Cat Under Fire Read online

  He sat down on the steps, cold suddenly, hollow and used up. He saw Janet laughing at him, her blue eyes so alive, saw her standing on the wet black rocks of Otter Point, her pale hair whipping in the wind, saw the waves crashing up. Saw her at a little table at Mindy's, the candlelight sending shifting shadows across her golden hair, across her thin face and bare throat and shoulders in a low-cut summer dress.

  He saw her burned studio, saw the fire trucks and police cars crowding the upper street behind the house and the street below.

  Saw the tarp covering her body among the smoldering ashes.

  They had started dating shortly after she left Kendrick Mahl. She was twenty-seven, slim, blond, with a devilish smile that drew him. They had hiked, gone to movies, gone swimming, spent days at the aquarium, driven up to the city just to go to the zoo. They both liked the outdoors, and Janet loved animals. But there the mutual interests ended. Janet's life lay in the world of art, a world that meant little to him.

  He loved her paintings, but he had no interest in the art world, in the tangle of exhibits and awards and reviews, in the gallery gossip that occupied Janet. And she had no use for sports or for cars. She rated cars by how many paintings or how many tons of metal a vehicle could haul. Even though she was an artist, she had no interest in the skill that went into the design and manufacture of a fine Bughatti, an antique Rolls. He had taken her to one car show, and no more. She said she didn't have time to spend her day gawking at machine-made sex symbols. That was the only time they had fought. He didn't know why they had, over such a small thing.

  During the months they had gone out she was dating several men, but she was committed to none. After they stopped dating they had dinner now and then, in between several heady romances for each of them. Janet had spent life as eagerly as if joy came in endless supply.

  And maybe it did, if you knew how to look for it.

  Or maybe, if you spent joy so brazenly, you died early. The thought shamed him. But the sense of waste, the knowledge of a vibrant life gone so suddenly, by someone's deliberate hand, the knowledge that Janet was no longer a part of the world, had left him perplexed, strangely weakened.

  The morning of the fire he had waked at five-thirty, hearing sirens screaming. The room was filled with sweeps of red light and with the heavy rumbling of the village's four big fire trucks thundering up toward the hills. He had run for the kitchen to look out the back, had stood at the kitchen window watching the trucks' spiraling red lights sweeping up the hills, had seen the hills ablaze exactly where Janet's house stood, had seen the fire trucks converge, followed by an ambulance. He watched for a moment as the wind-fanned flames spread, licking at the dry hills, leaping toward the scattered houses, fingering roofs and walls. He heard the distant crack of a tree exploding, all this in an instant, and then he ran to the bedroom and pulled on pants and shoes and a sweatshirt.

  He had propped the back door open, fearing for the animals, not wanting them to be trapped if the fire spread this far. He didn't know where Joe was. He knew the tomcat hunted up in those hills. He had grabbed a shovel from the carport and was just getting in the car when he saw Joe on the roof of their own house, watching the fire. He had wanted to tell Joe to stay away from the hills. But his motherly admonitions would only enrage the tomcat, goad him to do just the opposite. He had turned away, headed away up into the burning hills toward Janet's.

  He had worked all morning in a line of volunteers, cutting breaks to keep the fire from spreading; trying not to think. When at nightfall he returned home, he was filled with despair, unable to stop seeing Janet covered by the police tarp.

  He got up from the steps and went back in the house. Maybe he'd go on to work. Snatching up his lab coat, he let the animals in, kneeling to stroke them, giving the old dogs a hug.

  But then in the car he didn't turn up Ocean toward the automotive shop; he drove on across the divided street, on through the village. This was Wilma's late day at the library, she didn't go in until one. Maybe she had the coffeepot on; maybe she was baking something. He was possessed by a sudden muzzy domestic craving, a yearning for company, for a warm, safe kitchen and the smells of something good cooking, yearning for the warm security he had known in his childhood.

  He stopped at the cleaners and the grocers, the drugstore, took his time with his errands, then headed up San Carlos between the little cafes and galleries, between houses and shops pleasantly mixed, along with inconspicuous motels, all shaded by eucalyptus trees and sprawling oaks. The morning air was cool, smelled of the sea. The sidewalks were busy with people walking to work, jogging, walking their dogs. A few tourists were out, their walk more hesitant as they browsed, their clothes tourist-bright. The locals lived in jeans and faded sweatshirts, or, if business required, in easy, muted sport clothes.

