Purrfect Bachelor, page 11
“Oh, my treasures!” she cried, and reached up to them. But of course they were too far up. “They’ll never be able to get down from there!” she yelled to Chase.
“We’ll have to go and get them,” he said, and hurried over to a nearby fireman.
And as she watched, she saw that the fire department was getting ready to mount an operation to get those cats out of those trees pronto, with several ladder trucks being positioned to accomplish that complicated task.
“I never thought I’d say this,” a fireman yelled as he joined her, “but I’m actually more nervous to go up there than to head into a burning building!”
“And why is that!” she asked.
“Because it’s cats! And no matter what you do, they will fight you every step of the way, even if all you’re doing is trying to save them! And of course there’s that!” He was pointing to a nearby tree, which saw a branch dangerously sweeping in the wind. “That’s gonna go down any minute!”
On the branch, several cats were hanging on and looking terrified.
“Just do your best,” she said. “I’ll try to calm them down.”
He grinned at her. “I know you will, Mrs. Kingsley. That’s why we called you in!”
Oh, dear. She really was the town’s cat lady, wasn’t she?
And while the ladders were being slowly extended, and the fire personnel got ready to mount them, she yelled, “These brave people are going to come and save you! So please cooperate as best you can. And that means no scratching, no clawing, and whatever you do, don’t try to be cute and climb even higher into those trees! That goes for you, too, Buster!”
The cats all seemed to pay attention, and when Max repeated her message, she was starting to believe this rescue operation might just be pulled off without any casualties. But when the first fireman had reached the first cat, the feline suddenly hauled off and smacked him right on the helmet!
“Tigger, no!” suddenly an authoritative voice bellowed. “You will cooperate! Now!”
“Yes, Harriet,” the cat named Tigger said meekly, and allowed the fireman to grab him and one of his fellow cats, and take him down.
“All of you!” Harriet boomed in a surprisingly powerful voice. “If you don’t behave, you’ll have me to deal with! And if you think this storm is bad, wait until I come for you!”
“Yes, Harriet,” several more voices called out. “We’ll be good, Harriet!”
And so it happened. The firefighters fought the storm, and their own fear of being clawed or bitten or scratched, and one by one all the cats of Hampton Cove were brought down from those trees. It was a rescue operation worthy of a disaster movie starring Chris Pratt or Dwayne Johnson, and when the last cat had been safely returned to earth, a loud cheer rose up. It was the cats’ way of paying tribute to their heroic saviors.
And it didn’t even sound out of tune.
Odelia was soon reunited with Max and Dooley and Harriet and Brutus, and she hugged them all as they clung to her fiercely.
“You did well, you guys,” she said, a little thickly. “Especially you, Harriet.”
“Just doing my bit,” Harriet said modestly. Then she added, a little less modestly, “A queen has to rule, so that’s what I did.”
“I was really scared, Odelia,” said Dooley.
Just then, a loud creaking sound had them all look up, and before their very eyes, the branch that had been precariously swaying in the wind, now tore off that tree and crashed down on top of the jungle gym, flattening it as it did.
The four cats looked on with fear written all over their features.
“And to think we were sitting on that thing only an hour ago,” said Max softly.
“Is this the end of cat choir, Max?” asked Dooley.
“I don’t know, Dooley, but it’s certainly the end of that jungle gym.”
In fact the whole playground infrastructure seemed badly damaged. The swing was down, as were the slide, the merry-go-round and the seesaw.
“Let’s go home,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do here.”
They’d have to return in the morning, to assess the damage.
The cats didn’t have to be told twice, and so they all hurried to the car, to be out of the rain, which was still lashing their faces, and the wind, whipping the trees above. Most of all she was afraid another branch would be torn loose, and flatten either them or the car.
The fire department, too, was urging everyone to leave the area.
Chase wiped the rain from his eyes and stuck his key into the ignition. “The fire chief told me the park had been closed off, but a couple of the neighbors heard the cats cry out, and called it in. They said they made a sound like they never heard before.”
“Scared to death, the poor darlings,” said Odelia as she hugged her cats close.
“We should have kept them at home,” said Chase as he crunched the car in gear.
“I know—but I had no idea it would get this bad.” Also, it’s very hard to tell cats what to do. And apart from locking the cat flap, it wasn’t easy to make them stay home.
At least they’d learned their lesson: don’t venture out in a raging storm.
“I’m so happy we’re still alive,” said Dooley. “I was so scared.”
“Brutus was singing for us,” said Max. “It was very nice.”
“I always sing when I’m scared,” said Brutus. “It helps.”
“You were scared, too?” asked Dooley, much surprised.
“Of course.”
“I didn’t think you ever got scared,” said Dooley.
“Every cat gets scared sometimes, Dooley. No matter what they tell you.”
“You have a nice singing voice, Brutus,” said Max. “Very soothing.”
“Thanks, buddy,” said Brutus.
Arriving home, they ushered the cats inside, and she rubbed them dry with big, coarse towels until they practically glowed, then she planted them in front of an electric heater, and she and Chase went upstairs to take a hot shower.
