The Mysteries of Bell & Whitehouse: Books 1-3 (The Mysteries of Bell & Whitehouse Box Sets)

by Nic Saint

  “Anything else I can do for you?” she asked, well pleased. There was nothing comparable to the glow one felt when helping out a fellow human being in his hour of need.

  He scratched the purple wart on his forehead, then suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere, produced a gun, and pointed it at her face. “You can give me all your money,” he said, “and be quick about it.”

  Chapter 41

  Alice now saw how wrong she’d been in deeming this man a victim of a cruel fate. In actual fact he was nothing more than a common criminal, and not even a good-looking one. He looked nothing like the crooks Johnny Depp sometimes portrayed, or Leonardo DiCaprio for that matter.

  One would think that dealing with dead people on a daily basis Alice would have become immune to the smell of decay but she wasn’t. Personal hygiene was one of her pet peeves, as was security. As a card-carrying member of the Happy Bays Neighborhood Watch Committee, she abhorred criminal behavior the same way she abhorred people who didn’t use deodorant or brush their teeth after every meal. She was a stickler on both fronts, and it was just in those two areas that she found this man lacking.

  “Well? What are you waiting for?” he snapped irritably. “Your money or your life, toots.”

  “Toots? Did you really just call me Toots?”

  “What’s it matter what I call you? If you don’t give me the money you’ll be joining those stiffs in the back.” He gestured with the gun. “Now move that bony ass!”

  There are moments in a man’s life when he finds himself at a crossroads. It was just one of those moments for Anton Ramsey as he stood waving his gun in Alice’s face. Ever since he’d tried to rob Rafi’s Deli and had failed miserably, he’d been dying to get some of his own back. He’d come to Happy Bays because he thought coppers in this haven of peace would be more forgiving to the criminal bent in his character than in his native city of New York. He’d had his fair share of disagreements with the NYPD and he disliked their tendency to throw him in jail at every possible opportunity.

  To his surprise he’d found an even more formidable foe on his first job in Happy Bays in the form of Felicity Bell. Having just walked free from prison, he now felt the town owed him, and he decided to give armed robbery another shot.

  Rafi’s Deli had been a hellhole filled with women armed to the teeth, so this time he’d set his mind on Charlie’s Funeral Delight, where he was quite sure he wouldn’t encounter similar resistance.

  Finally, Alice started following his instructions, and moved quickly. In fact she moved so quickly he had a hard time keeping up.

  “Hey, where the hell are you going?” he hollered as she sprinted along the showroom, and disappeared through a set of double doors in the back. Grumbling under his breath, he jogged after her. Though Happy Bays’s prison was a five-star hotel compared to the jails he’d done time in, being locked up had still rankled, and he was very low on patience.

  He burst through the doors, and found himself in a kind of operating room, the lights dimmed. He sought left and right for a sign of his victim. Finding her nowhere in evidence, he let rip a curse which would have surprised Virgil Scattering, a mild-mannered policeman not used to dealing with a big city gangster like Anton.

  “Stop playing games!” he hollered to no one in particular, and ducked down to search for the woman beneath the operating table. Taking a firm grip on his gun, he scanned the room, and saw that one wall consisted of metal cupboards of some kind. And it was then that he saw that one of them stood ajar. A cruel smile spread across his features.

  “Gotcha,” he whispered, and slowly made his way over, his gun poised and his upper lip curling back into a snarl.

  He now saw that the thing wasn’t a cupboard at all, but a big drawer. Reaching it, he let his gun do the talking by quickly pressing it down into the recesses of the drawer, then yanking it back with his other hand.

  What he saw wiped the smile from his face and sent his pulse through the roof.

  “Aaargh!” he cried, then quickly amended his statement to, “Whouaaaaah!”

  In the relative darkness of the room, it was hard to make out the exact contents of the drawer, but what he did see were five sets of glowing eyes. Then there was a loud hissing noise, sharp fangs were bared, and as one body the monsters lurking in the drawer suddenly sprang forth, and attacked him!

