The Mysteries of Max: Books 31-33

by Nic Saint

  “Pity,” said Dooley. “I could have made him talk.” To which we all laughed heartily—except Scarlett, of course. Though after Gran translated Dooley’s words, she laughed even harder than the rest of us.

  “You know what you should do?” said Gran at length.

  Odelia was frowning before her. “No, what?”

  “You should prove that your client is innocent.”

  “He’s not my client, Gran. He’s just a guy who asked me to do him a favor.”

  “Well, then you should prove that your not-client is innocent.”

  “I don’t know if he’s innocent, do I?”

  “So prove that your not-client is not not-innocent!”

  When Odelia groaned, Scarlett patted her hand. “I know how you feel, honey. I have to put with this every. Single. Night.”

  “Oh, shut up,” Gran grumbled, starting up the car. “You love it.”

  “Yeah, I do,” said Scarlett with a grin.

  And then we were off again, trying to prove… something.

  Chapter 10

  The next morning Dooley and I were on the road again, this time in the wake of our human, who was ready to tackle this thing the way it should be tackled: with fortitude and a quizzical mind. So following our example, she decided to drop by the General Store. Though in all honesty I don’t know if picking Wilbur Vickery’s brain was such a good idea—Wilbur’s brain being not all that interesting to pick. Though the man does have a fount of gossip to spread about our local populace, of course.

  And so while Odelia was shopping for wares and gossip, we sat down with Kingman, who looked a little nervous when he caught sight of us. I soon learned it wasn’t us he was nervous about but the twosome who stepped up behind us: Harriet and Brutus.

  “H-hi there,” said Kingman as he eyed Harriet a little trepidatiously. “H-how are you this fine morning, your highness?”

  “Your highness?” said Dooley. “I didn’t know Harriet was royalty, Max?”

  “She’s not,” I said. “It’s just a way of showing respect for a person.”

  “A sign of deep, deep, very deep respect,” said Kingman with a congenial smile. “Deep respect for a person I deeply… respect. Isn’t that true, Harriet?”

  “Well, I’m sure I’m honored,” said Harriet, who seemed different this morning. I don’t know exactly in what sense, but she definitely was. For one thing, she had this supercilious smile on her face that seemed stuck there with superglue, and nothing appeared capable of fazing her, which isn’t like the Harriet I know. Also, even after the fracas of last night, there wasn’t a scratch on her. Not a single bit of fur out of place.

  “So Odelia’s client was arrested last night,” I said, wanting to get this show on the road. “You don’t happen to know anything about the guy, do you Kingman?” I asked.

  “His name is Joshua Curtis,” Dooley supplied helpfully.

  “Um… no,” said Kingman. “Can’t say that I do.” He was still eyeing Harriet with a slight sense of alarm that I found very peculiar.

  “No gossip that you know of?” I insisted. I couldn’t imagine that Kingman would be totally unaware of Mr. Curtis’s particulars, as he’s usually so well-informed.

  “I’m telling you, Max, I don’t know anything about this guy. Not a thing. He’s a nobody. A complete zero. Never done anything, never been on anybody’s radar until now.”

  “He killed three people,” Dooley said. “So he’s probably on everybody’s radar.”

  “We don’t know that he killed them,” I said. “It’s quite possible that he’s completely innocent, and that he has a good explanation for what he was doing there.”

  Just then, Shanille came walking up. Contrary to Harriet, she did look a little… damaged. More than a few patches of fur were missing from her corpus, and there was a thick scratch right across her nose.

  “Shanille!” said Dooley. “What happened to you?”

  Shanille directed a scathing look at Harriet. “That happened to me. Your friend.”

  Harriet’s look of smug satisfaction deepened. “Oh, you’re not still sore about our little tiff, are you, Shanille?”

  “Tiff? Have you seen me? I look like I’ve been in the wars! Even Father Reilly was worried. He wants to take me to the vet, if you please! Figures I’ve been attacked!”

  “You should consider that a good thing,” said Harriet. “It shows that he cares.”

