John turned to stare at the guy. "You kept the cat that caused you to lose your fingers?"
Tommy nodded. "Named her Three Fingers." He gave us a wink.
George had a coughing fit. Big Ron slapped him on the back. I heard George say, "He named her Three Fingers."
I took a deep breath. I hoped this guy was better with bats than he was with cats.
"Whoop! There they go!" Tommy pointed to a corner of the roof. Sure enough, a stream of small black objects began to pour from the chimney. The sky seemed to darken as they emerged like smoke from a fire.
"Huh," Tommy said to himself, "that's a lot of bats."
I turned to him. "So what happens when we close up the chimney and the bats can't get back in? Where do they go?"
Tommy scratched his chin with his good hand. "Don't rightly know. Guess we'll find out here shortly."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Once the bats were gone, Tommy went right to work. He suited up in what looked to be an old beekeeper outfit and mounted the stairs with instructions that we stay out until he gave the all clear.
The four of us waited outside the attic door. Big Ron held a shovel at the ready. George was wearing his driving gloves. John, like me, looked like he had no intention of rushing in unless we heard the signal.
There was a crash and the sound of breaking glass. We looked at each other. "What are the odds?" George said, adding, "besides, I doubt there's a ferocious cat in there."
"Maybe we should check on him," said Big Ron uneasily as yet another crash sounded from the other side.
"I'll go get a flashlight just in case," John said, heading back down the stairs.
Big Ron had his ear pressed against the door. George stepped over to me and whispered, "Funny thing John going on a hunt for a flashlight when there's one sitting right there." George pointed a finger at the large flashlight on the step.
"He must not have seen it," I said. "I know there are a lot of unanswered questions with him, but overall he's a nice guy."
"I'm not saying he's not a nice guy, but I think his story has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. He's a little preoccupied with Marlton House, don't you think?"
I shook my head. "You really think he faked amnesia to worm his way into my life in order to have access to this house?"
George held up his hands. "I admit I don't have a lot of details. But it doesn't mean the guy's not up to something."
"And it doesn't mean he is! And you've got no room to talk," I shot back at him.
"Hey, I know my motives weren't the best in the beginning," George said. "Maybe it takes one to know one, but I get the feeling there's more on his agenda than simply getting his memory back. It makes me nervous with him out at Rockgrove with just you two."
"All clear!" came Tommy's voice from behind the attic door. "I say again, all clear."
"This isn't done," George said. "I'll go to Janiece with my concerns if you don't take it seriously."
"You're going to tattle to Gram on me?" I cried. "Oh, that's real mature."
Further discussion was cut off as Big Ron opened the door, and the overwhelming stench of acrid bat excrement invaded my nostrils.
George groaned and reached into his pocket for his handkerchief. Scented, no doubt.
John was behind us with a lantern-style flashlight that cast a huge amount of light into the dim space. He shined the light on Tommy, who was looking a little worse for wear but triumphantly holding a cage full of bats.
"Eww!" I shuddered, staring at their beady eyes. "What are you going to do with them?"
Tommy pulled off his beekeeper hood. "Well, they're yours 'less you don't want 'em."
George laughed at that.
"No, no. You can have them," I said, making an "ick" face.
"You sure?" Tommy asked, waving the wire cage at me and making the bats flap around. "They're good eats."
"You're going to eat them?" George asked.
Tommy nodded. "Not much meat, but what's there sure is sweet." He nodded to Big Ron. "Might want to start working on boarding up that chimney. The colony won't stay out long, and I wouldn't want to be here if they manage to get back in."
Ron moved quickly and began hammering plywood over the three-foot-wide hole near the top of the chimney. "Rest of you might want to shine the light around. Rattle things a bit just in case I missed a couple."
We looked around the gloomy, poop-covered attic. "Wouldn't it be easier to just slice the top half of the house off and put on a new roof?" George asked.