  This set the seal on his worst fears. Never an intrepid man, Anton Ramsey fought against the demon attacking him for one brief second, then sprang away as if his pants were on fire, and raced to the exit, all the while screaming like a banshee. Reaching the showroom, he didn’t stop to admire the view, nor did he worry about having left his gun on the floor of the operating room. He reached the front door in three seconds flat—setting a personal record in the process—and was rattling the doors before finally having the common sense to turn the key, and burst out into the street.

  Happy Bays, far from being happy at all, had proved even worse than New York City. Give me that great city’s dangers any day, Anton thought as he ran like a hare down Colbert Street and before long was well on his way out of town.

  Back at Charlie’s, Alice emerged from the small room adjacent to the operating room, its door well concealed. She was carrying the shotgun Uncle Charlie kept there, and was checking the premises for any sign of her surprise visitor. Frankly bewildered, she was surprised when she found him not amongst those present. What she did find were five cats, now roaming around freely, having been rudely awakened by Anton, and meowing furiously in search of food.

  Flicking on the lights, she walked over to the drawer where she and Felicity had found the cats, and saw that it had been neatly outfitted with blankets to accommodate them.

  So they hadn’t been dead after all. She smiled, understanding what must have happened while she was loading up for bear. The crook must have disturbed the cats’ slumber, and alarmed by his foul stench, the dears must have attacked what they considered a prowler on their domain.

  She picked up one of the cats, and petted it tenderly. The small feline instantly broke into ecstatic purring.

  “You’re hungry, aren’t you?” she cooed, and took the cat into the kitchenette. Its four furry friends instantly trotted after her. She was surprised to find a big bowl of kibble placed on a small plastic coverlet on the floor next to the fridge. She hadn’t even noticed it before. Searching further, she found a bag of cat food, a Post-it attached to it scribbled in her uncle’s near illegible scrawl.

  took in five strays

  set them up in drawer

  don’t forget to feed

  She grinned. “Oh, I will,” she muttered, setting down the tabby. She liberally strewed some more kibble into the bowl. Moments later, the only sound emanating from the kitchen was a contented chewing. Alice sat down at the table, took out her cell, and put in a call to Virgil Scattering. While she waited for the call to connect, the title of Felicity’s next article occurred to her.

  ‘Funeral Home Employee Saved By Stray Cats.’

  Chapter 42

  Felicity was humming Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’ as she set the table. It wasn’t the first time that Rick was coming over, but at least this time his presence had been announced, and she could create just the sort of environment she’d always envisioned for the first date with the man she truly loved. For that it was love that was fueling her thoughts when they turned to Rick was now obvious.

  The quickening of her pulse, the racing of her heart, and those flutterings in the pit of her stomach could no longer be denied. Love had come to her in that surreptitious way it often does. The moment he’d thrown that can of peas, she’d been caught unawares. She’d been so busy thinking him a crook that she hadn’t noticed Cupid orchestrating the whole thing from the wings.

  He was the man she loved and this night would prove it once and for all. Though she still felt as if she’d barely scratched the surface of what made Richard Dawson tick, she was fully intent on getting to know the man a lot better befor
e dinner was over. In fact she wanted to know all about him, up to every last one of his distinguishing features.

  She lifted the lid on the spring potatoes and saw to her satisfaction they were bubbling nicely. Placing the beef tenderloin on the cutting board, she then took a peek through the oven window at the Bundt cake which was going through its final stages. Judging by the smell, it was coming along nicely. Her grandmama would be proud.

  She plunked down on a kitchen stool for a moment, and checked the big kitchen clock. Seven. She still had one hour to finish preparing both the meal and herself, which gave her plenty of time. When the front door opened and Alice strode in, she was glad. She’d expected her friend sooner, and when she hadn’t shown, had figured perhaps she’d decided to catch an earlier movie.

