10

Late September rains had turned the hills above Molena Point from summer gold to the clear bright green of winter. To visitors from the East Coast, where the summer hills are green and the winter hills brown, the reverse in color seems strange. Gold rules the California summers, green paints the colder months. High above the village rooftops the Harper pastures glowed as green as emerald.

Charlie stood at her kitchen window looking down the verdant slopes past their neat white pasture fences to the village and the far sea, waiting beside the bubbling coffeepot for Ryan Flannery's red pickup to turn into the long drive, waiting to go over the blueprints so that Ryan could start the new addition.

Having moved to the ranch as a bride just a month earlier, to the home where Max had lived with his first wife until she died, Charlie had been reluctant at first to suggest any changes in the house. But when she did broach the subject, Max had been all for it. This home was their retreat, their safe place, their serene and private world. The new addition would make that haven even more perfect, a lovely new space in which they were together, and in which she could do her own work while Max was off locking up the bad guys.

Max's wife, Millie, had been a cop. She hadn't needed space to work at home, other than the small study that she and Max had shared. That marriage had been nearly perfect. Max's friends, Clyde in particular, had thought Max would never marry again.

Charlie had no notion that she could take Millie's place, nor would she want to. She had married not only Max, she had married the good and lasting presence of Millie, the woman who so deeply loved him and had so strongly shaped his life. That was not a matter over which to be jealous, she wanted only to treasure Max as Millie had done and to love him.

The house had been Max and Millie's retreat. Now it was Max and hers; she thought the change would be positive and healthy.

There was Ryan's red truck, right on time. Charlie watched the big Chevy king cab, with its built-in toolboxes and ladder rack, approach the house between the pasture fences, watched Ryan park and swing out of it carrying a roll of blueprints. The big silver weimaraner that rode beside her did not leave the cab until Ryan spoke to him; then he leaped out, all wags and smiles, dancing around her. Laughing, Charlie watched Ryan cross the yard to the pasture gate, and carefully open it. Pushing the two resident dogs back inside, she released the weimaraner; the three took off racing the pasture wild with joy, secure behind the dog-proofed pasture fence.

This small ranch was Charlie's first real home since she'd left her childhood home. She'd lived in rented rooms while she was in art school, then in several small San Francisco apartments nattily furnished with a folding cot, a scarred old dinette set, and the cardboard grocery boxes that served in place of shelves and dressers.

At the pasture fence, Ryan stood a moment watching the three dogs race in circles, then turned toward the house. Coming in, she gave Charlie a hug and spread the blueprints out on the table, weighting the corners with the sugar bowl and cream pitcher, and with her purse. Ryan's dark hair was freshly cut, a flyaway bob curling around her face. Her green eyes were startling beneath her black lashes, her vivid coloring complemented perfectly by a green sweatshirt that she wore over faded jeans. Ryan's mix of Irish and Latino blood, from her Flannery father and her Garza mother, had produced great beauty, great strength, and vivaciousness.

"Anything more on the dead waiter?" Ryan asked, sitting down. "I haven't talked to Dallas."

"Nothing," Charlie said. "Strange that Max hasn't been able to reach Lucinda and Pedric, that they haven't answered their cell phone messages."

"That is strange. And what about James Quinn?"

Charlie had no hesitation in relaying information to Ryan. Max would do the same, as would Ryan's uncle, Dallas. "There were no prints at all on the handle of the gas valve," Charlie said. "The gas starter in the fireplace had been full open, apparently for some hours. When Sacks and Hendricks first arrived on the scene, the doors and windows were all locked. When Wilma and Kate and I got there, Sacks was very carefully working on the lock, and we were all afraid the place would blow. Just one spark… Well, when they got inside and opened up, when they were able to go through, there was no sign of forced entry."

Ryan shook her head. "What a pity, if it was suicide-and more the pity if it wasn't. This will keep Dallas and Max busy for a while." She turned the blueprints to a page of elevations, and laid it out facing Charlie.

