“Don’t knock people mysteriously disappearing. That’s why they need detectives. Like us.” Jack smiled.
“Bees Knees.” Grace agreed.
Henry drove by them in his Pierce Arrow, waving on his way to a new golf course in La Jolla. They could see the golf clubs in the back of his car.
“He doesn’t seem too perturbed.”
‘Lets take that to mean he has absolute confidence in our ability to bring her back.”
“I don’t think she’s afraid of him. She survived being an orphan on the streets of New York, an orphan train, and being paraded in front of prospective families like some kind of circus animal. She has to be strong.”
“With an unparalleled ability to survive. That means she could be anywhere.”
“We know she’s beautiful from her photo. What do you think her personality is like? Besides strong?”
“Courageous. Optimistic. Sees the glass as half full. Unwavering belief in herself and her ability to withstand everything. The beauty of starting at the bottom,” Grace said, “is that you have a rock solid foundation to build on for the rest of your life. The only place you have to go is up from your beginnings. I hit rock bottom at twenty—”
“—and you found me.”
“Why would Isabella leave? He seems nice enough. Not that we’d let a mask of niceness fool us.” Grace played with the flower on the side of her headband. It was dark and matched her Mary Jane pumps perfectly.
“The problem is he’s probably not going to confide there was a problem in his marriage. Or, the poor sap doesn’t even know there is one. Which makes him just like about ninety-nine percent of men.”
“If she hasn’t been kidnapped, and she’s left because she’s unhappily married, why is she unhappily married? If we can answer that, maybe we can find her?”
“Like what’s her boyfriend’s name? She found a boyfriend and now she’s unhappily married? Or she met him before her husband? You never loved anyone before me, did you Grace?”
“I’m very happily married, Jack.”
Chapter Twelve
They stopped into Pickwick Stages on the same street as La Jolla Chocolate Shop and Café. La Jolla had been having a building boom since the 1920s began, with money flowing as freely as champagne. With a photo of Isabella, they approached the ticket clerk. He stared at the photo for a long time.
“Have you seen her? Does she look familiar to you?”
“No. I was just thinking that she’s a beautiful girl. Not a dame you’d likely see around here. I don’t mean La Jolla. Lots of good looking dames on the beach. But they usually arrive by private car. Driven by a gentleman. Believe me, if I’d seen her, I would have remembered her.”
“I believe you,” Jack said.
Tatania spied the waiting room at Pickwick Stages. She jumped on the nearest table to see if any of the magazines had stories about orphan trains. Some of the passengers gaped, open mouthed at Tatania. You’d think they’d never seen a cat reading before. They smiled at her. Tatania was used to getting that reaction from people. It’s good to be a cat.
She jumped from the table to the top of the baggage rack, several feet in the air. Then, she paused for a grooming session, carefully fluffing her tail, and then moving it in front of her body so people could better appreciate its full beauty. She thought about going to find Grace and Jack. And she thought about napping. She decided to nap. It was comfortable at the top of the rack. And it was a good place to nap. No human could surprise her too quickly because they’d have to get on one of those cumbersome ladder things. She hadn’t seen a human who could jump like a cat yet. She licked her chops. Good tuna treats. And she began to doze, surrendering to a dream about sardines, tuna, and sea bass served at her table, and trying to decide which to eat first.
She sensed the humans were leaving. She jumped down and found them by the exit.
“Love,” Grace said.
“Yes,” Jack pulled her closer.
“I’m thinking about Isabella. It had to be love. No other explanation suffices.”
Tatania meowed and moved closer to her. Grace liked it when Tatania meowed after something she said. Even though Tatania was deaf, Grace always took it as a sign she was right. And Grace liked to be right.
“We need to talk to the operator of the La Jolla excursion. Find out how and why she
disappeared.”
“Are you talking about Isabella? I was the driver.” A heavily mustached man approached them.
“What are you doing at Pickwick?”
“I’m taking off to Los Angeles for a few days.”
“What do you think happened to Isabella?” Grace worried about the driver getting away.
“She insisted that instead of going horseback riding on the beach, she just wanted to enjoy some time on the beach on her own. She said she’d meet us next at the car next to the stables or at the La Jolla Chocolate Shop Café. She wasn’t at the car. We waited for her at La Jolla Chocolate Shop Café until it got late. Then, I called her room at the Del to speak to her husband. No one was in the room. I called the sheriff. The sheriff said she may have got bored waiting and took a cab back to the Hotel del Coronado.”
“Did you talk to her husband?”
“I called the room. I knew her last name. No one answered. I got the room number. And when I drove the other passengers back, I went up to the room to talk to her husband.”
“Henry,” Grace said.
He nodded.
“Henry said it didn’t make any sense. His wife became an expert at horseback riding at on the ranch where she lived with her foster parents. She came out on one of those special orphan trains. Found a nice family. And they introduced her to Henry. Life worked out sweet for a kid from the slums.” He lit a cigarette. He didn’t look much older than a kid himself.
“Why are you going to L.A.?” Jack asked.
He smiled and reached in his pocket.
“I’ve got a girl.” He showed them a photograph.
