Pawsitively Dead (A Wonder Cats Mystery Book 2) (11 page)

M
uch to my dismay
, Blake knew exactly how to get to the orphanage, and it was set pretty far off the beaten path. The building wasn’t surrounded by lush trees or wildflowers or even a forlorn playground, long rusted over from disuse. That was what I had envisioned when Min told me where he was. Nope. This place was in the rougher part of town that was full of buildings sporting plywood windows and address numbers sprayed on with black spray paint.

At that hour of the morning, the neighborhood wasn’t bad, but I felt the residue of negativity from the night before. I caught sight of an alley cat skulking around the corner of a brick building. It had a few jagged edges to its ears as though it had been in its fair share of fights.

“I recognize that smell.”
The thought from the alley cat came to me clearly. “
You are with that animal that likes to sneak around where he doesn’t belong. I taught him a lesson once to stay out of this part of town. If he comes back, I’ll do it again.”

Treacle. This cat knew Treacle.

“From the looks of things, there’s plenty of food and space for all you strays. Why worry yourself over one more cat?
” I hoped my thoughts sounded confident even if I was worried. I’d never had a cat, stray or domestic, intrude on my thoughts so hard.

The feline watched me with slow and lazily blinking yellow eyes.
“You just make sure to tell him, or he’ll look very different next time you see him. And it won’t be just a scratch on his forehead
.”

I gasped.

“What is it?” Blake asked.

“Oh, nothing.” I coughed quickly. “For a minute, I thought I saw a rat.”

I looked at the cat once more but said nothing. I’d have a long talk with Treacle about the dangers of slumming, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. The streets were his home. That sounded like a bad rap lyric.

“Is this it?” I asked, looking at a very nondescript red brick building that looked more like an abandoned bank than a place that had, at one time, housed children with no parents.

“Yup. It is.”

“You don’t think there are still children in there, do you?” I asked, my heart ready to sink if he said yes.

“Not at all. This place hasn’t been in operation for some time. But it doesn’t seem to be completely deserted.”

“What makes you say that?” I was afraid he was going to say he’d seen some ghostly apparition in a window or something equally creepy. Being a witch didn’t make me feel any safer from those mysterious things that go bump in the night, and even with the sun shining, I felt a shiver run up my spine.

“There are half a dozen cars in the parking lot.” Blake jerked his chin toward the right of the building.

For sure, in a small parking lot surrounded by a chain link fence were a handful of cars. One of those cars was Min’s. It was hard to miss the silver Mercedes, especially in this neighborhood.

Then some movement at the front of the building caught my eye. When I looked, I saw Min waving to us near the front door. He looked excited as he thrust his hands into his pockets. He must’ve gotten there just before Blake. As happy as Min looked, I could tell he was wondering what Blake was doing with me.

“I just thought I’d tag along. I hope it isn’t a problem.” Blake said. His eyes seemed to be searching every door, window, sidewalk grate, car, and garbage can that fell into his line of vision. His eyes finally settled on Min.

It was obvious that after Min had been a suspect in the deadly explosion of the Brew-Ha-Ha that had killed our cook, he and Blake would never be anything more than civil to each other. I couldn’t blame Min. Blake was a jerk and hadn’t held back when he interrogated Min. Blake had stuck to the rules, used his bullying tactics, and seemed to have the strangest ability to make people feel nervous around him even if they didn’t do anything.

But to his credit, he was dedicated and willing to turn every stone, even if it kept him up for days at a time. And sometimes, when the light hit him the right way, he looked handsome. But then he would open his mouth and ruin everything.

Min shook his head at Blake then focused on me. “Cath, I think this place is just what I was looking for. A diamond in the rough.”

“Well, it’s not an orphanage anymore, right?” I asked. “There aren’t any children here?”

“No. The last child that was adopted at this facility went home with his new family back in the 1960s.”

“So what is this place?”

“Well, it’s become sort of the Wonder Falls house of records.” He grinned again as we made our way up the steps, and Min held the door open for us.

As soon as I stepped inside, I was hit by a very familiar smell from my childhood. It was the smell of old carpet and paper. I had grown up when carbon copies were just starting to be replaced by Xerox, and my school had smelled like this place. Tons of paper and a swatch of carpet big enough to sit on for story time. It was a weird smell but one I never forgot. But on top of that, the air shifted. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I could tell something was there that wanted to be noticed.

Had I been with Aunt Astrid and Bea, I would have leaned in and asked if they felt it too. But looking at Blake, who acted as if his head was on a swivel so he could look in all directions, I leaned a little in the opposite direction and kept my interpretations to myself.

