That Christmas Feeling (10 page)

“It is? Well, poor little thing. Come here, kitty, kitty!”
Flossie turned her head and began calling in a high-pitched voice. “Come here, Sweetpea. That’s her name. Sweetpea is the yellow one. Is that cat yellow?”

Claire stared at her aunt. “You mean you have more than one?”

“Just a skinny, tiger-striped fella. Came up to my back door yowling his head off last night. It was so cold. Did you ever imagine cats would like fruitcake?”

“Oh, Aunt Flossie!”

“You know, people drop their cats off right here at my house, because they figure I’ll look after ’em. Sweetpea showed up today right after lunch when everybody had gone home for the day. She’s so pretty. Look at her, creeping up on us like that. See her little white paws? Why, aren’t you a sweet girl!”

“Aunt Flossie, you can’t have these cats!” Claire said. “No wonder it still smells so horrible in here. Where’s the litter box?”

“What litter box?”

“Oh, Aunt Flossie!” Rising, Claire grabbed her purse and pulled out her cell phone. In moments she had dialed the police department. Thank goodness it was Christmas Eve, and no doubt the chief would be taking the night off. At least she had one thing to be grateful for.

“Chief West here,” a voice said. “What can I do for you tonight?”

Claire stared at her phone for a moment as though it had betrayed her. “It’s me,” she said finally.

“Claire?”

“Aunt Flossie has two more cats, Rob. I’m sorry to bother you, but—”

“I’ll be right over. Try to keep them in the parlor.”

Pressing off her phone, Claire stared at her aunt. The yellow cat had leaped into her lap and was curling up for a nap. How could they deny this lonely old woman her only comfort? But how could they allow the cats to return?

The place still reeked, and despite all that the volunteers had done, it would take months to restore the mansion. Claire had been upstairs only once, and she was thankful to find that the closed door had kept away the cats. But broken windows had allowed bats to take up residence, and piles of guano littered the valuable antiques. If she couldn’t keep the cats out, the house would quickly return to its former state. Rob would condemn the building. And Aunt Flossie would have no choice but to move out.

“You can’t keep Sweetpea,” Claire said gently. She knelt beside her great-aunt. “I know you love cats, Aunt Flossie, but they need proper care. That means shots, neutering and most of all litter boxes. What happened to the box we set up for Homer and Virgil?”

“Oh, it’s over there where you put it. Someplace… I don’t know.”

“It has to be kept clean, Aunt Flossie, or the cats will stop using it.”

“I don’t care what they do. Let ’em have the run of the place.” She looked up and squinted at the red lights flashing outside. “What now? Wonderful, it’s your boyfriend
come to call. Next thing you know, you’ll be spooning right here in the parlor.”

“Aunt Flossie, we were not—”

“That thief. See if you can get him to give me back my guns.” She stroked the yellow cat’s head. “Ain’t that right, Sweetpea? We need to have some protection from all those do-gooders who keep barging into our house.”

Claire stood as Rob stepped into the parlor. “I didn’t think you’d be working tonight,” she said.

“Figured I’d let the other boys have the evening off. They’ve all got families.” He shrugged as he turned his attention to Flossie. “Evening, Miss Ross. Who’s that you got there in your lap?”

“Sweetpea.” Flossie glared at him. “Thief!”

Rob chuckled. “You can have your guns back, Miss Ross, as long as you agree not to fire them inside city limits again.”

“What good is that? How do you suppose those Union soldiers would have fared if they hadn’t had their guns when the Confederates attacked the town?”

“They didn’t fare too well even with their guns, ma’am. The Rebs burned down the courthouse and the Methodist church anyhow.” Rob winked at Claire. “Isn’t that right, Miss Ross?”

Claire couldn’t help smiling at his reference to their project. “That’s right, Chief West.”

“Oh, now it starts,” Flossie said. “The two of you moonin’ over each other like a pair of doves. Coo…coo…coo. Cuckoo is what you are. Well, get on with your courtin’ and leave me—”

“Aunt Flossie,” Claire cut in quickly, “Chief West has come out here to take Sweetpea and the tiger-striped cat to the shelter.”

“Felix is his name, and you can’t have either one of ’em. They’re mine. They came to live with me.”

“We’ll figure out what we can do about Sweetpea and Felix after we get them over to the shelter,” Rob said. “Jane Henderson and Dr. Bloom both need to have a look at them. Let me see that little gal there. Come here, Sweetpea.”

