She and Max had been married for not yet a year, but she’d learned a lot about being a cop’s wife-how to hold back her questions, curb her curiosity, wait and bide her time until Max was ready to share with her. That was not always easy, it was not in her nature to be patient.
It hadn’t been easy, either, to keep her fear for him at bay. Nor, she thought, amused, to learn to make dinners that would hold for hours.
Parked beneath the sprawling oak before the door of the PD, she sat enjoying the gardens that flanked the courthouse. Molena Point PD occupied a one-story wing at the south end of the two-story courthouse, a handsome Mediterranean complex with red tile roofs, deep windows, and flowering shrubs bright against the pale stucco walls. An island of garden filled the center of the parking area, which was shaded by live oaks. The huge tree under which she sat served not only for shade over the station door, but also as a quick route to the roof for the department’s three feline snitches. To the roof and to the small, high window that looked down into the holding cell, into the temporary lockup where arrestees were confined until they were booked and taken back to the jail or were led off to the interrogation room for questioning.
Joe and Dulcie and Kit could easily spy through the holding cell window, or slide the window open and drop through the bars down into the cell-then slip out through the barred door to the dispatcher’s desk. Though on most occasions it was easier for the cats to simply claw at the glass front doors until the dispatcher, usually Mabel Farthy, came out from her electronic world and let them in. Mabel hadn’t a clue she was admitting the department’s secret informants.
Charlie was idly watching the parking lot when a white Neon pulled in, not twenty feet away. Chichi Barbi got out, dressed in tight black jeans, a low-cut pink sweater, and high heels. She stood leaning against the car, watching the street. Charlie pulled her sun visor down, hoping not to be noticed; she watched as a black Alpha Romeo turned off the side street, pulling in to park beside Chichi. Well!
Ryan hadn’t mentioned that Roman Slayter and Chichi were connected. Maybe she didn’t know. Chichi was from San Francisco, and Roman was, she thought, from L.A. Chichi stood leaning against his car, leaning down talking with him. They knew each other well enough to argue. Charlie’s windows were down, but with the breeze rattling the oak leaves it was hard to hear much.
Roman said something that sounded like,Not in front of the station, for Christ’s sake!Chichi’s answer was lost, but her reply made Roman laugh. She turned away to her own car, and in a moment they were both gone, the black Alpha Romeo following Chichi’s Neon out between the bright gardens, surely headed somewhere together. When she turned back, Max and Dallas were coming out of the station.
“Been waiting long?” Max swung in beside her. Dallas got in the back. “Clyde and Ryan are meeting us,” Max said. “Tony’s okay?”
“More than okay. What’s the occasion? What are we celebrating? You make a reservation?”
“Of course I made a reservation.” He put his arm around her and blew in her ear, dangerously hindering her driving. “Have you forgotten this is our six-month anniversary?”
Charlie blushed. She loved it when he was this romantic. He was so down-to-earth, so much of the time a hard-nosed cop, that such moments were special.
“Well it almost is,” he said. “Close enough to celebrate. There’s a parking place, guy ready to pull out.”
She waited for an SUV to leave, then slipped into the space. The meter maid was just leaving, she had just missed them.
Tony’s was a popular lunch place for the locals, a high-ceilinged structure of heavy timbers and glass, decorated with ferns and other lush plants in huge ceramic pots. Medleys of ferns in baskets hung from the rafters. The dining room seemed as much a garden as did the patio beyond. They followed the waiter to a table in the back patio where Ryan and Clyde waited, Rock stretched out under the table at their feet. Several other dogs lay beneath the tables, all on their best behavior, seeming hardly to notice one another. Restaurant dogs, Charlie thought, would make a nice series of drawings. They had ordered and were talking about the Harpers’ new addition, when Charlie glanced across the patio into the restaurant, and saw Chichi and Roman Slayter being seated.
“What?” Max said. Though his back was to the wall, his view in toward the dining room was partially blocked by the ferns.
“Chichi Barbi and Roman Slayter. They met in front of the courthouse while I was waiting for you. I didn’t know they knew each other.”
Ryan said, “I didn’t either; but they’re a perfect match.” “Maybe Slayter will keep her occupied,” Clyde said hopefully. “I wonder if she’s a pickup.”
“I don’t think so,” Charlie said. “They know each other well enough to be arguing, she seemed really angry.”
“How long were they there?” Dallas asked. “Could you hear any of it?”
“Only that he didn’t like meeting in that particular location.” Charlie studied Dallas. He nodded offhandedly, and said no more.
Max asked for the French bread and sipped his O’Doul’s. He didn’t seem interested in what Chichi Barbi did or who she met. He seemed, Charlie thought, strangely miffed at Dallas for his own interest.
But he could be annoyed over anything, could have had a bad morning. Some small problem in the department. Both men seemed edgy.
“They’re still arguing,” Ryan said with interest. “They do know each other well.”
“I’d like to be a fly on the wall,” Charlie said. She thought Chichi could be really attractive with less makeup and better taste in clothes. She longed to know what they were talking about.
But even as she wondered, she saw that a spy was already on the scene.
Crouched between two tall pots of ferns beside Roman and Chichi’s table, the kit, with her dark fur, was nearly lost among the fern’s lacy shadows. How intensely she was watching them, ears sharp, tail very still, her whole being fixed on the couple-as intent as if she were crouched over a mouse hole.
29 [��������: pic_30.jpg]
The tiles beneath Kit’s paws felt smooth and cool. The potted ferns helped hide her; their shadows blended with her darkly mottled coat, providing a nice disguise. But the restaurant’s delicious smells distracted her, made her want to leap onto the next table, into the middle of that broiled lobster or into that great brimming bowl of meaty spaghetti. It took all her strength to resist. But then the conversation directly above her became so fascinating that she forgot her hunger.
“That time in L.A. was hard on you,” Roman Slayter was saying. He was very handsome, lean and tall, his dark short hair blow-dried just so, and those gorgeous brown eyes-like a movie star, Kit thought. Yet he scared her.
“I’m glad to be out of that friggin’ town,” Chichi said. “I’m never going back there, damn L.A. cops are a bunch of hoods.”
Slayter’s voice turned serious and gentle. “I know you miss him, Chichi. We all do.”
“They murdered him! Damn cops murdered him-friggin’ cops never pay for what they do. Cheap, lying Gestapo. ‘Line of duty,’ my ass.Hewasn’t in the damn bank,noway they could put him there!”
Slayter gave a sympathetic murmur, patting her hand and looking around them like he hoped no one was listening. Quietly he sipped his wine as the waiter appeared with a bowl of French-fried onion rings. Their scent made Kit’s claws itch with a powerful need to snatch a pawful. Slayter took some onion rings onto his bread plate and sat munching one, watching Chichi; Kit could not read his expression. She wouldn’t want to be trapped with this man. If she were a human lady, she’d stay away from Roman Slayter.