"I wish," I replied, taking a flashlight and heading into one of the far corners. George and John did the same. As I made my way back deeper into the attic, I thought about the box. Would the tourist have put it up here? Maybe he came up during the night when all the bats were gone. But he couldn't have missed the smell. I shined my light along the rafters and then down on the floor.
George came up behind me. "You thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked.
"Yeah, but it doesn't make sense to put the box up here. Why would he have needed to be so precise about the size? There's plenty of room up here." I raised my hands.
"I agree," George said. "The box fits in some nook or cranny. Maybe even in plain sight." I rolled my eyes at that one. Hiding things in plain sight is what had got George in trouble in the first place.
"I got one!" John yelled.
We ran toward him just as he trapped a bat under a cardboard box.
"Tommy," I called, "bring the cage."
A few seconds later, Tommy appeared with a cage. "Let's see what you've got there." He carefully pulled up the box, and an angry bat raced out, flapped over our heads and out the door. "We got a runner!" Tommy yelled.
He bounded down the stairs. We bounded after him. George touched my arm to hold me back. "Let's meet tomorrow morning and go through this place with a fine-tooth comb. No mystery man and no Big Ron. It's time to start this investigation."
I nodded. "Sounds like a plan." Then I heard something. A far off sound.
"Do you hear that?" I asked George.
George listened, nodding. "Yep. And it's getting louder." There was banging on the roof and then on the upper-floor windows.
"The bats are back!" I cried and raced down the stairs. "They're back! You guys!" There was a crash downstairs.
I ran into the parlor and found Tommy with the wayward bat in his cage. "Got 'em!"
"Tommy," I said breathlessly, "the bats are back. They're trying to get in."
Tommy looked a little confused. "Huh," he said, peering out the window. "Ain't seen that before."
"What do you mean you haven't seen this before? I thought you were a professional." My hands were on my hips, and I took a step closer, staring him down.
He shrank back. "I have done this before. Why probably upward of twenty times," he said, puffing himself up. "What I was sayin' is that I've never abated a whole colony. Which is what you got here. They're a little harder to predict."
A bat banged into the front window. I jumped. George, who was standing directly in front of the window, squealed like a girl.
"Really, George?"
He turned on me. "You do realize there's a colony of angry bats trying to get back in this house, don't you? And they look ready to break the windows if necessary. Maybe you should call the police."
I glanced out the window. Neighbors had started to gather across the street. People were stopping in their cars and pointing at Marlton House. My phone rang. It was Gram.
"Hello, dear," she said. "I'm standing outside. We've just finished up our meeting and were on our way to grab a cup of coffee when we saw all the bats. What's going on in there?"
"Nothing," I said calmly. "Why do you ask?"
There was a pause, and Gram said, "Because the house is covered in bats, dear. I mean, covered as in horde of locust. I'll snap a picture and text it to you."
The phone went dead.
George raised his eyebrow. "Looks like we've got spectators."
&
nbsp; My phone chirped, and I clicked on Gram's text. "Oh no!" I cried.
George grabbed the phone from me. "You don't see something like that every day. Looks like you're going to have yourself a YouTube hit."
Tommy and Big Ron crowded around the phone. Tommy pulled out reading glasses from his shirt pocket, which gave him a hippie professor look. "Well I'll be a monkey's uncle!" Tommy said. "Look at 'em all." He handed me back the phone, continuing, "I'da bet money that them critters would head to the cliffs."
"Maybe they don't know the way," Big Ron suggested.
Tommy nodded. "I think you're on to something, my man."
I pinched the bridge of my nose. "What do we do now?" I asked. "How are you going to get them to leave?"
"Maybe we can just wait them out. Daylight comes, they'll have to leave," George suggested.
Tommy thought about that for a moment and then shook his head. "Probably not the best idea. You're right, though. When it starts to get light, they're going to seek darkness. Only they'll be confused. They'll end up seeking shelter all over town. Not sure your neighbors would be happy about housing your bats for the day."
