Cat Deck The Halls

23

I T WAS JUST noon when Ryan Flannery left her construction job in the village and walked the three blocks to Clyde’s house. A cozy lunch, just the two of them in the sunny patio, should take the edge off her grouchy mood. Glancing in the front window, she paused a moment to admire the tree they had decorated, and the garland wreath Clyde had hung on the door, then she headed around to the back. She was greeted by wild happy barks and loud banging as Rock leaped at the gate; and, when she opened the gate, by a dervish of excited hound. Rock danced around her, but never touched her, testimony to the improvement in his behavior. She took his outstretched front paws in her hands, let them rest on her arm as she talked baby talk to him.

A year ago, when the big, stray Weimaraner had adopted her, he would have nearly knocked her over leaping on her and clawing her arms for attention, a lovable clown with no idea of manners. Kneeling, she hugged Rock and scratched his sleek, sun-warmed back. He grinned, and slurped her ear-though the big, silver purebred had mastered the basics of obedience training, he was still a clown, and a challenge.

No one, she thought, unless they were dedicated athletes with plenty of time to devote, should even think of owning a Weimaraner, a breed meant for action and hard work. Without both, the dogs were miserable, and so were their owners.

Rising, she moved into the patio with Rock at her side, and closed the gate behind them. The walled retreat was almost balmy on this bright winter day; and she was inordinately pleased with the small, private world she’d designed and built for Clyde. Clyde had swept away the last of the fallen maple leaves, and the chair cushions were clean and dried of their morning dew. The long, plastered planters were bright with cyclamens and begonias, and a pot of poinsettias stood on the picnic table. The cushion on the chaise still bore the impression of the big silver hound, where Rock had been napping. On the table beside the poinsettias were a cooler, picnic plates and napkins, and a tray laid out with packets of sandwich makings and plastic containers of salad-this, too, attested to Rock’s improved manners, that he could now be left alone with a table full of food, she thought smugly. But then she looked up through the kitchen window and saw that Clyde was on guard. He grinned, and waved at her.

Fetching a bottle of nonalcoholic Buckler’s from the cooler, she popped the lid and stretched out on the chaise, rubbing Rock’s ears as he came to lean against her, and watching Clyde through the window as he filled the coffeepot. It was nice that, since she’d started the nearby job, she could run over for lunch. Slowly, now, the tension of the morning began to ease.

She’d been so hoping for a quiet holiday season, for lovely, peaceful evenings with Clyde before the fire, admiring their joint-effort Christmas tree, Rock and Joe and Snowball and the two older cats sprawled around them. No serious worries, no violent police matters to prod her with fear for her uncle Dallas and Max and their friends.

Certainly Max and Dallas had enjoyed very little about the Christmas season, with the department looking for a killer and for a vanished body, and trying to identity a silent little girl who was too scared and traumatized to say a word-and now the Greenlaws’ strange break-in that seemed to hint at an uglier scenario. And to top it off, there was Charlie’s strange preoccupation and her unwillingness to share her problem.

Charlie should be turning handsprings right now, should be ecstatic with her upcoming exhibit and book signing, but instead she was grim one minute, and drawn away the next as if to another world.

In fact, when Ryan thought about it, Charlie was that way with every major crime. Whenever Max and the department faced more than the usual danger, Charlie turned moody and secretive-and that thought saddened Ryan. A cop’s wife couldn’t live like that. Charlie knew that. They’d talked about it at some length, and she’d thought Charlie was finally committed to living each day to the fullest and not fretting about tomorrow. Committed to living the only way a cop’s family could live, and still survive. Charlie said she lived like that and thought like that. But if that was true, then what was this preoccupation?

Was worry over Max not the only cause of her stress? And a sudden realization startled Ryan: It wasn’t only Charlie who seemed to experience these worried, preoccupied spells. Clyde did, too. And Wilma Getz. And even the older, levelheaded Greenlaws. During every increase in crime that stressed the department and kept the men extra busy, Ryan’s friends seemed to turn moody and withdrawn, and, sometimes, inexplicably secretive.

She had never before realized this. Or maybe she hadn’t wanted to see it. Maybe, she thought, she didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to understand what this was about.

Clyde came out carrying a plate of freshly sliced bread still warm from the bakery, its scent filling the patio. He set it on the table, opened a beer, leaned down to give Ryan a long kiss, then sprawled in a lounge chair, taking a good look at her. “You’re wound tight.”

“I’ll be better when we can start on the Stanhope house. The damned city-these delays make me want to pound someone.

