Shower Of Stars

by Nancy Herkness

  “With all the traveling you do, I figure you need every bite of healthy home-cooked food you can get.” Isabelle walked straight into the kitchen and began laying out soup bowls, spoons and mugs on the trestle table by the bay window. “I brought some herbal tea too,” she said, producing teabags from under a shawl.

  “Did your hearing in Trenton go well?” Charlie asked as she filled a kettle with water and set it on the stove.

  Isabelle tsked. “That Frank Santino doesn't care if it's a green belt or a parking lot as long as it means money for his district.”

  “I guess green belts don't generate much cash.”

  “Oh, you'd be surprised. Tax breaks are almost as good as money in the bank. It's amazing what you can finagle if you put your mind to it.” Isabelle swooped into the chair opposite Charlie's and ladled soup into their bowls. “How did your interview with the mysterious meteorite hunter go?”

  “It didn't.” Charlie swallowed a spoonful of warm soup. “I hauled him out in the rain to rescue a dog that got hit by a taxi. By the time we finished, it was too late to interview him. And he wasn't in a very receptive mood anyway.”

  Isabelle laughed, a sound that always reminded Charlie of a wind chime in a breeze. “You look like a warrior queen, but you have the heart of a marshmallow.”

  “You should talk, you professional tree-hugger.”

  “So true.” Another silvery laugh rippled through the kitchen. “We're two of a kind, you and I. You were obviously destined to live in the Inner Circle.”

  The five houses that made up Charlie's neighborhood were on a tiny cul-de-sac officially known as Winter Circle. The street was named in the twenties when these were among the few houses in the beachfront community of Bellefont whose owners stayed through the winter. The current residents called their street the Inner Circle, referring to the tightly knit group of people who lived there.

  “I guess I owe Greg a debt of gratitude for that,” Charlie said.

  “How is your ex-husband?”

  “I haven't heard from him since I had to get a copy of the divorce papers for the adoption.” Charlie shrugged. “He was fine then. His wife's pregnant with their second child.”

  Isabelle reached across and touched Charlie's hand gently. “Don't let that hurt you still. I know you wish it were you pregnant with Greg's child. Just remember, when a woman conceives, Mother Nature handles all the complicated parts until the delivery. You've been given a special gift: the strength and desire to take over for Mother Nature just when the going gets tough. There's a little girl over in China who is very lucky you aren't able to have your own biological children.”

  “If you don't stop now, I'll ruin the flavor of your soup by crying in it.” Charlie swallowed hard and turned her hand under Isabelle's to give it a gentle squeeze. “But thank you.”

  ***

  At 9:59 a.m. the next day, Charlie pushed the shiny brass doorbell at 35 West 68th Street and braced herself. When she had called the emergency animal hospital at seven o'clock sharp, the receptionist informed her that Mr. Lanett was already on his way to pick up Major, at their request. The dog was too big to fit in their pens comfortably, and they had too much activity to leave him loose as they had done overnight.

  Mr. Lanett was not going to be happy with her.

  She used her blazer sleeve to rub off the fingerprint she had left on the bell. Jack's voice made her jump. “Come on up. Fifth floor.”

  The inner door swung open before she could touch it. “Weird,” Charlie muttered as she walked across to the brass elevator doors. They too opened before she could find a button to push.

  “Weirder.”

  She strode into the lavishly paneled car. The doors were the same polished brass as the doorbells, and Charlie could not resist checking her appearance. The camel-colored pants suit and pale blue, man-tailored blouse reeked of professionalism and competence. However, the effect was completely spoiled by the torrent of hair that fell over her shoulders and down her back to her waist. She twisted it up into a bun and then let it fall again. Blast the veterinarian! She might have risked a bun if Jack hadn't been inconvenienced a second time.

  The elevator doors slid soundlessly apart. Charlie stepped out onto an exquisite Oriental runner and headed for the only door visible in the foyer. “Open, sesame,” she said before pushing the intercom buzzer.

  The door swung open.

