Magical Cool Cats Mysteries Boxed Set Vol 1 (Books 1, 2 & 3 & A Christmas Feral)

by Mary Matthews

  “Should we just do away with the coffin and throw him in a hole?” Grace asked.

  “Well, he certainly seems to have left me in one.” Aunt Alice snapped, as if dying was just one more of her long list of grievances against her husband.

  “I wasn’t seriously asking that,” Grace said. She didn’t understand Aunt Alice’s attitude.

  “Just feeding everyone at the services will cost a fortune.” Aunt Alice clutched her purse tightly to her.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Grace said.

  “With what?” Aunt Alice asked.

  “My trust income.”

  “Bit of a problem there. I just checked with the bank. All the accounts are empty. And, if they suspect suicide, we may have a bit of a problem with the life insurance .” Aunt Alice fanned herself even though the room wasn’t warm.

  “My money is gone?”

  “Afraid so, Dear. And suicide isn’t covered by life insurance. We simply must prove this was a murder. If it’s suicide, the insurance man won’t pay anything. You must get that ill bred detective to help you. He’s good.”

  “Yes, and I’m sure if I put it in such a nice way, he’ll be happy to help, Aunt Alice.”

  “He likes you, my Dear. You have a beautiful face. A fine figure. Use it. While you can.” Aunt Alice vainly tried to push in her own belly.

  Chapter Eight

  Jack walked into the law office not with an appointment, but with the insouciance of a handsome man who knew the receptionist would brighten at the mere sight of him.

  Nellie, the beleaguered secretary who took care of Cornelius, looked appreciatively at Jack.

  “I’m Jack Brewster.”

  “I remember you. The Pinkerton Detective. I’ve seen Pinkerton Detective Agency’s advertisements in the San Diego Union. Do you really never sleep?”

  “Yes Ma’am. There’s no rest for the wicked.”

  “Cornelius is just finishing up with a client if you’d like to wait.” She gestured towards one of the overstuffed armchairs in the lobby.

  Jack smiled with the self assurance of a man accustomed to getting what he wants from women, and said, “I’ll just wait in Charles’ office.”

  Nellie, like a poodle, eagerly led the way.

  “Can I get you some coffee, Mr. Brewster?’

  “I’m good. Thanks.”

  “Truly?”

  “No. I’m anything but good. I’ll be just a few minutes.”

  Jack stared at the Persian carpet. He looked at the photographs on Charles Hall’s desk. A big photograph of Grace with an equally beautiful woman, undoubtedly her mother, dominated.

  A smaller picture of Alice, scowling in a fur coat was on the side of his desk.

  He pulled out the top desk drawer: Cigars, a check register, train schedule to Los Angeles, ferry schedule to Coronado, a whiskey flask, and breath mints.

  The chair felt comfortable. At a height that imbued power. Why would anyone with a set up like this off himself? And what happened to Grace’s trust money?

  Charles’ partner, looking perturbed at being kept from his lunch, told the cops it didn’t appear that anything was missing.

  “Does he have any enemies?”

  “He’s a lawyer. We have plenty of enemies.” Cornelius told them.

  “Well, that narrows it down,” said Jack.

  Damn shame. He’d seen Charles around Tent City, while his snooty wife remained around the Hotel del Coronado, blue blood nose up in the air. For a lawyer, he had a certain charm, and Charles suspected he had the rare gift of making his clients like their bills, and the even rarer gift of liking paying their lawyer’s bills. So who would off him? He had a feeling this wasn’t going to be an easy one.

  “I just returned from Court.”

  “Who would have gone through the files? “ Jack looked at the papers strewn around the office.

  “Actually, that could easily have been Charles himself. He was never particularly organized. And he went through secretaries like tired horses in a relay race.”

  “Want to check your petty cash?”

  “I already did. It’s all there.”

  Jack picked up and quickly put down a book on Property Law.

  “I might kill myself if this was all I had to read.”

  “Legal research was never Charles’ forte. But he did well,” Cornelius said.

  “He died in his prime.” Jack said.