  He told himself he hadn't seen Wilma all week, that it would be nice to visit for a few minutes, but, watching for her stone house beneath its steeply peaked roof, he watched more intently the sidewalk in front, looking for a green van and a flash of red hair.

  Wilma's niece had arrived from San Francisco three weeks ago, another disenchanted art school graduate who had found that she couldn't make a living at her chosen profession. Charlie had given herself two years to try, he had to hand her that. When she'd finally had enough she launched herself, no holds barred, into a hardheaded new venture.

  Charleston Getz was an interesting mix, tall and lean like Wilma, but with big square hands, big joints despite her slim build. She wore no makeup-her redhead's delicate complexion and prominent bone structure didn't seem to require additional coloring. Her red hair, wild as a bird's nest, became her. He couldn't picture Charlie dressed up, had never seen her in anything but jeans.

  But she knew how to behave in a nice restaurant. And, more to the point, she knew how to work. The day she arrived in Molena Point she had filed for a business permit and had bought a used van with most of her savings. By the end of the week she'd had business cards printed, had put an ad in the paper, and hired two employees. CHARLIE's FIX-IT, CLEAN-IT was off to a running start, and now three weeks later she had completed two jobs and taken on two more. It was just a small start, but she'd thrown herself wholeheartedly into a viable venture. The village badly needed the kinds of services she was providing.

  It took, usually, about two years to get a business off the ground and established, turn it into a paying operation. But he thought Charlie would do fine. She liked the work, liked grubbing around spiffing up other people's houses and property, liked bringing beauty to something dull and faded.

  Turning down Wilma's street, his spirits lifted. The van was there, the old green Chevy sitting at the curb. He parked behind it, smiling at the sight of Charlie's Levi-clad legs sticking out from underneath beside six cans of motor oil, a funnel, and a wad of dirty rags. Looked like the van was already giving her trouble. He hoped she wasn't dating him because he was a good mechanic. He swung out of the car, studying her dirty tennis shoes and her bony, bare ankles.

  5

  Where Charlie's ancient van stood two feet from the curb, Charlie's thin, denim-clad legs protruded from beneath, her feet in the dirty tennis shoes pressed against the curb to brace her as she worked. The six unopened cans of motor oil that stood on the curb beside a pile of clean rags were of a local discount brand, and the oil was fifty weight in deference to the vehicle's worn and floppy rings, oil thick enough to give those ragged rings something they could carry. Anything thinner would run right on through without ever touching the pistons. Clyde stood on the curb studying Charlie's bare, greasy ankles. He could smell coffee from the kitchen, and when he turned, Wilma waved at him from the kitchen window, framed by a tangle of red bougainvillea, which climbed the stone cottage wall, fingering toward the steeply peaked roof.

  The cottage's angled dormers and bay windows gave it an intimate, cozy ambience. Because the house was tucked against a hill at the back, both the front and rear porches opened to the front garden, the porc
h leading to the kitchen set deep beneath the steep roof, the front porch sheltered by its own dormer. The house was surrounded not by lawn but by a lush English garden of varied textures and shades, deep green ajuga, pale gray dusty miller, orange gazanias. Wilma had taught him the names hoping he might be inspired to improve his own landscaping, but so far, it hadn't taken. He didn't like getting down on his hands and knees, didn't like grubbing in the dirt.

  A muffled four-letter word exploded from beneath the van, and Charlie's legs changed position as she eased herself partially out, one hand groping for the rags.

  He snatched up a rag and dropped it in her fingers. "Spill oil in your eye?" Kneeling beside the vehicle, he peered under.

  She lifted her head from the asphalt, the rag pressed to her face. Beside her stood a bucket into which dripped heavy, sludgy motor oil. "Why aren't you at work? Run out of customers? They find out you're ripping them off?"

  "I thought you had an appointment with Beverly Jeannot."

