by Nic Saint
“I’m just curious,” said Dooley. “I never met a male female before. Or a female male.”
“Get out of my face, dumbbell!” Princess bellowed. “I’m done talking to you haters!”
“Thank you, sir,” said Dooley automatically as he turned to walk away.
The stream of vituperative language that followed was not something I’m prepared to repeat. Suffice it to say there were some very colorful statements made, and I picked up quite a few words I’d never heard before. Judging from Dooley’s ears turning red and his face screwing up in surprise, he hadn’t heard them before either. Then again, that’s not saying much.
Just then, the doors to the elevator opened and Chase and Odelia stepped out.
Chapter 14
“So why did you want to meet here?” asked Odelia as Chase greeted her in the lobby of the Hampton Cove Star.
“I know how eager you must be to start interviewing suspects and tracking down leads, Poole, so I thought we might pool our resources.”
“Poole—pool. I see what you did there.”
He grinned. “I thought it was clever.”
“But I thought you hadn’t decided whether this was an accident or not?”
He sobered. “The fire marshals are still working on their report, but their preliminary findings suggest a highly explosive substance was used that could not have been present in the room under normal circumstances.” He paused for effect. “Nitroglycerin features high on their list of suspected explosives.”
She frowned. “Nitroglycerin? Do people still use that stuff?”
“It’s still used in the mining, quarrying, demolition and construction industries. It’s the active explosive in dynamite. Used for drilling highway and railroad tunnels. Things like that. There’s also an important medical application for the stuff, apparently. To treat certain heart conditions like angina pectoris and chronic heart failure.”
“You’ve been reading up on your Wikipedia.”
“Mostly what the fire marshal in charge told me. At any rate, at this point they’re seriously looking into that bottle of beer that was brought in—figuring it probably contained something a lot more flammable and explosive than common household beer.”
“An explosive beer bottle. Now that’s something Burt would have appreciated. A most fascinating way to end his life.”
“And it was sent up by a very compelling man.”
“Curt Pigott. Didn’t your people talk to him already?”
“Just routine questions. Your uncle Alec suggested we grill him a little more thoroughly.” They’d approached the elevator and stood waiting for the cab to travel down. “How are your cats, by the way?”
She was touched by his concern. “They’ll be fine. Thanks for telling me about the fleas.”
He shrugged. “The least I can do. I care about the little darlings myself, you know.”
It was the first time Chase had shown any interest whatsoever in her cats, and she was pleasantly surprised. “I didn’t know you were a cat person.”
“Oh, sure. I’ve loved those funny furballs all my life. In fact I had a cat when I was a kid and I loved the little tyke to pieces. Was devastated when it died. Held it in my arms and wouldn’t let it go until my mom told me Blackie was in heaven now, looking down upon me and following my further exploits with keen interest.” He wiped at his eyes with his sleeve.
“Blackie?”
“He was a black cat.”
“Right.”
“They do tug at your heart, don’t they?”
She watched with fascination as a tear rolled down his cheek. It was a side of him she hadn’t seen before. A tenderness he hadn’t displayed in her presence. It melted her heart.
They rode the elevator up in silence, as she wondered whether to tell him that she could actually communicate with her own little ‘furballs.’ Maybe at some point she would.
The elevator doors opened and to her surprise she saw that Max and Dooley were prancing along the corridor. “Hey, babes,” she said. “What are you guys doing here?”
Chase laughed. “Funny. The way you speak cat.”
Caught, she emitted a careless laugh. “Just, you know, saying hi.”
Chase produced a few cat sounds himself. They were gibberish, of course, but it endeared him to her further. He crouched down next to Max and Dooley and tickled their tummies. “Hey, buddies,” he said. “Fancy meeting you here. Are you lost? Are you poor babies lost? Don’t worry. Your friend Chase is here. He’ll take good care of you. Oh, yes, he will. Oh, yes, he will.” At this, he picked up both cats and tucked them into his massive arms.
