The Mysteries of Max: Books 31-33

by Nic Saint

  “Now let’s get them to talk,” said Max.

  “So if I’m Numpty, and you’re Dumpty,” said Dooley as they walked up to the house, “then who is Humpty?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know, Dooley,” said Max, sounding a little weary.

  “Could it be,” said Dooley, “and this is just a theory, mind you. But could it be that Humpty is the name of the stork?”

  “No, Dooley,” said Max, “Humpty is not the name of the stork.”

  “How do you know? Have you ever met the stork?”

  Odelia smiled as Max had to admit that Dooley had him stumped.

  She pressed her finger against the mother-of-pearl bell button and listened to the loud buzz of the bell as it sounded inside. Moments later the door was opened a crack and two suspicious eyes studied her carefully. “Yes?”

  “Hi, my name is Odelia Poole and I’m investigating last night’s murder. The murder that happened just across the street? You didn’t happen to see anything?”

  “I already talked to the cops,” said the woman, for now that the door was opened a little wider Odelia could see that it was indeed a woman. She would have pegged her in her late sixties, with a florid face and a hard expression in her eyes. Not a woman to be trifled with.

  “I know, but I’m just working a different angle.”

  “Do you have a badge? The policewoman who was here last night had a badge.”

  “No, I do not have a badge,” she said, “but if you want to check my credentials you can always get in touch with this person.” She handed Mrs. Dibble Chase’s card. “He’s the detective investigating the case and I’m sure he’ll vouch for me.”

  “Mh,” the woman said, clearly not impressed. “So what do you wanna know?”

  “Well, did you see anything suspicious last night? People entering the building or exiting?”

  “I saw one guy exiting the building. Nice-looking fella. Looked like a lawyer. Not the kind of person you’d expect in a place like that.”

  “And what kind of place is that?”

  “A crack house,” the woman spat. “Filled with junkies and slackers. I’ve been complaining to the cops for months, but do you think they even showed me the courtesy to come and talk to me? No way. But now that three people are dead suddenly they all show up and start asking a million questions. If you people had listened to me sooner, this would never have happened!”

  “I know,” said Odelia. “So apart from the clean-cut type, did you see anyone else?”

  “No one,” said the woman, shaking her head. “Of course it’s not as if I spent all night looking at that wretched place. I’ve got better things to do, me, and so does my husband.”

  “Can I talk to your husband, perhaps? Maybe he saw something?”

  “He didn’t see nothing.”

  “But—”

  “Nothing!”

  “Just one more question, Mrs. Dibble. Did you happen to call the police last night? Or your husband?” she hastened to add when the woman started shaking her head.

  “I did not,” said Vanda Dibble.

  “Well, someone called the police.”

  “Two old ladies were out here, staking out the place. They called the cops.”

  “I know, but one more call was placed. Or actually two. The clean-cut individual, as you so aptly described him, called 911 and so did the two old ladies, but there was a third 911 call, and I was wondering…”

  “Well, it wasn’t us. Now if there’s nothing else…” She started to close the door. Then suddenly there was a loud scream that came from somewhere inside the house.

  “Vanda!” a man’s voice called out. “I got ‘em! Busted them fair and square!”

  The woman quickly turned back to join her husband, and Odelia decided it behooved her to enter the house and see what was going on in there.

  And as she followed Mrs. Dibble into the living room, then through to the kitchen and out into the backyard, she was met with a fascinating scene: there stood an old man, with a face as florid as his wife’s and eyes as hard her hers, brandishing a gun at two old ladies. And those two ladies were… Gran and Scarlett!

  “What are you doing here?” Odelia blurted out.

  “You know these two?” asked Mrs. Dibble, whirling around.

  “I caught them with these,” said Mr. Dibble, and pointed to four empty jerrycans, lying at Gran’s feet. “They tried to sneak into the tool shed, if you please!”

  “You told me to get rid of them!” Gran cried. “So I figured what better place to dump them than here with these two killers!”

  “I told you to take them to the police!” said Odelia.

  “How do you know each other?” Mrs. Dibble tried again.

  “I was gonna call the cops as soon as we planted them in the shed,” Gran explained.

  “I told you this was a bad idea,” Scarlett hissed.

  “It was a good idea. Only I hadn’t counted on the old coot with the gun,” Gran hissed back.

  “Hey, who are you calling an old coot!” said the guy.

  “You, you old coot,” Gran snapped. “Just admit it, you killed those people! You set fire to that building across the street, didn’t you? Confess!”

  “Oh, just call the cops already, Bart,” said Mrs. Dibble. “These two are obviously nuts.”

  “She’s my grandmother,” Odelia now explained. “So maybe you shouldn’t call the police?”

  “I thought you were the police!” said the woman, suspicion making her face flush.

  “She’s not a cop,” said Gran. “She’s a reporter.”

  “A reporter!”

  “And a civilian consultant,” Odelia added weakly.

  “That does it. I’m calling the cops,” said the woman, then snapped, “The real ones!”

  Chapter 22

  “What were you doing with those jerrycans?”