  “Did you say something, Ms. Berglund?” Jack Lanett asked, flashing her a quizzical smile. He was dressed in what was evidently his daily uniform: slacks and a polo shirt. Today the pants were a dark heathered blue and the shirt was a cream that made his deep tan especially noticeable.

  “Just checking the password.” She smiled and moved past him into the most spectacular space she had ever seen in a Manhattan apartment. His living room took up at least half the floor of the building. The woodwork was extensive: shoulder-high wainscoting, deep crown moldings, and a heavily carved mantel above a marble fireplace. In Charlie's eyes, the beauty was ruined by the starkly modern furniture, all chrome angles and square black leather cushions. She made a quick mental note to create an opportunity to examine the contents of the display stands positioned around the room.

  Then she gasped.

  A man the size of a mountain rose from a chair by the fireplace. He had olive skin, a mustache and a long, dark ponytail.

  “Charlie, this is my friend and business associate, Miguel Antonio de Gonzaga y Silva MacPherson. Miguel, my interviewer Charlie Berglund.” Jack made the introductions with the fluency of a courtier.

  “My pleasure,” Miguel said, raising Charlie's hand to within a centimeter of his lips.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. MacPherson,” she said. If it hadn't been for the noticeable twinkle in his eye, she would have been very uncomfortable with his absurd gallantry.

  He lowered her hand and held it between both of his. “Call me Miguel, please.”

  “And here's Major,” Jack said with a sweep of his hand toward a door which opened off the living room. Charlie heard the click of toenails on the inlaid wood floor. A large fluffy white dog with a bandage around his ribs walked gingerly into the room.

  “That's Major?”

  “Someone at the vet gave him a bath, probably to preserve their sense of smell,” Jack said.

  The dog was clearly heading for Charlie but the discomfort of his cracked ribs slowed him down. She met him halfway, kneeling down to ruffle the fur around his ears as he licked her enthusiastically. “What a sweetheart you are! Such a handsome fellow! Yes, it's great to see you too,” she laughed as the dog nearly knocked her over with his affection.

  “That's what women usually say to me.” Miguel sighed.

  “He obviously knows to whom he owes his life,” Jack commented. “I barely get a tail wag.”

  “That's because he senses you're thinking about ways to roast him,” Charlie said. She stood up, picking white dog hairs off her jacket and slacks. When she realized she was dropping the fur on another magnificent Oriental rug, she stopped guiltily.

  “Don't worry. I rented the apartment fully furnished, and there's a cleaning service,” Jack said, removing a clump of fuzz from her sleeve and letting it fall.

  She could feel the brush of his fingers even through two layers of fabric, and quickly moved away from him, almost tripping over Major. “I'm truly sorry you had to pick him up. I wish you had told the vet to call me. Did you pay his medical bill too?”

  “You're apologizing to the wrong person. Miguel gets credit for all of the above.”

  That made Charlie feel slightly better. She turned to the other man with her warmest smile. “Thank you so much! Please tell me what I owe you for the drive and the bill.”

  “Not a penny,” Miguel said with a flourish of his hand. “Unlike my friend here, I am a great admirer of dogs, and this is an especially impressive specimen. You saved his life. I did nothing but bring him to you.”

  “For which I'm very grateful, but I insist
on paying the bill.”

  “I can't remember how much it was, and I've thrown away my copy.”

  “Miguel has a very poor head for numbers,” Jack remarked.

  Charlie made a silent resolution to call the animal hospital and send Miguel a check for whatever amount he had spent. However, all she said was, “You're very kind.”

  “Beautiful women have a beneficial effect on my personality. And now I will leave you and my friend to discuss meteorites. I look forward to meeting you again soon,” Miguel said, bowing over her hand.

  Jack went to the door with him. Miguel said something to him in low, rapid Spanish, and Jack snapped out an answer in the same language. Neither Charlie's hearing nor her Spanish were good enough for her to understand the exchange.

