Angel shrugged, as if she didn’t care she was found out. “I was simply looking out for his best interests.”
“His? Or yours.”
“Please allow be to elaborate. DeShawn Hill had just taken a short nap in his truck. I thought he should know how dangerous it was to work three stories up and not to have someone holding the ladder at the bottom. Especially with three witches from four centuries ago who have an itch to kill. But, he had a deadline to meet and foolishly ignored his dream.”
“And that’s all you needed, right?”
Angel laughed. “What more do I need than an opportunity? That, and the stupid things stupid people do.”
Emily walked around Scarlett, rubbing up against her and brushing her tail in her face. “Then you threw a bout of madness, causing Hill to freak out for a few moments. He lost all touch with reality.”
“Only for a few moments,” she said as if this interrogation was an extreme bother.
“Ah, and finally we have Esther. You, who have the power to release energy from inanimate objects, causing sudden bursts of energy.”
Esther licked her front paws. “Only on a very small scale. You know that.”
“But enough to push the ladder backward.”
“I used the metal on the family crest from the cross Hill was fastening to the roof. I converted a small portion to energy, just enough to thrust the ladder away from the house and cause him to fall to a horrifying death.”
Esther’s eyes twinkled with sinister glee. “But here’s the real kicker. I could have caused him to drop to his death. But I forced the ladder straight backwards.”
Emily shook her head. “I’m not following. So what.”
Esther rolled her eyes. “So, this means it looks like the ladder was pushed with great force.”
“I’m still not following.”
“Stay with me. It’s as if someone, like, oh, let’s just say Boring Bob, did the pushing. A fact I’m sure Darrowby and his Neanderthal sidekick won’t miss."
The other cats gave their support and congratulations to Esther.
“Stop it, all of you. Esther, are you proud of yourself?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, duh? Need you even ask?”
“That’s it? That’s all you can say?”
“What else do you want us to say?”
Emily jumped back to her shelf and took her place as head of the cats. “Look, I know it’s tempting to use your powers and work together and kill people.”
“Oh, it’s so easy,” Midnight said. “Even though we lack opposable digits.” She held up her paws. “Look mom, no thumbs.”
“That’s why we need to work together,” Annie said as she sashayed across the work bench. “And we’re bored. I mean, come on. Has there been anyone more boring than Bob, ever, in all of our lifetimes?”
“Stop it, all of you. You know we can’t do this again. This always turns out badly.”
“Yeah. For the humans.”
“And for us. We’re already on our sixth lives. Only three more after this, ladies. Then it’s all over. Then we’ll be stuck in the cold, dark Netherworld forever with countless screaming lost souls.”
Emily now had their attention. The twelve cats hung their heads in shame.
“Now promise me. No more killing people. No matter how hard you’re tempted.”
Emily watched as her dozen followers one by one raised a paw and reluctantly agreed.
“Oh, one more thing. Try to warm up to Bob, regardless of how boring he is.”
“We are,” Rebecca said. “Just last night I fell asleep on his face while he was sleeping. Debbie thought it was adorable and took a picture with her cell phone, then sent it to Erma.”
“But you’re faking it. All of you are mocking Bob.”
“And he doesn’t even know it. Neither does Debbie.”
Chloe spoke. “And I left him a special care package in his shoe last week.”
Everyone was laughing hard. Except Emily.
“Is this meeting dismissed? I’m bored,” Rebecca said as the mouse she was playing with almost got away. She trapped it again between her paws.
“Hey sis, aren’t you going to kill and eat that thing,” Annie asked.
“No. You eat it.”
“Disgusting. Give me a steak any day to gnaw on.”
“As long as we’ve been cats,” Rebecca said, “and we’ve certainly taken on some of their characteristics, I’ve never developed a taste for dead mice or birds.”
“Good thing Debbie feeds us normal people food,” Scarlett said.
The mouse started to rise. Rebecca held its tail to the table with her paws to keep it from floating away.