By the time the whole family was back in bed, it was two o’clock.
And while the storm raged outside, soon they were all out like a light.
Chapter 27
Sergio Sorbet didn’t mind the rain, or the wind or even the thunder and lightning. In fact he reveled in it! He was, after all, used to playing Zeus, and after seven years and four movies, he’d almost started believing that he was, in fact, the famous Greek god.
So he stood in the rain on top of the flat roof of the house, and screamed into the wind, holding his powerful arms aloft and defying the elements.
It invigorated him. He drew strength from it—he loved it!
He roared again, raising his face to the sky. Above him, the weather gods raged and rampaged but the more they castigated the earth, the louder he screamed back.
“I am Zeus!” he boomed, his voice drowned out by the wind.
From somewhere up there, he thought he heard the sound of laughter.
So he let out a loud roar and pummeled his chest.
“I AM ZEUS!”
Suddenly, he felt a stinging pain against his left temple, and briefly wondered if he’d been hit by a pellet of hail. He shook his head like a dog, then experienced another hit, harder this time, and momentarily lost his balance and sank down to his knees, his hands hitting the water that stood, ankle deep, all across the roof, the gutters and drainpipes unable to handle the sheer volume.
When the third hit came, this time to the back of his head, he went down hard.
And didn’t come up again.
Jasmine Muchari had been in the Sorbet family’s employ as a housekeeper for going on thirty years now. She’d been there in the good days, the bad days, and everything in between. Lately the Sorbets had only experienced good days, though, especially since their son had become a global superstar, his movies grossing billions. In fact ever since he’d been cast as Zeus, Sergio had gone through an impressive transformation. Gone were the boozy weekends with his dubious friends, or the late-night dates with questionable women. These days all he did was spend hours in the gym, sculpting a physique that could only be called godly.
So when she entered the man’s bedroom, she fully expected him to be up already, and slaving away in the home gym he’d built. It wasn’t unusual for Sergio to get up at five o’clock or even four, to start on the first of several workouts spread throughout the day.
Jasmine had always thought that the life of an actor consisted of studying their lines and declamating them in front of a mirror. But apparently the life of the modern actor was dominated by protein drinks and energy drinks and grueling workouts and lots and lots of selfies taken of bulging muscles and sweaty brows and shared with millions of fans.
When she didn’t see a sign of Sergio in the bedroom, she smiled with satisfaction. But when she saw that his bed hadn’t been slept in, that smile disappeared. Her employer needed his sleep. Many was the time he’d demanded no one disturb him so he could get his eight hours in. Those huge muscles only bulked up when granted sufficient rest.
She walked out of the bedroom and almost bumped into that horrible little man who called himself a PA. Luke Grimsby was wearing those red-framed glasses again, which gave him the look of a pompous art gallery owner. He had his nose glued to his tablet, as usual. It was where he kept track of Sergio’s training schedule, and also his nutrition schedule, both equally important, apparently.
“Where’s Sergio?” she asked.
“No idea,” Luke muttered as he adjusted his glasses and peered at her as if seeing her for the first time. He did this every time, the supercilious fool. “In the gym, probably.”
“He didn’t go to bed last night.”
The PA wrinkled his nose, causing his glasses to shift up. “What do you mean?”
“I mean he didn’t go to bed.”
“Impossible. Sergio knows how important it is to—”
“Look for yourself, Luke. His bed hasn’t been slept in.”
Luke hurried into the room. “But… I saw him go up last night.”
“Up where?”
“The roof. He wanted to experience the storm firsthand. Said it inspired him. And also, he wanted to take a selfie for his Insta.” He locked eyes with Jasmine. “You don’t think…”
The words hung between them. Then, as one person, they both turned on their heel and quickly made their way to the staircase that ran to the roof.
“How could you let him go out there!” Jasmine cried.
“You know Sergio. The man loves a good storm!”
They arrived on the roof, and Jasmine glanced around. The chimney stack was there, the parapet lining the roof, the antenna as it pointed straight up into the sky, and as her eyes drifted past the antenna and back to the chimney stack, scanning the tar roof floor, suddenly something clicked in her brain. She’d registered some anomaly. Something that wasn’t as it should be.
Slowly her eyes swiveled back to the antenna.
And that’s when she saw it: strapped to the antenna was a large object. Dark and bulky, with strips of material flapping in the light breeze that had followed last night’s fierce storm. And as she took in more details, suddenly she heard a cry. She didn’t realize at first that it was she who’d uttered it, just as it took her mind a few seconds to come to terms with the information her eyes were sending it.
It was Sergio Sorbet.
Strapped to the antenna.
And fully burned to a crisp.
Chapter 28
It seemed like it was only yesterday that we were out at Sergio Sorbet’s house, talking to the man, and that’s because it was indeed only yesterday that we were out there.
Now we were back, and this time we were on the roof of Sergio’s property, staring at the actor, who looked a little bit less like a superhero today than he had yesterday.
“What happened to him?” asked Dooley.
“Looks like he was hit by lightning,” I said. “More than once.”
