PAWSitively Sinister (A Klepto Cat Mystery Book 11) (8 page)

“A what?” Savannah asked, pulling Lily back from the table, where she had been reaching for a pen.

“Well, she billed herself as a healer and she did some sort of readings at the mansion. Look, she ran ads in the newspapers in the seventies and early eighties.”

“No kidding?” Savannah tilted her head. “Hey, the seventies and eighties… that’s about the time Miriam lived there. That must have been her grandmother. What was her name?”

“Uh… Madam Randall.”

“Yes, that’s Miriam’s grandmother. A seer, huh?” She peered across the table at Suzette. “You found the juicy stuff. So did she invite people in for séances and things like that?”

“I think so.” Suzette thumbed through the copies she’d made and read, “‘Healing, channeling, speak to the dead.’ So yeah, séances. Seems like they were group activities.”

“What’s channeling?” Savannah asked.

Suzette chuckled. “I’m not sure. I think it’s where someone talks to people on the other side.”

“Isn’t that what they do at a séance?” Savannah asked.

Suzette shrugged. “Yeah. Maybe Rochelle can clue us in as to the terminology.” She then explained, “Let’s see, she refers to herself as a healer of spiritual health. And the ads say, ‘Communicate with your deceased loved ones.’”

Savannah raised her eyebrows. “Interesting. That place seems to have been through the gamut.” She spoke more softly now, “I read that the original owners came from England and he made his money from inventions related to farming. Later on, one of his sons or grandsons got involved with the mob—I think the Mafia.”

Suzette looked askance. “Golly, so those vibes Rochelle felt last night—that dark energy or whatever—could have come from the madam or the mafia.”

“The madam or the Mafia,” Savannah repeated, shivering. “Hey, what about this?” she said playfully.

“What?” Suzette asked, in anticipation.

“What if there were Mafia wars right there at the mansion and gangsters were rubbed out and maybe even buried there? Then the madam comes along forty or fifty years later and she starts tapping into their spirits.”

“Boy, do you have imagination,” Suzette said.

Just then, Lily began to fuss and squirm in her mother’s arms. Savannah stood. “Oops, better go take care of my little one.”

****

That evening, everyone gathered again around the dining room table for dinner. Once they had been served, Rags and Koko sauntered in. “Oh, you let him out?” Michael remarked.

Savannah responded, “Yeah, I figure it’s safe once the sale’s over for the day and there aren’t people going in and out.” She looked at the Siamese cat. “Anyway, he stays pretty close to Koko. I don’t think she’ll lead him astray.”

“Have they eaten?” he asked.

When Savannah shook her head, Alton, their server, said, “I’ll get their meals.”

“So, Michael, how was Rags’s performance today?” Arthur asked.

He chuckled. “Actually, he was pretty cooperative. He didn’t like the part where he had to stay in his pen, though.”

“Oh, you took the pen?” Savannah asked.

“Yes. Didn’t want him being cooped up in the carrier all day and I wasn’t going to manage him on a leash throughout the conference. He was okay. And he did enjoy having an audience for his performance.” He chuckled. “Savannah, you know that ragdoll gene he carries?”

She nodded.

“He displayed it while I was doing the demonstration. He seemed to think he was debuting for a movie role or something. You should have seen him sprawled out on the table, looking at the audience from upside down. He had them cracking up.”

Savannah chimed in. “Did anyone pay attention to the demonstration or was Rags too entertaining?” She snuggled against Michael briefly and said, “Did he upstage you, hon?”

Michael laughed and glanced at Savannah, then Suzette. “So how did your day at the library go? Uncover anything interesting about this place?”

The two women exchanged looks and Suzette said, “Yeah, interesting stuff about the Randall family. Old lady Randall was a psychic or medium or something.”

Savannah nodded. “She had spiritual healings, séances, and things like that in here.”

“Really?” Arthur said, putting down his fork.

Suzette looked at Savannah impishly and said, “Yeah, and there were Mafia gangsters here before that and,” she giggled, “Savannah thinks there was a gangster war and the madam tapped into the spirits from all of those who were… wasted… ” She looked at Savannah, then said, “… no, that were rubbed out, right Savannah?” she said laughing.

Savannah cocked her head. “You never know. It could happen.”

