How to Paint a Cat (Cats and Curios Mystery) (16 page)

THE SPARKLING GLOW

SPIDER STOOD ON
the balcony outside the mayor’s office, watching Monty sketch yet another portrait. He waited until he was sure the image in the center remained the same; then he slowly eased back through the window to the supply room and returned to the hallway by the elevators.

He punched the call button and stared up at the meter above the doors, purposefully avoiding the view down the adjacent corridor that overlooked the rotunda and, at its center, the marble staircase.

Nope
, Spider thought to himself.
I’m not ready. It’s too soon. Just being this close is giving me the heebies.

But as the elevator
ding
ed and the carriage opened, a movement caught Spider’s attention.

Hoxton Finn strode briskly past, brooding as he thumped a file folder against his left thigh. After the interview with the interim mayor, the reporter had split up from the rest of the news crew. He had made his regular rounds, visiting with his various sources, chatting with whichever supervisors he could find in their offices that afternoon.

Spider knew the reporter’s routine. He had tracked Hox through the building back in his intern days, and he recognized the route. Hox had finished his last checkin and was about to circle to the main staircase, descend to the first floor, and out the front doors.

Spider hesitated for several seconds, summoning his courage, before finally straightening his shoulders and turning to face the rotunda.

It was time to push the limits of his ghostly abilities. He had practiced enough with projecting images onto Monty’s brain. He was ready to attempt a more challenging communication.

As Hox tromped down the second-floor hallway, the elevator’s doors swung shut minus the ghostly rider.

• • •

A POTENT MIX
of fear and determination pumped through Spider’s phantom veins as he followed Hox down the corridor. The prospect of returning to the scene of the slaying terrified him.

It was the first truly intense emotion he’d experienced since his run-in with the delivery truck. Unbeknownst to Spider, the energy from his inner turmoil created a faint mist, a cloudy apparition visible to the building’s other occupants.

Intent on his mission, Spider failed to notice the startled gasps as he surged past a suited man carrying a briefcase and threaded through a crowd of photo-snapping tourists. It wasn’t until he neared the end of the corridor and spied his reflection in a decorative mirror that he realized what had happened.

Spider paused, awestruck by the sight of his translucent figure, but there was no time to gawk.

Hox had lumbered to the far end of the corridor. The reporter veered right, disappearing around the corner leading to the side entrance of the ceremonial rotunda.

If Spider was going to implement his plan, he had to act now.

Rushing forward, he sped toward the turn, his rubber-soled sneakers squeaking against the marble floor. The next stride would bring the ceremonial rotunda into view. His right foot planted for the pivot—but at the last second, he skidded to a stop.

His figure quickly faded to its invisible form. He couldn’t bring himself to take the last step.

Flattening himself against the wall, he closed his eyes, concentrating as he quickly counted to ten.

Holding his hands over his face, he slid his feet forward, feeling his way around the marbled corner. Still blocking his vision, he listened for the reporter. Had he waited too long?

Then he heard Hox’s stilted gait approaching the top of the central staircase.

This was it. This was his moment.

Dropping his hands, Spider forced open his eyes. At the sight of the Harvey Milk bust, his figure once more appeared in a sparkling glow.

His body electrified by emotion, Spider envisioned the scene from the night of his murder: the blood-spattered walls, the flat pools of blood on the floor, and there in the middle, his body, sprawled, lifeless.

THE MISSING MEMORY

HOXTON FINN ENTERED
the ceremonial rotunda at full speed, intent on returning to the newspaper’s offices. Halfway across, however, he slowed and glanced around the space.

Visions of the crime scene photos ran through his head as he stared at Harvey Milk’s bronze bust. The man’s cheerful face was frozen in a smile, his flapping tie thrown back against his chest.

Hox turned to look out over the expansive rotunda and once more replayed the moments before the attack.

The vision wasn’t difficult to re-create. The rain now pouring down outside had darkened the windows that framed the rotunda’s upper walls. The time was nearing five o’clock, so City Hall had begun to empty out. And just like the night of the murder, the air was damp with fog, moisture so dense that you could almost taste it on your tongue.

Lastly, the reporter’s foot had begun its end-of-day throb, a reminder of the ache he’d endured the evening after he’d chased the albino alligator all over the city.

