How to Paint a Cat (Cats and Curios Mystery) (18 page)

THE LETTER
O

AS SOON AS
the niece departed Redwood Park for Leidesdorff Alley, the Previous Mayor stepped from behind a wide trunk about fifteen feet away from the frog fountain.

A few weeks back, he’d hired an off-duty detective to conduct occasional surveillance on the woman who owned the Green Vase antique shop. He’d tracked the woman’s daily jogs, her trips to the grocery store, and any other outing from Jackson Square. Nothing had tripped the radar as unusual—until today.

The cat-occupied stroller was a clear indication that this excursion was different. The woman was clearly on the hunt for something.

The Previous Mayor hoped it was her uncle Oscar. He had some serious questions to ask his old friend.

So after receiving the alert from his surveillance man earlier that morning, the PM had rushed down to the financial district. He had intended to follow the woman into Leidesdorff Alley, as his detective had departed for a much-needed coffee break, but he couldn’t leave Redwood Park without a closer inspection of the fountain.

• • •

THE PREVIOUS MAYOR
circled the fountain’s perimeter, examining the center spigots and each brass frog, trying to ascertain the trick that had been used to generate the human image in the liquid curtain.

He crouched at the fountain’s edge, watching the aerated streams shoot upward, crest at their high point, and then disperse into droplets that sprinkled back to earth. Pulling off his leather gloves, he reached his hands into the spray, at one point nearly falling into the surrounding pool, but he could see no mechanical means for creating the illusion.

Nor did the water spirit reappear.

Puzzled, the PM expanded his search. He tiptoed through the landscaping, checking for a projecting lens or other electronic equipment that might be hidden in one of the massive redwood trunks or beneath the spreading ferns and flowering cyclamen.

But he found nothing.

Finally, he sat down on a bench to think. As he stared at the fountain, puzzling over the hauntingly familiar image that had materialized in the water, a damp spot appeared on the seat next to him.

The imprint was just the right size for the rear end of a skinny young man who had once ridden his bicycle up and down San Francisco’s steep hills.

The Previous Mayor was a cynical man—forty years in state and local politics tended to have that effect on a person. But over the course of his long life, he had developed a healthy respect for the spiritual world. He had experienced his share of odd events.

He wasn’t beyond believing in a real-life actual ghost, but he still felt silly speaking the name of his dead friend, particularly since he halfway expected an answer.

“Spider?”

The air beside him shimmered, generating the faint outline of a human silhouette.

Startled, the PM jerked away from the image. His hands shook as he reached for the brim of his bowler. He was no longer trying to come up with a rational explanation for this strange phenomenon. If this was a hoax, he could only applaud the trickster for creating such a spectacular ruse.

Cautiously, he leaned forward.

“Spider, I’m so sorry . . .”

His voice caught with emotion. His chin trembled as he struggled to speak.

He felt a light pressure on his shoulder, a comforting, consoling gesture.

Regaining his composure, the PM voiced the question that had plagued him for the last two months.

“Who did this to you?” After a steadying swallow, he added, “That night at City Hall?”

Spider looked at the ground, his translucent face one of intense concentration. The appearance in the fountain had drained his energy levels. It was taking all of his strength to make himself visible on the bench. With the toe of his sneakered foot, he drew a circle on the pavement.

“What’s that?” the PM asked, urgently trying to discern the meaning. “A circle?”

Spider continued to focus on his foot, forcing it to make another swirl.

“An
O
,” the PM murmured, watching the ground.

“No,” he said as the foot faded from view. He shook his head adamantly. “It can’t be.”

He shifted his gaze back to the bench, but the apparition had disappeared, leaving him alone and with even more troubling questions than before.

LIGHTHEADED

HOXTON FINN STRODE
briskly up a steep sidewalk in one of San Francisco’s most fashionable residential neighborhoods. Traditional apartment buildings intermixed with multistory homes, both of which had been renovated, often several times over, and converted into condos and co-ops.

The architectural design of the older homes along with the close proximity of all the structures, sometimes less than a foot apart, allowed little room for formal parking. Occasionally, a garage would be carved into a once-submerged basement, the narrow, claustrophobic slot accessed by a steep driveway no wider than a compact car’s width. Given the technical difficulties of navigating into the cramped subterranean spaces and the few available openings, parked cars lined the street.

The neighborhood’s parking inconvenience was more than offset by the scenery. Even at street level, the elevated vantage point of this prime location provided a stunning view of the bay that swept from Alcatraz all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge.

The location’s beauty was lost on the gruff reporter striding forcefully up the block.

Hox popped his notebook against his left thigh, thinking about his upcoming meeting with the Lieutenant Governor. He hoped to gain some insight into Spider Jones’s intern duties, especially the projects on which he had been working right before he died.

