Claws And Effect Part 33

The light was turned on. The humans crouched lower. One foot touched the top rung of the ladder, then stopped.

"Hey." Bobby Minifee's voice sounded loud and clear. "What are you doing?"

They heard a crack and a thud and then Bobby was tossed down the ladder. He landed heavily, blood pouring from his head. The flagstone closed overhead.

Pewter and Murphy ran to Bobby. Coop crept forward. Overhead they heard something heavy being pulled over the sliding trapdoor.

Harry, too, quietly moved forward. The two women bent over the crumpled young man. Harry took his pulse. Coop opened his eye.

"His pulse is strong," Harry whispered.

Coop looked around for towels, an old s.h.i.+rt, anything. "We've got to wrap his head up. See if you can find anything."

"Here." She handed Coop a smock, unaware that it had been Tussie Logan's.

Coop tore it into strips, wrapping Bobby's head as best she could. "Let's get him off this cold floor."

Harry cleared off a table and with effort they put him on top of it.

As the humans tended to Bobby, Mrs. Murphy considered their options. "Coop and Mom are armed. That's cold comfort."

"I'd rather have them armed than unarmed," Pewter sensibly replied.

"We'd better find a way out of here. For all we know, he's sitting up there trying to figure out how to kill us all."

"There's something over the trapdoor but since it's a sliding door, we could try." Pewter didn't like the cold, damp hole.

"Try what? To open the door?" Tucker asked.

"Yeah, press the b.u.t.ton and see what happens." Pewter reached out with her paw.

"Pewter, no," Murphy ordered. "You don't know what's sitting on the trapdoor. You don't know what will fall down. Hospitals have all kinds of stuff like sulfuric acid. Whatever he put up there he figured would either hold us or hurt us. He's a quick thinker. Remember Larry Johnson."

"And he's merciless. Remember Hank Brevard and Tussie Logan," Tucker thoughtfully added.

"My hunch is, he'll come back. He doesn't know who's down here but he suspects something. And he has to come back to kill Bobby. He heard the carton drop. I know he did. He was moving up faster than the humans could hear." Mrs. Murphy's tail twitched back and forth. She was agitated.

"I don't fancy being a duck in a shooting gallery," Pewter wailed.

"Get a grip," Tucker growled.

"I'm as tough as you are. I'm expressing my feelings, that's all."

"Express them once we're out of this mess." Mrs. Murphy prowled along the walls. "Pewter, take that wall. Tucker, the back. Listen for anything. If this was part of the Underground Railroad then there has to be a tunnel off this room. They had to get the slaves out of here somehow."

"Why couldn't they take them out in the middle of the night? Out the back door?" Pewter did, however, go to the wall to listen.

"If everyone is still telling stories about the Underground Railroad, this place was closely watched. Since no one was ever caught, I believe they had tunnels or at least one tunnel." Murphy strained to hear anything in the walls.

"Hey." Pewter's green eyes glittered. "Rats."

Mrs. Murphy and Tucker trotted over, putting their ears to the wall. They could hear the claws click as the rats moved about; occasionally they'd catch a snippet of conversation.

"Now, how do we get in?" Tucker sniffed the floor, moving along the wall. "Nothing but mildew."

"Pewter, you check the ceiling, I'll study the wall." Mrs. Murphy slowly walked along the wall.

"Why am I checking the ceiling?" Pewter rankled at taking orders and she'd been taking too many, in her mind.

"Maybe the way they got out was to crawl between the ceiling and the floorboards upstairs."

"Murphy," Tucker said, "the rats sound lower than that."

"We've got to try everything." Murphy walked the length of the wall, then returned, stopping at a large stone at the base. "Tucker, Pewter, let's push. This might be it."

They grunted and groaned, feeling the stone budge.

"Harry!" Tucker barked.

Harry turned from Bobby to see her three friends pus.h.i.+ng the stone. She walked over, knelt down, putting her own shoulder to the large stone. Sure enough it rolled in. "Coop!"

Cooper turned her flashlight into the small dark cavern and a narrow tunnel appeared, rats scurrying in all directions. One would have to walk hunched over but it could be done. "It was part of the Underground Railroad!"

"He's back!" Tucker barked as she heard the heavy burden being slowly slid off the trapdoor.

"He knows we're here now," Murphy warned after Tucker barked.

Harry heard it, too. She ran back and cut the lights. "Let's go." She ducked down and squeezed into the tunnel, crawling on all fours. Cooper followed as the animals ran past them. The two women rolled the stone back in place, then stood up, bending over to keep from b.u.mping their heads.

"Bobby, we left Bobby." Harry's face bled white.

"Harry, we'll have to leave him to G.o.d. Let's hope whoever this is comes after us first. He had to have heard Tucker."

"Sorry," Tucker whimpered.

"No time for that," Mrs. Murphy crisply meowed. "We've got to go wherever this leads and hope we make it." She shot ahead followed by Pewter, who was feeling claustrophobic.

The humans ran along as fast as they could, flashlight bobbling. Harry noticed scratchings along the wall. She reached for Cooper's hand, halting her for a moment. She took the flashlight, turning it on the wall. It read: Bappy Crewes, age 26m 1853. They ran along knowing that Bappy, buried in the wall, never found freedom. Right now they hoped that they would.

"He's rolling the stone." Tucker could hear behind them.

"Nip at their heels, Tucker. Make them go faster. We don't know what's at the end of this and it might take us a little time to figure it out."

"Oh, great," Pewter moaned when Murphy said that.

"Your eyes are the best. Run ahead. Maybe you can figure it out," Tucker told the cats.

