Cat Fear No Evil (4 page)

“I'd like that. You…”

“I know you're dating Hanni's sister. Could we make it a threesome? Or why not everyone? Ryan, Hanni, their uncle Dallas, Charlie and Max and Wilma…”

Clyde stared at Joe. Joe stared back at him. Now she was gushing. She didn't sound at all like herself.

“Royally scared,” Joe had said when Clyde hung up. “Maybe she'll talk to me, maybe I can get a line on what's bugging her.”

“Maybe you can meddle.”

“Maybe I can
help
.”

“In your case, helping
is
meddling. Leave it alone, Joe. She doesn't want to talk, she just wants company. Kate's a big girl. If she wants to keep this private, she can handle her own problems.”

“Well, aren't you out of joint. And she doesn't seem to be handling them, she's scared out of her pretty blond head.”

“Just give her some space. Don't overreact.” Clyde's nose, in other words, had been royally put out of joint.
Joe had tramped across the bed to his own pillow, kneaded it with a vengeance that threatened to send feathers flying, and curled up for sleep with his back to Clyde.

Kate was
his
friend, too. Thinking about her problems left him as irritable as a trapped possum.

But now, finishing breakfast in a withdrawn silence, neither Joe Grey nor Clyde imagined that soon the lives that touched them would fall into a deeper tangle. That at Charlie's gallery opening they would be treated to a glimpse of future events as dark as the leer of the black tomcat.

T
he party was in full swing, the champagne flowing
, the talk and laughter in the Aronson Gallery rising louder than the three cats found comfortable; despite the din they peered down from the loft far too interested to abandon festivities: three furry people-watchers taking in the glitter, the excitement, the popping of corks, and the women's elegant gowns.

Of course the guest of honor was most elegant of all. The cats seldom saw Charlie in anything but jeans and workshirts. Her transformation was impressive, her gold lamé sheath setting off her tall, slim figure and picking up the highlights of her red hair.

“Oh, to be an artist,” Dulcie said, “to have your own exhibit, with all the lovely people and champagne and delicious food, and to wear gold lamé like a movie star.”

Joe cut her a tolerant look. Dulcie's dreams ran heavily to silk and cashmere and gold lamé.

“And the gallery's never been more elegant. I'm sure,” she said with a little grin, “that Sicily Aronson built the loft just for us.”

“Right,” Joe said, laughing.

“Well we
are
the star models, with our portraits in the window,” she told him. As well as the drawings of the three cats in the window and in the gallery below, many of the works on the loft walls were of them: small, quick sketches of the cats playing and running.

But the real ego trip was the large portraits in the gallery below, hanging shoulder to shoulder with some very handsome horses and dogs. Peering down through the rail watching the crowd, the cats tried to look everywhere at once. The opening was mobbed with Charlie and Max's friends, art patrons, and animal lovers—and of course there were lots of cops present. The cats could see how pleased Charlie was that the department had turned out for her—well, for Max, she'd be thinking. For their chief. But then, the whole department had been at their wedding, just three months ago, where the head of detectives had given the bride away, and Clyde had been best man.

Clyde and Max Harper had been friends since high school, when during summers and on weekends they followed the rodeos up and down California, riding broncs and bulls. Harper, lean and sun-leathered, still looked very much like an old bronc buster. Clyde had mellowed out smoother, but he was still in good shape. Strange, Joe thought, how things happened. When Charlie arrived in the village two years ago, to stay with her aunt Wilma, Clyde had at once started dating her. It wasn't until much later, and, Joe thought, quite by accident, that Charlie and Max fell in love.

Tonight, none of Harper's officers was in uniform and the chief himself was dressed in a pale suede sport coat, beige slacks, and a dark silk shirt—a per
fect complement to Charlie's gold lamé. He stood across the room talking with two of his men, his tall, slim figure military straight; his tanned, lined face that could look so stern tonight was only proud and caring as he looked across at Charlie and moved in her direction.

 

Charlie tried not to let everyone see quite how thrilled she was by her first one-man show; she was so excited her stomach was queasy. As she watched Max work his way through the crowd toward her, she watched Sicily Aronson, too. From the moment the doors had opened this evening, the flamboyant brunette had been everywhere, flitting from group to group, her diaphanous skirts and shawls floating around her, her tall figure set off by the usual collection of dangling jewelry, tonight an impressive mix of silver and topaz and onyx. Sicily had taken care of the party details personally, the invitations, the press releases, the hanging of the work, down to the selection of appetizers and wines.

