PAWSitively Sinister (A Klepto Cat Mystery Book 11) (20 page)

“Rags?” Savannah shrieked.

Arthur opened the car door and ran out toward the lone Siamese. He reached down and lifted her into his arms, burying his face in her fur as he rushed back to the car with her.

In the meantime, Savannah stepped out of the car and joined Michael. She petted Koko as Arthur walked past with her and continued peering into the distance, straining to spot Rags.

At that moment, the fire captain approached the two couples. Savannah hurried toward him, shouting, “Our cat’s in that first bungalow there! Please, save him,” she pleaded.

The captain glanced in that direction, then looked down. “I’m sorry ma’am,” he said. “There’s no way… I am sorry.” As Michael comforted Savannah, enveloping her in a bear hug, the captain asked him, “Are you the owner?”

“
I
am,” Arthur said, stepping back out of the car and closing the door so Koko couldn’t escape. Suzette climbed out after Arthur.

The captain looked Arthur up and down, then glanced at Michael. “I’m not sure we can save it, sir. It’s pretty well consumed.”

Arthur stared at the burning mansion. “Good riddance,” he said under his breath.

The captain looked at him and questioned, “Sir?”

“I don’t think any amount of salt or sage would clear the evil from that place. Let it burn!” Arthur said without emotion.

Savannah continued to stare toward the bungalows, feeling sick in the pit of her stomach, then her eyes wandered for a moment in the direction of the mansion. Suddenly she lurched forward. “Rags!” she shouted. “Michael, Rags just came out the front door. That’s Rags, isn’t it… in front of the mansion?”

“By golly, it is him. What’s he doing?” Michael asked.

“Rags!” Savannah shouted again. She turned back toward the car to peer at Lily.

“She’s sleeping. She’s fine. Go,” Suzette said, tears welling in her eyes.

Savannah and Michael trotted toward the mansion, keeping their eye on the cat as threads of smoke wafted to and fro in front of them. Just then a fireman spotted the cat and headed toward him, but Rags quickly ran back inside.

“What in the heck is he doing?” Michael asked, running his hand through his hair.

Savannah held her breath. “Why would he go in there… unless… ”

“Unless what, ma’am?” the fire captain, who had been walking along with them, asked.

“Follow him!” she shouted. “He wants you to follow him. There must be someone inside.”

“Are you sure, ma’am?” he asked.

“Yes, he would not go back in unless there was a reason. Someone’s in there, I tell you!”

The fire captain shook his head and then moved swiftly toward the burning structure. Savannah and Michael watched as he helped two firemen climb into protective gear and enter the mansion through the broken-out front door.

“Stand back folks,” the captain said upon rejoining Savannah and Michael. He looked up. “Debris could fall from those turrets as they burn.” Just then, a couple of law enforcement officers began cordoning off the area and insisted that the anxious couple move on the other side of it.

Savannah glanced back at their car occasionally, to make sure Suzette and Arthur were sticking close to their sleeping baby. She grabbed Michael’s arm. “They’ve been gone for so long.” Barely able to breathe, she couldn’t bear to look and she couldn’t bear not to. All she wanted was to see Rags come out through that door unharmed.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she screeched, “Here they come—they have someone. Who is that? Where’s Rags?”

Arthur rushed up behind them. “Look!” he shouted. “The fireman has Rags. He’s giving him oxygen.”

“He’s not moving,” she said quietly, her voice growing raspy from the smoke and stress. She couldn’t stand still. “Rags, come on,” she said, balancing on one foot and then the other, wanting to rush to him but being held back by authorities. Just when she thought she’d faint from fear and anxiety, the fire captain said, “Wait here, I’ll go check on him.”

Meow. Meow
. Savannah turned toward the sound and saw that Koko was draped over Arthur’s shoulders. When she reached out to pet the Siamese beauty, the cat jumped to the ground and ran as fast as she could toward the triage spot, which was a safe distance from the massive blaze. When she reached Rags, she stood over him, meowing. She looked at the fireman and then back at her feline buddy, meowing again. Within a few moments, Rags began to stir and Koko promptly head-butted him.

“He’s moving,” Savannah said when she saw Rags raise his head and then lay it back down.

When the captain returned, he said, “Looks like your cat’s going to be just fine. You might have your vet take a look at him.”