  “Well, I’m going to get a bite.” Cornelius nodded, pulling out a gold card case, and handing a business card to Jack.

  “Call me if you need anything. Or, if you’d like, join me. I’ll be at the Grill.”

  “Here at the U.S. Grant?”

  “Right. I dine most days at noon. Creature of habit, I’m afraid. Feel free to drop by. “ Cornelius looked around. “I need to get the girls in to clean this place.” He stepped around his partner’s dead body.

  “Wait a minute.” Jack stopped him.

  “Sure I can’t get you anything?” Nellie popped her head in the door, looked briefly at Cornelius, and then her gaze rested on Jack’s visage.

  “Coffee. With sugar.”

  “Who would want Charles dead?”

  “Who wouldn’t?” Cornelius shrugged.

  “His niece.”

  “True. Classy doll.”

  Jack felt vaguely irritated. He wasn’t sure he liked anyone but himself calling Grace a doll.

  “Disgruntled clients?”

  “No more than usual. He had an antagonistic way about him sometimes.”

  “How did you get to be partners?”

  “We met in law school. At USC. We used to take the ferry from the port of Los Angeles to San Diego on the weekend. Got to know a lot of saloon girls. There weren’t many lawyers around here. We just got on a ferry after the bar exam, went to a speakeasy, drank, and never left town.”

  “He didn’t meet that wife of his at a saloon.”

  “No.” Cornelius laughed. “Like most Ladies of the Temperance League, if she drinks, it’s in the closet I used to feel sick whenever she brought us something to drink. She’d brew tea here sometimes. My digestive disruptions stopped when she did.”

  Chapter Nine

  Martsons Department store took up a couple city blocks. Grace leapt out of the way of cars and horses, converging from every direction in downtown San Diego. She’d never bought a bathing suit before. For all her time in Coronado, she’d never grown accustomed to wading in the ocean, and she generally didn’t even like to show her ankles.

  “You have nice, beautiful legs.” The shop girl exclaimed, “Why don’t you show them off?”

  Grace looked at her skinny ankles and perfectly sculpted calves and felt only self consciousness. She thought of her horse. She needed money to keep him at the stables. Modesty wasn’t an option.

  A salesgirl held up the most striking bathing suit she’d ever seen. It was off the shoulder, fastened at the top of one shoulder with a faux pearl. A scalloped cut skirt covered shorts.

  “We just received it with our shipment from Europe. It’s by Jean Patou.”

  It would be the most daring thing Grace ever wore. Then again, the bathing beauty contest would be the most daring thing she ever did.

  She loved the way she looked in it. “I think I’ll need a matching cap. And sandals.”

  The sales girl showed her a black cap with faux pearls around it and high heeled black sandals that tied with ribbons around the ankles.

  “I can’t imagine walking around the beach in those!”

  “Oh but they are so comfortable, Miss. By Salvatore Ferragamo. He studies anatomy at the University of Southern California. And,” she whispered as if sharing a delicious secret, “He’s the shoemaker to the store.”

  Grace, in all her twenty years of life, had never seen pretty pumps or slippers she didn’t want.

  She slipped off her Mary Janes. She stepped into the Ferragamo sandals and knew she could win. Why not go for broke? Literally. She watched the sa
les clerk pack up the suit, cap and sandals.

  After the cashier totaled the amount for a bathing suit, matching cap and sandals for the contest, Grace knew she couldn’t afford it.

  “I’ll come back later.” She lied.

  She saw Jack through the window at Martson’s reading library. He looked up at her. “ If you need money—“

  “—I don’t need money.” Grace panicked.

  “I could help you.”

  “No. I’m entering the bathing beauties contest. Just for the fun of it. To take my mind off things.” She shrugged.

  “Want to go for a cup of Joe?” He asked.

  “I still need to get my hair done.” She flipped a strand of bobbed hair behind her ear.

  Around the corner, lay the Women’s Auxiliary Thrift Shop where she’d regularly donated past seasons clothes. Helen from Revolutionary Colonial Daughters was volunteering at the cash register. Grace’s stomach sank further.