  She was surprised, therefore, when she found Alice’s arms not filled with supplies but with a bulky cardboard box. Setting it down on the salon table with a meaningful glance, Alice waited for a few moments, like a stage manager setting the stage, before the first mewling sounds rose up from the box. Felicity clasped her hand to her mouth in surprise.

  She hurried over. The moment the first flap was turned back, five ginger heads came peeping out, and five throats opened simultaneously to produce the most beautiful concert. She recognized the quintet without fail, and clutched a hand to her heart. “It can’t be.”

  “Oh, yes it can,” grinned Alice. She held out her arms. “They’re aliiiiive!”

  Gaston had also trotted up, and curiously sniffed the air, but unlike his mistress appeared not as excited at this sudden introduction of a competitive element into what he considered his personal territory.

  In a few brief words Alice explained what had happened after Felicity left the funeral home. She added that based on her description of the intruder, Virgil had instantly put a name to the face. “He said it was a guy called Anton Ramsey.”

  Felicity’s jaw dropped. She’d picked up two of the cats and was cuddling them fervently.

  “No way.”

  “Way. Same guy who tried to rob you of your little bundle of cash.”

  “A recidivist scared off by five brave cats,” she said softly.

  “Well, actually they did the scoundrel a favor. The only reason I’d run away from him was to fetch Uncle Charlie’s shotgun. I had it locked and loaded when he escaped like a thief into the night. The last time he was seen he was still running and making for New York. I bet he won’t be back in these parts any time soon.”

  “You’re a heroine, Alice,” Felicity said fervently.

  “No, these guys are the heroes.” She picked up the remaining three, all the while ignoring Gaston’s plaintive mewling. “What do you say if you turn this episode into an article? I’ll bet readers of the Happy Bays Gazette will feast on it.”

  Felicity pursed her lips. “I’ll run it by my tutor.”

  “Come again?”

  “Rick has agreed to be my private teacher. He’s going to make a reporter of me yet.”

  “Just make sure you get the credit. You never know with these star reporters.”

  “Rick isn’t like that. Rick is…” She sighed wistfully, not concealing her true feelings from her oldest and dearest friend. “Rick is simply amazing.”

  “I’ll bet he is,” Alice grunted. “Speaking of which, what do you want me to do?”

  “Oh, I’m fine. You go on and enjoy your movie. I’ve got everything under control here.”

  “I’ll do just that little thing.” And with those words and a last coochie-coochie-coo to the cats, she stepped from the house.

  Chapter 43

  The moment Rick settled down with his laptop, he soon lost all sense of time and place. As was his habit when engrossed in his work, he plopped a pair of earbuds into his ears, cranked up the volume on his Coffitivity app, which imitated the ambiance of a cafe, and eased into a cocoon of his own creativity. This absolute focus, which had made him one of the top journalists of his generation, unfortunately also made him unaware of the stirring events taking place outside the fishing lodge that he’d now claimed as his writing shack.

  A mere few feet from where he sat, a heated discussion was taking place. It blended right in with the murmuring sounds of Rick’s imaginary cafe and were therefore lost to his ears.

  “I say we take the darn thing now,” Jerry Vale was saying.

  “But we just got canned, Jer. Now’s not the time to go carrying out Falcone’s orders. He ain’t our boss anymore.”

  “I know that,” Jerry said with justifiable pique. He didn’t enjoy getting canned. “Don’t you think I know that?” And soon enough, he would have added, Marlene would know it too, and there would be hell to pay. As the breadwinner in his little home, he had a responsibility, a fact of which she frequently reminded him.

  “Look,” said Johnny reasonably, “since the boss ain’t our boss anymore, he can’t boss us around, see? It’s simple logic.”

  “I know all that!” Jerry cried petulantly. “But can’t you get a simple thing into that thick skull of yours? If we steal that laptop and hand it over to Falcone, what do you think will happen?”

  Johnny thought hard about that one. Then he grinned. “Is that a trick question? It is, isn’t it?”