Michael and Savannah exchanged looks. “We are veterinarians,” he said. “Can I go to him?”

The captain looked surprised for a moment, then he nodded.

Arthur shouted back at Suzette, who was staying close to where Lily slept in the car. “Rags is okay!”

She clasped her hands in front of her chest and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Who is that you brought out of there?” Arthur asked the fire captain as he walked with the others toward Rags.

“Don’t know her name; she says her grandmother was in there. She wanted to save her grandmother.”

“Miriam,” Savannah said.

“Miriam?” he asked.

“She lived here as a child with her grandmother,” Savannah explained.

He looked panicked for a moment. “So is her grandmother still inside?” he asked.

“Uh, well, that’s a hard question to answer, sir,” Arthur said, grinning a little.

When the fireman seemed concerned, Savannah said, “She’s there in spirit, I guess you might say.”

“Oh,” he said, now looking confused.

Michael reached Rags first and quickly examined him, then carefully picked him up, scooped up Koko in the other arm, and walked with both of them back to the car.

“It doesn’t look like we can save it, sir,” the fire captain said again

Arthur shook his head. “Let it burn. Let the spirits finally rest.”

“Sure,” she said, only slightly reluctantly.

A few minutes later as the two couples stood next to the car watching the fire from a safer distance, Michael holding sleeping Lily in his arms, Craig and Iris drove up.

“Good God,” Craig said, joining the others.

“Wow! What a sight,” Iris added.

Just then, Craig looked to the left of the burning mansion. Without a word, he sprinted off in that direction. “What’s he doing?” Savannah asked.

Michael turned just in time to see that the detective was chasing someone. Michael handed the baby to Savannah and ran after Craig into the darkness. When Michael caught up to him, Craig had things under control. The detective was marching a man back toward the police car, his hands cuffed behind his back.

“Good thing he’s a decade or so older than me,” Craig said, huffing and puffing a little. “I might not have been able to catch him.”

“Let me go! Let me go!” the man hollered. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Shut up,” Craig snapped.

“What do we have here?” another police officer on the scene asked.

“I believe this is our arsonist,” Craig explained.

“No I’m not—I live down the street, just came up to see what’s going on.”

“A looky-loo, huh?” Craig said, sarcastically. “Then why did you run like a scared rabbit?”

“Because you were chasing me.”

“We’ll decide,” the policeman said. He sniffed the air, frowned, and said, “Been siphoning gas lately?”

“Huh?” the man said.

The officer stared him in the eyes. “You smell like gasoline, sir. What’s your name?”

“Uh, Johnny Mitchell.”

“Do you have ID?”

“No. I left it at home on my dresser—down the road there. Just walked up to see the flames.”

The officer patted the man down, put him in the patrol car, then asked Craig, “Where was he heading, do you know?”

Craig motioned across a field to the northeast. “My guess is he has a car parked out that way somewhere.”

At that, the officer nodded to a couple of younger officers, who immediately headed that direction.

In the meantime, Craig peered toward the mansion. “Anyone got marshmallows?” he quipped. He then squinted. “Who’s that they have on the ground, there? Was someone inside?”

“Yeah,” Savannah said. “Miriam. Rags saved her.”

Craig looked at Savannah, disbelieving. He turned toward the other officer and said, “Hey, I have an idea. Let’s take that guy over to that woman there. I think she can identify him.”

As they drew nearer to where Miriam rested on a grassy expanse, bundled in one of the firemen’s jackets, the man began to balk. “No, let me go,” he said, resisting the officer and Craig with all of his seventy-year-old might. But they continued to push him along until they were standing in front of Miriam.

“Hi Miriam,” Craig said, kneeling down near her. “How are you feeling? I hear you had a close call.”

“Oh, hi, Detective. Yes, I almost burned up in there,” she said.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Craig said. He pointed at the handcuffed man. “Miriam, I wonder if you could help us out. We need you to identify this man. Can you do that for us?”

When Miriam looked up at the man, she blinked her eyes a couple of times then said, rather loudly, “Father!”

The man, doing his best to avoid eye-contact said, “I don’t know you. What are you, crazy?”

“It’s me, Father, Miriam,” she said, pleading.

