The Extortion Cat-astrophe: A Beatrice Young Cozy Cat Mystery (Beatrice Young Cozy Cat Mysteries Book 2)

by Alannah Rogers

  “Nathan, we’re coming over,” Matthew said into his cell as they got into the car. “Why? Because you freaked Bee out today. And frankly I’m worried now too. Let’s not make this difficult. You provide the Peak Frean cookies, Bee will bring the cat hair. Oh right, you don’t like cats. Okay, okay, fine. I get it. We’ll see you in ten.”

  Beatrice was trying to stuff Lucky in his cat carrier but he was maintaining a death grip on the wire door and wouldn’t let go. Hamish watched the proceedings from the back seat with what can only be described as the most condescending look a cat could muster. Lucky finally relented with an agonizing yelp and Beatrice slammed the door shut and locked it.

  “I swear, if I ever get another cat—which I’m not, by the way—but if I do, he or she has to be car ready,” Beatrice complained as she got in the front with Matthew.

  A smile curved over his lips as he turned on the car and drove slowly out of the parking space. “Bee, I’m surprised you don’t have ten cats by now.”

  She frowned at him. “I’m not going to dignify that with a response. What did Nate say?”

  “He wants us to park in the alley behind his house and come in the back door.”

  Beatrice rolled her eyes and actively ignored Matthew for the rest of the trip. She didn’t like when he, or anyone else, insinuated that she was a crazy cat lady. That was just an easy way to dismiss her. She knew that Matthew took her seriously but sometimes, well, he bugged her. Then again, she bugged him too—that she knew for certain. It was miracle that after a divorce and many years of friendship they were still close.

  Matthew parked his truck in a little alley behind a row of prim and proper brick Victorian houses. It was a nice street and Nate had a detached three-floor house all to himself with a leafy back yard. Obviously, selling insurance was profitable.

  Nate met them at the back door, looking as sweaty and miserable as he did earlier. “Come in quickly,” he hissed. He eyed the cats sitting pertly on the doorstep with something approaching terror. “Uh, them too?”

  “I can’t leave them in the truck,” Beatrice said. “Listen, we’ll just put them in the kitchen and shut the door. As long as you don’t have any unsealed food or cabinets with loose doors we’ll be fine.”

  And so Lucky and Hamish were left to prowl happily around the kitchen while Nathan took his friends down to the basement rec room. It was a real bachelor’s pad complete with flat screen TV, overstuffed brown corduroy couches, shag carpet, and what looked to be a model of a battlefield set up in one corner.

  On the heavy coffee table was a box of unopened Peak Frean cookies. Beatrice reflexively grabbed it and tore the cellophane open. She was stuffed but she could never resist the biscuits with the red jam in the center. Matthew sat on the couch next to her and grabbed his favorite: the long chocolate-filled cookies.

  Nathan settled into a reclining chair and rubbed his hands together nervously. “What I tell you doesn’t leave this room,” he said. “Matt, do you remember about ten years ago when I was caught in a snowstorm outside of town? I was coming back from a trip to Plymouth in January and my car battery conked out a few miles from Ashbrook. It was a near white out and cold as anything. I had no heat, my cell battery was dead, and no one was on the road.”

  Matthew was nodding. “Yeah I remember that. Didn’t some random guy save you?”

  “Yep. Tony Parsons came along out of the blue and drove me back to my place. I didn’t really know him at the time. He lived in the next town, was kind of a sketchy guy. Pot dealer. Scrawny fellow. But there he came, out of that snowstorm, and saved my life.”

  Nathan took a deep breath. “This was after my wife left me, after the kids had moved out. I didn’t have a lot of people to call, even if my phone was working. So I felt really grateful towards this guy. A down-and-out guy with a heart of gold, or at least that’s how I saw it. Looking back, I was a real target.”

  Matthew and Beatrice exchanged glances. “But this guy didn’t just accept your thanks and disappear, did he?” Beatrice asked. “That’s what you were trying to tell me earlier today?”

  Nathan nodded. “That’s right. A couple of days later I asked him if I could do anything for him, anything at all. He said he was behind on his rent so I offered to give him the cash. I was happy to do it.”

