"It's a big pantry, a walk-in. Took me half the morning. I didn't do much else; I'll make up for it tomorrow. He got home as I was leaving, said he thought it was a burglar in there, that he got the pistol, jerked the door open, saw these huge raccoons tearing up boxes of food. Said they snarled at him and scared him, and he didn't know what else to do but shoot them. Said he was really afraid of them."
"A lot of explanation."
"Why would he not want me to tell anyone? Not want me to tell you? Because he has a gun?"
"It's not illegal to have a gun if he stores it properly and if he's not a felon. If he keeps it locked up in the house, it's not my business."
He looked deeply at Charlie. "You might want to watch yourself around Traynor, until we know what that's about. He has to have a hot temper, to blow away two innocent animals when he could have called the dispatcher and gotten some help."
"It's hard for me to think of him as being crosswise with the law. Though I do have other questions about him."
"Oh? Like what?"
"Umm-about his writing."
"About his writing?" Harper leaned back, watching the breakers crash against the rocks sending up white showers of spray. The smell of brine was sharp through the open window.
"I read part of his manuscript that he left lying on the desk."
He looked at her, raising an eyebrow.
She ignored his silent sarcasm. This was nothing she wanted to joke about. "It's crude, Max. Clumsy. I don't understand. Traynor's a beautiful writer."
"I didn't know you were a literary critic. Or that you were so nosy."
"Call it hero worship," she said lightly. "But this has truly upset me-a real let-down."
He began to peel the label from his beer, rolling it into a little ball. "It's a let-down because his writing is bad. Because you admired his work. You're disappointed in the man you thought of as perfect."
"Maybe." She sipped her beer, staring out at the sea, eased by its endless and constant rhythm. "Somehow the Traynors make me uneasy. They aren't what I expected. I guess I thought Vivi, too, would be different. That she would be gentler, wise and capable and supportive. My idea of an author's wife," she said, laughing. But then, watching Max, she frowned. "You-the police have no reason to be interested in Traynor?"
"Not at all. Not at the moment."
She watched him, then changed the subject. "I'm keeping the hundred dollars. I earned it. Tucking it away for a special occasion."
"Like what? A bottle of champagne for our wedding?"
He shocked himself. Shocked them both. Charlie's eyes widened. Beneath her freckles, she blushed.
He said, "Maybe a wedding and champagne on shipboard, on our way to Alaska?"
"Now I know you're putting me on. You haven't been away from the department since you joined the force."
"Not true. Been to Quantico twice for FBI training. And more conferences on police administration than I want to remember."
"Well, bully for you."
He grinned. "A lot of vacation time to use up. I figure a month's cruise, this fall, before the weather turns."
Her response was so enthusiastic that she startled Harper. The moment amazed them both. It was a while before they opened their sandwiches and the containers of coleslaw and popped another beer. She tried to get hold of herself, but she couldn't. When she started to laugh, she couldn't stop. She leaned against him, laughing.
"So what's the joke?"
She knew her face had gone red. "Just… just excitement," she lied. "I…" She looked up at him. "Just happy!" But what she'd thought of suddenly was about telling Dulcie and Joe Grey. Thinking how happy the cats would be-and then that knowledge sobered her.
That was a hard call; no matter how close she and Max might be for the rest of their lives, there was one secret she could never tell him. One part of her life that she could never share.
16
Spotlights illuminated center stage. The house lights were dark, the rows of seats marching away empty into the hollow blackness of the theater. Only a few front seats were occupied where Elliott and Vivi Traynor, director Samuel Ladler, and music director Mark King sat together softly talking, and occasionally rattling a script. Elliott had hunched down in his wrinkled corduroy sport coat as if perhaps he felt unwell. On the far side of the theater near the exit door, a dozen actors had taken a block of seats, whispering among themselves, waiting for their callback auditions for Thorns of Gold. Above the house among the rafters, where night clung against the high ceiling, crouched an attentive feline audience of three: two pairs of yellow eyes, one pair of green, catching glances of soft light. No human, below, bothered to look up, to find those tiny spotlights.
"But where's Cora Lee?" Dulcie said softly, peering down at the waiting actors.
"Still backstage," said the kit. "Painting sets like she doesn't care at all about the part."
Of the seven women who had read and sung for the part of Catalina during yesterday's tryouts, Cora Lee was one of two callbacks. Director Ladler felt so pressed for time that he had notified the actors last night before they left the theater, had stood on the patio with the little group gathered around him and read out the names of the callbacks. Then he had quickly turned back inside before anyone could challenge his decisions. No director liked that part of the casting; no one enjoyed seeing the disappointment of those who were turned away.
Below the cats, Vivi leaned over to Elliott, whispering something, then giggling. She leaned forward in her chair, looking down the several seats to question Sam Ladler and to give him orders. Elliott hardly paid attention. Surely he wasn't feeling well, Dulcie thought. Maybe the decisions that should be his had suddenly fallen on Vivi's shoulders and she was nervous about that.
Director Sam Ladler was a lean, tanned man with thinning hair that heightened his forehead into a deep widow's peak. He looked like he ran or played tennis. He was dressed this morning in old jeans and a limp sweatshirt. He was a terse man, Wilma had said, with a dry humor. Wilma said that he and his casts had created outstanding theater for Molena Point. He sat between Traynor and Mark King, the two directors having managed to put Vivi down at the far end of the row.
Mark King was smoothly pudgy, a young man who seemed to have turned middle-aged before his time. He was short, maybe five-four, with straight, faded brown hair down to his shoulders and rimless half-glasses that he kept wiping as if he found it impossible to remove the smudges. He wore wrinkled chinos and a T-shirt with palm trees printed across it. He rose as Ladler called for Catalina and moved up onto the stage, to the piano.
"We'll have Fern Barth," Ladler said, looking down at the little group of actors. Fern was Richard Casselrod's assistant at the antiques shop, a pale, spiritless woman, in Dulcie's opinion, whose singing during tryouts had sounded as if she was practicing for second line in the choir box, hitting the notes okay, but with no more feeling than a china doll. As Fern stepped up on stage, a whiff of her perfume rose to the cats as sweet as cake icing.
"Why," Dulcie whispered, "was this woman called back?"
Joe Grey shrugged, yawning. "Doesn't stand a chance."
"I hope not," Dulcie said uneasily. And her dismay was sharp when Fern had finished, and Vivi smiled and nodded at Sam Ladler. Elliott came to life long enough to give Fern a friendly wink. Sam Ladler looked over at them blankly and called Cora Lee.
Cora Lee came out from the wings rolling down the sleeves of her smock and wiping paint from her face. Moving to center stage, she turned to the piano, smiled at Mark King, then stood quietly looking out at the rows of empty seats, collected and composed.
"Read from where she refuses to marry Stanton," Ladler said. "Then where she's locked in her room, and that first number."