  Vesta gave her interrogator the stink eye, which admittedly was a little hard since he was her grandson-in-law and she’d just seen him get married to her beloved granddaughter. Still she thought she did a pretty good job under the circumstances. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “What jerrycans?”

  Chase’s eyes narrowed. He was in full-on interrogation mode, Vesta saw, and she pitied the crooks who had to sit here and submit to this kind of treatment. She was pretty sure they’d all crack under the strain. She wouldn’t, of course, since she was a lot tougher than most crooks.

  “You were seen inserting four empty yellow jerrycans into a tool shed located on the private property of Mr. and Mrs. Bart and Vanda Dibble. There are three witnesses who saw you: Mr. Bart Dibble, Mrs. Vanda Dibble, and Odelia Poole.”

  “Frankly there were two more,” she said. “Max and Dooley were also there, but I guess they don’t count, do they?”

  The cop stared at her for a moment. “No,” he said finally. “They don’t count. So let me ask you again. What were you doing with those four jerrycans? Where did you get them and why were you trying to hide them in the tool shed belonging to the Dibbles?”

  In turn, she narrowed her eyes, too. “I plead the fifth.”

  “This is not a courtroom, Vesta. This is a police interrogation. All I want from you is an answer to a simple question: where the hell did those jerrycans come from?”

  She was pretty sure Odelia had already told her husband all about those jerrycans, which made this interview pretty much a waste of time in her view. Still, she wasn’t going to incriminate herself. No sirree. So she leaned forward and placed her elbows on the table. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Chase.”

  “We’ll see about that,” he growled, then abruptly got up and left the room.

  “Those intimidation techniques won’t work on me, buddy boy!” she shouted. “I know my rights!”

  Well, actually she didn’t, but at least she knew from watching a ton of Perry Mason shows that it’s always better not to talk to the cops.

  One room over, in intervi
ew room number two, Alec Lip was interviewing Scarlett Canyon. Scarlett wasn’t entirely at ease. Not that she hadn’t been arrested before, because she had, but it still wasn’t exactly the kind of thing she enjoyed as a pastime.

  “For the last time, Scarlett,” said Alec, tapping the table with impatient fingers. “What were you doing with those jerrycans? And is it true you found them at Joshua Curtis’s place?”

  “Who told you that!” she snapped, then realized she probably shouldn’t have said that. In her defense, though, she wasn’t exactly a pro at this kind of stuff.

  “Look, we’ve got my mother in the next room, and right now she’s probably singing like a canary.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Why? She knows what’s good for her.”

  “No, I mean, Vesta can’t sing. So I know you’re lying to me right now, Alec Lip,” she added, wiggling a reproachful finger in the man’s face.

  Alec had the decency to wince a little. He probably didn’t enjoy raking his mom’s best friend over the coals any more than she enjoyed the process of being raked.

  Just then, the door opened and Chase stuck his head in. He bent over Alec, and the two men engaged in a whispered conversation that lasted a couple of minutes. Then Alec nodded, and Chase departed.

  “Just as I thought,” he said. “Vesta is laying it all out for us. Telling the whole story A to Z. Which makes things really difficult for you, Scarlett, I can promise you that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She just told my deputy that you’re the one who found those jerrycans in Joshua Curtis’s garage and that you suggested planting them in that tool shed.”

  “That’s a lie!” Scarlett cried.

  “Well, that’s what she says. We explained to her exactly what I just explained to you: that only one of you is going to be offered this deal of immunity in exchange for a full confession. Looks like Vesta beat you to it.”

  She chewed her bottom lip. “Can I think about it?”

  Alec slammed his fist on the table. “Thinking time is over, Scarlett! It’s now or never! Think on your feet!”

  “You’re making me very nervous, Alec!” she cried. “And I don’t like it when people make me nervous. I get very upset when that happens, and when I get upset I start screaming!”

  Alec’s face sagged. “Not the screaming,” he said. “Please not the screaming.”

  “I can feel it coming up!” Scarlett warned.

  “Please, have mercy,” said Alec.

  Chase had left the room and now returned. Trickery, Vesta understood. Mind games these cops liked to play. But she wasn’t going to be fooled by this nonsense. “I want a cup of coffee,” she said the moment the burly cop rejoined the interview.

  “You can’t have one,” Chase grunted as he took a seat again.

  “I know my rights! I want a cup of coffee!”

  “You can have your coffee, but you gotta give me something in return.”

  “I’m going to file charges against you, Chase Kingsley!”

  “Who with?”

  “Your wife!”

  Chase blanched a little, but held his own. “I have to say, Vesta. I thought you were smarter.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. Alec told me you’re the smartest of the two of you, but so far it looks like it’s Scarlett who’s winning the race.”

  “What are you talking about? What race?”

  “I told you at the start of this interview how only one of you will be offered a deal. Talk in exchange for immunity. Looks like Scarlett is about to win the big prize. She’s singing like a canary in there,” he added, jerking his thumb in the direction of the wall, behind which presumably Scarlett was holed up, also being interviewed.

  “Ha ha ha,” said Vesta.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You! Everybody knows Scarlett can’t sing.”