Hox ground the aching stub of his foot against the tip of his shoe. He envisioned the young intern crossing the pink marble floor at the bottom of the staircase. The image was blurry, as if distorted by the fog.

Hox squinted, straining to bring the memory into better focus.

Then he shook his head and let out a frustrated sigh. It was no use.

“Time to give up this nonsense,” he muttered to himself.

But just as he lifted his left foot off the top step of the staircase, a rush of color swept through his brain. The jolt nearly caused him to lose his balance and fall the length of the stairs. His wild wobble drew a few concerned looks from passing bystanders, but he paid them no heed.

He’d finally received his breakthrough.

Suddenly, he saw the scene with a renewed clarity, a deeper, more enhanced perception that broke with the previous script.

The intern began climbing the steps. His face, at first apprehensive, soon flashed with recognition. Hox nodded an informal greeting as Spider passed alongside him.

The sequence was the same as before, but this time, the reporter noticed something new.

He caught a glimpse of the intern’s profile—and the detail that had slipped from his initial recollections.

There was a bulky lump draped over the young man’s shoulders.

A whisper soaked through Hox’s subconscious: Spider was carrying a backpack.

• • •

MINUTES LATER, SPIDER
collapsed on the front steps outside City Hall, spent from the effort of transferring the vision. He felt as if the interaction with Hox had drained every last bit of energy from his ghostly being, but when he looked across the Civic Center’s open green space, his dimpled face beamed a satisfied smile.

At the far end of the plaza, he could just make out Hox’s silhouette, hurrying through the rain as fast as his hobbled foot would allow.

• • •

HOX RACED BACK
to the newspaper’s offices. Soaking wet, he sprinted through the front door and up the stairs, ignoring for once the pain in his left foot.

The paper’s managing editor looked up with a frown. He had been briefed on Hox’s less-than-stellar interview with the interim mayor. Connie stood beside the editor, her arms crossed over her chest.

Hox waved them off and charged down the hallway to the conference room. Slamming the door behind him, he began rummaging through the Spider Jones files, tossing papers this way and that until he found the stack containing the police report.

Holding his breath, he scanned through the report, searching for every reference to the items that had been found with the victim’s body.

After ten minutes of increasingly frantic review, Hox blew out a sigh of relief and collapsed into the chair. There was no mention of a backpack having been found anywhere near the ceremonial rotunda.

Hox drummed his fingers against the table, contemplating.

What did Spider have in his backpack the night of the murder and had it been worth killing for?

THE CAMPSITE

THE LAST EMBERS
glowed in the fire pit of the Sonoma woods campsite where the burly frog aficionado and the former proprietor of Lick’s Homestyle Chicken had been hiding for the past two months.

From his seat on a log at the edge of the camp, Sam looked up at the redwood canopy. He always preferred a natural roof to any man-made contrivance. While his companion had been sleeping on a bunk inside the cabin, Sam had spent every night outside by the fire.

He took in a deep breath, soaking up the surrounding earthy scents. It had been weeks since his last shower; a grimy layer of black dirt covered his skin and clothing. His overgrown beard gave him the look of a Sasquatch.

But he’d never felt as clean as he did right now. The air in his lungs carried the purified oxygen of a thousand-acre forest. The mist drifting down through the trees dampened his face with a refreshing spritz.

He sighed. He wasn’t ready to go back to the city.

Regardless, they couldn’t stay any longer at their current location. Oscar had heard over his radio that a forest ranger had been sent to check on their campsite. Even though they were camped on private land, it would be best to pack up and leave to avoid potentially awkward questioning.

The nosy ranger was the least of their problems. More concerning was the news that the murdered intern had hidden a stash of documents near his cubicle at City Hall. The bundle would have to be retrieved before the police discovered it—and the sensitive information inside.

Standing to full height, Sam dusted himself off and returned to his duties. He loaded the camping gear and the remaining provisions into the rear of the cargo van. Then he turned to the two domesticated frogs. Opening their carrier, Sam carefully set them inside.

“Don’t worry, my friends. You’ll be out again soon.” He hoped the amphibians didn’t detect the anxiety in his voice.

It would be a short visit to the city. He and Oscar couldn’t afford to be seen in San Francisco.

• • •

INSIDE THE CABIN,
Oscar carefully tapped the paint-covered canvas with the tip of his index finger. Happily, no color transferred to his skin.

The painting was finished and, despite the moist air, it had dried sufficiently to cover it for transport.

