by Sharon Pape
***
Raffles had come home from her post-dinner outing with what looked and smelled like honey stuck in the fur around her mouth, on her pudgy cheeks and on both her front legs, or what Jaye thought of as her front legs. Of course, they might have been considered more armlike, but without an expert to ask, it was destined to remain a moot point. The honey had probably also been on her hands, but since the fur there was much finer, she’d already managed to lick them clean. Jaye first noticed the sticky mess because the not-a-cat wouldn’t stop licking around her lips. No matter how hard she tried, her little tongue didn’t come close to reaching the honey on her cheeks. Jaye didn’t know if Raffles would let her help with the problem, but she had to give it a whirl. Otherwise the honey was going to wind up on the bed they shared as well as on her other furniture.
She wet a washcloth, added a drop of shampoo to it and approached Raffles with the most casual demeanor she could rustle up. The not-a-cat was lying on the hardwood floor near one of the love seats. She’d given up trying to clean her face for the moment and was concentrating on her right front leg. As Jaye closed in on her, she looked up sharply, no doubt still remembering the cotton swab incident. Jaye had her own disturbing memory of that event and how swiftly those not-a-cat teeth had amputated the swab. Another second and it might have been her finger.
“Believe me,” she said softly as she advanced, “this isn’t exactly a picnic for me either. In fact, given what we know about each other, I’m pretty sure I have more to worry about right now.” Raffles didn’t seem convinced by her gentle tone, but neither did she flee, which Jaye took to be a good sign. Once she was close enough, she eased herself down on the floor and held out the washcloth for Raffles to inspect, something she should have done with the swab. Hindsight provided a fine education. The not-a-cat sniffed at the cloth, wrinkled her nose and chuffed like a dog to show her disappointment that it didn’t hold anything more interesting or, better yet, edible.
“After you’re clean, you can have a treat,” Jaye told her. She had no idea how much Raffles understood, but given her aptitude for learning, it was likely she knew dozens of words by now. There was certainly no mistaking the way her pointed little ears stood up even straighter when she heard the word “treat.”
For her audience of one, Jaye provided a live-action demonstration to prepare her for what was coming. She ran the washcloth up and down her own forearm, smiling as lavishly as a model showing off a new car at an automotive show. See? Nothing to fear. Then she scooted a little closer and gently dabbed at the fur on the not-a-cat’s closer leg. Raffles kept careful watch of the enterprise, sniffing the area every few seconds. When both front legs were clean, Jaye moved the cloth slowly up to Raffles’s face. There was a tense moment when the animal’s ears flattened against her head and she hissed through her teeth in a very catlike way, but Jaye talked her down by backtracking and rubbing the cloth on her own cheek first. When she tried again, Raffles allowed her to proceed. Except for the not-a-cat pulling back from the pressure of the cloth twice, and Jaye flinching like a ninny at her sudden movements, things went far better than she’d anticipated. Raffles seemed to agree. When Jaye set the cloth on the floor to show her the minibath was over, the not-a-cat leaned toward her and licked her hand. At first Jaye assumed she’d gotten a bit of the honey on herself during the cleaning process and Raffles was simply enjoying this last taste. But when Jaye looked up there was no mistaking it—the not-a-cat was smiling at her. Her thin, dark lips were drawn back from her teeth and gums, giving her a strangely comical expression. It was so unexpected that Jaye got a full-blown case of the giggles and had a hard time trying to shut them down. She hoped Raffles wasn’t offended at being the source of her laughter. Dogs and cats didn’t seem to mind, but she was hardly an expert on the subject, since she’d never had either as a pet. In any case, until she had a more thorough understanding of her little boarder, she intended to stick with the motto “Better safe than bloody.”
***
“If your sister is going through a rough patch, I’d suggest amethyst,” Jaye said to the forty-something woman who’d introduced herself as Genna.
“She’s a mess, to put it bluntly,” Genna said with a sigh. “At this point, I’ll try anything.”
From what Jaye had learned about crystals, they worked better when a person was open-minded about their potential. If Genna’s sister had the same last-ditch mentality, all the amethyst in the shop wasn’t likely to do her any good. But Jaye didn’t know her sister, and she wasn’t comfortable inquiring about her belief system.
“Why do you think amethyst would be best?” Genna asked.
“It’s considered one of the power stones,” she said. “As far back as antiquity it’s been used for healing the body, mind and soul.”
“I mean how does it work?”
“Well, it’s supposed to provide the wearer with a connection to the universal vibration.”
Genna’s face was caught between a frown and a question, her brow trying to lower and arch at the same time. “The what?”
“I guess you could say that amethyst works like a tuning fork to help a person get back in sync with the universe.”
“Oh,” Genna said, perking up, “I get it. You mean it would kind of put her back in tune with life?”
“You could say that. But you need to understand that there’s no guarantee about how well it will work with any given individual. It does seem to help if a person is open-minded about its potential,” she added for good measure.
“So you know people who’ve actually been helped by amethyst?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Jaye said. “I’ve had customers come back to thank me for suggesting it.”
“Does it matter what type of jewelry it’s in?”
“For many of the crystals that isn’t an issue, but amethyst works best when worn around the neck.”
