Cat Fear No Evil

4

The 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 lame 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 lame like a movie star."

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

"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 just over a year 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 perfect complement to Charlie's gold lame. 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, 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 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 lame."

"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.

It was amazing to Charlie that since moving to the village, she had acquired three close woman friends her own age, trusted friends even besides her aunt Wilma. She had never had girlfriends in school, had always been a loner. She hadn't known how comfortable and supportive female friends could be-if they were women who didn't fuss and gossip, who liked to do outdoor things, who liked animals and liked to ride. Women, she thought amused, who preferred an afternoon at the shooting range to shopping. Though Charlie had even begun to enjoy shopping, when she had the spare time.

She could never get over the fact, either, of her sudden success as an animal artist. After giving up a commercial art career at which she had been only mediocre, and moving down to the village to open a cleaning-and-repair service, she had suddenly and without much effort on her part been approached by a gallery that loved her work. Her animal drawings and prints had been warmly accepted in the village and far beyond it, in a way almost too heady to live with. Even Detective Garza, that very discerning gun-dog man, had commissioned her to do his two pointers, and she considered that a true compliment. She watched Garza start through the crowd now, as if to speak to Max; she supposed the detective would take Max away from her.

The square-faced Latino looked very handsome in a pale silk sport coat, dark slacks, white shirt, and dark tie, particularly as she was used to seeing him in an old, worn tweed blazer and jeans. She could see a tiny line of pale skin between his short-trimmed dark hair and his tan.

Easing through the crowd to them, Garza gave her a brief hug and turned his attention to Max. As Max squeezed her hand and moved away with him, Charlie turned toward the curator's desk where Anne Roche, the Doberman woman, had made herself comfortable in one of the two leather chairs.

Anne was a frail, fine-featured woman, cool to the point of austerity. Everything about her spelled money: her glossy auburn hair sleeked into a perfect shoulder-length bob, her creamy complexion and impeccable grooming. Her easy perfection made Charlie uncomfortably aware of her own freckles and kinky, carrot-red mane. Anne was interested in a portrait of her two champion Dobermans. Anne's looks might be intimidating, but her love of animals and her shy smile put Charlie immediately at ease. She spent some time telling Charlie how much she loved her work, particularly the quick action pieces.

"And the cats," Anne said, her brown eyes widening. "Some of your cats look so perceptive they make me shiver. And your foxes and deer and raccoons-so wild and free. Those aren't zoo animals."

Charlie laughed. "I watch them from our porch and from the kitchen windows. We live up in the hills above the village, so there's open land around us. The fox comes almost every night, though we don't feed him."

"Well, he's very fine. I have to say, your work is the best I've seen, and I'm quite familiar with the drawings of Pourtleviet, and of Alice Kitchen. Have you thought of producing a book? A coffee-table book?"

Charlie smiled. "I do have a small project in the works, not a coffee-table book, but with cat drawings."

"I'm glad to hear that. I wish you well with it. When can we get together for some sketches of the dogs? I'd like you to do them on the move, at least for the first work, some of those wonderful quick sketches."

They were discussing a time convenient to them both and were going over Charlie's fees when the waiter who had approached Kate so rudely, and who had eyed Charlie's barrette, started toward the desk with a tray. He was young, maybe thirty, dressed in white jacket, black slacks, and black bow tie. His stark blond hair topped a perfect tan, as if he surfed or played tennis. Maybe a sports bum working as a waiter to support his habit? His handsome, tanned face was closed of any expression, withdrawn and bland. But as he held out his tray of champagne, his look changed to one of surprise.

He crumpled and fell suddenly, dropping the tray, scattering glasses in a spray of champagne, landing hard across Charlie, hurting her leg as she fought to steady him and herself. It happened so fast she couldn't hold him. His weight twisted them both as he slid from her grip to the floor, pulling her with him; she went down in a tangle of sprayed wine and breaking glass.

He lay white and still beneath her. He had made no sound as he fell, no cry of distress or pain. As Charlie untangled herself and felt for a pulse, Max was beside her pulling her away, his lean, lined cop's face frightened, his demeanor stern and quick. "Get back, Charlie. Get away from him. Now."

Charlie struggled up, her gold sheath soaked with wine, and she slid fast behind the desk as Max's officers herded everyone back. Max knelt beside the tall, liveried man feeling for a pulse, feeling the carotid artery, turning back the man's eyelids. Around them the din of voices had stopped as suddenly as if a tape had been turned off, the crowded room so still that the running footsteps of the two officers who had moved to secure the front of the building echoed like thunder. Detective Garza's voice was a shout as he called on the police radio for paramedics. Charlie watched the scene numbly. The client she had been talking with had disappeared into the crowd. As sirens came screaming from a few blocks away, Max performed CPR, and his officers secured the front and back doors. The gallery windows blazed with whirling red lights. Sirens still screamed as two medics pushed through the crowd to crouch over the waiter. As Max rose, the look on his face told her the man was dead.

Anne Roche had been right there. Had she been involved, in some inexplicable manner? She stood now with the rest of the crowd waiting to be questioned.

After a long interval of feverish work with CPR, oxygen, and electric shock, the medics rose. Max nodded. The younger medic spoke into his radio, calling for the coroner. Max reached for Charlie, taking her hand. As she moved away with him, she felt cold, disoriented. Looking up at Max, she had to question the forces that were at work here.

This was the second disaster to occur during a ceremony of special meaning to her and Max. The first had been their wedding, when she and Max, along with most of the Molena Point PD and half the village had narrowly escaped being killed at the hands of a bomber.