Rob lifted the kitten into his arms and ran his hand down the small creature’s scraggly fur. Claire’s shoulders sagged in relief. Reaching out, she stroked her fingers over the poor animal.

“She put fruitcake out for them,” Claire whispered. “There’s no telling how many more will wander over here. Rob, I just don’t know what to do. Can you smell that awful odor? Already the cats have stopped using the—”

“Wait a second!” Stiffening, he lifted his head and breathed in. “Here, you’d better take this cat.”

“Rob? What’s going on?”

“Dispatcher,” he said into his shoulder radio. “This is Chief West. I’m at Ross Mansion. I’m going to need all the backup I can get. Send my men over here—everyone—and alert the highway patrol and the sheriff.”

“Backup?” Claire said. “So far it’s just two cats, Rob. You’re not going to need the highway patrol and the sheriff.”

“That smell, Claire. It’s not just cats. There’s another odor underlying it.” He studied her for a moment. “You smell that?”

“It smells like just cats to me.”

“It’s not. That’s the odor of a methamphetamine lab.”

While Rob watched out the window for his backup to arrive, Claire calmly kept her great-aunt talking, carrying on a conversation about the past. Though he knew it could be dangerous to remain in the house, he had no desire to alert the methamphetamine manufacturers that something was up. If his suspicions were correct, they had grown accustomed to seeing his squad car parked outside, and they had chosen to brazenly continue their illicit activities right under the noses of Buffalo’s good citizens. A few minutes ago Flossie had given Rob her permission for the authorities to conduct a search, and as long as she kept up her chatter, he hoped no one would suspect what was about to occur.

Castigating himself for failing to note the odor earlier, Rob wondered where the lab was hidden. It could be in a residence nearby. Or the carriage house on the mansion’s grounds. Or possibly somewhere in the old building itself. The basement, perhaps? Or the attic? It was clever of the criminals to choose this spot. The building was centrally located, yet the odor of Flossie’s cats masked the smell of the drug dealers’ operation.

As Flossie began some sort of harangue about fruitcake, Rob’s assistant chief, his corporal and three of his five patrolmen pulled up to the mansion all at the same time and all within five minutes of his call to the dispatcher. Good. His first priority now was to get the two women to safety
and secure the site. After that, his men could scour the area for the source of the meth odor.

“Claire,” he said, crossing the parlor to the fire. He slipped his arm around her and pulled her aside. “I want you and your aunt to leave the house now. I know how you feel about this, but can I ask you to take Miss Ross home with you? I promise you we’ll have her back in here by morning. You won’t have to put up with—”

“Rob, it’s fine,” Claire said. “I’m happy to take Aunt Flossie home with me.”

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere!” Flossie squawked. “This is my house, and I’ll be hog-tied and strung up before I let you run me out of it.”

“Listen, Aunt Flossie,” Rob said, switching to the more comforting name her niece used. “Someplace near your house, people have set up a laboratory. They’re making a drug called methamphetamine. It’s dangerous, because it can explode. I don’t know if the meth makers are inside the mansion or in one of the houses surrounding you. But if they’re near enough to smell, they’re too close. Now, I want you to go home with Claire until we take care of this problem. Do you understand?”

“No, I do not! This is my house, my property! What are those policemen doing here? Hey!”

“Stop hollering,” Claire said, putting a finger to her lips. She helped the elderly woman from her chair and edged her toward the parlor door. “Come on, Aunt Flossie. You and I are leaving now. We’ll go to my house, drink some hot chocolate and listen to Christmas carols.”

“Not that!” Flossie cried. “Not carols!”

Rob shook his head as he strode out of the room just ahead of the women. Lifting up a quick prayer of gratitude, he marveled for a moment at the change in Claire. Just a few weeks before, she had flatly refused to ever let her aunt inside her own home. Now she welcomed the opportunity. Claire had accused Rob of barricading his own heart, and he couldn’t deny it. But could he really let down his walls? And if he did, what would happen?

Needing to confer with his men, he trotted across the barren lawn toward the gathered squad cars. The Buffalo patrolmen had run this exercise so many times—and always in vain—that he knew he would barely need to give orders. They had the drill down pat, and finally it looked as if they were about to catch the bad guys.