  I was starting to understand now why Kingman was treating Harriet with such deference. He probably had witnessed the massacre, and didn’t want to be next on Harriet’s list.

  “Look, if you insult my human,” said Harriet, “you should know that I won’t take it lying down. So as I see it, you got exactly what you deserved. Isn’t that right, Brutus?”

  “Yup,” said Brutus. He cut a look in my direction, and I could tell that he wasn’t fully committed to Harriet’s tough new stance, taken straight from The Equalizer’s playbook.

  “Well, you’re still out,” said Shanille. “No more cat choir for you.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Harriet.

  “You’re out of cat choir, I’m telling you.”

  “Nope. I’m still very much in.”

  “I’m the director and I’m telling you that you’re suspended until further notice. And if it were up to me—”

  “But it’s not up to you, is it, sweetheart? You can’t just kick out a cat without a majority of cat choir endorsing your position. So why don’t we put it to a vote?” She approached Shanille, who moved back a step. “Why don’t we ask the members of cat choir if they feel their star soprano should be sidelined, just because the director says so, mh?”

  “Harriet, I don’t know if…” Brutus started to say, but she shut him up with a single glance.

  “I will win this thing,” she said. “I’m popular. Cats like me. They love me. They adore me. And I will win this vote with a smashing majority. Just you wait and see.”

  “I’ll vote for you, Harriet,” said Kingman obsequiously.

  “I know you will, Kingman,” said Harriet, batting her eyelashes at the stocky cat. “Now are we done? What are you guys doing here, anyway?”

  “Odelia’s not-client didn’t murder three people last night and now she’s not trying to prove that her not-client is not not-innocent,” said Dooley, then frowned. “Or was it the other way around?”

  “I think we should probably see what’s taking Odelia so long,” I said, feeling that soon Harriet would start canvassing us for our support. And frankly? Even though Harriet is my friend, and I mostly enjoy her company, I wasn’t sure I could condone this use of physical violence to settle her arguments.

  So we moved into the store, and clearly just in time, for we found our human cornered by no less than three members of the public. Reading from left to right, they were Father Reilly, Wilbur Vickery and Ida Baumgartner.

  Chapter 11

  “What you did isn’t Christian, Odelia, dear,” Father Reilly said. “Getting married in Las Vegas?” He shivered visibly. “That den of iniquity? That bastion of sin? You should have gotten married right here, standing before your own community, in the church where you were baptized, the church where your parents were married, and your grandmother—though of course that was before my time.” The thought of Gran seemed to pain him a bit, so he cleared his throat and said, “What do you have to say about this, Wilbur?”

  “Well, I agree with you wholeheartedly, of course, Francis. Getting married in Vegas is simply not done. Not by a nice girl like Odelia, anyway.”

  “Or by a God-fearing police officer like Chase Kingsley,” Ida Baumgartner added.

  “Look, I’m truly sorry things happened the way they did,” said Odelia, “but—”

  “No buts,” said Father Reilly. “All is not lost, Odelia. I say we regroup and reschedule. Your wedding may be postponed but it’s not canceled. I consulted my planner this morning and I can fit you in for the second weekend of February. How does that sound
?”

  “That sounds absolutely wonderful,” said Ida, who was one of Odelia’s dad’s most faithful and regular patients. In fact she never skipped a week without paying the good doctor a visit and always had some new symptoms to reveal. “Thank you so much for your understanding, Father,” she continued. “And for giving Odelia this second chance.”

  “Look, I think it’s very kind of you to do this,” said Odelia, “but—”

  “Could we maybe reschedule, Francis?” asked Wilbur, who’d been consulting his diary on his phone. “The second weekend of February is a little difficult for me. I’ve got something going on. The national coaster collectors convention in… Vegas, of all places,” he added with an awkward little laugh. “But the weekend after I’m free.”

  “That would be… the third weekend of February,” said Father Reilly, taking out his own phone. “I could slot you in. But it would have to be the Saturday. On Sunday I have a wine tasting I can’t be late for in the early afternoon. It’s all the way in… well, Vegas.”