"Chloe, stop fooling around,” Emily said. “I know you're levitating that mouse."
“That is so cool how you do that,” Annie said. “How much can you lift?”
Chloe puffed her breast with pride. “I can raise fifteen pounds and should be up to twenty by the end of the summer. But it takes all my strength. I need a few minutes to recover after raising something that large. It’s exhausting.”
Rebecca let go of the mouse’s tail and stared at the rodent as it rotated in the air in front of her face. She tapped it with her paw. The mouse moved forward about a foot, then Chloe guided it back in front of Rebecca’s nose and made it to again rotate.
Rebecca was captivated by the slow gyrating rodent when it exploded into a ball of fur and shredded red flesh. She jumped high with a screech, her back arched and hair standing on end. The rest of the cats erupted in laughter. She landed in the same spot and frantically wiped the rodent gore off her face with her paws.
Rebecca stared down Esther. “Real mature. Look at the mess you made. So gross.”
Esther tried to stop laughing. She took a deep breath, held it, then let out a long roll of laughter.
“Stop it. All of you,” Emily cried out. “Esther, I demand you cease causing things to explode. You helped kill DeShawn Hill. Now the mouse. I mean it. No more.”
Emily could feel the meeting slipping away from her.
“Can we go?” Jacqueline said.
“One more thing. Madelyn, since you’re the only one of us that can read past a fourth grade level, I need you to keep studying anything you can. Bob’s laptop. Books. Magazines. The world has changed so much since our last lives. And technology has made this information readily available. Anything you can learn, especially about science, can only help us better understand our abilities, and thus use them more effectively.”
She had their undivided attention now.
“But let me make it clear. We will not use them to kill people.”
Undivided attention gone.
Helen yawned deep. “I want to take a nap.”
“Me too,” Madelyn said.
They had their taste of first blood in this life. Emily had more to say, but she knew no one would stay and listen.
“Okay, ladies. Let’s get out of here. But I mean it. No more killings,” Emily said as she watched the twelve cats already dispersing in various directions.
Chapter 18 Open for Business
Bob gazed at the farm themed calendar on the kitchen wall. Roosters and hens were the country motif of the month. It was Memorial Day weekend. Saturday morning. The summer season had officially begun. Murcat Manor was now open for business.
He and Debbie had put DeShawn Hill’s death behind them as best they could. All their hard work was about to pay off. And not a day too soon, since the first payment of eighteen thousand dollars to the bank would be due in thirty days. Insurance, food, and utility bills would follow.
The sound of a car pulling onto the gravel driveway told Bob the first guests had arrived.
Debbie jumped up from her kitchen chair, a printed list of the ten families in her hand. “Bob, they’re here. I wonder which family it is. I bet it's the O’Dells from Toledo. Or maybe it’s the Parkers from Fort Wayne. Oh, I’m just so excited.”
Bob opened the front door
as an older Ford pickup truck pulled up to one of the round wooden posts designating a parking spot. Debbie gasped and muttered, “Oh my.”
Bob looked at the rust around all four wheels. One of the doors was a different color than the rest of the car. The hood was held down with a bungee cord. Red duct tape covered one of the broken rear parking lights.
He placed his hand on the small of Debbie’s back and led her out onto the front porch. "Um, well now dear, they had the money to pay for their stay, okay? Let's be nice, and welcome our first guests."
Bob watched as three children piled out. Triplets. Red haired, freckled faced, pasty-skinned boys all under the age of ten. Their energy demonstrated they’d been cooped up in the truck for a long time.
They ran past him before Debbie could say ‘hi’ and into Murcat Manor. Within seconds the sound of screaming cats filled the air. Something glass broke.
“Looks like the cats have met their match,” Bob said through a wide grin.
“Hello,” came a loud boisterous voice. Bob turned to see the parents approaching. He was large with a barrel chest and beer belly. Bob wondered if the buttons on his dreaded flannel shirt would pop at any moment.