"They're not my bats!" I snapped. "It's not like I brought them here as pets." I pressed a hand to my forehead, picturing bats hiding in every dark nook and cranny on Main Street, waiting to attack the unlucky passerby who took a shortcut through the alley.
"There are a lot of people out there snapping pictures and texting who probably think they're your bats." George gave me a little smile.
"This isn't funny." I glanced around the room. "Where's John?"
"That's the question of the hour, isn't it?" George said cryptically.
I walked back to the kitchen and shined a light around. John jumped up from behind an old table. "What are you doing in here?" I asked.
He turned and got to his feet. "There was a small hole in the window here, so I blocked it off."
I shined the light at the window. There was an old washboard wedged against it. "Oh, okay," I replied.
The others joined us in the kitchen. "Tommy's got a plan," Big Ron said, hooking a finger at Tommy.
"Let's hear it."
"So what if I use the bats I caught to lure the other bats away from the house and up to the cliffs?" he asked, still wearing his professor glasses and looking smarter by the second.
"How would that work?" I asked.
"So I'll strap the bats to the roof of my wagon and start driving real slow. Maybe the colony will follow along." Tommy gave me a nod and put an unlit cigarette in his mouth.
"That's the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard," said George before I could speak.
Tommy pointed his two fingers in George's direction. "Don't hear any bright ideas coming out of your mug, Mr. Fancy Pants."
I laughed.
"These are not fancy pants," George retorted. "They are Dockers. For casual work wear. For all types of work, up to and including bat abatement."
"I think his pants look nice," said Big Ron. "Just because a man dresses well don't mean he's a fancy pants."
"I think he's a fancy pants," John chimed in.
"Enough!" I held up my hand. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think Tommy's plan might work."
George shook his head, and Tommy preened.
"Tommy can wear his beekeeper suit for protection and strap the bat cages on the roof. We'll wait here and see if the bats start to follow him. If so, we'll follow behind to make sure nobody runs into the back end of him. Everybody got it?" I clapped my hands. "Let's do it."
"This is the stupidest idea in the history of ideas," George said as we picked up our things and headed for the door.
"Agreed. I'm open to other suggestions. What's yours?" I glared at him.
"Call the police!" he said. "Maybe they can get animal control to handle it."
I shook my head. "And take a chance of getting shut down again? No way."
We watched as Big Ron banged on the front door with a hammer a couple of times to ward off any bats. Then Tommy donned his beekeeper hat and walked out the door. A cage full of bats in each hand. Big Ron slammed the door shut behind him, and we all ran over to the window facing the street.
As Tommy strapped the first cage full of bats to his roof, a couple of curious bats flew down to investigate. By the time he had secured the second cage, a dozen bats were flying around the critter wagon. He turned and gave us a thumbs-up before climbing in.
Tommy backed out of the driveway toward the streetlights. He moved slowly, just rolling down the street. As he pulled away from the house, more bats swarmed toward his wagon. We heard flapping and scratching. A cheer went up from our audience across the street as a black cloud of bats began to follow the critter wagon slowly toward the cliffs.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"I can't believe this is working," George grumbled from the backseat of my truck. He was a little sour about the seating arrangements.
"Hey," I replied, "don't you dare jinx this. That critter ridder contraption is going to save my butt." I pointed ahead to the slow-moving station wagon with two cages of bats strapped to its roof.
John leaned over and looked up at the night sky. "That sure is a sight to see. Look at them all." He pointed to the swarm of bats swooping and diving behind the wagon.
"So how's this brilliant plan end?" George asked, leaning forward like a little kid. "Anybody thought that through yet?"
"We get to the cliffs. Tommy takes the bat cages off of the roof and opens them up. All the bats should just fly out to the cliffs," I said with more confidence than I felt.
"And what if they all just head back to Marlton House?" George asked.
"That would suck," John said.
