The side of his cheek was very white, the blood on his neck and cheek dark and dry. His black hair was tossled and scattered with broken glass, as was the black stubble on his jaw and the black hair on his arm. His blood splattered the broken window and his shirt.
Rupert. It was Rupert.
Involuntarily she reached out a hand, but then drew back.
Not quite believing that this was her husband, not quite believing that anyone at all lay there, she moved around the windows to an angle where she could see his face, and stood looking down at him.
His skin was too white even for Rupert. He looked, in death, no more solemn than he had in life. His eyes were open and staring, his face grayish, like the melted paraffin that her mother had used long ago to seal jelly glasses.
The wound in his chest was dark around the edges, the hole in his forehead dark and ragged. Surely both were gunshot wounds.
When was he killed? She had heard no shots. Staring at the bone of his skull, her stomach turned. She badly wanted to heave.
The drying blood that had run down his face and stained his blue polo shirt was so dark it must surely be mixed with the black residue of gunpowder. His ear against the shattered glass was covered with tiny blue fragments. His dark hair was so mussed he looked almost boyish, though in life Rupert had never looked boyish. His broad gold watchband shone from his pale wrist pressing the white skin, nestled among thick black hairs. She thought of Rupert naked, the black hairs on his arms and chest and belly over the too-white flesh. She'd come to hate hairy men. She leaned to grab his feet to drag him out of there, get him away from the frail windows before his weight shattered them further but then, reaching, reality took hold and she backed away, chilled.
But the next moment she knelt. She felt compelled to touch him, though she knew he was dead. Reaching to his thigh, she jerked her hand away again at the feel of lifelessness, at the icy chill that shocked her even through the cloth of his chinos.
Kneeling over him, she didn't know the fog was blowing away until the newly risen sun shot its rays in through the small high window at the back of the garage, a bolt of morning light that lay a glow across her hands and, gleaming through the colored glass, threw a rainbow of colors across Rupert's shattered face. She rose, needing to be sick.
Getting her stomach under control, she stood staring down at the man she'd spent nine years alternately loving and hating until the hate outdistanced all else. And she realized that even in death Rupert had the upper hand.
That even in death, he had placed her in an impossibly compromising position.
She had no witness. He was dead in her garage. She would be the first, prime suspect. Maybe the only suspect.
Dallas could vouch for her until one o'clock this morning. No one could speak for her after Dallas left. She'd seen no one; no one had been in her house. What time had Rupert died? How could he have been killed here in the garage, not ten feet from her, and she had not heard shots?
And what was he doing in Molena Point? Why had he come down here from San Francisco? He had no friends here.
Had he come to confront her in person over the lawsuit where she was claiming her half of the business? She'd started proceedings five months ago. And who had been with him, to kill him? Even if the shooter had used a silencer, why hadn't she at least heard glass breaking when Rupert fell? That sound should have waked her, occurring just beneath the floor where her bed was placed.
She glanced at the unlocked side door, trying to remember if she had locked it last night. Moments ago it had been unlocked. And she realized that when she turned the knob she had very likely destroyed fingerprints or perhaps a palm print.
She had to call Dallas.
The thought of calling the station, of calling for the police, of calling for Detective Dallas Garza, both comforted and sickened her.
She needed Dallas; she needed someone.
Dad would be out of town for two more weeks. And Scotty-big strong guy that he was, she was afraid that Scotty would do nothing but worry.
She needed Dallas. Needed, even more than Dallas's comforting, the facts that he would put together. Fingerprints. Coroner's report. Ballistic information. Cold forensic facts that would help her understand what had happened.
She wondered what the neighbors had seen. Her nausea had fled, but she felt shaky and displaced. Nothing made sense. Staring at Rupert, she found herself swallowing back a sudden inexplicable urge to scream, a primitive gutteral response born not of pain for Rupert or of empathy, but an animal cry of fear and defiance.
What had someone done? What had someone done not only to Rupert but to her?