She was dressed in tight loud clothes and bright cheap jewelry. Poorly red-dyed bushy hair flopped down across her shoulders.
Debbie whispered in his ear, “I’m amazed she can walk across gravel with those cheap high heels.”
The beer bellied man stumbled up the porch steps. “We’re the Barnetts. Eugene’s my name. And this here’s my beautiful and bodacious wife, Beatrice.”
“Looks like we’re the first ones to break in the place,” Beatrice said, avoiding eye contact and chomping on a wad of gum.
Bob smelled alcohol on their breath. He looked at his watch. It was barely eleven o’clock in the morning.
“Well, won’t you come this way,” Debbie said. “I’ll show you to your room. Bob will bring your luggage.”
Bob looked at the pickup bed. There must be a dozen pieces of mismatched luggage, all held together with duct tape.
He sighed. This was one detail he hadn’t thought through, hauling luggage for ten families across a gravel parking lot and upstairs, then taking it back to their cars when they left. It was already hot and humid. As he entered the front door balancing five of the suit cases, he heard something else break. Three cats scampered between his legs and out the front door.
Once in the foyer and at the bottom of the stairs, Bob dropped the luggage at the sight in front of him. He should be mad as hell with three uncontrolled kids terrorizing the American Shorthair felines. But he was enjoying the scene. Two more cats scampered to safety outside.
Debbie stepped next to Bob. “Do something,” she whispered. “There’s a soccer field in our backyard.”
Bob tried to stifle a chuckle. “Are you kidding? This will humble those cats. Maybe they’ll stop messing with my laptops and the stack of utility and mortgage statements.”
She elbowed him. “Take the luggage up to the Roadhouse Blues Room, dear.”
Bob looked at Beatrice Barnett standing in her way-too-tight jeans and high heels, hands on hips, chomping her gum, staring off into the ceiling. Eugene somehow managed to have an opened beer in his hand and grabbed her tush. Beatrice snapped out of her daydream as he chased her around the living room, both laughing loud and obnoxious.
“I’m glad they’re not staying in The Love Machine.”
Debbie couldn’t refrain from snickering. “No way would I launder those sheets. I’d have to burn them in the back yard.”
Chapter 19 Help is on the Way
Within a few hours all ten rooms were filled. A total of thirteen kids were running around Murcat Manor and terrorizing the cats. One cat for each kid, Bob thought, and then considered stuffing a feline in each of their suitcases while carrying their luggage out to their cars when they left—the guests wouldn’t know it until they arrived home.
Bob stepped into the vastness of their kitchen, which doubled as their work space where he and Debbie spent most of their time. As a youth, Bob envisioned having a home office complete with a fireplace and mahogany walls lined with bookshelves.
But within one generation, times had changed. Now, laptops and a flat surface to place their electronic workstations replaced the need for what he now considered a ridiculous and pompous vision.
Bob sat his laptop on the kitchen table and plugged the AC adaptor into the wall. He looked with amazement at his wife. He wondered if she knew he’d entered the kitchen.
Debbie was in a world unto herself, hard at work, preparing the very first dinner for a full house of guests. Bob could smell the unmistakable aroma of pot roast and roasted vegetables as it filled the kitchen. He pictured pulling the meat apart with his fork and savoring the taste of the first fruits of Murcat Manor’s opening weekend.
“Finally. A few minutes alone.” He wiped his brow as he looked at food cooking on all three stoves and ovens. “I’m beat. That was a lot of work, hauling their luggage from the parking lot up to their rooms. There must have been close to a hundred pieces. And yesterday, I spent the entire day mowing the lawn. I still have a list of twenty things I need to do. This is more work than I thought it would be.”
Debbie chopped vegetables on a cutting board. She struggled as her hand was still not healed where she sliced her palm the day DeShawn Hill died.
“I’ve been thinking about that. We need to hire full time help. I’m thinking two people, at least for the summer.”
