Cat Fear No Evil (11 page)

Dillon looked at her and rose. “Can I ride Redwing?”

Charlie nodded. “Don't let the dogs out of the pasture. You want company? We're about through here.”

“Could I call my friend? Could my friend ride Bucky?”

Charlie stared at her. Bucky was Max's big, spirited buckskin. The sun rose and set with that gelding, no one else rode Bucky. “What friend is that?” she said carefully.

“From school. My friend from school.”

“A girlfriend?”

Dillon said nothing. The child's stare made Charlie very glad she didn't have a teenager to raise. “You know that no one rides Bucky. Even I don't ride Bucky, without a very special invitation.”

“I guess I'll go home then.” Dillon turned on her heel, heading for the door.

Ryan rose, moving quickly around the table. She put her arm around Dillon. “Christmas vacation isn't far off.”

“So?” Dillon turned a sour look on her. But she didn't move away.

“You have a job for the two weeks of vacation?”

Dillon shrugged. “Who needs a job? Who wants to work during vacation?”

“You want to work for me?”

“Why would I want to work for you? Doing what?”

“Carpenter's gofer. Fetching stuff. Sweeping up, cleaning up the trash. Maybe some nailing. Learn to lay out forms and mix cement. I can get a work-learning permit through the school. I'll pay you minimum, which is likely more than you're worth.”

Dillon stared at her. “Why would I want to do that kind of work?”

“Something wrong with it? It's the way I started, when I was younger than you. At about the same time I began to learn to shoot a gun and to train the hunting dogs—carpentry skills might come in handy, whatever you do with your life.” Ryan looked hard at Dillon. “What you do right now—while you're hurting—will shape the rest of your life. You want to spend it sneaking around shoplifting?”

Dillon pulled away. Ryan took her hand. “You are not your mom, Dillon. And she's not you.” Ryan's green eyes flashed. “You plan to mess up your life just to punish her? What do you get out of that? If you're a survivor, as I hear you are, you'll stop this shit. You'll not let the dregs of the world plan your life for you, you'll write your
own
ticket.”

She drew Dillon close and hugged her. “Charlie and
Max love you. Clyde and Wilma love you. I don't love you but I'd like to be your friend.” She tilted Dillon's chin up, looking hard at her. “You come to work for me, you'll have more fun with my carpenters than with your smarmy girlfriends—I bet
they
wouldn't have the guts to tackle construction work.”

Dillon said nothing. She stared back at Ryan, her jaw set, deeply scowling.

But something was changed. Charlie could see it; deep down, something was different.

Ryan said no more. Dillon moved away and out the door, swung on her bike, and took off up the lane. Charlie watched her pedal away alone. But maybe her shoulders were less hunched, her back not quite so stiff. Ryan glanced at her watch and rolled up the plans. “I'll leave one set. If you can go over them with Max tonight, if you're happy with everything, call me and I'll be at the building department first thing Monday morning.” She gave Charlie a twisted smile. “To start the permit process rolling.” They both knew that the county building department was hell to work with, that weeks of officiousness might be involved, enough unnecessary bureaucratic red tape to break the spirit of a marine sergeant.

Ryan shrugged. “I can only hope we get a good inspector, hope he doesn't find some trumped-up excuse to trash the whole plan.” She grinned at Charlie. “It'll be okay, I'll sweet-talk him, as disgusted as that makes me. I can hardly wait to get started, I'm as excited as a kid—as enthusiastic as a kid
should
be,” she said, glancing toward the lane. She slipped an elastic around the blueprints. Charlie unplugged the coffeepot, and they walked out to the pasture gate, discussing the
work schedule and where the building materials should be stacked. At the gate, the three dogs came bounding. The big silver weimaraner weighed eighty pounds and stood over two feet at the shoulder, but he was dwarfed by the Harpers' half-breed Great Danes. The three dogs charged the gate like wild mustangs, but Ryan and Charlie, with fast footwork and sharp commands, got them sorted out, got Rock through the gate without the pups following. Ryan loaded Rock into the passenger seat of her pickup. “You still planning on a ground-breaking party?”

“The minute we have the permit. Max needs some diversion.”

Ryan grinned, gave Charlie a thumbs-up, and took off up the lane. Charlie stood by the pasture gate petting the pups and scratching behind Redwing's ears, thinking about Dillon, about the building project, about the several commissions she'd promised, including the Doberman studies; and about the two recent deaths in the village. All the fragments that touched her life, both bright and ugly, seemed muddled together like the contents of a grab bag: You pay your money and you take your chance. Or, as Joe Grey would put it, whatever crawls out of the mouse hole, that's your catch of the day.