Glancing to the back of the garage, into the shadows around the water heater and furnace she realized only then that the killer might still be there, perhaps standing behind those appliances silently watching her.
Backing away, she stared into the dim corners where the light didn't reach, expecting to see a figure emerge, perhaps from behind the stacked plywood or from behind one of the old mantels she'd collected or the stack of newel posts. She had no weapon to defend herself, short of grabbing a hammer. She studied the low door beneath the inner stairs that opened to a storage closet. She breathed a sigh when she saw that the bolt was still driven home.
She longed for her gun, which was upstairs in her night table. How many times did one need a.38 revolver to fetch the Sunday paper? Frightened by the shadows at the back of the garage behind what Dallas called her junk pile, she turned swiftly to the pedestrian door and, using the rag in her hand to open it, she retreated to the open driveway.
If she'd had her truck keys she would have hopped in and taken off, made her escape in her robe and called the department from some neighbor's home. Her cell phone of course was in her purse, by the bed, near her gun. Her truck keys were on the kitchen table. She felt totally naked and defenseless. Scuffing barefoot over the dried mud the neighbor's dog had left across the concrete, she hurried up the outside stairs. She paused with her hand on the knob.
She'd left the front door unlocked behind her. Now, when she entered, would Rupert's killer be waiting?
But why would someone set her up as if she'd killed Rupert, then destroy the scenario by killing her as well? That didn't make any sense.
She could imagine any number of estranged and bitter husbands who would like to see Rupert dead, but why would they make her the patsy? What motive would any of them have-except to put themselves in the clear, of course? And why not? What better suspect than an estranged and bitter wife?
Moving inside, glancing through to the night table at the far end of the room, she slipped her truck keys into the pocket of her robe and eased open a cutlery drawer, soundlessly lifting out the vegetable cleaver. Then stepping to her desk, she dialed the department, using the 911 number.
The dispatcher told her that Dallas was out of the station. She told the dispatcher who she was and that there was a dead man in her garage.
"I'm going to search the apartment, if you'd like to stay on the line." Laying the phone down as the dispatcher yelled at her not to do that, to get out of the apartment-and warily clutching the cleaver-she moved to the night table to retrieve her gun.
Pulling the drawer open, she stopped, frozen.
Empty.
Notebook, pencils, tissues, and face cream. No gun.
Her face burned at her carelessness. The gun was in her glove compartment. She hadn't brought it up last night or the night before; it had been there since she left San Andreas. She hadn't touched it since she packed up the truck and headed out, day before yesterday.
The wedding, and all the picky details of coming home and lining up her crew to start Clyde's job tomorrow had totally occupied her. She told herself she wasn't careless with a gun, that Dallas had taught her better than that.
Yes, and Dallas had admonished her more than once for keeping the.38 in her glove compartment, which was against the law, and in her unlocked nightstand, which was stupid.
&
nbsp; Approaching the bath and closet, most of which she could see from their mirrors, holding the cleaver behind the fold of her robe, she moved against all common sense to clear the area. This wasn't smart. Even from the closet she heard the dispatcher shouting into the phone. And, louder, she heard a siren leave the station ten blocks away. Passing the door to the inner stairs, she saw that the bolt was securely home, blocking that entrance. As the siren came screaming up the hill she flung the closet door wider, to reveal the back corner.
8
The back of the closet was empty, only her clothes and shoes. A second siren started to scream from down the hills. She moved into the bath, clutching her cleaver, jerking the shower curtain aside. In her inept search of the premises she couldn't stop her heart pounding.
The shower was empty. There was nowhere else for anyone to hide. Slipping out of her robe, she hastily pulled on panties and jeans and a sweatshirt as a squad car careened into the drive cutting its siren, and two more units squealed brakes as if pulling to the curb. Grabbing her sandals she moved across the studio to the front windows. Leaning her forehead against the glass, waiting for Dallas to emerge, she watched three officers get out of their two units, and behind them two medics from the rescue vehicle.