The new addition soared to a raftered peak with long expanses of glass looking down the hills to the sea and, at the back of the room flanking the stone fireplace, plain white walls for Charlie's framed drawings and prints. Before they came down on a final design, Charlie and Max and Ryan had spent nearly an hour standing on ladders in the front yard seeing just how high the room should be raised, how it should be oriented for the best view.

From the new raised floor level they would see the village rooftops to the west with the wild rocky coast beyond. The old living room would become the new master bedroom, retaining the original stone fireplace and bay windows. Ryan would cut a new door to the existing master bath and closet, and those would need no change. The old master bedroom would become Max's larger and more comfortable study. Ryan was, Charlie had learned, very skilled at saving what could be saved, but running free with what should be added.

Charlie greatly admired Ryan Flannery. Ryan had done something practical and exciting with her art degree, while Charlie's own art education had certainly gone awry, or had seemed to until recently. Her attempt at a commercial art career had been a royal bust, had at last sent her scurrying to her only living relative, to her aunt Wilma-for moral support and for a roof over her head. She had been living with Wilma when she started Charlie's Fix-it, Clean-it service. Not until much later did she have this surprising success with her animal drawings. Animals had always been her one great pleasure in the arts.

They sat studying the elevations, looking for any undiscovered problems. As Charlie watched Ryan red-pencil in a change they had agreed on, she could see, through the bay window, the three dogs playing in the pasture. The two young Great Dane mixes still acted like puppies. The presence of Ryan's beautiful weimaraner with his devilish cleverness made the two mutts act far more juvenile. Rock was smarter than they were, a year older and far quicker, a handsome canine celebrity who had come to Ryan quite by accident-or maybe by providence, Charlie thought, if you believed in such matters. The dogs were chasing one another and chasing the sorrel mare, when she agreed to run from them.

Charlie studied the plans again but could find nothing to be improved upon. In her view the design was perfect, and she could hardly wait to get started. She had risen to fetch the coffeepot, glancing out at the lane, when someone on a bike turned in, heading for the house.

"Dillon," Charlie said with curiosity. "She hasn't been here in a while."

"Surprised she's here now, after Max scolded her this morning at the Quinn place. You heard about that?"

Charlie nodded. "Max wasn't happy with her." Charlie had stopped by the station after she showed Kate the apartment. Max had been glum and silent, hadn't much wanted to talk about Dillon. Charlie watched the pretty redhead bike slowly up the lane, hardly peddling. Even at a distance, Dillon looked sour and unhappy.

"Sullen," Ryan said. "I'm sorry to see that. Consuela Benton is not a good influence."

Dillon walked her bike to the porch and leaned it against the porch rail. Slowly she slumped up the steps. Dillon was tall for fourteen. Her red hair was piled atop her head, tied with a purple scarf. Her tan windbreaker was tied by its sleeves around her waist, hiding her bare belly under the very tight T-shirt. She mounted the steps with a belligerent swagger. Charlie rose to let her in. No one used the front door. With the new addition, that, too, would change. Back and front entries would become one, with a large mud room for coats and dirty boots. Entering the kitchen, Dillon crossed in silence to Charlie's side and plunked down at the table, staring at the blueprints that drooped over the edges. "What's all this?"

"Plans for the new addition," Charlie said. "You want coffee? Or make yourself some cocoa."

Dillon rose, slouched to the counter, and poured herself a cup of coffee, dumping in milk and three spoons of sugar. Charlie was deeply thankful to have gotten past that age long ago-too old to be a child, too young to be a woman, caught in a world where you were expected to be both but were offered the challenges of neither. In ages past, at thirteen you were learning to be a woman, learning the needed survival skills, the small simple skills involved in everyday living and in raising a family and, in the best of times, the urgent intellectual skills so necessary to human civility. Charlie found it hard to conceal her anger at the change in Dillon. Observing the girl's attitude, she found it difficult to remember that only a few months ago she had considered Dillon Thurwell nearly perfect, had thought Dillon was working very hard at growing up. Training the horses under Max's direction, Dillon had been mastering the skills of concentration and self-management, building confidence in her own strength-absorbing the building blocks that she would so badly need as a strong adult.

To see Dillon now, to see the change in her, to see the twisting of her strong early passions into self-destruction, angered Charlie to the point of rage.