  "I have. Thirty minutes to get up there." She took the rag away, selected a relatively clean corner, and dabbed at her eye again. "I didn't have to do this now, but the oil was way down, and I didn't want to add-oh you know."

  "No, I don't know. All my cars run on thirty weight and are clean as a whistle. How's the Harder job going?"

  "I have my two people working up there." She tossed out the oily rag, narrowly missing his face. "Thought I'd wash this heap, but I won't have time."

  "What difference? Is clean rust better?"

  Under the van she watched the last drops of oil ooze down into the bucket. Replacing the plug into the oil pan, she slid out from under, pulling the bucket with her. Kneeling on the curb, she opened a can of oil, stuck the spout in, then rose and inserted the spout beneath the open hood into the engine's oil receptacle.

  "Better get a hustle on. Beverly Jeannot doesn't like the help to be late."

  "Plenty of time. She's formidable, isn't she? How do you know her? I thought she lived in Seattle-came down just to settle the estate."

  "I don't know her, I know of her. From what Janet told me."

  She removed the can, punched another, and set it to emptying into the van's hungry maw.

  "Like a suggestion?"

  She looked up, her wild red hair catching the light, bright as if it could shoot sparks.

  "Ride up to the shop with me, and take that old '61 Mercedes. It looks better than this thing, and it needs the exercise."

  "You're being patronizing."

  "Not at all. This is entirely in the interest of free enterprise-it will help your image. Beverly Jeannot's a prime snob. And I don't drive that car enough."

  "And what's the tariff? How much?"

  "You're so suspicious. It really needs driving. Scout's honor, no strings. Not even dinner-unless you do the asking." He watched her open the third can of oil, admiring her slim legs and her slim, denim-clad posterior. He liked Charlie, liked her bony face and her fierce green eyes, liked her unruly attitude. He was at one with her general distrust of the world; they were alike in that.

  But beneath her brazen, redheaded shell she was amazingly tender and gentle. He'd seen her with the cats, kind and understanding, seen her playing with a shy neighborhood pup who usually didn't trust strangers.

  Charlie had had a heavy crisis in her life when she realized she had wasted four years on a college degree that wouldn't help her make a living. He thought she was handling it all right. She would, when she met with Beverly Jeannot this morning up at Janet's burned studio, give Beverly a bid on the cleanup, the work to begin as soon as the police had released the premises. He thought that removing the burned debris, alone, would be a big job.

  As she turned, he brushed dry leaves off the back of her sweatshirt. "There's a lot to do up there, cleaning up the burn rubble."

  "I wouldn't bid on the job if I couldn't do it," she said irritably. Then she softened. "I'm going to have to hustle. All I have is Mavity Flowers, and James Stamps." She removed the last oil can and slammed the hood. "I wish I could get a better fix on Stamps. But he'll do until I can get someone I trust."

  "Mavity, of course, is a whiz."

  "Mavity has some years on her, but she's a hard worker. She'll do just fine on the cleaning, and maybe the painting. It's the other stuff, the repairs, that she can't handle. That's my work." She picked up the oil cans. "Beverly's in a big hurry, wants the work done pronto, soon as the house is released." She tossed the empty cans in a barrel inside the van. The Chevy's bleached and oxidizing green paint was cracked, dimpled with small rusty dents. The accordioned front fender was shedding paint, rust spreading underneath.

  She looked the vehicle over as if really seeing it for the first time, stood comparing it with Clyde's gleaming red 1938 Packard Twelve. "You serious about the Mercedes?"

  "Sure I'm serious."

  She grinned. "I'll just wash and change. Come on in, Wilma's in the kitchen."

  He followed her in, wondering why Beverly Jeannot was in such a hurry to have the fire debris cleaned up. Maybe she needed the money. He'd heard that she meant to rebuild the upstairs and put the house on the market. He thought she could make just as much profit by selling the building in its present condition, with just a good cleanup. Let the buyer design a new structure to suit himself. He went on into the kitchen and sat down at the table, where Wilma stood beating egg whites, whipping the mixture to a white froth.

  "Angel cake," she said.