“Okay,” Genna said gamely, “then please point me to the necklaces.”
“Jaye.” She turned to her left at the unexpected sound of Daniel’s voice and saw him making his way through the throng of customers who’d descended on the shop. He’d never dropped in during business hours before, and he was clearly agitated about something. Searching his face as he came up to her, she couldn’t tell if it was good news or bad.
“Can I borrow you for a few minutes?” he asked with an unsettling urgency. Jaye turned back to her customer. “The amethyst necklaces are in the last display case on the right. I apologize, but I need to attend to this. If you have other questions, Bryn will be happy to help you. She’s the cute redhead helping the man at the register.”
Genna thanked her, and as soon as she headed off to look at the necklaces, Daniel grabbed Jaye by the hand and pulled her toward the stairs.
“Wait,” Jaye protested, digging in her heels. “I have a store full of customers, and as good as Bryn is, she’s only one person. Why can’t you tell me what this is about right here?”
“Trust me,” he said, as serious as she’d ever seen him, “you don’t want anyone in the shop to overhear me.”
Chapter 27
“I guess I never thought it was a real possibility,” Jaye said. She was sitting on the edge of one of the love seats wearing a dazed, deer-in-the-headlights expression. “I heard what you said and I read the lab results, but it’s still hard to believe.”
Daniel was sitting beside her holding the envelope that had brought them the extraordinary and troubling news. “Well, it’s not every day you find out that your new house pet is not like any known animal on Earth.”
Jaye looked across the room at the other love seat where Raffles had stretched out for her afternoon nap. “Where could she have come from?” she murmured. “How did she get here?” She turned to Daniel, anxiety rising in her voice. “Are you sure the guy who ran the tests won’t talk to anyone about it? I
mean, if he’s on the up-and-up, he’d definitely have to report this to the FBI, CIA, NSA or some other alphabet soup agency. And if he’s a sleaze, he could make a bundle selling the story to one of the tabloids.”
Daniel shook his head. “Like I told you, he has friends in low places who can’t afford to be associated with someone making headlines or consorting with the government. He’ll keep his mouth shut.”
“Okay. I guess it’s okay,” Jaye said, taking a deep breath and speaking slowly in an effort to slow down her heart rate. “Raffles might not be from here, but she’s certainly not a newcomer. Either she or one of her ancestors was around during your great-grandmother’s time.”
“It certainly seems that way.”
She glanced again at the lab report in her hand. “No known matches” was typed without boldface lettering, underscoring or exclamation points, as if it were an everyday finding. “When you got this, did you call the guy to see if he was absolutely sure about the results?”
“It’s the first thing I did, and he wasn’t any too happy to hear from me at his place of work. I apologized and swore it wouldn’t happen again. Then I asked him how confident he was about the report. He said, ‘One hundred percent,’ and hung up on me.”
“He never showed any interest in finding out more about the animal the sample was taken from? No curiosity at all?”
“None.”
“Don’t you find that a little peculiar?”
“I find it as disturbing as you do. But my sense of the guy is that money is his only interest. For now, I think we should be grateful for that. Otherwise, I suspect Miss Raffles over there wouldn’t be living the good life she’s so thoroughly embraced.”
Jaye was silent for a couple of minutes. “As tough as it is to accept this,” she said finally, “I think in some little corner of my head I actually expected it. How else can you explain all the weird stuff about her?”
“Are you worried about having her stay here now that you know?” Daniel asked, adding a sobering dose of reality to a discussion that more rightly belonged in the pages of a science fiction novel.
Jaye shook her head. “Nothing’s changed in my relationship with her.” Daniel had no idea about the cotton swab incident, and this didn’t seem like the best time to bring it up. Especially since the idea of losing the not-a-cat brought with it a surprisingly deep wave of sadness. “Do you think I should be concerned?”
“To be completely honest, I don’t know. You’re going to have to depend on your gut for this one. And if your instincts start sending up flares, don’t hesitate to ask for help.”
Jaye managed a weak smile. “That should make for one interesting 911 call.”
***
When Sierra heard the news, she grinned. “No way. You’re kidding, right?” She studied Jaye’s face for signs that it was all a joke.
Jaye shook her head. She’d driven over to her friend’s house after closing the shop for the night. It was the kind of news she felt she had to deliver in person. When she arrived, Sierra was in the middle of eating the fried chicken and mashed potatoes she’d picked up on her way home. Frosty was sitting as close to her chair as he could, watching each forkful make the journey from the plate to her mouth.
“Come on. Daniel put you up to this, didn’t he?” Sierra asked with somewhat less conviction.
“No.”
Sierra put down her fork. “If it’s true, show me the report.” Frosty issued a frustrated whimper now that she’d stopped eating. He looked at Jaye and barked sharply, as if to say, “We were doing fine here until you showed up.”
“I owe you one, pal,” Jaye told him. She pulled the lab report out of her bag and handed it to Sierra.
“Holy . . .,” she said, her voice trailing off as she read it. They spent the next hour going back and forth over the same questions that Jaye had already debated with Daniel. At first Frosty remained at his post, still hoping more chicken would be forthcoming, but he eventually gave up and ambled over to his bowl to eat kibble.
