But the cat burglar did not seem distressed. The shocking contrast between her young, firm, smooth body and her ancient wrinkled face seemed not to phase her.
She looked like a young woman wearing the mask-the living mask-of a Halloween witch.
She sat down at the dressing table, lifted up her gray hair, and removed it with one smooth motion as casually as she had removed the floppy hat. Beneath the vanished wig, her own pale hair was wispy and matted. She brushed it and tried to fluff it, and sighed.
Putting the wig in one of the hatboxes, she arranged it as if the box might contain a little stand, perhaps one of those white Styrofoam heads with no face. The cats crept closer to see, moved in through the balcony door, into the room, staying behind the metal table.
Lifting a large bottle, she uncapped it, releasing a smell like nail polish remover. Pouring the clear liquid into a little dish, she soaked a cotton ball and began to scrub at her eyebrows, then rubbed the sharp-smelling liquid into her wrinkled face.
She did this several times, and then, working quickly, she peeled away her thick gray eyebrows and began to peel off her wrinkles, wadding them in handfuls, dropping the refuse in the wastebasket. Revealing young, smooth skin beneath.
Slowly Renet’s face emerged, smooth and plain. A face totally unremarkable, as quickly forgotten as bland generic cat food.
Halfway through this task she stopped her work and turned, looking nervously around the room. Behind the table, the cats froze. Did she sense someone watching?
But she did not look in their direction, her glances across the room were higher up-looking for a human spy. And as she rose and turned, the cats slipped away to the balcony again, sliding beneath the questionable shelter of the lacy iron chair, into its thin, openwork shadow.
She tried the door leading to her bedroom and seemed relieved that it was securely locked. She stepped to the darkroom and stood in the doorway, looking in, then returned to the dressing table. The cats hunched close together, watching her cup her hands over her face and lean down, removing her contact lenses.
She cleaned the contacts carefully, put them in their little plastic box, and slipped that into the small drawer of the tiny chest. Her face was red and blotched from the harsh chemical.
Now, still in her cotton pants and bra, standing at the worktable, she removed from the coat’s inner pockets a handful of glitter, flicked on the gooseneck lamp, and held to the light several gold bracelets, three gleaming chokers, four pairs of glittering earrings. She studied each, then turned away, leaving the jewelry scattered across the table.
Unlocking the door to her bedroom, she moved inside. They heard her open the cupboard, but from this vantage they couldn’t tell what she was doing. Not until they slipped in again, to the bedroom door, did they see that she was holding the doll, cuddling it.
For the first time, Dulcie could see the doll clearly. She crept close, halfway into the room, took a good look. As they slipped away again to the balcony, she whispered so close to Joe’s ear that her breath tickled.
“That’s not the doll Mae Rose gave to Renet; that was a regular child’s doll. This is something else. It’s so real, like a real person. That’s one of the stolen dolls, those valuable collector’s dolls.”
They watched Renet return to the dressing room, carrying the doll, touching its cheek with one finger. Sitting down again before the mirror, she propped the doll at the end of the dresser against the hatboxes, then began to work cream into her own chapped, red skin, using little round strokes as one might learn from a beauty magazine article on correct skin care. They were watching her with interest when, in the mirror, Renet’s eyes caught theirs.
From the glass, she stared straight at them. Her eyes locked on their eyes.
They backed away, crouching to leap to the next balcony. She ran, dived for them. Before they could jump she was between them, cutting them off from each other and from the rail. Joe streaked between her legs into the bedroom. Dulcie fled toward the darkroom, swerved, slid behind the dressing table. Renet slammed the balcony door shut and turned, began to stalk them.
33 [????????: pic_33.jpg]
Carrying the rotten meat in his handkerchief, Harper approached the old adobe stables that Adelina had converted to a maintenance building and garages. The structure was designed for maximum cooling, its rows of stalls set well back beneath deep overhangs, and its four sides facing an inner courtyard fashioned to trap the cool night air and hold it during the heat of the day. Entry to the stable yard was through an archway wide enough for a horse and wagon, so would easily accommodate any car. One row of stalls now served as garages-their inner walls extended out to the edge of the overhang, and individual garage doors had been added-providing a roomy eight-car area to house the Prior vehicles. All of the garage doors stood open, and a push broom leaned against the wall halfway down.
The spaces nearest him were empty; one of these probably belonging to Adelina’s new Rolls, one to Renet’s blue van, and a space likely reserved for Teddy’s specially equipped van, for the times when he chose to stay here. The other vehicles showed him only a bumper, a bit of rear fender.
The courtyard was wet and slick where Carlito Vasquez was hosing down the wheels of the big riding mower. Vasquez was a middle-aged, lean little man, likable and generally responsible, who did not talk, as far as Harper knew, about his employer, about details of her estate management, or about any personal business he might be privy to.
Moving across the courtyard to where the hose hissed and splattered, carrying the package of rotten meat, Harper paused only briefly to take a better look into the open garages.
A surge of surprise hit him. And a deep excitement.
In the last stall stood a blue‘93 Honda. The plate, where dried mud had flaked away, was partially legible: California plate 3GHK?
It was days like this, when something unexpected and significant was handed to him almost like a gift, that made all the dirt he had to deal with seem worthwhile.
As he moved on toward Carlito, the groundskeeper turned off the hose at the handheld nozzle. Harper handed him the handkerchief-wrapped, stinking meat.“You put this in the garbage, Carlito. You know what this is. Show me where you keep the cyanide.”
Carlito cringed, as if he’d been hit, and pointed toward an open stall. Harper could see bags of fertilizer piled inside and, along one wall, a shelf of cans and bottles, probably garden sprays, vermin poison.
“Leave the cyanide where it is, Carlito. My men will take a look. Don’t even go in that stall until I tell you.”
Carlito nodded.
He gave the caretaker a long look, then waved him away.“Go put that meat in the garbage. Put the lid on real tight so nothing can get at it.No mas animales muerte. Comprende?”
Carlito nodded again, dropping his glance before Harper’s angry stare. And, Harper thought, the man had only done what he was paid to do.
“No matter what kind of orders Ms. Prior gives you, if I find any more poison anywhere on this property, you’re going to find yourself sleeping inla carcel. Comprende?Now vamoose, get rid of this stuff. I’ll speak to Ms. Prior.”
Carlito left, carrying Harper’s redolent handkerchief, took off across the stable yard fast for the narrow arch at the back that led behind the stalls. The estate kept its garbage cans there, secured to the wall to keep local dogs and raccoons from overturning them.
When Carlito had gone, Harper moved on over to the garages. The ceilings were low, the shadowed spaces exuding cool air. He could hardly tell where the walls of the old stable ended and the new adobe had been added on, the work matched so well. Adelina didn’t stint when it came to builders and construction work.
Scraping the remaining mud off the last three numbers, he stood grinning.
This was the one.
Feeling like a kid at Christmas, he circled the Honda, looking in through its closed windows, touching neither the glass nor the vehicle itself.