PAWSitively Sinister (A Klepto Cat Mystery Book 11) (16 page)

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After a while, the three women heard whooping and hollering. They looked up from their deep conversation and noticed Arthur doing a sort of victory dance. He motioned to the women, who shaded their eyes in order to see him.

“What’s he doing?” Iris asked.

“Heck if I know,” Savannah said.

“Go see what’s going on,” Iris instructed Suzette.

“Yeah, then come back and tell us,” Savannah added.

“I’m on it,” Suzette said, sprinting off toward the abandoned pond. After a few minutes, she motioned enthusiastically for Iris and Savannah to join them.

“Well, let’s go, Lily,” Savannah said, lifting the baby from a blanket she’d placed on the deck and putting her in the stroller. Iris helped pick up the toys Lily had scattered around. “What did they find?” Savannah asked when she and Iris reached the project area.

“A tunnel!” Suzette announced exuberantly. “They found a tunnel, presumably to the house. Detective Craig was poking around down there among the framing on that one side and found it. I may climb through it since I’m the smallest,” she said. “They’re trying to make sure it’s safe.”

“Are all three guys in that small hole?” Savannah asked.

Just then the women saw Michael climb up the ladder and out of the pit.

“We’re calling it quits for today,” he announced. “We’ll think about it overnight.” He shook his head. “I’m just concerned about letting anyone crawl through there until we know it’s secure.”

Craig appeared next from the depths of the cavern. “This place is a surprise a minute,” he muttered as he heaved himself off the ladder. After giving Arthur a hand, Craig stood and stared down into the pit, then his eyes wandered over the terrain toward the mansion. “If it’s a straight shot—and I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be,” he said, “—it would start just about there.” He pointed at the south wall of the massive mansion.

“Yeah, it’s in a straight line to… ” Michael walked toward the structure, turned around, and said, “here.” He looked at Arthur. “What’s behind this wall, buddy?”

Arthur thought for a moment. “Well, this is the theater area here on the ground floor,” he said. He walked about fifteen paces to the left, stopped, and turned. “My quarters are below here, running west toward the kitchen.”

“So what’s in this section, Arthur?” Michael prodded. “… under the theater, next to where your quarters are? As you can see, the chute is probably in this vicinity, east of your quarters. So what’s here, do you know?”

Arthur scratched his head. “Well, I think that’s probably just about where they closed off part of Ruthie’s room.” He turned quickly toward the others. “Yeah, I don’t know what’s on the other side of that wall.”

After watching the men for several minutes, Savannah said, “It’s getting chilly. I think I’ll take the baby in.”

“Yeah, it’s about time for ghostly hour, isn’t it?” Suzette said.

“I just wish I had something to tell,” Iris complained.

“Make it up,” Savannah suggested, as the three women walked back to the mansion. “Who’d know the difference?”

Iris’s face lit up. She looked at Savannah and then Suzette. “Hey, that’s right.”

In the meantime, Craig asked Arthur. “Do you have any tools? Can we break into that wall down there in your quarters?”

“There are a few tools. Let’s go see what we can find that would do the job,” Michael said. “… if it’s okay with you, Arthur.”

The younger man shrugged. “Be my guest.” He then held out one hand, saying, “It’s sprinkling.”

Once inside Arthur’s quarters in the area Rochelle considered a spiritual vortex, using a drill, a small electric saw, a sledgehammer, and a crowbar, the three men proceeded to tear a large hole in the eastern-most wall. Each of them also had a flashlight. As Craig stepped through the gaping hole, he said, “Well, this is part of the bedroom. What we want to see is on the other side of
that
wall,” he said, pointing.

“You got it, supervisor Craig,” Michael said as he wielded the sledge hammer and started slamming it against the second wall. Arthur used a hand-held saw to enlarge the opening.

Once the deafening sounds ceased and the dust settled, the three men approached the hole they’d created. “Good lord,” Michael said as he shined his light inside and scanned the area.

Craig also eyed the innards of the room. “Well, now that’s something, isn’t it?”

“The reading room,” Arthur said, as if disbelieving his own eyes.

“Still intact,” Craig said. “… like they just stepped out for tea.”

As the three men climbed over the pile of rubble they’d created and into the mysterious room, Michael said, “Everything’s still here—as it was, I guess, in the 1980s.” He promptly found a light switch and turned it on. Nothing. “Bulbs must have burned out… or rats chewed the wires.”

