by Nic Saint
Actually she hadn’t. She’d been too busy trying to fight the nausea the smell created. “So how did they do that?”
“We have no idea. But he didn’t lock himself up in that safe. And there are no signs of a struggle. So he must have walked in there voluntarily, then had the safe door close up on him.”
“How did the duck poop get into the safe?”
“They thought about this,” said Chase, as he led her out of the office and back into the hallway. “In fact this must have taken careful preparation. This wasn’t some half-assed job they put together at the last minute.”
“They? You think there was more than one assailant?”
“Oh, yes. This was not a one-man job.”
He walked her around the house, along a wood chip mulch path that snaked along the side. She saw several patches of nice-looking petunias, geraniums, million bells and impatiens. And of course some of the popular deer-resistant annuals like angelonia, snapdragons and helichrysum. Like everywhere on the South Fork, deer liked to roam wild and free in Hampton Cove, devouring whatever they could dig their hungry teeth into.
They’d reached the back of Dickerson’s huge house, and Odelia frowned when her eyes met a scene she wouldn’t normally associate with the fastidious billionaire: a huge tanker had been backed up to the house, a five-inch hose connecting it to a wall vent. Next to the tanker, a tractor had been parked.
“This is how they got the duck poop into the safe,” explained Chase, pointing to the hose. “That’s where the vault vent used to be. Dickerson had a safety built into the vent to prevent liquids from being introduced or birds nesting in there but they simply ripped the whole thing out and fed the hose straight into the vault’s HVAC system.”
Odelia stared at the huge tanker, which looked just like any fuel tanker, only this one had obviously been used to transport something different from oil or gasoline. “Where did they get the tanker? And the duck poop?”
“Geary Potbelly. He’s the only duck farmer left on Long Island. We already arranged for an interview. He says one of his tractors and one of his tankers was stolen last night, a tanker full of liquid duck poop ready to be taken to the poop processing plant.” Chase gestured to the tanker. “This here tanker and that there duck poop.”
Odelia pursed her lips. “This was an organized setup, Chase. Not some kid coming in from the street bearing a grudge against Dickerson. Whoever did this planned this out in advance.” She studied the hole in the wall up close. “They must have had blueprints.”
“Possibly,” Chase admitted. “And you’re right about this being a professional crew.”
“So you’re looking at organized crime?”
He nodded. “Like you said, they needed a lot of know-how to pull this off. Then again, there are crews who do this work for hire. Anyone could have contracted them.”
“Anyone who wanted Dick Dickerson dead. Any candidates?”
“Oh, plenty,” he said. “In fact we’re working on a list right now. Turns out Mr. Dickerson was not exactly the people’s favorite. Exactly the opposite, in fact.”
“People he insulted with his articles?”
“Amongst others. If you want you can join me on some of the interviews. With Alec out of town I could use the extra pair of eyes and ears. Not to mention your keen mind.”
“Oh, so now it’s my mind you’re suddenly interested in, huh?”
“Not just your mind,” he admitted with a wide grin as he pulled her close.
There was some more kissing until a cough interrupted them. When Odelia looked up, she found a man dressed in coveralls staring at them. He was fiddling with his cap.
“So can I take her back then?” he asked.
“Yes, you can, Bert,” said Chase.
“Is that…”
“Bert is in charge of the duck poop tanker,” said Chase. “He works for Potbelly.”
“What a way to make a living.”
Bert mounted the tractor, adjusted his cap, spat on the ground, then proceeded to maneuver the tractor in front of the manure tanker. He jumped back down, and hooked the tanker up to the tractor, then hopped back into the powerful rig, and then he was pulling that mastodon from Dickerson’s lawn, giving Odelia and Chase a nod as he did.
“Murdered by duck poop,” said Odelia as they watched the tractor drive off.
“There’s a certain irony to it, though, right?” said Chase.
“You mean a peddler of poop being killed by poop?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. It is ironic. But it’s still murder, Chase. And we still have to catch whoever did this.”