“You're gawking,” Max said, coming up behind Charlie. “You're supposed to look sophisticated and cool.”

“I don't feel sophisticated
or
cool.” She grinned at him and took his hand, moving with him to a far corner where they could have a little space. “How can I not be excited, when everyone we know is here, and so many people I don't know, have never seen before.”

“Maybe collectors, come to buy out the show.”

Laughing, she studied the long, lean lines of his face, her throat catching at the intimacy of his brown eyes on her.

“I'm glad I married you,” he said softly, “before you got so famous you wouldn't look at me.”

She made a face at him.

“You will be famous. Of course, with me you're already famous. Particularly in bed.”

She felt her face color, and she turned her back on him, studying the crush of viewers that was already overflowing onto the sidewalk. Max ran his hand down her arm in a way that made her catch her breath. Turning, she breathed a sigh of pure contentment.

“It's a fine show,” he said seriously. “You know you have three prospective clients waiting to talk with you. That woman over by the desk, for one. The Doberman woman.”

She nodded. “Anne Roche. I'll go sit with her in a minute.”

“And would you believe Marlin Dorriss is here? That he's seriously eyeing three pieces of your work? That
would
be a conquest, to be included in the Dorriss collection. He's been looking at the gulls in flight.”

She nodded, grinning at him. Early in the evening Dorriss had spent some time looking at the drawings of seagulls winging over the Molena Point rooftops. They were not romantic renderings, but stark, the dark markings of the gulls repeated in the harshly angled shadows of the rooftops.

“That would be very nice,” she said softly, “to hang beside work by Elmer Bischoff and Diebenkorn.” She looked up at Max. “I still find it hard not to warm to Dorriss, to his quiet, sincere manner. Find it hard not to like him, despite his unwelcome affair with Dillon's mother.”

Dillon was Charlie and Max's special friend; Max
had taught her to ride, helping to build confidence and independence in the young teenager who, they had sometimes thought, might be a bit too sheltered.

She was not sheltered now. The sudden breakdown of her family had turned Dillon shockingly bad mannered and rude. Charlie hurt for her, but she grew angry at Dillon, too. An ugly turn in life didn't give you license to chuck all civility and let rage rule—even when it was your mother who had betrayed you.

But Charlie hadn't had a very good relationship with her own mother, so maybe she was missing something here. Certainly she hadn't had anything like Dillon's fourteen years of warmth and security. Maybe that made the present situation far worse. Until her mother went suddenly astray, Dillon never had to cope with a problem parent.

Surely Helen's transgression with handsome Marlin Dorriss was understandable—plenty of women were after him. A well-built six-foot-four, he was a man whom women on the street turned to look at, a well-tanned, athletic-looking bachelor with compelling brown eyes, always quietly but expensively dressed, his voice and manner subdued, totally attentive to whomever he was speaking with. Busboy or beautiful model, Dorriss seemed to find each person of deep interest. He had an air of kindness about him as if he truly valued every human soul.

“Hard not to like the man,” Max said, giving Charlie a wry grin and putting his arm around her. Warm in each other's company, they stood quietly watching the crowd. “Kate Osborne just came in,” he said. “There by the door talking with Dallas. She'll be pleased that you're wearing her hairclip.”

Charlie touched the heavy gold barrette that tied back her red hair. Set with emeralds and carved with the heads of two cats, it was a handsome and unusual piece, part of a collection of jewelry that Kate's unknown parents, or perhaps her mysterious grandfather, had left to her. She had stopped by the ranch that afternoon for a few moments to drop off the barrette; they had stood by the pasture fence petting the two Harper dogs and talking. Charlie hadn't wanted to accept the gift. “I can't take this, Kate, it has to be worth a fortune. It's very beautiful.”

“It's not worth a fortune, it's only faux emeralds. I had the whole lot appraised the week after that attorney gave them to me. So strange…but I'll tell you about it when we have more time.” Turning, her short blond bob catching the sunlight, she removed the plastic clip from Charlie's hair and fastened on the gold-and-emerald confection.

“Oh yes,” Kate said, stepping back. “It's beautiful on you, it will be smashing with that gold lamé.”

“But…”

“Charlie, I'll never wear this, I'll never have long hair, long hair makes me crazy. Jewelry is meant to be used, to be worn.” Taking her compact from her purse, she held up the mirror so Charlie could see.

Charlie had been thrilled with the gift. “I still think it looks terribly valuable. Even if the jewels are paste, the gold work is truly fine.”

