A Spot of Bother Read online

  “And why would anyone tamper with booze if it seems so easy to make,” Jordan said, eyeing the bottle several of us had just sniffed at. He reached for the other container and popped the cork off that one, taking a careful sniff.

  I raised a questioning eyebrow in his direction.

  He recorked it and set it back on the table. “More of the same.”

  “In the Prohibition era a lot of bootleggers, and even the government, added stuff to it — bootleggers to stretch it out, the government to poison it and dissuade people from drinking it.”

  “And did it?” Jordan asked. “I have a feeling the answer is no.”

  “You would be right,” Roger said.

  “So what did they add?”

  “All kinds of things. The government added wood alcohol which could make people go blind or even kill them. It became a thing to add juices or mixers to dilute the taste of the bad booze.”

  “So cocktails started in the Prohibition times?” Jordan asked.

  “A lot of them did.”

  “Wow, for an AA guy you sure know a lot about booze,” I teased.

  Roger shrugged. “I like history, what can I say? Plus I like to learn about all aspects of what was my poison of choice for a number of years.”

  “I like that about him,” Dad cut in. “A curious mind. That’s always good.”

  Scott meanwhile was focused on the metal box that had been in the safe.

  “Anything good in there?” I asked. “Or is it locked?”

  Scott took a screwdriver and pried open the container. “No. It’s not locked.”

  “What’s inside?” Jordan asked.

  We all huddled closer and inside was another box. I leaned in to get a closer look and reared back when I was about a foot away, letting loose an inelegant “oof!”

  “What is it?” Roger asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “Uh, I don’t know. I just got another whiff of that hot metal smell.”

  Scott, in response, hovered his hand over the box, then lowered his palm onto it. “If it’s any comfort, it’s not hot to the touch.”

  The second box wasn’t locked either. Scott easily raised the lid.

  “So what’s inside?” Vanessa chimed in.

  “Is there treasure in there?” Jordan asked.

  “Jewelry maybe?” I offered.

  “Old money?” Roger asked.

  “It’s … just some stuff,” Scott replied.

  I nudged closer and peered inside. I still picked up the metallic scent, but there was something sharp and green there, too.

  I spied a number of things: A locket; a rosary; a dried cluster of small blue flowers (which I was fairly certain were forget-me-nots); an old jar; a few coins; a long nail; a small antique spyglass; a red feather; some letter-sized envelopes; a few faded photographs and postcards; a small book; and knotted dark yarn that might have originally been black, or close to it.

  “It’s all kinds of stuff,” Vanessa said, reaching in and pulling out the locket. She gently pried it open.

  “Is anything inside?” I asked.

  “A picture. No, two pictures.” She handed the pendant to me. “One’s cut in half.”

  On the left was a small portrait of a woman with dark hair twisted into a voluminous updo, in a style that was last in vogue at least a century ago. Her eyes were dark, her jaw somewhat square, and her mouth set in a firm horizontal line. She was pretty, despite the stern expression, even for that makeup-free era. Her photo was the one that was snipped.

  The portrait on the right was of a man with center-parted, slicked-back hair, shiny with pomade or grease. He had a pencil-thin mustache and light eyes that had something sleepy and playful in their depths. I closed the locket and looked at the back. No inscription.

  “I wonder who they were,” Vanessa mused. “You don’t sense or see any other ghosts around here, do you?” She looked around and I followed her gaze.

  My father’s ghost had since disappeared. That was hardly unusual. He sometimes showed up when there was something to see, and then when it was seen, he’d blink back out of sight. My guess was we’d discovered everything there was to discover this evening, and he’d moved on to somewhere else.

  I looked back down toward the box but caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned in the direction I had spotted the activity, but I only caught a blur of shadow. Considering that the lighting wasn’t so great in the basement, I chalked it up to a trick of the light. As far as I was concerned, it now was just us, the living.

  I reached inside and pulled out one envelope, sliding out the contents.

