by Nic Saint
“I don’t understand why my grandmother didn’t see this person. She was parked out here for at least half an hour before the fire.”
“She wouldn’t have. The person got out on the far side of the fence and walked off in the other direction, away from where your grandmother and her friend were parked.”
“So… why didn’t you tell the police about this person?”
The woman was conspicuously silent for a moment, then growled, “I told you before, Miss Busybody, whoever torched that place deserves a medal, and I’m not the one who’s gonna be responsible for them getting caught! If your grandma and her friend didn’t see that person, I didn’t see them neither—you got that? And now get lost already, will you?”
And with this, she finally slammed the door in Odelia’s face.
Chapter 30
We were back at the precinct, and in Chase’s office. Uncle Alec was out, and probably that was a good thing, as he was seemingly a little annoyed with his ‘civilian police consultant.’
“So this is the second call, okay?” said Chase, who was behind his desk, with Odelia having rolled up a chair next to him. He tapped a key on his computer and the subdued voice of Joshua Curtis echoed through the room. “Then there’s the third call, coming on the heels of the second one,” he said, and Gran’s voice sounded from the tinny speakers.
“Okay, so that was Joshua, then Gran. And how about that first call?”
Chase clicked a key and a voice spoke, but this one sounded really weird. Robotic.
“He must have used a voice changer,” Chase said.
“That’s some pretty sophisticated stuff, right?”
“Not necessarily. Nowadays you can easily install a voice changing app on your phone.”
“So who could this person be?” asked Odelia.
“Why do you want to know? We have our man in custody, babe.”
“Has Joshua confessed yet?”
“No, he’s still holding out,” Chase admitted. “But he’s got no leg to stand on. He did it. No doubt about it.”
Odelia didn’t seem to be so sure. “Play that last part again, will you?”
The scrambled voice sounded through the room again. ‘I wish to report a fire,’ said the mystery caller. ‘Parker Street fifty-one. Better hurry, or else the whole place will be gone, and I think there’s still people inside.’ Click. The call ended before the operator could ask the person for his or her identity.
“So I talked to the Dibbles again,” said Odelia, “and this time Vanda Dibble admitted that she saw a person crawling out from behind the fence next to Parker Street fifty-one, hurry to their vehicle, and take off. Isn’t it possible that this third person is our mystery caller?”
“Could be,” Chase admitted. “But so what? Could have been a person walking their dog and seeing the fire, or someone driving past the house and doing their civic duty by calling it in.”
“I don’t think so. Like I said, this person came from behind that fence. There’s a vacant lot that leads straight to the back door of number fifty-one. So they could have come from the house.”
“Or they could have stopped to take a leak.”
“Or it could be the arsonist—and our mystery caller.”
Chase thought for a moment, then said, “There’s no traffic cameras set up on Parker Street, but there is a traffic camera at the nearest intersection. So if you’re coming from outside the neighborhood, and want to get out again, you’d have to pass that particular intersection.”
“Can you access that footage?”
Chase nodded, and messed around on his computer some. Finally the screen showed some grainy black-and-white footage of the intersection in question, and so for the next fifteen minutes we all watched… nothing. No cars passing by at that time of night. And then, suddenly, a car did pass. It crossed the intersection and then in a flash was gone.
“Is that the right direction?” asked Odelia.
“Yeah, it is. They’re coming from the neighborhood and driving away from town.”
“Can you see the license plate?”
Chase paused the footage, then selected the part containing the license plate and blew it up and jotted down the number. He typed it into another application, looking it up in the registry. And when the name popped up on the screen, they both gasped.
“Ruth Harrison!” Odelia cried.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Chase said.
“What was Franklin’s mother doing out there? And, more importantly, could she be our mystery caller?”
“Why don’t we go and ask her?” Chase suggested, and grabbed his coat.
Arriving back at the house, this time with Chase behind the wheel of his squad car and Odelia riding shotgun, Odelia had that excited sensation that she was close to solving a baffling mystery.
“There’s probably a perfectly good explanation,” said Chase as they got out of the car and walked up to the house. “So don’t get your hopes up, all right?”
When he rang the doorbell, this time it was Ruth Harrison herself who opened the door. When Chase flashed his badge, a look of fear briefly flashed across the woman’s face.
“Chase Kingsley, Hampton Cove police department,” he introduced himself. “And you’ve met Odelia Poole, my civilian consultant.”
“And also your wife, or so I’ve been told,” said the woman, quickly regaining her poise.
“Yeah, we got married last week,” said Chase with a slight grin.
“Congratulations,” said Mrs. Harrison as she stepped back to let them in. Once more they passed through to the sitting groom. “If you’ve come to talk to Marvin, I’m afraid you just missed him. He drove back into town to attend to some business.”
“It’s actually you we want to talk to,” said Chase, not beating about the bush.
“Me?”
“Yeah, something has come to our attention that we’d like to run by you.”
Odelia and Chase took a seat on the davenport, with Ruth Harrison opting for a chair.