  “Dear, the shop we’ll pick up your donations.”

  “Oh, I’m just here to look around. I’m picking something up for a friend’s maid. To help take my mind off everything.”

  “Of course, Dear. I’m terribly sorry about your Uncle.” Helen looked at her oddly. Grace hurriedly picked up an above the knee black dress and a red belt.

  “Oh my, what a daring maid.” Helen put a hand on her chest.

  “Well, we all deserve a little fun in life don’t we?”

  Helen drew back from her. Perhaps she’d heard a rumor and feared being broke could be contagious.

  “Dear, you’re very kind. Please just take these,” Helen said kindly.

  Grace could have cried. So Helen did know. And that meant others would know too.

  The world might be falling apart but she still need a good haircut. She decided to go to the U.S. Grant Hair Dressing shop for a Nestle Permanent Hair Wave, lured by the advertisement that it makes hair even curlier when wet, but she chafed at going in the women’s entrance and chose the men’s instead.

  “Miss, that’s the Men’s entrance. The Women’s entrance is around the corner.”

  “It’s the Women’s entrance now,” she said, strolling past a valet and into the salon.

  “And you’re here for our wonderful wave.” The French hair stylist said.

  Grace nodded and sat down in the nearest chair.

  “Just make me beautiful,” she said.

  “That should not be difficult. You are already beautiful.” He replied.

  He gently brushed her bobbed hair back, and began massaging her head with his fingers.

  “It’s no trouble to make you beautiful.”

  Grace believed the advertisement that it would be best perm of her life. She was crinkling her perfect nose when she heard someone ask:

  “Did you use the Men’s Entrance?”

  She opened her eyes and saw Jack Brewster standing in front of the salon chair.

  “What are you doing? Investigating women using the Men’s Entrance now?”

  “ I was buying cigars and a valet told me about a Doll who matched your description.”

  “Mystery solved.”

  “A few years ago, you were probably riding side saddle. Now you won’t even use the Womens Entrance.”

  “A few years ago, I wasn’t forging my own way in life.”

  “Yes, you were. You just didn’t know it yet.”

  Jean-Louis, the hair stylist, looked curiously at each of them. He continued rolling Grace’s hair. The pungent aroma of permanent wave filled the salon.

  “Does Mademoiselle desire privacy?” Jean-Louis asked protectively.

  Grace and Jack’s eyes met.

  “He’s alright,” Grace said finally.

  “I’m going to talk to Cornelius. Mademoiselle may have her privacy,” Jack said.

  “It’s nice to hear someone whose French accent is worse than mine,” Grace said as Jack gave a mocking bow out the door.

  Grace felt restless in the salon chair. She wanted to talk to Cornelius soon. Uncle Charles’ death didn’t feel real to her.

  “Shall we practice French?” Jean-Louis asked.

  “My Finishing School French is embarrassing,” Grace said. “I can read it. But I can’t speak it.”

  “You could if you try. I will speak only French to you. And then you will learn.”

  “Or you will learn English,” Grace said.

  Chapter Ten

  Grace ran to her room. Kent, Coronado Tent City’s Director of Amusements slid copies of Coronado Tent City News under the hotel room doors.

  “I’m a paper boy too.” He explained.

  “Thank you.” Grace took a copy.

  She opened her door. Her papers were strewn everywhere. Instinctively, she grasped her mother’s pearls at her throat. The only other possessions she cared about, a wedding picture of her parents and her Dad’s gold pocket watch sat undisturbed in the wall safe. So what did anyone want in her room? And where were those maids that were supposed to clean it every day?

  She nervously called the front desk. When the gentleman answered, she wasn’t sure what to say. What if whomever killed her uncle was after her now?

  “Please cancel the maid service for my room. I’m in mourning for my Uncle and will just clean it myself. I’d like to be undisturbed.”

  “Yes, Miss. I’m so very sorry. I will certainly tell the maids to leave you and your room alone.”

