Claw & Disorder

by Eileen Watkins

  Oh, well, at least I had my speech. “As you requested, Ms. Foster, I’m returning Leya to you . . . ”

  Toting Leya in her carrier, I climbed the three steps to the front porch and rang the pewter doorbell, a colonial pineapple design. I heard it chime inside, but no one answered; rang it a second time with the same result. A twist of the knob confirmed the door was locked.

  Great. Does Gillian want her cat, or doesn’t she? I hope Donald told her I was coming at ten!

  I wondered if she could be in another part of the house, or even the yard, where she couldn’t hear the bell. Leaving the cat on the porch, I stole around the back to have a look. The garden was still weedy, and a shed probably intended for a lawnmower and other large tools needed shoring up and repainting.

  I smelled the smoke before I saw it—seeping out around the low, bulkhead doors that probably led to the cellar. I grabbed a big ring attached to one door and yanked, but it didn’t budge. There was a keyhole next to the ring—did the Fosters keep the outer doors locked?

  No more time to waste. Retreating a few yards, I dialed 911. I gave the address and added, “It’s the Ramsford-Cooper house. I think there’s a fire in the basement.”

  While I waited for the trucks, I brought Leya back to my car. Then I rang the front doorbell again, even banged with my fists, and yelled for Gillian. I checked the rear, kitchen door and found that also locked.

  By now I feared that, if Gillian was home, she might have more urgent things to deal with. If she still was capable of dealing with anything. Could she, or somebody else, be trapped in the cellar?

  I stewed over this question for a minute, then decided to take action. The back shed was open, and inside I found an old, rusted shovel. I used the blade to whack the lockset on the bulkhead doors a couple of times. Finally, the old wood around the ring began to splinter, and with a good yank I was able to open one side.

  The thick, noxious cloud that billowed out made me stagger back, and I realized I couldn’t safely venture down the steps. I already heard sirens approaching, so I jogged back out front to meet the firefighters. As soon as their hook and ladder pulled up, they glimpsed for themselves the dark haze spreading across the back yard, and began to unreel the massive hose.

  “Two people were supposed to be home,” I told the captain, “and Gillian Foster’s car is here. But the doors are locked and no one answers the bell.”

  Once the pros were on the job, I gave Sarah a quick call and told her what was happening.

  “This business with the Fosters gets crazier by the day, doesn’t it?” she marveled over the line.

  “I know. Makes me wonder what more could happen.”

  I found out about fifteen minutes later, after the firefighters who had been hosing down the cellar finally put out the blaze.

  The captain called me into the back yard. “You broke through these doors with the shovel?”

  “Yes, but when I saw how thick the smoke was I didn’t even try to go down. I was worried that, if someone was trapped in there, every minute might count.”

  He looked grim. “You were right about that, but I don’t think even you could have gotten to the lady in time.”

  An icy sensation trickled down my back. “Lady?”

  His radio came to life then, and he relayed to his chief, “Found a deceased Caucasian female inside, forty to fifty years old. Possibly the homeowner.”

  * * *

  “They were able to ID Gillian with no problem,” I told Mark on Tuesday evening. “Apparently she crawled some distance away from the fire, but she still died from smoke inhalation.”

  He and I were having dinner at Slice of Heaven, the town’s best pizza parlor. It was a date we had made before my Monday had gone so terribly wrong. Mark insisted we go through with our plans, because he thought I needed a break from all the death and disaster. I had to agree with him.

  We had ordered a mushroom-fontina pizza that came topped with a fried egg, parsley and thyme (what, no rosemary?). While we waited for it, I noticed that the popularity of the cool, modern restaurant, with its industrial pendant lights, concrete floor and tomato-red tables, worked in our favor. It was crowded for a weeknight, and all the other couples and groups chattered happily among themselves. This ambient noise let me and Mark talk about serious matters without having to worry about eavesdroppers.

  Tonight, however, I could have done without the symbolism of the large, central brick oven, bright flames leaping within its arched doorway.

