More praise for the New York Times bestselling
Cats and Curios Mysteries
“Written with verve and panache.”
—Carolyn Hart, national bestselling author of What the Cat Saw
“Quirky characters, an enjoyable mystery with plenty of twists, and cats, too! A fun read.”
—Linda O. Johnston, author of the Pet Rescue Mysteries
“[A] wild, refreshing over-the-top-of-Nob-Hill thriller.”
—The Best Reviews
“This exciting road trip goes from danger to humor and back as the adorable cats are brilliant tacticians who amusingly but cleverly maneuver the niece somewhat for treats but often to keep her safe. Fast-paced cozy readers who enjoy something different will relish the charming Cats and Curios Mysteries (see Nine Lives Last Forever and How to Wash a Cat) as Oscar’s niece continues her dangerous adventures into the weird, whimsical world of her late uncle.”
—Genre Go Round Reviews
“Whimsical . . . Contains a stunning clever twist . . . Cozy readers who enjoy something amusingly, satirically different will relish this.”
—Gumshoe Review
“Full of quirky, yet credibly described characters . . . Intriguing . . . Doubly fun for those familiar with this beautiful city . . . This is a PURR-fect treat for feline and mystery fans alike! Warning: Like cat treats, this series may prove to be addictive!”
—Fresh Fiction
“[A] neatly constructed mystery . . . Cat fanciers will find plenty to love in these personified felines . . . The setting is very well drawn, old town San Francisco is well detailed, neatly blending into the more modern city.”
—The Mystery Reader
Titles by Rebecca M. Hale
Cats and Curios Mysteries
HOW TO WASH A CAT
NINE LIVES LAST FOREVER
HOW TO MOON A CAT
HOW TO TAIL A CAT
HOW TO PAINT A CAT
Mysteries in the Islands
ADRIFT ON ST. JOHN
AFOOT ON ST. CROIX
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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HOW TO PAINT A CAT
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
Copyright © 2014 by Rebecca Hale.
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
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ISBN: 978-1-101-60095-5
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / March 2014
Cover illustration by Mary Ann Lasher.
Cover design by Diana Kolsky.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
For Helen Hale, my grandmother
Contents
Praise for the Cats and Curios Mysteries
Also by Rebecca M. Hale
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
The Portrait Sketch
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
The Reporter
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
The Nose
Chapter 11
The Previous Mayor
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
The Mural
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
The Painted Words
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
The Newsroom
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
The Interim Mayor
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
The Green Vase
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
City Hall
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
The Lieutenant Governor
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
The Green Vase
Chapter 32
City Hall
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
The Sonoma Woods
Chapter 35
Following the Murals
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
The Lieutenant Governor’s Residence
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
New Deal Art
Chapter 43
A Lunch Date
Chapter 44
The Rincon Center
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Jackson Square
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Dilla
Chapter 49
Colma
Chapter 50
The Beach Chalet
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
The Inauguration
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
The Conservatory of Flowers
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
The Murderer
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Introduction
IN A REMOTE corner of the Sonoma woods, far from the nearest public road, a man’s humming floated up through the branches of an ancient redwood grove.
It was the only sound in the otherwise quiet forest. A damp winter mist hung in the air, an acoustic insulator that soaked up all but the most vigorously transmitted noise.
The source of the happy humming knelt by a fire pit in the middle of a small clearing. Built like a lumberjack, Sam Eckles sported a thick overgrown beard and a mass of tangled red hair, both of which threatened to ignite as he paused his singing to puff on the embers in the bottom of the pit.
�
��Ah, there she is,” Sam whispered as a flame flickered in the charred remains of the fire he’d stoked earlier that morning. Leaning back on the heels of his thick-soled hiking boots, he placed a metal rack over the pit and positioned its foldout legs so that the grated surface would be centered over the heat.
Two bright green frogs sat on a log a few feet away, watching as Sam nursed the flame, slowly feeding in kindling. They had observed the procedure countless times since the group’s arrival at the campsite last November, but the amphibian pair never seemed to tire of staring at the fire’s dancing orange light.
Before long, Sam had built a blaze suitable for cooking. He slid a cast-iron skillet filled with cooking grease onto the grate and waited for its temperature to rise. Once the grease melted and began to pop in the pan, he reached for a paper bag containing two dozen raw chicken legs mixed with a specially formulated flour coating. Folding over the bag’s top edges to secure the contents inside, he gave the bag a vigorous shake. Despite the sealing precaution, a cloud of flour filled the air, leaving a white dusting on his red beard.
After a few choking coughs, Sam picked up a pair of metal tongs, slid the pointed ends into the sack, and began fishing out the legs. It was a tricky procedure, but he missed only once as he dropped each piece of battered meat into the hot skillet. Then he covered the meal with a metal lid and sat back to wait.
As the legs began to simmer, the scent of crisping chicken wafted toward the cabin, drifting through its open doors and windows.
Inside, an elderly man with thinning white hair and short rounded shoulders stood in front of a two-by-six canvas propped onto an easel. Holding a pencil-thin paintbrush in his hand, he leaned toward the painting, squinting at the densely populated street scene spread across much of its surface.
A weariness tinged the man’s graying blue eyes, and there was a tired slump to his already bent posture. He felt as if he had aged more in the past two months than in the previous two years combined.
Painting was strenuous work, even for someone with his skills, but it was critical that he get each brushstroke right. The finished product was destined for a public location in downtown San Francisco, where it would have an important message to convey.