  She was petting the dog when Jack walked back over and lifted a handful of her hair. Letting it slide slowly through his fingers, he said, “You kept your side of the bargain. I guess I have to keep mine.”

  Three

  The sifting of her hair through Jack's fingers sent a tingle across her scalp that vibrated over every inch of her skin. She was sure her face held the same expression of idiotic bliss as Major's had when she'd scratched behind his ears.

  Fortunately, the meteorite hunter's eyes were focused on the strands of hair slipping across his hand. “You almost changed your mind.”

  “Changed my mind?” Charlie asked vaguely.

  “You almost put it back up in the elevator,” Jack said, as the last piece of hair fell from his fingers.

  “How do you know that?” Her pleasant trance evaporated.

  “Security cameras,” he said, turning toward the kitchen. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Do you always spy on your visitors?”

  “Only if they're reporters. To make sure they don't decide to investigate somewhere they're not welcome.”

  That wasn't very promising. And he'd seen her checking her reflection. Charlie hoped a strong shot of caffeine might overcome her humiliation so she briskly followed him into the kitchen. Fitted out in modern stainless steel, it had all the latest gadgets including an impressive coffee/cappuccino/espresso machine that Jack was flipping various levers on. As he passed her a filled mug, she inhaled appreciatively.

  “Straight from Brazil,” he said with an understanding nod, and filled a mug for himself. “Miguel supplies me with it.”

  “Is he a friend or a business partner?”

  “Both. He's an expert metalworker and does all the cutting and polishing of the meteorites I sell.”

  This was an improvement; the man had actually volunteered some information.

  “I'd think that cutting the meteorites would lower their value,” Charlie observed.

  “Depends on the meteorite. Some are valuable because of where they come from—like Mars or the moon—so it doesn't matter what they look like. Some, like a stony-iron with large olivine crystals, are valuable because of their beauty. But you can't see the crystals unless you slice into the meteorite. That's where Miguel comes in. He makes the displays too.”

  He led her back into the living room. Taking the mug from her hand, he put it down beside his on a low table and steered her over to one of the stands Charlie had noticed earlier. “You've done your homework, I'm sure,” he said, giving her one of his there-and-gone smiles, “so you know the three basic classes of meteorites: iron, stone and stony-iron.”

  Charlie nodded, hoping he'd continue.

  “This is a slice of a stony-iron pallasite from the Atacama Desert in Chile.”

  The meteorite seemed to float above the square, white, waist-high base, balanced on delicate curves of black wire rising from a slender stem of the same dark metal. It was a thin, roughly rectangular slab about a foot long and six inches high. The highly polished silvery stone was pierced by irregularly shaped, pale, brownish-golden crystals. Two of the edges were perfectly straight lines, courtesy of Miguel, she supposed. The third edge was outlined by a line of charcoal black. The top edge exhibited a weird terrain of bumps and gaps.

  Jack pushed a button with the toe of his shoe. Charlie gasped as a brilliant beam of light poured through the crystal “windows,” bathing the meteorite in an exquisite glow.

  “It certainly looks as though it's from another world,” she said. She glanced up to see the light shimmering across her companion's face, as he gazed at the rock. Almost as if hypnotized, he reached out and ran his fingers over the black encrusted edge.

  “This is the fusion crust. It formed when the meteor burned its way through our atmosphere after Earth's gravity ended its journey from some distant corner of the galaxy.”

  Charlie started to reach out herself, then hesitated. “May I touch it?”

  Dropping his own hand, he nodded.

  She carefully traced the strangely gnarled top edge. It was smoother to the touch than she expected.

  “It must have broken off from a larger piece there,” he explained. “Miguel polished it but left the edge in its natural shape. You can see the holes where crystals once were embedded.”

  Her fingers slid down to the sliced surface, skimming over the cold gleaming metal and making shadows on the luminous olivine.

  “So you don't know what corner of the galaxy it came from?” Charlie asked, shifting her gaze from the alien stone to Jack.