He stepped back, studying the busy scene depicted on the canvas.

A midday crowd gathered near the San Francisco intersection of Washington and Montgomery. Mismatched landmarks spread across the painting’s upper horizon. It was a near-perfect replica of Arnautoff’s
City Life
—with two small but important exceptions.

Bending back toward the frame, he looked closely at the anomalies and nodded with approval.

Now it was just a matter of his niece putting the pieces together.

Securing the cover over the canvas, he carried the large frame to the cargo van and handed it inside to Sam.

Grabbing a stitch in his lower back, he turned and gazed at the empty campsite. Then he returned to the cabin to retrieve one last item.

Slowly, he walked to the far corner of the room. His face shadowed with guilt, he reached down to pick up the bloodstained backpack last worn by Spider Jones.

THE PAINTED CORNER

THE MORNING DAWNED
clear and bright in San Francisco, a temporary break from the endless stream of clouds lined up across the Pacific. Waterlogged citizens poured into the streets, thankful for the respite, however brief. From the Marina Green to the Ferry Building, the city was alive with movement. Dog walkers, joggers, coffee drinkers, and commuters were all eager to take advantage of the temporary dry spell.

Inside the redbrick building that housed the Green Vase, the niece prepared for her own outing—although of all the excursions being planned that day, she suspected hers was the only one that was mural-inspired.

After digging through a cramped closet, she managed to extract a stroller with green nylon siding.

Hooked to the stroller’s side was a triangular yellow tag with a black silhouette icon positioned beneath the words
Cats on Board
.

It took a few minutes of struggling—and several instructional comments from Isabella—before the stroller was unfolded and snapped into its operational configuration.

A gift from their then-aspiring mayor neighbor, the stroller had been used to transport Rupert and Isabella through several Northern California host cities for the Tour of California cycling race.

The niece had been skeptical when Monty first presented her with the “green machine.” She hadn’t thought she’d be able to convince Isabella to voluntarily climb inside its mesh-covered passenger compartment.

But after a thorough sniffing and inspection, Isabella had reluctantly complied. After a few trips in the stroller, the cat soon got over her concerns about being trapped inside.

If she sat upright in the passenger compartment, she could see out through the top netting. With a clear view of the sidewalk ahead, she had become skilled in communicating directions back to the niece, who steered the contraption by pushing on a waist-high handlebar.

Isabella had eventually given the stroller her stamp of approval. She generally enjoyed her stroller experiences—so long as her commands were understood and dutifully obeyed.

• • •

THE NIECE LOADED
the reference book, her notes, and the photocopy of the mural into one of the nylon storage compartments built into the stroller’s side walls.

Since its bike race debut, the modified carriage had been surprisingly useful in both transporting the cats and sneaking them into areas where they wouldn’t ordinarily have been permitted. Given the unexplained events that had transpired within the Green Vase the previous day, the niece didn’t like the idea of leaving the cats alone again.

“I think I’d better take you guys with me,” she said with a wary glance around the showroom.

She’d puzzled long and hard about what might have gone on in the apartment during her jog to Coit Tower. After a night’s fitful pondering, she’d concluded that her uncle must have been responsible for the “Follow the Murals” message painted on the kitchen floor—but she hadn’t been able to reconcile that theory with the mysterious sneakered footprints.

Since moving into the apartment above the Green Vase, she’d encountered a lot of strange things. The invisible intruder ranked near the top of the list.

In any event, she didn’t want to endure a repeat of the cat-painting disaster.

The niece unzipped the stroller’s top cover and folded it to one side so that Isabella could leap into the passenger compartment. Then she scooped up Rupert and gently dropped him in next to his sister.

For his part, Rupert didn’t mind the stroller. So long as he could snuggle into the blankets for a nap, he found the rides comfortable enough. From the confines of the stroller’s passenger compartment, he had slept through raucous bike races, Mark Twain impersonators, and squawking mother ducks.

Today’s outing would offer something a little different.

He had never ridden in the stroller while being trailed by a ghost.

• • •

THE NIECE DECIDED
that the street sign depicted in
City Life
was her best starting point for trying to interpret the mural message that had been painted on her floor—and for figuring out why the murdered intern had collected the Coit Tower picture of her uncle.

Setting off from the Green Vase, it was a short walk to the intersection of Washington and Montgomery. Propelled by its human-powered engine, the cat stroller arrived within minutes.

