Shirley Murphy: Cat Fear No Evil

Clyde and Max Harper had been friends since high school, when during summers and on weekends they followed the rodeos up and down California, riding broncs and bulls. Harper, lean and sun-leathered, still looked very much like an old bronc buster. Clyde had mellowed out smoother, but he was still in good shape. Strange, Joe thought, how things happened. When Charlie arrived in the village just over a year ago, to stay with her aunt Wilma, Clyde had at once started dating her. It wasn't until much later, and, Joe thought, quite by accident, that Charlie and Max fell in love.

Tonight, none of Harper's officers was in uniform and the chief himself was dressed in a pale suede sport coat, beige slacks, and a dark silk shirt-a perfect complement to Charlie's gold lame. He stood across the room talking with two of his men, his tall, slim figure military straight; his tanned, lined face that could look so stern tonight was only proud and caring as he looked across at Charlie and moved in her direction, thrilled she was by her first one-man show; she was so excited her stomach was queasy. As she watched Max work his way through the crowd toward her, she watched Sicily Aronson, too. From the moment the doors had opened this evening, the flamboyant brunette had been everywhere, flitting from group to group, her diaphanous skirts and shawls floating around her, her tall figure set off by the usual collection of dangling jewelry, tonight an impressive mix of silver and topaz and onyx. Sicily had taken care of the party details personally, the invitations, the press releases, the hanging of the work, down to the selection of appetizers and wines.

"You're gawking," Max said, coming up behind Charlie. "You're supposed to look sophisticated and cool."

"I don't feel sophisticated or cool." She grinned at him and took his hand, moving with him to a far corner where they could have a little space. "How can I not be excited, when everyone we know is here, and so many people I don't know, have never seen before."

"Maybe collectors, come to buy out the show."

Laughing, she studied the long, lean lines of his face, her throat catching at the intimacy of his brown eyes on her.

"I'm glad I married you," he said softly, "before you got so famous you wouldn't look at me."

She made a face at him.

"You will be famous. Of course, with me you're already famous. Particularly in bed."

She felt her face color, and she turned her back on him, studying the crush of viewers that was already overflowing onto the sidewalk. Max ran his hand down her arm in a way that made her catch her breath. Turning, she breathed a sigh of pure contentment.

"It's a fine show," he said seriously. "You know you have three prospective clients waiting to talk with you. That woman over by the desk, for one. The Doberman woman."

She nodded. "Anne Roche. I'll go sit with her in a minute."

"And would you believe Marlin Dorriss is here? That he's seriously eyeing three pieces of your work? That would be a conquest, to be included in the Dorriss collection. He's been looking at the gulls in flight."

She nodded, grinning at him. Early in the evening Dorriss had spent some time looking at the drawings of seagulls winging over the Molena Point rooftops. They were not romantic renderings, but stark, the dark markings of the gulls repeated in the harshly angled shadows of the rooftops.

"That would be very nice," she said softly, "to hang beside work by Elmer Bischoff and Diebenkorn." She looked up at Max. "I still find it hard not warm to Dorriss, to his quiet, sincere manner. Find it hard not to like him, despite his unwelcome affair with Dillon's mother."

Dillon was Charlie and Max's special friend; Max had taught her to ride, helping to build confidence and independence in the young teenager who, they had sometimes thought, might be a bit too sheltered.

She was not sheltered now. The sudden breakdown of her family had turned Dillon shockingly bad mannered and rude. Charlie hurt for her, but she grew angry at Dillon, too. An ugly turn in life didn't give you license to chuck all civility and let rage rule-even when it was your mother who had betrayed you.

But Charlie hadn't had a very good relationship with her own mother, so maybe she was missing something here. Certainly she hadn't had anything like Dillon's fourteen years of warmth and security. Maybe that made the present situation far worse. Until her mother went suddenly astray, Dillon never had to cope with a problem parent.

Surely Helen's transgression with handsome Marlin Dorriss was understandable-plenty of women were after him. A well-built six-foot-four, he was a man whom women on the street turned to look at, a well-tanned, athletic-looking bachelor with compelling brown eyes, always quietly but expensively dressed, his voice and manner subdued, totally attentive to whomever he was speaking with. Busboy or beautiful model, Dorriss seemed to find each person of deep interest. He had an air of kindness about him as if he truly valued every human soul.

"Hard not to like the man," Max said, giving Charlie a wry grin and putting his arm around her. Warm in each other's company, they stood quietly watching the crowd. "Kate Osborne just came in," he said. "There by the door talking with Dallas. She'll be pleased that you're wearing her hairclip."

Charlie touched the heavy gold barrette that tied back her red hair. Set with emeralds and carved with the heads of two cats, it was a handsome and unusual piece, part of a collection of jewelry that Kate's unknown parents, or perhaps her mysterious grandfather had left to her. She had stopped by the ranch that afternoon for a few moments to drop off the barrette; they had stood by the pasture fence petting the two Harper dogs and talking. Charlie hadn't wanted to accept the gift. "I can't take this, Kate, it has to be worth a fortune. It's very beautiful."

"It's not worth a fortune, it's only faux emeralds. I had the whole lot appraised the week after that attorney gave them to me. So strange… but I'll tell you about it when we have more time." Turning, her short blond bob catching the sunlight, she removed the plastic clip from Charlie's hair and fastened on the gold-and-emerald confection.

"Oh yes," Kate said, stepping back. "It's beautiful on you, it will be smashing with that gold lame."

"But…"

"Charlie, I'll never wear this, I'll never have long hair, long hair makes me crazy. Jewelry is meant to be used, to be worn." Taking her compact from her purse, she held up the mirror so Charlie could see.

Charlie had been thrilled with the gift. "I still think it looks terribly valuable. Even if the jewels are paste, the gold work is truly fine."

"If you like primitive," Kate said. "As we both do. The appraiser-he's top-notch, was recommended by several of my clients in the city-I don't think he goes for this kind of work. He did say the pieces were unusual in style. When I pressed him for some date, some idea what the history of the pieces might be, he seemed uncertain. Said they didn't really belong in any time or category, that he really couldn't place them as to locale."

"Strange, if he's so knowledgeable."

"Yes." Kate had looked uneasy, as if she found the lack of any background for the jewelry somehow unsettling. "He assured me the jewels were paste. He said that wasn't uncommon, and I knew from my art history that was true, that during the 1800s real gold and silver settings were made with great care, but often set with paste jewels."

Kate gave the two dogs a parting pat. "I gave the other barrette to Wilma, the silver and onyx one for her silver hair."

"But if there's some clue to your parents here, if they were connected somehow to the jewelry…"

Again, that uneasy downward glance. "I have ten more pieces to solve the puzzle, if that's why the jewelry was saved for me, if it does hold some clue."