“Cats are curious. And they think everything is their business. They’re like women,” Jack said.
“Thank you.” Grace smiled at Tatania and Zeus. Tatania remembered Zeus running from the plane because the noise scared him and put her paws protectively over the dear boy’s ears. She was glad he’d returned. She loved her humans but life felt complete with another cat.
“Something beautiful will come from something terrible. We’ll plant an entire garden dedicated to Molly. And trees that will outlive all of us.” Jack turned to Tatania. The cat blinked in agreement with her favorite human.
The radio announced that the rain was clearing and Charles Lindbergh was expected to leave for Paris.
“May God carry him safely over the Atlantic,” Grace said.
“If anyone can make it to Paris, it’s Lucky Lindy,” Jack replied.
Grace smiled at Jack. Mentally, she took a snapshot of the moment, so she could retrieve it from her memory later. Zeus rolled over on her lap. A cat is never just a cat. And Zeus was her special little cat.
The sunlight came through the window and caught the sparkling beads on Grace’s dress. Tatania and Zeus stared at each other, communicating cat secrets meant only for themselves. Looking at Jack, Grace thought that for this moment, elusive happiness was hers, on the island where all her dreams of love began.
Cupcake Kitty
Mary Matthews
This one’s for Karen
No one got carried down Orange Street by a SEAL and rocked Coronado like you.
Chapter One
Magical white cat Tatania became impatient with her humans. She could smell a succulent sea bass on the other side of the door. To encourage her humans to open it, she emitted a deaf cat’s glass shattering meow. Zeus, her black and white feline companion, responded to her meow by putting his paws over his head and his rear end up in the air.
“How would you feel about spending a lot of time with me? Jack asked.
“I feel like I already have,” Grace said.
“It only gets better.” He held up her hand and admired the emerald and diamond ring he’d bought her at Jessop & Sons jewelers last month. He moved it from her forefinger to her ring finger.
“Marry me?”
“Of course.”
He opened the door to the Hotel del Coronado’s Crown Room. A band played the Charleston for enthusiastic dancers. In the center of the dance floor, there was an ice sculpture of two magnificent cats.
“What’s going on?”
“Our engagement party.”
“Why were you so sure I’d say yes?”
“I’m arrogant.”
Two women in beaded dresses with scalloped hemlines were talking next to them.
“I’m witty when I drink,” one said, sipping her champagne.
“You’re witty when I drink,” Grace’s friend, Annie Knickerbocker replied.
Annie turned to Jack and said, “Congratulations.”
Tatania and Zeus ran to the seafood buffet, meowed, and looked up at a server slicing sea bass.
“Aren’t you the cutest little things?” She beckoned for them to follow her to the kitchen so she could prepare their own plate.
A replica of Jack’s plane, the Tatania, flew overhead.
“Amazing,” Grace said, looking up at it. A banner flew behind it saying Congratulations, Grace and Jack.
It looked like the name, Tatania, which was usually on the side of the plane, was now hung on a banner over the plane too. The plane looked suspiciously like The Spirit of St Louis, Charles Lindbergh’s plane that had been flown around the Crown Room at a celebratory lunch after his historic Atlantic flight from New York to Paris. There was an American flag hung over the center so you couldn’t be certain if the plane replica had one or two seats. The tables were covered with rich white table cloths and set with Wedgewood china and gold plated silverware.
“Lets call Coco Chanel in Paris. Tell her she should make a male cologne counterpart to No. 5. Call it Simply Arrogant.” Annie put her hands on Jack’s shoulders.
“She’d get it for me,” Martin Knickerbocker said.
Annie hugged Grace. “You look swell,” she whispered.
“Thank you. And of course you do.” Grace noticed Annie’s usual ensemble of matching lipstick, cigarette holder, and headband.
The band singer began crooning “Lets Misbehave.” He stood in one of the booths above the diners in the Crown Room. Grace felt something moving around her legs. She looked down and found just what she expected, their magical cats, Zeus and Tatania, licking their chops.