Max and Dooley, not used to this treatment, stared at Odelia in alarm. She signaled that it was fine and just to go with it. This new, cat-friendly Chase was a true revelation.
“Let’s take them into the interview with us,” she suggested.
“Won’t they be a nui—I mean won’t they be bored?” he asked.
“I’m sure they’ll be on their best behavior,” she said, giving her cats a wink.
Knocking on the door to the Most Compelling Man’s room, Chase took a firmer grip on the cats, with Max and Dooley still looking stunned by this unexpected development.
“Um, Odelia?” asked Max.
She glanced over.
“Why is your boyfriend pawing us like this?”
She merely smiled. Maybe one day she’d tell Chase about her secret, but today wasn’t that day. She could tell him that some cats hate to be manhandled or picked up, though, but before she could, the door opened and a swarthy man dressed in a dressing gown appeared. His hair was pitch-black and gelled back, his face was the color of a mochaccino, and a smattering of dark chest hair came peeping from the top of his burgundy silk gown. He also looked slightly peeved. “Do you realize I ordered room service over half an hour ago? Standards at this hotel have seriously deteriorated since my last visit.” He glanced at the cats Chase was holding. “Cats? I order bourbon and you bring me cats? Are you nuts?”
“We’re not from the hotel, Mr. Pigott,” Odelia said.
“Detective Chase Kingsley,” said Chase, dislodging Max and thrusting out a hand. “Hampton Cove Police. And this is Odelia Poole. Civilian consultant with the department. We’re here to ask you a couple of questions in regards to the murder of Burt Goldsmith.”
The man’s eyes went wide in consternation. “Murder? Police? Omigod!”
“May we step inside, sir? Easier to talk in the room than out here in the corridor.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” said the stricken actor. “Please come in, police people.” He led the way into the nicely decorated room, if you disregarded the items of clothing strewn about everywhere and covering every available surface. Judging from the quality of the garments the man was a fastidious dresser. Perhaps even a most compelling one.
“Don’t mind the mess,” he said, waving a distracted hand and tugging his dressing gown closer around his trim physique. “I was just trying to decide what to wear for our get-together.” When they stared at him, uncomprehending, he grimaced. “As you probably know, we’re holding a thing in town. The Seabreeze Music Center graciously accepted to host us for a three-day conference on all things interesting, fascinating, compelling, intriguing and I’m probably forgetting a few adjectives. But with this darned Burt-getting-blown-up thing we’re seriously considering calling the whole thing off. It really would be in awfully bad taste.”
Chase, still holding on to the cats, who were squirming in his grip, said, “I understand you sent a bottle of Dos Siglas up to Burt Goldsmith’s room just before he died?”
The man’s dark eyebrows wiggled. “No, sir, I did not. I never sent anything to Burt’s room. Oh, I know he kept accusing me of doing so—taunting him, as he called it. But I assured both him and your colleagues who were in here badgering me before that whoever sent those bottles, it wasn’t me. I disliked Burt intensely and the feeling was mutual. If I could avoid having anything to do with th
e man I did. The fact that we were in Hampton Cove together—at the same hotel, no less—was cause for serious discomfort on my part.”
“You didn’t choose this time and place to coincide with Burt’s shoot?” asked Odelia.
“No, I did not. None of us did. It was the other way around. We put on this conference and then Burt decided to drop by unannounced, no doubt trying to steal our thunder. The conference has attracted a lot of attention and Burt, who was a real attention whore if you pardon my French, couldn’t resist the temptation to bask in our limelight.”
A black cat had entered the room from the balcony and stood perfectly still, eyeing Max and Dooley with menace. Uh-oh.
“So you never sent up that bottle?” asked Chase, struggling to contain Odelia’s cats.
“No, detective, I didn’t,” said the Most Compelling Man in the World haughtily. “This hotel doesn’t even carry Tres Siglas, which goes to show how low standards have dropped. Furthermore, I don’t understand the significance of this bottle. Who cares what beer Burt drank? It certainly wasn’t Tres Siglas. It wasn’t even Dos Siglas, the brand he represented. Burt hated beer. Said it tasted like dishwater. He preferred his liquor strong and undiluted.”