All because of her mother-and yet that was so lame. Dillon was still her own master, she still had the luxury of choice in what she would make of herself, no matter how her mother behaved.

Sipping her coffee, Dillon stood by the table staring at the plans and elevations, then glanced down the hall toward the living room and three bedrooms. "What's the point? This house is big enough already." She stared at Charlie. "You starting a family? You pregnant?"

"I am not starting a family. Not that it would be any of your business. I need workspace. A studio." Charlie couldn't help feeling confrontational. She watched Ryan, who was studying Dillon, probably fighting the same impulse to paddle the child.

"So what was this murder last night?" Dillon said. "Some guy fell dead in your lap?"

Charlie managed a laugh. "That's putting it crudely but accurately. You missed the excitement. I was hoping to see you at the opening."

"I don't go to art exhibits. I suppose my mother was there with what's-his-name."

"I saw Marlin Dorriss. I didn't see your mother."

"So who died? Some waiter? What, poison in the canapes?"

"He worked at Jolly's. Sammy something. Blond, good-looking guy." Charlie's voice caught at Dillon's expression. "You know him?"

"Why would I know some waiter?"

"Why not? Something wrong with waiters? You never go in Jolly's? Who knows, he might be-have been, some college student working his way through. Not that it matters. Did you know him?"

Dillon stared at her.

"What?"

Dillon shrugged. "Maybe he hung out around the school. Some tall, blond guy hung around the high school."

"Not around your school? Not around the junior high?"

Another shrug.

Charlie wanted to shake her. "He was a bit old to be hanging out with school kids. What was the attraction?"

"Maybe he has a younger brother."

Charlie just looked at her. Ryan turned the blueprints around, laying the elevations of the new living room before Dillon. Dillon, in spite of herself, followed the sweep of the high ceiling and tall windows.

"This is what we're doing," Ryan said. "This will be the new living room. There," she said pointing to where the new arch would be constructed, "off the kitchen and dining room."

"That's gonna cost a bundle." Dillon had grown up knowing, from her mother's business conversations, the price of real estate, and knowing what it cost to build. "I didn't think a cop made that kind of money"

Charlie and Ryan stared at her.

"I guess it's none of my business what you do with the captain's money."

"I'm spending my money," Charlie said quietly. "And that is none of your business. However, for your information, we're using money from the book I worked on after the author died. And from my gallery and commission sales." She wanted to say, What's with you? You think dumping on me is going to solve your problems? You think belittling me is going to make you feel better about your mother or yourself? With heroic effort, she said nothing.

Ryan said, "The two smaller bedrooms will be joined to make Charlie's studio. Tear out this wall, here, we have a fifteen-by-thirty-foot room. Add a couple of skylights and voila, Charlie's new workspace. You have a problem with that?"

Dillon looked at Ryan with interest. Charlie watched the two of them face-off, Dillon a defiant, angry young lady; Ryan both angry and amused. Charlie thought that Ryan was a far better match for Dillon Thurwell's rage than she herself. She didn't much like confrontation-but Ryan had grown up with cops, and she knew how to give back what she got.

Charlie would have liked to share with Dillon her excitement over the new studio as she shared it with her other friends, to relay her delight over simple details like the big adjustable shelves to hold drawings and prints and paper supplies, the new printing table, her anticipation over a new (used) desk, over a decent place for her computer.

She studied the girl, looking for a spark of the old Dillon. "I'll be working on the building project as carpenter's helper, under Ryan's direction. I want to improve my carpentry skills. I'm already pretty good at Sheetrock, from helping with Clyde's apartment building." She wished she could hone her people skills as easily. She wished she could master the moves to make the world right again for Dillon.

Dillon looked at her and rose. "Can I ride Redwing?"

Charlie nodded. "Don't let the dogs out of the pasture. You want company? We're about through here."

"Could I call my friend? Could my friend ride Bucky?"

Charlie stared at her. Bucky was Max's big, spirited buckskin. The sun rose and set with that gelding, no one else rode Bucky. "What friend is that?" she said carefully.

"From school. My friend from school."

"A girlfriend?"