  He sighed. “Over the next while he kept making small asks—money for his phone bill or rent or something for his kid. I didn’t mind. I figured I was helping a guy who really needed it. After all, I had more money than I could spend. Why shouldn’t I do something for the man who saved my life?”

  Matthew leaned back in the sofa and folded his hands. His eyebrows knit together, a sure sign he was distressed. “How long did this go on?”

  “Well, a few years.” Nathan ran a hand through his thinning gray hair. “Until the asks got higher and higher. Eventually he was asking for more than I could give. I tried to cut him off. That’s when he turned. Called me on the phone screaming abuse, keyed my car, even sent someone to smash my windows in the middle of the night.”

  “And you didn’t call the cops?” Beatrice asked.

  Nathan shook his head sadly. “No. I … felt like such a fool. That I hadn’t caught on all those years to how he was using me. That I kept giving him cash for no good reason.”

  He shrugged. “I just decided that I didn’t want to involve anyone else in my problems. I had gotten myself into this mess and I was going to handle it on my own. So I gave him the money he wanted. And he went away for a while. But of course he came back again and again…”

  Nathan buried his head in his hands and exhaled deeply.

  “Nate, you never even thought to tell me about it?” Matthew asked. “All those times we went out for beers—you never said anything. I could have helped you.”

  “I just … I didn’t want to create problems for anyone else. I thought it was all my fault.”

  “Listen Nate, I’m glad at least that you told us now,” Beatrice cut in, leaning forward. “We need to find this Tony Parsons and stop this now.”

  Nathan chuckled darkly. “Well, I wish it was that easy, Bee. But, you see, Tony Parsons is in jail. He’s not my problem, it’s whoever’s taken over for him that I’m worried about.”

  5

  Beatrice and Matthew were at a lost for words. For a few moments, the only sound in the room came from an ancient clock, ticking on the wall, and the faint hum of electronics.

  “Wait, wait,” Matthew broke in. “Did you send him to jail?”

  “No, I wish. About a year ago he stopped asking for money. I thought maybe he’d moved on. Then I read in the paper that he was arrested for holding up an electronic store and locked up.”

  Nate took a deep breath. “Not long after, I started getting the emails and letters. Someone else was demanding cash. They wouldn’t reveal their name, talk on the phone, or meet in person. I tried to shake them off but then one night a guy in a mask stopped me in the driveway and held me at gunpoint, told me if I didn’t pay up he was going to make my life hell.”

  Matthew rubbed his temples. “Man Nate, I wish I’d known about this earlier.”

  Nathan shrugged helplessly. “I know. I wanted to tell you and go to the cops so many times. But then I thought, what kind of fool allows himself to be extorted for ten years? And if anyone else knew, maybe the guy would attack me. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “What’s important is that you told us now,” Beatrice said, trying for a reassuring smile. “We will get to the bottom of this, Nate. Do you have any idea who this person could be?”

  Nathan tapped his fingertips together. “I imagine it must be someone close to Tony. Someone who knew what he was up to and decided to take advantage of his absence. He has parents, siblings, cousins, friends, and acquaintances he knows through dealing. It could be any one of them.”

  Beatrice nodded. “Well, that’s a start. I’ll need you to give me all your correspondence. I’ll go to Tony’s town and do a lit
tle digging about who he was close to. See what I can find out. And we have to meet with Sheriff Roy…”

  “No!” Nathan said, leaping out of his chair. His bloodshot eyes bulged out of his head. “I can’t involve the cops. When you see the letters you’ll understand. All the things he threatened to do to me and anyone else if I went to the cops. This person is dangerous, Bee.”

  Beatrice took a deep breath. She and the sheriff were already on unsteady ground. He tolerated her sleuthing and, after closing the local counterfeiting case, even seemed to have a grudging respect for her. She didn’t want to lose that by shutting him out of a matter that was rightfully his to solve.

  Still, it was Nathan’s life and she had to respect his wishes. She looked over at Matthew and tried to read his expression. He looked worried; she reached for his hand.

  “We will have to involve the sheriff at some point,” she said softly. “If these people are really that dangerous, I don’t see Matt and I bagging him and taking him to jail ourselves.”

