The Purrfect Lie (Klepto Cat Mystery Book 12) (4 page)

“You mean because she has Down syndrome? Perhaps, I guess.” Max hesitated, then said, “She does have a greater ability to focus than some of the other volunteers here. She hones in on something and sticks with it, which makes her a definite asset when it comes to socializing the feral kittens.”

“Too bad she can’t have one of her own,” Michael said. “I guess her younger sister is seriously allergic to cats. Anyway, I’m glad you caught them. Any insight as to how they got let out?”

“’Fraid not,” Max said. “Hey Michael, after we put the little guys away, I checked out that area behind the shrub. Sure looks like stairs to a basement. Man, I can’t figure out how I never noticed it before or why no one told me about it. I guess I’m just not very observant. I am curious, though. What are you doing later today?”

Michael glanced at Savannah, who was reading from her Kindle. “Just waiting for Lily to wake up from her nap and entertain us some more. Why?”

“I’m cooking up a big batch of gumbo. Would you three like to come over for an early dinner and share it with us?” He hesitated, then added, “Maybe we could cut back that bush some and see what’s been hiding behind it all these years. What do you say?” Before Michael could respond, Max asked, “By the way, do you have tools for that kind of job?”

“Sure.”

“Sure, what?” Max chuckled.

“Sure, we’ll come over for gumbo,” he said, catching Savannah’s eye for her reaction. “Sure, I want to see what’s down there, and sure, I have some tools we can use to cut that bush back…or down.”

“Good,” Max said, sounding somewhat relieved. “Come over anytime. We’ll eat around five.”

“Okay. Hey, my wife is mouthing me a message. Wait a minute.” When Michael returned to the phone, he said, “Max, what can we bring? Savannah wants to know what we can bring.”

“Just your tools. Oh, and a flashlight. Do you have a working flashlight?”

Michael chuckled. “Are you kidding? After what our wives went through earlier this year when that old flashlight of ours ran out of battery power out in the swamp, you can be sure I have a working flashlight. I’ll bet Maggie does, too.”

“You think so?” Max asked.

“Yeah, ask her,” Michael suggested. “I mean, no problem. I have one. Hey, we’ll be over as soon as the princess wakes up from her nap.” He grimaced. “Just a minute, Max, Savannah’s waving hand signals at me now. What, hon?”

A few moments later, into the phone, he said, “She wonders if it’s okay if we bring Rags to play with his buddy Layla. She actually believes those two cats have some sort of special relationship.”

“Of course, bring him. Layla is always intrigued by him.”

****

Over an hour later, the Ivey family, including Rags, arrived at the Sheridan household.

“Well, who’s this?” Savannah asked, upon seeing a black-and-white cat saunter into the living room.

“That’s Jack,” Max said. “Haven’t you met Jack?”

Savannah shook her head. “No, how long have you had him?”

Michael reached down and petted the cat’s long fur, murmuring, “Hi Jack, old boy.”

“You know him?” Savannah asked.

He nodded. “Yeah, he came to see me at the clinic the other day.”

“Why is he in here with your pets?” Savannah asked. “Are you keeping this one?”

“I guess we are,” Margaret said. “He’s a real sweetheart—curious as all get-out. He’s more dog-like than cat-like…” she nodded toward Rags, “…like him, actually.” Then, turning to Max, she cried, “Oh no, Max! What have we done? We’ve brought in a cat like Rags!”

Max grinned and reached out to run his hand over the willing cat. “He has a chronic kidney disease,” he explained. “Needs special care, sorta like Gizmo and Sammy. We can’t expect someone else to take on a cat with such challenges. So yeah, we’ll keep this one.”

Savannah leaned over and enticed the cat in her direction. After petting him for a moment, she said, “He seems like a real sweetie. Love that cobby-body look.” She greeted the cat, “Nice to meet you, Jack. This is Rags. He came to play with Layla.” Just then, Rags walked boldly up to Jack and began sniffing him. Everyone watched as Jack sat back on his haunches and slapped playfully at Rags, then turned and took off running into the kitchen. Rags seemed to understand the invitation and raced after him.

“Cute,” Margaret said. “No one else seems to have the energy to keep up with Jack. Looks like Rags will be a good playmate for him.”

After a second trip to the car to get the tools, Michael said to Max, “Hey, we’re burning daylight. Shall we get on with the project?”

