The living room was again full of drunken laughter, with Bob the brunt of it. At the rate the evening was progressing, he couldn’t wait to leave and get back into the RV. Even sharing a confined space with those blasted infernal fuzz rats would be better than this.
Chapter 14 First Blood
Debbie carried a bin of fresh vegetables to one of the island sinks to wash and cut them for the evening's dinner. The kitchen, her personal domain where she ruled supreme, was a commercial quality high-end equipped room. It was as large as the entire downstairs of their house they sold in Caledonia Springs.
The architect had thought of everything: a giant walk-in cooler, two of the largest stainless steel refrigerators she had ever seen, and four pantries. There were more cupboards than you could shake a soup ladle at. Two large islands, each with a sink, refrigerated drawers, grill and hot plate equipped with a full cutlery set of blue-and-white-steel forged Japanese Chubo kitchen knives.
Along one entire wall was a thirty foot long stainless steel counter, with three sinks in the middle—the center sink cavernous in depth, flanked by two wider but shallow basins. Numerous cast iron skillets, stainless steel with copper bottom cookware, hard anodized pots and pans, carbon steel woks, sauce pans and griddles of every size and purpose imaginable hung from the ceiling. Three industrial sized dish washers stood ready to handle the gigantic task of dishware and cookware cleanups.
The centerpiece of the twelve hundred square foot kitchen was a custom elongated table made from solid oak that stretched twenty-four feet by six feet. Twenty high-back oak chairs surrounded the table. DeShawn Hill, a building contractor by profession, but also with a passion for woodworking, had personally made the table from the many oak trees on the property.
Hill had pull with a local kiln-drying and millwork company, having given them a great deal of business over the years. He had gotten his fresh cut, still wet timbers rough sawn, kiln-dried to furniture grade quality, then milled into workable dimension boards. What would usually take six months or more, he had done for him in just two months.
He had worked weekends in his woodworking shop, and gifted the fine piece to Bob and Debbie, saying his pleasure in crafting it was payment enough for him. All they had to purchase was the chairs, and Hill was tight with a major Grand Rapids furniture maker, who sold them chairs perfectly matched to the table in color and grain, at a deep discount.
The dining area could accommodate two shifts of patrons for the meals. With ten rooms in Murcat Manor, one couple per room, and factoring in a handful or two of children, Debbie estimated—with full bookings—there could be up to thirty people per day. Two shifts meant the table had to seat fifteen people plus Bob and Debbie along with additional guests, such as Ross and Erma.
Debbie was in her element, preparing to host and entertain over sixty meals a day for breakfast and dinner. The guests would be responsible for lunch.
Bob sat at the table looking over bills. “I think we’re going to be okay. As long as the construction crew stays ahead of schedule, we’ll be open for business well on time. And if we don’t ask for any change orders or alterations to the plans, we won’t run out of money.”
“That’s great, honey. How are the advanced reservations?”
“So far, so good. But not great."
Debbie reached for a drawer and pulled out a perfectly wrapped box with a blue ribbon and handed it to Bob.
“For me?”
“Yes, you. This is to help you blend in better with our guests. Go on. Open it.”
Bob was usually the one to surprise Debbie with gifts, predictable presents she correctly guessed before opening. But when Bob received one from Debbie, he never had an inkling of what it would be.
He took off the lid and pulled out a blue and red flannel shirt by the collar. “You shouldn’t have. Really. I mean it. You really shouldn’t have.”
Debbie was holding her belly laughing. “I know you hate flannel shirts. But I think you need to make more of an effort to make friends around here. This will help. Trust me on this one.”
“Sure,” Bob said, more of a grumble. “Just like the winged tip shoes that clicked and clacked down the hallway right before I got canned.”
Debbie gave him a look, but allowed Bob his little grouse fit.
Bob leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms over his head. Debbie watched as, no sooner had he sat back to relax, he jerked and spread his legs. Skittering around his ankles, the rambunctious American Shorthairs of various colors and patterns invaded the kitchen and spread out, as if Debbie’s proprietary province rather belonged to them.