  “Didn’t you just hold somebody at gunpoint?” Nate asked hopefully, his eyes meeting hers. “In the parking lot by the trail…”

  Were these the kind of rumors circulating in Ashbrook—that she was holding people up at gunpoint? Beatrice decided she would have to worry about that later.

  “Uh, no. Hamish pushed a gun out of someone’s reach and I grabbed it.”

  Just then the basement door creaked open dramatically and there was a series of thumps as someone came down the carpeted stairs. Nathan leapt up and made for the baseball bat resting by the TV.

  “Murrr-OW?” said Hamish, sitting at the foot of the stairs, looking quite pleased with himself. Lucky was beside him.

  Nathan froze, bat in hand. “How did they open the kitchen door? And then the basement door…”

  “These two are as clever as raccoons,” said Beatrice proudly. You’d think they had opposable thumbs. I think that’s our cue to leave.”

  She scooped up the giant Maine Coon. He was pure muscle with an enormous fluffy coat that made him look even bigger than he really was. He struggled in her arms, growling furiously, his eyes locked on Lucky who was sniffing around the room. Nathan stepped away from them both and Matthew went to scoop up the black cat, who nimbly darted out of his grasp.

  Lucky dove into a corner and then came out holding a bright orange plastic ring. He looked pleased as punch as he did so. With a frustrated yowl, Hamish managed to disentangle himself from Beatrice’s grasp and dashed over. He tried to tear away the ring but Lucky held on, his green eyes furious.

  “What’s that?” Bee asked immediately.

  Nathan sat back down heavily in his easy chair. “One of the stackable rings from a toy that belonged to Tony’s toddler. He brought her here once during our better days. Told me he needed money to pay for her check-ups and such. I kept the toy because it used to remind me why I was forking over all that cash.”

  Beatrice took a long hard look at the little black cat, his whiskers twitching as he clung to his prize. “What are you trying to tell us, Lucks?” she muttered.

  6

  The sun had barely risen over the hills in the east before Beatrice got out of bed and fetched her laptop. She had slept poorly and was itching to start researching Nathan’s case. Matthew had crashed, as usual, in the spare bedroom of her converted barn house. Still, she didn’t expect him up for some time. As it was Sunday, this was the start of his weekend and he usually liked to sleep in.

  She first went into the kitchen to feed Hamish and Lucky, who had risen from their cat beds as soon as she had rolled out of her bed. Then, to the sound of contented crunching noises, she nestled onto the sofa and turned on the table lamp. iPad in hand, she did a quick Google search under the cozy glow of light. “Tony Parsons” brought up many, many records but few details about his recent arrest.

  Grabbing her notebook, she wrote down what she could find. Parsons had previous misdemeanors for breaking and entering, possession of an illegal substance, assault, and minor theft. He had lived his entire life in the nearby town of Waitsfield, working occasionally in an auto repair shop. And he had a daughter, now twelve, who lived with her mother in another part of town.

  Beatrice froze at this. The daughter. She must have been the toddler who visited Nathan’s house with Tony. The plastic ring Lucky found was hers. But how could the daughter have any connection to the new extortionist?

  Lucky jumped up on the couch and settled over her feet, purring lovingly. Beatrice stared down at him as if that would help her unlock the clue he had shown her.

  She was distracted, though, by an insistent meowing below her. Usually Hamish liked to sit on her feet and from his expression she could tell he was not happy to be replaced.

  “Jealousy doesn’t suit you,” she told him. He merely sneezed and stalked off in disdain.

  Tapping her pen on her notebook, Beatrice tried to unravel the mystery for herself. Perhaps there was another child in Tony’s life? One neither she nor the papers knew about?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the shuffle of slippers on the stairs. Matthew came down, still in his monogrammed plaid pajamas, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

  “Bee, I could practically hear you thinking down here,” he said, plopping onto the couch next to her. Hamish immediately sprang up and sat on his lap while looking daggers at Lucky.

  “I was just doing some research.”

  “I know you want to help. I love that you want to help. But isn’t the sheriff’s office better suited to handle something like this?”

  “Nate’s a reasonable guy,” she said, putting her notebook aside. “If he thinks there’s reason to avoid the cops, don’t you think we should listen to him?”

