Cat Laughing Last

7

Clyde pulled the snack tray from the refrigerator and set it on the counter, giving Joe a warning look, his dark eyes threatening dire repercussions if Joe so much as reached a paw into the party food or made a scene in any way. Joe hissed at him in a casual manner and settled more stubbornly down onto the cold tile counter, watching the three officers and Charlie rise to load their plates, then fit them in beside their cards and poker chips and beer cans.

Harper's lined, sun-wrinkled face made him seem years older than Clyde, though they were the same age, had gone all through grammar school together, had rodeoed together when they were in high school. With his lean, tall build, he looked very at home on horseback.

Dallas Garza was built more like Clyde, blocky and solid. He was about the same age as Clyde and Harper, somewhere around forty. His tanned Latino face was square and smooth, his expression closed, his black Latin eyes watchful-a man who exuded a steady and comforting presence. Garza seemed always in control, calm and unruffled. And Joe had learned that Garza was an officer to be trusted-as was Detective Davis, with her dark, steady gaze.

Juana Davis was maybe in her early fifties, had been widowed, and had two grown children, both cops.

Charlie was the only fair one at the table, with her bright freckles and brighter hair. She was younger, too, maybe four years out of art school-which she described as her squandered past.

Garza said, "Ryan's been up in San Andreas for a month, designing the addition to a vacation cottage, surveying the land, finalizing the plans. She gets home, another woman's clothes are in her closet, a strange car in her half of the garage.

"She said she wanted to put her pickup in four-wheel drive and run that little red convertible right through the back of the garage. Only thing that stopped her was the legal mess she'd be in-and she didn't want her insurance canceled."

"I'd have killed him," Juana said, with a twisted smile.

Charlie nodded. "A slow and painful death."

"Rupert did her one good turn," Garza said. "The nine years they've been married, she's had a chance to work into the building trade-but only at her insistence. She got him to let her do some designing and to work on the jobs. She's learned the business well, and she has solid carpentry skills."

Garza discarded two cards and watched Juana deal. "In all other ways, Rupert's a real loser. But Ryan's good at what she does, she's made a name for herself as well as for the firm-something Rupert never gave her credit for. She has a nice design style, very original. She wants to get her license in this county, start her own construction firm. She loves the village. When the girls were small, we spent a lot of summers and holidays down here."

From the kitchen counter, Joe watched Garza with interest. He'd seen something of Garza's closeness with Ryan's sister Hanni, who now lived in the village and had her own interior designing firm. But he'd not seen this degree of fatherly pride that Dallas had for Ryan. He knew that, under the guidance of Garza and the girls' father, the three sisters had learned not only to cook and clean house, but to shoot and handle firearms properly, to train the hunting dogs that Garza loved, and to ride a horse-all skills, apparently, that the two law enforcement officers felt would build strong young women. Joe had learned a lot about Garza when he'd moved in with the detective last winter, playing needy kitty.

That was when Garza was first sent down to the village, on loan from San Francisco PD, to investigate the murders for which Max Harper was the prime suspect. When Garza first arrived, Joe and Dulcie both had thought they smelled a rat. They'd been sure that in this prime case of collusion to ruin Harper, Garza was part of the setup. The week that Joe had lived with the detective, he had playing up to Garza as shamelessly as any groveling canine in order to learn Garza's agenda.

He'd ended up not only sharing Garza's supper, and privately accessing Garza's interview tapes and notes, but admiring and respecting the detective. Then later, when the case was closed, Max Harper had thought enough of Garza to ask him to join Molena Point PD. Garza had jumped at the chance to get out of San Francisco for the last five years of his service.

"She'll be taking her maiden name again," Garza said, "R. Flannery. She wants no part of Rupert, except to be paid for her half of the business. Said she doesn't want to see me or her sister for a few days, either, until she gets herself together. That's the way she is. Hardheaded independent."

"Don't know where she got that," Harper said, grinning.

"One thing," Garza said, shuffling the cards. "She drove one of the company trucks down, to haul her stuff. Said the brakes were really soft." He looked at Clyde. "Would you…?"

"First thing in the morning," Clyde said. "Tell her we open at eight."

"Likely she'll be waiting at the door." Garza paused, surveying his cards. "She did say something strange-she asked about Elliott Traynor. Said she'd heard the Traynors were in the village, asked if I'd met them. Said they'd spent a month in San Francisco last fall. Before Traynor got sick, I guess. They flew out from New York, apparently on business. She and Rupert met them through mutual friends."