Within seconds, half the felines competed with each other for lap time with Bob. Rebecca and Annie, grey and white striped cats who were always together, jumped up on the table and walked over his file folders and bills. Rachel, brown and white with gray eyes, spread herself belly down on his open laptop.
Debbie laughed as the other felines walked back and forth across the table, their varying appearances too confusing for Bob to remember their individual names. “Honey, you just have to look at their name tags. You’ll remember who they are in no time.”
Bob had, she appreciated, been learning to at least like the cats. Sort of. More so to please me, she knew. But his motto was always business before pleasure. At least when it came to the cats. He tried shooing them off the table, his lap, and from between his feet.
The cats simply traded places with each other. Nerdy Madelyn, a patchwork of brown, black, and white hair, now sat on Bob’s lap and looked up at him with her studious, dark-ringed eyes. The old joke, ‘about as easy as herding cats,’ came to Debbie’s mind.
Bob removed Rachel from off his keyboard and set her on the floor. "We have all ten rooms booked for Labor Day Weekend. That’ll be a welcomed influx of cash. But after that, we have lots of openings from June all the way up to Memorial Day weekend.”
“Please don’t stress, sweetie. Once the local papers and travel blogs run their stories on Murcat Manor in a couple weeks, this place will fill up fast. Trust me, okay? I’ve got this.”
“Well, it better. The mortgage payment will be close to eighteen thousand dollars a month. With ten rooms at two hundred fifty dollars a night, we need to pack the place over the summer. From fall through spring, business will be slower.”
Bob looked around the kitchen. “The food alone will be over five thousand dollars a month if we have full capacity. And that’s with bulk discounts the local grocers and bakeries have agreed to give us.”
Scarlett swatted at the neatly stacked piles of bills. They skidded across the table, half falling to the floor.
Bob clenched his jaw. “Debbie, honey. Can you do something with all these critters?”
Debbie scooped up Emily, her favorite, and stroked the back of her head. “Oh Bob, just go with it. Do what I do and pretend they’re our kids. It’ll be good practice for you.”
Bob picked up Madelyn from his lap and placed her on the floor with Rachel. They ran back out into the living room, the other cats following.
“Um, no. They’re cats. Not kids.”
“Well then, at least use them as a de-stressor. They only want to love you. Isn’t that right, Emily? Yes, it is. Oh, yes it is, you cute cuddly little kitty.”
Bob slumped in his chair and heaved a sigh. “Not going to promise anything. I tell you, those cats always seem like they’re up to no good. I think they’re plotting something.”
Debbie couldn’t contain her laughter. “Cats—planning an insidious scheme of some sort.”
She stopped laughing and donned a sober expression. “I do know what you mean, though. The way they huddle together, it sometimes looks like they’re having a board meeting. And Emily’s here is their leader. Isn’t that right, Emily? Are you and the others really nefarious villains, conspiring to take over the world?”
“Well, it’s a good thing they don’t have opposable digits. Who knows what kind of evil they could do.” Bob got up from
his chair and stretched. “I wonder how DeShawn’s coming along with the family heirloom.”
Debbie snapped her fingers. "I'll go check."
"On second thought, maybe you should wait for him to finish. He doesn't like to be interrupted."
"No worries." Debbie set Emily down and picked up a pair of scissors. “I'll pretend I'm stepping out to prune the plants in the front yard."
Bob laughed. "Lame-oh. Men aren't that dumb. He'll know you're being nosy."
"I'll be subtle."
Bob’s eyes rolled up into his head. "Subtle. Sure."
Debbie opened the front door. A ladder was planted in the ground twenty feet in front of the porch and leaned forward. It went upward out of sight. Debbie stepped out on the front lawn and looked up.
The landscape had long been bare of snow. The grass, which started peeking and pushing up green out from under the last remnants of the winter’s snow weeks ago, was now growing thick and lush. The trees were beginning to leaf out, small brown buds unfolding into verdant foliage. In a few weeks, they would enclose Murcat Manor from her neighbors’ views on both sides.
