How to Paint a Cat (Cats and Curios Mystery)

by Hale, Rebecca M.

  While concerned, Mabel had seen no reason to call Spider’s bluff. She’d merely filed the information away for possible future use—and vowed to keep a closer eye on the impressionable young man.

  But after the murder, she had spent a great deal of time wondering exactly what Spider had been up to.

  • • •

  TWO MONTHS AFTER the fact, Mabel was still deeply troubled by Spider’s death. It was more than just the loss of someone she knew—she had been the one to find the slain intern’s body.

  The morbid scene was forever burned in her memory.

  Mabel remembered telling her story to the police the night of the murder. Like the rest of City Hall’s workforce, she had stayed late in the building awaiting the outcome of the supervisors’ meeting. When at last the board completed a successful vote to select the interim mayor, she’d returned to the mayor’s office to send a few quick e-mails alerting friends of the results.

  Once at her desk, Mabel had found herself distracted by the list of items that needed to be taken care of before her pending move to Sacramento. After spending forty-five minutes reviewing Internet sites for prospective apartment listings, she’d finally closed down her computer and prepared to leave.

  She was feeling nostalgic, she’d explained to the police detective, so she had taken the long way out of the building, walking around the second-floor hallway overlooking the rotunda to the central marble staircase.

  That’s when she’d discovered Spider’s body at the top of the stairs.

  The knitting needles clacked with adrenaline as Mabel recalled the horrifying scene. It was such a mess, with blood spattered everywhere . . . so visceral . . . so gory . . . and so disturbingly untidy.

  Turning away from the shocking display, she’d immediately run back to the mayor’s office to call for help. The battery had run down on the cell phone she carried in her purse, and she’d feared the perpetrator might still be lurking nearby.

  “Maybe if I had stayed to help him . . .” she’d told the investigator as her voice trailed off into a single tear.

  The detective had nodded sympathetically. She’d reached out and patted Mabel’s hand, offering condolence.

  Then Mabel delivered the most important piece of information.

  Hurrying back along the second-floor walkway, she’d noticed a movement on the rotunda below. Looking over the railing, she’d seen two shadowed figures scurrying across the marble floor toward the exit.

  “Did you get a good look at either of them?” the investigator had asked urgently. “Can you describe them in any way?”

  Mabel closed her eyes, as if trying to focus. “It was dark,” she replied tearfully. “But they both struck me as familiar . . .”

  She proceeded to give the details of the two suspects.

  The first she identified as Sam Eckles, a husky red-haired janitor who had worked at City Hall until the frog infestation a few years back. He’d been fired for his involvement in the caper—or so she’d heard from reliable sources.

  Afterward, Sam had taken up a position as an amphibian consultant, securing jobs with a team of UC Davis wildlife biologists as well as the California Academy of Sciences.

  Sam seemed an unlikely candidate for the carnage Mabel had witnessed at the top of the staircase. Despite his penchant for mischief, she had never seen any indication that he was prone to violence. But perhaps, she mused to the investigator, he’d fallen into bad company.

  She had fewer reservations, however, about the second shadowed figure.

  The elderly round-shouldered gentleman had also done a tour as a City Hall janitor, several decades ago, before opening up an antique shop in Jackson Square.

  Mabel had never liked the man, even when he was masquerading as a lowly janitor. Oscar was always meddling in something, he and his group of friends. The Bohemians, the Vigilance Committee—they’d operated under a number of different names. They were a scheming bunch, constantly interfering, causing chaos, upending the regular order of business. The frog escapade, she felt certain, had originated with Oscar and his crew.

  Recent rumors had confirmed what Mabel had long suspected: that Oscar hadn’t died two years ago of a sudden heart attack inside the entrance to his store.

  But she knew she’d have a tough time convincing the detective that Oscar had faked his death, so instead of identifying him as the former owner of the Green Vase antique shop, she provided the name of his most recent alias, fried chicken restaurateur James Lick.

  “I wish I could be more helpful,” Mabel had concluded with a weak smile.

  “There, there, miss,” the detective had replied. “You’ve given us a great lead.” She flipped shut her notepad and handed Mabel her business card.

  “If you think of anything else, please give me a call.”

  • • •

  MABEL SET DOWN her knitting. Her hands had begun to sweat from the frantic pace of the needles, and she had started to lose her grip. She glanced at the scarf’s top rows. The last several stitches had been strung too tight. She would have to pull them out.

  It had been a frustrating couple of months, Mabel thought wearily. Oscar and Sam had gone into hiding the night of Spider’s murder, and so far, the police had been unable to locate them.

  How could she feel safe with two dangerous criminals on the loose? What if they found out she was the witness who had seen them fleeing City Hall? It had been a relief, in a way, to move out of San Francisco. She’d taken extra precautions when renting her Sacramento apartment, picking a building with state-of-the-art security, ensuring that her address and phone number were unlisted.

  Mabel wrung her hands for several minutes before reaching for her purse. She took out the business card given to her by the detective.

  Perhaps she should call and ask if the police had made any progress.

  Maybe it was time she gave them another clue to Oscar’s real identity.

