Not only had Fern tried to grab the chests from Prey-a real fistfight, as Prey had described it-but Prey said that one of the chests had been smashed, and that Fern managed to snatch up the letters that fell out of it.
Joe assumed there had been some gentle pressure from Garza or Harper to obtain the rest of Prey's statement. Prey said that when Fern ran toward the window he lost his head, went kind of crazy, as he put it, and shot her again, firing at her in a fit of confusion.
He said that Vivi had disappeared; and that when he saw he'd likely killed Fern, he jammed the gun in his pocket and ran for the back door, jumped in his car, and took off. He said that, driving away, he wanted to go back and talk to the police, that he heard the sirens and wanted to tell them what had happened, but he was afraid to. That had made the cats smile. Anyone who thought Prey was trying sincerely to make amends for an innocent mistake ought to think again. For one thing, both shots had been from behind, entering Fern in the back.
"It's interesting," Garza said, "that Vivi saw him shoot Fern, but didn't try to blackmail him. Likely she didn't want to call attention to herself at that point. Apparently she just went home and laid low, but then she got nervous and started to pack."
Harper leaned back in his chair. "Not too nervous to send those chapters she was writing off to New York before she and Willie tried to sneak out. Maybe she hoped that in the next few weeks, New York would dispose of Elliott's body and no one would ever know he was dead. She may have planned for Willie to keep right on being Elliott Traynor, she may have really believed that Elliott's publisher would think that what she wrote was Elliott's work. It takes," Harper said with a lopsided grin, "some kind of talent to write like Elliott Traynor."
The shadow of a smile touched Charlie's face; and she rose quickly to dish up more spaghetti. The cats watched her with interest; but it was not until the next morning that Joe was certain of what he suspected.
It was just after ten when Joe trotted in through Dulcie's cat door; she met him in the kitchen, her green eyes bright, her tabby tail lashing with excitement. He'd seen Charlie's van out front, and Gabrielle's and Mavity's cars. In the living room, Charlie and all the ladies of Senior Survival were gathered; all seemed to be talking at once. Joe sniffed the good smells of coffee and chocolate and sweet vanilla, and twitched an ear toward the animated female voices.
"They're celebrating," Dulcie said. "They got the house. They really got it, they're so happy they're almost purring."
"What house?"
"The last one they looked at, the one they've all been talking about, the one above the canyon. Don't you listen? Tomcats," she said, flattening her ears with annoyance. "It has a bad water problem, so that young couple didn't get their loan. Anyway, they didn't want to do the repairs. The ladies are so thrilled."
"Right. That's just what they need, a huge house with a water problem. Plumbing? Leaking basement? What? Do you know how much it costs to-"
"Ryan looked at it. She said she can fix it."
Joe narrowed his eyes. "Saying something and doing it are not always the same. The drainage on those hills-"
"Come on, Joe. They're so happy. It'll be all right-let's stay for a little while. Charlie's here. She will be one of the trustees. But she's-I don't know what's wrong with her. She's acting as nervous as a mouse at a cat show."
Heading for the living room beside Dulcie, Joe glanced up at the buffet. "Is that the chest Susan bought, the one that was in her car during the break-in?"
"Wilma's keeping it for her."
"Out in plain sight?"
"Since Augor Prey and Casselrod went to jail, why not?"
"I wouldn't leave it lying around. You don't know who else…" Exasperated with Susan and Wilma, he leaped up to have a look.
The box smelled just like the others, of old, seasoned wood. The geometric carvings were primitive and handsome, each side with a rosette in the center. Pawing the top open, he sniffed at the empty interior.
The walls and bottom seemed too thin for a false compartment. Likely this was just a nice collector's piece that would bring maybe four or five hundred dollars, he thought, dropping to the floor. Heading for the living room, the two cats slipped into the cave beneath Wilma's desk beside the kit, where she lay on her back playing with one of Cora Lee's slippers, holding it between her front paws, killing it violently.
Moving deeper in beside her, Joe and Dulcie listened to the ladies' plans, to Susan's decision to put her house on the market, and to their discussion of the legal aspects of a joint purchase that their attorney had outlined. All the numbers and percentage points made the cats' heads reel. Curled up together, they were almost asleep when Charlie's cell phone rang.
Answering, her face colored. She glanced around at her friends, then rose, heading for the kitchen, cradling the phone to her ear, her sudden excitement seeming almost to send sparks. Quickly the three cats slipped out to follow her, pushing through the kitchen door before she closed it. Leaping to the table, they crowded around her. The voice at the other end reached them like a bee buzz. Charlie listened for some time, going pale; absently she petted Dulcie.
Slipping close to her, Joe put his face next to Charlie's. She didn't push him away. The woman's voice at the other end was husky and familiar. "… totally unprecedented. There are a lot of well-known writers who would like to step into this contract. I can't make any kind of promise, but I have to say, I like this very much. Really, I find it difficult to separate your work from Elliott's. I'm hoping Elliott's editor will feel the same.
"I'm taking it over to her this afternoon. This whole thing has been upsetting to everyone-and you can imagine that several writers' agents have already contacted Kathleen Merritt and called me."
Nervously, Charlie hugged Joe.
"If she does like it, can you meet the August tenth deadline?"
"Yes," Charlie said, looking with panic at the cats.
"You said you're not a writer by profession?"
"I'm an artist. I do animal drawings. I'm represented in Molena Point by the Aronson Gallery. And I… I own a cleaning and maintenance company."
"So you work full-time?"
"I can meet the deadline. I have reliable crews. My time is my own." She didn't mean to sound defensive. Beside her, Joe and Dulcie were smiling and purring. The kit looked wide-eyed and puzzled. When Charlie hung up the phone, she grabbed the cats in a huge hug.
"Our secret," she said softly, glancing toward the living room.
Joe listened to the faint sound of the ladies' voices, preoccupied with loan points and interest rates. Strange, he thought, that loud, giggling Vivi Traynor, when she brought her ugly little secret to Molena Point, might have launched Charlie into a new and exciting venture.
Though if Charlie hadn't been so nosy, as curious as a cat herself, even Vivi's subterfuge wouldn't have made that happen. And it was Charlie's love of Traynor's work that had truly set her on this path.
"Not even Wilma," Charlie whispered. "Don't even tell Wilma. Not yet. Not until I see if this will fly."
"It will fly," Dulcie said softly.
Charlie looked at them uncertainly. "Maybe. And maybe this is all foolishness, maybe I'll fall on my face." She grinned. "But I've done that before, and gotten up again."
Joe twitched a whisker. He could imagine Charlie sitting up late at night, into the small hours, in her little one-room apartment, working on a borrowed computer at her breakfast table. Stopping work sometimes to stand at her window looking down on the rooftops as she formed, in her thoughts, her own kind of magic for the last chapters of Elliott Traynor's novel. And he rubbed his face against Charlie's, raggedly purring.