When Miriam struggled to stand, a fireman helped her up and she moved closer to the man. “I’m your daughter, Father—Miriam.”

As David Moore continued to look down at the ground, one of the officers asked, “Well, is she your daughter?”

He glanced up into her face for a split second. “I don’t know her.”

“I remember now, Father,” she said, breathlessly. “I remember what I saw when I followed Grandmother through the floor. I saw you… oh my God, Father. You were down there painting Jeffry’s face. You painted all their faces, didn’t you… after they were dead?”

He squirmed. “I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Miriam, what were you doing in there, anyway?” Craig asked.

“I had to see it again… to find out if it was real.” She began to cry. “I went down in the cage and there they were—all of them, just like I remembered—only now Grandmother is there, too. When I came back out, there was fire. I didn’t know which way to go. I screamed and screamed.” She looked at her father. “Didn’t you hear me scream? I saw you outside the window sprinkling water around out of a can.”

“Water?” Craig said, scowling. “It was gasoline. His hands smell like gasoline.”

Miriam looked shocked. “You started the fire, Father? Why would you want to burn all those people up? And me—you almost burned me up, too.” She started coughing and, with help, lowered herself to the ground again.

David Moore looked at his daughter, his face contorted in a mask of fear and rage. “Yes, I wanted to burn them. When Julian called and told me what those nosey people had found, I knew I had to get rid of the evidence once and for all.” He looked at the now completely engulfed structure and started to laugh. “It’s gone now—there’s nothing left for anyone to discover. It’s all finally gone.”

Right then Savannah, Arthur, and Suzette walked up. Arthur led Rags using a makeshift harness and leash he’d created from some rope they’d found in the back of the SUV. Koko followed obediently behind them.

“That cat!” Miriam shouted. “He saved me, didn’t he?” She looked around at the paramedics.

“He sure did, ma’am,” one of them said. “He led the firefighters right to you. Almost lost his life doing it.”

Savannah choked up, her lower lip quivering. “He must have heard you calling for help.”

Miriam reached out for the cat. She petted him a few times and then pulled him to her, hugging him. “Thank you,” she murmured into his fur.

“Let’s go, Mr. Moore. We have some things to talk over with you,” one police officer said.

The man took one more look at Miriam, then turned and walked away with the officer.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Arthur said, kneeling down near Miriam. He put his hand on her arm. “It’s better this way, don’t you think?”

She nodded.

“Now what will you do, Miriam?” he asked.

“I don’t know—go back to the streets, I guess. That’s all I know.”

“What if Suzette and I help you and your friend Mattie, if she wants some help, to get you back on your feet and into society?”

Her eyes widened. “Uh, you mean like get a regular job and live in a house, drive a car, go shopping… things like that?”

“Exactly like that,” Suzette said. “But I know it can be a process—there’s a lot to unlearn and relearn.”

Miriam sat silently for a moment, then asked suspiciously, “What do you want me to do? What’s your angle?”

“Angle?” Arthur said.

“Everyone’s got an angle,” she said.

Arthur looked at Suzette questioningly. “Well, we… er… I can use help at my new place. I never learned how to cook or do household chores.”

“I’d love to learn to cook,” she said, her face lighting up. “Food fascinates me. I worked for a while in a kitchen downtown and they let me cook a little.”

“So cooking interests you?”

She nodded, smiling.

Arthur glanced at Suzette. “What if we sponsor you at a culinary school?”

She looked from one to the other.

“Would you stick it out?” Suzette asked. “We need you to follow through.”

She nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Then when you’re feeling up to it, let’s talk,” Arthur suggested.

Everyone watched as paramedics helped Miriam step into the ambulance for a ride to the hospital. As Savannah walked with Arthur and Suzette toward the car where Michael and Iris watched over the sleeping baby, she said, “You guys are serious, aren’t you?”

They both nodded. “And if Ruthie’s sister wants a new start, we’ll help her too, right, sweetheart?” Arthur asked.

Right on,” Suzette said, smiling.

“So you two… ?” Savannah started.

Arthur grinned and pulled Suzette to him. “Now that she’s here, there’s no way I can let her go. Yes, she’s staying. She’ll get her schooling up here somewhere while I learn the ropes of my father’s estate.” He shook his head. “I don’t know yet how badly my mother’s second husband has fouled things up.”