HOME OF THE RED FOX - Segment Ten

Chapter 46

         Just when Samantha was taking a sip of ice tea, the room shook violently, knocking her and most of the other diners to the floor. This came with a loud explosion from somewhere out in the front of the building. Dust and debris filled the air as she looked for the Cochrans. After assuring herself neither had sustained an injury, she helped them to their feet and looked around the room. Others were slowly standing, checking for broken bones in those still lying on the floor.

         A young waiter, Toby Cutler, made his way over to her and wrapped a napkin around her left arm where an unnoticed cut was dripping blood. “What happened?” he asked, using another napkin to wipe pieces of broken plaster from Rose Cochran’s face.

         “I have no idea, Toby.” Samantha looked towards the door leading out to the corridor. All she could see, though, was more dust and smoke. Smoke! That meant a fire was burning out there. “Toby, get some of the staff together and help these people. I’m going to check on what happened.”

         She left Toby to follow her instructions and headed for the dining room’s door. On reaching it, she looked to her left, down the corridor towards the front of the building. The smoke was thicker and pouring in from the entrance room, making it impassable. To her right, she saw a large irregular opening in the corridor wall where none had been before. She heard the sound of wood crashing down when she walked closer to the hole and slowly recognized the now-demolished stairway leading down to the caverns.

         Remembering Walker and Jack planned on doing some exploring there today, Samantha got on her knees in the corridor beside the hole. “Walker, Jack, can you hear me?” At first, all she heard was the continuing sound of the falling wood into the blackness below. “Jack, are you there? Walker, please say something?” Her shouts only brought more silence.

         Minutes passed as she knelt there listening for their voices. Suddenly she saw a dim beam of light coming up through the wooden debris. “Jack, is that you? Walker, this is Sam. Please say something. Are you two all right?” She let out a loud sigh of relief when a voice called back.

         “Sam, what happened up there?” Walker sounded unhurt, as far as Samantha could tell, and so did Jack when he called out.

         “We’re going to try to get up to you, Samantha. Can you find someone to help clear out some of the wood on top for us?”

         “Right, and have them throw down a rope to pull us up.” This shout was from Walker, as he started tugging at the loose wood. Samantha stood and ran back into the dining room where Toby had gathered a group of other waiters to help with the injured guests.

         “Toby, I need you outside in the corridor.” Not waiting for an explanation, Toby immediately followed her back to the hole in the corridor wall. He quickly took in the situation after hearing the two voices below him. His attention, however, was drawn to the desk clerk stumbling out of the billowing smoke in the corridor leading to the entrance room.

         “I could have died,” the dazed man said, facing Toby with unseeing eyes. His clothes had disappeared under a layer of soot, and he no longer had any eyebrows on his flame-reddened face. The previously blonde hair on his head appeared black, what little remained of it. “I could have died,” he said repeatedly.

         Samantha turned to Toby. “I’ll take care of him while you work on getting Walker and Jack out of there.” She gently put her arm around the desk clerk’s shoulder and guided him into the dining room. Geoffrey, the head chef, saw them walking in and took over the care of the dazed man. Looking around, she saw the situation was under control here and returned quickly to Toby’s side in the corridor.

         The fire still burned in the front of the building, but rescuing the two men trapped in the cavern came first.

Chapter 47

          With Toby and some other waiters working feverishly to clear out the wood and other debris between the first floor and the cavern, Jack and Walker climbed step by step up the bottom part of the demolished flight of stairs. After the waiters cleared a narrow pathway through the debris, Toby threw ropes down to help Walker and Jack the rest of the way.

         Jack, the younger and lighter of the trapped men, scrambled up first and arrived at the top with rope burns on his hands, but otherwise unhurt. He helped the others bring their boss up. Walker lost his grip on the rope once, tumbling back to the bottom of the damaged stairway, and he stubbornly tried again. The second time was a success, and Jack and Toby pulling on the rope brought him up the last few feet. Finally, Walker and Jack stood safely in the corridor by the kitchen.

         Both men received quick hugs from Samantha, and the three of them headed for the entrance room where the fire still burned. Toby followed closely behind them in case they needed his help further. When he started gagging from the smoke in the corridor, Walker turned around at the sound. “Toby, get back to the dining room. With your asthma, this is no place for you. There’s no way I want to lose you to smoke inhalation.”

         He put a hand on Toby’s shoulder and continued in a calm voice, “What I need you to do is get everyone in the dining room and kitchen outside through the sunroom”. Walker gave Toby a gentle push away from the smoke and towards the dining room. All he could do now was hope those on the second and third floors were using the mansion’s back stairways. Everyone had practiced fire drills in the past for just such an emergency.

         Once Walker saw him heading back, he went to where Jack and Samantha were waiting for him. The smoke was getting thicker, and they could see the red flames through it. On reaching the entrance room, they were unable to go any further because of the heat and could only stand and listen to the roar of the fire. Samantha and Jack moved closer to their friend, giving him their unspoken comfort and support. They knew a part of him was going up in flames with the room, too.