  After checking that the Lieutenant Governor was still fast asleep, she picked up the phone and began to dial.

  The Green Vase

  Chapter 32

  CLEAN CATS

  OSCAR’S NIECE LOCKED the front door to the Green Vase as she watched the Previous Mayor depart down Jackson Street. He had left behind the photocopied picture of Coit Tower’s City Life mural—the image that included her uncle and his friend Harold standing in the mural hallway.

  Thoughtfully tapping the tulip-shaped doorknob, she stared out at the rain.

  She couldn’t imagine why Spider Jones had stored this picture in his hidden research files, but she could no longer ignore the link between the young man’s death and her uncle’s and Sam’s disappearances.

  Holding up the picture, she studied Oscar’s face, the paint brush he held in his hand, and the equipment on the floor at his feet. She could discern nothing unusual about the layout.

  Glancing up at the ceiling, she remembered the painted message she’d found on the kitchen floor. Then she returned her gaze to the photocopied picture.

  She had better learn everything she could about that mural.

  Turning away from the windows, the niece folded the paper and slid it into the cash register’s bottom drawer. She looked at the red footprints that tracked across the storeroom floor, quickly focusing her attention on Rupert and Isabella, both of whom were still covered in red paint.

  “First things first,” she said briskly. “You two are getting a bath.”

  Suddenly awaking from his nap on the seat of the leather recliner, Rupert’s head jerked up with alarm.

  In his vocabulary, the word bath was second only to diet in terms of its visceral offense.

  His eyes opened wide as his person crept slowly toward the recliner. His fluffy tail thumped against the seat cushion.

  Isabella called out a warning.

  “Mrao!”

  The niece made a lunge for the aquaphobic feline, but he eluded her grasp, leaping from the recliner, scrambling across the showroom floor, and sprin
ting up the stairs.

  • • •

  SEVERAL HOURS LATER, the niece settled into the living room couch. Two damp and almost-paint-free cats rested peacefully on either side. It had taken a great deal of shampoo and much vigorous scrubbing to remove the paint from their coats. A few tiny flecks still remained on the pink padding of their paws, but given the paint-spattered starting point, the woman deemed the bathing operation a success.

  Of course, the niece had incurred the regular round of gouges, scrapes, and scratches. She held out her hands, surveying the damage. She’d smeared antibiotic cream over all of her wounds; the worst of them had received a bandage covering. Considering the amount of cat-cleaning done during the baths, she mused, her injuries could have been far worse.

  Closing her eyes, the niece leaned back into the couch cushions. Every muscle ached from exhaustion.

  Once the bathing operation was concluded, she had started to work on the showroom and kitchen. After a couple of hours spent crawling around on her hands and knees, she had managed to wipe up the bulk of the spilled paint. A solvent had facilitated the paint removal, but even so, the process had required a great deal of elbow grease.

  “The house has never been cleaner.” She sighed wearily and then looked sideways at Rupert. “That’ll last about twenty-four hours.”

  Stretching his front legs across the couch, Rupert breathed out an agreeing snore.

  From the niece’s opposite side, Isabella tapped a front paw against her person’s knee, as if reminding her to get back to the business of the mural.

  “Mrao.”

  • • •

  UNDER ISABELLA’S CLOSE supervision, the niece pulled out the reference book she’d retrieved during the Previous Mayor’s visit. Flipping through the pages, she found an overview on the city’s Depression-era artists and began to read.

  Examples of New Deal art, like the murals in Coit Tower, were scattered across San Francisco. The initial public works program had been so successful, additional murals were commissioned in other public spaces, such as the Rincon Post Office and the Beach Chalet at Golden Gate Park.

  Many of the artists were inspired by renowned Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, who made several visits to San Francisco, often with his wife, Freida. Rivera himself created three murals for the Bay Area, including one located inside the Pacific Stock Exchange building.

  Rotund and charismatic, Rivera dominated the world art scene of the early 1900s, leading an artistic movement called “social realism” that strove to capture the often dismal lives of the working poor. His controversial paintings were infused with left-leaning political themes, an element that frequently caused friction with the benefactors who commissioned his works. Nelson Rockefeller famously destroyed a Rivera mural in New York’s Rockefeller Center when the artist refused to remove an image of Vladimir Lenin from its center.

  The Coit Tower muralists took up an active defense of their mentor. In retribution for the destruction of Rivera’s Rockefeller mural, a Communist sickle and hammer symbol appeared over one of the windows in the tower’s circular hallway. It was the only item in the finished project to face censorship and removal.

  As the niece reached the end of the article, she honed in on its concluding paragraph with interest.

  Given the public scrutiny the artists received for their government-funded works, the New Deal murals were riddled with symbols and secret meanings, some only discernible by a close study of the time frame represented in any particular piece—and some known only to the artists themselves.

  • • •

  CLOSING THE BOOK, the niece pondered the article as she recapped her day.

  A flood of images swept through her brain: Monty and his morbid sketch, Dilla winking as she nodded toward the City Life mural, the wet footprints appearing in Coit Tower’s hallway, the Previous Mayor and his photocopied photo, and, finally, the red painted message on her kitchen floor—accompanied by the same sneakered footprints.