The two cats sped away as the light dimmed. The tunnel turned hard right. The rats cursed them. They skidded, turned right, then finally reached the end of the tunnel. They waited a moment while their eyes adjusted. They could see the flashlight s.h.i.+ning on the wall where the tunnel turned right.

"We have to go up. There's no other way," Pewter observed.

"Oh, thank the Great Cat in the Sky." Murphy breathed a prayer. A ladder made from six-inch tree trunks lay on its side. "Maybe we can make it."

Harry and Cooper now turned right; they were running harder now because whoever was behind them was firing into the dark.

Harry saw the ladder since Murphy was helpfully sitting on it. The two women hoisted it up. Cooper turned to train her gun on the turn in the tunnel.

"Get up and push with all your might!" the deputy said be-tween gritted teeth.

Harry's foot went through one rotted rung but the rest were okay. She pushed and the top opened with surprising ease. She reached down, picking up Murphy, whom she tossed up. Then she did the same for Pewter and finally she carried Tucker, much heavier, under her arm.

She turned back for Coop, who extinguished the flashlight so as not to give their pursuer, who was approaching the right-hand turn, a target. Cooper, in great shape, leapt up, grabbing the top rung. She was out of the tunnel in moments.

"Where are we?" Pewter asked.

Harry quickly flopped down the heavy lid. "Let's get out of here."

"We're in the old switching station." Cooper was amazed. "My G.o.d, they literally put them on the trains."

"Smart people, our ancestors." Harry opened the door to the old switching station and they plunged into the darkness, running for all they were worth.

"Down here." Cynthia scrambled down a ditch by the side of the railroad tracks, the typical drainage ditch. "Lie flat. If he comes out I might be able to drop him."

They waited for fifteen minutes in the bitter cold but the door to the switching station never opened.

The railroad, begun by Claudius Crozet in 1849, had been in continuous use since then, with upgrades. The small switching station had been replaced by computers housed in large stations in the major cities. A nerve network fanned out from there, so the individual stations had fallen into disuse.

"Let's go back." Coop, s.h.i.+vering, stood up, brus.h.i.+ng herself off.

"Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker, I think we owe you big time."

"We're not out of the woods yet." Murphy's senses stayed razor sharp as Tucker's hackles rose.

"I vote for warmth." Pewter moved ahead toward the hospital parking lot.

Cynthia checked her wrist.w.a.tch. "Eight-ten." As they drew closer to the front door she noticed Rick's squad car. "Well, we might get our a.s.ses chewed out but let's find him."

They walked into the main reception area just as Sam Mahanes, disheveled, was greeting Rick. Cooper's hands were torn up and the sleeves of Harry's jacket were shredded where her arms had slid against the stone wall when her foot went through the rotted rung of the ladder to the switching house.

"You look like the dogs got at you under the porch." Rick frowned. "And just what are you doing here?"

It took a second but both Harry and Coop looked down at Sam's shoes, scuffed with dirt on the soles.

"Harry, you've got to take those animals out of here. This is a hospital," Sam reprimanded her as he moved toward the front door.

"He smells like the tunnel!" Tucker hit him from behind. If they'd been playing football the corgi would have been penalized for clipping.

Harry may have been a human but she trusted her dog. "Coop, it's him!"

Sam lurched to his feet, kicked at the dog, and ran for all he was worth.

"Stop!" Cooper dropped to one knee.

He didn't stop, reaching the revolving door. Coop fired one shot and blew out his kneecap. He dropped like a stone.

The few people in the hospital at that hour screamed. The receptionist ducked behind the desk. Rick ran up and handcuffed Sam's hands behind him.

"Call a doctor," he shouted at the receptionist.

"Call two," Cooper also shouted. "There's a man badly injured in the bas.e.m.e.nt. I'll take the doctor to him."

Sam was cussing and spitting, blood flowing from his shattered kneecap.

"How'd you know?" Rick admiringly asked his deputy.

"It's a long story." She smiled.

49.

"That's so awful about Tussie Logan." Miranda wrung her hands.

The group of dear friends gathered at Miranda's house that Sunday morning. The article about Tussie's murder was front-page news. Harry and Cooper filled them in on all that happened.

"He made enough money. He didn't have to steal any." Big Mim was horrified by the whole episode.

"'And he said to them, Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.' Luke, chapter twelve, verse fifteen." Miranda recalled the Scriptures.

"Well, that's what's wrong with this country. It's money. All anyone ever thinks about is money." Mim tapped her foot on the rug.

"Mimsy, that's easy for you to say. You inherited a boatload of it." Miranda was the only one in the room who could say that to Mim.

Fair sat so close to his ex-wife he was glued to her. "I'll never forgive myself for not keeping a closer watch over you."

"Fair, honey, it's breeding season. You can't. You have to earn a living. We all do. Well, most of us do."

"All right. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth but that doesn't mean I don't understand this nation's malaise. I do. I can't help being born who and what I am any more than the rest of you," Mim said.

"Of course, dear, but I simply wanted to point out that it's rather easy to declare money the root of all evil when one is secure." Miranda's voice was soothing.

Susan, rather disappointed to have missed the action, asked, "I thought Sam Mahanes had an alibi for Hank Brevard's death?"

"He was in his work s.p.a.ce, as he calls it." Cooper nodded. "Rick questioned Sally Mahanes in a relaxed way. The night of Hank's murder she didn't see him come in. He used the private entrance to his shop. It was easy for him to slip in. He left the radio on. Easy. Hank got greedy, threatened him, and Sam took him out. Quick. Efficient."