No fan of the frog-phobic former mayor, Hox had given the politician a number of irreverent titles, the most benign being the Light Governor. But if Hox was feeling cheeky or even slightly grumpy, he quickly switched to a more derogatory nickname: Lightheaded.

The meeting would take place at the Lieutenant Governor’s penthouse condo. The digs were far too posh for the politician’s government salary, but Lightheaded had married into money. It was the wife’s fortune that enabled their high standard of living—just another strike against him, as far as Hox was concerned.

Almost as bad as marrying a movie star, he thought with chagrin.

With an irritated sigh, Hox looked back down the hill at the slender man trailing fifteen feet behind. The news station’s stylist, carrying his full kit of shears and beautifying tools, had stopped to catch his breath. Face flushed, he stood panting on the sidewalk.

“Come on, Humphrey. Try to keep up!” Hox hollered a belligerent encouragement.

“I still don’t understand what I’m doing here,” the stylist replied, wiping his brow. “And why I had to bring all of my equipment.”

“It was a requirement for the meeting,” Hox said as he checked the address written in his notebook against the house number of a pink-painted six-story structure.

“But,” Humphrey sputtered as he closed the distance between them, “we’re not filming this, are we?”

“It wasn’t Lightheaded who requested your presence,” Hox replied wryly. He pushed the call button by the building’s front entrance.

“It was his wife.”

• • •

A BUZZER SIGNALED
the unlocking of an iron gate, which led through a small garden into the main lobby. As the two men stepped inside, a doorman in an ill-fitting uniform nodded a welcome, motioned toward the elevator, and returned to his newspaper.

Hox squinted at the paper’s folded-over top half, pleased to note his byline. Then he turned his gaze from the newspaper to the doorman’s workspace. The lobby was vintage San Francisco, with polished wood flooring, decorative crown molding, and high-end art hanging on the walls. The lobby’s rear windows looked out onto a well-groomed courtyard and, beyond, a view of the bay that eclipsed the one visible from the street.

Hox was a reporter through and through. The profession might as well have been encoded in his DNA. But in moments like these, even he found himself second-guessing his chosen career. A job in low-vigilance lobby security certainly had its appeal.

“Too late to change course now,” the reporter muttered as he squeezed next to Humphrey inside the building’s tiny elevator. With a creaking groan, the door slid shut, and the unit began a wobbly climb.

A small landing and a single door greeted the pair at the building’s top floor. There was only one residence on this level, the penthouse suite.

Before Hox could ring the knocker, the entrance swung open.

The man standing in the doorway was almost unrecognizable.

His brown hair flopped down around his ears. The shaping was ragged and uneven, as if he had gone far too long since his last haircut. He wore rumpled pants designed for hiking or camping. Pockets of various sizes had been sewn into the canvas fabric, and elastic cords had been fitted at the bottom cuffs. His face bore a couple days’ growth of downy facial hair. There were signs of a patchy goatee forming around his chin.

The casual lifestyle appeared to suit the Lieutenant Governor. Hox had never seen the man in such a jovial mood. He greeted the visitors with an enthusiastic, “Welcome!”

“Governor,” Hox replied with a bemused grin.

After a quick survey of the politician’s disheveled hair, sportsman’s T-shirt, and low-rise hiking boots, the stylist unzipped his bag.

“Oh my,” Humphrey said with a shudder. “Let’s get started.”

THE KNITTED BOOTIES

HUMPHREY DIDN’T WASTE
any time. He immediately steered the Lieutenant Governor toward the kitchen sink.

“Let’s start with the hair,” he said briskly, turning on the water as the wife ran to the bathroom pantry to fetch towels.

Hox waited in the foyer, angling his head to see into the kitchen, hoping for a break in the shampooing action so that he could pose his questions.

Unfortunately, the full-fledged makeover session left no room for bystanders. Hox dodged an errant spray of water from the dishwashing hose mounted onto the sink. A foaming shot of shaving cream narrowly missed his left ear, tagging a glass-fronted print hanging on the foyer wall.

“Make yourself at home, Hox,” the Lieutenant Governor called out over the buzz of an electric razor. With difficulty, he lifted a hand to point toward the living room on the opposite side of the condo.

Bending at the waist to avoid further friendly fire, Hox retreated to the seating area. As he scooted out of the foyer, he heard the Lieutenant Governor issue a fruitless caution.

“Watch the goatee, there, Humphrey. It’s not fully grown in yet.”

There was a brief silence, followed by a resumption of the humming razor.

“My apologies, Governor,” Humphrey said after another short pause, with what Hox assumed included a wink to the man’s wife. “I seem to have nicked the goatee’s left side. I’m afraid you’ll have to start over from scratch.”

• • •

A FEW MINUTES
later, Humphrey led the clean-shaven Lieutenant Governor to the living room. The wife had laid out a piece of plastic on the floor and positioned a stool at its center. As the makeover subject settled into the seat, Humphrey wrapped a drape across the politician’s chest and snapped it shut at the base of his neck.