  “Bee, the guy has been sitting on this extortion for ten years. I love him dearly and he’s a great friend but I’m not sure he knows what’s good for him anymore.”

  Beatrice mulled this over and then cocked an eyebrow in her friend’s direction. “I don’t know. I think I could think this over more clearly if I had some coffee in my system. And maybe breakfast too.”

  “You want me to make you breakfast on my day off?”

  She shrugged innocently. “C’mon. I know you stay over for my fully stocked fridge. Don’t be coy.”

  He broke out in one of his characteristic sunny smiles. “You got me there. Alright, coffee and pancakes coming right up.”

  They shoveled down pancakes with wild blueberries and birch syrup at Beatrice’s kitchen breakfast nook. Light streamed through the tall windows that looked over the forest. It promised to be a beautiful fall day. A sugar maple right outside the window had burst into flame and its showy leaves swayed in the breeze.

  “Nice day for a drive,” Beatrice commented.

  Matthew shot her a sharp look. “A drive where?”

  “Waitsfield?”

  He put down his fork. “What are we going to do Bee? Go around asking questions about Tony Parsons? Sounds like the easiest way to get shot.”

  “What do you think I am, an amateur? We need an excuse to go there. Something that will make us look legit. Oh wait!” She went running outside and retrieved the local paper. Sitting back at the barstool, she eagerly scanned its pages. “I was right! Waitsfield has their annual fall carnival today. We’ll just be a couple of regular tourists.”

  “Everyone knows the Ashbrook Fall Fair is way better,” Matthew said, grinning.

  “No need to be a snob. Today we put aside our allegiances in the name of Nathan.”

  “Hear, hear.”

  Beatrice’s smartphone buzzed. A text popped up from Zoe: Hunter asked me if it was okay if he could crash at my place for a while. He wants to move all his stuff in. What do you think?

  She sighed and put the phone back down. “Looks like we’re taking Zoe too.”

  7

  “Everyone knows the Waitsfield Fall Carnival is nowhere near as good as Ashbrook’s Fall Fair,” Zoe complained from the backseat of he car.
/>   “That’s what I said,” Matthew chimed in.

  “We’re not going for the carnival. We’re going for a very specific reason that you’re not allowed to know about,” Beatrice replied.

  “See, that’s just weird,” Zoe said. “And anyway, I really should be hanging out with Hunter…”

  “No way,” Beatrice and Matthew said in unison.

  “Listen, no one without a steady job should invite themselves to live in your apartment,” Beatrice continued firmly. “And I really should be spending the day testing recipes for the Fall Fair.” Her hands clenched on the wheel. “Abigail can’t win three times in a row. I can’t let it happen.”

  “I don’t know if you’re more upset about Nate or this baking competition,” Matthew said.

  “Who’s Nate?” Zoe asked.

  “No one!” the two others said.

  “I have my priorities straight,” Beatrice hissed. “Which is exactly why I’m hijacking your day off so that we can stalk a bunch of people we don’t know at a really bad carnival.”

  Matthew snorted. “Well okay, now that we’re all on the same page.”

  “Mrrrrow!” cried Lucky mournfully from his carrier. Hamish sat alongside, still looking put out by Lucky’s discovery of the toddler toy ring.

  Beatrice tried to pretend, as she drove along, that they were going on a road trip and not on a trip to get in danger. The lonely road out to Waitsfield wound through the mountains full of blue spruce and alders. Deer sprinted across the road and they spotted a great bald eagle sitting on a huge oak tree by Stowe Lake.

  She turned on her favorite Golden Oldies radio station and hummed along. Zoe hid behind her smartphone. With her slouchy knit cap and pout she looked more like a teenager than a 23-year-old. Beatrice ignored her. She was determined to enjoy her day off, knowing that the café was in the excellent hands of her support staff.

  After about half an hour of driving, they pulled into the grounds of the Waitsfield elementary school. White tents were set up on the soccer field and the parking lot was full of cars. Beatrice immediately felt her spirit lift as she got out of the car. The air was crisp, the foliage colorful, and the scent of spiced cider and boiled corn permeated the air.