At mention of the Traynors, Charlie looked quickly down at her cards. Laying her cards facedown, she bent her head to retie the ribbon that bound back her kinky hair, hiding her face, concealing some swift and uncomfortable reaction that made Joe Grey watch her with interest. Was there a look of guilt on her freckled face? But why would Charlie feel guilty about Vivi and Elliott Traynor?

As Clyde dealt a hand of five card draw, Joe's attention remained on Charlie. They played three more hands of stud before Clyde mentioned the break-in at Susan Brittain's. "Have you found the guy yet? Or found his body?"

"Nothing," Harper said. "One set of prints isn't on record."

"That's unusual."

"Very," Garza said. "Information on the other set hasn't come back yet."

Clyde sipped his beer, setting the can on a folded paper napkin. "How did Susan handle the break-in? Was she pretty shaken?"

"Not at all," Garza said. "In fact, very cool. She seems a straightforward woman. She thinks she might know the man. She saw only his back, but when she thought about it awhile, she was certain he looked familiar." He paused, waiting for Clyde to bet. Charlie raised Clyde, and Garza and Davis folded. Harper raised Charlie, winning the pot with three jacks, giving her a superior look that made her laugh.

"So who is he?" Clyde said.

"She thinks he might be an early morning dog walker she's run into, a newcomer to the village, a Lenny Wells. Young man who just moved down from San Francisco. About thirty, six feet, maybe a hundred and seventy, she thought. Light brown hair. She stopped for coffee with him a couple of times when they were walking the dogs, said she told him a little about the village to help him get settled."

Juana Davis dealt the next hand, upping the ante on seven card stud. Clyde showed a pair of aces, but when the hand was finished Davis raked in the pot on three eights. Their poker was never high-powered, with the keen attention and subtleties of a serious professional game, just a friendly excuse to get together. The conversation turned to the remodeling of the police station and how soon the contractor would be finished. "An equation," Harper said, "arrived at by squaring the original four months to completion time."

Joe thought about Susan's break-in, and about the grungy white box that Richard Casselrod had snatched from Cora Lee French. He saw again the shocked, angry look on Cora Lee's face when Casselrod swung the box and hit her, saw her dark eyes blazing with hurt surprise.

He wanted a look at that box, he wanted to know what made it so valuable.

Richard Casselrod's antique shop was in a tight building, not easy to get into, after hours, even for an expert at break-and-enter. But there was one high, attic window that Joe meant to check out.

He'd as soon not slip in during the day and hide until they closed up. There was something about Richard Casselrod that did not invite close proximity among closed doors and solid walls.

He came to attention when Charlie raised on a pair of sixes, though Juana had three jacks showing. Was Charlie bluffing? Did she have two sixes in the hole? Or was she merely preoccupied? Wake up, Charlie. Pay attention. What are you thinking about?

Charlie saw her mistake and watched Juana rake in the pot, her mind uncomfortably on Elliott Traynor. How strange that Garza's niece should know Traynor. And how interesting that the Traynors had so recently been in San Francisco. Maybe that explained the envelopes with San Francisco postmarks that she'd found in Traynor's wastebasket.

When you're cleaning for such interesting tenants, and when they're gone most mornings, it's hard not to snoop. At least it was hard for Charlie, when the snooping involved an author whose work she so greatly admired. The Traynors had been in the village for over two weeks. She cleaned their cottage each morning, did the shopping and the laundry, put the dinner and breakfast dishes in the dishwasher, and sometimes started lunch or something for dinner with Vivi's written instructions. She was at the cottage from eight until twelve, quite often alone because Traynor wrote at night, and they went to the theater some mornings, or out walking. When she did see him, he seemed dour and unresponsive.

Traynor was a wide-shouldered man in his late sixties. Close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, a nice tan despite his illness, strong-looking square hands that she could imagine handling a sail and jib or a hunting rifle. Friendly green eyes that seemed to analyze and weigh her far too closely The eyes of a writer, exhibiting a nature intriguing but too intimately curious for comfort. An unusually virile-looking man, considering that he was suffering from some serious sort of cancer-she hadn't asked what kind. Not that it was any of her business. The times when she did see him, he would look her over in that too interested, piercing way, then would turn remote and unsmiling.

Well, she was, after all, only the cleaning woman. And he had to be preoccupied-from his cancer treatments, and working on his new book, and overseeing the production of his play. His medical treatments alone could make him feel too ill to be civil. Very likely it was all he could do to handle his work and find time for the theater; surely there was nothing left over with which to be courteous to some housekeeper.