Dallas wasn't with them. Officers Green and Bonner moved up the drive on the far side of her pickup. Green was a wizened, bearded veteran, Bonner a young, new officer as fresh-faced as a high school kid. Detective Juana Davis, dressed in jeans and a sweater, skirted the truck on the near side. All three had their hands on their holstered weapons. Shakily Ryan pulled on her sandals and went out on the balcony where they could see her. Looking down at Davis, catching her dark gaze, she couldn't read what the detective might be thinking.
"In the garage," Ryan said, her voice raspy, the way she'd sound if she had a sore throat. She watched the medics halt to wait until the officers had entered and cleared the garage. She couldn't quell her fear, it was a gut reaction beyond reasoning, she was the only possible suspect, she was in exactly the position the killer had planned. Deeply chilled, she looked to the officers for direction. "Do you want me down there?"
"No," Davis said. "Stay on the deck while we have a look."
"Could I go inside to get my coffee?"
Davis nodded. Ryan returned to the kitchen to refill her cup, then stood on the deck again setting the mug on the rail, trying to stop her hands from shaking, thinking guiltily about Rupert.
The year they were married, he had been so enthusiastic about her joining the construction firm, taking a full-time job in the business. It had all seemed so wonderful, an opportunity for her to use her design education though she didn't have a degree as an architect, an opportunity to learn some basic engineering from the firm's structural architect. From the beginning Rupert had handled the business end, the hiring and bookkeeping and sales, while she assisted the architect and did more and more designing. When the architect moved on to a practice of his own, she had been able to take over all the designing with the help of a consulting engineer. Their clients had loved her work. She had served as a carpenter's helper too, adding to the skills she'd mastered working with her uncle Scotty in the summers and weekends since she was a child.
She had gotten so good at the job that soon she was filling in for the three foremen. But then the trouble began. Rupert hadn't liked that she was on the job alone with a bunch of men, even though she had saved them money. She had never drawn a salary, either as head designer or as a foreman; everything went back into the firm. She'd never wanted to know how much might go for Rupert's personal pleasures. She guessed Scotty had tried to tell her, but she hadn't wanted to listen.
Now Scotty was working for her, her dear, gruff, philosophical Scotty who loved carpentry and cabinetwork, who had never wanted to move into the management end of the business. Who had joined her immediately in Molena Point, no questions asked, her first carpenter and foreman. Moving in with Dallas, into their family summer cottage, Scotty had been as happy as she to be away from Dannizer Construction.
When she left Rupert there was never any question where she'd go. She'd loved Molena Point since she was a child. The evening she left Rupert she'd hauled out of San Francisco, taking the oldest company pickup loaded with most of her worldly possessions packed nattily in an assortment of liquor boxes from the local market. It was an easy two-hour drive. Arriving in the village, she had picked up a deli sandwich and a couple of cold beers, checked into the only motel with a vacancy, and called Dallas. When she told him what she'd done he couldn't hide his happiness. She had told him she wanted to be by herself for a few days to lick her wounds, and he'd understood. She'd taken a long hot shower and tucked up in bed with her beer and sandwich trying to relax, trying to deal sensibly with her conflicting emotions, seesawing back and forth between victory in finally making the move, and fear of what lay ahead. Thinking one minute that she was crazy to go out on her own, that she couldn't make a success of her own company, and wondering the next instant why she hadn't done this sooner-knowing that if she sued him for half the company, Rupert would fight her, maybe so successfully that he would deplete her personal bank account and leave her destitute. Knowing that she had to find an attorney. And that the lawsuit would be incredibly stressful, but that half the business was rightfully hers and she meant to have her share, that she would need that money to get started.
Wondering if she could make a go of her own business, if she had it in her to do that, she'd sat in bed trying to calm her nerves, so stressed she hadn't even called her sister, though Hanni would have turned out the guest room, popped a bottle of champagne to toast her wise decision and her coming success.