  He shook his head. “We can speculate, but scientists don't have enough data about the various heavenly bodies yet to say definitively. However, they theorize that the pallasites form at the point where the parent body's core and mantle come together. The iron-nickel alloy—the silvery part—is from the core, and the crystals are from the bottom of the mantle. It would have to be from a fairly large body to have both a core and a mantle.”

  “It's absolutely beautiful. Is it valuable?”

  “Not particularly. A few thousand dollars.” He toed the button again to turn off the light. “The ones in this room are just for display. I keep the really unique specimens in special cases under lock and key. Then there's my private collection,” he added with an infinitely slow smile this time, and a drawl so thick you could have cut it with a knife.

  “I'll bet you keep it right alongside your etchings,” Charlie said tartly, as she braced herself against the impact of those blue eyes warmed by an interest in something other than meteorites.

  He laughed. “The only etchings I collect are the Widmannstatten structures on my iron meteorites.” He held her gaze as he stepped close to her side, causing her to involuntarily tilt her head back. Weaving his fingers into her cascading hair, he slowly slid his hand around her waist to rest lightly on the small of her back.

  Charlie stifled a gasp as heat rippled upward and downward from his touch.

  A low, threatening rumble made them both look down. Major's upper lip was curled away from his teeth, and his head was lowered in a hostile stance. His dark eyes were fixed on Jack.

  Charlie began to laugh. She had acquired a guardian Kuvasz.

  “It's okay, Major,” she assured him, ruffling his ears.

  Jack dropped his hand, and Major stopped snarling.

  “Your dog doesn't understand the difference between a gentleman and a mugger.”

  “Oh, doesn't he?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe he sees you as a rival,” she said, stroking the dog's head and taking slow deep breaths.

  Incredibly, she heard him chuckle, a rich sound from deep in his chest. “I'm flattered.” He took the dog's muzzle in his hand and gently tilted Major's head. “Just remember I can close the bedroom door, and you can't open it.”

  “But I can,” Charlie pointed out.

  “Not if I tie you to the bed.” He let go of the dog and straightened with a wicked gleam in his eye.

  Charlie backed up four paces. She really needed to get this interview back to business. “Sahara-Mars is at the Museum of Natural History, isn't it?”

  Jack took one step in her direction, then stopped and huffed out a sigh of exasperati
on. However, he answered her question. “That's right. I'm giving the scientists time to study it before the auction.”

  “Can they study it without causing any damage?”

  “They'd better be able to,” he said, with a menacing smile. He strolled over to a couch and sat down.

  Charlie chose a chair across from him, reclaiming her coffee as she began to formulate another question.

  He spoke without prompting, his voice back in what she thought of as “business mode”: just a touch of southern molasses and no hint of personal interest. “Right now, that rock is worth a couple of million dollars because the experts have confirmed it's a very old—about four billion years—achondrite from Mars. That's the same kind of meteorite as ALH 84001, the one some scientists think shows there was life on the Red Planet. Mine was found in the desert, and it's a very recent fall so there's little biological contamination.”

  Charlie knew all this. She also knew that if some trace of life could be found in the interplanetary stone, it would become virtually priceless. She hoped the thought of all that money would mellow Jack enough to tell her a few things she didn't know.

  “How did you find the meteorite?”

  “Now, sugar, I can't give away trade secrets, can I?” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

  Damn. She tilted her head so that her hair swung away from her shoulder. “Isn't it named for the Sahara Desert?”

  He looked at her a long moment before he raised an eyebrow in acknowledgment of her tactical move and said, “It was found by nomads in the Western Sahara. People know I buy strange black rocks from the desert—and pay them fairly in whatever currency they most want—so they found someone who could get in touch with me.”

  Her hair was driving her crazy, but Charlie left it streaming over her right shoulder and puddling in her lap. She tucked a strand behind her ear and waited.

  “I was in Africa at the time and went to collect it myself. The tribesman who found it wanted to negotiate with me in person. When he pulled the rock out of his camel bag and put it in my hands, I knew it was something rare.”