Chase finally gave up the battle and dropped Max and Dooley to the floor. They stood poised, watching Curt’s cat intently, every muscle in their small bodies flexed.
“It would appear that the final bottle you sent up—or someone else sent up—contained the powerful explosive that ended Burt Goldsmith’s life,” said Chase. “Which is why it’s imperative we find out who sent that bottle.”
The man’s jaw dropped. “An exploding bottle of beer? Oh, my. Oh, dear me.” Suddenly his face twisted into an expression of peevishness. He stomped his foot. “That foul old bird! Can’t you see what’s going on here, detective? Can’t you read between the lines? He sent it to himself! Burt sent that bottle to himself! He wanted to go out with a bang and he did! Now every newspaper in the country will headline the story—people will be talking about this for days. He wanted to best us one final time. Oh, the horrible, nasty old bird!”
“You think he killed himself?” asked Odelia, surprised.
Curt Pigott swung his arms. “Of course he did! The man was pushing eighty. He didn’t have a lot of time left. And it wouldn’t surprise me if he wasn’t sick from some wasting disease, judging from the way he’d lost the pounds in recent years. He wanted to kick the bucket on his own terms and put in one last performance. A most fascinating death.”
It was a most interesting theory—one Chase seemed to consider credible, judging from the way he was rubbing his chin. “Room service staff said the order to bring up those bottles came from your room,” he said.
“I swear to you, detective—I had nothing to do with it! And how easy would it be to tell room service that I gave the commission. There are no papers to sign when you call down an order—simply a phone call and the mention of your room number. Anyone could have given my name and number—anyone at all.” He wagged a finger in their faces, his own face clouding. “Especially Burt Goldsmith, who was a cunning old coot right up until the very end. He knew he could get me into hot water with this stunt. One final blow. One final insult.”
“I take it the dislike between you two was mutual?” asked Odelia.
“Oh, it most assuredly was.” He tapped his hairy chest. “I was supposed to be the Most Fascinating Man in the World. Me! Dos Siglas asked me first. But Burt, who was a down-on-his-luck two-bit actor at the time, decided to improve his chances by sleeping with the casting lady. The rest is history. Fifteen years later he’s the star and I’m the also-ran. And ever since he’s been rubbing it in my face,” he added between gritted teeth.
The guy definitely had motive, Odelia decided. He seemed to hate Burt’s guts with a vengeance. But did he do it? Hard to prove. Unless they found trace evidence of the nitroglycerin on his person or this hotel room, they didn’t have a lot to go on.
Just then, war broke out in the room. The black cat, who’d been staring down Max and Dooley, suddenly jumped their bones, and for the next few minutes the world was a maelstrom of claws, piercing yowls and screams, and fur flying all over the place.
The fight began in the center of the room, then moved across its full acreage.
“Max! Dooley!” Odelia cried, desperately trying to separate the warring parties.
It’s hard to stop a cat fight, though. Cats tend to get caught up in the melee, and lash out indifferent of whether the other party is friend or foe. In other words, you step in at your own peril.
And as the fight moved towards the bed, suddenly Chase stepped to the fore, picked up two cats in his right hand, another in his left hand, and pulled. There was a rending sound, and when finally the smoke and fur cleared, he had effectively broken up the fight.
Odelia stared at the man, and so did Curt Pigott.
“You, sir, are marvelous!” Curt exclaimed, and Odelia couldn’t have put it better.
Chapter 15
I was feeling slightly dazed. Being in a huge fight with a princess will do that to a cat. Princess might be slightly clueless about whether he or she was a she or a he but they definitely fought like a tomcat and I had the scratches and the bite marks to prove it. I was tucked away in the crook of Chase’s right arm while Dooley was tucked away in the crook of the burly cop’s left arm. All in all it was a decent proposition and I was slowly starting to feel safe again. To serve and protect was one of those mottos I’d never given much thought, but now that I saw that it extended to me, myself and mine, I was all on board. I was a fan.