Hanni had moved down to the village some months before Dallas made his own job change, and Ryan could have stayed with either of them; but Hanni was so positive and sure of herself and would tell her exactly what to do, would cross all the t's and dot the i's to make life easier for her. It would have been hard to explain to Hanni the illogical pangs that were mixed with her wild sense of euphoria at being free-almost free.
Alone in her motel room she'd gone to sleep hugging her pillow, congratulating herself that Rupert was out of her life, and scared silly of what lay ahead.
Now, standing at the rail watching Juana Davis come around the side of the garage and look up, she set her cup on the rail and went down to answer the detective's questions.
In the early dawn, Jolly's alley was softly lit by its decorative lights and by the gentle glow from the leaded windows and stained-glass doors of its little back-street shops. The charming, brick paved lane, lined with potted trees and tubs of flowers, was not only a favorite tourist walk, but was the chosen gathering place for the village cats-for all the nonspeaking felines who knew nothing of Joe and Dulcie and Kit's human speech nor, in most cases, would have been impressed. If the occasional cat looked at them with fear or with wonder, these moments were few and fleeting.
Entering at the eastern end of the block-long retreat, they found an old, orange-tabby matron beneath the jasmine vine, licking clean the big paper plate that George Jolly had set out. Joe knew the matron well, they had once been more than friendly but that was long before he met Dulcie. Probably the old girl didn't remember those hasty trysts, and certainly Joe didn't care to. He was a different tomcat now, totally faithful to his true love-though he still liked to look. No harm in a glance now and then.
The matron, finishing her breakfast, lay down on the bricks precisely where the first thin rays of morning sun would have gleamed, if the dawn sky had not been low with fog. Dulcie glanced at her absently, her mind on San Francisco and on Charlie and Max Harper awakening this morning in that beautiful city.
"Breakfast at the St. Francis," she said softly, "looking down on the city." Such a journey, to the city by the bay, had long been Dulcie's dream. But at Dulcie's words, the orange cat widened her eyes then turned her face away with disgust, tucking her nose under her tail. Such un-catlike behavior was both alarming and
patently beneath her notice. Squeezing her eyes shut she refused to move away from them, though the skin down her back rippled with wary annoyance. Down at the end of the lane a homeless man ambled by, then two young lean women jogged past, their long hair pulled through the backs of their caps.
"Breakfast in bed," Dulcie whispered, still dreaming, "then to wander that elegant city, to ride the ferries to Sausalito and to Oakland, to visit the museums and galleries."
Joe looked at her and sighed. Sometimes it was hard to understand the shape and depth of Dulcie's longings.
Though Joe was just as different from other cats as was Dulcie, he didn't suffer from her exotic hungers and impossible yearnings. He didn't steal his neighbor's cashmere sweaters and silk teddies, for one thing, and haul them home to roll on like some four-pawed Brigitte Bardot. He didn't imagine wandering through Saks, or Lord and Taylor. He had no desire to dine at the finest restaurants with views of San Francisco Bay. Joe Grey liked his life just as it was-as long as Dulcie was a part of it.
The two cats stirred suddenly. Their ears pricked. Their bodies went rigid as sirens screamed from the station four blocks away.
Swarming up the jasmine vine to the roof where the kit sat welcoming the dawn, they watched two whirling red lights racing north among the cottages where some hours earlier they thought they'd heard the two shots fired-and like any pair of human ambulance chasers, Joe and Dulcie took off across the roofs, intent on police business.
The kit trailed along halfheartedly, her mind on other matters.
Racing across the rooftops and crossing above two streets on spreading oak branches, Joe and Dulcie scrambled down a trellis and galloped along the damp morning sidewalks and through fog-wet gardens, eagerly following the sirens. A screaming rescue vehicle passed them. And somewhere in their mad race the kit vanished. Glancing around, Joe and Dulcie fled on; there was no keeping track of the kit. Up the next hill, the rescue vehicle and squad cars were parked in the drive and at the curb of Ryan Flannery's apartment. The cats paused, slipping ahead warily, rigid with their sudden apprehension.
Cat Seeing Double Page 8