T
he only luggage the black tomcat required was a
canvas tote containing a dozen assorted cans of albacore and white chicken, and a box of fish-flavored kibble. A little something to snack on, between room service. His traveling companion, by contrast, had packed three suitcases, effectively filling the entire trunk of her pale blue Corvette.

Consuela hadn't been thrilled about him coming along on this little jaunt. He had prevailed, however, having more plans than he had mentioned to her—far more than cleaning out Kate Osborne's safe deposit box.

Traveling north from Molena Point, Consuela preferred Highway 101 to the coast route, despite the heavy traffic and the preponderance of large tractor-trailers. She was a fast driver with flash-quick reactions and a competitive take on life. Azrael studied her with interest.

She no longer looked like the bawdy young woman who had hung out with those younger girls; her trans
formation was, as always, remarkable. She looked her true age now, of twenty-some. Without the frizzed-out hair and theatrical makeup, her sleek, fine-boned beauty was startling; and the transformation hadn't taken long. She had scrubbed her face and now wore very little makeup, just a touch of pink lipstick. He had watched her dampen her dark hair, twist it tightly around her head, and cover it with the sassy blond wig that she had styled like Kate Osborne's hair. She was wearing a tailored beige suit, much as Kate might wear. She looked serious and businesslike, and in fact far more interesting than the painted child who had run with Dillon and her friends. She had wanted to make reservations at the St. Francis, on Union Square, but Azrael had quashed that notion. The Garden House on Stockton was just a block from Kate Osborne's apartment.

He slept during much of the two-hour drive, waking in San Jose, where Consuela stopped at a Burger King. She ordered orange juice and coffee for herself, and a double cheeseburger for him, hold the pickles. That would tide him over until they hit the city and had visited Kate's bank—though as it turned out, their errand didn't take long.

The branch that Kate frequented was old, with round marble pillars in front, its floors and walls done all in marble. Azrael, not trusting Consuela, rode into the bank in her carryall. No one questioned her when she presented the safe deposit box key, read off the number, and waited to sign in.

But when the clerk gave her the signature card, a hot rage hit Azrael, and Consuela went pale.

The card had been signed just an hour earlier by Kate herself.

“Forgot something,” Consuela told the clerk, smiling and shaking her head at her own pretended inefficiency. The bank clerk looked hard at her but accepted the signature card.

Playing dumb, Consuela followed the clerk into the vault. This was apparently not the same teller who had helped Kate an hour earlier; that clerk would have remembered her, or at least remembered what Kate was wearing. Azrael watched the other clerks warily, looking for some trap; his paws began to sweat. These tellers might, for all he knew, know Kate personally. It was a small branch, and Kate did work right in the building. He'd considered that before but had thought, what were the odds? You couldn't cover every contingency.

Moving into the vault, waiting for the teller to open up the little drawer, both Azrael and Consuela were strung with nerves. Before they were alone in the locked room he'd nearly smothered in the damn bag.

Opening the metal box, Consuela stared into the empty container. Not a scrap of paper, not a paperclip or a speck of dust.

“Nothing,” she said, having expected as much. “Nothing. What did you do! How did you tip her! This is your fault,” she hissed, her face close to his. “You stupid beast. You drag me all the way up here for
this
, for
nothing.
Either you tipped her or…What did you hear last night, that made you think…You'd better start explaining.”

“Keep your voice down! You're supposed to be alone in here! Kate
said
the jewels were here. Plain as day.”

She just looked at him.

He raised his paw, wanting to slash her. She might look like a refined lady now, but she was still little more than a streetwalker. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“If they
were
here, she's cleared them out. An hour ago, you stupid beast. Did she burn rubber getting here before us? And why? Who tipped her? Is there another name on the box? Did she call someone here in the city?”

“
You
were looking at the card. I was inside the damn bag.”

“They don't keep that information on the sign-in card. I looked.” She stared hard at him. “How the hell did she
know
! What did you do when you took that key, leave black cat hair all over her room? Paw prints on the dresser?”

He extended his claws until she backed away. She closed the box, and held the carryall open, looking at him until he hopped in.
Well, screw her,
he thought hunkering down in the dark bag. And they did not speak again until they hit the Garden House and Consuela turned into the parking lot.

The place was so typically San Francisco it made him retch, all this Victorian garbage to impress the tourists. And he was hungry again. A bad gig always made him hungry. He waited in the car while she signed the register, then rode in her carryall up the elevator. They did not learn until later that the hotel allowed pets, that he would have been welcome, that catering to domestic animals was their specialty. Though one might have known from the smell of the room. It stunk like poodle poop.

