The Persian Always Meows Twice

by Eileen Watkins

  A few steps into the shop, though, I saw a haze in the air and smelled smoke. Down here, the screeching of the alarm was almost unbearable. I felt sorry for the boarders, whose tender ears must be suffering even worse than mine. I psyched myself up for the job of wrestling six frightened cats into carriers and hustling them outside to safety.

  Could I even do that by myself? Just lifting Bear was a challenge under the best of circumstances, which these were not.

  By the time I reached the condos, I was coughing from the smoke. One good sign—although the boarder cats were agitated, the fire hadn’t spread to that area yet. The smoke spewed from the doorway of the grooming studio, the only room with electrical appliances. That was why I’d hung the sensor in there.

  Damn, did I leave something plugged in? Did the hair dryer short out? And what’s the weird hissing sound?

  The sprinklers! I’d actually forgotten about them.

  From the doorway, I could see that two of the ceiling units had popped open and were drenching everything beneath with a fine spray. They responded to extreme heat, and with the system Nick had installed, only those closest to the fire would activate.

  During the renovations, he’d nagged me about the need for sprinklers in any commercial space until I relented. Once again, I appreciated the amount of foresight and care Nick had put into renovating this old building for my shop.

  Still coughing, I fought my way through the white haze toward the source of the fire. It seemed to be the first-floor powder room, which Nick had equipped with shelves so it could double as a closet for my grooming supplies. When I reached it, I got a shock—the door looked exploded open. Some plastic bottles on the shelves had melted, and flames still danced around a few stacks of towels.

  I grabbed a towel that remained untouched and covered my mouth against the smoke. It had an especially nasty stink, I thought, searing my lungs and making my eyes water. Was that from the spilled soaps and lotions?

  I found my fire extinguisher on the studio wall. Fumbled with the handle and shot some foam onto the parts that were still burning.

  Only after the last sparks appeared smothered, and my pounding heart and coughing had eased a little, did I have time for questions.

  The fire started in the powder room? Had I stored anything in there that could have combusted? In my shaken state, I couldn’t remember.

  The drawn-out wail of a siren approached outside. No longer in crisis mode, I grabbed a stool and climbed onto it to silence the alarm above the door. I pictured all of the cats, upstairs and down, breathing sighs of relief. If my ears were ringing, theirs must have been painful.

  I let two firefighters in the front door and told them what I’d figured out so far about the source of the problem. A tall, thin older man went through the storage closet and hosed it down thoroughly to be sure no embers still smoldered. A stocky woman checked around the back of the building to be sure the flames had not spread out there.

  As the male firefighter checked my wall of condos, I explained about my business. “These are all cats of paying customers. I’m glad the sprinklers controlled the fire, because I couldn’t imagine how I was going to evacuate them—quickly—all by myself.”

  “You better work out a plan for the future,” he advised. “At least these guys are caged. It’s worse when pets are running loose in a house. They panic and hide under furniture, so it can be really tough to catch them.” He sounded like he spoke from sad experience.

  His partner called to us then through the rear door. “Odd thing back here, Carl . . . the windowsill is singed.”

  We joined her as she trained her flashlight on a gap below the powder room window—the same one Nick had called to my attention earlier. Although the rest of the siding was unmarked, that spot near the end of the sill was deeply scorched.

  Carl examined the opening. “No wires running through there. Nothing inside that’s resting against that spot either.”

  His partner leaned close enough to sniff the sill and drew back with a blink of repulsion. Even from a few feet away, I also could pick up a chemical stink.

  “That’s weird,” I said. “What could cause that?”

  “Something soaked in an accelerant. Pushed partway through the window, then set on fire.” The uniformed woman scratched beneath her bulky helmet. “Ms. McGlone, you got any enemies?”

  Chapter 19

  “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Detective Bonelli cracked—dryly, of course—when she arrived on the scene. The firefighters were wrapping up, and Officer Bassey was also back, interviewing Mrs. Kryznansky. From what I overheard, though, my neighbor had been asleep until the fire truck arrived, so this time she hadn’t even seen the perp running away.

