Grace felt proud of Zeus and Tatania for not sinking their claws into the haute couture in Marco’s showroom and office.
“Lucia won The Golden Scissors award.” Nelly sneered.
“What’s that?”
“It’s something Marco and Jean Paul came up with for that little bitch. I’m the one who should be getting awards here. Do you know how many things I’ve pulled out of my ass?”
“I don’t think I want to know,” Grace said quietly so that only Jack could hear.
“I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to get that image out of my mind,” Jack whispered back.
“Can I get Tatania and Zeus some tuna?” Nelly asked.
They hadn’t told her the cats’ names. It could be that their reputations preceded them.
“A lot of space here.” Grace looked around at all the mannequins wearing smashing designs. They had a huge floor. Three stories. Some of the old fashioned beds with cast iron bed frames were from when Marco’s building was a dorm for Hotel del Coronado workers.
Grace heard a meow. She turned and saw Zeus and Tatania who were testing out one of the mattresses as a potential napping spot. She heard meowing again while she was still looking at them. Neither of their mouths were open.
“I heard it too.” Nelly stood next to her. “I hear a cat meowing at times. But there isn’t a cat here.”
“How old is that mattress?”
“Oh, it’s last century.”
Tatania’s ears went back. She stepped away. She was a magical cool cat who could make herself invisible by swivelling her ears three times. But she’d never seen a ghost. But then, she thought about it, and she wasn’t really surprised that Coronado had ghosts. It was so lovely in Coronado. No wonder ghosts wanted to stay around and haunt it.
A ghost cat, Fluffy, an exceptionally smart Siamese, lived in Marco’s office and showroom.
“I had my fourth life in Coronado.” Fluffy explained to Tatania.
“I haven’t really been able to move on to my fifth. My human was a fisherman who caught the best Ahi Tuna ever. One day, he didn’t come back. I haven’t been able to leave. I guess I just keep hoping I’ll see him again.”
“I understand.” Tatania assured him, rubbing her cheek against his. Every cat had a favorite human she just couldn’t quite get past.
Grace and Jack kept looking around for Lauren.
“Have you seen Lauren?” Grace asked.
“No, it’s been a good day so far,” Nelly said.
“Do you know where Lauren lives?”
Nelly shrugged. “She lives in one of the apartments over the Spreckels Building. I told Marco it wasn’t a good idea to hire her as a model. I thought she was stupid,” Nelly said.
“Did you hear her come in here with Marco today?”
“No.”
“We’ll be right back, Nelly.”
Chapter Six
“Nelly seems bitter about the models,” Grace said when they left Marco’s office.
“He’s surrounded by beautiful models. He’s a designer. You know what happens. He’s a man. He’s with beautiful models everyday—”
“—and what would happen if you were with beautiful models all day, Jack?”
“I’d happily go home to my beautiful and smart wife.”
Tatania meowed.
“Sometimes you see perfect models. But they don’t really have anything to offer. You have a lot to offer.” Jack rubbed her back.
Grace and Jack found the apartments on the second floor of the Spreckels Building a couple blocks away from the Hotel del Coronado on Orange Street.
Each apartment had its own staircase located at the back of the building. One had a plaque on it that read, Lauren D.
“Does that make you think of her bra size?” Jack asked.
“No, it does not.”
“Maybe it’s just me—”
“—No, it’s probably the rest of your gender too.”
The door was ajar. Jack pulled his gun out of the holster. And put his hand out for Grace and the cats to stay back. Tatania and Zeus went inside. Grace waited for Jack to confirm the apartment was empty.
They heard the sound of sirens. And knew the ambulance stopped right at the former dorm for Hotel del Coronado workers a couple blocks away.
“Where do you think she went?”
“She could be off the island by now,” Jack said, listening to the sound of the street car that went down the middle of Orange Street several times everyday.
“Lets go back to Marco’s office.” They ran down the stairs. One of the best things about Coronado was that everything was in close proximity.