  One piece of paper was velvety to the touch — like it had been handled countless times — and folded to something no larger than a business card. I carefully opened it, taking care to ensure the folded seams wouldn’t crumble apart, and found a charcoal sketch about the size of a sheet of notebook paper. It was of a young woman with dark, flowing hair. She looked like the woman in the locket, but in the drawing she looked happy and free. I traced my fingers over the paper, and felt it vibrate slightly. I wasn’t sure, but I seemed to catch some old melody, perhaps Irish or Scottish in origin. I tried to tune in, so to speak, to see if I could hear it more clearly, but it faded. I lifted the sheet to my nose and slowly inhaled. I caught a scent of roses and something evergreen. I carefully returned it to the envelope and placed it back in the box.

  Next I pulled out an aquamarine-tinted jar that bore a hinged lid. The container was about the size of a medium jam jar and felt surprisingly heavy in the palm of my hand. “It looks like there’s dirt inside, doesn’t it?” I shook the contents slightly. Some dried leafy matter — leaves, flower petals, perhaps — were in the mix. I cupped the small glass vessel in both my hands and focused for a moment.

  “Do you feel something?” Vanessa asked.

  The jar seemed to warm a bit in my hands, then grew cold. I depressed the lever to release the seal but it held fast. I set it down, trying to gain more leverage as I continued to pry at the lid, but it wouldn’t give. In the effort, however, I caught a whiff of something, faded violets, perhaps, and a bit of rosemary, along with freshly dug earth.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Do you think it’s sealed or somehow, I don’t know, rusted shut?”

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “But for some reason I can’t help but think of the grave.” I ran my finger over some of the grime outside the jar and gave another tentative sniff. “And tears.”

  “Tears?”

  I nodded. “I can’t explain it, but it’s sad. Like, devastatingly sad. I feel like I’m in a graveyard when I smell this.”

  “Like when you’re watching-The-Notebook-while-you-have-PMS-and-are-halfway-into-a-bottle-of-wine sad?”

  “That’s one way to put it. But darker. More grim.”

  Vanessa looked horrified. “You don’t think there’s, like a finger or something in there, do you?”

  I gently shook the contents again. “Doesn’t look like it. It just reminds me of, I don’t know, extreme sadness, a final sadness, like someone died or something has ended.”

  Before I could speak I caught another blur of movement, like the hint of a shadow moving near the opening of the newly discovered room. I had a flash of panic and yelled out.

  “You guys! I think you need to get out of there!”

  The men inside paused their explorations and looked at me, confused and curious.

  “I’m not joking. I think you need to get out. Now!”

  They looked at one another and Jordan stepped out first, followed by Roger. Scott paused to take another quick gander around the space when I heard a small rumble.

  “Hurry! Now!” I hissed.

  He stopped his stalling and hopped through the opening. At almost that exact second some of the bricks began to tremble and shudder, and then several broke free of their neighbors and crashed down. Several of the stones clattered around, making a loud noise and gusts of dust.

  Scott h
ad made it through the opening just ahead of the cascading bricks. He coughed and slapped at all the fine powder surrounding him, clutching his arm as he hopped away from the melee.

  “Are you okay?” Roger asked as he stepped forward and pulled Scott farther back.

  “Great, considering,” Scott hacked. “A couple of the bricks hit my arm as they fell. I’m okay, but it’s going to smart later.”

  “How’d you know to tell us to move?” Jordan asked.

  “I really don’t know. I just had a feeling you guys should get out of there.”

  “Good feeling, that,” Roger smiled, cupping the back of my head and pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Enough of those rocks came down to block access. Probably wouldn’t have killed us… ”

  “Unless one landed on your head,” I cut in.

  “True,” he smiled, “but I think that was unlikely, considering the direction they fell from. It wouldn’t have been fun to have to move those out of the way and also risk another cave-in.”

  “Definitely a good instinct,” Scott agreed, pointing upwards. “Now I’m going to head upstairs and put some ice on this and pop some aspirin.”

  “Are you sure you shouldn’t go to the hospital?” Vanessa asked.

