'Of course. We'd like you to come into Obispo tomorrow . . . or as soon as you can. Official identification. I'm sorry.'
'Of course you would. I'11 come in the morning. After I make the phone calls. Good night, Officer.'
'Good night, Mr. McCarey. ' Brooks studied him professionally, reached a decision. 'I'11 be going now. If we can do anything, please call us.'
'Yes. Thank you.'
Dylan remained framed in the doorway, a weaving silhouette in the hallway light. He watched as the tall patrolman was swallowed by the fog. There was the sound of a car door slamming. Rumbling throatily, the blinking red light turned and receded into the distance. He stared until it had disappeared completely.
Reflex guided him back to the study, back to his desk. A detached part of him was coolly aware of the mournful dialogue of wind and wave below the window. Marjorie, Marjorie. What had they fought about, to send her blindly running from the house, from him? That silly fight over nothing, over a chair. A damned piece of furniture.
Turning, he looked at it. One little argument and his Marjorie was taken from him forever. One absurd little
He froze, his spine rippling like an underground cable in an earthquake. Some unmentionable fear swamped his muscular control of self, and he shivered uncontrollably.
The back of the chair was altered, different. He could've sworn, would've sworn, he'd originally counted nine faces carved into the seat back. There were eleven now. On bulgy-eyed, close inspection, one resembled very much, quite impossibly, that of a recently deceased young lawyer and former neighbor, Mark Andrus. The other . . . oh, God, the other . . .
Long hair formed a cirruslike nimbus around the delicately rendered face. The tiny mouth was open, forming a deep little gash in the dark wood, while the miniature glaring eyes focused on some unseen but immediate terror. The complete expression was one a person would adopt on viewing some soul-twisting horror or a train abruptly bearing down on her, the earth cracking beneath her feet, or . . .
Rocks at the bottom of a cliff rushing up at her.
Shaking, cold, cold in the heated room, he bent around in the chair. A forefinger reached out unsteadily toward the tiny portrait. His voice was an echo.
'Marjorie?' He touched the carving.
It was warmer than the wood around it.
Dylan jumped out of the chair, hit the desk, backed away from it. His eyes never left the chair. He struck something-the wastebasket-and stumbled over it. Strange noises were coming from deep in his throat, a low grunting sound like someone might make while experiencing a nightmare in the –midst of deep sleep.
Backing into a wall, he knocked precious books from their shelves and ignored them. A vase full of coleus fell, shattered, and stained the green carpet. Something else heavy was bumped, hit the floor with an imperative cushioned thud.
He looked down. The battle-ax lay smooth and clean among the dirt and humus and broken waxy stems from the cracked vase. Slowly he reached down, picked up the replica. Its weight blotted out everything else in the study. Cherry glaze blurred his vision.
Howling like a crippled wolf, he raised the ax over his head with both hands and rushed on the chair.
At the last instant it rose nimbly on four clawed legs and skittered aside.
The ax came down blindly, missing, gashing Dylan's right calf. Overbalanced, he spun, swung, and raised the ax again. It went through the picture window with a crystalline scream, and Dylan followed it.
Immediately thereafter a dull, distance-damped thump sounded from the rocks below. Then it was quiet in the study. Through the break, the fog began to enter, marching on the sound of winter waves forty feet below.
'I don't understand.' The young girl looked happily at her fiancй. 'It was so cheap.'
He grinned at her with the superior knowledge of the older (he was two years older than she and had already graduated college). 'Small-town estate sale, that's all. No dealers to bid against. It was sure a buy, though. What a way to start furnishing our apartment! Wait till Sally and Dave see it.
'Lot's go. You've got classes tomorrow morning.'
'Mondays, yecch!' She wrinkled her pretty face. 'You'll have all day off to admire it while I'm slogging through Haskell's seminar.'
'It.11 be there when you get home.' He slid behind the wheel of the van.
'Isn't it gorgeous, though?' She turned in her seat to stare back at the chair. It leaned up against the convertible couch, dogged down securely by rope. She admired the carved arms and lion's heads, the open-mouthed gargoyle crowning the back of the seat, and most especially the twelve miniature faces carved into the back.
Her fiancй frowned, looked in his rearview mirror. 'Did you hear someone scream?'
She smiled at him, took his free hand. 'Probably just some kid separated from his momma. I didn't hear anything but laughing, dummy.'
'Laughing, screaming, who cares? We got ourselves a helluva buy!' He started the engine, guided the van out of the lot. They laughed as they rocked their way across several chuckholes and depressions in the road.
Behind them, the chair squatted expectantly as four wooden feet dug a little more deeply into the blue-red carpet . . .
THE INHERITANCE
I love cats. Always have, always will. I'm not allergic to them, and their hair doesn't make me sneeze. I've slept with cats the past fourteen years. They move around, they get your legs hot, and sometimes they snore. But they're great company. I like real cats, fictional cats like Gummitch, wholly imaginary cats, felines large and small. I liked Garfield better when he was a cat.
However, I have noticed through the years that not every member of the human race feels the same. There are people who like cats even though they're allergic to them: a pitiable situation. There are some folks who are indifferent to their presence. And then there are, astonishingly enough, individuals who outright hate felines.
There are even those who live in fear of the common house cat, whose phobia is a throwback to the Middle Ages and the terrors of the plague: No argument can alter their opinions, no logic dissuade their antifeline vitriol. In the very presence of a cat they will draw away in fear. It is an attitude I find incomprehensible, indefensible, absurd, and unreasoning.
Wouldn't it be hilarious if they turned out to be right?
'. . . My home, Trenton, its contents, and the sum of five hundred and fifty thousand dollars, after other and all taxes have been paid.'
Every eye in the pecan-paneled room turned to Mayell. She remained composed in green sleeveless dress and pumps, managing not to grin.
'There are two conditions,' the lawyer continued, his tone indicating disapproval of the manner in which the deceased's secretary's skirt had crawled an indecent distance up her thighs. 'You must remain in residence at Trenton House for six months to enable the staff there to make a gradual transition to other employment.'
'And the other condition?' Mayell spoke with the chiming notes of a gamelan, displaying a voice sweet enough to match her appearance.
The lawyer harrumphed. 'There remains the matter of Saugen, the deceased's cat. You will henceforth be responsible for the animal's care. Full transferral of the aforementioned sum occurs six months from today, provided that Trenton remains home to its present staff for that length of time and provided that Saugen appears happy, healthy, well fed, and content at that date.'
'That's all?'
'That is all.' The lawyer evened the mass of paper by tapping the double handful on the desk. 'This reading,