“What were you doing outside the house where your son Franklin lived on the night of the fire, Mrs. Harrison?” asked Chase.
“What do you mean? I was never there, at that filthy place.”
“If you weren’t there, then how do you know it was filthy?” asked Odelia.
“People have told me these things, Miss Poole. They knew how concerned I was for the wellbeing of my son, and so they reported back to me what was going on in his life.”
Chase had taken out his phone and now showed it to Mrs. Harrison. “This is a picture taken with a traffic camera at the intersection close to Parker Street 51, Mrs. Harrison. You will note the timestamp, and also the license plate, which is clearly visible. A license plate, I might add, which is registered in your name. So I’ll ask you again: what was your car doing out there, five minutes after a person using a voice changing app called 911?”
The woman stared at the picture for a moment, then finally relented. “Yes,” she said. “I was driving that car. I–I didn’t want to be associated with this mess, so I used a voice changer on my phone when I called in the fire. I’m sorry for lying to you, Miss Poole, but…”
“Yes, why did you lie?” asked Chase.
She folded her hands in her lap. “You must understand: even though Franklin had gone down a dark road, he was still my son, and I still loved him and wanted him to turn things around and get on his feet again. So that night I decided to pay him a visit. I’d heard he’d been kicked out of the apartment where he lived and had shacked up with a couple of his notorious friends in some squat place, so I wanted to talk to him and plead with him to change his ways. And to reconcile with his father before it was too late.”
“Did you go in through the back?” asked Odelia.
“I did,” said Ruth after a pause. “I thought if only I could talk to Franklin… But when I got there it was obvious there was nothing I could do. The building was on fire, so I turned back and called the police, then dro
ve off, hoping they’d be able to save my son.”
“You didn’t go in?”
“N-no I didn’t. There was a lot of smoke and flames. There was simply no way…”
“You didn’t think to stick around until the fire department got there?”
“No. Like I said, I didn’t want to be associated with this mess. I have Marvin to think about, and my husband, and of course the business, which relies very much on keeping its reputation intact. I can only imagine what the press would have made of it when they snapped a shot of me at such a notorious drug place, my dead son the addict inside.”
“So you ran.”
“Miss Poole, you can’t understand what it’s been like for us these last couple of years. And also, my husband decided to shut Franklin out of our lives for good. If he’d known I was still in touch with him, he’d have been devastated.” She wrung her hands. “Though it doesn’t matter now, of course.”
Suddenly a young woman stuck her head in the door and announced, “The ambulance is here, Mrs. Harrison.”
“Tell them I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Something wrong?” asked Odelia.
“My husband,” said Ruth. “He died.”
“Died?”
Mrs. Harrison nodded, her face suddenly a mask of grief. “Shortly after you left. I went to check on him, and found him unresponsive. He’d been ill for a long time. In fact the doctor had warned us it could be any day now.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” said Odelia, and Chase murmured a few words of sympathy.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to bury my husband and my son.” Her composure suddenly crumpled, and a lone tear slid down her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said as she touched it with the tip of her index finger. “It’s been a terrible week. Probably the worst week of my life.”
Chapter 31
Like before, Dooley and I had been left to our own devices outside. Frankly I preferred it that way. Being out and about is what it’s all about, wouldn’t you agree? And besides, I had some thinking to do: not just about the case, but also about the Harriet versus Shanille war that had broken out and threatened to split cat choir neatly down the middle if I didn’t come up with something to stop that from happening.
We wandered over to where Jane still stood, and her face lit up when she saw us. Dooley, of course, kept an eye out for Chester’s pitchfork, but so far so good.
“Hey, fellas,” she said. “Twice in one day, huh? What did I do to deserve this?”
“Nothing special,” I said. “Just that one of your humans seems to have gotten herself into some kind of trouble, that’s all.”
“Which human would that be?” she asked, interested.
“Ruth,” I said. “She drove her car into town the night her son died, and forgot to mention it to the police.”
“Ruth is getting old,” Jane said. “It must have slipped her mind.”
“I doubt it,” I said dryly. “But no worries. Odelia and Chase are on the case. They’ll get to the bottom of this thing. So what’s happening with you?”
“Nothing much,” said Jane. “Only that they’re having some builders coming in soon, or so I’ve been told by a little birdie.”
I knew we could take that literally, and said, “They’re building some kind of extension? Putting in a pool, Jacuzzi?”
“Nothing of the kind,” said Jane. “They’re building a pagoda.”
“Oh, right. We saw that.”
“What they should be building is a nice new shed for me and for my companion, of course.”
“Are you getting a companion?” asked Dooley excitedly.
“Not yet, but I keep hoping they will. Oh, and in other news, Mr. Harrison died.”
“Yeah, we knew that already,” I said. “In the fire, remember?”
“Not that Mr. Harrison. The old Mr. Harrison. Herbert. He died in his sleep just now, shortly after you left, in fact. Though I doubt whether that’s got anything to do with it.”