  Grace thanked him and hung up feeling satisfied. She was still in unchartered territory. After losing her parents, Uncle Charles had been her one constant. Aunt Alice had always seemed a few dances short of a full card.

  Grace began to dress hurriedly. The sooner she put on the dress that would become a bathing suit, the sooner she won first prize, because anything else wasn’t an option, the sooner she could pay her horse’s stable bill, and her own hotel bill, the sooner she could find Uncle Charles’ killer. She knew with absolute intuitive certainty that Uncle Charles hadn’t killed himself.

  She would definitely leave her pearls on with the bathing suit. She needed Mummy with her. She draped a black beach blanket around her.

  She didn’t know where Aunt Alice was and didn’t want to know. Aunt Alice would consider entering a bathing beauty contest most ill bred of her. Grace would really like to know what the well bred did for money when their trust funds deserted them. She shook her head. It wasn’t possible. Uncle Charles wouldn’t have done it to her.

  She looked down at the ground, mimicking an ostrich without actual sand, but going for the same basic premise, if she looked at no one, no one looked at her.

  She stared at the ground all the way out the door, down the steps towards Tent City, running as fast as her Mary Janes could carry her. Then, she walked into the Tent City Dance Pavillion like she owned it. She handed her entry form to a pimply teenage boy and strolled onto the platform.

  “Excuse me, Miss.”

  Grace turned nonchalantly, like parading around showing more skin than she ever did outside her own bath tub didn’t faze her in the least.

  “You need to wait until your name is called,” he said apologetically.

  “Yes, of course. I was merely rehearsing.” She lied.

  “Grace Wentworth.” She didn’t wait to be called twice.

  “Do you wear those pearls all the time, Miss?” The rotund, bald judge asked.

  “You’ll never know,” Jack said.

  Jack was a judge. And he hadn’t told her.

  She let the beach blanket slip from her shoulders, revealing more skin than the other contestants. She held it below her, in a twentieth century imitation of Venus on the half shell.

  “Good to see you,” another judge said.

  “Were you in the water?” Jack asked.

  “Of course. It’s a bathing suit. I had to test it out.”

  The judges nodded.

  “Are you enjoying your stay in Coronado?”

  “Does Orange Street have orange trees?”

  G
race took her place next to the other contestants, waiting for the judges to call their places like thoroughbreds at a finishing line.

  “And third best goes to Louise Hammonds.”

  Grace felt a little nervous. She wanted to at least get second best. Men kept staring at her and smiling. She felt slightly uncomfortable.

  “And second best goes to Wendy Ward.”

  Oh no, what if she didn’t win at all?” She stared down at the rouge on her knees.

  “Grace Wentworth!”

  The judges came over to her. She hadn’t heard anyone say first place.

  “Congratulations.” Jack scowled as he gave her a hundred dollar bill.

  “It was great seeing you, Grace,” the other judges said.

  Second best and third best graciously offered congratulations.

  Chapter Eleven

  If Charles Hall had killed himself, Jack felt only disgust for him. He’d watched his soldier buddies die in the trenches of the Great War. And if this well endowed lawyer decided the free world they’d saved wasn’t good enough for him, he belonged in hell.

  Jack admired the Hotel del Coronado but didn’t want to stay there. Built round the clock, in 1889, courtesy of electricity provided by Mr. Thomas Edison, the grand hotel took merely four months to erect. It helped that the crews could sleep in adjacent dormitories. The red turrets gave the hotel a royal look. The white exterior walls matched the pristine white beach.

  A huge banner over the Hotel del Coronado said, “Welcome Revolutionary Colonial Daughters.” Jack felt glad he lived in Coronado Tent City. None of the snooty, stick up their rear end lineage society Dolls would go there.

  He spotted Grace by the Pony Plunge. The wind blew her dress back and revealed curves in all the right places. Jack moved more quickly on sand than most men could on asphalt.

  “I know those aren’t tears of happiness over winning the beauty contest.”

  Grace turned to him, crying, and pointed at the Pony.

  “Make it stop. They just push him into the water. And they call it entertainment. The pony is scared out of his mind.”