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

by Mary Matthews

  Jack turned to the fireplace and adeptly lit the logs. Grace began taking off her clothes.

  “Lets meet in the office,” She said, climbing in the Victorian bathtub with its gold fixtures.

  “Which one?” Jack asked.

  “Bathtub office.”

  “Any gin?”

  “No, Darling, bring the champagne. We’re going to develop champagne taste with this Finder’s Fee.”

  “We already have the champagne taste. We just need the money.”

  “We’re halfway there. I like that.” Grace luxuriated in the steaming water, waiting for Jack.

  “Do you think it’s the disgruntled scorned lover?” He asked, handing her a glass of bubbly, and stopping to admire her.

  “You’re way better looking than any of the guys I worked with at Pinkerton Detective Agency.”

  “That’s a relief,” Grace said.

  “The motive isn’t ringing true to me. Unless he can sell the jewelry. And gamble that she won’t say anything. And count on Pauline’s complicity.”

  “So it’s like Oscar Wilde said, ‘The one charm about marriage is it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.’”

  “It’s like Jack Brewster said, ‘It’s always about the money.’” Jack licked the champagne from her lips.

  Chapter Five

  Waking up at the Hotel del Coronado, with Jack and Tatania, Grace felt happy to be alive. Then Tatania swished her tail in Grace’s face from her sleeping position on Jack’s chest. Tatania blinked at Grace once.

  Grace wiped her mouth.

  “Tatania acts possessive sometimes,” Grace said.

  “Tatania is as pure as the driven snow.” Jack stroked Tatania’s cheek and she purred.

  “We have a case today. One more than we had yesterday.” Grace pulled on her white linen robe and looked out the window. All of Coronado Tent City lay before her. The cottages, the Merry Go Round, the Rifle Range, the pier, the Dance Pavilion, and the bath houses and plunges with early morning swimmers. She spotted the Palmist’s place.

  “Maybe we should talk to the Tent City Palmist about the case. Her sign says, ‘Your Hand is Your Destiny.’”

  “Come back over here and I’ll show you your destiny.” He held out a hand to her. Grace took Jack’s hand and let him pull her back to the bed. Tatania meowed and jumped off his chest, preferring to take up grooming on the settee.

  The phone rang. Grace lept up to answer it.

  “Why do they consider a telephone a luxury in a hotel in the 20s? In my cottage, we wouldn’t be interrupted,” Jack said.

  “They’re just checking on what I want for breakfast,” Grace hung up the phone.

  “You told them me, right?”

  “Please. You’re not on the menu. That I know about.”

  “Where are we going to find this character with Jake Leg?”

  “If the condition is that obvious, we should be able to find him pretty quickly.”

  “We don’t want to find him as much as we want to find the jewelry.”

  “And we’ll be fifteen thousand dollars richer,” Grace said with the gnawing worry she’d felt since her trust fund disappeared.

  She opened the door and signed for the scrambled eggs, orange juice, cups of joe and toast.

  Tatania meowed. Grace shared the eggs with Tatania and Jack.

  Tatania opened the paper and rolled around on it.

  Grace glanced at the paper’s advertisements for excursions to La Jolla and Mexico by motor car.

  “I can’t believe that Pauline and Helen rode in a convertible with martinis for the Suffragette March.”

  “This is America. The rich and well kept have rights. Rights to vocalize from their convertibles.”

  “And they won. Give Women the Vote.” Grace twirled her pearls.

  “All I need now are emeralds, diamonds, and amethysts.” She sighed.

  “I’ll get it for you.”

  “Maybe we should talk to the Palmist. She seems like a nice lady.” Grace watched the Palmist entering her tent, carrying a bag from Tent City’s shops.

  “Get up, get dressed, Jack. Lets go talk to her. We’re on our way to fifteen thousand dollars.” Grace urged.

  “I’m on the case.” Jack jumped up.

  Tatania walked ahead of them. She paused, mildly interested at the butcher’s shop. A lady stood, inspecting a chicken carefully, tugging at its limbs, pulling it apart at every angle, sniffing it upside down and all around.