At the top of the ladder, a full three stories up and leaning into the pinnacle of the attic, was DeShawn Hill. Debbie's heart jumped with joy, seeing him fastening the crown jewel of Murcat Manor, her great-great grandfather’s Celtic cross, to a metal frame to hold it in place.
“How’s it going, Mr. Hill?”
Hill didn't bother to look, he only signaled thumbs up. “Almost finished. I’ll secure this to the pinnacle, then call it a day.”
"Well, don't mind me. I'm just coming out to prune a few flowers and shrubs."
She could hear Hill chuckle. "Sure. Prune the plants. You can watch. Just don't touch the ladder."
"Debbie, get back inside." Bob was standing on the porch. "Let the man work."
"Okay. Alright. Men. Sheeesh. You're so sensitive."
She joined Bob inside the door. Bob had one hand on his hip and waving his other in the air while giving her a lecture about letting the workers do their job. Debbie playfully mocked her husband, one hand on hip, other hand opening and closing, mimicking him talking, and saying, "Blah blah blah blah blah."
An explosive noise like the loud crack of a whip and a shriek of terror rocked their banter to a dead stop.
Debbie whirled around toward the sound and looked through the still open front door. She gasped in horror. DeShawn Hill, clutching madly at the top of the ladder, came into view in a dreadful fall backward away from the house. He slammed down on his back on the peaked roof of the gazebo in the front yard. The combined thud, splat, and crunching of bones was horrifying.
Debbie grabbed her head with both hands, her mouth wide open but so aghast she was breathless to scream. It seemed to her the scene was in shuddersome slow motion. The ladder bounced a few feet off Hill, dangled in the air like a sword wielded by an invisible assailant, and then smashed back onto his chest.
Debbie’s breath came back to her in a violent scream. She cut her hand with the scissors while whipping them away in a mad dash to the door. Bob had already run out, streaking across the lawn to the gazebo. Debbie was right behind him. In less than a minute, three crew members working upstairs had joined them.
One of the carpenters, a local handyman who was quite the redneck but all in all a likeable guy named Phil Hampton, scaled the gazebo with ease and tossed the ladder off his boss. He cupped Deshawn’s head in his hands. But the look on Phil’s face made it evident right away.
DeShawn Hill was dead.
He’d been impaled through the back by the sharp point of the spire atop the gazebo, now protruding like a blood-soaked sword out of his chest. From the ground Debbie could see the bottom half of his torso and his legs, still twitching with residual nerve endings sending out futile warnings to a dead brain.
She moved to her right several steps and observed the upper torso, arms and head on the other side of the bludgeoning cast iron steeple, facing the street. The two crew members on the ground, brothers in their mid-thirties from Battle Creed named Jerry and Jack Hansen, cried, crossed themselves, and said prayers.
Jack pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll call nine-one-one. Jerry, go find a towel for Mrs. Stevens. Her hand’s bleeding pretty bad.”
Debbie stuffed her head into Bob’s shoulder and cried hysterically.
“What the heck?”
“What is it, Bob?”
“The cats.”
“Cats? What about them?”
“There are three of them. On the roof. Right where DeShawn was working.”
Debbie looked up and rubbed her eyes dry. “I don’t see any cats.”
“They ran off just before you looked. But they were there. Plain as day. Right where he was securing your family heirloom.”
Bob looked back at the antiquated relic, then directed Debbie’s attention to it. “Look honey, at the cross.”
She did. It was dangling upside down, swaying slightly, barely held in place to the metal frame DeShawn Hill was securing it to. The arms were tilted at opposing angles and the family crest was missing.
“Bob, Where’s the crest?”
“Not sure. I was wondering that too. Oh wait,” he pointed nearby. “Look, there it is, lying in the grass.”
A moment later, Debbie heard a crackling, tearing apart sound from above. She looked up to see the cross fall. It hit the porch roof and bounced onto the cement steps in an unceremonious splat. The pride of five generations was now destroyed, lying shattered in dozens of splintered pieces.
Chapter 15 Detective Darrowby
Bob didn’t move. He held Debbie close while looking back and forth at the broken Celtic cross and demolished family crest. Phil stayed on the roof of the gazebo with his boss. Jack ended his call. “Police and emergency are on their way now,” he said through a broken voice.
