She wasn't driving her powder-blue convertible but a white van with the dolphin-shaped logo of her design studio. Certainly the Mercedes wasn't made to haul the ten-foot rug that stuck out the back where the rear doors stood open and tied together. Swinging out, she began to unload some huge, Mexican ceramic pots that were wedged in beside the rug. She was dressed this morning in faded designer jeans and a tomato red velour top that set off her short, windswept white hair and her flawless complexion and dangling gold earrings. "Smashing," Dulcie whispered. Hanni Coon had a wonderful talent for elegance. If Dulcie were a human, she'd kill to look like that.
Hanni had the pots unloaded when Ryan's truck turned in. Ryan swung out dressed in her usual nondescript work jeans, a navy flannel shirt over a cotton blouse, and rough work boots. Hanni looked her over, a quick assessment of how Ryan might dress herself, how Ryan might look, a hasty glance that seemed to the cats little more than habit. "Where's Rock?"
"Dad's back, he called last night, I picked him up this morning. He's getting Rock vetted."
"He came directly here? Because of Rupert! We could have dinner. He's staying at the cottage?"
"I… There's something I need to talk with him about."
"Personal? About the murder?"
Ryan looked at her helplessly. "That okay?"
"Of course it's okay. Can I help?"
"No, just… Could I explain later? It's… Makes my stomach churn. I'm trying to be cool."
Hanni looked at her quietly, and began to ease the wrapped rug out of the van. They carried it into the house, one at each end as if, Joe thought, they were toting an oversized cadaver. Ryan opened up the sliding glass walls of the sunken sitting area while Hanni vacuumed the wood floor. Then, kneeling, they unwrapped the rug, stripping off the heavy brown paper. When at last they had it laid out on the wood floor, even Joe was dazzled. Dulcie caught her breath, creeping closer to the window through the fallen branches.
"I've never seen anything so beautiful," she whispered. She and the kit stared and stared at the medley of brilliant colors, the thickly woven, intricate patterns. The kit crept closer still, watching the rug and watching Ryan and Hanni where they knelt in the middle pressing the rug gently toward the walls securing the edges with two-sided tape. Kit was so fascinated that her nose was soon pressed against the screen of the open window. Hanni's masterpiece, handwoven in England at a fortune per square yard, made all three cats want to sink their paws in and roll with purring abandon. Silently Dulcie reached a paw, as if hypnotized, sliding the tall screen open, and padded delicately into the room.
The kit followed. They were poised among the pillows looking down at that sea of colors and sniffing the scent of clean wool when Ryan and Hanni looked up.
Ryan lifted her hand as if to stop them, but Hanni laughed. Any other designer, confronted with cats on her costly installation, would have shouted and chased them away. Hanni simply watched them, watched Joe Grey pad in too, stepping diffidently among the pillows.
"What harm can they do?" Hanni said. "Come on, cats. Are your paws clean?" She looked where they had trod and saw no dirt. "Come on, have a roll before the grande dame arrives. It's your only chance. Marianna would eat you alive." She grinned at Ryan. "Can you imagine? Cats on her hundred-thousand-dollar masterpiece?"
"Don't you worry they'll pull a thread?"
"It's a well-made piece, the English know how to make rugs that last-the English know there'll be cats on them. And Joe is a perfect gentleman. Kate and I kept him for a week, at the cottage, when we were down looking at the Pamillon estate. Something about Clyde painting his place. The cat had perfect manners then. Why would he be different now?"
Beneath the cats' paws, the wool was softer than a featherbed. Dulcie and the kit rolled deliriously, wriggling, sinking into the thick pile, the kit flipping back and forth lashing her long, fluffy tail.
But Joe rolled for only a moment. He came to rest lying on his back, his white paws waving in the air as if in total abandon while he considered the flaw in the fireplace.
In the morning light, from this angle, he couldn't see that out-of-place, ragged scar. Rolling across the rug as if crazy with play, he looked again.
Nothing. The rising dawn light coming from every direction showed the black recess as smooth as the other two. But last night he had seen the diagonal scar running down the right-hand rectangle, as sure as his name was Joe Grey. Rolling again, he tried another angle.
"See," Hanni said, "they're not doing any harm. But, oh boy, wouldn't Marianna flip!"
"You love doing something that would enrage her."
"She'll never know, as long as they're out before she gets here."
"She's coming down? This morning?"
"She's in Half Moon Bay-or was, last night. She called me about something, I told her the rug was here. She sounded pretty excited, for ice queen Marianna. Said she'd be down early, that she had some business in the village. One of their rentals, I suppose." Sullivan had, several years before when the real-estate market was soft, made some excellent investments in Molena Point.
"There, that's the last of it," Hanni said, smoothing the corner of the rug. Standing, she stepped up to the tiled entry with Ryan for a full view. They could see, even with the three cats sprawled across the rug, that it lay smooth and flat, a perfect fit, a meadow of color as fine as any painting.
"I'd like to roll on it, myself," Hanni said.
"Go ahead, you earned it. It truly is magnificent. You can-"
Both women turned as a car pulled into the drive. They couldn't see it from the entry, that wall and the door were solid. Hanni, stepping into the bedroom to look through the window, hurried out again. "Get the cats out! Come on Joe Grey, Dulcie. Move it, she's coming."
Her excited voice would have startled even the dullest cat. But as Joe and Dulcie leaped for the open screen, Marianna, with her usual dispatch, was out of the car and through the front door, her tall, slim figure frozen in the doorway.
The cats, crouched among fallen branches, looked for the kit, but she had vanished. They peered back toward the bright room, where Marianna stood on the landing. She was dressed in a severe black suit, long gold earrings, black stockings, black sandals with four-inch heels. Her eyes were fixed on the fireplace, her expression unbelieving.
Staring back at her from among the freshly split logs, the kit crouched unmoving, her black-and-brown coat hardly visible against the pine bark, but her yellow eyes wide with fear.
Having apparently, in her panic, bolted straight through the mesh curtain, she was trapped. When Marianna approached the firebox, the kit backed deeper, shivering, too frightened to bolt past her and run.
26
Kit stared out of the fireplace at the tall, black-suited, spike-heeled blonde with all the fear she would exhibit facing Lucifer himself. And from the woods outside, Joe and Dulcie watched with the same fear of the woman. Even Ryan looked uncertain.
But Hanni moved into the empty silence, laughing. "One little cat, Marianna. Look at her, she couldn't resist your lovely new rug. Your English weavers would say that's good luck, to have a little cat bless their creation."
Marianna gave Hanni a look that should have reduced her to a grease spot. Hanni took Marianna's hands in her own and tried to ease her down the steps onto the thick, bright rug. Marianna resisted as rigidly as if cast from stone; and Hanni smiled more brightly. "Slip off your sandals, Marianna. Come, sit on it, isn't it a wonder?" Hanni sat down cross-legged on the bright weave. "I am just so thrilled. Tell me you're as pleased as we are."