  “Is this chicken fresh?” She demanded of the butcher.

  “Lady, could you pass that test?” The butcher asked.

  Tatania turned around, looked amused at Grace and Jack, and lead them to the Palmist’s tent. They paused outside and watched the sailboats glistening on the bay.

  The Palmist was a charming woman, a necessary trait in a profession built on unswerving belief in words imparted. She predicted only prosperity for everyone.

  “Several women at Revolutionary Colonial Daughters told me the Palmist predicted wealthy and faithful husbands for them. She tells women what they want to hear.”

  “So do men. The difference is she does it for money. And we do it for sex.”

  “Are you kidding?” Grace asked.

  “Sure.” He pulled her to him and dipped her unexpectedly, as if they were dancing to music only they could hear. Then he kissed her.

  “Do you know what the best part of our last investigation was for me?” Grace asked.

  “Meeting me of course,” Jack said.

  “You and Tatania. Saved my life.” Grace picked up Tatania and hugged her.

  “You both figured it out. Jack, you’re not just a pretty face,” Grace said.

  “Helen has a strange marriage,” Grace stroked Tatania. Jack reached out to pet her too.

  “You know what else Oscar Wilde said?” Jack asked.

  “I know you’re going to tell me.”

  “One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.”

  Grace walked in the Palmist’s tent and spied the RCA radio. Amos n Andy was playing again. She thought of RCA’s ad, His Master’s Voice, with the dog staring at the phonograph.

  “Why do you think they didn’t have a cat listening to her master’s voice for the RCA ad Jack?”

  “A cat knows no master but herself.” Jack patted Tatania, who lifted her read end towards him.

  The Palmist walked out from behind curtains that hung from the middle of her tent.

  Grace smiled and held her hand out towards her.

  “You’re going to get a telegraph,” the Palmist said.

  “You can tell that from my hand?” Grace asked.

  “No, from the Western Union man standing behind you.”

  Grace turned and saw a uniformed man holding a telegram. Her stomach flipped. A telegram usually wasn’t good news. Then she remembered the ones she loved most were standing right there with her and felt her body relax like a cat in front of a fire.

  She tore open the telegram. Emily, a friend from Finishing School, announced her arrival in San Francisco. Grace hid her changes in fortune from her friends. They’d been best friends a few months, a country, and a fortune ago.

  The Palmist had a table filled with lotions and creams lined up like little soldiers ready to do battle against the aging process. She seemed like a woman of indeterminate age. She seemed neither young nor old, neither happy, nor sad. She simply had the inner steel of a survivor that Grace and Jack could recognize.

  “Jack, lets go,” Grace whispered.

  “Please stay. You can call me Olga,” The Palmist said.

  “We’ll be back,” Grace promised.

  “What is it?” Jack whispered.

  “Emily. She’s in San Francisco. She may be on her way here next. She doesn’t know about anything. Except that my Uncle died. I don’t know what Ruth and Emily would think if they knew I work for money.”

  Jack gingerly took the telegram from h
er and read it.

  “We’re going to solve this case. And you’re going to have your own money.” Jack reassured her.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I have friends in low places.”

  “Oh Dear God. She will come to Coronado. And expect me to go to Balls in La Jolla. Jack, people will whisper about what happened to my trust fund. People will look at me.”

  “People will look at you because you’re gorgeous, Doll.”

  “That’s why people look at me?”

  “Well, maybe everyone’s not as shallow as I am.”

  Chapter Six

  “Grace!” A woman’s voice called from Tent City’s Amusement Park.

  Grace jumped. Was Emily already here?

  “It’s Julia,” Jack whispered.

  At the Merry Go Round, in the distance, Grace saw Julia and her baby, Charlotte. Grace and Jack discovered Julia, Grace’s late uncle’s mistress, and a love child, while they were investigating his death.

