Dirty Tricks: A Kate Lawrence Mystery by Judith Ivie Read Free Book Online Page B

shocked to
discover that bats are mammals just like us.”
    “Hmmm, very good, I’m impressed.
So with all of those bats around, did you ever have one get into your house?”
    “Oh, sure, a
couple of times.”
    “How did you get them out, by
chasing them with a tennis racket or a broom and trying to club them to death?”
she jeered.
    I frowned at the assumption. “Of course not. Bats won’t harm you unless they’re rabid,
and rabies in the bat population around here hasn’t increased more than a
single percentage point in years and years. I read somewhere that more people
die of bee stings than bat bites. All those idiotic movie scenes that show
people covering their heads and screaming and flailing away with brooms and
whatnot are just stupid. Bats are echolocators . All
you have to do is close any doors leading out of the room the bat’s in and then
open a window. It will soon sense the opening and be very happy to get the heck
out. Why do you ask? What happened, May?”
    She sagged back against her chair
and stared past me out the window. “Well, the short version is, some bats got
into my house last night through an unscreened window. Tommy—that’s one of the
young men who are workin ’ on the house—took that
screen out to be repaired yesterday, and I guess he left the window open a few
inches, although that surely doesn’t sound like Tommy. He’s a real stickler
about makin ’ sure everything is locked up tight
before they leave for the day. I think I remind him of his mama, and it makes
him a tiny bit protective,” she smiled. “Anyway, by the time I stumbled
downstairs to find out what was bangin ’ into things
in my living room, the poor thing had knocked itself out and was just lyin ’ there on the floor.”
    “That must have given you a start,
all right.”
    “Well, I’m basically a country
gal, and critters don’t give me the vapors, for the most part. I can do without
snakes, though. It’s something about the way they slither. I don’t wish them
any harm, mind you, but catchin ’ them does give me
pause.” She frowned and closed her eyes.
    “May? What happened to the bat?
Was it alive?”
    Her eyes flew open. “Oh, sure. I scooped him up on a paper plate and carried him
out the back door and put him on the lawn.   After about a minute he started movin ’ around
and got airborne. He flew around in a loopy circle a couple of times and then
straightened out and went on his way, thank goodness.”
    “Wow, good for you! Not one woman
in a thousand would have done that, especially all alone in the middle of the
night. No wonder you’re tired out.”
    She chuckled drily. “Oh, there’s
more to the story than that.” She got up from her chair and started pacing
briskly, pumping her arms up and down. “Got to do something to get the blood
moving, or I’ll never get any work done today.   Anyway, I came back inside and got myself a drink of water, and would
you believe it? There was another bat flappin ’ around
the downstairs. I didn’t want him to knock himself unconscious like the first
one, so I closed the door between the living room and the kitchen and opened up
the unscreened window as wide as it would go. Sure enough, he went right out in
a minute or two, so I closed the window and went back to bed. For a while, that
is.”
    “Oh, no. Don’t tell me there was another one,” I groaned in sympathy.
    “I won’t bore you with the details
of my activities between then and dawn. Suffice it to say there were many, many
more bats in my house—at least a dozen.” She stopped pacing and put her hands
on her hips. “You can’t tell me they all found their way in through a
cracked-open window. Why would they even want to? It’s still perfectly warm
outside, and the mosquitoes are plentiful. No, that’s what’s got me riled up,
Kate. Those bats were put into my house quite deliberately by a person or
persons unknown to frighten me. It’s the only explanation, but the