Sierra was still going hot and heavy with her questions and speculation when Jaye stood up. “I can’t do this anymore,” she said, her voice edgy with stress and fatigue. “At least not tonight. We keep going around in circles, getting nowhere. Raffles is the same animal she was this morning. We just know a little more about her now. And I’m beginning to wish we’d never had her tested. We can’t afford to be distracted like this while Peggy’s killer is still on the loose.”
Sierra stood and caught her up in a hug. “I’m sorry; you’re right. Go home and get some rest.” Jaye pulled her keys from the pocket of her Windbreaker and headed for the door. “No, wait!” Sierra called after her. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay here tonight?”
***
Jaye was at the little table in her kitchen drinking her morning coffee and staring at the photo of Adam Grayson. Although she’d fallen asleep easily enough, her eyes had popped open at four A.M. with every intention of staying that way. At five she gave up and crawled out of bed, leaving Raffles asleep in a muddle of sheets and blankets. When Jaye had told Sierra they needed to tighten their focus on the murder investigation, she’d realized it was time to heed her own advice. So after she’d set the coffee to brew, she’d pulled the picture out of the drawer in her nightstand where she’d been keeping it. Peggy had gone to a lot of trouble to stash the evidence in a safe place, and having found it, they owed it to her to spend more time and energy trying to decipher it.
Jaye ticked off what she already knew about Adam. He owned an art gallery that was netting him a good-sized profit, given the quality of his clothing, the silver BMW convertible that matched his hair and the size of his house, which she’d driven by one day purely as research. She’d never heard anyone speak poorly of him, and she herself could attest to the fact that he could be charming and witty, not to mention crazy cute in spite of the age difference between them. She gave herself a mental slap. Focus. She and her friends had already agreed that the picture showed him working at home. But what had Peggy been trying to capture when she’d snapped the image? It had to be something big, something that would ruin his reputation, maybe even send him off to prison. There could only be a finite number of activities that fit that description. She just had to figure out which one it was. Could he be using the gallery as a front for drug trafficking? Was he keeping double records to cheat on his taxes or . . . or . . .? That’s when it hit her. She studied the photo again. Yes, there was Adam surrounded by rolls of unframed art, so absorbed in what he was doing that he didn’t seem to realize that Peggy had crept into the doorway of the room. Jaye was willing to bet the farm, even though she never bet and didn’t own a farm, that Adam was hard at work forging signatures on unsigned prints, which he could then sell for a lot more money. The answer was suddenly so clear and simple that she couldn’t understand why no one in her merry band of amateur detectives had come up with it before now. She set down her coffee mug and reached for the phone. Her first call was to Sierra, the second to Daniel. She was going to have to wait a few hours to place a third call to the Phoenix Art Museum. She needed them to recommend an art expert.
Chapter 28
Spencer Arthur was punctual to the minute. Jaye had asked him to meet her at Crystal Clear at nine o’clock on Tuesday morning. She was running downstairs from her apartment as the doorbell rang. She consulted her watch and saw that it was precisely nine. For some reason, she’d fully expected him to be on time. Maybe it was his English accent. He’d sounded so cultured on the phone that she couldn’t imagine him being lackadaisical about any aspect of his life.
She turned off the alarm and unlocked the door. The man standing outside was average in nearly every way. The one striking aspect about him was the ring of snow-white hair that encircled his tonsure, then went on to encircle his face and upper lip in one unbroken line. With each and every
hair meticulously clipped to the same length, he reminded Jaye of a neatly pruned topiary.
When they’d talked on the phone, she’d pictured him in a business suit, so she was surprised to see him wearing a blue polo shirt and beige chinos. He could easily have passed for any tourist on vacation, which was most likely his intention. Had she given it any thought, she would have realized how counterproductive it would have been for him to visit the gallery advertising the fact that he had an art expert’s pedigree and that he was there on business.
“Mr. Spencer, so pleased to meet you,” she said, holding the door open for him.
“It’s actually Mr. Arthur,” he said pleasantly. “Good to meet you too.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “You must think I’m an idiot.”
“Hardly, my dear. You wouldn’t believe how many people make the same mistake. That’s what comes of having a backward name. The blame lies squarely on my parents’ shoulders, rest their souls, not on yours.” While he spoke, he glanced around the shop with an expression of polite curiosity. If he found the business of crystals wanting, he didn’t let it show.
“Can I offer you anything—coffee, tea, juice?”
“No, no, thank you,” he said patting his abdomen, which was still surprisingly flat for a man of his age. “I’m properly stuffed from too large a breakfast. It’s taken my digestion a good decade to accommodate to the American way of eating. Even so, I often can’t manage more than two meals a day.”
“I know what you mean,” Jaye said with a laugh. As formal as he’d sounded on the phone, he actually had a comfortable way about him. “Please, won’t you have a seat?” She indicated the alcove, where she’d set up two folding chairs the previous night for just that purpose. She’d considered inviting him upstairs, but Raffles made that option too unpredictable. When she’d realized that the two chairs would fit nicely in the alcove without having to rearrange the display racks, it had seemed like the best solution.