  Ida, who was consulting her diary, shook her head. “Can’t. Third weekend of February is completely full. The next available weekend is… May. First weekend in May.”

  “No, I’m afraid I’m fully booked that weekend,” said Father Reilly. “Another wine tasting,” he added curtly.

  Max, who’d joined the revels, now pshh’ed, and said, “Better skedaddle while they’re not looking!” And Odelia smiled and decided to follow his advice. So she left Father Reilly, Wilbur and Ida to find a date for her wedding, without having the courtesy to consult her, and decided Max was right. Time to go! As it was, they didn’t even notice that the bride, supposedly the star of the wedding, was no longer amongst those present.

  “I’m so glad I decided to do the wedding in Vegas,” she said as she hurried out of the shop. “The more I think about it, Max, the more I’m starting to see that these people aren’t interested in me or my wedding. All they want is an opportunity to have a party—at my expense!”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about that anymore,” said Max. “The wedding is done, and there won’t be a reprise.”

  “Father Reilly seems to think there will be a reprise.”

  “Just avoid him for a while. He’ll get the message,” advised her cat.

  “You know, Max, you’re a lot wiser than most humans I know, and that includes the three I just left in there.”

  “Dooley, watch out!” said Max suddenly.

  Dooley, who’d been walking with his head up, staring at the sky, almost bumped into a lamppost.

  “Dooley, you have to look where you step,” said Odelia as she picked up the small gray cat, who was still inspecting the sky, even though he’d almost bumped his snoot into an unyielding object.

  “I have to watch for the stork, Odelia,” he said. “If I don’t watch for the stork, how will he know where to find us? And then he won’t be able to deliver your babies.”

  “Oh, so now it’s more than one baby already, is it?” she said with a grin at Max.

  “I’m not sure,” Dooley admitted. “How many did you order?”

  “Well, to be completely honest with you, I didn’t order any babies, Dooley.”

  “No babies! But you have to put in your order, Odelia, otherwise how is the stork going to know what you want?”

  She laughed heartily and hugged the small cat close. He was such a sweetheart.

  But then they’d arrived at the police station, and it was time for more serious business: she’d decided that she wanted to visit Joshua and have another chat with him. If he really was innocent, he had to stop lying and start telling the truth.

  So she dropped Dooley to the ground and walked in.

  Chapter 12

  Dooley and I both felt sorry for Odelia. It isn’t every day that your human is cornered by the parish priest and two of his most fervent parishioners and pretty much bullied into organizing a wedding for the entire town.

  “I hope Odelia doesn’t go through with it,” I said therefore.

  “But she has to have the babies, Max,” said Dooley. “She just has to.”

  “I wasn’t talking about babies, Dooley,” I said. “I was referring to the wedding Father Reilly is so desperate to organize. Besides, why are you so anxious for our human to have babies anyway? She’s still young. She has plenty of time to start a family.”

  “But if she doesn’t have babies now she will kick us out!”

  “How so? I don’t get it.”

  “Okay, so Shanille told me that women should get pregnant on their wedding night. That means that they’re blessed. If they don’t get pregnant on their wedding night, it means that something is wrong with the marriage, as the man cannot… perform?”

  I had to suppress a smile at this. “I don’t think you should listen to Shanille, Dooley. Her world views aren’t always, um, an accurate depiction of reality, let’s put it like that.”

  “But if Odelia doesn’t have babies immediately, she’ll be upset with Chase, and she’ll get divorced. That’s what Shanille said. If the husband can’t perform, the woman has every right to ask for a divorce, because the only purpose of marriage is to have babies, and plenty of them.”

  “Okay, so let’s get this straight. According to Shanille, if Odelia doesn’t have babies immediately, she should file for divorce, as it’s a sign that Chase isn’t the right guy for her?”