  Scott tested his arm like a bird testing a wing. “It’s moving okay, and not too painful. When it bruises up later, I have a feeling it’s going to hurt, but it is what it is. I’m more worried about what triggered the collapse. Be sure to give it a wide berth.” He turned and raced up the stairs, muttering a hello to someone at the top of the landing.

  4

  “Look at what I found.” It was Mom teetering down the stairs in her ever-present high heels. The swaying motion made me think of Married With Children’s Peg Bundy.

  Right after we’d arrived, Mom had gone off with Tom for a bit — more than a bit, actually — to get some soda pop and more snacks. He was right behind her, bearing a grocery bag in each hand while Mom held a long-haired white cat in her arms.

  “Awwww,” Vanessa and I sang out in unison, forgetting about our men and the evening’s finds and events, and rushed over to inspect the unfamiliar feline.

  “Hi!” I cooed as I touched his fur. “He’s a bit wet. More than a bit, actually. He was outside, huh?” I petted the cat, and then grabbed a roll of paper towels. “Let’s wipe him down.”

  “Yes,” Mom drawled. “He was outside and I think he was waiting for me to find him. And you know I was waiting to find him because I’ve always wanted a long-haired white cat.”

  Mom placed him on a work table and we set to toweling the poor animal off. It was a large-framed cat — which made me suspect it was a male — albeit a bit skinny, with a massive plume of a white tail. It was matted and sooty in places, especially around the ruff and around its belly. The cat slowly blinked and looked around, and the more we fussed over him, the louder he purred.

  “Why a long-haired white cat?” Vanessa asked.

  “Isn’t it obvious? They look so fancy. How could I resist?”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t just buy a pure-bred from a breeder,” Vanessa noted. “Then you could fan his papers around for all to see.”

  “I had thought of doing that,” Mom admitted, “but strays have always found their way to me and they’ve always proven to be the best kinds of pets. Plus, some of those pure-bred — though they’re mostly over-bred — animals, they might be pretty, but they can be a whole lot of stupid. I love glamour and flash, but my hatred of stupidity outweighs my shallowness.”

  “Well, that’s something,” I smirked.

  “That’s why we’ve kept Vanessa all this time. If she was as dumb as she is pretty, she would have gotten the heave-ho ages ago.”

  “Thanks, Fiona,” Vanessa said. “You really know how to lay on the charm.”

  “Consider it a compliment, my dear. If beauty were a car and brains were the gas, well, you get the metaphor. …”

  “She’s not stranded alongside the road of life, you mean,” I chimed in.

  “You’re laughing, Poppy, but you do remember that pure-bred Lhasa Apso our neighbor in Detroit had?”

  “The one who humped everybody’s shoes?”

  “Exactly.”

  “It really humped everybody’s shoes?” Vanessa asked.

  “Yes. Even when you were wearing them,” I said. “It really held on, too. You practically had to do a Rockette-like kick to get him off your foot.”

  Vanessa grimaced in disgust. “That’s a lovely visual.”

  “The dog was a good match for Lori, though,” Mom continued. “She was always Pretty Lori, so Pretty Lori had to have a Pretty Dog.”

  “She did have a pretty dog,” I said.

  “Yes, a Pretty Dumb Dog,” Mom drawled, fussing with one of the cat’s mats. “It matched her perfectly.”

  “Whatever happened to Lori, or the dog? I think its name was Precious, if I remember right.”

  Mom shrugged. “She and that dumb dog probably both drowned when they looked up with their mouths open to check if it was raining.”

  Vanessa giggled. “Say what you really think, Fiona. Do you think this kitty would eat a bit of chicken? We’ve got some carryout we brought over.” Before my mother could answer, Vanessa turned and darted upstairs.

  “Bring back some of Scott’s bottled beers!” Mom yelled out.