         The sound of sirens coming up the long driveway let them know help was on the way at last. Thank goodness, Samantha thought, someone had the presence of mind to put in a call to the local fire station. With her worry over the guests, staff, and the two trapped men below, getting someone to put out the fire had been a low priority for her until now.

Chapter 48

         It took another two hours before the fire was out. Walker slowly went into the entrance area to assess the damage. Not knowing what to do next, Jack and Samantha just stood and sadly watched him. After he made a circle of the large room, Walker headed back towards them, meeting the tired fire chief on the way.

         “Do you know how the fire started, Chief?” Jack asked, when the four of them were standing together.

         “Not yet,” the man replied, “but we know it wasn’t accidental. You’re also lucky no one was killed and only one person seriously hurt.” An ambulance already was on the way over the hill to the hospital with the burned and dazed desk clerk. Samantha made a mental note to visit him if the doctor admitted him overnight. “The origin of the fire was a sofa near the front of the room.”

         Samantha remembered the briefcase Monica’s lawyer had left behind on the sofa and told the fire chief about it. Walker looked at Samantha with a puzzled expression on his face.

         “Why would Monica send us a lawyer? Do Rose and Dan have a problem?”

         Silently cursing the other woman, she knew Walker did not need any more problems. He had to learn the truth, however, about the woman who might have sent someone to bomb his home. Samantha told the waiting men of the mental and physical abuse Monica Van Buren had inflicted on her parents and the restraining order they had placed against her.

         Handing Walker the business card Luther Black gave her just hours earlier, she finished by telling them of the visit by Monica’s lawyer. After learning the man left his briefcase behind to go to his car and never returned, the fire chief left to call the arson squad. Jack returned to the dining room to help put the room back in shape in time for dinner. This left Walker and Samantha standing alone in the empty entrance room.

         She looked at the man standing silently beside her. “Are you upset because Monica isn’t the woman you thought she was?” Samantha decided to get it out in the open. “I know you liked the woman and probably even more than just liked her.” She paused and slowly continued, “Maybe you even were considering marrying her?”

         At this practically inaudible question, Walker turned to face her. He stared at Samantha’s bowed head, seeing how uncomfortable it was for her to talk about Monica. Even with the huge task of rebuilding part of the mansion ahead of him and the painful realization he had misjudged the Cochrans’ daughter, he felt humbled to have such a good friend as the woman standing in front of him.

Chapter 49

         Cora and Bertha Whitcomb were unmarried sisters, one spinster a year older than the other, but no one still alive knew which one. For years, their neighbors called them “the girls”, always in an affectionate tone of voice. They lived together in the home where they grew up with a younger brother, Samuel, all three children raised by loving parents.

         One terrible September day, a drunk driver narrowed the family of five down to two. The parents and brother were returning from the hospital where 25-year-old Cora was recuperating after an operation to remove a burst appendix. Bertha decided to stay with her sister for a few more hours, thus saving her own life. The sideswiped, family car slammed into a concrete abutment, taking three lives in the process. The drunken woman who had hit them survived with only a broken wrist and a wicked hangover.

         Over the years, the two sisters resisted the advances of their various beaux since none matched their high standards. Each pursued a career where contact with the public was minimal. Cora wrote books for children while Bertha illustrated them. These books were successful enough to provide the women with the necessities of life and even a few luxuries. Their lives changed drastically, though, when the city decided to build a freeway right through their property.

         Carolyn Smith, another of Walker’s recruiter, learned of their fight with the city government to save their property. After many discussions over tea with the two stubborn sisters, she persuaded them to give in to the inevitable and move to the peace and quiet of Walker’s mansion. The final determining factor to leaving had been their pet, Rufus, as they refused to go anyplace without him.

         On receiving the phone call from Carolyn, Walker started laughing. “Of course they may bring Rufus. That’s just what the place needs, a few more animals. Now, why didn’t I think of this before?” He was sitting enjoying a quiet afternoon in his apartment with Jack when her call had come in. They had been discussing renovating the downstairs room, which had burned the day before, and Walker welcomed the interruption. Once he hung up the phone, he turned to Jack and scowled at him. “What an idea man are you to not even think of getting some pets in here?” The laughter in his eyes, though, gave him away.

         The following week, the limousine containing Cora, Bertha, Rufus, Carolyn, and Eric, the driver, pulled up in front of the mansion. When the car doors opened, ear-shattering shrieking came from the back seat. Even standing a few feet away at the charcoal-coated front door, Walker and Samantha got the full effect of the noise. Samantha’s eyes opened wide in shock, wondering who was being tortured inside the vehicle. Only someone having their fingernails pulled out by pliers one by one would make that sound. Standing there, unable to move, Samantha heard the furious screaming increase in volume to the point where she swore she saw the car windows vibrating from the sound.

         She watched as Walker walked forward and quickly stepped back out of the way, as Carolyn and Eric almost fell out of the limousine in their haste to escape from the noise. They looked with horrified expression at their startled boss. When they ran by him into the mansion, he did not even have time to say a word to them or ask for an explanation. Walker slowly turned back to the open back door of the vehicle and saw a short plump woman step out.