Before that, Max had been set up as the prime suspect in a double murder, had been cleverly and almost successfully framed. And now… another calamity at a celebration involving Captain and Mrs. Max Harper.

Was there some pattern at work beyond her understanding?

Some mysterious force that invited such ugly occurrences? But that was rubbish, she didn't believe in cosmic forces ruling one's life; and certainly such an idea would anger Max. Free souls ruled their own lives. Both she and Max believed that. Despite what Max called her "artistic temperament," she prided herself on being totally centered in fact and reality-except of course for the one fact in her life that was beyond reality, the one aspect of her life that was so strange that Max would never believe it. The one amazement that she could never share with him, the secret she could never reveal to the person she loved most in all the world.

Glancing above her to the balcony, she looked into the eyes of the three cats, their noses pressed out through the rail, chins resting on their paws. Joe's sleek gray coat gleamed like polished pewter, marked with white paws, nose, and chest. Dulcie's dark tabby stripes shone rich as chocolate. The kit's fluffy black-and-brown fur was, as usual, every which way, her yellow eyes blazing with curiosity, her long fluffy tail lashing and twitching. The three cats watched Charlie knowingly, three serious feline gazes. And while Joe Grey stared boldly at her, and Dulcie narrowed her green eyes, the kit opened her pink mouth in a way that made Charlie's heart stop, made her slap her hands over her own mouth in pantomime so the kit wouldn't forget herself and speak.

But of course the kit didn't speak. Slyly she looked down at Charlie, amused by her panic. And the cats turned to watch the newly arrived coroner at work, three pairs of eyes burning with conjecture, three wily feline minds where a hundred questions burned, where theories would be forming as to the cause of the waiter's death.

Before the waiter fell, the three cats had seen no one very near to him except Charlie and her client. The moment he fell, the cats had searched the crowd for any action that might be missed from the floor below, a furtive movement, some sophisticated and silent weapon being hidden in purse or coat pocket. But it was already too late: by the time the man fell they would surely have missed some vital piece of evidence.

It deeply angered Joe that he had been looking directly at the victim and had seen nothing. As soon as the man dropped, Joe had studied him, seeking anything awry that might, the next instant, vanish. Had there been an ice pick in the ribs? A silenced shot? Or did the waiter die from some poison that did not cause last-minute pain or spasms? Apparently neither cops nor coroner had found any such indication. The guy had gone down like a rock, as if he'd been shot. But neither police or coroner had found a wound.

The man worked for George Jolly's deli, which had catered the party; the cats had seen him in there serving behind the counter. They were well acquainted with the deli, and with the charming brick alley that ran behind its back door, where George Jolly set out his daily snacks for the local cats. Jolly's alley was the most popular feline haunt in the village, although villagers and tourists as well enjoyed its potted trees and flowers, its cozy benches and little out-of-the way shops. Mr. Jolly wasn't present to help serve tonight. The two other waiters had knelt over their coworker after he fell, until detectives ordered them away.

Joe glanced at the kit, who crouched beside him. The young tortoiseshell was leaning so far out between the rails that Dulcie grabbed a mouthful of black-and-brown fur and hauled her back to safety.

"You want to drop down in the middle of those cops and medics?"

The kit smiled at Dulcie and edged over again, watching everything at once. For a cat who had not so long ago been terrified of humanity, who had sought only to escape mankind, the kit had turned into a brazen little people-watching sleuth. If Kit had a fault, it was her excesses. Too much curiosity, too much passion in wanting to know everything all at once. As the three cats peered over, Max Harper looked up suddenly to the balcony. He looked surprised to see them, then frowned.

Joe turned away to hide a smile. Harper could look so suspicious. What were they doing? Just hanging out to watch the party. The whole gallery knew they were up there, they'd been camped on the balcony all evening. Wilma had brought them up a plate loaded with party food, and they had received dozens of admiring looks, to say nothing of typical remarks from the guests: Oh, the cute kitties… they look just like their portraits, aren't they darling… That tomcat, he looks just as much a brute as in Charlie's drawings, I wouldn't want to cross that one…

Joe looked down at Max Harper as dully as he could manage, scratched an imaginary flea, and yawned. With effort he remained a dull blob until at last Harper turned away.

Only when all the guests had been questioned and names and addresses recorded and folks were allowed to leave, only then did the cats abandon the balcony and trot down the spiral stairs. While the police remained to finish their work, Charlie's little group headed for the door, anticipating late-dinner reservations. Max would be along when he could. He and Detective Garza stood in the center of the gallery with a dozen officers, both quietly giving orders. It would be hours before anyone knew whether this had been a natural death or murder. Until that question was resolved, the department would treat the Aronson Gallery as the scene of a murder.

"If it was murder," Dulcie said softly, "who knows how long the gallery will be locked down? And Charlie's show has just opened."

Joe Grey licked his paw. "The coroner should know by morning. Charlie's already sold seven drawings and four prints. By morning, Garza should have photographed, fingerprinted, done the whole routine. Let's go, before we miss supper." They moved quickly to the front door, where the party was shrugging on coats and winding scarves against the late October chill. But as the three cats slipped diffidently around their friends' ankles, preening and purring like pet kitties, Joe's thoughts remained with the dead waiter. Allowing Clyde to pick him up, Joe purred and tried to act simple for the benefit of those who did not know his true nature; but as he snuggled against Clyde's shoulder, his sleek gray head was filled with questions as sharply irritating as the buzz of swarming bees.