  “That’s what Shanille said. And she told me to look out for that stork. If I miss it, and those babies get delivered to the wrong address, Odelia will kick Chase out and get a divorce! And then she’ll be sad, and she might kick us out, too! Because we like Chase so much,” he added quietly.

  “Look, Dooley, this is all just a lot of baloney. Please don’t listen to Shanille. If she tells you a lot of stuff that doesn’t make sense, you ask me first before you go start believing her, okay?”

  “So… was she lying, Max? Was Shanille lying when she told me that Chase needs to perform or else? And what does she mean by that?”

  “Um…”

  “I asked her if she meant that Chase had to sing for Odelia. You know, perform a song? Or maybe a dance? And she looked at me and shook her head and walked off. So now I still don’t know what she meant.”

  “Well, you called it, Dooley,” I said. “When a couple gets married the husband has to perform a song and a dance. And if they do it right, they’ll make their brides very happy.”

  Dooley smiled. “I’m sure that Chase did a great job. I’ve heard him sing and he’s aces.”

  Chase is a wonderful human being, a great cop, and an amazing partner to our human, but what he is not is a singer. In fact Chase can’t sing if his life depended on it. And I’ve never seen him dance, but somehow I don’t think he’s aces in that department either. But if Dooley was happy to think that he was, good for him. I wasn’t going to rob him of that particular illusion.

  “You keep watching out for that stork, Dooley,” I said therefore. “But if it doesn’t arrive soon, I don’t want you to worry, all right? Stork or no stork, Odelia loves Chase, and I’m sure that he loves her, too. So there is no danger of divorce in their near future.”

  “That’s good to know, Max,” my friend said earnestly, “cause Shanille really had me worried there for a minute.”

  And since Odelia was such a wonderful human, we decided to give her a helping paw by spying on Uncle Alec, who, for some reason I couldn’t quite fathom, didn’t seem as eager as usual to share information with his favorite niece.

  So we rounded the building, hopped up onto the Chief’s windowsill, and lay in wait, making sure we weren’t seen, and pressing our ears to the window to pick up those telling clues Odelia likes us to supply her with.

  “So it was definitely murder?” we heard Uncle Alec ask Chase.

  “Yeah, no doubt about it,” said Chase. “And we know who did it, too, which is a first.”

  “Joshua Curtis. Notary clerk. No priors, not even a speeding ticket. In eve
ry respect a model citizen. And now this.”

  “The toxicology report is clear: all three of these guys died from smoke inhalation, and all three had Rohypnol in their blood, which proves they were knocked out prior to their deaths.”

  “So they were knocked out first, then someone set fire to the building?”

  “Exactly. So now we know what happened, and we got the killer. Only thing we don’t know is why. Why did Mr. Model Citizen suddenly bust loose and decide to slay three?”

  Chapter 13

  Odelia, in spite of the fact that she wasn’t the man’s attorney, and she wasn’t a police officer either, still was granted access to Joshua Curtis. She’d told the desk sergeant that the man was her client, and no further questions were asked. Such was the advantage of being the Chief’s niece that five minutes later she was sitting in one of the interview rooms talking to the suspect.

  Joshua looked a little worse for wear, compared to the last time she’d seen him: his shirt was untucked and his chin was dark with a shadow of stubble. He also looked a little sleepy, and clearly hadn’t enjoyed his short sojourn in the pen.

  “So are you finally going to tell me the truth, Joshua?” she said.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, warily dragging a hand through his tousled hair.

  “You weren’t walking your dog last night, were you? You don’t even have a dog. So what were you doing at the house on Parker Street?”

  He hung his head in resignation. “Look, all I wanted to do was have it out with the guy once and for all, all right?”

  “What guy?” asked Odelia with a frown. “What are you talking about?”

  “The guy! The guy Melanie was seeing.”

  “But… I thought you said you didn’t know who he was?”

  “I… well, I may not have told you the complete truth,” he admitted. “His name is Franklin Harrison, and apparently he was living in that squat house for some time. Even though he hadn’t told Melanie. He’d told her he was living in Jackson Heights.”