“House of records?” I asked, knowing I looked confused. Then I heard another loud voice.

“Good morning!”

It was an unfamiliar voice but a friendly one. Even Min jumped a little at the startling greeting. Blake stood still and stoic.

“My name is Riley. I’m the custodian of this building. Is there anything I can help you with? Needless to say we don’t get many visitors, so this is a surprise.” He smiled cheerfully, his fat cheeks pushing his eyes into the shape of crescent moons.

Min stepped up and introduced us all. In a quick couple of words, he asked to speak to the chief administrator.

“Well, Detective Samberg, is there a problem?” Riley looked intrigued, as if he were hoping there might be some kind of scandal in the making and, for a moment, forgot about Min and me.

“Not at all. It’s really Mr. Parks who is here to inquire about the building.”

“Oh, I see.” Riley noticeably deflated a little, but within a few seconds, his cheery demeanor was back. “That would be Madeline Molitor. She’s down the hallway this way.” Riley led us down a lonely corridor. Our footsteps echoed throughout the building. “Are you looking to buy?”

“Min is a local boy who’s looking to do a little good in his hometown,” I bragged, making Min’s cheeks color a little as he smiled.

“Is that so? That’s mighty nice of you,” Riley said. “I don’t know what you’d want with the old place. It’s long been forgotten. A skeleton crew comes in to turn the lights on and off, chase the spiders away, and keep the records in order.”

“What kind of records?” I asked.

“Well, there are the documents of every adoption of course. But the new City Hall building that was built in 1999 was constructed without an insulated basement, so all the town records from there were put into these file cabinets. You’ve got marriage licenses, death certificates, building permit requests, traffic tickets, building permits, property lines. You name it, the paperwork is probably here.”

“Is that so?” I said, trying not to tip off Blake as to what I was thinking of doing there.

“Yup. One stray spark or lightning strike here, and almost one hundred years of documented history would be gone with the wind. No one would even know what they lost.”

“Why don’t they put everything in a computer? It takes no time at all to scan these kinds of things,” Min said, obviously adding it to the growing list of possibilities in his head.

“Well, I think you’ll have to talk to Miss Molitor about that.” Riley gave us all a wink and opened an old wooden door that had Administration stenciled in black letters across the frosted glass.

Inside, four gray-haired old women looked up from their desks as if they hadn’t seen anyone under the age of sixty… ever.

“Miss Molitor’s office is back there,” Riley said, pointing toward the back of the room. “Good morning, ladies.”

They all gave him a variety of greetings from spunky to grumbly. Min took the bull by the horns and strolled confidently to the back of the room and rapped firmly on the door Riley had indicated. I followed Min as Blake left with Mr. Riley. I hoped Blake wouldn’t go on snooping. I wanted to find out what was going on with the death and desecration as much as he did, but a selfish part of me wanted to solve the case without anyone else’s help. If Blake had the same idea to snoop in the records, he might find the Thompson records before me. But he’d have to do it the old-fashioned way. If I got my chance, a little witchcraft might help the medicine go down.

“Come!” was the greeting that came from behind the door.

Min pulled the door open and allowed me to enter first. Miss Molitor was a tiny woman who looked over a hundred. Her hair was permed into tight little gray curls. She wore glasses with decorative gold frames and garish pink lipstick that I’d bet was super popular in the fifties, when she was a newlywed or just started working outside the home or something.

Min began speaking instantly and didn’t stop until Madeline Molitor was smiling and patting his hand as she shared the excitement of his plans to help preserve this amazing building. Under any other circumstances, I would have been Min’s cheerleader, but I was distracted by the idea that I could very well be sitting just a couple of feet from the documents that might crack the case wide open. So I showed my support another way, and that was by asking a question.

“As things stand now, Miss Molitor, are people able to come and review these records? Say, if they were writing a report or tracing a family tree?”

“Not likely. The majority of the documents are in rows and rows of metal filing cabinets in the basement. We only manage material from the last three years on the main floor.”

She barely looked at me as she spoke. I could tell she wasn’t very interested in what I was asking. She was much more interested in dealing with Min. Obviously she was from that older generation of women who, if given the choice, preferred to talk business with the man. Well, he was the one with the money, and I was the one trying to snoop, and since I wasn’t going to get very far with Miss Molitor, I began searching for plan B. I found it almost instantly.

Blake came back with Riley. The two of them looked as though they’d had a nice long talk together. From his expression, I was pretty sure Blake didn’t have the same idea of riffling through the records as I did. I let out a sigh over that.

“Well, I’m really grateful for your time, Miss Molitor,” Min said.