Dillon said nothing. The child's stare made Charlie very glad she didn't have a teenager to raise. "You know that no one rides Bucky. Even I don't ride Bucky, without a very special invitation."

"I guess I'll go home then." Dillon turned on her heel, heading for the door.

Ryan rose, moving quickly around the table. She put her arm around Dillon. "Christmas vacation isn't far off."

"So?" Dillon turned a sour look on her. But she didn't move away.

"You have a job for the two weeks of vacation?"

Dillon shrugged. "Who needs a job? Who wants to work during vacation?"

"You want to work for me?"

"Why would I want to work for you? Doing what?"

"Carpenter's gofer. Fetching stuff. Sweeping up, cleaning up the trash. Maybe some nailing. Learn to lay out forms and mix cement. I can get a work-learning permit through the school. I'll pay you minimum, which is likely more than you're worth."

Dillon stared at her. "Why would I want to do that kind of work?"

"Something wrong with it? It's the way I started, when I was younger than you. At about the same time I began to learn to shoot a gun and to train the hunting dogs-carpentry skills might come in handy, whatever you do with your life." Ryan looked hard at Dillon. "What you do right now-while you're hurting-will shape the rest of your life. You want to spend it sneaking around shoplifting?"

Dillon pulled away. Ryan took her hand. "You are not your mom, Dillon. And she's not you." Ryan's green eyes flashed. "You plan to mess up your life just to punish her? What do you get out of that? If you're a survivor, as I hear you are, you'll stop this shit. You'll not let the dregs of the world plan your life for you, you'll write your own ticket."

She drew Dillon close and hugged her. "Charlie and Max love you. Clyde and Wilma love you. I don't love you but I'd like to be your friend." She tilted Dillon's chin up, looking hard at her. "You come to work for me, you'll have more fun with my carpenters than with your smarmy girlfriends-I bet they wouldn't have the guts to tackle construction work."

Dillon said nothing. She stared back at Ryan, her jaw set, deeply scowling.

But something was changed. Charlie could see it; deep down, something was different.

Ryan said no more. Dillon moved away and out the door, swung on her bike, and took off up the lane. Charlie watched her pedal away alone. But maybe her shoulders were less hunched, her back not quite so stiff. Ryan glanced at her watch and rolled up the plans. "I'll leave one set. If you can go over them with Max tonight, if you're happy with everything, call me and I'll be at the building department first thing Monday morning." She gave Charlie a twisted smile. "To start the permit process rolling." They both knew that the county building department was hell to work with, that weeks of officiousness might be involved, enough unnecessary bureaucratic red tape to break the spirit of a marine sergeant.

Ryan shrugged. "I can only hope we get a good inspector, hope he doesn't find some trumped-up excuse to trash the whole plan." She grinned at Charlie. "It'll be okay, I'll sweet-talk him, as disgusted as that makes me. I can hardly wait to get started, I'm as excited as a kid-as enthusiastic as a kid should be," she said, glancing toward the lane. She slipped an elastic around the blueprints. Charlie unplugged the coffeepot, and they walked out to the pasture gate, discussing the work schedule and where the building materials should be stacked. At the gate, the three dogs came bounding. The big silver weimaraner weighed eighty pounds and stood over two feet at the shoulder, but he was dwarfed by the Harpers' half-breed Great Danes. The three dogs charged the gate like wild mustangs, but Ryan and Charlie, with fast footwork and sharp commands, got them sorted out, got Rock through the gate without the pups following. Ryan loaded Rock into the passenger seat of her pickup. "You still planning on a groundbreaking party?"

"The minute we have the permit. Max needs some diversion."

Ryan grinned, gave Charlie a thumbs-up, and took off up the lane. Charlie stood by the pasture gate petting the pups and scratching behind Redwing's ears, thinking about Dillon, about the building project, about the several commissions she'd promised, including the Doberman studies; and about the two recent deaths in the village. All the fragments that touched her life, both bright and ugly, seemed muddled together like the contents of a grab bag: You pay your money and you take your chance. Or, as Joe Grey would put it, whatever crawls out of the mouse hole, that's your catch of the day.