Chapter Seven
They made it back before the ambulance pulled away. The siren was off. They knew that meant that Marco was already headed to the morgue.
Tatania rarely hissed but she got a little hissy outside the door. A low, almost deep sounding growl emanated from her. Grace hadn’t heard Tatania make a sound like that ever before and she looked around, half expecting a ventriloquist speaking through Tatania.
“Jack and Grace, your timing is impeccable. We’re going to need you on this case,” the local head of Pinkerton Detective Agency said.
Grace tried not to smile. Once, Pinkerton had refused to hire her because Pinkerton didn’t hire women. Now, they paid more for her and Jack as consultants than they would have paid each of them as detectives separately.
“We’re on it like bacon on lettuce and tomato.” Jack shook the Pinkerton detective’s hand.
Tatania and Zeus meowed from one of the cast iron framed beds.
“Are these the original beds from when the Hotel del Coronado workers slept here?”
“Yes, Marco thought the beds had charm. And he thought it was important to see how clothes would look with a woman lying down. He thought that women should have clothes that look great when they’re standing, sitting, or laying down.”
Grace willed Jack not to say, or on the floor.
“Had you ever seen the scissors that were in Marco before, Nelly?” Jack asked.
“They belong to Lucia. The one who won the stupid Golden Scissors Award. She’s a seamstress. She’s stupid.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know. Do you think she bumped off Marco?”
“We’re going to find out.”
“He was my whole life. I did everything for him. He couldn’t have run this place without me.”
“Who would want him bumped off?”
“I don’t trust any of them,” she said.
“Do you mean the models?”
“All of them.” Nelly rapped her curved fingernails on the table. Her fingers were brown from endless days of chain smoking tobacco.
“Does he like tuna?” Nelly gestured to Zeus.
“Of course. Especially freshly caught Ahi.” Grace smiled.
Nelly glared at the models who were coming in to find out what happened to Marco. She seemed to think every pretty woman in the world existed as some kind of affront to her.
A new model, about fifteen years old, poked her head in the doorway of Marco’s office.
“Is this where the House of Cats keeps its clothes? For the show?”
“What do you think?” Nelly snapped.
“What does it say on the doorway sign? Does it say House of Cats? Jean Paul would do anything to steal that costume design job from Marco. I don’t trust Jean Paul.”
“Who is Jean Paul?” The way Nelly spoke, with random subjects strung together, Grace tried to put her words into some type of cohesive meaning.
“I don’t trust Jean Paul. I just heard he’s going to replace Marco as costume designer to a movie studio. Jean Paul’s an ambitious immigrant. He might have bumped Marco off to get that job. And Lucia would have helped. I don’t trust either one of them,” Nelly said loudly. She kept chain smoking.
“Jean Paul is a loser. I can’t stand him. And I don’t know what he sees in Lauren.” Nelly fumbled wit
h a cigarette. Her beady eyes fixated on a lighter at the corner of her desk. She put the cigarette in her mouth and then flicked the lighter and stared into the flame.
Tatania put her paws on Grace’s legs to direct Grace to pick her up. As Grace picked up Tatania, Nelly threw the lighter on the ground.
“Stupid. They were all stupid.”
Grace knew if she had picked Tatania up a millisecond later, the lighter might have hit the beautiful cat. Sure Tatania had fast reflexes but it didn’t mean the magical cat was invulnerable.
“I just think Lucia is odd. Everything about her is odd, Nelly said. Nelly bit into a paper clip and then took it out of her mouth, breaking it in two with her hands. She didn’t seem to like anyone. If she couldn’t think of anything bad to say about anyone, she said nothing at all.
“Jean Paul’s wife wants a house that’s in Better Homes in America. He had to go to Hollywood to get it.” Nelly gestured towards the curtain where she kept food supplies.
“Does the white kitty want some tuna? I have tins of it back there.”