“Oh, I couldn’t agree more. But you have to admit there’s a sort of poetic justice to the whole thing, if you consider the lives Dickerson destroyed by printing his brand of filth.”
Chase was right. Even though she was a reporter herself, the kind of stuff the National Star engaged in could hardly be called journalism. Half of what they wrote was invented, and the other half grossly exaggerated. And all of it intended to provoke, intimidate, ridicule and cater to the lowest common denominator or possibly even lower.
No, she didn’t think Dick Dickerson would be missed. But he was still a human being, and he’d been murdered, so whoever was responsible needed to be brought to justice.
And she was just about to follow Chase back to his pickup when her phone rang. When she took it out she saw it was an unknown number. Not unusual for a reporter.
“Odelia Poole,” she said, picking up.
“Oh, hi, Miss Poole. Is this the Odelia Poole who works for the Hampton Cove Gazette?”
The voice was male and sounded oddly familiar. “Yes, this is she. Who is this?”
“My name is Otto Paunch, and I’m a great friend of President Wilcox. As you may have heard he’s currently residing at his Hampton Cove residence, Lago-a-Oceano. And as his great, great friend and confidante, I can reveal to you exclusively that Van—that’s President Van Wilcox—was surprised not to see his name appear on the list of Hampton Cove’s wealthiest residents.”
“Well, that’s because President Wilcox doesn’t officially reside in Hampton Cove,” Odelia told the caller. “Officially he lives in Washington. At the White House.”
“Yes, but his heart has always been in Hampton Cove. He loves it out here, you know—loves it. And if it weren’t for this president thing, I’m sure he would have topped that list.”
“There are some pretty rich people on our annual rich list, Mr. Paunch. Some of them probably a lot richer than your friend.”
“Poppycock. Van is the richest man in the Hamptons. The richest man in the state, even. I’m looking at his bank statement right now and I can see he’s got twenty billion dollars to his name. Twenty billion dollars, Miss Poole! Who can beat that? If that doesn’t take him straight to the top of your list you’re not the reporter I took you for.”
“If you’re sure about this, Mr. Paunch, I could always print a new version of the list.”
“Do that, Miss Poole. Because I am sure about this. As Van’s best friend, you can trust me on that. In fact you can trust me on anything I have to say about him. Van and I are so close you wouldn’t believe. We’re like brothers. Twins. Now don’t let me keep you. I’m sure you want to get started on that new rich list straightaway, Van’s name at the very top.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Paunch.”
“Goodbye, Miss Poole.”
And as she put her phone away, she was still wondering who Otto Paunch’s voice reminded her of.
Chapter 7
Vesta got up and looked at her handiwork with a nod of appreciation. Odelia’s garden was a mess, but with a little bit of work, a dash of love, and a lot of manure, she could turn it into a work of art. She couldn’t wait to see the look on Tex’s face when he glanced over the hedge into his daughter’s garden one fine morning and saw stretched before his stupefied gaze the most beautiful garden in all of Hampton Cove.
That woul
d teach him to kick his own mother-in-law to the curb!
Not that he’d actually kicked her to the curb, but those were tiny details she didn’t like to concern herself with. And that’s when she saw the lone figure of Dooley sneaking through the hedge in the direction of Tex and Marge’s backyard.
“Hello there,” she said with a reproachful glint in her eye. “Now where do you think you’re going, young cat?”
Dooley looked up, two paws on Tex’s property and two paws on what Vesta now considered her own. “Um… home?” he said, an expression of confusion on his furry face.
“You come back here right this instance, Dooley,” snapped Vesta. “Your home is with me, and since I live on this side of the hedge now there’s no reason for you to go over there anymore.” She accentuated the word ‘there’ with a wave of the hand and a look of distaste.
“But… my bowl is over there,” said Dooley. “And my litter box. And my couch.”
“Not anymore it’s not. I’ll buy you a new litter box. And a new bowl.” Well, she would tell Odelia to buy them, at any rate. On the small pension she received she couldn’t afford to spend money like water on such trivial stuff like litter boxes and cat bowls. Not since Tex had cut up her credit cards and thwarted her plans to become a millionaire heiress.