  Jerry rolled his eyes and suppressed a strong urge to hit his partner in the solar plexus. “He’ll be so thrilled he’ll hire us back is what will happen!”

  Johnny looked dubious. “You really think so? He seemed pretty sure when he canned us. His mind made up and all that.”

  “He’ll change his mind as soon as we bring home the bacon.”

  “Bacon? I thought we was stealing a laptop.”

  Jerry threw a quick peek through the window. Rick was still bent over his computer, deaf to the world. He licked his lips. “Here’s what we do. You sneak up from behind and lay him out cold, while I snatch that computer. I’ll bet it’s where he keeps the goods.”

  “Me? Why do I have to do the dirty work?”

  Jerry eyed Johnny’s bulky frame. The man had been a heavyweight champion in the not too distant past, and he still looked the part. “Because you’re the muscle in this little operation of ours, Johnny, and I’m the brains.”

  “Gee, thanks, Jer. That’s mighty nice of you to say.”

  “De nada. Now go in there and smack that bazooka. Oh, and Johnny?”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t smack him too hard. He’s still the boss’s son and I don’t think he wants to see him permanently damaged.”

  “Sure thing, Jer. Consider him smacked but not smacked too hard.”

  Jerry eagerly watched through the window, waiting for Johnny to do his thing. When nothing happened, he frowned and jerked his head away from the window to go in search of his companion. He found him seated outside the door.

  “Well? What are you waiting for? The gong?”

  Johnny looked up at him with those cow-like eyes of his. “I don’t know if I can do this, Jer.”

  “What? Why not?”

  He hitched up his shoulders and dropped them again, looking like a giant who just swallowed a dwarf. “I don’t know my own strength. Isn’t that what you’ve told me a million times?”

  “So?”

  “So what if I knock that dumbo’s block off and it stays knocked off? What if I hit him too hard and he doesn’t come to? It’s happened to me before, you know.”

  “I do know,” Jerry said darkly. In fact it had been just that little thing that had ended Johnny’s career as a prizefighter. One of his opponents, after running into Johnny’s left hook, had never really recovered, his brains scrambled. Not that there had been much to scramble, but still. Johnny had been suspended from active duty and snatched up by Falcone as private muscle.

  “Why don’t you hit him very gently,” Jerry suggested. “Just a tap.”

  “Like a nudge?”

  “Yeah. Exactly like a nudge.”

  “I can do that,” Johnny said, thinking this through. “But what if I don
’t hit him hard enough, and he comes back swinging at me?”

  “Then you hit him harder. Come on, Johnny, just do it already, will you?”

  “Oh, all right,” the big guy said, rising to his feet. With a sigh, he broke through the door, stomped into the lodge and took a swing at Rick. The latter, startled at this sudden intrusion into his private writing time, went down without a hitch, and Johnny, giving his associate two thumbs up, quickly bent down to take the man’s pulse. He nodded happily. “He’s still breathing. I think I nudged him just right, Jer.”

  “That’s fine,” grumbled Jerry, snatching the laptop from the table and stalking out again, muttering to himself about the trouble with today’s goons.

  Before long, the two associates were trudging along the sandy beach to Casa di Vitae, their treasure firmly in hand. In fact it had been quite a coincidence that they’d caught sight of Rick in the first place. Having just been given the boot, they’d both felt the strain keenly, and had decided to take a stroll along the surf to soothe their broken spirits. And just when they’d reached Casa di Amore, who would they see but Rick, trudging from the main house to a small shack near the beach.

  It had taken Jerry longer to convince Johnny to go along with the scheme than for him to think it up.

  “We did it, Jer!” Johnny caroled jubilantly.

  “We sure did, pardner. We sure as heck did.”

  And they’d just reached Casa di Vitae, when Jerry detected that something was amiss. When they’d left him, Falcone had been sitting on the patio. Now there was no sign of the billionaire and the place was locked up. They walked around to the front of the house, and tried the bell. No dice. Chazz Falcone had left the building.