When the bellman departed, Azrael hassled Consuela until she phoned for takeout of cold boiled crab
legs and sushi. Before he got down to the work at hand he wanted sustenance. Even now, despite Consuela blowing it with the safe deposit box, this little trip held promise.

Their room was on the south side of the building, a location for which Consuela had paid an extra ten bucks a night, as the manager had at first said those rooms were all taken. From this vantage, Azrael would have a perfect view down the block to Kate Osborne's apartment. When the bellman left, Consuela dumped the carryall on the nearest chair, dropped his bag of food in the closet, picked up the phone, and ordered his takeout. Then, changing into jeans and a T-shirt, she turned on the TV and sprawled on the bed. She was still scowling. He got the feeling too often that the woman didn't like him.

Well, she was going along with his plan all right, the mercenary little bitch. Maybe she just didn't like cats. The times they'd worked together, he'd never bothered to ask. Now, after the bank fiasco, her mood was as dark as the murky worlds that filled his late-night longings.

Kate must have missed her key shortly after she returned to Wilma Getz's house this morning, after she'd looked at that apartment.

Why didn't she simply assume she'd misplaced it? What made her hustle on back to the city?

Right,
he thought.
That meddling gray tomcat.

Somehow those little cats had spied on him when he was in the Getz house or when he and Consuela were in the alley. When he finished with those three, they'd be dog meat.

Listening to the inanity of some late-afternoon sit-
com, he clawed open the window and slipped out onto the fake balcony, crowding against the metal rails in the four-inch-wide space, looking across the flat roofs to Kate's apartment building. Consuela had at least had the decency to slow the car as they passed, to make sure of the number. From Kate's description to her friend Wilma, the apartment at the north front was hers. At least, that seemed to be the only one with a view of both Coit Tower and Russian Hill. The windows in that apartment were open, the white curtains blowing in and out, stirred by a rain-scented breeze. Above him, thick gray clouds were gathering.

He waited a long time jammed against the rail before he glimpsed Kate moving around inside, hurrying as if preparing to go out. He waited until she turned away, then dropped to a lower portion of the roof, and leaped to the flat roof of the next building. Fleeing across the hard black tar among air conditioner units and heat vents, he reached the wall of Kate's building.

The window above him must open to the kitchen, he could smell bananas, and lemon-scented dish soap. Crouching out of sight, hidden by the blowing curtains, he was about to rear up and peer in when he dropped again fast and flattened himself against the roof.

Kate stood above him, looking out just where he would have appeared. He lay very still, his eyes slitted, a black shadow against the black tar.

K
ate stood at the kitchen window waiting for her
kettle to boil, looking out at the darkly striated cloud layer that was moving above the city rooftops, taking a moment to calm herself. She was still all nerves and anger. The hurried drive to reach the city before Consuela did, and rushing to her safe deposit box…The sense of invasion knowing that Consuela had her key had left her shaky with nerves and anger. And she felt watched again, too, as she had at Wilma's house.

But Consuela wouldn't have the nerve to follow her home. Surely the woman would think she'd be ready to call the police, or already had called them.

Through the trails of gray cloud the late-afternoon sun threw vivid glances of light onto the flat roofs, reflections so sharp they blurred Coit Tower and obscured her view of the Oakland hills. Selecting an English Breakfast tea bag, she poured the boiling water into her cup and, letting it steep, took the cup to the bedroom to sip while she unpacked her small bag.

An hour earlier, returning to San Francisco, she had
headed straight for the design studio. Parking in her marked slot, she didn't go upstairs to her office but hurried around the corner to the branch where she did her banking, praying she wasn't too late. Having borrowed Wilma's duplicate safe deposit box key, she had given it to the teller and signed in. She had shared her box with Wilma ever since she opened it, when she'd left Molena Point three years ago. Having no living relatives that she knew of, she had wanted someone to be able to take care of business if she were in an accident, if something unforeseen happened.

Following the overweight, pale-haired teller through the formidable iron gate of the vault, impatiently waiting for her to wield the pair of keys, she had pulled out the metal box, nearly collapsing with relief when she saw the thick brown envelope in which she kept her important papers and the small square cardboard carton that held the jewelry. Stripping the safe deposit drawer of its contents, dropping the box and papers in a leather carryall, she had debated about reporting that an imposter might try to open her box.

But there was nothing in it now for Consuela to steal. With the time and fuss such a report would take, she had decided not to do it. Surely the bank manager would be summoned, forms would have to be filled out, the police brought into the matter. The rest of the day would be shot when she had other things to do. Leaving the box empty, she had settled for the smug satisfaction that she had arrived before Consuela.

