Patricia Fry - Klepto Cat 05 - The Colony Cat Caper (20 page)

“Well, hello Michael. How are you? Is everything okay?”’

“Yes, great. I wanted you to know that Savannah just went into labor. We’re here at the hospital in Straley.”

“Oh!
” she exclaimed. “Already? Wow!” She paused and then said, “Michael, I’m visiting my friend in Visalia. I can be on the road in half an hour.”

“That’s great!” Michael said with a smile. “So you’ll be here in, say, four or five hours?”

“Yes, I think so. Oh, Michael, I’m so excited to meet our baby.”

“Me, too.” Michael said. “This is a big day for all of us. Oh, and Gladys, would you call Brianna?”

“Sure will,” Gladys said. “I’ll see you soon. Hug my daughter for me, would you?”

“Yeah. Drive carefully, G
ladys.”

***

It was two thirty when the detective and the sergeant returned to Janice Tuttle’s home. This time, a handsome woman of sixty-six answered the door wearing fashion sweats and a tunic top. “Janice Tuttle?” Craig asked.

“Yes. You must be Detecti
ve Sledge.”

“Yes, ma’am, and this is Sergeant Gonzalez. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

She looked from one to the other and then said, “Okay, come in.”

As the investigators stepped inside, a pure white cat darted across their path and headed down a hallway. Craig noticed another one lounging on the back of a sofa in the living room.

“Please sit down,” Janice invited, motioning toward two matching chairs across from the sofa. She reached out and petted the cat and then sat on the sofa near her.

“As I understand it, Ms. Tuttle, you were Anson Fischer’s business partner.”

She laughed a little and said, “Yeah, I guess you could say that.” When Craig looked puzzled, she said, “We were married once. But yes, we also worked together. I was his accountant and business manager.”

“It’s a shame what happened to him,” Craig said, “and just in his prime, it seems.”

“Well, he shouldn’t have been dabbling in criminal activities,” she said sternly.

Craig looked surprised. “Criminal?”

“Well, I don’t actually know how involved he was,” she admitted. “We’d pretty much parted ways by the time he’d met up with that thief, Chandler.”

“What do you know about Chandler?” Cra
ig asked.

“Only that he did that jewel heist and I think he had something to do with Anson getting attacked.”

“Why would he attack Mr. Fischer?”

She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know—but I’m just sure there’s some connection there.”

“Ms. Tuttle, are you quite familiar with the old Fischer building?”

“Sure. I know that place inside out; why?”

“Do you know where someone might hide something that they don’t want discovered?”

“Well, that’s a strange question,” she said, staring at the two men as if tr
ying to size them up. She thought about it and then said, “That place has many nooks and crannies.” Her face lit up. “And some secret passageways.”

“But do you know where one might hide something of value?”

She thought for a moment and then said, “That, I’m not sure of.”

“Do you have a key to the place?”

She smiled. “Actually, I believe I do. I come across it every once in a while and start to throw it away. But I don’t—I’m not sure why.” She tossed her head a little and her soft grey stacked curls bounced.

“Would you be willing to go out there with me and show me some of the secret passageways?”

She looked back and forth at the detectives. “Can you tell me why?”

Craig stared at her for a moment and then said, “Well, we’re conducting an investigation
and we think the Fischer building may hold some clues.”

“Oh, I see,” Janice ran her hand over the cat that had jumped down next to her, then said, “Yeah, I guess I could do that. Might be kind of fun to see the old place again. We won’t get in trouble for
trespassing, will we?” she asked. Then she laughed. “I guess not if I’m with the cops. When do you want to do this?” she asked.

“How about right now?”

***

“Gosh, it’s so rundown,” Janice said as she stepped through the chain-link fence gate. “Oh, there’
s a cat,” she said in astonishment.

“Yeah, there are lots of them,” Craig said.

“That’s right, I did read something about that in the paper recently. Oh my gosh, a white one—one of Anson’s angoras.” She knelt down and peered into the crawl space where she saw the cat disappear. “Poor baby,” she cooed. “She’s so dirty—and frightened.”

“I noticed you have some white cats,” Gonzalez said. “My kids have a pure white cat, but he has a couple of black spots.”

“That sounds like a Turkish van.” She motioned toward the crawl space. “These cats come from a good line of Turkish angoras. Anson loved the angoras and had several. He gave me a pair for my birthday one year and the two you saw at my house are offspring from the originals.”

“Those at your house are sure
prettier than these out here,” Craig said. “This must be a hard life for cats.”

“Absolutely.” She stood and put her hands on her hips. “You know, Anson would never have left his cats out here like this. I wish I’d known they’d been turned out; I sure wou
ld have rescued them.”

“Maybe you’ll want to get involved with the Hammond cat people—that’s what they do.”

She thought for a minute. “Maybe I ought to. Maybe I ought to.”

“Well, let’s see if your key works, shall we?” Craig suggested.

The trio walked to the building entrance and Janice tried the key. When she couldn’t get it to work, Gonzalez took over. He worked the key back and forth for a moment and suddenly the lock broke free and the door opened. They stepped inside. “There’s a light switch here somewhere,” Craig said.

“The power’s still on?” she asked.

“Yeah, and the water,” he said.

“What’s that noise?” Janice asked, peering into the dark room.

“I was wondering that myself,” Gonzalez said. “Sounds like muffled cries. Maybe it’s the cats.”

“D
oesn’t sound like any cats I’ve heard before,” she said.

In the meantime, Craig shined his flashlight along the wall where he remembered seeing a panel of light switches. Finally, “Here it is; let there be light.” As he turned back toward Janice and Ramon
, something else caught his eye. He spun swiftly in that direction and stopped cold. “Good God,” he exclaimed. “Maggie…Colbi!”