“Please, call me Madeline. I hope to hear from you again soon, Mr. Parks. You have some wonderful ideas. I’m not promising anything, but let’s talk again soon,” the old woman said.

B
ack at the
Brew-Ha-Ha, I enjoyed an iced green tea and a turkey sandwich that Bea threw together for me. I told her how we discovered the orphanage and how we paid it a little visit.

“So you spent the morning with Blake.”

I nearly choked. “Gosh, Bea! It wasn’t like that. I didn’t even want him to, but he insisted on tagging along.” I spoke with my mouth full of food, totally ignoring any etiquette in order to set the record straight. “Just because you and Jake are back being all lovey-dovey doesn’t mean the rest of us are interested in catching that bug.”

Bea smiled as a guilty blush rose to her cheeks. I was happy for her. This was how things should be.

“Hey, since you guys are all back on better footing, I have a favor to ask.”

“Anything, sister. You know that.”

I shrugged my shoulders up to my ears and squinted. “Well, maybe you should hear what it is first.”

Bea looked at me with her right eyebrow arching high up on her forehead while she crossed her arms. Just then, Aunt Astrid entered from the back kitchen.

“Aunt Astrid, I’ll need you too.”

She looked a little startled as if she had been deep in thought. We made our way to the cellar to have a private conversation, and I revealed my genius idea.

“You’re talking about breaking and entering,” Bea said calmly. “I don’t know how Jake would be able to help us with that.”

“Actually, it would just be entering. I noticed a window on the first floor without a mesh screen or bars, and as luck would have it, the lock wasn’t in place. All we’d need to do is get up to it and push,” I said proudly, as if I had just recited the capitals of every state. But the looks I got from Bea and Aunt Astrid made it seem as if I had just recited the filthiest limerick ever penned.

“And where is this place located?” Aunt Astrid asked with slow, deliberate words.

I gave the address, and both women threw up their arms.

“Are you kidding?” and “You’ve lost your mind” came out of their mouths at the same time.

“That part of town is a demilitarized zone. Are you serious? Jake has told me about what kinds of things the beat cops over there have had to deal with. To say it isn’t safe is an understatement.” Bea put her hands on her hips. “I can’t tell him anything about this. He’d hit the roof.”

“So you’re in?” I said, grinning slyly.

“I don’t know. Mom?”

Aunt Astrid stared into space for a moment. Then, looking at me with twinkling eyes, she said, “Unfortunately, Cath is right to think we might find the answer there. And even if Blake had put two and two together and seen the importance of those records, he would get them by the book, and that could take days, if not weeks. Who else will get hurt in that amount of time?” She pulled the hem of her dress up as she ascended the cellar stairs back into the Brew-Ha-Ha. “Bea, you’ll stay home. Cath and I will go.”

“Wait. What?” Bea looked a little let down.

Aunt Astrid stopped climbing. “With you and Jake just getting things back on track, you don’t need to steer yourself off a cliff by breaking the law with us. Besides, we’ll need a connection inside the WFPD if we get pinched.”

“You just used the word ‘pinched’ like the short guy in that one mob movie,” I said, looking Aunt Astrid up and down.

“Be at my house at eleven thirty. We’ll leave at midnight,” she said and disappeared up the stairs.

Bea took my hand and looked at me sternly. “Be careful. And if Jake finds out… I’ll deny I knew anything about it.”

I chuckled a little as I squeezed her hand. But inside, my nerves were full of electricity.

T
hat night
, before I left to pick up Aunt Astrid, I had a long talk with Treacle. Actually, Treacle had a long talk with me. It seemed word got around in the feline world, just as it did in the human world.

“That just isn’t a safe place for people to go
,” he said.

“I saw that. And I saw what kind of strays you’re dealing with. That doesn’t make me very happy either,”
I replied.

That wasn’t what he wanted to hear, and he sat with his head and neck stretched up tall and his tail whipping back and forth.
“It isn’t just that. Those places are everywhere. They have a sickness. Like a rabies. And sometimes you can catch something
.”

“We aren’t going to move there,”
I reassured him.
“We’re going to get into that building and research the records then hurry up and come home. That’s all.”

The only thing on Treacle that moved was his tail. He was not happy. Finally he stood, stretched, and trotted off toward the open bedroom window. Hopping up on the sill, he turned and looked at me.
“Be careful.”

“Yes, you too. Come back home tomorrow, and we’ll have breakfast. Smoked salmon?”

He licked his whiskers but said nothing and was again out into the darkness. I looked at the clock and realized it was time to go. Aunt Astrid would be waiting.