“Thank you, but she’s well taken care of, Nelly.” Grace put Tatania down on the floor. Tatania paused before a red dress on a mannequin, so you could fully appreciate the contrasting beauty of her white fur next to it.
Nelly felt increasingly frustrated. She’d hated Grace on sight. She felt jealous of how much Marco would like Grace before she remembered that he was dead now.
“You’re cute, Grace,” Nelly said.
“Thank you. Usually people tell us the cats are cute.”
“I feed cats all the time. And dogs too. I was getting things ready for Marco here. I thought we could both move to Hollywood and he could become the costume designer to the stars. He would be like a planet the stars revolved around.”
Grace didn’t think stars revolved around planets but it seemed kinder not to say that.
“I don’t know what I’ll do everyday without him.” With shaking fingers, she pulled out a cigarette and lit it with a Hotel del Coronado matchbook. She rapped her long fingernails on the desk and blew out the smoke she’d inhaled.
“I’m really careful with Marco’s accounts. I treat it like it’s my own money,” she said.
“Embezzlers always say that,” Jack whispered behind his hand so only Grace could hear.
“Stupid Lauren is probably up in Hollywood with stupid Jean Paul. She wants to be an actress. And he wants to work in costume design.”
“Nelly, we’ll stay in touch. Call us if you think of anything else.” Jack handed her a Wentworth & Brewster business card.
Chapter Eight
“A designer of impeccable taste. Gone. Dead. What will I be asked to endure next?” Annie Knickerbocker was outside on the Hotel del Coronado’s deck sipping champagne when they left Marco’s office. She put a new cigarette in her cigarette holder and waited for someone to light it. A waiter appeared silently from the shadows. Annie had the advantage and curse of being a beautiful woman. Someone was always watching her. Advantage when she wanted a cigarette lit – curse when she wanted to walk through life unnoticed. Fortunately, for Annie, she wanted to be noticed most of the time.
“It’s like when I find a favorite lipstick color. Suddenly they stop making it.”
“I’m sorry they ran out of your favorite designer,” Jack said.
“By the time I decide I like something, it’s usually going out of style,” Grace said.
“Liar. Look at her.”
Grace wore a rhinestone headband that matched her bracelets and necklace. Her black lace dress billowed in the wind and the multi-colored stones on it sparkled.
“If he’s a really good designer, should we rule out women as suspects?” Jack asked.
“No, never underestimate what some women will do to keep another woman from having something. It was a good show while it lasted,” Annie said.
Tatania flew over a table, about five inches above it, and spectacularly managed not to disrupt an item on it.
“Look at the kitty,” someone cooed.
“Sweet little stray.” A woman reached out with a dab of anchovy from her plate.
Tatania delicately licked the anchovy. Anchovies were sometimes too salty for her taste but she appreciated the gesture. It was important to give humans positive reinforcement. She purred for food. And let the woman pet her.
“Maybe I’m judging Nelly too quickly because she seems nervous. Who wouldn’t be nervous if their boss just died? And they have no other means of support?” Grace asked.
“Good point, Grace. I always said you have a couple of good points.” He stared at her breasts.
“Jack, you’re incorrigible.”
“And he died by scissors. But someone could have been trying to frame his seamstress. Someone who didn’t like her. Who would be her enemy? A model that didn’t like the fit? An ex-girlfriend of Marco? A girlfriend of Marco?”
“Which one?”
“Which one what?”
“Which girlfriend?”
“Who stabs someone to death with scissors?”
“A seamstress.”
“Or someone trying to set up a seamstress. I don’t like duplicitous Nelly. All the pseudo compliments. It’s like she’s trying to grease your skids.”
“It is suspicious. Amount of compliments is often conversely proportionate to sincerity. Unless it’s me complimenting you.” He pulled back one strand of her dark bobbed hair.
”Very pretty,” he said.
“Bees Knees. I always believe your compliments.” Grace smiled, petting Zeus. Tatania wound around Grace’s legs, marking Grace as one of her humans.
“Women and cats are alike.”