As she left the bank she had scanned the parking garage for Consuela's blue Corvette, or for anyone who might be watching her as she hurried up the three interior flights to the design studio and her own office.

The lights were on in several offices but she saw no one. Shutting her office door behind her, she slit the tape that sealed the little cardboard box to make sure the jewelry was still inside. Fingering the lovely, ornate pieces, she had longed to keep them out in the light where they could be admired, longed to wear and enjoy them. But at last she put them back and sealed them up again.

Opening the bottom drawer of her fireproof file, she tucked the little box at the back and locked the drawer. Not the safest place, but better than any SD box, if that woman was able to copy her signature. She really didn't understand what this was all about, when the jewelry was paste. The whole matter made her feel so invaded and helpless. Was nothing secure anymore? Leaving the office and hurrying home, she had wanted only to tuck up safe in her apartment and shut out the world.

Kate's apartment building was a stark, ancient structure with two units upstairs and three down, and a parking garage underneath, a tan stucco box so old that one wanted to sign a long-term lease hoping the landlord would be forced to honor it, would not give in to the sudden urge to level the building and go for a high-rise. Kate's apartment was reached by a concrete stairwell that held smells she did not like to think about. The apartments themselves, though, were in prime shape, freshly painted and with new carpet. The large windows opened without sticking, the kitchen appliances were new, with granite countertops gracing the pale pickled cabinets.

Opening up her hot, close apartment, she had sorted through four days' worth of mail and made a quick trip
to the corner Chinese market for milk, eggs, some vegetables, and frozen dinners. She planned to spend the rest of the week wrapping up two interior design jobs and doing the preliminary house call for a couple who were moving out from the East Coast. That job, which she had committed to some weeks ago, was the last new work she meant to take. The Ealders had bought a lovely town house facing Golden Gate Park, and she was looking forward to that small but interesting installation.

She had been approached by two other prospective clients but had turned both over to other designers. She could take on nothing new. She wanted, when she left the San Francisco firm in March, to have all her work completed. She expected she would move back to the village. She had been offered an enticing position as head designer, if she would move to the firm's new Seattle office; but that was so far from her friends.

In Molena Point, she had given Charlie a deposit on the duplex apartment and had made arrangements to start work for Hanni the first of March. That gave her four months to finish with all her clients. She didn't want to hand over any last-minute items to her successor.

During the next busy months she would have little time for personal concerns, little time to follow the confusing leads to her family; and maybe that was just as well. Anyway, the most pressing matter at the moment was to clear her desk and calendar before Lucinda and Pedric arrived—and hope that whoever had followed her was gone, and that Consuela had returned to Molena Point, out of her sight. She wondered if Lucinda and Pedric could shed some light on the jewelry,
on its age and background. The fact that Lucinda had bought similar pieces in that small shop up the coast invited all manner of speculation.

Russian River was just a tiny vacation village, but it had a colorful past filled with strange stories from the Gold Rush. So many immigrants had ended up there, panning for placer gold or working the mines, people from dozens of countries and divergent cultures. She wanted to go up there later in the year if she had time, dig around and see what she could learn.

She chose her clothes for work the next morning, then straightened the apartment, picking up papers she'd left scattered and doing a little dusting. The cool serenity of the cream and beige rooms welcomed and calmed her, the simple white linen couch and chair and loveseat, her books and framed prints. She had brought nothing with her from the Molena Point house when she left Jimmie, had wanted nothing from that old life that had gone so sour, not a stick of the furniture she had taken such care to select. She'd had an estate dealer sell it all, the Baughman pieces, the handmade rugs, everything that had at one time meant so much to her.

She
had
wondered if Jimmie would like her to ship the furnishings up to San Quentin, for his new residence. If a convict had free access to large-screen cable TV and the latest computers, if he could make and receive all the phone calls he pleased, and could, in the prison library, study for a law degree with which later to sue the prison authorities, if he could place bets on the horses and professional sports and buy lottery tickets, maybe he'd like to customize his cell, redesign his personal environment in keeping with his new mode of living.

Clyde would say she was bitter.

Clyde would be right.

Filling her briefcase with the needed papers and work schedules, and setting aside a stack of sample books, she moved about the apartment with an increasingly uneasy sense of being watched again, even in her own rooms. Oh, she didn't want that to start, that awful fear that had stopped her from taking the cable car or walking to work, that had made her cling to the comparative safety of her own locked vehicle whenever she left a building.

Finishing her housekeeping chores she fetched a favorite Loren Eiseley, a copy in which she had carefully marked the passages she loved most, and she curled up on the couch under a quilt.

But she couldn't concentrate for long; she kept looking up from the pages toward the kitchen where the north window was open to the breeze.