Tatania, a white Persian, never shed fur. Jack saved her from drowning when she was a kitten. Her breeder tried to drown her because she thought Tatania’s deafness would mar her Persian pedigree bloodline. Zeus, formerly feral, befriended Tatania. She liked his white toes and little pink nose. It was good to meet a tomcat with brains.
The band singer announced: “We’re coming back to sing a special song for the future Mr. and Mrs. Jack Brewster in just a few minutes. It’s called, ‘I’m sitting on Top of the World. And if you don’t feel like you’re in heaven in Coronado, well, you’ll probably have complaints about heaven if you get there.”
Zeus and Tatania stared out one of the large windows in the Crown room. She saw a blonde woman in matching cloche hat, opera gloves and pumps leaping on the street car to the ferry.
A man followed her.
Chapter Two
“Jack, there may be an issue with beginning the next song.” The trombone player tapped him on the shoulder.
“Why?”
“Our band singer appears dead. I just popped in his dressing room and—”
“Show me,” Jack commanded.
“Should we say something to the guests?” Grace asked.
“Not yet, Dear. It wouldn’t look right.” Annie drew from the cigarette in her eight inch long ebony holder her husband Martin had brought back from an African hunting safari.
Jack led Grace to the band singer’s dressing room. He lay on his back, gold letter opener in his stomach, blood pooled around him.
Discount flyers for Arthur Murray dance classes were scattered in the room.
“Did he insult someone’s dancing?”
“Maybe they get kickbacks or something from the studio.” Jack knelt next to the body without touching it.
“He’s beyond help now.” Jack’s eyes looked sad. He’d seen enough dead bodies during the Great War.
“I’d like this handled discreetly. By Wentworth & Brewster. The Hotel del Coronado’s owner stood in the doorway.
“Grace and I are on top of the case already,” Jack said.
“Sorry it happened during your engagement party.”
Grace felt everyone knew about the engagement party except her.
“We will still need to call for help.” Grace picked up the phone, dialed the cops, and reported that the band singer at her engagement party had apparently been killed just before he was scheduled to sing ‘I’m Sitting on Top of the World.’
She heard something. Tatania, their magical white cat, strolled into the room. Zeus, her male tuxedo cat companion, lept onto the table and sniffed the singer’s makeup.
Grace heard a meow that didn’t sound like Tatania or Zeus. It smelled like Chanel No. 5 mixed with oranges. She recognized it from the samples Annie always brought back from her Parisian shopping trip.
“That’s not Tatania. And that’s not Zeus.” She heard the meow again.
Tatania and Zeus were crawling in a box. Nothing unusual about that. They saw each cat’s rear end poised above the box. Tatania’s long fluffy tail held aloft.
“It’s good luck if someone dies at your engagement party.”
“Really?”
“No.”
Tatania disappeared in the box. Zeus followed her, emerging with a white kitten in his mouth. The kitten looked about six weeks old.
Grace reached for the kitten.
Jack looked
in the box. Tequilla, a few ponchos, sombreros, and blankets. Someone had been spending time in TiJuana.
The box was lined with a brochure for a spa where you could get your legs zipped before hitting the bathing pools or beach. And an ad for Onyx Pointex touting sheer silk stockings for grace of ankle. And to appreciate the curve of trim ankles. Onyx Pointex’s advertising agency must have some kind of ankle fetish. One ad promised a successful marriage with Onyx Pointex silk stockings.
“Stop,” the Hotel del Coronado owner said when he saw the hotel physician reaching for the letter opener after checking the singer’s vitals.
“If there’s no chance of reviving him, why pull out the letter opener here? Do you know how hard it is to get blood stains out?”
“Jack, what should we tell our guests?”
“Oh Dear. “ Annie stood behind Grace, staring at Eddie the band singer’s body. The doctor shut Eddie’s eyes and covered him with a white tablecloth, leaving the impression of the letter opener standing straight up six inches at his midsection.