  “Could they figure out how the fire started?” Mark asked me.

  “Not right away. An investigator came out, and because of the death they brought Bonelli in on the case, too. Last theory I heard was some problem with the cellar wiring. Of course, Donald and Nick had been working together on that.”

  Mark took a thoughtful swallow of his Chablis before reminding me, “And Gillian accused Donald of trying to kill her.”

  I hadn’t forgotten about that. Admittedly, it didn’t look good that her end came just a week after she accused him of neglecting—or maybe worsening—the faulty brakes on her car.

  “Bonelli contacted Donald right away, of course,” I told Mark. “He’d been at work, at his ad agency, since nine a.m. She said he sounded genuinely upset, but she’s told me before that she doesn’t take people’s reactions at face value.”

  “Do you think he could have rigged beforehand something to catch fire, then locked Gillian in the cellar and headed off to work, so he’d have an alibi?” Mark shook his head. “That would take a pretty cold character.”

  “It would, and I really don’t think Donald Foster is capable of that. I only know him superficially, of course, but his daughter thinks the world of him. And if he was faking concern for their cat’s welfare, when he brought her to my shop, he deserves an Oscar for his acting.”

  “He might’ve liked Leya better than Gillian.” A wry smile curved Mark’s lips. “Meanwhile, you’ve still got the cat?”

  I sipped my own wine before replying. “Until the dust settles. Her board’s paid through the rest of the month. The cellar of the Foster house is being treated as a crime scene, and the fire not only damaged much of that area, but some of the structure underneath the first floor, too. It’s got to be stabilized.”

  “I guess no one else was around yesterday? Not the daughter or the maid?”

  “No, even though Donald thought they would be. Whitney was at the stable riding her horse, which is typical for her, and she has witnesses. But Herta said Gillian gave her the day off. According to Bonelli, it was short notice and unexpected. Herta said Gillian called her early that morning, unusually cheerful, and told her there wasn’t much to do and she might as well enjoy the nice weather. Now that sounds out of character!”

  “Hmm.” Mark pondered this. “If Donald had given her the day off, it would be suspicious. But I wonder why Gillian would.”

  I stabbed a finger at him. “You see? You ask me why I keep getting sucked into these cases, but it’s hard to resist, isn’t it?”

  “I have nothing against the theoretical sleuthing,” he said. “I just wish you’d stay out of the line of fire. That’s what the actual cops are paid for.”

  “Can’t argue with you there.” At least, not unless I wanted to ruin a nice evening.

  When our pizza arrived, we polished it off quickly so we could make the seven thirty movie at the Paragon. Chadwick’s 1939 downtown theater had been lovingly restored, a few years back, by a local history buff. By day, its brown brick exterior with limestone, art deco trim lent some character to the otherwise mundane block of storefronts. In the evening, the vertical sign announcing its name in gold-and-green neon added a touch of Old Hollywood glamour.

  To stay in business, the owner had to screen at least some first-run films, but Mark and I went there primarily for the oldies. Whether a movie dated from the 1930s or the 1980s, it was still new if it was new to us. We’d both even taken “memberships” in the Paragon to help support it.


  Now that summer officially had arrived, the theater favored flicks appropriate to the season. As soon as Jaws had gone up on the marquee, Mark and I had bought our tickets.

  We settled into the welcome air-conditioning, shared a box of Good & Plenty candies, and thoroughly enjoyed the 1975 thriller. Of course, we’d each seen brief clips from it over the years, but never watched it start to finish. When an occasional shock made me jump in my seat, Mark would chuckle and slip a protective arm around me. Near the end, though, when the giant shark lurched onto the small boat and almost nailed Roy Scheider, it was Mark who flinched. With a smile, I patted his hand and whispered, “There, there . . . It’s only a movie!”

