"I'll be careful," Max said, studying Beck. He nodded to the sheriff. And the officer stepped into his unit and pulled away, chauffeuring Hurlie Farger to a cleaner bed man he was used to.
Swinging into the pickup, Max grinned at Charlie. "What?" he said, seeing her uncertain look.
"I half thought you were going to ask me to ride back with the sheriff. So you could run this one alone."
"Would you have gone?"
"I wouldn't have gotten into that patrol car with Hurlie Farger, even with the sheriff there, if you gave me a direct order to that effect."
Max studied her with a small, twisted smile. "I don't think I'd want to try giving you a direct order, Charlie Harper." And he headed up the hills and across a forested plateau approaching the Landeau estate.
But sitting close beside Max, Charlie was quiet, trying to rearrange her thinking. Hurlie Farger had scared her. Something in his eyes, as well as his bold challenge of Max's authority, had left her chilled. And the sheriff's attitude hadn't helped.
Well, she had to learn to live with this stuff, learn to accommodate the ugly, adrenaline-packed moments. In fact, she guessed maybe it was time for a down-to-earth assessment of the way she looked at the world.
She had never been hidebound in what she expected of life. Life was what you made of it, and you sure didn't have to knuckle under just because there were bad guys around. But marrying Max had made her far more aware of that element. Had shoved people like Hurlie Farger right in her face.
Well, she'd experienced some unsettling changes in her thirty-two years. And every one had called for a change in attitude. The adjustments she must make now would be the hardest-but every one would be worth it.
She just wanted, right now, to get through this visit to those estates, to the Landeau place, get through the day and be alone again with Max.
Maybe the aftermath of the church bombing was still with her. The pain of the last few days mixed with Hurlie's attitude had hit home unexpectedly. Laying her hand on Max's knee and leaning to kiss his cheek, she looked ahead to the tall, marbled-faced Landeau mansion with its high forbidding wall. This was just a routine visit. It would soon be over. They'd soon be alone again cuddled before the fire at the inn, ordering in a hot, comforting supper.
21
Clyde's attic, once a dark tomb for generations of deceased spiders, was now free of cobwebs and dust and ancient mouse droppings, and swept clean of sawdust. The last rich light of the setting sun gleamed in where the end wall had been removed, and a soft breeze wandered through, sweet with the scents of cypress and pine. The attic was silent too, the power tools and hammers stilled, the carpenters gone for the day-it was Joe's space now. He lay stretched out across a sheet of plywood that was propped on two sawhorses, lay relaxed and purring, digesting a half-bag of corn chips that had been abandoned by one of the carpenters. The wind off the sea caressed him. The buzz of a dispossessed wasp distracted him only faintly, humming among the rafters. He was nearly asleep when footsteps on the temporary stairway forced him to lift his head- though really no action was required, he knew that step. Clyde's head appeared at the north end of the attic silhouetted in the bright triangular space. Rising up the last steps, Clyde ducked beneath the apex, walking hunched over. By this time tomorrow evening he would be able to stand tall, would be able to reach up and not even touch the ceiling-barring some delay in construction, Joe thought. Barring some accident. What if, tomorrow morning, the roof-jacks didn't hold until the newly raised walls had been secured? What if…
But such thoughts belonged to the more human aspect of his nature. Humans loved to fret over the disaster that hadn't happened and likely wouldn't happen. Joe's more equitable feline persona lived for the moment and let the future fall how it might, pun intended.
Yawning, he considered Clyde with interest. Clyde stood with his back to Joe, looking out toward the sea, his short black hair mussed up into peaks the way it got when he was irritated. Was he not seeing Ryan tonight? Certainly he wasn't dressed for an exciting evening or even a casual dinner. Arriving home, he had pulled on his oldest, scruffiest polo shirt, the purple one with the grease stains across the front and the hole in the sleeve. And when Clyde turned to look at him, his scowl implied, indeed, an incredibly bad mood. Joe licked his whiskers. "You look sour enough to chew the roof off."
No response.
"This is more than a bad day at the shop. Right?"
Nothing. Clyde's body was rigid with annoyance.
"You have a fight with Ryan? But she's doing a great job, the new room will be something. I love that you can see right down to the beach, between the roofs and trees."
A slight shifting of shoulders.
"And the new tower," Joe said. "That's going to be some kind of elegant cat house."
Clyde continued to glare.
"What did you fight about?" Joe studied Clyde's ruddy face trying to read what exactly that particular scowl might mean. "She's too hardheaded and independent?" he asked tentatively-as if he were Clyde's shrink drawing him out. "She wants to install pink flamingos in the front yard with fake palm trees?"
Clyde sat down on a carpenter's stool, a boxy little bench used for tool storage, for cutting a board, for scabbing two boards together, to stand on, or to sit on while eating lunch, a very clever little piece of furniture. He glared. "She's going out with that guy tonight. Out to dinner. The guy who broke into her truck and switched her billing. She's going out with him."
"Why would she do that? The guy's a crook. He tried to set her up. Why would she…" He stared at Clyde. "She's going to set him up? But what does she…?"
"She wants to see what else he might try. He doesn't know she switched the billing back to the original, he'll think the fake bill is in the mail. She wants to see what he'll talk about, what questions he might ask her. She thinks she can figure out what he's after."
"Oh, that's smart. What if he killed Rupert? Say he murdered her husband. Shot him in the head. So she goes out to dinner with him." Joe looked hard at Clyde, assessing his housemate. "You couldn't stop her short of locking her up. And you're scared for her."
Clyde nodded, looking miserable.
"So, follow them."
"She figured I might. She said that would blow it, said maybe he knows me and would certainly know my yellow roadster. That I might put her in danger."
Joe sighed. He licked his paw, waiting. But Clyde was silent again-far be it from Clyde to come out and ask for help. "So, where are they going?"
"She's meeting him at the Burger Basher at seven. She called me at work, broke our date for dinner. Asked if I'd keep Rock for a couple of hours. I thought I'd…"
"What? Just happen in for a beer? That'll fix it."
"I plan to wait outside. In case she needs someone. In case he tries to strong-arm her, get her in his car."
"That's so melodramatic."
"And a dead body in her garage is not melodramatic."
Joe washed his right ear. "And that's why you drove that old brown Hudson home. I wondered what that was about."
"She's never seen that car, and certainly Williams wouldn't have seen it."
Clyde had in his upscale automotive shop, in a private garage at the rear of the complex, enough rare old cars to run surveillance in a different vehicle every night for a month. Clyde's assortment of classic and antique models, all waiting to be restored, might seem to some a monstrous collection of junk. To Clyde Damen those old cars were CDs in the bank, gold under the mattress.
Clyde looked at him a long time.
Joe licked some crumbs from inside the ripped-open corn chip bag. "Burger Basher. Seven o'clock. Okay. So you owe me one."