“Yup,” Max replied, grabbing his jacket and leading the way out through the kitchen door. When he spotted their tangerine faux Persian curled up in one of several cat beds in the heated sunroom, he said, “There you are, Layla. Your friend Rags is here. Better go see him before Jack gets all his attention.”

The little cat looked up at Max, let out a
prrrt
, stretched, and headed at a fairly fast pace toward the kitchen, her long tangerine fur rippling against her sides.

The men chuckled.

“Do you think she understood his name?” Michael asked.

Max shook his head in contemplation. “You never know about these cats, Michael.”

Once outside, the two men went right to work cutting back the large shrub. They’d trimmed it down to about one-third when Michael asked, “Do you want to save it?”

Max stood back and surveyed the situation. “Naw, I don’t think it serves much purpose in the scheme of things, do you?”

“Not unless your tabbies want a good place to hide out again, I guess. It does look like it’s outlived its usefulness.”

“And its grace,” Max added.

“Grace?” Michael questioned.

“Well, yeah; it doesn’t exactly grace the place anymore, do you think?”

Michael glanced around the yard. “No, not really. Okay, all the way to the ground. I’ll send Antonio over to take the stump out, if you want.”

Max grimaced. “Yeah, that would be good. No hurry, though.”

“Timber,” Michael said as he cut the shrub off just above the ground.

Max took hold of the remains and dragged it around behind the cathouse, piling it up with the other cuttings. When he returned, Michael was sitting on the steps that led down to a door. “Is it locked?”

“Yup. Hand me that flashlight, will you?” He then asked, “Have you seen any stray keys around here?”

Max reached for the flashlight and gave it to Michael. “Sure. When I moved in, there were keys all over the place—in drawers, on shelves. Once I figured out what keys went where, I discarded the rest. It was either that or make a wind chime out of them, and I hate wind chimes.”

“Oh really? I didn’t know that about you, Max.”

“And here I thought I was an open book. Yeah, Michael, don’t give me any wind chimes for Christmas, okay?”

“Got it,” Michael said, resuming his examination of the lock on the mysterious hidden door at the bottom of the steps. He glanced up at Max. “Can you pick a lock? Is that one of your talents?”

Max grinned. “If I could, I probably wouldn’t admit to it.” He suggested, “Hey, go ahead and break it, if you’d like. I don’t mind. I just want to see what’s been living under my feet for all these years without my knowing it.”

“I don’t think we’ll have to break the door. I can take this piece of moulding off and probably jimmy the lock. It’s a simple lock; nothing sophisticated.”

“Go for it,” Max urged.

“Okayyy,” Michael said. After a couple of minutes, he announced, “Got it.”

“Good, let’s go in.”

“Wait. The spiders have probably taken over by now—maybe rats. Do you have an old broom we can use to whack down the webs?”

When Max returned with a broom, the women followed, Savannah carrying the baby, who was wrapped in a blanket.

“Awww, what did you bring him out here for?” Michael complained, when he saw Margaret holding Rags’s leash. You know he’s gonna get into trouble.”

Margaret couldn’t help but laugh.

Savannah chuckled. “Oh Michael, you’re so cute when you’re mad at Rags.”

“I’m not mad at him. I just…”

“Well, the truth is,” Margaret said, “the other kitties are having their supper and Rags thought he should be served, too. Vannie said he already ate, sooo, we thought we’d better remove the fox from the hen house.”

“Okay, then,” Michael said, taking the broom from Max. “Stand back; don’t want to shower you all with spider spit.”

“Spider spit?” Margaret said disgustedly.

“Yeah, isn’t that how they make their webs…using their spit?”

“No, Michael,” Savannah said, laughing. “It comes from the other end.”

Margaret cringed. “Ewww, even worse.”

Once Michael had cleared a path into the room, he said to Margaret and Max, “Okay, wanna see what’s living under your feet? So far, I’ve seen a gazillion spiders, and something that moved too fast to identify.”

The two women looked at each other. “Are you going in?” Margaret asked.

“Maybe,” Savannah said.

Margaret held out her hands. “Here, I’ll hold the baby while you go. Here’s your cat,” she said, handing the leash to Savannah, who looked from Michael to Max.

“I’ll follow you two,” she said.

“Come on, then.”

“What do you see in there?” Margaret called.

“If you were so curious, you should have come down,” Max said.

“I’m okay out here. Hey, take pictures!”