  Later, on our way out, we ran into one of the regular ushers—a skinny blond guy named Dave, who was a communications major at the County College of Morris and a serious film buff. He usually shared some trivia about the night’s movie, and for Jaws he told us the book actually was inspired by a great white shark that killed four people at the Jersey shore in 1916; author Peter Benchley has a cameo as a TV reporter on the beach; the mechanical shark was so much trouble to use that it appears very seldom; and Scheider’s famous line, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” was actually improvised during shooting.

  “Well, that shark might have been fake, but it scared the heck out of us,” Mark told him happily. “And we both work with animals for a living.”

  “Guess you won’t be taking any veterinary jobs at the Camden aquarium?” I needled him.

  “Hard pass on that.”

  Dave grinned. “Scary movies always bring people in, though. We’re already brainstorming on our lineup for Halloween. The boss likes to keep things pretty PG-13, so there won’t be anything too violent or gory—mostly old classics. But I’m trying to talk him into a werewolf marathon.”

  I laughed and elbowed Mark. “That’s more in your wheelhouse, right?”

  He nodded confidently. “You bet. I patched up one of those just last week.”

  It was nearly ten, and both Mark and I had to be at work early the next morning, so we got into his RAV4 for him to drop me back to my shop. On the way my phone summoned me yet again. If the screen had shown Dawn’s name or my mother’s, I would have postponed answering it, since they’d probably just be calling to chat. But the last time Nick Janos called me, it was to report that big blowup at the Foster house.

  Gillian was gone, though. What could be wrong now?

  Chapter 21

  I explained to Mark and apologized, but he waved for me to take the call.

  “I keep interrupting you, Cassie, during your time off,” Nick acknowledged.

  “That’s okay,” I told him. “I guess you heard what happened to Gillian Foster.”

  “Heard about it! I was down at the police station yesterday, being grilled about it. I guess ’cause I’ve been working in the cellar with her husband.”

  “Oh, no! The cops can’t think you had anything to do with the fire.”

  “Well, Madam Detective did ask me how I got along with Gillian, and about the argument the Fosters had a week ago. She might have been fishing around as to whether I crossed some wires to get back at them for some reason, or if maybe Donald asked me to do something to scare his wife.”

  As usual, Bonelli was leaving no stone unturned. “I’m sure you didn’t do either of those things.”

  “I didn’t, and I finally managed to convince her. But after that, she picked my brain for more technical details. Asked me to expand on some stuff from the fire investigator’s report.”

  Mark had begun eyeing me in concern, so I reassured him that Nick wasn’t under arrest.

  “Good to know!” he half joked, because my handyman had suffered through one wrong accusation in the past. Mark turned his attention back to the road and let me continue my conversation.

  Nick continued. “I guess you never got into the cellar yesterday, did you?”

  “No, and once the firemen started to investigate they shooed me off the property,” I said. “Bonelli did tell me later, though, that Gillian didn’t actually burn to death.”

  “Sounds like she almost made it up the stairs to the inside door, before the smoke got to her. But they found a wire-cutting tool and a pair of work gloves near the wall that caught fire. Whoever was messing with the wiring, I guess it’s hard to tell what they were up to, because that wall is pretty charred.”

  I knew enough about the electrical system in a typical house to ask him, “If something was wired wrong, that might have given her a nasty shock, but wouldn’t it take more to cause a serious fire?”

  “Hey, Cassie, you’re good. That’s pretty much what the detective asked me, too. Whoever did this, maybe they didn’t figure on the gaslight piping.”

  “The cellar has gaslights?”

  “Used to at some time, probably in the late eighteen hundreds. The fixtures are long gone, but Don and I found the pipes behind the walls. That’s one reason he stopped work on the project—we needed to figure out the safest way to deal with that stuff.”

  “But if the lights weren’t being used anymore, wouldn’t the gas to the pipes be shut off?” I asked.

  “Technically, yeah, but some usually stays in those narrow pipes and leaks into the air behind the walls. It’s not really dangerous to breathe, and it can be so subtle that you don’t even smell it, but you can’t take a chance of igniting it. Plus, their cellar has old knob-and-tube wiring, which is brittle. So, if you mess with that stuff and set off a spark . . . whoosh!”