  “Well, she’s singing right now, spilling the beans. She claims that you stole those jerrycans from Joshua Curtis’s garage, after you broke into the guy’s house. She also claims that it was your idea to plant those jerrycans in that tool shed, trying to put the blame for those killings on the Dibbles. What do you have to say to that?”

  Suddenly a loud scream came from the next room, and Vesta cried, “Is that what you call singing like a canary? You’re torturing her, you brute! This is an outrage!”

  Chase swallowed away a lump, and just then a knock sounded at the door and Alec strode in. He bent over Chase and started whispering something into his ear.

  “What are you two whispering about?” Vesta demanded, but received no response. “Hey, I asked you a question, Alec. You can’t do this to me, you know. You can’t do this to your little old mother. There are laws against this kind of thing.” She suddenly grabbed for her heart. “Owowow,” she said. “I just felt a stinging pain in my chest. Ouchie-ouch. Yeah, I think it’s my heart. You better call a doctor. And you better start recording my last words, for this is it. When they find my body, you’ll be the ones being hauled in front of a jury, who’ll wanna know who would treat their feeble old mother like this.”

  Unfortunately for her the two men blithely ignored her long lament, and then Alec left and Chase stared at her like a cat who’s about to eat a canary—the one that had just started singing, presumably.

  “What?” said Vesta. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “You’ve done it now, Vesta.”

  “What have I done now?”

  “The Chief just told me it’s in the bag.”

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “The deal! Scarlett just signed a document granting her full immunity in exchange for her confession, and she’s put all the blame squarely on you.” And to emphasize his words, he poked a finger in Vesta’s direction.

  “She did what?!”

  “She talked! Said this was all your idea!”

  “No, she didn’t!”

  “Oh, yes, she did.”

  “Look, it may have been my idea,” she said, “but Scarlett was in on it from the start. She was there when we broke into the Curtis place, and she searched the upstairs while I searched the downstairs. In fact it was her that found that nude painting of the Melanie Myers woman. Okay, so I found the jerrycans, and so it was my idea to get rid of them, making sure a silly little piece of evidence like that didn’t land Odelia’s client in the soup. And sure, it was also my idea to plant them at the Dibbles, but Scarlett was with me every step of the way, so she can’t go crying wolf now. If she didn’t agree, she should have said so!”

  “Why did you plant those jerrycans at the Dibbles?”

  “Cause they’re guilty, Chase! Isn’t it obvious? They’d been complaining about that crack house for months, and finally they decided enough was enough. If the cops weren’t going to do anything about it, they would take matters into their own hands, and so they torched the place. So what if a couple of drug dealers ended up dead? Good riddance!”

  “When we process those jerrycans, are we going to find your fingerprints? Or Scarlett’s?”

  “What do you think I am? A rookie? I wore gloves the entire time, dumbo.”

  He ignored this slur as he jotted down a note. “Did you take anything else from the Curtis place apart from those jerrycans?”

  “No, nothing. I wanted to take that painting, but it didn’t seem like a good idea.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Too heavy! Do you think I want a hernia? Those jerrycans were easy. They were empty.”

  “Empty, huh?” said Chase as he jotted down another note.

  “Sure. Which is why I figured you guys would probably use them as some kind of evidence against Odelia’s client.”

  “You keep referring to Joshua Curtis as Odelia’s client. But he isn’t her client, is he? Just a guy who asked her to do him a favor.”

  “If you’re gonna get all nitpicky about it, sure,” she allowed. Then she smiled. “So now do I get the deal or what?”r />
  Chase got up and said, stony-faced, “What deal?”

  “Hey, you said there was a deal on the table!” she cried as he left the room. “I want my deal!”

  It took her another couple of minutes of sitting in silence to realize that A) there was no deal. B) there never was a deal. And C) she’d just been played!

  Chapter 23

  We were sitting in Odelia’s car, on what is commonly termed a stakeout, watching the house that belongs to Joshua Curtis. There was a lot of police activity going on: cops were walking in and out of the house, carrying boxes and crates and all kinds of stuff.

  “What is going on?” Odelia said.

  Our human was a little frustrated, I could tell. She’d walked up to the cops and asked them what was happening, and what they were dragging out of the house, but they were all under strict instructions from her uncle not to divulge anything about the case to her.

  “Maybe you guys can go in there and take a look?” she finally suggested.

  It had been an eventful evening already, what with Gran and Scarlett being arrested in flagrante delicto, for trying to plant stolen evidence in the Dibbles’ tool shed, and probably for trespassing, as I don’t think they’d asked permission before they snuck in.

  “Let’s go, Dooley,” I said as Odelia opened the door.

  So we tripped across the street to find out what was going on. Already we knew that four jerrycans had been found in Joshua’s garage, but now it looked like more stuff was going to be used to tie Odelia’s client to this triple homicide.

  Dooley, who’d been glancing upwards, now asked, “Do you think storks work at night, Max? Or do you think they sleep?”

  “I thought you’d finally dropped the whole stork thing?”

  “Well, I know that Odelia says she wants to wait to have babies, but it’s not up to her, is it? When that stork decides to drop a baby in her lap, he’s going to drop that baby in her lap, whether she likes it or not.”

  “It doesn’t work like that, Dooley.”