Amy Bridges Parker asks herself that question as she resists her domineering sister’s attempts to take over where her subtly controlling and recently deceased husband left off.
Then her sister Clara turns up dead! And a young man claiming to be the grandson of Amy’s first husband—the one who died in Vietnam fifty-two years ago—gives the sheriff a prime suspect. The boy had a grudge and must have gone after the wrong sister.
Amy isn’t convinced. She can’t really explain why, but she likes the young man. And she knows better than most that her sister, a mean girl back in high school, had plenty of old enemies. But who hated Clara enough to actually kill her? Or did the killer get the wrong sister after all?
The cat was intended to be just one of the many ways that my protagonist’s domineering sister annoyed my protagonist. Said protagonist, Amy Parker, is suddenly widowed when her husband has a heart attack. The next day, her older sister, Clara shows up—uninvited and supposedly there to lend support—but she tries to take over Amy’s life instead.
And she has brought her cat with her. Clara’s name for the cat is Misty. Amy calls her Nuisance.
The main problem with Nuisance is that she acts like she wants attention, but when one tries to pet her, they get a bite or a scratch as a reward.
This fictional cat was patterned after a cat my daughter-in-law owned when she and my son got married. Her name was Belle and I thought of her as the cat from Hell. (She is since deceased; God rest her soul.)
I owe Belle and my daughter-in-law a huge apology, but I get ahead of myself.
A couple of my early readers commented that cat lovers would probably not like Amy, because of her attitude toward Misty, aka Nuisance.
That got me to thinking. I’d already set up a back story for Amy that included her father, a veterinarian, moving the family to Florida when she was kid, so that he could take over a retiring vet’s practice.
So it would be natural for Amy—who inherits the cat when her sister is murdered—to take the cat to the current vet. Maybe the creature is not well, and that’s why she’s so grumpy.
And here’s where my research comes in...I figured I should look up reasons why cats might lash out when they are petted.
I found an article on reasons for aggression in cats. Third item down...petting aggression! It seems that some cats don’t like to be petted for good reason.
Here’s an excerpt from the book in which the vet explains what’s happening:
I’d given her a concise history on the cat, at least what I knew of it, including my sister’s mixed messages. When the vet had finished her exam, she said, “Well, she seems to be in good health.”
She paused, drew in air. “I think you’ve got three things going on here, regarding her behavior. One, poor training, as you’d already surmised. Two, this is a rather anxious cat, who now finds herself in a strange situation with strange people, and her normal human anchor has gone missing. Three, she’s petting aggressive.”
I’d been nodding along—it all made perfect sense—until she got to number three. “What’s petting aggressive?”
“She’s got a hyperactive nervous system. Too much physical contact becomes uncomfortable for her. I’d suggest minimizing stimulation until she gets more accustomed to her new environment…which takes awhile for cats, as much as three months.”
“In other words, leave her be for now,” I said, as I watched the assistant deftly return the cat to her carrier, a process that had taken me twenty minutes earlier, and had involved drawn blood—mine, not the cat’s.
“Exactly.” The vet beamed at me as if I were an exceptional student. “I have some pamphlets on behavior modification techniques for cats. Once she’s settled in a bit better, you can pet her briefly, but pay close attention to her body language. You’ll learn, after a while, what her signals are when she’s done with being touched.”
She paused. “Oh, and that rubbing against your ankles you mentioned, she may not be asking to be petted. That’s how cats mark their territory. It’s a good sign that she’s accepting you as hers, but it’s not always affection per se.”
“Oh. Good to know,” I said.
I followed the assistant, who was carrying the heavy cat carrier, out to the front desk. She handed over a couple of glossy pamphlets.
“Thanks,” I said. “These should be helpful.”
“Perfect,” the assistant said, for about the third time in the last half hour.
I bit my tongue to keep from saying that absolutely nothing was perfect in my life right now.
The assistant put the carrier in the backseat of my car. I resisted the urge to say, “Perfect,” and thanked her instead.
She smiled and walked away.
Before closing the car door, I bent down and looked through the grill on the front of the carrier. “Truce, Nuisance?”
The cat meowed. I took that as a yes.
Belle and Gina, my apologies! That’s what was going on...I had no idea.
Slowly but surely, during the course of this story (and into the next one in the series as well), Amy and Nuisance come to an understanding.
And I may even have Nuisance, the grumpy cat, play a role in catching the killer in Book 2! Yup, I just thought of a way to make that happen... :-)
Kassandra Lamb has two loves: writing and psychology. In her youth, she discovered that writers need day jobs in order to eat. Partial to food, she studied psychology. Now retired from a career as a psychotherapist and college professor, she spends most of her time in an alternate universe with her characters. The magic portal to this universe (i.e., her computer) is in Florida, where her husband and dog catch occasional glimpses of her. Kass has authored over 40 books, including four mystery series and a romantic suspense trilogy.
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