The piece was a re-creation of a much larger mural, one composed during the Great Depression for the interior of a well-known San Francisco landmark. It was an exact replica—with a few subtle differences.
The painter checked the emerging image against a color photocopy of the original; then he dabbed his brush into a palette of paints.
His arthritic hands ached from the hours of tension, but he ignored the pain, spurred on by the knowledge that this project might be his life’s last significant contribution.
“Hey, Oscar. You ready for a break?” Sam called out from his cooking station by the fire. “Lunch will be ready soon.”
The old man set down his brush and stepped to the cabin door. Massaging a stitch in his lower back, he looked out over the campsite. As he breathed in the welcome aroma smoking up from the fire pit, he glanced into the woods.
A white cargo van was parked in the brush beyond the clearing. He and Sam had covered the roof with camouflage-colored netting to ensure that the vehicle wouldn’t be spotted from the air.
He stroked his chin, pondering the rash of fresh dents along the van’s metal sides and front bumper.
The vehicle had taken a beating during their off-road journey through the woods to the campsite, but it had managed the task admirably. Whether the van would survive the return trip, however, was still an open question.
Putting those concerns aside, Oscar joined Sam by the fire. For the time being, all that mattered was that they were safely hidden.
An owl hooted down from the dizzying heights above the camp, and the old man craned his neck to look up, marveling at the site’s concealed location. He and Sam were but two dots of flesh in a vast wilderness of green.
Their campsite was situated on a private parcel of land, which was, in turn, surrounded by acres of public forest. For the last century, the property had been owned by a secretive group of artists, businessmen, and politicians, formally known as the Bohemian Club. The members valued seclusion over ease of access, and the camp was located in one of the property’s most remote locations.
It was the perfect hiding spot for a pair of fugitives.
The duo had fled San Francisco in November following the gruesome murder of a City Hall intern. So far, the police had been unable to definitively link them to the young man’s slaying, but as they had last been seen fleeing the crime scene, they were now the primary suspects.
In the eyes of the investigators, the pair’s sudden disappearance had only confirmed their guilt.
The humans’, that is—the frogs were just along for the ride.
The Portrait Sketch
Chapter 1
THE ARTISTIC ADVISER
“STOP FIDGETING!”
A cold drizzle soaked San Francisco, trickling down steep sidewalks and funneling through gutters and drains. The moisture had settled into every crack and crevice, sending a shiver through the hardiest of the city’s weatherworn residents.
But the owner of the Green Vase antique shop would rather have been anywhere else other than inside her nice warm store. She’d been trapped there for more than two hours, posing for her neighbor, Montgomery Carmichael, as he worked on a sketch that he intended to use as the basis of a painted portrait.
An area had been cleared in the center of the showroom, providing space for the artist and his equipment. He’d set up a full-sized easel on the wooden floor and propped a large sketchpad on its frame. A toolbox filled with an assortment of charcoal pencils and replacement leads lay open at his feet.
Monty’s busy hands rotated a flat-sided charcoal pencil as he scraped the stylus across the textured paper, adding depth and shading to the sketch. Every so often he looked up from the drawing and compared it to the real-life model seated just a few feet away.
The woman sat on the cushions of a leather recliner once used by the patients of a Gold Rush–era dentist. A display of gold teeth, rusty pliers, and other rudimentary dental equipment had been positioned to her left. Additional antiques were arrayed to her right and behind the chair, providing further background material for the painting.
The artist’s brow furrowed with concentration, reflecting a level of intensity far out of proportion to the simple sketch he’d initially described, and the woman wondered, not for the first time, what was really being drawn on the opposite side of the easel.
Monty had already blackened and rejected several pieces of paper over the course of the lengthy posing session, and she was quickly losing patience with the process.
This would be his final attempt—if for no other reason than to avert a mutiny.
A frustrated sigh weighed in over the pencil’s etching.
“Couldn’t you just take a photo and work from that?”
Monty snorted a rebuke. He tapped the pointed toe of his dress shoe against the floor; his thin lips tensed into a stern expression.
“As if I could use a two-dimensional image,” he muttered with a dismissive pfft. “I’m not scribbling on the side of a cereal box, you know.”
He pointed the charcoal pencil at the recliner and repeated his order.
“Stop fidgeting!”
• • •
RESIGNING HERSELF TO a few more minutes of picture-posing torture, the woman took in a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. She shifted her weight ever so slightly, trying not to disturb the fluffy orange and white cat sprawled across her lap.
Rupert let out a wheezing snore as he burrowed his furry face into his person’s knees. The plump feline didn’t mind the extended sitting session. He could pose for hours—so long as it was in a sleeping position.
He rolled sideways, exposing the round bulge of his stomach. His mouth opened into a wide yawn as he stretched his front legs up and over his orange-tipped ear
s.
Groggily smacking his lips together, he raised himself into a sitting position. After a quizzical gaze at the back side of the easel, he threw his head and shoulders into a vibrating shake. Then he collapsed back onto the lap and immediately returned to a state of peaceful slumber.
As Rupert exhaled a wheezing snore, a tuft of white cat hair floated up from his body, slowly traveling toward his person’s face.
Puckering her lips, the woman blew out a steady stream of air, trying to divert the downy clump’s course, to no avail. As it rose higher and higher, drifting ever closer to her nose, the first hallmarks of a sneeze tickled her sinuses.
Her eyes began to water. Her nasal passages started to twitch.