Bob rose and slipped his hands around Debbie’s waist. “You need help in the kitchen. I need a helper with the luggage and for maintenance. It's only the first day and those unruly triplets have broken just about everything they've touched. Let's face it. I'm not the best at fixing things."
Debbie turned and wrapped her arms around Bob’s neck. “At least the place is packed. I thought for sure the death of Mr. Hill would ruin us before we had a chance to start. The local news channels were all over that.”
Bob reached around her and snatched a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie. “It was a slow summer,” he said, tossing it in his mouth. “I guess we were the only thing happening. They kept coming out for follow up stories. I was scared too. But the extra coverage helped us book out rooms well into the fall and much of December.”
Debbie slapped away Bob’s hand as he reached in for a second treat. “The positive reviews and write ups in the Battle Creek and Kalamazoo newspapers and a few online sites and blogs helped too. They focused on the themes of the ten rooms rather than Hill’s death.”
Bob moved on to one of the refrigerators. “I think we’ll be okay, as long as Detectives Darrowby and his goon sidekick Kowalski stay away.”
“Darrowby scares me. Why hasn’t he closed this case? It should be a simple but freak accident. Although he’s not calling this a homicide, he sure seems to be treating it like one.”
Bob sniffed the air. “Something’s burning.”
Debbie rushed back and forth from stove to stove, juggling pots and pans of food, then zeroing in on a sauce pan she had neglected.
“No worries. I can make another batch,” she said as she scraped the ingredients into the garbage disposal and ran the pan under the water faucet. “It’ll just take a few minutes.”
“You’re amazing. You know that?”
Debbie used her apron to wipe her brow. “What? You’re only now noticing? I’m telling Grandma.”
Bob laughed harder than he had in days. “Thanks. I needed that. Still, you do need help running this place and so do I.”
“So you concede? We’ll hire a handy man slash bell boy slash cook slash cleaning person?”
Bob didn’t need to consider. “Yeah. We can afford one. Actually two. One for you and one for me. I’m not up for trying to be a handyman. Not in my genes.”
Debbie ran over to the next stove and looked over her shoulder at Bob. “Like that toilet Eugene Barnett clogged in the Roadhouse Blues?”
/> “Ugh. Don’t remind me.” Bob sat at the table and opened his laptop. “That’s motivation enough to put an ad on Craigslist right away.”
“Well, for now, let’s enjoy the success of a full house.”
“You got that right.” Bob discretely reached over the table and snatched a blueberry muffin from a tin cooling under a kitchen towel.
“Maybe we can plan on an addition for next summer? Add a few more quest rooms. We could add two additional rooms downstairs for the full-time help so they can be here around the clock. What do you think?”
“With the money we’re making, I don’t see why not.”
“When you’re finished with the muffin, “Debbie said with a grin Bob did not expect, “please set the table. The first shift of five families will eat in thirty minutes. That’s ten adults and seven children.”
“Are the Barnetts and their triplets part of the first group?”
“Afraid so. Let’s hope Eugene doesn’t eat his worth in weight. Or you’ll be plunging the toilet in The Roadhouse Blues again tomorrow.”
“Oh yeah, we definitely need help.” Bob finished writing his ad for two full time summer helpers on Craigslist. He hit the Enter key with gusto. “With any luck, we’ll hire someone before good ol’ Eugene leaves.”
Chapter 20 One Less Cat
It was Monday morning, the last day of Memorial Weekend. Bob’s alarm on his cell phone played a recording of a rooster crowing. Without opening his eyes, he reached over to the night stand and turned it off.
He plopped his head back on his pillow, still exhausted, then opened his eyes and stared out the bedroom window. The morning sun would break over the eastern horizon in less than an hour.
Every muscle in his body ached. To his left, Debbie breathed in a soft cadence. She had failed to heed the belligerent barnyard fowl.
Bob knew Debbie worked harder than he had, and wanted nothing more than to let her sleep. Five o’clock in the morning. He shook his head. They had gotten less than four hours rest.
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