“If you like primitive,” Kate said. “As we both do. The appraiser—he's top-notch, was recommended by several of my clients in the city—I don't think he goes for this kind of work. He did say the pieces were unusual in style. When I pressed him for some date, some idea
what the history of the pieces might be, he seemed uncertain. Said they didn't really belong in any time or category, that he really couldn't place them as to locale.”

“Strange, if he's so knowledgeable.”

“Yes.” Kate had looked uneasy, as if she found the lack of any background for the jewelry somehow unsettling. “He assured me the jewels were paste. He said that wasn't uncommon, and I knew from my art history that was true, that during the 1800s real gold and silver settings were made with great care, but often set with paste jewels.”

Kate gave the two dogs a parting pat. “I gave the other barrette to Wilma, the silver and onyx one for her silver hair.”

“But if there's some clue to your parents here, if they were connected somehow to the jewelry…”

Again, that uneasy downward glance. “I have ten more pieces to solve the puzzle.
If
that's why the jewelry was saved for me, if it does hold some clue.”

“But why else would they keep it all those years, if it isn't of great monetary value? Do the other pieces have images of cats?”

“I…five do,” she said, frowning. “There's…an emerald choker with cats.” Kate shook her head, seeming distressed. “If the stones were real, I'm sure it would be worth a fortune.”

So strange, Charlie thought now, that mysterious collection of jewelry waiting for Kate for over thirty years, tucked away in the back of a walk-in safe, in a hundred-year-old law firm. A firm that seemed, Kate had said, on its last legs, fast deteriorating. The jewelry had been put away in a small cardboard box to wait for an orphaned child to grow up, to come of age.

Standing on tiptoe to look over the crowd, Charlie waved to Kate. And a waiter by the door moved in Kate's direction with a tray of champagne, rudely shouldering aside another server—the same waiter who, half an hour earlier, had watched Charlie herself so intently. What was he looking at? Kate's choker? Charlie's own barrette? Surely Sicily hadn't hired a thief among the caterers.

My imagination
, Charlie thought.
Everyone's looking at the jewelry, because it's so different with its primitive designs.
Even from across the room, Kate's silver and topaz choker was striking against her pearly dress and her silky blond hair. Kate was so beautiful, with the gamin quality of a Meg Ryan or Goldie Hawn, a perky, carefree perfection that Charlie greatly envied.

“What?” Max said. “What are you staring at? Kate? But you are the most beautiful woman in the room.”

“You, Captain Harper, are the biggest con artist in the room.” She smiled and touched his cheek. “I'm so glad Kate came. She drove clear down from the city for tonight—well, other errands, too. But she planned her time specially for tonight.”

“Maybe she plans to buy a drawing or two before her favorites are gone, or maybe to take back for some client—maybe she plans to do a whole interior around a group of your drawings.”

“You're such a dreamer. I know she loves San Francisco, but I do hope she moves back to the village—that she rents the other side of our duplex.” Charlie had bought the run-down duplex last spring, before they were married, as an investment. Ryan Flannery, her tenant in one apartment, had done considerable repairs in lieu of rent.

“It's
your
duplex,” Max said. “You're grinning. What?”

“I still don't feel like a landlord.”

“What does a landlord feel like? Does this take special training? You think you're not mean enough, tough enough?”

She gave him a sly look.

“Tough as boots,” Max said. “You don't mind having friends as tenants? With Ryan in the other unit…”

“I love having Ryan there. We haven't disagreed yet. The few improvements…We settle the cost over a cup of coffee. Ryan does the work, I buy the materials. What could be simpler?”

“I married a sensible woman, to say nothing of her beauty.”

The biggest improvement so far to the duplex, after the initial painting and cleaning up, had been the backyard fence for Ryan's lovely weimaraner, an addition well worth the money. It was a real plus to have a guard dog on the premises. Ryan's side of the building had already been the scene of a kidnapping, and, just a month ago, the scene of a shocking murder. Such events were not all that common in their small quiet village, but Charlie and Max both hoped the big, well-trained dog would put a stop to any unsettling trend.

The other tenants, in the one-bedroom side, would be leaving in February, four months hence. Charlie wondered if Kate would want to wait that long. She watched Kate and Ryan, and Ryan's sister Hanni, with their heads together laughing. Golden hair and dark, and Hanni's premature and startling white hair. The three young women had started in her direction when they were sidetracked by Marlin Dorriss, who seemed
to want to escort them all to the buffet table—Charlie guessed Dillon's mother hadn't accompanied him; the two did not overtly flaunt their relationship.