Pausing at the near curb, the niece gripped the handlebar as she stared at the familiar landscape.

The bottom tip of Columbus Avenue cut into the cross streets at a diagonal, creating a multipronged juncture—and a snarl for traffic. The interchange formed a meeting point for three distinct neighborhoods: North Beach, Chinatown, and the financial district.

The surrounding businesses reflected the jumbled mix.

An Irish pub with fliers advertising an upcoming European soccer match sat across from a chichi champagne bar frequented by stockbrokers and young lawyers. Across the lopsided intersection, a plastic sign emblazoned with Chinese characters advertised a jointly operated dry cleaners and Szechuan noodle palace.

Towering above it all, in geometric concrete serenity, was the TransAmerica Pyramid building—along with the posted street sign featured in the
City Life
mural.

After waiting for the light, the niece pushed the stroller toward the bottom of the intersection at the pyramid’s base.

From the cat compartment, a commanding feline voice issued the charge—one that startled the ghostly spirit hovering near the stroller.

“Merrrr-ow-ow!”

• • •

REACHING THE OPPOSITE
side of the crosswalk, the niece stopped to look up at the pyramid. The modern-day financial center rested on a spot brimming with San Francisco history.

The pyramid stood at the edge of San Francisco’s pre–Gold Rush shoreline. Truckloads of landfill had been used to flatten the space and make it suitable for building. All manner of seaborne relics lurked in the sandy depths below, including the remnants of a wrecked ship embedded in the foundation walls.

While the pyramid’s signature shape was now universally associated with the San Francisco skyline, the building was only about forty years old. Back in the thirties when the
City Life
mural was conceived, the lot was occupied by another famous structure.

The Montgomery Block, affectionately known as the “Monkey Block,” was a favorite gathering place for many of the city’s artists, including the writer Mark Twain.

Upon this last realization, the niece tapped the stroller handle with confidence. One of her uncle’s favorite authors, Twain was also a founding member of the Bohemian Club.

“Issy,” she called down to the stroller, “I think we’re on the right track.”

• • •

PULLING OUT THE
New Deal art book from the stroller’s nylon pocket, the niece opened to the pages with the
City Life
spread. She positioned herself on the corner of Washington and Montgomery with the TransAmerica Pyramid to her back, so that she was in the same orientation as the mural’s painted street signs.

In the mural’s depiction, the corner of the Pacific Stock Exchange building could be seen in the distance, a few blocks away from the marked intersection. One of the curved stone statues from the building’s front entrance protruded into the street, as if summoning the viewer to investigate.

Recalling the details she’d read the previous evening, she flipped to the section of the text that discussed the New Deal artists’ influences and jumped to the header on Diego Rivera. One of Rivera’s earlier San Francisco works was located inside the Stock Exchange.

The niece thumped her finger against the commission date. Diego’s Stock Exchange mural was completed just a few years prior to the WPA murals inside Coit Tower. The master’s work would have been foremost in the minds of Arnautoff and his crew.

Holding the book in front of her chest, she shifted her attention to the modern-day perspective and looked up the diagonal offshoot of Columbus Avenue. The Exchange building wasn’t visible from this intersection. Too many high-rise office buildings blocked her direct line of sight.

“But even if I could see through concrete and steel,” she murmured, “it wouldn’t be located at the angle presented in the mural.”

After a moment’s contemplation, she repeated the painted message from her kitchen floor.

“Follow the murals,” she murmured, slowly rotating as she compared the two images. “It’s as if the painting is intentionally skewed . . . ”

Puzzling, she turned the mural’s layout 90 degrees to the left. The Stock Exchange and several other downtown landmarks suddenly fell into their proper alignment.

“Follow the murals,” she repeated again, this time awestruck. She slipped the book back into the nylon pouch and pushed the stroller forward. “Let’s head to the Stock Exchange.”

Rupert let out a snuffling snore as Isabella offered her expert guidance. Nose pushed up against the mesh cover of the passenger compartment, she issued an encouraging command.

“Mrao.”

• • •

WITH THE NIECE
rolling the carriage forward, Isabella shifted her gaze to a passing pedestrian—a transparent young man in high-top canvas sneakers.

The cat winked at her ghostly friend as he jogged around the stroller, nodding her acknowledgment of his silent hand-waving directions.