As Rob greeted his men, the sheriff and several deputies arrived on the scene at the same moment as Buffalo’s other two patrolmen. Under Rob’s direction and with the sheriff’s concurrence, the deputies formed a perimeter around the mansion and the surrounding homes, covering streets, alleyways and yards to prevent anyone escaping. Three highway patrol units pulled up as Rob ordered his own men to proceed toward the house.

He opened the door of his squad car for protection and was watching the operation unfold when suddenly he saw Claire Ross appear in the mansion’s front doorway. Pulling on her great-aunt’s arm, she was doing her best to urge the elderly woman out onto the porch. Flossie would have none of it. Wrapped up in a blue bathrobe, she held one
cat against her chest and kept reaching for another, finally breaking loose from her niece and disappearing back into the house.

Alarm prickling down his spine, Rob called to the sheriff across the driveway. “In the foyer! It’s the homeowner and her niece. I thought they’d gotten out.”

“I’ll cover you,” the sheriff replied.

At that moment one of Rob’s men ran up. “We found ’em, sir,” he panted. “They’re in the basement. Seems they’ve been coming and going through a window hidden behind some yews. We can see ’em in there—looks like they’re already breaking down the lab. I think they’re on to us, Chief.”

“How many?”

“Six, at least. Five males and a female.”

Rob spoke into his radio, narrowing the deputies’ perimeter to the yard surrounding the mansion. Then he headed for the front door. As his foot hit the foyer’s marble floor, Claire looked up, her face ashen. “I can’t get Aunt Flossie out, Rob.”

“Leave her to me.” Rob strode into the parlor where Claire’s great-aunt was seated by the fire again. Two cats were just settling onto her lap as he stepped up, scooped the scrawny woman into his arms and swung around to the door.

“Florence Ross, you are a mean old lady,” he said as he carried her out into the foyer. “Mean and selfish. And if you don’t start cooperating, I’m going to have to—”

A loud bang resonated through the house. Flossie stiffened in Rob’s arms. “It’s the basement door!” she hol
lered. “Someone’s breaking in! They’ll steal my things! I’m being robbed! Call the police!”

“Where’s the basement door?” Rob demanded.

“In the kitchen!”

Setting Flossie back on her feet, Rob rushed the elderly woman and her niece out the front door. As he drew his gun, he intercepted three men who had just exited the kitchen and were hightailing it up the long curved staircase leading to the second floor of the mansion.

“I need backup inside,” Rob shouted into his radio as he pursued the men up the steps. “Stop! You three, stop now. Get on the ground!”

Ignoring his orders, they raced up the staircase. Rob knew if they made it into the honeycomb of rooms up there, they would have an easier time eluding pursuers. But bless Aunt Flossie’s cold little heart, he thought as the men hit the top landing—she had locked the door to the upper floor.

Trapped, the men had no choice but to turn around and raise their hands in surrender. Two sheriff’s deputies pounded up the staircase right behind Rob. In moments, they’d handcuffed the three suspects and led them back down the stairs.

Outside, Rob found that the rest of the methamphetamine makers had been captured, as well. One of the men had cut his arm while trying to escape through a broken window, so an ambulance was on its way. The others—cuffed and shackled—sat staring at the ground as an officer recited their Miranda rights.

“Chief West, I’ve already called for the haz-mat crew,”
one of the highway patrolmen spoke up. “I think we should secure the building and stay out of it until they get here.”

Rob nodded. The hazardous materials experts would know how to safely disassemble the lab in the basement.

“There were two women in the house,” he said, his heart hammering. “Did they…”

“They’re out, Chief,” his assistant said. “Miss Ross and that redheaded teacher over at the high school? They exited the building a couple minutes ago. The redhead took Miss Ross off in her car. Told us they’d both spend the night at her house.”

Thanking God for Claire’s safety—and for Aunt Flossie’s—Rob felt the knots in his stomach loosen as he studied the growing crowd of neighbors and other onlookers. He would need to unroll crime-scene tape and set up barricades to keep folks back. What a way to spend Christmas Eve! It looked as if he and his men wouldn’t get home until nearly dawn.

“Say, that teacher sure is pretty,” the assistant chief spoke up again. “The redhead.”

“Her name is Claire,” Rob said. “Claire Ross.”

“Was she the one you took to Dandy’s in Bolivar the other night? I heard you two had a good time.”