  “I don’t suppose you’d have any motive to set fire to your own shop while you were in it and while it was full of your customers’ cats,” Bonelli said.

  “Not unless I was completely out of my mind.” We stood outside in the chilly parking lot, but at least the fresh air had started to soothe my burning throat and eyes. “All I can figure is that someone believes I still have the chip. Maybe they thought I’d have to evacuate all the cats, and in the confusion they’d have a chance to snatch Harpo.”

  “But if it weren’t for your sprinklers, the whole shop could have gone up.” All right, sometimes Bonelli could be a little too blunt. “The cat and his collar tags would have been destroyed.”

  “Could be that’s what the arsonist wanted,” I reasoned slowly. “Maybe they already know what’s in those files and just want to make sure nobody else finds out.”

  A second officer had been sifting through the ashes of the studio, and now called out to Bonelli. “Found something.”

  I trailed the detective as she went inside to investigate. We passed through the condo area, where I already had gathered every available floor and table fan to clear out the smoke and fumes.

  The young cop who stood in the grooming studio had a respirator pushed down around his neck. Wearing latex gloves, he held up a scrap of a brown towel. “Looks like the rest of it burned away fast,” he said, “but this part stayed stuck under the window frame.”

  “Bag it,” Bonelli told him. “We’ll get the fire marshal out here to give this place a thorough going-over.”

  “This is insane. . . .” It suddenly hit me full force, that if not for Nick’s sprinkler system, I could have lost my whole business tonight. Even if the smoke alarm had awakened me, even if I’d managed to get my three cats into carriers and move them out safely—a mighty big “if ”—all or most of the boarder cats could have died.

  Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I started to tremble.

  Who could hate me that much? Andy?

  I remembered that he’d once threatened my pets during an argument, and I thought of the childish way he’d shoved the cat tower at the expo, nearly smashing my laptop. Still . . . I found it hard to believe that he would go this far.

  Burning the shop was so extreme, I doubted it was a personal vendetta against me. The cats, and even I, would have been collateral damage.

  Someone either desperately wanted the key to that encrypted file, or wanted it destroyed.

  When we returned to my soggy grooming studio, I said to Bonelli, “You’ve got some idea what’s in those files, or what the FBI thinks might be in them. Is it that big a deal?”

  She started to give me one of her stern looks, then softened a bit. I must have been a pathetic figure in my pajamas and robe, my hair a rat’s nest. My voice hoarse and my eyes tearing from smoke and exhaustion. My customers’ terrified cats crying from the next room.

  “I can’t talk about that,” she said. “But they have the collar, and we should know soon if the key is in either of the tags.”

  “If it is, will whoever wants it finally leave me the hell alone?”

  “At that point, the investigation should narrow down to just a few people. Once they’re called back in for questioning, I doubt they’ll be bothering you any
more. They’ll have much bigger things to worry about.”

  That promise was too vague to console me. Maybe it was the smoky haze that lingered in the air or maybe it was a panic attack, but suddenly I couldn’t get my breath. I leaned back against the steel grooming table and squeezed my eyes shut. I felt beaten, and this wasn’t even my fight. I didn’t even know who the enemy was or what was at stake.

  Bonelli put a hand on my shoulder, a lavish emotional display for her. “I’d tell you to find another place to live for a while, but I guess that’s not possible, with all your responsibilities here. Do you have a friend who can stay with you? At least for the rest of tonight?”

  I thought of Dawn, who would come in a flash if I called her. “I do, but I’d hate to put her in danger too.”

  “Don’t worry about that. We’ll have a unit in front of the house all night.” The detective started toward the back of the shop, where her men were wrapping up. “Meanwhile, the fire marshal will get his own team out here and analyze what we found in your supply closet. I’ll try to put a rush on that, and maybe it’ll help us catch who did this. Okay?”

  I nodded and thanked her. Realistically, though, I didn’t think they had much to go on.

  After Bonelli and the two officers had left, I called Dawn. The sirens just a couple of blocks away had woken her, but she’d never dreamed that they were headed for my shop. She looked almost as haggard as me when she showed up at my door. Of course, she’d had even more of the Riesling at dinner, though she usually handled it better.