“But,” she said more cheerfully, “this present job, Clyde…a few more days, we’ll wrap it up. The house is charming, if I do say so. I can’t wait for you to see it all finished.”

“All your work is charming. It’s what you’re known for. Look at this house-from a shabby bachelor’s pad to a designer’s gem.” He grinned at Ryan. “Not only beautiful and intelligent, but incredibly talented.”

“That kind of flattery will get you a long way, with this lady. Meantime,” she said, rising, “I’m starved. I feel like Rock, ready to dive into lunch with all four paws.” Rock, though he had his own bowl of kibble, had been eyeing the picnic table with ears up and nose twitching. He knew better than to grab, but this degree of restraint wasn’t easy on the energetic young dog. Ryan was putting her sandwich together when her phone rang.

“Maybe Scotty,” she said, glancing at her watch. “He stopped in to see Jim Holden again at the building department.” She fished her phone from its holster, listened expectantly-and her hopeful look exploded into a dark scowl.

“They did all that. The research! The hearings! The historic look won’t be changed! We aren’t doing anything to the outside. What the hell do they…” Ryan’s face was flushed, her green eyes burned with anger. Clyde opened another Buckler’s and handed it to her.

“We’re not changing the outside,” Ryan shouted into the phone. “Can’t they understand simple English! Can’t they read a simple damned blueprint! What kind of…” She listened; then, “I know it’s nearly eighty years old! We’ve been through all that, Scotty!”

Scott Flannery was Ryan’s uncle, and her construction foreman. He was her father’s brother, a big, burly, redheaded Scotch-Irishman. He and Dallas Garza, her mother’s brother, had both moved in with Ryan’s dad when her mother died, and had helped to raise Ryan and her two sisters, staggering their work hours and sharing the household chores. Scotty was largely responsible for Ryan’s interest in the building trades, while Dallas had honed the girls’ interest in fine bird dogs and hunting, and in safe firearms training.

“The Historical Society is totally out of line,” Ryan snapped at Scotty. “They can’t have the gall to…”

But they could, Clyde thought, watching her. Everyone knew that the city historical committee could be incredibly high-handed and officious. When Ryan hung up at last, Rock pressed quietly against her, looking up at her with concern, his pale yellow eyes almost human. The big silver hound might be rowdy, and an aggressive protector of those he loved, but he was supersensitive and highly responsive to Ryan’s moods.

“Maybe,” Clyde said, “the two public school teachers who pitched such a fit when children began to transfer to the Patty Rose School, maybe they’re responsible for this.”

“If they are,” Ryan said, kneeling down to hug Rock, “that’s even more maddening-a personal vendetta. Small-minded personal rage, aimed at hurting the school and hurting those children.

“But,” she said, looking up at him, “it isn’t the teachers that make the public school so dull and ineffective-not all the teachers. It’s the policies, the administration, the red tape and constrictions and their morass of stupid rules.”

“And whose fault is that?” Clyde said.

“Ours.” Rising, Ryan moved to the table and finished slapping her sandwich together. “The city, the state. The voters,” she said, sighing with frustration.

Clyde, watching her, knew that that kind of bureaucratic control upset Ryan perhaps even more than most people. When Ryan moved down from San Francisco about a year ago, a big change in her life, it was to end the cold patronization of an emotionally brutal marriage. He put his arm around her.

“Slow down,” he said softly. She was almost crying, and Ryan never cried. He took her sandwich plate from her, set it down, and held her tight. She had worked so hard on this redesign for the old Stanhope studio, so intent on retaining its historic character while creating the needed classrooms. She had endured endless meetings, endless bureaucratic rejections, each of which sent her back yet again to the drawing board. She had put up with senseless arguments that had little to do with the quality and integrity of the designs and a lot to do with people’s desire to control.

She looked up at him, swiping at a tear. “I didn’t come down here to fight another bunch of small-minded, shortsighted, selfish…I thought I got away from all that.” She pressed her face against him. “I’m so tired of this damned squabbling, I don’t even want to do the renovation.”

Clyde held her away. “You’d let the city win? Let the city make you back down, and beat you?”

“Screw them,” she snapped. “I don’t care.”

“Lori and Dillon didn’t back down. They fought the city and won. Two little girls…”

“Two little girls and three adults. And I said, Clyde, I don’t care!”

Clyde hugged Ryan harder, knowing that she would rally. But he had to wonder about the reason for the harassment. Was it only the small-minded teachers? Or was there something else, besides the petty backbiting and power struggles? And that thought stirred his own cold and protective anger.