“Well, it appears they used to do some canning down here,” Savannah called out to her aunt. “There’s an old stove, a nice counter, and a big deep sink. There’s a shelf full of canning jars. Brrrr. Sure is cold. It would make a great root cellar.”

“Maybe this was a farm before it became a commercial nursery,” Max suggested. “I do find random carrot and potato plants coming up here and there.”

“Really?” Savannah said. She then pointed. “Yeah, there’s a neat place for storing them through the winter.”

“Hey, here’s another room,” Michael said. “I thought it was a closet, but it’s a whole room with furniture.”

“I wonder why the realtor didn’t tell me about this,” Max said, scratching his head.

“Maybe she didn’t know,” Savannah reasoned.

He shrugged. “Possibly.”

Before the others could step inside the room, Michael backed out. “Where’s that broom? I want to knock down the webs in here.” He glanced at Savannah, “…comes from their butts, huh?”

Savannah smirked playfully at her husband.

Once he’d finished knocking down the spider webs, Michael called to the others, “Come see this room—it was fixed up rather nice at one time.”

“Yeah, this looks like it was a granny flat or apartment,” Max said, glancing around. “Is there a bathroom?”

Michael pointed. “In there.”

“Ewww,” Savannah said, stepping out of the bathroom as quickly as she had stepped in.

“What are you guys finding down there?” Margaret called.

“Oh, come on down and see for yourself,” Max said. “Wait, I’ll come up and take the baby.”

“I think she’s okay,” Michael said. “I’ll go get her. There’s nothing here that can hurt her as long as we hold onto her.”

“Then here I come,” Margaret said as Michael helped her down the steps, holding the baby in one arm. “Gads, I didn’t know we were living above such filth.”

“It’s only accumulated dirt, not filth,” Savannah explained. She looked at her aunt for a moment. “Hey, I have an idea. If we could get it cleaned up and bring in a space heater, we could use this as an overflow room for our overnight party guests.”

Margaret made a face. “Do you actually think it could be made livable?”

“Sure I do,” Savannah said. “You should have seen the first apartment I rented. It was a room off a garage that had been used for storage for a hundred years. Mom and I scrubbed and scrubbed and shoveled out trash.” She smiled. “We actually created a nice little place for me to live for a while.”

Margaret shrugged. “Well, I’m game if someone else does the cleaning.” She pointed at Rags. “Uh-oh. He’s got something. What is that? I’m afraid to look.”

“Come here, Rags,” Michael said, handing the baby to Savannah. “What do you have there?” he asked, approaching the cat. “Looks like a letter. Did you see where he found it?”

“He was foraging under that old dresser there,” Max said.

The others looked in that direction.

Once Michael had taken the item from the cat, Savannah asked, “Is that tape on it?”

Michael turned it over in his hands a couple of times. “Yeah. Gosh, it must have been taped to the bottom drawer and fell off when the tape lost its sticky.”

“So what is it?” Margaret asked impatiently.

Michael slapped it against his pants leg a couple of times to shake off the dust, then peered at it more closely. “To whom it may concern.” He looked briefly at the others and let out a deep sigh. “Uh-oh, that can’t be good.”

“Heck, why not?” Margaret asked. “It could be a gift from a millionaire—whoever finds this note wins a fortune.”

Michael and Max grinned at Margaret.

Savannah shivered. “You know, it’s awfully cold down here. I want to take the baby back up where it’s warm.”

“Yes,” Margaret said, “let’s go topside and find out how much he left us.”

Once the two couples were seated in the Sheridans’ living room, and the baby was playing happily on the floor with some of her toys, Savannah prompted, “Okay, Michael, what does that letter say?”

He rolled a ball toward Lily and watched her reaction, then sat back in a wing chair, pulled the envelope from his pocket, and opened it. Just then, Layla walked toward Michael, sat at his feet, and stared up at him through round gold eyes. When he didn’t respond, she stood with her paws on his knees. He reached out and scratched the back of her neck crooning, “Well, hi there, girl. Are you curious, too?” He looked up at Margaret. “She sure is a pretty thing. You must spend a lot of time brushing all that fur.”

“Yes, and thankfully, she loves it. Watch out, Michael, here she comes.”

Forewarned, but not prepared, Michael was startled when the little Persian-mix suddenly leaped onto his lap. She turned around a couple of times, then scrunched down next to him in the chair.