  It was almost four by now and hardly worth either of us trying to sleep. Only the cats were delighted, because they could badger me into giving them an early breakfast. I didn’t mind, because I was so grateful they hadn’t been harmed.

  Dawn brewed some chamomile tea to steady our nerves. Meanwhile, she asked me, “Are you sure this fire wasn’t some revenge tactic on Andy’s part?”

  “I really don’t think he’s that much of a psychopath,” I told her as I scooped dry kibble into three dishes. “I mean, he left me alone for a pretty long while before Mom naïvely put me back on his radar. He’s a hothead, but I can’t see him as a cold-blooded killer. Whoever did this had no way of knowing I wouldn’t die in the fire.”

  “Wouldn’t anyone who’d been in your shop know you had the sprinklers?”

  “Not necessarily. They’re very subtle, just a couple of white discs on the ceiling in every room.” I brought out what was left of Sarah’s brownies, to go with the tea, meanwhile thinking through the mechanics of the crime. “Someone pushed a towel through a gap beneath that bathroom window and set fire to it. It’s a dark space—they might not have even have realized it was just a supply closet. Or they might have figured in a spot like that, I wouldn’t notice the fire until it was too late.”

  Dawn poured the tea into mugs and we sat at my little table. “I walked you back here around ten. I heard the sirens about one. The fire must have been set close to midnight.”

  “It’s funny the arsonist didn’t do it earlier, while we were at the restaurant. But I never moved my car, and I left a light on upstairs, so they might have thought I was home and awake. At least it doesn’t seem like they were spying on my every move.” I sipped the tea slowly. “Maybe they thought I’d be dragging all the cats out to safety, by myself. Maybe this person was even lurking nearby, hoping to grab Harpo. When the firemen came, and I didn’t need to move the cats, he or she might have realized the plan was a bust and took off.”

  “Could be.” Dawn bit into a brownie, and her eyebrows gave it a five-star review. “Sarah baked these? She deserves a raise!”

  “She really does, with everything she’s had to put up with. And we’ll probably have to groom every cat again now. Their coats must have absorbed the smoke.”

  My friend fell quiet for a beat. “Cassie, have you considered that someone could have been hired to do this?”

  “Oh, I have. Especially since two of my prime suspects are women who probably wouldn’t dirty their own beautifully manicured hands. Thank God I didn’t turn George’s poor cat over to either of them!” My eyes scratchy with fatigue, I turned my gaze out the kitchen window. The sky past Mrs. Kryznansky’s upper porch was starting to lighten to a satiny rose. I pictured the mess left in the grooming studio, thought of the supplies I’d have to reorder. “I guess I’m going to have to close.”

  Dawn’s spoon rattled against her mug. “What? No, Cassie, you can’t—”

  When I realized she’d misunderstood, I faced around with a half smile. “For today, I mean. Unless—Oh damn, Bear’s owner is picking him up at two! I’ll either have to groom him again this morning or call her and explain what happened.” I felt my throat shutting down again. “Dawn, am I going to lose all my customers over this? Will they decide their cats aren’t safe here? I might, if I were them.”

  “They’ll understand. Why don’t you tell them the firemen figured out what happened and you’re making sure it doesn’t happen again? It’s an old building, after all. . . .”

  “But the papers might report that it’s being investigated as arson. Would you want to board your pet with someone who’s under that kind of threat? If we can’t find out who did this, maybe I will have to close.”

  Dawn clenched her delicate fists on the tabletop. “When they find out who did this to you, I hope I get a chance to work him over!”

  I laughed. “Thanks, but Angela Bonelli will probably get the first shot, and I’m sure she’s had more practice than you at pummeling bad guys.” Despite my best intentions, my eyelids were closing. “Primo chamomile, Dawn. I think I might actually be able to catch a few winks now.”

  “Why don’t you, while I’m here to keep an eye on things?”