  Vanessa returned a moment later with a box of chicken and handed a six-pack to my mother, who promptly popped off the cap and downed half the contents. Vanessa meanwhile plucked a piece of chicken breast from the container, tore off the skin and breading, and placed some of the white meat in front of the cat. It instantly began to devour the food while growling a low and deep rumble. As soon as the meat disappeared down its throat, he immediately began sniffing around for more. Vanessa placed another few pieces in front of it and then went off to fill a dish with water.

  “What are you going to do with him?” I asked Mom. “It’s too cold and icy for him out there.”

  “I think I’ll take him home with us,” she said as she fussed over it.

  Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright. I suspected the beer she’d just drank half of was far from her first of the night.

  “You just stopped for snacks, huh?” I asked.

  “There was a pub crawl going on, so your mom tagged along for a few stops,” Tom explained.

  Mom, in response, unzipped her candy-apple red trench coat and flashed us a commemorative T-shirt with several stamps on it.

  “You didn’t crawl, you ran through,” I joked.

  “I had to show those tourists some of the highlights of the downtown area, and of course I include myself amongst those,” she sang out, pride evident on her face.

  “So, we’ve been referring to the cat as a him. Is it a him?” I asked, pointing to the cat, “or a her?”

  “I don’t know.” Mom lifted its tail up and took a quick look. “Yes, it’s a male.”

  “Mystery solved,” Vanessa giggled as she resumed feeding the animal. “Do you think he’ll like the dogs?” She was referring to Mom and Tom’s two beagles, a set of rambunctious brothers named Beanie and Hooper.

  Mom shrugged. “They’ve got to be better company than being out in the freezing rain, especially since all they’ll really want to do with this little guy is give him a good sniff. And steal his food, if they’re typical dogs.”

  “If they’re typical dogs they might want to sample his litterbox output,” I added.

  “Yuck!” Vanessa said. “I wish you hadn’t said that. I always let my mom’s dog lick my face, and she and my dad also have two cats.”

  “Are you saying dogs don’t do things like that?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No, I know dogs like cat poop, but how could they when cats have so much more to offer. Look at this guy. He’s gorgeous and just imagine how he’ll look once he’s cleaned up.”

  “He’ll look divine,” Mom said. “And if he’s too scared of the beagles, I can lock him in t
he spare bedroom for the night.”

  “Might be a good idea anyways, hon,” Tom said as he approached us, plunging his hand into a bag of pretzels. “In case he’s not fixed and wants to start spraying.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be fine. I can take him to the vet tomorrow.”

  “If you say so, my little cactus flower.”

  Tom had taken to calling her that after they’d visited Las Vegas earlier in the fall. What was planned — as far as she knew — as a few days’ vacation had turned into a honeymoon as they were married, by an Elvis impersonator, no less. After they’d taken a road trip in the desert, Tom said he’d been inspired by the beauty of some cactus flowers — prickly beauty, I should add — and he’d taken to calling her that ever since, especially if he knew he had no chance of winning the argument.

  “Poppy, if you can spare some litter and kibble, I’d appreciate it,” Mom said. “You’re closer than any of the stores where we could buy some in the evening. Plus, I don’t want Tom or me to go up to the Walmart in freezing rain.”

  I have two well-provisioned cats of my own, so I could do that. “Sure. I’ll run home and grab them when we leave here. I’ll also bring you a cat carrier for your vet visit and I have a spare litter box in the basement, too. I was actually going to toss it out because I got a new one, but since this guy has a need, I’ll donate it to the cause.”

  I petted the cat a bit more. He was still snuffling around for food, but I could feel he was starting to relax somewhat. He sniffed my fingers and gave them a bored head butt before turning to gaze around at his new surroundings.

  “So, you caught that cat, huh?” Scott was back, tailed by his lavender-haired girlfriend Amber. Her eyes grew wide when she saw the creature.

  “Oh, I’m glad you got him,” she said, reaching out to stroke his fur. “We’ve been seeing him around for a couple weeks, tossing it some food, but he never came too close. How did you get him?”

  “I perched low and held my hand out to him,” Mom said.

  “And he came?” Amber asked as she fed him a piece of chicken.