Bob gazed at the top of the three story peak where he was sure three cats sat, their tails wagging in unison. They stared at him for a several long seconds. Then they were gone—taking an auspicious exit just before anyone but he noticed their presence. He tried to make sense of what in the hell just happened.
Jerry Hansen’s yelling yanked Bob’s mind out of his mysterious musing. He was running back across the lawn with a clean towel from his truck.
“Let me see your hand, Mrs. Stevens. You’re bleeding something awful.”
Debbie pulled her hand out from Bob’s chest and held it up. Blood ran down her palm and past her wrist, soaking her sleeve in warm, dark, crimson goo. The front of Bob’s shirt had a large red spot where it soaked up her blood.
The older Hansen took Debbie's arm. “Here, let me wrap your hand. That cut looks pretty deep. It’ll hold back the blood loss until you can get inside and clean the wound, which you should do right away."
Bob had been a bit leery of the crew Hill brought to work with him. They were kind of scruffy. And he was sure they were sneaking beer in while on the job.
But the guys were great at what they did. And now he saw a side of them that was caring. They had acted faster than he had as he tried to recover from the shock of DeShawn Hill dead in his front yard.
“Debbie, honey that must hurt.”
Debbie snapped out of her own shock. “Well, yes. Now that you mention it, there’s a massive throbbing pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt.”
The Hansen brothers tossed Phil Hampton a large drop cloth who respectfully laid it over Hill. Silence reverberated throughout the area for several minutes, mitigated only by the occasional whimpers and whispered prayers. A few minutes later, faint sirens grew louder, coming closer.
Two black and white Battle Creek Police SUVs sped up to the house and skidded to a halt in the gravel driveway. They killed their sirens but left the blue and red lights on. From the lead car two men with suits emerged. Two Battle Creek police officers from the second vehicle flanked them.
The lead man, Bob recognized by his suit and the way he led, was a detective. Tall.
Six foot two. Lean. Early forties. Wore his suit well. Dark thick black hair and mustache. A gait telling the world he was not afraid of anyone or anything.
“Good afternoon,” the man said as shook Bob’s hand. His voice was soothing, almost like a counselor giving comfort. Bob started to feel at ease.
“My name is Captain Detective Thomas Darrowby. This is my partner, Sergeant Detective David Kowalski.”
The sergeant looked like a tank. He had a large flat head that looked like a turret, swivel-mounted directly on a pair of wide shoulders. Any semblance of a neck was missing. His long, pointy nose was the war machine’s gun. He only nodded, rotating his line of sight past Bob, Debbie, and the Hansen brothers toward the gazebo.
“I’m Robert Stevens. But people call me Bob. This is my wife Debbie. And these two are Jack and Jerry Hansen. Hampton, erm, Phil’s his first name, is the one on top of the gazebo. They’re carpenters working on the house.”
More sirens approached. An ambulance arrived along with two more patrol cars. Bob could see his neighbors starting to make their way toward his house. Some cruised by slow, gawking. Others were on foot and stood along the gravel between the two-lane Oak Hill Road and his property. Most were taking pictures and filming the event with their cell phones.
“The five of you look shook up,” Darrowby said. “I understand a man working on your house fell off his ladder and died. Is that right?”
“Yes. That’s right,” Bob said. “It all happened so fast.”
Darrowby placed his hand on Debbie’s shoulder. “Are you okay, ma’am? That towel around your hand is soaked with blood.”
“I’m fine. I saw it happen from the living room window. I had a pair of scissors in my hand. It was terrible.” She frowned, looking at her wrapped wound. “In my shock I somehow cut myself.”
Darrowby’s warm smile and pacifying bass voice calmed Debbie. Her sobbing slowed and her grip on Bob loosened. “Well, don’t you worry. The paramedics will stitch you up good as new. I promise you that.”
Darrowby turned to Bob. “Mr. Stevens, I know this can be traumatic. This looks to be a terrible accident. And right in front of your wife, no less.”
Salem's Daughters Page 10