  I shuffled toward the bedroom. “My clock’s already set, but just in case, don’t let me sleep past eight. I have to pull myself together before Sarah comes.”

  “And before I can open, I’ll have to bring poor neutered Tigger home from the vet’s.” She smiled sadly. “Even he probably had a better night than you did.”

  * * *

  Naturally, my assistant was horrified when she heard what had transpired overnight and saw the ruined utility closet. “They’re sure it was arson? Some of those cleaning supplies didn’t just spill and . . . interact, or something?”

  “Afraid not. I don’t stock anything that flammable—nasty chemicals are bad for the kitties.” I told her about the firefighters’ theory that a towel had been jammed into a gap in the window.

  Sarah looked thoughtful. “Didn’t your handyman just point out that opening earlier yesterday?”

  “Yes. But of course I don’t suspect Nick! If he were going to set a fire that way, he sure wouldn’t call my attention to it. Besides, he was the one who hinted that the chip might be in Harpo’s collar, and by the time he left, he already knew I was giving it to the police.”

  She nodded. “So he, of all people, would have known there was nothing to gain by torching your shop.”

  “Exactly.”

  In the morning I found a few things in the studio moved or removed, but Bonelli had warned me that the fire marshal might take samples from my storeroom and the nearby area. Luckily, he’d still left me enough supplies to function for a while.

  Sarah and l fed the clamoring boarders. As I had feared, all of them had absorbed the smoky smell into their fur. They’d have to be washed, and with a cat that always presented a special challenge. At least I had only three longhairs on board right now: Bear, Harpo, and . . .

  Oh yeah, Stormy. Well, at least he wasn’t that much of a longhair anymore.

  By ten, all the cats had eaten and Sarah and I had cleaned out all their pans, so we started grooming. Bear, the only cat with an imminent departure time, got the first bath. We put him in the raised tub, cushioned with a soft bath mat. Sarah held him by the scruff while I wet him down with a sprayer held close to his body. The big cat complained a little when I tried to hurry through the process, so I was
forced to slow down to keep him calm. I massaged a cat-safe soap into his abundant fur, which morphed into wavy, marbleized patterns as I rinsed him off. My phone rang twice during this whole time, but I had my hands more than full. Sarah raised Bear gently to stand on his hind feet so I could get all the soap off his belly and his britches, as groomers call the hind legs.

  Finally I wrapped him in a towel to squeeze out most of the water, gave him a comb-through, and repeated the process with a second towel. We have a hair dryer, but since the sprinklers had drenched most of the studio, I thought I should wait a bit longer before trying to use it. If Bear was still damp by the time his owner came to pick him up, I’d just have to apologize and explain.

  I thanked Sarah for her help, and while she took a rest, I checked my phone for messages. I found two. The first, from Bonelli, was typically efficient and to the point.

  “They analyzed the substance on the towel fragment,” she said. “The accelerant was acetone, a common solvent. It’s used in paint thinner and nail polish remover, among other things. Unfortunately, those are so common and easy to come by that it doesn’t narrow the field very much. As for the cat’s collar, it’s been turned over to the FBI. I assume they’ll scan it, and I should have the results on that later this afternoon. Here’s hoping!”

  Paint thinner or nail polish. I considered. Of course, Nick would have plenty of the first lying around, but it wasn’t likely he’d set fire to the back of my shop right after having gone to the trouble of repairing my banister. Unless he was a split personality—handyman by day, arsonist by night! Nail polish remover suggested a woman, if only because a man might draw more attention if he purchased a jumbo container of the stuff. Also, a woman might be more likely to have read the label on the product, as even I had, warning that it was highly flammable.

  The second call had come from an unfamiliar number. The way things had been going, I didn’t dare ignore it. I just hoped it wasn’t my arsonist, threatening worse to come.

  When I heard Marjorie DeLeuw’s voice, I thought it just might be. “Ms. McGlone, you should be aware that by insisting on keeping that cat, and by your association with Dion Janos, you’re putting yourself in grave danger. We need to talk, someplace private. I’ll come to your shop at one o’clock. Don’t tell any of the others—they can’t be trusted.”