Yeah, what he said. Instead, I said reasonably, "We are going to be five miles from the house. I'm sure they'll find a nice dark area to nest in at the cliffs."
As we approached the cliffs, the partial shell of Jack Condor's condo community rose like a giant against the moonlit sky. Condor hadn't gotten much further than building the exterior of the four-story retail space designed to complement the high-rise ocean-front condo community under proposal. Construction had stopped a few months back because of multiple building code violations. I'd read in the paper that Condor was back in negotiations with the town and expected to resume construction within the month.
Tommy's wagon stopped at the top of the cliff next to the unfinished buildings. The colony of bats continued to dip and dive around their caged brothers and sisters.
Big Ron pulled up beside us and rolled down his window. "What's he up to?"
I rolled my window down. "Not sure, but here he comes."
"Hope all those bats don't follow him over here," Big Ron replied.
Tommy pulled off his beekeeper visor. "We got a problem," he said and lit a cigarette.
I waved the smoke away from my face. George rolled down the back window, saying, "You mean other than the colony of rabid bats?"
Tommy pointed his two-fingers—expertly clasping the cigarette—at George. "I don't need no lip from you, Mr. Fancy Pants. This job's 'bout wore me out."
"What's the problem, Tommy?" I asked, rolling up George's window and sliding on the child safety lock.
"I don't know what to do with them now that we're here. I'd hoped we could release the bats into a cave or cavern. Some kind of protective structure that they might like to nest in. The cliff is just sheer rock until you're about halfway down. To be sure they got into one of those caves, someone would have to take those caged bats down there and hope their buddies follow 'em in. An' that someone ain't gonna be me. I'm afraid of heights." Tommy took a long draw and blew out a stream of blue smoke.
I sighed. "Anyone a professional mountain climber?" I asked, looking from Big Ron to John.
George piped up from the backseat, "Hey, maybe that's what John did before he lost his memory. Go ahead and give it a shot, buddy." George thumped John on his arm.
John growled.
"Shut up
back there, Fancy Pants," I ordered. "Okay, so obviously that's not an option. Where else could we put them?"
There was a few seconds of silence, and then we all looked over at the dark structure of the unfinished stores.
Big Ron said, "You thinking what I'm thinking, Boss?"
I nodded.
Tommy followed our line of sight. "That's a good spot. I'll go up a few floors and set the cages near one of those open windows. I'll leave the cages open so the bats can come out as they please." Tommy nodded thoughtfully. "Yep, that's our best bet."
* * *
Revenge really is sweet. I laughed the whole way back to town. Those bats had taken over Condor's retail space like it was Dracula's castle. Which, come to think of it, it probably was. The only thing better would be to see the look on Condor's face when his foreman said they couldn't start work because of all the bats.
In your face, Condor! I gunned the truck and laughed again. I stopped at George's flower shop. Big Ron gave us a honk and a wave as he continued down the street and headed home.
"Thanks for your help tonight," I said to George. "Sorry about the whole Fancy Pants thing." He'd actually been a good sport, considering we'd been casting disparaging remarks about his manhood.
"Don't forget about tomorrow. We've got work to do." He patted my arm and gave John a curt nod.
"I didn't realize he worked at a flower store," John said, looking out the window. "That explains a lot."
"He doesn't just work there. He's the owner. And he's a very good florist." At the tone of my voice, John let the subject drop. I'm not sure why I defended George. I guess it was okay if I picked on him, but I didn't like it when other people did. We rode back to Rockgrove in companionable silence, broken only a few times by my uncontrollable giggle at the thought of the bats lounging around in Condor's stores. Bet they were loving those cathedral ceilings.
"You must really hate that Condor guy," John commented.
I thought about it a few seconds. "I don't know that I actually hate anyone. But he's not done me or Danger Cove any favors since he rolled into town."
"How so?" John asked.
Secret of the Painted Lady Page 10
