Seize the Night

paintings of fairies, her wardrobe revealed a grudging acceptance of the twenty-first century, although regardless of what she wore, her longing for button-top shoes, bustles, and parasols was evident. Roger and Marie seemed unsuited to California, doubly unsuited to this century, yet they drove a red Jaguar, had been spotted attending excruciatingly stupid big budget action movies, and functioned fairly well as citizens of the new millennium.
    Sasha called to the Stanwyks through the open kitchen door.
    Mungojerrie had crossed the kitchen without hesitation and had disappeared into deeper reaches of the house.
    When Sasha got no answer to her third “Roger, Marie, hello,” she drew the .38 from her shoulder holster and stepped inside.
    Bobby, Roosevelt, and I followed her. If Sasha had been wearing skirts, we might have happily hidden behind them, but we were more comfortable with the cover provided by the Smith & Wesson.
    From the porch, the house had seemed silent, but as we crossed the kitchen, we heard voices coming from the front room. They were not directed at us.
    We stopped and listened, not quite able to make out the words.
    Quickly, however, when music rose, it became apparent that we were hearing not live voices but those on television or radio.
    Sasha's entrance to the dining room was instructive and more than a little intriguing. Both hands on the gun. Arms out straight and locked.
    The weapon just below her line of sight. She cleared the doorway fast, slid to the left, her back against the wall. After she moved mostly out of view, I could still see just enough of her arms to know she swung the .38 left, then right, then left again, covering the room.
    Her performance was professional, instinctive, and no less smooth than her on-air voice.
    Maybe she's watched a lot of television cop dramas over the years.
    Yeah.
    “Clear,” she whispered.
    Tall, ornate hutches seemed to loom over us, as if tipping away from the walls, porcelain and silver treasures gleaming darkly behind leaded glass doors with beveled panes. The crystal chandelier wasn't lit, but reflections of nearby candle flames winked along its strings of beads and off the cut edges of its dangling pendants.
    In the center of the dining-room table, surrounded by eight or ten candles, was a large punch bowl half full of what appeared to be fruit juice. A few clean drinking glasses stood to one side, and scattered across the table were several empty plastic pharmacy bottles of prescription medication.
    The lighting wasn't good enough to allow us to read the labels on the bottles, as they lay, and none of us wanted to touch anything.
    Death lives here , the cat had said, and maybe that was what had given us the idea, from the moment we entered the house, that this was a crime scene.
    Upon seeing the tableau on the dining-room table, we looked at one another, and it was clear that all of us suspected the nature of the crime, though we didn't speak its name.
    I could have used my flashlight, but I might have drawn unwanted attention. Under the circumstances, any attention would be unwanted.
    Besides, the name of the medication wasn't important.
    Sasha led us into the large living room, where the illumination came from a television screen nested in an ornate French cabinet with japanned panels. Even in the poor light, I could see that the chamber was as crowded as an automobile salvage yard, not with junked cars but with Victorian excess, deeply carved and intricately painted neo-rococo furniture, richly patterned brocade upholstery, wallpaper with Gothic-style tracery, heavy velvet drapes with cascades of braided fringe, capped with solid helmets cut in elaborate Gothic forms, an Egyptian settee with beaded-wood spindles and damask seat cushions, Moorish lamps featuring black cherubs in gilded turbans supporting beaded shades, bibelots densely arranged on every shelf and table.
    Amidst the layers on layers of decor, the cadavers almost seemed like additional decorative items.
    Even in the flickery light of the television, we could see a man stretched out on the Egyptian settee. He was dressed in dark slacks and a white shirt. Before lying down, he'd taken off his shoes and placed them on the floor with the laces neatly tucked in, as though concerned about soiling the upholstery on the seat cushions. Beside the shoes stood a drinking glass identical to those in the dining room—Waterford crystal, judging by appearance—in which remained an inch of