“He was old, though, wasn’t he?” I asked.
“Eighty-seven or eighty-eight? Something like that? And he was pretty sick, too. I don’t think he ever got over the fact that his son and heir turned down the wrong path and ruined his own life and that of his parents, too.”
“Son and heir. So was Franklin supposed to take over the business?”
“Yeah, I think that was the general idea. But Franklin had other thoughts about that, obviously. And so Marvin stepped up to the plate and has done beautifully, I have to say.”
“He’s not married, is he, this Marvin?”
“Not yet. We’re all hoping he’ll find the right woman—but so far he hasn’t.”
“Looks like Marvin is a decent guy. He called Francine and told her he’s going to pay the child support his brother owed.”
“Oh, that’s great. That means that maybe the girls will be allowed to visit again.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“One ray of sunshine this week!” said Jane happily as she pawed the ground with an excited hoof. She clearly was the ‘glass half full’ kind of pony. “It is a little sad, though.”
“What is?”
“Well, Ruth had always hoped that Franklin and his father would reconcile before the old man died, but clearly that didn’t happen. And now they’re both gone.”
From out of the house, suddenly a young woman came hurrying. She seemed to be in some kind of a quandary, for she was muttering to herself, and making frantic gestures. She took a pack of cigarettes out of her apron and lit one up, taking anxious drags.
“What’s up with her?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s Elisa,” said Jane. “She’s a little worked up.”
“Why?” I asked, my natural curiosity getting the better of me as usual.
“Slippers,” said Jane.
“Slippers?” I said laughingly.
“Yeah, she’s one of the maids. She takes care of the rooms amongst other things. She keeps placing Marvin’s slippers on one side of the bed at night, and finds them on the other side in the morning. Guess we all have our cross to bear.”
“Rich people,” I said. “They’re very eccentric, aren’t they?”
“I find that all people are eccentric,” said Dooley.
“You’re not wrong, Dooley,” said Jane commiseratively. “They are a strange breed.”
We saw how Chase and Odelia came walking out of the house and I smiled at Jane. “Well, that’s our cue,” I said. “Looks like we’re out of here.”
“Oh, do drop by to visit again,” she said. “I love nothing more than to entertain.”
“We will,” I promised, and then we were off, after a final wave of our tails in the direction of the hapless pony, who gazed after us with a sad look in her eyes.
“We really have to remind Odelia to plead with Mrs. Harrison to allow those kids to come back to play with Jane,” said Dooley. “Maybe they could even come and live here, then Jane has someone to play with all the time.”
“I’m not sure how feasible that would be, Dooley,” I said. “Clearly Ruth Harrison doesn’t like her daughter-in-law very much.”
“But she must like her granddaughters, right? She must like them.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said.
On our way back to town, Odelia proceeded to tell us all about the interview, and we proceeded to tell her all about our chat with Jane. All in all a very fruitful day—but still we were nowhere near proving that Joshua Curtis was innocent—if indeed he was.
“I mean, a mother would never kill her own child, would she?” Odelia argued. “So I’m inclined to believe her, Chase.”
“Me, too,” said Chase. “My money is still on Joshua Curtis.”
“Yeah—yeah, I guess you’re right,” said Odelia, slumping a little in her seat. Clearly she wasn’t happy that the person who’d come to her had proved a vicious killer.
“Jane said that Mrs. Harrison was desperate for Franklin and his father to reconcile,” I tol
d Odelia. “So maybe that’s why she drove to that house.”
“Yeah, she mentioned that. One last-ditch attempt to bring father and son together again.” She half-turned to face us. “So did you guys have a nice chat with Jane?”
“She really wants to see those girls again,” said Dooley. “Can’t you make that happen, Odelia—pretty please?”
“I’m not sure,” said Odelia. “I’d love for that to happen, too, Dooley, but I’m afraid right now Mrs. Harrison isn’t susceptible for a reunion yet.”
“Or maybe she is,” I argued. “Maybe if Francine Ritter goes to the funeral of her ex-husband, and her ex-father-in-law, some kind of reunion might be able to be worked?”
“Oh, yes, please!” said Dooley. “You should have seen Jane, Odelia. She’s so sad. And so nice. She really needs a break.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Odelia said. “But no promises, all right? Mrs. Harrison is in a very vulnerable state right now.”
“By the way,” I said, “where was Marvin?”
“Oh, he had some business to attend to in town,” said Odelia, turning back to face the front. “The future of the company rests entirely on his shoulders now.”
I nodded and gazed out the window, while Odelia and Chase talked some more about the case. Something was nagging me, and if I could just put my paw on it…
And then, all of a sudden, I had it!
Chapter 32
Francine Ritter was feeling pretty great. In fact she felt that finally her life was starting to be all right again. She watched as her girls played on the living floor carpet of their cramped little apartment, and hoped that soon they’d be able to move into a different place—a better and bigger place.
She’d had to economize ever since Franklin had cut her off, her job at the supermarket not exactly paying the big bucks.