“Good thing we picked these up,” Arthur said, referring to his flashlight. He focused on the area lit by their lights. “Gosh, that must be her séance table, right there. What a blast of history—and within inches of my quarters.”

“Yeah, hidden away for what… ” Craig contemplated, “… over twenty years?” He chuckled. “She must have been a thoughtful witch.” When the others looked puzzled, he pulled out a wooden chair from the table and pointed. “She provided cushioned seats for her victims… I mean clients.”

Michael smirked playfully at the detective. He then walked cautiously to the south wall of the reading room and began examining it from top to bottom. He pulled a large framed painting off the wall, held it out in front of him, and frowned. “Ugly,” he said, placing it on the tabletop. “Here, let’s move this out of the way,” he suggested, grabbing one side of a large antique sofa. Craig took the other end and they scooted it toward the middle of the room. “What’s behind that shelf over there?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Arthur said after pushing it aside. “No chutes obvious here.” He glanced around. “Are you sure the tunnel is in line with this area?”

Craig scratched his head. “Seemed like it, didn’t it, Michael?”

He nodded. “But it’s hard to get a clear perspective when there are no windows in here. They may have wallpapered over the chute. Run your hands over the paper and see if you feel anything suspicious,” he instructed.

After a while, he exclaimed, “Here!” He narrowed his eyes while rubbing the spot. “It’s subtle, but it could be an attempt at a cover-up.”

“A cover-up?” Craig said, chuckling.

“Well, like they used a piece of plywood or something to cover something up,” he explained. “Okay if I cut into the wallpaper, Arthur?”

The younger man nodded. “Go for it.”

Once Michael had cut a piece out of the wallpaper to match the size of the plywood patch, he said, “Okay, bring me the crowbar.”

“That’s it!” Craig shouted, once Michael had removed the plywood. “The chute. Yeah, man, it’s big enough for someone to crawl through.” He stuck his head in a few inches, saying, “Although, who would want to. It’s rather suffocating in here.”

“They probably didn’t go in there very often,” Michael said. “It was more for hiding things, not retrieving them, don’t you think?”

Arthur shook his head. “I guess. Seems rather inconvenient to me.”

“They probably didn’t have a sense of logic,” Craig said. “When you’ve been in law enforcement and investigative work for as long as I have, you run into all kinds. There are many different types of crazies out there. Obviously, these folks were loony tunes.”

“Creative,” Michael said.

“Huh?”

“Looks like they put a lot of thought and time into figuring all this out,” he explained. Suddenly, he said, “What the… ” He grimaced. “Oh no. Who let them… how did they… ?”

The other two men looked in the direction Michael stared and saw the cats standing just outside the room, peering in through the gaping hole in the wall. Arthur chuckled. “Hi, Koko. Hi Rags. Come to help?”

“Hinder, is more like it,” Michael complained. He turned to Craig and Arthur. “So what do you think? Is there any reason to let Suzette crawl down there now that we know where it begins and ends?”

Craig screwed up his face in thought, then said, “Only if there’s something hung up in there, I guess.”

“Hung up?” Arthur questioned.

“You know, there could be something or several things stuck—that didn’t travel all the way down the chute. Who has the brightest light?” Craig asked. “How far down this thing can we see, anyway?”

As all three men peered into the chute, each shining their flashlights, Arthur said, “Not too far. How far do you think it is out to the pit?”

Michael looked to Craig for input. “What would you say, twenty feet?”

“Yeah, about that,” he responded. “And we can see maybe eight feet clearly.” He turned to the others. “So maybe we should have her go in.”

“Or,” Arthur said, his face brightening into a smile, “we could roll something kinda heavy down there to dislodge anything that’s caught.”

“Like what?” Craig asked.

“Uh, a bowling ball, can of beans… I don’t know,” Arthur admitted.

Michael grinned and slapped the young man on the back playfully. “Let’s think about it overnight, shall we? You’re the thinker; I’m sure you’ll come up with something by morning.” He then said, “We probably ought to get back upstairs. Don’t want to be the pokey little puppy.”

“What?” Craig and Arthur asked, looking confused.

“Oh, I guess you have to be a parent.
The Pokey Little Puppy
is the name of a children’s book. If the puppy doesn’t make it home on time, he isn’t going to get any dinner,” Michael explained.