Of course there could be no one there, she was on the second floor.

Except, the roofs were flat out there and, she supposed, easy enough to access if one knew where the fire escape or maintenance stairs were located.

Rising, she closed and locked the window, then got back under her quilt holding the book unopened, listening.

And later when she checked the window before she went to bed, the lock was not engaged. The closed window slid right open, though she was sure she'd locked it. She locked it now, testing it to make sure—it was not a very substantial device, just one of those little slide clips that sometimes didn't catch, that she would
have to press hard with her fingers while she slammed the window, to make it take hold properly.

That night she did not sleep well. And every night for a week, arriving home after dark, she checked the kitchen window first thing. It was always locked. But then on Friday evening, she discovered that her extra set of house and car keys, which she kept in her jewelry box, was missing.

She looked in the locked file drawer in her home office where she sometimes hid the extra keys and extra cash. The cash was there, but not the keys. She looked in the pockets of her suitcase—where that black tomcat had been poking around, hooking out her safe deposit key.

The pockets were all empty.

Well, she'd misplaced her extra keys before, and later they'd turned up. Only this time the loss frightened her. She felt chilled again, and uncertain.

But what was Consuela going to do, let herself into the apartment and bludgeon her? How silly. Bone tired from the week's intense work and late hours, but more than satisfied with the Ranscioni house, she gave up the search. The keys were somewhere. No one had been inside the apartment. If they didn't turn up, she'd change the lock. Making herself a drink, she slipped out of her suit and heels and into a robe, thinking about the Ranscioni job.

The buffet installation and fireplace mantel and new interior doors were perfect. She was more than happy with the work the painters were doing. The furniture had been delivered on time, and today the draperies had been hung, right on schedule. Tomorrow she'd
place the accessories herself. She did so enjoy doing the last details on a house by herself, wandering the rooms alone for a leisurely look at the finished product, uninterrupted even by her clients; a little moment to herself, to enjoy and assess what she had created.

A young woman, Nancy Westervelt, had come in just this morning wanting her to take an interesting small job. Kate had regretfully turned her down. The woman—handsome, dark-haired, and quiet—had wanted Kate to incorporate her South American furniture and art into a contemporary setting. Nancy was mannerly and soft-spoken and, given that their tastes were so similar, would have been fun to work with.

She had thought a lot that week about the safe deposit box incident. She had paid close attention to her office file drawer, often checking to see that the cardboard box was there in the bottom drawer at the back, and that the tape hadn't been disturbed. She had gone back to her safe deposit box twice to see if Consuela had returned. After that once, just after she'd cleared the box herself, the girl had not been back. But the presence of that frowzy, thieving girl there in the city, presuming she was still there, bothered her more than she wanted to admit.

She had once glimpsed the man who had followed her before she left the city. He was watching as she left work. And that was a plus, although she had not found her spare house and car keys. And then on Saturday morning, leaving the Ranscioni house, coming up the stairs with her grocery bags she opened the door—and paused, feeling cold. That prickly sensation as if her hair wanted to stand up. Had she heard a small, scrap
ing sound? Had she felt some unnatural movement of air against her face?

She stood for a long moment trying to identify what was disturbing her, what held her so rigid and still. She sniffed for some strange scent, a hint of cologne perhaps. She listened for the faintest brushing, the tiniest shifting of weight on the wooden floors.

Silence.

But someone was there, she could feel the difference on her crawling skin. The way she had felt in Wilma's house that morning when she had paused in the dining room, certain that someone was present.

Setting down her groceries on the hall table, she snatched the vial of pepper spray from her purse and walked slowly through the apartment opening each door, pushing back the two shower curtains, checking the window locks and looking in the closets. She even opened the wall bed in her office.

There was no one; the rooms were empty, the windows locked as she had left them. Quickly she put away her groceries, all the while listening.

Returning to her study where she'd left the wall bed down, she opened a package of new white sheets and made it up, although Lucinda and Pedric wouldn't arrive until Sunday evening. Covering the taut sheets with a thick, flowered quilt, she cleared off her oversize wicker desk, stashing papers and samples in her bedroom. She always brought work home, room layouts, catalogs and price lists, and the heavy books of fabric and carpet samples.

In the living room she cleared away the week's newspapers that she'd hardly had time to look at, then
tossed the pillows from the window seat into the dryer for a good freshening. A few short, dark hairs clung to one of the pillows.

A friend had brought her poodle over a few weeks ago, a small black toy that had snuggled on the window seat. She hadn't thought that poodles could shed, but maybe she was wrong. She removed the hairs with a damp sponge and tossed the pillow in with the others.