         Bertha seemed unperturbed by the noise behind her and nonchalantly came towards the tall man in front of her. Her sweet smile and big friendly brown eyes immediately charmed him. With the sound from the limousine undiminished, Walker did not even try to welcome her. He attempted a friendly smile and took Bertha’s hand in his. They stood silently together as the last occupant got out and closed the car door behind her. Walker turned Bertha over to Samantha, who took her inside and away from the skull-pounding screaming coming from the large, wicker basket held by the second woman.

         Walker winced as the woman came up to him and held out her free hand in a greeting. If her sister Bertha was short and plump, Cora was the exact opposite. Almost six feet in height and slender, she also had wavy brown hair, still untouched by gray, and facial skin a woman 40 years younger would envy. Noting Walker’s uncertain glance at the basket, she grinned and said in a voice he just barely heard over the noise, “You must forgive Rufus. He’s not a good traveler and hates riding in cars.” She pulled back the towel covering the basket to allow him to look through the wire screen on top.

         Staring back at Walker was the angriest, biggest, meanest-looking cat he had ever seen. It had long, black, striped fur and yellow eyes glaring up at the man in fury, daring him to put his hand inside the basket. The cat must have weighed over 20 pounds, and currently all of it was pure feline spite. Thankfully, the shrieks had stopped once Rufus was out of the limousine, but his snarls and spitting took over as Cora carried him into the mansion. Walker was a few steps behind her, wondering what he had gotten himself into inviting Rufus here.

         Thus, a large Maine Coon cat named Rufus arrived with his two adoring female humans. He soon would have Walker straightened out about who ran the mansion, and it was not any lowly human, not with a feline around.

Chapter 50

         Renovating the destroyed entrance room was progressing nicely, supervised from underfoot by a large Maine Coon cat. The workers grew accustomed to reaching out for a hammer or a saw only to pull their hand back quickly from outstretched and lethal-looking claws. They soon learned to keep their tools picked up off the floor out of his way and on their tool belts instead.

         Jack, introduced to Rufus by Cora the afternoon of the trio’s arrival, fell under the spell of the handsome cat immediately, and the animal felt the same affection for him. Of course, it did not hurt that Jack grew up in a family of cat lovers and knew always to carry food treats in his pocket. Rufus even let Jack hold him in his arms, much to the shock of Cora and Bertha. Never in the years the cat lived with them had he allowed them such familiarity.

         Walker tried to pat the huge cat on its furry head once, but only once. A long bloody scratch on his hand was his punishment for this lapse in good manners. When Jack saw this happen, he tried to hide his grin as he again picked up the annoyed animal. “It’s not fair,” muttered his friend. “Animals usually take to me. Even Zorro, who was a wild animal, always liked me.”

          Jack could not help it and started laughing at Walker’s indignation. “You never had a cat as a kid, did you?” The other man shook his head. “Well, a cat is not an animal, at least in its own mind. It knows we humans are on the earth to serve as its staff and for no other reason. When you understand that, maybe Rufus will let you get near him.” Walking away still carrying the now purring cat, Jack said over his shoulder, “Until then, I’d recommend wearing gloves.”

         His pride still smarting as much as his hand, Walker decided to see how the repair of the area leading down to the cavern was going. On discussing possible changes with the contractor he had hired, they decided to close off entry above the first floor. In this way, Walker could keep his room on the third floor private while allowing the staff and guests access down into the cavern. Two carpenters were busy enlarging the hole in the wall caused by the recent explosion and building wider and safer stairs down the space between the corridor’s wall and the outside wall of the mansion.

         Electricians were down in the cavern already installing indirect lighting in all three of the caverns. Once the workers completed the lighting and finished the stairways, they would start turning two of the areas into what Walker had planned for the pleasure of the guests and staff. The third cavern, containing the animal bones, was off limits except to Walker and Jack. It was a possible crime scene with the human bone found there still awaiting examination by Randall, the forensic agent back in San Francisco.

         Of course, though, the priority of the work crew was to put the entrance room back in order. The room, from the front door and reception desk across to the base of the elevator, had been destroyed, first by the bomb explosion and next by the resulting fire. After carting away all the water-soaked debris, the workers refinished the large room with beautiful, tongue-in-groove, hardwood floors. The walls of masonry were off-white with a light peach undertone. The color caused the room to feel warmer and more intimate than before. When the room was finished, Walker planned on adding new armchairs and a long sofa that would invite people to sit and enjoy them.

         The final touch, set to arrive the following day, would be the new front door, dark mahogany with the top half of stained glass in the design of a red fox surrounded by greenery.

         Curious to see how the caverns were coming along, Walker slowly and cautiously made his way down the unfinished stairs. What he found on entering the cavern with the waterfall and pool was a pleasant surprise.

Continued in next segment.

HOME OF THE RED FOX - Segment Eleven  (18+) Chapters 51 thru 55 #1082904 by J. A. Buxton