Arthur took a deep breath before speaking. “My stepgrandmother, when she would come here when we were children, used to say there was… what was the term she used…
malevolence
in this house. She didn’t much like being here. She said she sensed something… evil.” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t pay any attention to that—of course, I was just a kid. Later, when I thought about it, I figured she was just feeling the evil energy from her son, Charles Peyton.”

“Where is Pearl, anyway?” Savannah asked, looking around. “Isn’t she staying here?”

Arthur shook his head. “No, she comes over to putter in the rose garden or to have cocoa with me sometimes, but she isn’t good with crowds. She’d rather stay alone at her place on the other side of the marsh.”

“She has a car now?” Savannah asked. “She was so isolated when Aunt Margaret and I were at her house a few months ago. She had no phone… no car.”

“Yeah, I insisted she get both. So she drives over here every day. The more people here, the farther away from the place she stays.”

Savannah grimaced, then said to Ruth, “Well, you felt something… odd here, too, didn’t you?”

Ruth nodded. “Yes. It was almost unbearable before Mrs. Peyton had her worker put that wall up in the affected area of my room.” She then asked, “Aren’t cats supposed to be sensitive to such things?”

“I think so,” Arthur said, deferring to the others.

“I’ve heard that,” Savannah said. She looked at Ruth. “Why?”

“Well, Artie might remember that the cats stayed away from there.”

“That’s right,” Arthur said, looking off into space for a moment. “Almost every new cat we’d bring in would explore the place, and before getting to Ruthie’s room, they’d react by either hissing or appearing frightened, or they’d just split.” He looked at Savannah. “We all saw Rags’s reaction last night. There’s something that frightens them or puzzles them in that area.” He swallowed a sip of coffee before continuing. “You know how Koko loves to chase her ball? But if I toss it into that one hallway, she won’t go after it.”

“So whatever upset Rochelle and Rags last night has been there for a while?” Savannah asked.

Arthur and Ruth nodded.

“Now that’s odd—like that area is corrupted somehow,” Michael said. “—like there’s a vortex there. What is a vortex, anyway? Is that what they think is in the Bermuda Triangle? An out-of-control evil energy or something?” He glanced around the room and saw most of the diners shrug and look to someone else for the answer.

“I guess that’s a question for Rochelle,” Savannah said. “… or Iris.”

Arthur peered at Ruth, expecting her to respond, but she chose not to.

“I’m interested in your mother’s construction people,” Michael said to Arthur.

“In what way?” he asked, furrowing his brow.

“Well, you were a well-kept secret for many years. But whoever did the construction down there had to know about you… at least they knew someone was being hidden away in luxury in the basement with the main door being closed off and hidden doors being built.”

Arthur looked wide-eyed at Ruth and Rupert. “Gosh, I don’t know who did that work or how Mother kept them quiet. Probably money, I guess.” He asked, “Rupert, you didn’t know anything was going on did you?”

He shook his head.

Ruth put her hand on Rupert’s and explained, “Before you were brought home from the burn center, Artie, your mother insisted that your stepfather take her on an extended trip abroad. They closed up the place and gave all the staff two weeks off. Those who lived here were given travel money. Remember that?” she asked Rupert.

He looked puzzled for a moment, then said, “Yes. Yes, I do. That was the first and last time the staff were ever given a vacation all at the same time.”

“That’s right. And you’re right, Artie,” Ruth continued, “the construction company was paid very well to keep the secret. But I do not think they actually knew the whole truth… that you would be living in the secret quarters.”

“Mother is sly, isn’t she?” he said, grimacing. “She even kept the secret from her husband.”

No one spoke for a few moments, then Michael asked, “So did you girls learn anything about the people whose documents we found?”

Savannah shook her head. “Not really.”

“What do you mean, not really?” he asked.

She looked at Suzette, who said, “There was one piece in an old newspaper about a missing man named Richard Marshall. It seemed that he and his buddy had hopped off a train in Frisco. His friend reported him missing, but there was no follow-up that I could find.”

“A hobo?” Laura said.

“Hobo?” Suzette questioned.

“Yeah, like the homeless,” Laura explained, “only they were called hobos or tramps or bums in the forties and fifties… maybe sixties. They’d ride the rail—hop a train—and travel to find work or handouts, depending on how motivated the individual was.” She chuckled. “That was before trains began going so fast.”