  She rubbed her eyes, trying to make sense of it all.

  Was the mural another of her uncle’s treasure hunt quests? How did the murdered intern fit into the picture? Had Spider uncovered something about Oscar’s past? Is that what got him killed? Was her uncle a conspirator in the murder or had he disappeared to escape a similar fate?

  Most important, who had left the message painted on her kitchen floor?

  There was only one way to find out.

  She gently stroked Isabella’s head, and the cat pushed against her human’s hand, enjoying the massage.

  Thinking of the cryptic message, the niece said sleepily, “Tomorrow, we’re going to follow the murals.”

  City Hall

  Chapter 33

  THE SPARKLING GLOW

  SPIDER STOOD ON the balcony outside the mayor’s office, watching Monty sketch yet another portrait. He waited until he was sure the image in the center remained the same; then he slowly eased back through the window to the supply room and returned to the hallway by the elevators.

  He punched the call button and stared up at the meter above the doors, purposefully avoiding the view down the adjacent corridor that overlooked the rotunda and, at its center, the marble staircase.

  Nope, Spider thought to himself. I’m not ready. It’s too soon. Just being this close is giving me the heebies.

  But as the elevator dinged and the carriage opened, a movement caught Spider’s attention.

  Hoxton Finn strode briskly past, brooding as he thumped a file folder against his left thigh. After the interview with the interim mayor, the reporter had split up from the rest of the news crew. He had made his regular rounds, visiting with his various sources, chatting with whichever supervisors he could find in their offices that afternoon.

  Spider knew the reporter’s routine. He had tracked Hox through the building back in his intern days, and he recognized the route. Hox had finished his last checkin and was about to circle to the main staircase, descend to the first floor, and out the front doors.

  Spider hesitated for several seconds, summoning his courage, before finally straightening his shoulders and turning to face the rotunda.

  It was time to push the limits of his ghostly abilities. He had practiced enough with projecting images onto Monty’s brain. He was ready to attempt a more challenging communication.

  As Hox tromped down the second-floor hallway, the elevator’s doors swung shut minus the ghostly rider.

  • • •

  A POTENT MIX of fear and determination pumped through Spider’s phantom veins as he followed Hox down the corridor. The prospect of returning to the scene of the slaying terrified him.

  It was the first truly intense emotion he’d experienced since his run-in with the delivery truck. Unbeknownst to Spider, the energy from his inner turmoil created a faint mist, a cloudy apparition visible to the building’s other occupants.

  Intent on his mission, Spider failed to notice the startled gasps as he surged past a suited man carrying a briefcase and threaded through a crowd of photo-snapping tourists. It wasn’t until he neared the end of the corridor and spied his reflection in a decorative mirror that he realized what had happened.

  Spider paused, awestruck by the sight of his translucent figure, but there was no time to gawk.

  Hox had lumbered to the far end of the corridor. The reporter veered right, disappearing around the corner leading to the side entrance of the ceremonial rotunda.

  If Spider was going to implement his plan, he had to act now.

  Rushing forward, he sped toward the turn, his rubber-soled sneakers squeaking against the marble floor. The next stride would bring the ceremonial rotunda into view. His right foot planted for the pivot—but at the last second, he skidded to a stop.

  His figure quickly faded to its invisible form. He couldn’t bring himself to take the last step.

  Flattening himself against the wall, he closed his eyes, concentrating as he quickly counted to ten.

  Holding his hands over
his face, he slid his feet forward, feeling his way around the marbled corner. Still blocking his vision, he listened for the reporter. Had he waited too long?

  Then he heard Hox’s stilted gait approaching the top of the central staircase.

  This was it. This was his moment.

  Dropping his hands, Spider forced open his eyes. At the sight of the Harvey Milk bust, his figure once more appeared in a sparkling glow.

  His body electrified by emotion, Spider envisioned the scene from the night of his murder: the blood-spattered walls, the flat pools of blood on the floor, and there in the middle, his body, sprawled, lifeless.

  Chapter 34

  THE MISSING MEMORY

  HOXTON FINN ENTERED the ceremonial rotunda at full speed, intent on returning to the newspaper’s offices. Halfway across, however, he slowed and glanced around the space.

  Visions of the crime scene photos ran through his head as he stared at Harvey Milk’s bronze bust. The man’s cheerful face was frozen in a smile, his flapping tie thrown back against his chest.

  Hox turned to look out over the expansive rotunda and once more replayed the moments before the attack.

  The vision wasn’t difficult to re-create. The rain now pouring down outside had darkened the windows that framed the rotunda’s upper walls. The time was nearing five o’clock, so City Hall had begun to empty out. And just like the night of the murder, the air was damp with fog, moisture so dense that you could almost taste it on your tongue.

  Lastly, the reporter’s foot had begun its end-of-day throb, a reminder of the ache he’d endured the evening after he’d chased the albino alligator all over the city.

  Hox ground the aching stub of his foot against the tip of his shoe. He envisioned the young intern crossing the pink marble floor at the bottom of the staircase. The image was blurry, as if distorted by the fog.

  Hox squinted, straining to bring the memory into better focus.