The others turned and spotted the two women lying shivering on the floor along the south wall of the large room, hogtied and gag
ged.

Janice gasped.

Craig and Ramon rushed toward the two women and released their gags. “Got a knife?” Craig asked his partner.

Gonzalez shook his head. “I’ll get one out of the car,” he said rushing out the door.

“Thank God,” Margaret said. “Where the hell have you been, Craig?”

“Looking all over the state for you two,” he said shaking his head. “When we saw your car was missing, we just figured…”

“Well, you figured wrong,” Margaret said in a scolding voice.

“Are you two okay?” he asked gently.

“I’ll probably never be able to straighten out my legs again,” Margaret said, looking down at her knees, which were bent back—her ankles tied to her wrists behind her. “And my shoulders hurt like hell. Otherwise, yeah—I think I’m okay.”

“I gotta pee so bad,
” Colbi whined.

“You do?” Margaret asked, sounding surprised. “That train left my station about five hours ago,” she admitted.

Craig immediately pulled out his cell and made a call. “Max, we have Maggie and Colbi here. They’re okay. We’re out at the Fischer building. Would you call Damon and Michael?”

“Ask him to bring me some clothes, would you?” Margaret said.

“Uh Max, can you bring your wife a change of clothes? Yeah, we’ll be here for another fifteen or twenty minutes.”

He then as
ked, “How’s Savannah?” He waited and then said with raised eyebrows, “In labor, huh?”

Margaret perked up and then she started to cry. “Vannie’s having the baby? Now? Get me out of this…damn tangle of ropes,” she demanded. “I’ve gotta get to the hospital.”

“Yeah, that’s where you two are headed as soon as we get you untied. You need to be checked out.”

Just then, Margaret looked up at Craig and asked, “How’d you get in?”

He thinned his lips, motioned toward Janice, and said quietly, “She’s an ex-business
partner of Anson Fischer. She still has a key.”

“Well thank heavens,” she said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have found us until the next ice age.”

Gonzalez returned with a knife and began cutting the twine from the women’s wrists and ankles while Craig called for an ambulance. “Now move slowly,” he said. “It’s gonna take a few minutes for your muscles to start working right again—longer for you, ma’am,” he said to Margaret.

“Why?” she asked, frowning.

“Well, she’s younger—that’s all,” he said, glancing toward Colbi.

Margaret made a face and then she said, motioning with her head, “Oh Craig, there’s a loose board just to the right there near the stairs. Drove us crazy when the wind blew.”

Colbi was sitting up, moving her arms a little and rubbing her wrists. She said, “Yes, clatter, clatter all night long.”

“Where?” Craig asked urgently.

Margaret attempted to stand and then said, “I don’t think I can move, yet. Colbi, you’re young, can you go show him?”

It was with some effort—and a little help from Crai
g and Ramon—that Colbi stood. And then she said, “First, can we go outside so I can pee…please, please?”

The two men helped steady her while she moved slowly toward the entrance. “Will you be okay on your own now?” Craig asked.

“Um, I think so,” she said, obviously still wobbly.

“I’ll go with her,” Janice said. “Okay with you, honey?” she asked Colbi.

“I’m so desperate I don’t care at this point,” she said. And then she looked at Janice and said, “Yes, thank you. I’d really appreciate the help.”

“You m
ust have some bladder; how long were you in there?” Janice asked.

“What time is it?”

“Three-thirty.”

“Then over twenty hours,” Colbi said. She started to cry. “I need help unzipping my pants,” she wailed.

“It’s okay, honey, I can do that for you.”
“Oh hurry,” she said. And then she said, “Ahhh, thank you—what’s your name?”

“Janice Tuttle. You’re welcome.”

“Much better,” Colbi said as she grabbed Janice’s hands for help rising to a standing position. “Now let’s go in and I’ll show Craig that loose board.”

Meanwhile, inside the building, Craig quizzed Margaret. “Did you see who did this to you?”

“Sure,” Margaret said. “They didn’t try to hide their identities—it was a Hispanic man and a white guy with wavy hair. Both of them are rather nice-looking.”

“Do you know who they are?”

“Never saw them before, “Margaret said.

Once Janice and Colbi had made their way into the room, Colbi walked slowly over to the wall and pointed out the board that had vibrated noisily most of the night.

“Hmm, sure didn’t notice this before,” Craig said. He took a pair of cotton gloves out of his jacket pocket, put them on, and then pushed a little on the board. “Yup, it’s just a tad loose, isn’t it?” He attempted to lift the panel.

“Push it over to the side,” Janice suggeste
d.

Craig turned and looked up at Janice, who had walked closer to where he crouched. He carefully tried to push the loose piece of wood to the left.

“No, the other way,” she instructed.

Craig moved the slat to the right. “Well, I’ll be,” he said, peerin
g into the small space that was suddenly revealed. “You would never know this was here, would you?”

“Yeah, unless you spent the night in here during a windstorm,” Margaret said.

Craig took a small flashlight from his jacket pocket and shined it inside the compartment. He then sat back on his heels and said, “Empty.”

He stood, turned toward Janice, and asked, “So you knew about this spot?”

“Yeah.”

“Who else knows about it?”

“As far as I know, just me and Anson,” she said with a shrug.

“Well, hell,” he
said. “He must have told someone else—or they stumbled across it, because, if the gems
were
hidden in here, it appears that someone beat us to them.” He removed his gloves. “Gonzalez, do we have a fingerprint kit in the car?”

“I think we do, boss,” he sa
id. “Let me go look.” As he approached the entrance on his way out of the building, he turned back and called out to Craig, “Paramedics are here.”