“Eddie had such a lovely voice too.” Annie shook her head. She put a hand on Grace’s shoulder. “Just go back out there and pretend everything is fine. It’ll be just like you’re already married.”
“He’s singing with the angel’s choir now,” Jack said.
“Dead bodies always alarm the guests. Lets take poor Eddie out the help’s stairs to the undertakers downtown.” The owner gestured to his help.
Julia, the mistress of Grace’s late uncle, stood in the doorway. She saw the body under the sheet with the six inch protrusion and clutched her stomach.
“The band singer died.”
“Is the fish okay?”
“Certainly.”
“I can sing for you. When I met your uncle, I sang in saloons.”
“Thanks, Julia. That would help save what’s left of the engagement party,”
“Your uncle would have been very happy. He wanted a better marriage for you than he had with your former Aunt Alice.”
“That’s a low bar.”
Julia was always full of surprises, starting with learning about Charlotte, her love child with Grace’s late Uncle. Grace had grown to adore her little cousin and it was easy enough to like Julia given her loathsome former Aunt Alice. Charlotte had learned to walk and within minutes after that learned to run, and that’s how she commenced each morning now.
Jack’s brother, David, the architect, who was helping with the art deco home Grace and Jack were building on Glorietta Bay was there too, and seemed to be appreciating Julia’s enthusiastic hip gyrations on stage.
Julie walked back out, picked up the microphone, and began singing, “Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Goodbye.”
“Jack, do we know any shy people?”
“There are no shy drunks.”
The dressing room tables were cluttered with makeup and liquor bottles.
“I need to go to my cottage and get my fingerprint kit for the letter opener before they take him away,” he whispered.
“Can you hold the fort?”
“I’m a descendant of American Revolutionary Patriots. Of course I can hold a fort.”
“I know you and Jack are going to be working on the case,” said one of the cops who arrived. “But the bloody sight of that letter opener coming out of him isn’t something a lady should see.”
Grace opened her mouth to argue that she was a lady partner of a detective agency but the image of blood, coupled with her stomach doing a couple nauseating flops came, and she replied, “You’re right.”
“When Jack comes back, we’ll probably return to our engagement party.”
“Hope there isn’t a dead body at the wedding.”
“No, if she kills me, it will be on the Honeymoon,” Jack said. He moved as quickly as a great cat.
He swiftly dusted for prints and then took Grace’s hand to lead her away.
Tatania lept down from the dressing room table and followed.
“Zeus,” Grace called.
When he didn’t respond, she opened Spratt’s cat treats she’d taken to carrying in a small jar in her purse. He came running out of the bathroom smelling like a mixture of gin and orange.
Grace looked at the tussled bed sheets on a cot in the room. It smelled like oranges too.
“He sleeps in here sometimes. We’d like this handled discretely.” the Crown Room manager, standing in the doorway, said.
The cops carried the body out discretely. Well, as discretely as you can carry out a body under a sheet with something sticking upright six inches at its midsection. They bypassed the Crown Room and the main entrances and exits and took the help’s stairs out.
Chapter Three
After Julia finished singing “Toot Toot Tootsie Goodbye,” with Jack’s brother looking on admiringly, Jack took the microphone.
“I’m sorry to announce the unexpected passing of the band singer.”
“I hope it wasn’t something he ate,” a drunken voice called out.
Jack ignored him and kept talking.
“Eddie was a fine man. And I’d like to keep him in our prayers. Lets take a moment of silence for him.”
Grace thought of all the dead bodies Jack had seen from the trenches of the Great War. He had courage. She had good intuition. She didn’t think anyone at their party had killed Eddie.
The American Flag and the California State Flag framed Jack on the stage.
When a minute had passed, he looked up at the green eyes that matched his own. She blinked like a cat and he blinked back.