“That was a wonderful thing you did back there, Chase,” said Odelia as we descended down to the lobby in the hotel elevator.
“Just doing my job,” Chase grunted, though I could sense Odelia’s words pleased him.
“No, I mean, you could have gotten yourself hurt. That cat meant business.”
“Eh. Just a little pussycat. What harm can it do?”
“Did you see those claws?” Dooley cried. “That cat was going for the kill.”
Muzak softly played on the elevator sound system. ‘Raindrops are falling on my head,’ someone crooned. A cat had just fallen on my head, and Chase had saved us. Suddenly I was feeling all warm and fuzzy, and gave the cop’s square chin a nudge with the top of my head.
“Aww,” Odelia said.
“Hrmph,” Chase said, stiffening.
I could be mistaken, but I had the distinct impression Chase was not a cat person, and he was merely doing this to get in good with Odelia. I would have said he did it to get in bed with Odelia, but he’d already accomplished that particular feat. So what was he after?
“Babies!” Dooley cried suddenly.
I turned to him. “What are you talking about, Dooley?”
“He wants babies! That’s why he’s being so nice to us all of a sudden!”
I hate to admit it but once in a while Dooley gets it right. Now was such an occasion. There’s only one reason why a dog person would suddenly turn into a cat person—or at least pretend to do so: the old baby maker is stirring its ugly head. “You know what, Dooley?” I said. “I think you just might be right.” Then again, maybe a couple of babies wasn’t so bad?
‘Because I’m free. Nothing’s worrying me.’
The elevator dinged and the doors opened, allowing us a nice view of the lobby. I had no idea why Chase insisted on carrying us. We might have been dinged a little, and lost some of our fur and a lot of our dignity, but my paws still worked. And yet I didn’t stir from my comfortable perch, and neither did Dooley. As far as I was concerned, Chase could make as many babies with Odelia as he liked. I’d suddenly grown quite fond of the sturdy cop. First he’d turned out to be Hampton Cove’s fiercest fleaslayer, and now he’d saved our lives.
We walked through the lobby and past the hotel restaurant when a curious sight met our eyes. As one man—or one woman—or one cat—our small company halted in its tracks.
Chase frowned. “Isn’t that—”
“Grandma!” Odelia cried. “She’s at it again.”
I don’t know what she was referring to. Grandma Muffin was having lunch with a bespectacled young man who reminded me of John-Boy of The Waltons fame. He was pale and self-conscious and kept laughing at Grandma’s dubious jokes. The old lady, meanwhile—Dooley’s human, coincidentally—was dressed up like—there’s no other word for it—a tart. She was sporting the kind of cleavage usually reserved for women with more assets than the bony old woman possessed, and the whole thing fell kind of flat. Her face was painted with various types of makeup, and she had on the sort of hat that other, more extravagant and loud women could get away with. Not her. Nor could she get away with the lime-colored fluorescent dress she was wearing. Queen of England Grandma Muffin is not.
Before I had hitched up my lower mandible, Odelia was already stalking in the direction of her grandmother. Chase reluctantly followed in her wake.
“Gran, what are you doing here?” Odelia demanded with not a little heat.
Grandma looked up with a supercilious glint in her eye. She might not be the Queen of England but she could do a fine impression of condescending snootiness. “And who might you be, young lady?” she asked.
“Gran! What on earth has gotten into you?”
Grandma turned to her lunch date. “I’m sorry about this. She must be mistaking me for someone else.” Then she leaned into Odelia and hissed, “Beat it, missy. Can’t you see I’m buttering up my grandson?”
The grandson in question didn’t hide his discomfort. He went so far as to dart apologetic glances at Chase, who stood watching the scene with the kind of inscrutability and thousand-yard stare cops learn during their first week at police academy.
“You’re coming home with me right now,” Odelia snapped. “Get up. Now!”
“Get lost! Now!” Grandma retorted smartly. “You’re cramping my style!”
“Oh, for God’s sakes,” Odelia said.