She looked like she’d blossomed under the California sun.
“She’s beautiful. What did Isabella talk about on the ride up here?”
“She kept expressing interest in the caves. The famous La Jolla Caves. I left the other ladies in the Chocolate Shop. And looked for her in the caves. I didn’t see her.”
Pickwick’s ticket man announced that the bus for Los Angeles was leaving.
“Let me give you my card,” Jack said, “if you think of anything else, call us collect. At any hour.”
They watched him board the bus.
Chapter Thirteen
Isabella had kicked off her shoes and ran, barefoot on the beach, feeling free again. Henry gave her all the shoes she wanted. And it wasn’t that she didn’t like shoes. She adored shoes. But there was someone she loved more than shoes. There was someone she wanted to be with so much that she would take life barefoot with him over anything else.
And he was coming for her.
He was taller. In their months apart, he’d gone from boyish to manly. He smiled. And picked her up. He carried her under the La Jolla arch. Like they were christening home for the first time. But home had been decided so long ago. When they were younger, children really, on the streets of New York, they knew that home was where each other was. And the cat.
“Where is she? I thought she’d be with you,” Isabella said.
He was carrying her in his arms, kissing her, and then he stopped. She was asking him about the cat.
He didn’t know how to tell her. How to explain what had happened. Even to someone who knew about the white cat’s magic, the story seemed so incredulous.
When Isabella entered the cave in La Jolla, she thought it was what they had dreamed about in New York. It was built like resolute stone that couldn’t be blown away by the elements. She walked farther inside and saw the drawings of her on butcher paper. The cave looked almost like Arthur had created an art gallery starring portraits of her drawn by him. She saw the one that h
e’d drawn under the sheet that day in New York. Their last day before the Children’s Aid Society grabbed them. And the cat. She missed the cat still. Sometimes, she thought she heard meowing. He’d created a bed of downy soft pillows for the two of them. There was another drawing of her next to it.
First, he put her down. And popped open a bottle of champagne he kept chilled in the cold ocean nestled in a cave crevice.
“To infinity,” he said.
“To infinity.” She smiled.
She sipped the champagne and noticed again that the walls of the cave were filled with his nude sketches of her on charcoal paper.
“I never stopped looking for you. Even after you married him, I kept looking for you.”
“He’ll miss me. How can we get away with it Arthur? He’ll call the cops.”
Arthur pulled her on his lap and kissed her.
“I have a plan,” he said.
And she kissed him back. And he put his hand over hers. It felt right. She trusted him. And forgot about the time.
Chapter Fourteen
“Maybe Isabella went to your favorite speakeasy in La Jolla, Jack.”
“Do you think we should find out for sure by going for a drink?”
“Absolutely.”
Tatania led the way to a nondescript doorway. Jack knocked. A square panel of the door was pulled back from the inside. A metal grate separated Jack from the man on the other side of the door who asked, “Password?”
“Beach love,” Jack said.
The door opened.
Tatania lept on the first stool.
“My favorite customer. You’re a perfect speakeasy kitty, Tatania,” said the bartender, pouring milk in a shot glass for her.
Tatania lapped up the milk.
“Are you on the job or just here to see me?”
“Both,” Grace said.
“I see you’re still with Jack. Pity.” He popped open a bottle of champagne for her.
“Well, he did help save the free world in the Great War.” Grace drank the champagne.
“We’re looking for a dame.” Jack showed him the photo of Isabella. He kept a handkerchief over her body. It was a nude photo.
“Have you seen her?”
“No. I’m sorry to say I haven’t.”
Tatania finished her milk and meowed at the door.
“Drink and run. Like all my other customers.”
“That’s not like her. Tatania. are you okay?”
Tatania pawed at the door in response.
Grace opened the door.
“I’ll have to come back for my drink.” Jack threw a few bills on the counter.
“She had to have left of her own volition. Willingly. Someone who grows up as a street rat in New York has some fight in her. She wouldn’t have been carried away without screaming loud enough to wake up a sleeping sea lion.”
Jack nodded. Tatania meowed. She kept walking towards the caves. Then, she turned around to see if Jack and Grace were watching her.
They followed because Tatania trained them to do her bidding even though once Tatania had led them to a cave of precious jewels guarded by poisonous snakes in a different case.
“There she is.” Arthur pointed to the white cat running into the cave.
The white cat was running into the cave. Running right towards them. Behind the white cat there was a couple he’d never seen before. She was slender, and wore a sparkling dress with matching headband and earrings. He was muscular and obviously protective of her, keeping one hand on her back as they entered the cave.
“Tatania, where are you taking us?” Grace asked because even though Tatania was deaf it sometimes seemed like a selective deafness and that Tatania knew exactly what was being said around her.
“Isabella,” Grace and Jack both said to the woman in the cave.
“What are you doing here?”
“I got lost. I found this gentleman and he was going to lead me back to the Chocolate Shop to call for a taxi.” She gestured to Arthur.
“Your husband hired us to find you.”
“Who are you?”
“Private detectives. It’ll be a tight fit but we’ll take you back in my plane. You can sit in the back with my wife. Tatania and I will sit in front.”