“Thank you.”
“Marco might have been saved if someone had called for help. They let him bleed out and die. I was just thinking. You may not want to hear it—“
“—If you’re thinking it, I want to hear it,” Jack said.
“That’s one of the worst things someone could ever do. Let somebody bleed to death who could be saved.”
Chapter Nine
Tatania decided it would be a good idea to follow Nelly home while Grace and Jack were occupied with human stuff. It wasn’t the safest area of town. Tatania swivelled her ears three times and became invisible. It was better not to be seen. She’d learned while she was still a kitten, that if she smelled alcohol around a group of men, she should get out of their way. They’d do nasty things like throw bottles at a kitten. Human males in groups act like jerks when they’re drinking.
She found Nelly wearing only a slip inside a seedy room, and smoking an unfiltered cigarette without a holder. Old coffee stains and spots of an indiscernible origin covered the slip. It looked like it might have been white once but had since taken an irrevocable turn towards a yellowing brown.
Nelly made a move towards a man sitting on the bed. He looked away in disgust. Tatania felt someone brushing against her. She turned. It was Zeus. It wasn’t safe for him here. He couldn’t become invisible like her. And Nelly hated cats. She showed him she was angry with her eyes flashing red. He backed up. Zeus was a sensitive tomcat. That was one of the reasons she liked him.
Tatania wanted to know what was in Nelly’s icebox. She tried to open it with her paw. The door was too heavy. She jumped on the counter so she had an unobstructed view of the icebox. She meowed loudly. Then, she knocked the bread box off the counter. The humans could always be counted on to come out and see what had made noise.
And just as Tatania expected, Nelly came lumbering out, looking around. She batted a rolling pin off the counter and on top of the icebox. Then, Nelly opened it. Tatania looked closely inside for clues.
Tatania meowed. Nelly fell over. Hearing meows without a visible cat always rattled humans. Tatania only did it to bad humans.
“A cat.” Nelly pointed at Zeus. She had a penchant for stating the obvious. Tatania nudged Zeus out of the way. Nelly threw a bottle at the cat. But Zeus was quicker than the slow plodding w
oman. Nelly was worse than drunk loud men. At least they liked beauty. Nelly hated beauty and cats. But maybe that’s redundant, Tatania thought.
Ttatania swivelled her ears three times and became visible to distract Nelly from Zeus.
“It’s the white cat,” Nelly said, pointing to Tatania, and revealing her penchant for stating the obvious again.
Tatania might bite Zeus later. Once she was sure he was home safely. Tatania and Zeus made every mystery like a game of charades where they gave the humans the clues. Cats know everything. They silently watch and assess and never forget.
They went back to Tent City and found Grace and Jack at Tent City’s General Store. Tatania knocked a can of tobacco off the shelf.
“I’m sorry. That’s not like her,” Grace said.
“I know. Tatania’s always a little angel,” the shopkeeper said.
“Tatania?” Jack bent down to talk to the magical white cat. She rolled around in the tobacco, sneezing. She usually didn’t want anything brown on her beautiful white fur.
“Let me pay you for the tobacco. I’m sorry,” Jack reached for this billfold.
“Absolutely not. Put your money back in your pocket, Mr. Brewster. Tatania is one of our favorites. And everyone has an accident or makes a mistake now and then.” The shopkeeper reached out and scratched Tatania behind the ears.
“Lets go downtown and see Cornelius. I have a feeling he may know something about Marco’s will.”
They got in Jack’s new green Studebaker. The car’s running boards were great for catnaps while it was parked. Zeus and Tatania always preferred the same side — and that was the one the other thought was better at the time. Grace had tried buying the cats identical toys for awhile but found they still favored one of the identical toys. Each worried the other might be getting a better deal.
Jack drove down Orange Street to the ferry that would take them to downtown San Diego and Cornelius’ office.
Magical Cool Cat Mysteries Boxed Set Volume 3 (Magical Cool Cats Mysteries) Page 12