“Why would he do a thing like that?” asked my friend.
“I don’t think he did it on purpose, Dooley. I think he was strapped to that antenna and left there to die.”
“But didn’t he know it’s very dangerous to be struck by lightning? Not to mention unhealthy?”
“I think he was murdered.”
“Murdered!”
“Yep. Murdered by lightning.” I had to think back to Shanille’s words last night: how God was punishing all those bachelors for their sin of refusing to get married. But this was taking that punishment up to a whole new level.
“So what do you think, Abe?” asked Chase.
The paunchy coroner looked down from his lofty position next to the fallen action star. “I’m thinking this has got to stop, Kingsley. This is, what, the fourth murder in four days?”
“Tell that to the killer. He was killed, right?”
“Oh, absolutely. Received a series of nasty blows to the head which would almost certainly have rendered him unconscious, then tied to the antenna in the hope he’d be struck by lightning. And since we experienced one of the worst storms in a decade last night, I think the murderer would have been pleased. Poor guy was hit repeatedly, I’d say.”
“So he was killed by lightning.”
“Yeah, pretty much killed him immediately, I reckon. And then was struck a number of times more after that.” He gestured for his people to take the body of the unfortunate actor down, as he clambered down with some difficulty himself.
“Ironic,” said Odelia. “The god of lightning killed by lightning.”
“All of these deaths have been ironic,” said Chase. “The joyrider crushed under the weight of his own car, the papier-mâché artist turned into a papier-mâché figure and added to his own exhibit, the mall owner reduced to a part of his display. I’d say we’re dealing with the same killer, wouldn’t you? A killer eager to tell us something. But what?”
“That pride comes before the fall?” Odelia suggested.
“Possible,” Chase admitted. “Teaching each of these men a lesson in humility.”
We all stared as the body of this devious killer’s latest victim was cut down.
“Poor guy,” I said.
“And poor Odelia,” said Dooley. “Now she’ll never be able to get his autograph.”
“I think that’s the least of her worries, Dooley.”
Odelia’s main concern was to stop this rampaging killer before he made even more victims.
“You know what?” said Chase. “I’m sick and tired of this. It’s almost as if the killer is laughing at us. I think it’s time we start leveling the playing field.”
“And how do you propose we do that?”
“By doing what we should have done from the start: arresting Dominic Careen.”
“Did you talk to the staff?” She gestured to Jasmine Muchari and Luke Grimsby, who were standing nearby looking crestfallen.
“Yeah, I did. They didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary last night. Said they didn’t even realize what happened until this morning. Though Luke did see Sergio go up to the roof at some point. Sergio said he wanted to experience the storm firsthand. Ever since he was cast as Zeus he’d become fascinated with the weather, especially stormy weather.”
“Figures, for a man who played the god of atmospheric phenomena. Did Luke Grimsby see anyone else go up?”
Chase shook his head. “Nope. But he said he turned in early. So if someone did join Sergio up here, he wouldn’t have seen them.”
“I don’t understand, Chase. Sergio told us yesterday that he’d doubled his security. He had people guarding the front gate and walking the perimeter. Dogs, even.”
“I spoke to the guy in charge of security, and he said that Sergio did have a visitor last night. He’d told him to keep the dogs on a leash so he did.”
“So who was it?”
“He doesn’t know. No one came in through the front gate, that’s for sure.”
“So maybe they climbed the fence?”
“Has to be. And since the dogs had been called off, they would have had access to the house. Because of the storm the patrols had been temporarily dispensed with, since it was too dangerous to walk the grounds, because of falling tree branches.”
“So whoever did this must have known their way around the place, and must have been aware of the security measures Sergio had put in place.”
“Looks as if Sergio knew his attacker, or told them how to get in without being seen.”
“And you’re thinking it must have been Dominic?”
“I don’t see who else it could have been, do you?”
“But Sergio would never invite Dominic up here, would he?”
“Maybe he did. To talk things through. To find out what Dominic was up to.”
They watched on as Sergio was laid out on the roof, then transferred to a stretcher. It was going to take four able-bodied men to get the actor down from there, since he was probably two hundred pounds of pure muscle—now seriously charred.
“This is a tough case, Max,” said Dooley.
“Tell me about it,” I murmured.
“I’m just glad that Chase and Odelia saved us from that tree last night.” He shivered. “Or else we might have ended up just like Mr. Zeus over there.”
It was a sobering thought, and one I didn’t enjoy mulling over. “I don’t think we were in any danger of being struck by lightning. More of being crushed under a falling branch.”
“Or being struck by lightning, then crushed by a falling branch.” He gave me a worried look. “I never realized how dangerous singing could be, Max.”
“It’s not the singing, Dooley. It’s being out in a park during a storm.”
“Not very smart of us, was it?”
“No, not very smart at all.”
“I have a feeling that next time cat choir happens there won’t be a lot of cats there.”
I smiled. “Just you, me, Harriet and Brutus, and of course Shanille. Small but cozy.”
“Maybe we could hold cat choir in the backyard.”