Dooley retracted his paws and sat on his haunches for a moment. “But… I don’t want to be here, Gran. Nobody here loves me.” He said it in such a sad tone that even Vesta, whose soul was callused after having watched General Hospital, The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful and Days of Our Lives all of her life, not to mention listening to countless sob stories from Tex’s patients as they booked appointments, felt her heart constrict.
“What do you mean, nobody loves you around here? I love you. Isn’t that enough for you?”
Dooley’s eyes widened. “You love me, Gran?”
“Of course I do. I’m your human, aren’t I? And you’re my cat, aren’t you?”
“I guess I am,” said Dooley. “I just figured… you don’t like me curling up at your feet anymore. And this morning when I tried to snuggle you pushed me away.” He didn’t say it in a reproachful tone. More like a tone that indicated he wasn’t all that surprised that anyone would push him away.
“Oh, Dooley, Dooley,” said Vesta, picking up the gray fluffy cat and cradling him in her arms. “You have to understand that I’ve been under a great deal of stress lately. What with being kicked out of my own home and my own family turning against me. It’s enough to drive any woman to distraction. And if I haven’t been very nice to you it’s because sometimes humans get so wrapped up in their own problems that they kinda forget about their responsibilities. Like my responsibility to turn this crappy yard into a new Versailles. Or to make sure my granddaughter doesn’t get involved with some impostor or evil twin. Or take good care of the only baby I’ve got left,” she added, giving Dooley a squeeze.
“Who is that baby?” asked Dooley.
“You, of course! You’re my baby, Dooley. In fact you’re all I’ve got left.”
“You’re all I’ve got left, too, Gran,” said Dooley softly.
“Why, you’ve got Max, haven’t you? I’d forget about Harriet and Brutus if I were you—they live over there,” she said, gesturing to the hedge. “Over on the dark side. But Max is your friend, isn’t he?”
“No, he’s not,” said Dooley sadly. “I asked him if I could stay with him and he turned me down flat. Milo is right. Max doesn’t care one hoot about me. He probably never did.”
“Who’s Milo?” asked Gran.
“He’s the new guy. Bristly white hair? Pink nose?”
“Oh, right,” said Gran vaguely. Odelia was always taking in strays. Hard to keep up. “Did you just say this Milo told you Max doesn’t care about you?”
“Uh-huh. Well, he didn’t say it straight out. He kinda suggested it when he said a real friend would have invited me to stay in his home a long time ago.”
Gran was frowning at Dooley. “Sounds like a suspicious character to me, Dooley. Like Dr. John Branson, the identical twin of Dr. Richard Quartermaine, who turned out to be a basket case and ended up attacking his brother’s wife with that bomb that time. He got sent to an asylum but managed to escape by switching places with his twin.” She nodded pensively. “To be completely honest with you, I’m not sure he’s not to be distrusted.”
Dooley blinked, visibly enthralled with this bit of sage advice. “Okay,” he said finally.
Feeling she’d dispensed enough wisdom for one morning, she poured Dooley from her arms, then suddenly had a bright idea. “You know what I’m going to do, Dooley?”
“What?” asked Dooley.
“I’m taking a leaf from your book.”
“My book? What book?”
But Vesta wasn’t listening. “I’m going over there to confront the guy. I think the time for dillydallying has come to an end and now it’s time to act. Like Nurse Rebecca Webb when she told Jason she’d finally had enough of his affair with her devious half-sister and told him to choose. Of course that was before he was killed in that plane crash, but no matter.”
And with a hint of steel glinting behind her glasses, she stalked into the house. Time to tell that no-good son-in-law of hers what was what and find out where his priorities lay.
Chapter 8
I saw Dooley take a nap on the bench on the deck and was just about to go over there and try and patch things up between us when Milo gave me a tap on the head.