  Grace felt only admiration for Julia for having Charlotte. For walking off the Tia Juana’s abortionist’s table without family and with only a married lover who’d given her the name of the abortionist to return to in San Diego. For having a child on your own is only easy when it’s truly not on your own. When you’re returning home to your parents’ house, and they take up child rearing duties without missing a beat, it’s easy.

  Grace didn’t know for certain, given that her situation was the same as Julia’s, being without parents or siblings to help, if she would have had the courage of Julia. She might have stayed on the table even though her heart and soul told her to leap off of it.

  Mercifully for Julia, Charles later embraced the pregnancy. And loved Charlotte at first sight.

  “You’re not twenty-one yet,” Julia said.

  Grace looked at her curiously.

  “Your uncle talked about you. I know you don’t have a guardian now. You have to be careful. Since you’re not married either.”

  Julia may have a penchant for stating the obvious, Grace mused. Grace didn’t feel any inclination to marry. Grace didn’t want her standard of living to be dependent on anyone else. She wanted to feel empowered.

  “Your uncle used to talk about you a lot. You were the apple of his eye.”

  Grace nodded.

  “If you ever need a place to stay, you can come stay with me on the yacht.”

  Grace sat down on one of the Merry Go Round’s benches. Her uncle’s mistress, knowing she was alone, precariously surviving on dwindling funds, offering her a place to live was something even the Palmist couldn’t have predicted.

  She felt humble, grateful, and awkward. She couldn’t imagine living with Julia. But she also knew the kindest thing to say, and said it, “Thank you.”

  “Jack and I are working on a case together. We’ll get a Finder’s Fee and everything will work out.” Grace’s assurance surprised herself.

  “Pinkerton hires women?”

  “No. He quit Pinkerton for me. Because they wouldn’t hire me. We opened our own agency, Wentworth & Brewster.”

  “He’s a keeper. Your uncle wanted you to meet someone at those parties your former aunt was always planning. I think he’d like Jack better than anyone though. Is it hard?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Adjusting to losing your money. You were rich —”

  “—I wasn’t rich. Ever. But upper middle class beats being broke. I don’t feel poor though. I just feel like I don’t have any money. I like being with Jack because he doesn’t treat me like a tragic figure.”

  “I remember when you won first prize in the Coronado Bathing Beauty Contest. There’s nothing tragic about your figure.”

  Grace laughed. Winning the Coronado Bathing Beauty Contest earlier in the summer gave her some breathing room. She could understand why Uncle Charles preferred Julia’s company to her former Aunt Alice.

  “She’s such a beautiful kitty. I wish I had some fish for her. Your Uncle used to love to fish on the Coronado Islands off Mexico,” Julia said, looking at Tatania.

  “She really doesn’t go hungry. People are forever wanting to feed her,” Grace replied.

  Julia pulled an ivory cigarette holder out of her jeweled bag, and offered Grace a cigarette.

  “No thank you.” She demurred. She looked at the side of the pack. Smoke and Stay Slim. The slogan seemed ubiquitous.

  Julia inhaled slowly. “I loved being with your uncle. I never felt second best. When we were together, he focused only on me. And then, Charlotte and me. Would that have been possible if we married?”

  “I don’t know,” Grace said, shaking her head. She imagined Julia as her aunt. Former Aunt Alice set the bar so low, that Julia, despite the oddity of their similarity in age, definitely seemed better in comparison. It’s always good to hook up with someone whose family found his first wife loathsome.

  “Are your girlfriends from Finishing School getting married this season?” Julia asked.

  “I haven’t been staying in close touch,” Grace said, guiltily thinking of the telegram from Emily that she hadn’t answered. With Julia, she didn’t have to lie about her financial situation. She knew the whole story about Uncle Charles losing Grace’s trust fund money in a Ponzi Scheme and then getting killed when he tried to expose it.

  “You don’t want them to know.”

  Usually, she’d be offended by the impertinence.

  “It’s not that simple. They would offer to help. And I’d be in that impoverished role of the one they helped. I’d rather make my own money.”

  Julia nodded.

  “And how is it for you?” Grace had been brought up to believe that it was crass to talk about money. But things were changing.