  He waited for the automatic coffeemaker to stop dripping and poured himself a cup. From the kitchen he could see through the dining room into the living room, where Janet's landscape dominated the fireplace wall, a big, splashy oil of the village and treetops as seen from higher up the hills, lots of red rooftops and rich greens.

  Wilma had paid for the painting in part by designing and planting Janet's hillside garden-she'd had some huge decorative boulders hauled in, and planted daylilies, poppies, ice plant, perennials she said were drought-resistant. She had done the garden the same week Janet moved in.

  The house had suited Janet exactly. She had designed and had it built for the way she wanted to live. The big studio-garage space upstairs was connected to the upper, back street by a short drive. The studio was big enough for both a painting area and a welding shop, the east wall fitted with floor-to-ceiling storage racks for paintings and a few pieces of sculpture. And there was room to pull her van in, to load up work for exhibits. Wilma had admired Janet's planning and had loved the downstairs apartment. Both stories looked down over the village hills. The area Wilma had landscaped was below the house, between the apartment and the lower street.

  He watched Wilma select an angel cake pan and pour in the batter. "Why don't you buy Janet's place? You've always liked it. It would be just right for you and Dulcie. You could build a great rental upstairs, where the studio was."

  She looked at him, surprised. "I've thought about it." She set the cake in the oven. "But I'd feel too uncomfortable, living in the house where she died."

  She poured coffee for herself, and sat down. "And it's too far from the village, I like being close to work." Wilma's cottage was only a few blocks from the library, where, since her retirement, she had served as a reference assistant. "I like being near the shops and galleries, I like walking down a few blocks for breakfast or dinner when I take the notion, and I like being near the shore.

  "If I lived up there, it would be a mile climb home after work. Face it, the time will come when I couldn't even do that uphill mile."

  "That'll never happen." He rose and refilled his coffee cup. He didn't like to think about Wilma getting old, she was all the family he had. His mother had died of cancer eight years ago, his father was killed a year later in a wreck on the Santa Ana Freeway. He and Wilma were as close as brother and sister, always there for each other.

  "Even though I still work out, and walk a lot, that climb up to Janet's can be a real artery buster.

  "Besides, I enjoy my garden. Janet's
hillside doesn't suit me. That was a landscape challenge, a minimum-care project, not a garden to potter around in. No, this place fits me better." She grinned. "It took me too long to dig out all that lawn, put in the flower beds. Now I want to enjoy it-I can potter around when I feel like it, leave it alone when I choose. I about wore out my knees planting ground cover and laying the stone walks.

  "And Dulcie loves the garden. You know how she rolls among the flowers." She set a plate of warm chocolate cookies on the table. "I miss her, when she's not here for our midmorning snack. Lately, she's taken to eating a small piece of cake and a bowl of milk at midmorning-when she's home at that time of day.

  "But this morning, she was gone when I got up. I wish I didn't worry so about her."

  He restrained himself from eating half a dozen cookies at one gulp. "She came poking at Joe's cat door around nine. Looked like they were headed for Janet's."

  "I wish she'd just torment the neighborhood dogs the way she used to. Spend her time stealing, and enjoy life." She gave him that puzzled look he had seen too often lately.

  "But who can talk to cats? No matter how bizarre those two are, they're still feline. Still just as stubborn, still have the same maddening feline attitude."

  He belched delicately.

  She sampled a cookie. "Beverly Jeannot is meeting Charlie up at Janet's. If she finds those two in the apartment…"

  "They'll stay out of her way. Do them good to get booted out. Though I doubt they can get in-Harper boarded up the burned door with plywood."

  "You don't think Beverly would hurt them?"

  The idea surprised him and he thought about it. "I don't think she'd hurt an animal. And with Charlie there, she won't."

  "Well, if the cats want to… "

  They heard Charlie coming down the hall.

  Wilma rose uneasily, turned her back, and busied herself at the stove. She had to be more careful. It was hard enough dealing with her own feelings about Dulcie's new talents. But having a houseguest, even if Charlie was her niece, didn't help. She'd barely recovered from the shock of Dulcie's eloquence when Charlie arrived. With Charlie in the house, she was terrified she'd say something to Dulcie and that Dulcie, in her boundless enthusiasm, would shoot back a sharp observation, come right out with it.