“Thank you for coming. Grace and I will be seeing you soon. I’m going to let the band go now. Please feel free to stay and have dessert.” Jack motioned for the waiters to serve petit fours and coffee.
David patted his brother on the back. “They finished pouring the foundation for your home today. Time for imprints.”
They walked out the Crown Room, and down the steps of the Del’s front entrance, illuminated by moonlight. Coronado Tent City’s Merry Go Round lay before them with women in beaded dresses on the horses, their suitors standing next to them, smiling. One hiked up his lover’s dress to pull a flask of gin out of her garter.
Jazz emanated from Coronado Dance Pavillion and on the bay, they could see small boats and the Boathouse, and the magnificent yacht, the Julia, that Grace’s late uncle had given to Julia and their baby, Charlotte.
They walked across Orange Street, past John D Sprekels’ magnificent home of resolute stone, and to their own lot, that boasted fresh foundation. Grace knelt down and put her hand down on the still fresh concrete, Jack put his hand over hers. When they stood up, Tatania and Zeus walked around the imprint of their clasped hands, leaving a circle of paw prints.
“We’d better go back and talk to the trombone player,” Jack said.
“I’ll get Julia back to her yacht,” David said brightly.
They saw Olga the Palmist, who had raised her sign up a few more feet above the tent city cottages. The sign said, “Your hand is your destiny. Your future is in your palm.”
“Congratulations, Grace and Jack.” Olga smiled.
Grace couldn’t believe everyone had known about the engagement party but her. It seemed like everyone knew about important events in her life before her.
“Thank you, Doll. We’re on another case.”
“Don’t tell me there was a dead body at the engagement party. I just heard that and thought it was a rumor.”
“Okay. We won’t tell you.”
Moths flew around them.
“Papillon de nuit.” Grace waved one away with her hand. “Butterfly of the night. The moth. And that’s about all I remember from French class at Finishing School.”
“All I learned in France during the Great War was to ask for a drink.”
“Would you and Grace like to come to my cottage for one?”
“Bees Knees,” Grace said.
Jack put his arm around Grace. “Soon. We need to go back to the Del.”
Chapter Four
They found the trombone player still sitting in Eddie’s dressing room.
The trombone player shook his head. “Cupcake Kitty. He shouldn’t have messed around with her. All that petting,” he said.
“Is that the name of your cat?”
“No. The name of his girl. He was seeing Nico’s doll. They call her Cupcake Kitty. She loves cupcakes. And kittens.”
“The Nico? Pock Mark Face?”
“He hates to be called that. She came up here once with a few girlfriends. Eddie sang her a lullaby. Or two or three. He stayed in her private suite. Instead of the band rooms. Everyone knew she was with Eddie.”
“Would he send someone to bump her off over that?”
“Looks that way.”
“How long have you known Eddie?”
“A few months. I joined the band. He’s a popular singer. Girls are always watching him. Swooning when he sings.” He pulled a flask out of his inner suit jacket and drank deeply.
“I’m a patient of Jack Daniel’s.” He winked.
“I heard he’s a great doctor,” Jack said.
“You’ve never been treated by him?” He asked Grace.
“Oh please, Jack and I are the reason they call his son Joe College.”
Tatania and Zeus swiftly and surreptitiously sniffed the trombone player. When he looked down, they meowed in unison.
“Cute cats.”
Zeus rolled over on the floor. Tatania looked away. Sometimes he seemed almost dog like, leaving his belly up to be rubbed.
On cue, the trombone player leaned over to pet Zeus.
“I think I’ve seen these stray cats before. They were at the pier. A fisherman was sharing his catch of the day with them.”
Tatania acknowledged him by sticking her rear end up for him to pat.
“Who else did you notice around Eddie lately?”
“No one really. Except Cupcake Kitty. If he’s not playing at practice or performance, he’s usually sleeping.”
“Where?”
“The hotel gives us rooms. He had his own Tent City Cottage for awhile. But Cupcake Kitty didn’t like Tent City so he gave it up.”
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