  “I have some money saved. Do you need a loan? I have money to loan if you need it.”

  “No. I don’t need a loan. Thank you for asking.” Grace felt faint. The world was shifting upside down.

  “Not from Charles. An aunt of mine died in Chicago and left it to me. My family doesn’t want anything to do with me. Her lawyer called me.”

  “My only family is dead too,” Grace said. Then she heard Charlotte gurgle. Grace felt guilty. The baby was holding her arms out for Grace to pick her up.

  “Except for my cousin, Charlotte.” Grace picked up the baby. Hard to believe she had a first cousin.

  “Your uncle never wanted it to be this way. But I know he’d be very proud of how you handled it.”

  Little Charlotte held on to Grace’s neck. The baby had a sweet, happy disposition and Grace worried about people being mean to her.

  The Merry Go Round sported mirrors in its center and they watched the images going past in a circle —- Rifle Range, Trout Pond, Ferris Wheel, Stables, Dance Pavilion and Bathing Pools.

  A terrier ran right into the mirror, seeing another dog, and feeling eager to play. Tatania carefully put one paw forward, and then the other, watching and figuring out it was her own reflection staring back. Grace’s dress glimmered with rhinestones in the twirling images of Grace and Charlotte.

  “Do you want to join us for lunch?” Jack asked.

  Julia reached for Charlotte.

  “I promised her a stroll on the beach today.”

  Chapter Seven

  The Japanese Tea Room, nestled on the grounds of a Japanese garden, seemed curiously juxtaposed amidst a resort filled with American Flags. Jack quietly sipped tea from a cup that seemed small in his masculine hands.

  “Does Spreckels own the Japanese Tea Room too?” Grace asked.

  “Did God create the earth?” Jack replied.

  She nodded and mulled over the clues. Jack had faith in her. She didn’t want him to ever regret quitting Pinkerton for her.

  Jack thought of the Finder’s Fee. During the bleakness of unrelenting assault and death in the Great War, he remembered Coronado. And he knew if he could return to Coronado, he could return to happiness again too.

  The jewelry notebook lay between
them.

  “Do you see anything that you want to put on your list for Santa?” Jack asked.

  “I think they’re all custom made.”

  “Even I can see they’re gorgeous.”

  “I spend so much time with you. I’m sure I’ll be on Santa’s Naughty List this year.”

  “Getting you on the Naughty List is the least I could do for you. Don’t ever say I didn’t do the least I could do for you.”

  The waitress, clad in Kimono, bowed slightly before them.

  “For this to be authentic, should we sit on pillows instead of chairs?” Grace asked.

  “I mean, if we’re really simulating a Japanese Tea Garden.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been to Japan. I grew up in San Diego. My Dad is one of the gardeners at the Spreckels Mansion.” She bowed again.

  Grace and Jack smiled at her.

  “That’s job security,” Jack said, looking at the Spreckels Mansion’s magnificent landscaping of trees and every colored flower imaginable. Hummingbirds went through the garden, dipping in flowers, and rising again, filled with nectar and gratitude.

  It wasn’t unusual to see a bird fly across the street from Tent City with a branch in his mouth, building a love nest at the Spreckels Mansion’s garden, intuiting that the better the nest, the better the female birds he’d meet.

  “Give Women the Vote,” Grace said, thinking about finding the jewelry.

  “Been there. Done that,” Jack replied.

  “Could he sell the jewelry? Should we check with Jessop & Sons about it? They’re probably the only jeweler here.”

  “Or he might hock it. Or he might just enjoy looking at it and thinking that Helen is missing it. Here’s something you’re just learning about life, Doll. People you don’t notice will notice you. Notice you have things they don’t. Things they want to take away from you.”

  “So Phillip wants to take the jewelry from Helen and Pauline? Even if he wants to get back at Helen for dumping him, how does that explain his vendetta against Pauline?”

  “He may not know the jewelry belongs to Pauline too. We’re not dealing with the sharpest tool in the shed.”