She looked at the man in the cave and paused. Then she said simply, “Thank you.”
Jack saw a snake slithering alongside the cave. He reached for a knife to kill it.
“Wait, don’t kill the snake.” Arthur stood up.
“The snake’s a pet.”
Isabelle pet the snake.
“Automatic thing. I learned it in the Army. We couldn’t be too careful. Some of the snakes were dangerous. Poisonous.”
Grace backed up and gave the snake a wide berth. Before they left the cave, Jack stared at the nude art work drawings of Isabella a little too long. Grace didn’t usually feel jealous but it was getting annoying. Isabella looked flawless.
Grace wished they had driven up to La Jolla. Tatania traveled comfortably on Jack’s lap. She was wedged in the back with Isabella. They took turns sharing the goggles so neither one would get too much wind.
Jack’s plane roared loudly, triumphant that it could ascend to the sky.
Chapter Fifteen
“I felt so silly. Getting lost in a cave. I was just exploring. And then when I got further and further and further down into the cave, I kept walking, and then there was an opening in the side of the cave, and the ocean came in, and I just held on to one of the rocks inside. I felt disoriented. I stayed there. And my dress got all wet. And it was getting dark. And I didn’t know what to do. So I waited for hours.” She looked at her watch. “And the water began to go back out and it was slippery, but I managed to find my way back to the entrance of the cave. And then, I saw Grace and Jack. And they told me you’d hired them. To find me. Oh, I’m so sorry,”
Isabella said when they were back at Henry and Isabella’s suite.
Henry patted her back.
“Thank you for finding her,” Henry said.
“Bees Knees. You’ll laugh at this adventure one day.” Grace kissed Isabella on the cheek.
Isabella laughed.
“One day is here already,” Jack said.
“He’s incorrigible.” Grace rubbed Jack’s arm.
“Thank you,” Henry said again.
“You’re very welcome. We’ll leave you to celebrate.”
Tatania meowed.
“There’s a cat in here,” Henry noticed for the first time.
“I’m really allergic.”
“She’s a magical cat. She won’t make you sneeze.”
“And she’s ours. She’s leaving with us.”
“Odd duck, isn’t he?” Jack asked, shutting the door to Henry and Isabella’s suite behind him.
“Their reunion seemed underwhelming.” Grace reached for Jack’s hand.
Tatania lead the way down the Hotel del Coronado’s staircase to the lobby. Their friend, Annie Knickerbocker, was sharing the most comfortable chair with their cat, Zeus. Tatania lept on the chair too.
“That’s their favorite chair.”
“If you want the most comfortable seat in the room, check out where the cat is sitting.”
“Where’s Martin?”
“Looking for my missing wife.” Annie’s husband walked out of a lobby shop.
“That’s our job. Looking for missing wives.”
“A shop is always a good place to start.”
Annie pulled out a cigarette and placed it in her black rhinestone cigarette holder that matched her black rhinestone headband. Martin pulled out a Tent City matchbook at the same time Jack did and lit it for her.
“You both are carrying the same matchbook.”
“Are you looking for a missing wife?”
“We just found her. Another mystery solved.”
“I’m in the mood for solving an easy mystery. Where can I get some good French champagne?”
“At our house,”
Grace said.
“We’re ready to celebrate. Break out some tuna for the cats. Champagne for us.”
The hotel lobby brimmed with people. Night life began to get interesting when the champagne popped.
“Ain’t she sweet. Can’t you see her coming down the street. Now I ask you very confidentially, Ain’t she sweet.” Martin sang along to the Tent City Band playing outside.
When the stars aligned, and the moon illuminated your way, it felt like nothing could go wrong on Coronado Island. And the worst night on Coronado could be better than the best night somewhere else.
The band began playing, “Lets Fall in Love”. Even in the bathing pools, the swimmers seemed to be dancing. Music defined Tent City. You could hear it on the Merry Go Round, in the Arcade, in the shops, and in the restaurants. Even on the pier, the music carried out from the Dance Pavilion, melodious with the ocean’s sounds.
Tatania inspected starfish on the beach. They looked identical.
Grace watched Zeus and Tatania playing with the starfish. “How does a mother starfish tell her kids apart?”
“They don’t have parents. I think they reproduce themselves.”
Symetry. Perfection. Identical.
Zeus sniffed one. Put his paw on one of its arms.
“They’re so pretty,” Grace said, taking off her headband to distract Zeus.
“I don’t want him to pull an arm off. I’ve seen what he can do to a rodent.”
“He won’t want to eat a starfish. And even if he did, the starfish would just grow a new arm. They get away from predators that way. Like lizards in the desert. If a racoon bites a lizard’s tail, the lizard can get away and grow a new tail. Live to see another day without being racoon lunch.”
“Can you tell the difference when a lizard grows a new tail? Or a starfish a new arm?” “No, it’s identical.”
The starfish made the beach look festive. As if the beach had been decorated for a special party, they lit up the sand and beckoned to kids and pets.
Magical Cool Cat Mysteries Boxed Set Volume 3 (Magical Cool Cats Mysteries) Page 9