With his modified tool belt secured around his waist, Humphrey began combing through the Lieutenant Governor’s wet locks. The wife paced a circle around her husband, closely supervising the process.

Hox grabbed a chair from the side of the room and slid it as close as possible to the haircutting operation.

“I need to ask you a few questions about Spider Jones,” he said, flipping open his notebook. After a quick glance at the page containing the scrawled letter
O
, he turned to a clean sheet.

The wife shifted her attention to the reporter. “That’s the name of the murdered staffer, isn’t it?” she asked, sharply interested. “The one who was killed at City Hall last November?”

She walked toward Hox’s chair. He squirmed uncomfortably as she peered over his shoulder. He felt himself instinctively trying to hide his notepad, despite the fact that the top sheet was still blank.

“Yes,” Hox said, looking up from his notepad to give the woman his sternest stare. The typically effective expression had no effect. She didn’t budge from her intrusive position.

Clearing his throat, Hox tried to focus on the Lieutenant Governor. The man’s eyes were closed. His head was tilted back, and his pale face appeared loosely relaxed.

“Sir, I was wondering if you could tell me what Spider was working on in the weeks before his murder.”

“Hmm,” the Lieutenant Governor mused absentmindedly as Humphrey’s scissors whirred around his ears.

“I’m sure he wouldn’t know,” the wife cut in informatively, stepping around Hox to insert herself between the reporter and her husband. “It’s Mabel you want to talk to. She handles all of the interns and any low-level staffers.”

She crossed her arms in front of her chest and pointed at Hox’s notepad, as if instructing him what to write. “Hires ’em and fires ’em.”

The Lieutenant Governor broke free long enough to peek around his wife’s torso.

“That’s right. Mabel’s your gal,” he said as Humphrey pulled him back onto the stool. “Lucky for you, she’s here watching my son.”

The wife gestured down a hallway leading away from the central living area. “She’s in the guest room.”

As Hox stood from his chair, she poked her finger into his chest.

“Don’t wake the baby.”

• • •

BRUSHING SCATTERED HAIR
clippings from his trousers, Hox tiptoed down the hallway to the indicated room.

The baby’s quarters were easy to pick out. Decals of dinosaurs and blue balloons decorated the entranceway’s trim and facing.

Cautiously, Hox creaked open the door. The Lieutenant Governor’s long-serving administrative assistant sat on a rocking chair beside a crib, a basket of yarn at her feet.

Hox knew Mabel from her many years at City Hall, but theirs was not a collegial relationship. She had always viewed him with suspicious disapproval. As a reporter snooping for secrets to reveal in his next column, he was clearly on the opposing team.

He wasn’t looking forward to questioning her about Spider Jones.

“Hello, Hoxton,” she said with stiff formality as he glanced into the bassinet at the sleeping tot, who wore a pair of hand-knitted booties on his feet.

“Mabel.”

Hox had never understood the universal fascination with babies. It had been one of many areas of contention with his ex-wife. The wrinkled, alien-looking creatures made him extremely uncomfortable—and on the concept of diapers, he was particularly squeamish. Best to get this interview over with before the little tyke made any stinky deposits that might require Mabel’s attention.

Cringing, Hox took a seat on a wicker hamper next to the rocking chair and flipped to another clean page in his notebook.

“Mabel, I’d like to talk to you about Spider Jones.”

Frowning, she picked up a new skein of yarn and looped the end around her needle. The matter was obviously a touchy subject. Hox’s questions were unlikely to raise the reporter’s standing.

“I understand you were directly involved in supervising Spider’s work for the mayor. What sort of research was he working on in the weeks before he died?”

“Just routine assignments mostly: legislative items under consideration by the board of supervisors, a proposed dog-walking ordinance.”

The needles began clicking with furious intensity. Mabel’s lips pinched together, as if she were carefully considering her next words.

“He stayed late those last couple of weeks, but that research wasn’t on a project for the mayor.”

Before Hox could press for clarification, there was a disturbance in the hallway.

“Now, let’s talk about your wardrobe for tomorrow,” Humphrey said as he ushered the Lieutenant Governor toward the master bedroom. “Your wife has laid out several options for you here by your closet.”

The baby began to rustle in his crib. Panicked, Hox watched as the tiny hands opened and closed. The mouth yawned as if preparing for a full-throated scream. He had only seconds left before the wife stormed in and terminated the rest of his questioning.

Leaning toward the rocker, Hox prodded anxiously, “What was Spider working on?”

Mabel looked up from her knitting and took a deep breath.

“It had to do with the man who ran that fried chicken restaurant,” she said. “That James Lick fellow.”

Scribbling madly on his notepad, Hox nearly dropped his pencil as she added, “I think Spider figured out Lick had once owned an antique shop in Jackson Square. Back in those days, everyone called him Oscar.”