“There’s an intruder,” she said between gasps for breath.

“Oh my gosh. Did you call 911?”

“Not that kind,” she said, and then she grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the apartment. “It’s a spider.”

“In that case, I’ve got to take Scipio for a walk,” Tean said.

Mrs. Wish drew herself up, glancing back at Tean’s door and then looking down the hall toward her own home. “I’ll walk him,” she said, like a woman offering to step in front of a firing squad. “You deal with that nasty little murderer.”

Tean sighed and nodded. While Mrs. Wish hurried back to rescue Scipio, Tean made his way along the hall and pushed open her door. He had to snag the domestic short-hair that tried to slip out of the apartment—he thought this one was Senator Frank B. Bandegee, because he remembered the white patch on her chest—and then he was inside the apartment, pushing the door shut behind him.

Very little ever changed about Mrs. Wish’s apartment: the smell of dander, animal and human, mixed with wet cat food and a floral potpourri. Pewter dishes, holding mounds of the potpourri, were placed on occasional tables and shelves and ledges around the room. Doilies. A million doilies. A framed, larger-than-life portrait of President Woodrow Wilson, hanging where most people would have placed a television (once Mrs. Wish had sent Tean into the bedroom to examine a . . . deposit that Senator Henry Cabot Lodge had left on the carpet, and he had stumbled onto an autographed photograph of President Gerald Ford in a heart-shaped frame. President Wilson’s illicit rival? Tean was dying to know). And, of course, the Irreconcilables, perched on bookshelves and the back of the sofa, crawling through their cat mansion, swishing past Tean with disdainful looks that said they would accept a display of affection, albeit unwillingly. Their numbers varied between twelve and eighteen; Tean no longer tried to keep track.

Setting down Senator Frank B. Bandegee, Tean made a quick tour of the apartment. He made the mistake of getting too close to Senator Poindexter, a vicious Siamese, and earned a nasty swipe at his ankle for his mistake. In what Mrs. Wish optimistically called the guest bedroom, which was a confection of pink, sateen, and spills of creamy lace—canopy bed included—he found the intruder: the closet doors were open, and Mrs. Wish had dragged one of her heavy dining chairs into place so she could reach the shelf at the top.

Tean climbed up onto the chair and examined the shelf: several folded blankets, a lacquered wood box, and a manila folder. On the tab of the folder, Mrs. Wish’s Palmer script read: Reagan – Shirtless. In smaller letters below, she had added, with quotation marks included, “The California Showboat.” Tean was reaching to open the folder when he heard the front door. He jerked his hand back.

“Oh, Dr. Leon,” Mrs. Wish said, wringing her hands from the guest bedroom’s doorway. “You really have to be careful.”