  “Someone must have done just that,” I guessed. “Someone who didn’t know about the gas in the walls.”

  “Or else, somebody who did.” Nick’s voice went low, serious. “I like Don, so I didn’t want to say anything to, y’know, implicate him. But I could see he was getting pretty fed up with Gillian’s nonsense—abuse, really. The night I walked out, when she was accusing him of having an affair, she told him, ‘You’ll leave me for that tramp over my dead body!’ Whether he was playing around or not, maybe he decided a little accident in the cellar would solve all his problems.”

  * * *

  Wednesday morning at work, I spent some time in our playroom with one of our boarders, Latte. Her owner traveled a lot, and while Sarah and I were always happy to host the lovely Abyssinian, she did crave plenty of exercise. Trailing around a feather toy on a wand for her to chase, I technically put in some work time while I gave Bonelli a call. I wanted to get her latest take on the Foster family tragedy.

  “The fire investigator drew pretty much the same conclusion as Janos,” the detective told me. “He also thought the piping behind the walls looked like the source of the fire. One of those old, cloth-covered wires was sticking out at an angle, and he said the end appeared frayed. The gloves and wire cutter could have either been left there earlier, by Donald or by someone else tampering with the scene that morning. There’s no real way to tell. Those things were partially burned, so I don’t know how much good they’ll be for fingerprints.”

  I remembered something. “Y’know, when the Fosters hosted the reception, they took all of their guests on a quick tour of the house. So, all of those board members knew the basic layout of the cellar and heard about the old wiring.”

  “But Donald probably didn’t mention the gas pipes, right? Supposedly he and Nick didn’t find out about them until they opened up the walls. Linda Freeman might have known about them, because Donald talked to her about redesigning the cellar. I doubt she ever got a chance to really study them, though, because Gillian didn’t want her back in the house.”

  Donald could have allowed her to sneak back in, I thought. And Linda might have had good reason to want Gillian dead. Heck, even Linda’s assistant, Robert, might have been willing to do the deed, because Gillian had treated him so rudely.

  Somewhat reluctantly, I mentioned all of this to the detective.

  “Linda said both she and Robert were working in their office all Monday morning and can alibi each ot
her,” Bonelli told me.

  While luring the Abyssinian up the wall shelves with the feather toy, I explored this idea further. “Professional interior designers have to know the basics about electrical wiring and plumbing, don’t they, so they can rework the spaces in a house? Still, it’s hard to imagine that Linda would deliberately come by on a day when Gillian was home, somehow hatch a plot to set the basement on fire, and trap her there.”

  “Yeah, and this doesn’t exactly look like an impulse crime—it would have been pretty risky. If the killer went into the basement with Gillian, always a chance he or she would get caught by the fire, too.”

  “I had to break through the outside cellar doors with a shovel,” I remembered. “So they must have been locked from the inside, right?”

  I heard a beat of silence, as if Bonelli checked something. “Yes, that’s noted in the investigator’s report. The interior door leading up to the hallway was closed, but didn’t even have a lock. Which may be why Gillian tried to escape that way.”

  Finally tired, Latte stretched out elegantly on one of the wall shelves. I let her rest and settled myself on the low, carpet-covered cube. “I guess the whole thing could just have been a complete accident,” I said into the phone. “She smelled smoke coming from the cellar, went to check, and somehow got trapped down there.”

  “Possible,” Bonelli admitted. “What concerns me is Gillian giving her maid the day off for no apparent reason, when she’d never done anything like that before.”

  “It does suggest she was trying to get Herta out of the way,” I agreed.

  After we’d hung up, I continued to follow this train of thought. Had Gillian been expecting a secret visitor? Someone who had no business coming to the house at that time of day . . . or at all?

  Someone who’d killed her?

  But both the front and kitchen doors were locked from the inside.

  Sarah appeared in the doorway between the playroom and the front sales area. Quietly, she told me, “Whitney Foster’s here. She says she wants to visit Leya.”