Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A White Tie And Tails

Krys was back, openly annoyed. “I can’t find that sherry bottle. Any sherry bottle. Any frickin’ dessert wine bottle.”

“Oh.” Mira puzzled for a moment. “Maybe we took that bottle to family dinner two weeks ago.”

“I don’t remember that, Mira.”

“I’m sure that’s what happened to it.” Mira’s appealing glance flicked from Matt to Temple. “Things have been so … busy. Krys, would you mind running to Woz´niak’s and getting another bottle?”

“Uh, Mira.” Krys pulled a cell phone from the tiny steel-spiked bag on her low-slung black leather belt, worn over that white tutu of a short skirt. “They close in less than half an hour.”

“Then you’ll have to hurry, won’t you?”

“Uh, sure.” Krys backed out of the room, and turned fast. Temple heard the scrape of car keys against a metal surface, likely a dish, then the apartment door opening and closing.

Mira sat back and closed her eyes just as Matt sat forward, his dark brown ones focused on her. “A Woz´niak’s run will take Krys at least half an hour, Mom. Where’s the wine bottle, really?”

Her blue eyes opened, looking haunted. “Empty. In my bottom dresser drawer.”

Struck again by the dramatic difference in mother and son’s eye color, Temple wondered what Matt’s father would look like as she met his shocked gaze. She knew what he was thinking: Had his mom become a secret drinker?

Mira continued speaking, but her eyes didn’t focus on them, only elsewhere in the room as if her own inner turmoil were lurking somewhere in the domestic landscape and she hoped to keep it at bay.

“Matt, I don’t want your lovely fiancée dragged headfirst into family business, but I don’t think I can stand the pretense anymore.”

“You’ve been under a lot of strain lately.” Matt was trying to remain neutral and supportive.

She laughed bitterly. “That’s nothing new for me, Matt. My whole life’s been ‘a lot of strain.’”

“True.” He took her hands. “And I haven’t been here for you lately, but that can change right now. I can be here to see you through.”

“You can’t help.”

“Sure I can. It’s my job.”

“Not this.” She put white, cold fingers to her visibly flushed cheeks and shut her eyes.

Matt exchanged another glance with Temple. “Is it the … wretched coincidence?” he asked his mother.

“Of my possibly having your father for a brother-in-law? Your uncle-in-law? Things that cuckoo have happened in the Bible. No, that was just icing on the arsenic cake,” his mother said.

“What is it that you think I can’t help you with?” Matt tightened his grip. “I know you want to download the problem to someone who can help. That’s great. You’ve started to…”

“Confess?” She laughed again. “No. I know you’re not taking confessions anymore.”

“Then why bring up something you won’t let me help with?” Matt checked his costly watch from the producers. “Krys will be back and our privacy will be nil.”

She took a deep breath and fixed her gaze for the first time. On Temple. “Actually, from what you’ve said, I’m thinking she can help.”

“Temple?” Matt sounded unflatteringly astounded, realized that, and started to backpedal. “Temple would be happy to help but you don’t even know her yet.”

“You said she was so smart and clever, had even beaten the police to the solution of crime only recently.”

Temple beamed as Midnight Louie came to sit at her feet and soak up the praise. “So you need a gumshoe?” she asked.

Gumshoes were the silent gum rubber-soled “tennis” shoes of their day. All eyes fixed on Temple’s highly elevating but decidedly impractical and clattering gladiator sandals.

Apparently embarrassed, Louie hiked a rear leg over one shoulder like a shotgun and began grooming the hairs between his back legs. Talk about being embarrassing, Temple thought, in the bare-butt sense of the word.

Mira was too upset to take in the byplay. “I just don’t want you fretting, Matt.” She withdrew her hands and fisted them at her sides on the sofa. “I’ve been getting these messages.”

“Messages?” Temple and Matt had questioned the word at the same time. It was so … old-fashioned. Did she mean e-mails? Phone calls?

“Notes.” The word spat out of Mira’s mouth like a dead fly found in her coffee, along with a shudder of sheer revulsion.

“In the mail?” Matt asked.

“No. In person. Wherever I happen to be.”

Temple sat forward, her sudden move almost overturning the delicately balanced cat at her ankles. “Notes. Not mash notes?”

Mira shrugged. “They could be taken for that, showing up under my reservation book at the restaurant, under my napkin during dinners out. In my umbrella when it rains. In my purse.”

“Good God!” Matt’s expletive didn’t merit notice from his mother, much less a reproof. “You’re being stalked. Why haven’t you informed the police? Why are you making such a secret of it? Is it because of your new … romance? Is some disgruntled ex-girlfriend shadowing you? Is that really why you ended the relationship?”

“Yes, Matt. Stalked. No, I don’t think it has to do with Philip.” She put her hand to Matt’s face. “Oh, dear one. I really didn’t want to trouble you with it, not after the childhood I gave you.”

“The childhood you gave me was fine,” Matt said firmly, taking her hands again.

She avoided his gaze and looked at Temple. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your trip to Chicago.”

“Ruin it? No way. Your son proved himself an ace skip tracer in Vegas and my nose may be as short as I am, but it’s long on sniffing out liars, cheaters, and crooks. You have to in the PR game.”

“Speaking of liars, cheaters, and crooks, Mom,” Matt said. “What about the empty bottle in the bottom of your drawer? You’re not a newly converted dipsomaniac?”

“Just the occasional drink before or after dinner. Truly, Matt.”

Temple glanced at him, seeing the tension softening in his face and shoulders.

“That’s a relief,” Matt said, adopting radio shrink mode and a low, nonjudgmental tone. “Then what just happened here?”

The answer arrived in a rush of confessional frankness, just like on the air. “I poured the wine down the sink and hid the bottle so Krys would leave.”

Matt registered her answer and then grinned. “Pretty sly move for a parochial school girl.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I just couldn’t go through another Charade Sunday at Uncle Stach’s house. They already think I’m half-crazy for calling off the engagement with Philip. They don’t know who his brother is and I’m not going to tell him.” She paused. “Are you seeing … him? This trip?”

“Yes, Mom. Temple’s coming too.”

Mira winced. “That’s fine. You should have a relationship with your father. My … going forward with my unfortunate … encounter with his brother would have been so awkward anyway.”

“Doesn’t mean we let somebody scare you out of it.” Matt was firm. “What does this anonymous coward seem to want, anyway?”

Mira bit her lip, hard. “That’s why I tried not to mention this. He wants something he thinks Cliff Effinger left behind.”

“My lousy stepfather?” Matt asked. “Where are these notes?”

“In…” Mira looked apologetic. “In my dresser drawer.”

“With the emptied bottle.” Matt shook his head. “Temple’s scarf drawer is another forbidden zone of explosive secrets. Let’s see these threats.”

When they stood in front of the drawer, it looked so innocuous. Just a small bottom drawer.

“What a wonderful dresser,” Temple couldn’t help but exclaim. “It’s a reproduction of those 1930s-style ones.” She ran her hands over the round frame holding the mirror.