work in the garden. There was always weeding to do. Today was a good day for adding pruning to her list of chores. Hannah Lowenstein, a small woman in her seventies, dressed in black slacks and a dark blue shirt, was sitting on a small stool, reaching down to deadhead the azaleas in the front garden, which showcased the colorful perennials that needed more attention than the large trees and bushes in the back yard. Hannah treated her flowers as children, requiring nurturing. Once they reached a certain age they were on their own. As she sat there, enjoying the scent of newly mowed grass, the cloudless, azure blue sky, and the light breeze, she thought back to life before moving to Brewster. Here she could look out from the kitchen window and see birds of all colors. She didn’t know the names of the birds, but could pick out the bright red one who was a regular visitor, along with its greenish brown companion. She assumed the blue bird was a blue bird—or maybe a blue jay. It had taken her a while to adjust to life in Brewster, a small town in Michigan, after a lifetime in New York City. She found that small towns had some charming features, although nothing to rival the treasures of a large cosmopolitan city like New York. No ethnic restaurants, just the usual fast-food ones, and the plethora of pizza and Chinese buffets. No museums. No book stores. No interesting places to spend an hour or so window shopping. But the main difference that she noticed was that neighborhoods weren’t real neighborhoods! You never saw people outdoors except when they were mowing their lawns. And children never played in the street; when they weren’t in school, they were driven by stay-at-home mothers to their after-school activities, or indoors, immersed in their video games. But she had come to like living in Brewster—or, more honestly, living with her family. Leo, her husband, had been dead for over three years, and most of her friends were either dead or in nursing homes. At least here she could be useful. Janice, her daughter, the principal at the local high school, had a stressful, almost all-consuming job, and the children were at the ages where they needed someone at home—at least that was what Hannah thought. As she continued snipping off the dead blossoms, she heard a car screech to a stop and then felt something hit her foot. Puzzled, she looked down and saw what looked like a bundle of gray rags, but when she bent down to pick it up found she was holding a dead cat in her hands. Shocked, she dropped the cat. It was only the stool that kept her from falling. There was blood on her hands, which she wiped on her shirt. She felt dizzy. Her heart was racing. Her head was filled with questions: What should I do? Should I call the police? Should I call Janice? Why did they drop the cat here? Why did they have a dead cat? Did the cat die from being thrown from the car or was it dead already? Whose cat was it? There were more questions forming, but she realized that they weren’t likely to be answered, at least not by her, so she stood up slowly, picked up the cat, and carried it to the garage where she, oh so gently, as if it were a live animal, put it in a large box. She covered the box, and walked unsteadily to the house. Her heart still racing, she sat down at the kitchen table, questions still filling her head. Were they trying to scare me? Was this a message? I know having a dead animal, or a part of one—like a horse’s head in your bed—is bad news. Why would anyone wanna frighten me? And what kind of a message was a dead cat? A note with letters cut from newspapers I could maybe understand—it said something. But a dead cat? Now her dizziness was being joined by fear. After a few minutes, her heart starting to slow down and her dizziness diminishing, she started to feel better—until she burst into tears. After a minute of what she called self-indulgence, she blew her nose and stood up. Well, that was foolish. Didn’t ever think I would turn into a sniveling old woman the first time someone throws a dead cat at me. Takes more than that to scare this old woman. Now her fear was being replaced by anger. How dare they! Just a bunch of young punks with nothing else to do with their time than to try to scare an old woman, one probably chosen at random and I just happened to be the first one they saw