The others gave him a blank stare.

Michael said, “Yeah, Lily has it. Maybe she’ll read it to you someday. Good story… ” He walked toward the center of the room, leaving the others behind and looked around the area. “Okay now, where are those cats?” He motioned to the others. “Light please.”

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Arthur said, laughing.

“I think the air down here has affected you two,” Craig said, chuckling. “We’d better get you topside fast.”

“There they are,” Arthur said, shining the light under the large table. “What are they doing?”

The three of them looked down at the cats, who were both rather frantically clawing at the carpet.

“Rags,” Michael said sternly, heading quickly toward him.

“Hey, don’t worry about the carpet.” Arthur said. “It’s probably full of moths, anyway.”

“Well, it’s not a habit I want Rags to develop,” he said as he pulled out a couple of chairs and reached in for the cat. Before walking away with the cat, he did a double-take, leaned over in the area where Koko continued to claw, and asked, “What’s this?” He lowered Rags to the floor and said, “Craig, help me move this table; I want to see what they’re so interested in.” Once the table and chairs were out of the way, Michael knelt next to the spot where Koko continued to claw.

“Looks like there’s something under there—like they carpeted over something,” Arthur said.

Michael looked up at Arthur. “Want to find out what it is?”

Arthur nodded.

Craig moved closer and the two men watched as Michael used his pocket knife to begin cutting away the carpet. “Holy moly, it’s big,” he said, scooting along the floor on his knees to follow the edges of the carefully camouflaged area.

Before he could finish, Craig let out a guffaw.

“What?” Michael asked sounding a little annoyed.

Craig pointed. “That carpet isn’t even tacked down. It’s… what do you call them, a tossed rug,” he said laughing.

“Tossed rug?” Michael said. “Like a tossed salad?” he chuckled. He then said, “Oh, you mean a throw rug?”

“Yes, you didn’t have to cut it up like that.”

Michael glanced around, then sat back on his haunches. “Oh, would you rather move all that furniture that’s sitting on it?”

Craig looked sheepish. “Okay, never mind.”

Michael grinned at the detective, then continued to cut the carpet away from the floor. “Well, what do you know,” he said, scratching his head. “A dang trap door.”

“Sheesh, more secrets?” Craig said, shaking his head. “Looks like it’s nailed down.” “Yeah,” Michael confirmed. “Someone put a flat piece of moulding around it in an attempt to seal it. Where’s that crowbar?” he asked. He looked more closely at the situation and said, “I may be able to remove this with a screwdriver.”

Once the moulding was removed, Michael put his hand on the embedded pull handle and said, “Stand back,” as he began to lift the large trap door.

“Holy shhhh,” Craig muttered. “What the h… ?”

“Well, I’ll be. What do you suppose it is?” Arthur asked.

“It looks like an E-Ticket ride to… ” Craig looked around at the others. “To where?”

“Do we want to know?” Michael asked hesitantly, staring down at what appeared to be a crude elevator. When he spotted an electrical switch, he said. “I wonder if it still has power.”

The three men watched as the apparatus engaged. It moved down slowly about halfway, then Michael pressed the button to bring it back up. “Wow!” Craig said. He looked at the others, took a deep breath and asked, “Who’s first?”

Michael nodded toward Arthur. “It’s his house.”

“You discovered it,” Craig said to Michael.

“You’re the detective,” Arthur pointed out.

“Okay, I’ll go,” Craig agreed. “But first, let’s run the thing down and back up to make sure it isn’t just a one-way trip to hell.”

Michael pushed the button again. The motor engaged and the cage descended all the way down to another level below them. Just then he felt something bump against him. “Koko,” he said. “I’d forgotten about the cats.” He looked around. “Where’s Rags?”

“Rags,” Arthur called. “Where are you, boy?” He stood and shined his light around the room. When he noticed they had neglected to close the chute, he walked over to it and reported, “Michael, I think he went in the tunnel. Darn it.”

“Are you sure?” Michael asked, rushing to where Arthur stood.

“Yeah.” He shined his light at the opening of the chute. “I see kitty activity right here. See those paw marks?”

Michael gritted his teeth. “Dang it, anyway. My fault. I got so interested in what was behind door number two, I forgot to close door number one. Can you see him in there?” he asked.