Except, much of the time, he wasn't civil even to his wife. That relationship, on both their parts, seemed cold and rigid-certainly not in keeping with what Gabrielle and Cora Lee had told Wilma, that at the theater, meeting with the producer and directors, Vivi clung to Elliott so attentively that he could hardly move.

The six envelopes that Charlie had pulled from the trash in Traynor's study-just to have a quick look, out of innocent curiosity, she told herself-had not been wadded up but simply dropped into the leather wastebasket all together. Lifting them out to put them in her trash bag, she had flipped through them, her face warming with embarrassment at the transgression.

All were from San Francisco, all but one from antique dealers, maybe answering some research questions about the furniture or artifacts of the period in which his novel was set. At first she thought there were no letters, just the envelopes, all handwritten and sent first class. But then she saw the one letter, tucked under the flap of the last envelope. It was also from the city. Both the letter and the envelope were typewritten, from Harlan Scott of the San Francisco Chronicle, a book reviewer whom Charlie usually read. Had Scott written about a review? Did authors have their work reviewed before they finished it? She read quickly.

Dear Elliott,

Good to hear from you and to know you're settled so quickly and back at work. The new book sounds fascinating. You're to be commended for being able to finish writing the novel and oversee production of the play-two very distinct projects- when you're feeling under the weather.

Yes, there are several collectors in the bay area. I'll put together a list, try to get it off to you at the end of the week. All my good thoughts are with you. I hope the casting and rehearsals go well. Hope the treatments are not too uncomfortable. Sounds to me like you're doing very well. Give me a call if you and Vivi want to come up for a talk with these people, or if you simply want to get away for a weekend.

Very best, Harlan.

When she heard the Traynors returning, she had dropped the envelopes and letter hastily into her trash bag. But it was the next day that she faced real temptation, when Traynor's manuscript pages began to appear on his desk, one new chapter each morning, printed out, lying beside the computer.

Alone in Traynor's paneled study with its leaded windows and pale stone fireplace, she had guiltily reached for the first pages, telling herself she wanted just a peek. Because she loved his work. Because she longed to see his work in progress, still forming, see how he accomplished his smooth and exciting prose. The guilt she should normally feel took a weak second place to the artistic hunger that rose in her, a keen fascination at the proximity of this fine writer.

Traynor's study looked the same each morning when she entered, the desk immaculate, no paper left out. The little footstool pushed just so, to the corner of the desk against the bookcase, its loose, tasseled pillow aligned perfectly on top. She thought perhaps he used the pillow to ease his back as he worked. The books he had brought with him from New York were few, and all on California history-a row perhaps two feet long standing neatly on the otherwise empty shelves, beside a stack of photocopied research material. The bookshelf stood at right angles to his desk, close enough to be reached from his chair. It was flanked by a window directly at the end of the desk that looked out on the drive and front garden.

Charlie's aunt Wilma, who was a research assistant at the Molena Point library, had mailed a thick package of machine copies to Traynor nearly a year ago, all research on local California history, much of it family journals collected over the years by priests at the nearby mission, and a history of the mission itself as well as the surrounding land, which had been divided by grants into huge cattle spreads. Because of Wilma's thoroughness in her assistance, Traynor had sent quite a nice, and welcome, donation to the library's book purchasing fund.

Alone in Traynor's study, eagerly picking up the pages, Charlie had thought, Why am I doing this, why am I so interested? I'm not a writer, I have no professional curiosity. Her animal drawings were quite demanding enough of her creative skills; there was plenty to learn studying bone structure and doing quick sketches of moving animals. She had no time to divert her attention to a second discipline, no matter how much the beauty of the written word made her want to try. And yet any work of art, in a state of becoming, was fascinating stuff, seeming to her vividly alive. She had begun to read eagerly, glancing out the window in case they might return.

She'd had no idea how Traynor's prose would affect her-no notion of the sudden, perplexed unease that would wash over her.

She had laid the pages down, had stood beside the desk staring out at the empty drive, confused and puzzled, not understanding why he had written this-how he could have written this.

This was not the lyric prose she had so admired from Elliott Traynor; his sentences were awkward and confused. The experience had shocked and saddened her. There was no other explanation than that his illness had affected his work. She had turned away filled almost with a personal loss. And ashamed, too, that she had pried-and she was touched as well with a cold little fear for herself, with a sharp sense of helplessness, that creative skills might so suddenly be diminished.