"And," Clyde added, "bless the little cats."
Amused, Charlie glanced down at the cats. She could swear that Dulcie was smiling, the corners of the little tabby's mouth turned up, and that Joe Grey had narrowed his yellow eyes with pleasure. Maybe they were reacting to the gentle tone of Clyde's and Wilma's voices, combined with the good smell of breakfast. Now the cats' gazes turned hungrily again to the table as Wilma cut the frittata into pie-shaped wedges and served the plates. Five plates, and a plate for Joe and Dulcie, which she set on the floor beside her chair, evoking an expression of shock and pain from Bernine.
Wilma passed Clyde's plate last. "How's work going on the apartments?"
"A few complications-it'll be a while before we're ready for you to landscape the patio. But between Charlie's expertise and my bumbling we'll get it done."
"Thank goodness for Mavity," Charlie said, patting Mavity's hand. "We couldn't do without you."
"Couldn't do without Pearl Ann," Mavity said. "I'm the scrub team," she explained to Bernine. "But Pearl Ann does other stuff. I don't know nothing about taping Sheetrock. Pearl Ann's a regular whiz-she can tape Sheetrock, grout tile, she can do anything. She says her daddy was a building contractor and she grew up on the job sites."
Clyde passed Mavity the butter. "Pearl Ann would be just about perfect, if she'd improve her attitude."
"I invited her to breakfast," Wilma said, "but she planned to hike down the coast this morning." Pearl Ann Jamison, tall and plain and quiet, was fond of solitary pursuits, seemed to prefer her own dour company to the presence of others. But, as Mavity said, she was a good worker.
Mavity glanced at her watch. "I don't want to be late, leave Dora and Ralph sitting in the airport."
"They don't get in until eleven," Wilma said, and she dished up another helping of frittata for Mavity. "Maybe they won't stay too long," she added sympathetically.
"One of those night flights," Mavity told Bernine. "Catching the shuttle up from L.A. They bring enough luggage for a year."
"Yes, you said that," Bernine told her dryly.
"And with my brother here, too, my little place is straining at the seams. Maybe one of these days I can afford a bigger house," Mavity rambled amiably. "Two guest rooms would be nice. I plan to start looking when my investments have grown a bit more. That Winthrop Jergen, he's a regular genius, the way he's earned money for me."
Bernine gave Mavity her full attention. "You have someone helping you with your-savings?"
"Winthrop Jergen," Mavity said. "My investment counselor. Doesn't that sound grand? He lives right there in Clyde's upstairs apartment, was living there when Clyde bought the place."
"Oh," Bernine said. "I see." As if Mavity had told her that Jergen meted out his financial advice from the local phone booth.
"He has clients all over the village," Mavity said. "Some of Clyde's wealthiest customers come to Mr. Jergen. They pull up out in front there in their Lincolns and BMWs."
Bernine raised an eyebrow.
"He moved here from Seattle," Mavity continued. "He's partly retired. Said his doctor wanted him to work at a slower pace, that his Seattle job was too frantic, hard on his blood pressure."
She gave an embarrassed laugh. "He talks to me sometimes, when I'm cleaning. He's very young-but so dedicated. That conscientious kind, you know. They're hard on themselves."
"And he does your-investments," Bernine said with a little twisted smile.
"Oh, yes, the bit of savings we had before my husband died, and part of my salary, too." Mavity launched into a lengthy description of the wonders that Winthrop Jergen had accomplished for her, the stocks he had bought and sold. "My account has almost tripled. I never thought I'd be an investor." She described Jergen's financial techniques as if she had memorized, word for word, the information Jergen had given her, passing this on with only partial comprehension.
Bernine had laid down her fork, listening to Mavity. "He must be quite a manager. You say he's young?"
"Oh, yes. Maybe forty. A good-looking man. Prematurely silver hair, all blow-dried like some TV news anchor. Expensive suits. White shirt and tie every day, even if he does work at home. And that office of his, there in the big living room, it's real fancy. Solid cherry desk, fancy computer and all."
Bernine rewarded Mavity with a truly bright smile. "Your Mr. Jergen sounds most impressive."
Dulcie, watching Bernine, envisioned a fox at the hen coop.
"But I do worry about him." Mavity leaned toward Clyde, her elbows comfortably on the table. "You know that man that watches your apartment building? The one who's there sometimes in the evening, standing across the street so quiet?"
"What about him?"
"I think sometimes that Mr. Jergen, with all the money he must have-I wonder if that man…"
"Wonder what?" Clyde said impatiently.
Mavity looked uncertain. "Would Mr. Jergen be so rich that man would rob him?"
Clyde, trying to hide a frown of annoyance, patted Mavity's hand. "He's just watching-you know how guys like to stand around watching builders. Have you ever seen a house under construction without a bunch of rubberneckers?"
"I suppose," Mavity said, unconvinced. "But Mr. Jergen is such a nice man, and-I guess sort of innocent."
Bernine's eyes widened subtly. She folded her napkin, smiling at Clyde. "This Mr. Jergen sounds like a very exceptional person. Do you take care of his car?"
Clyde stared at her.
Dulcie and Joe glanced at one another.
"Of course Clyde takes care of his car," Mavity said. "Mr. Jergen has a lovely black Mercedes, a fancy little sports model, brand-new. White leather seats. A CD player and a phone, of course."
The little woman smiled. "He deserves to have nice things, the way he helps others. I expect Mr. Jergen has changed a lot of lives. Why, he even signed a petition to help Dulcie-the library cat petition, you know. I carry one everywhere."
Wilma rose to fetch the coffeepot, wondering if Mavity had forgotten that Bernine sided totally with Freda Brackett in the matter of Dulcie's fate.
This was the second time in a year that petitions had been circulated to keep Dulcie as official library cat, and the first round had been only a small effort compared to the present campaign. At that time, the one cat-hating librarian had quit her job in a temper saying that cats made her sneeze (no one had ever heard her sneeze). The furor had been short-lived and was all but forgotten. But now, because of the hardhanded ranting of Freda Brackett, all the librarians, except Bernine, and many of the patrons had been walking the village from door to door getting signatures in support of Dulcie. Even Wilma's young friend, twelve-year-old Dillon Thurwell, had collected nearly a hundred signatures.
Mavity busied herself picking up her dishes, and she soon left for the airport, her decrepit VW ratting away through the thinning fog. Strange, Dulcie thought, that at breakfast no one had mentioned the two burglaries. Usually such an incident in the village was a prime topic of conversation.
She guessed Bernine had been too interested in Winthrop Jergen to think about burglaries, and certainly Clyde wouldn't mention them in front of her and Joe; Clyde hated when they got interested in a local crime. He said their meddling complicated his life to distraction, that they were making an old man of him-but Clyde knew he couldn't change them. Anyway, their interests gave him something to grouse about. As she and Joe slipped out into the fog through her cat door and headed up the hills, their thoughts were entirely on the burglaries and on Mavity's brother, Greeley, and his traveling tomcat.