“Oh,” Suzette said. “Interesting.”

“We lived near a train station,” Laura reminisced. “I remember hobos coming to our house—usually on a Sunday, biscuit day. My mother would fix a plate for them and my dad would invite them around to the back porch where they’d sit and eat.”

“Gosh, can you imagine that happening today?” Michael asked.

Ruth nodded. “Yeah, people were more trusting then.” She turned to Savannah and Suzette. “What else did you find?”

“Oh,” Suzette said, speaking in a more animated manner. “We found a wedding announcement for a Roy Simpson and Beverly Cardinelli and then an obituary for the wife a few months later.”

“Yeah, they didn’t have a big wedding—just went to the Justice of the Peace,” Savannah added. “He would have been about the right age to be our Roy Simpson.”

“We did find an Albert Cobos in the census roll for 1960, but we can’t be sure it was the same one whose driver license we have—I think the age was different—so maybe it was his father or grandfather.”

“And Suzette talked to someone who dated a man with the same name as one we found,” Savannah reported.

“Yeah!” Suzette said, excitedly. “Jeffry Gibbs. He worked for the same company this woman did and it seems that he disappeared into thin air.”

Michael was quiet for a moment. “I wonder if we should be looking for graves around the place. Do you think these people died out here?” His face brightened and he said, “… or maybe the Randalls ran an identity-change operation—giving criminals new identities. Did you check to see if any of these people had criminal records?”

“Criminal records!” Suzette almost shouted. “Savannah, why didn’t we think to go there? Man, investigating is tough. There are so many places to look—so many possibilities. Do they all have new identities and they’re living new lives, or are they all dead?”

Savannah and Suzette looked at each other and shook their heads.

“If they wanted to hide the identities of those people, then why didn’t they burn the papers?” Ruth asked.

“Good question,” Michael said.

“Blackmail?” Suzette suggested. When the others continued to look at her, she said, “Yeah, maybe someone was instructed to destroy those documents, but they kept them hidden well away in case they wanted to use them against the person in some way.”

Michael sighed deeply. “Good lord, girl, where’d you get that imagination? I think you’ve been hanging around my wife too much.”

Ignoring him, Suzette said to Savannah, “Hey, your friend the psychic—do you think she could do a reading and find out if those people are buried here—if their spirits are here or something?”

Savannah laughed. “Maybe. I’ll have to ask her.” She then spoke more quietly to Ruth, “Can you tell us something about the things you sensed in that room downstairs? What do you think it was?”

Ruth stared down at her hands in her lap. When she looked up, she seemed close to tears. “In our culture, spirits are very much… well, we believe in them and I am sensitive to them. I did not want to believe that there could be evil in Artie’s world, so I chose to dismiss my sensing completely. When I began seeing… spirits… ” She fought back her emotions. “… so close to where Artie slept, I had him moved to another room.”

“You saw spirits, Ruthie?” Arthur said. “You never told me.”

“I did not want to frighten you. You were just a child. These spirits seemed angry—vengeful. Their energy was… frightful. I did not know how to get rid of them—my parents died knowing how and never taught me. So I just got you out of there, where they seemed to swarm.”

“There’s a swarm of them?” Suzette asked.

“It seemed so,” she said quietly. “So what the cats sensed and what Rochelle felt was real—well, real spiritually-speaking.”

Arthur looked confused, as if he were trying to recall something. “I don’t remember being moved.” He looked at Ruth. “That was my room?”

She nodded. “Yes, I convinced your mother to move you away from there and close off the most active part of the area and that became my sleeping quarters.”

“I don’t remember that,” he said again.

“Well, Artie, you were still young. We had just brought you home from the burn center.”

Arthur seemed stunned. He reached for Suzette’s hand and squeezed it. She smiled at him and squeezed back.

After a few moments, Michael asked, “When is Rochelle coming here again?”

Ruth wiped her lips with her napkin and placed it on the table next to her plate. “I believe she is bringing Miriam out tomorrow afternoon.”

It was four in the afternoon when Peter and Rochelle arrived at the mansion with the mysterious Madam Randall’s granddaughter.