I hate it when cats pat me on the head. Still, remembering Harriet and Brutus’s words, I managed a polite smile. “Hey, Milo. What have you been up to?”
“Oh, just scouting the place,” said Milo. “Looking around, you know.”
“Great.”
“So, Max. Is it true that you’re the only one who’s allowed to sleep at Odelia’s feet? And that you won’t let anyone else even get near her when she’s asleep?”
I stared at Milo. “What are you talking about? Who said that?”
“Dooley. He told me you’re very possessive when it comes to your human.” He shrugged. “Can’t blame you, though. She is a great human. If I had a human like that I’d make sure no other cat came anywhere near her either.”
I stared at Dooley, who was licking his fur, now basking in the sun. “Dooley said that? He actually told you I’m…” I swallowed away a lump of annoyance. “Possessive?”
“Obsessive is the word he used, actually. But hey, like I said, with a human like Odelia what cat wouldn’t go a little nuts, right? She’s only like the perfect human ever.”
“Nuts,” I said between gritted teeth. “Obsessive.”
“Yeah. So why don’t I sleep on the couch? I don’t want to get on your bad side again, Max. I know now why you didn’t take to me when I first arrived. Because I was too nice to Odelia and you felt threatened.” He held up his paws. “I can dig that, brother. Respect. And I can assure you it won’t happen again. She’s your human. Paws off. I get it.”
“I’m not like that!” I cried, aghast. “I’m not possessive or obsessive or… nuts!”
“Right-o, brother,” said Milo, taking a step back. “Whatever you say.”
“I’m just not! Whatever Dooley told you was a bunch of lies!”
Milo laughed. “Like that thing he told me about you being madly in love with Harriet? And how you and Brutus used to come to blows over her?”
“I’m not—” I paused, trying to keep calm. “I’m not in love with Harriet! Dooley is! He’s the one who’s always been nuts about her. And obscenely jealous of Brutus.”
“Look, Dooley’s just looking out for you, Max. Like any friend would. He knows you’re sensitive about this whole Harriet thing and who can blame you? Being in love like that for years and years and years without having the guts to tell her? That takes a lot of self-control, brother. And I get it. If you love them, set them free, right? More power to you.”
“I’m. Not. In. Love. With. Harri
et,” I said, parsing out the words between puffs of smoke now pouring from my nose. “I never was. Never will. She’s just a friend, all right?”
“Sure,” said Milo, but it was obvious he didn’t believe me. “Look, I know it’s tough, buddy. Especially with the kind of cat Brutus is. And the things he’s been saying about you.”
I gawked at the cat. This was getting better and better. “What’s Brutus been saying about me?”
“Oh, just that you’re the dumbest cat he’s ever met,” said Milo, suddenly having developed a powerful interest in his nails.
“Dumbest cat he’s ever met!”
“Look, I know you consider Brutus a friend,” said Milo. “And the last thing I want is to cause trouble. But with the stuff he says about you, I’d reconsider that friendship, bro.”
“What else has he been saying about me?” I demanded hotly.
“Only that you’re so ugly no cat in Hampton Cove wants to be your girl. And so dumb you’ve never realized this before. And so deadly dull and boring nobody wants to be your friend. And that the only reason he and Harriet hang out with you is because your humans are related.” He shrugged. “It’s that old saying all over again, isn’t it? You can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family? It’s a blessing and a curse. And in Harriet’s case it’s definitely a curse, as she’s forced to spend time with you—time she could spend with her real friends downtown.”
I had developed a tremor in my paw now, and a twitch in my whisker. “Thank you very much, Milo,” I said hoarsely, in as calm and collected a way as I could muster. “Thank you for telling me the truth about my so-called friends.”
Milo did the palms-up thing. “Hey. What are friends for, right?”
Friends were there so they could backstab other friends, I thought as I walked away. And as I directed a nasty glance at Dooley, now licking his butt as if he didn’t have a care in the world, I vowed that from then on they were dead to me. Dooley, Harriet, and Brutus. They were dead to me and if I never saw or heard from them again that was fine by me!