by Nic Saint
Odelia turned to her grandmother, looking absolutely horrified. “You didn’t!”
Gran patted her phone. “This is going to be a very special episode of Desperate Housewives. The one where Vesta and Odelia solve the murder of a famous writer.”
“You can’t film our murder investigation! That’s…” She flapped her arms like a desperate chicken. “Unethical not to mention people could sue for breach of privacy!”
“Poppycock. Cops does it all the time.”
“They have people sign release forms!”
“I don’t think so. People love to be on TV.”
The elevator had arrived on the second floor and jerked to a stop. The doors slid open and we all walked out. My paws sunk into the plush carpet and I couldn’t resist the urge to dig my claws in and do a little stropping. What? It was a very nice carpet!
Meanwhile, the Desperate Housewives feud was still ongoing.
“Gran,” said Odelia warningly, “put away that phone. Now!”
“I’m a vlogging detective! I can’t vlog without my phone!”
Odelia made a grab for Gran’s phone, but the old lady deftly held it out of reach.
“Gimme that,” Odelia grunted.
“Over my dead body,” Gran returned.
“That can be arranged.”
“You would strike your poor old grandmother?”
“I thought you were a desperate housewife?”
“You are being very rude, young lady,” said Gran, trying a different tack.
Just then, the door Odelia had knocked on swung open, and a heavyset woman with curly gray hair and horse-faced features appeared. She didn’t look happy to see us.
Immediately Odelia plastered a pleasant smile on her face. “Mrs. Ackerman? My name is Odelia Poole and this is Vesta Muffin. We’re civilian consultants working with the Hampton Cove Police Department and we would like to ask you a few questions about the death of your husband Chris Ackerman. May we come in?”
The woman’s eyes shifted between Odelia and Gran. Finally, she asked gruffly, “Why are you filming me?”
“Police procedure, Mrs. Ackerman,” said Gran swiftly. “To protect ourselves from potential lawsuits we’ve been legally advised to film any contact with the general public.”
“Huh,” said Mrs. Ackerman.
“Yup. Cops have body cameras. Civilian consultants have to make do with these.”
“Weird,” the woman commented, but then shrugged it off and bade us all entry.
Chapter 21
Odelia didn’t like Gran’s latest obsession. This Desperate Housewives thing could jeopardize their entire investigation. Then again, Gran was a smooth talker. She could probably talk her way out of any jam. Years of diligently watching every single soap opera out there had equipped her with a battery of ready-made quips or strategems to get her out of trouble. At least Mrs. Ackerman had been so distracted by Gran’s filming that she probably hadn’t even noticed that Max and Dooley had inserted themselves into the room.
“Take a seat,” Mrs. Ackerman said, gesturing at two chairs placed near the window. “This won’t take long, I hope? I just lost my husband and I’ve got a funeral to plan.”
She didn’t exactly seem overwrought with grief. Then again, we all have different ways of dealing with loss, so maybe being businesslike about it was Mrs. Ackerman’s way.
“This definitely won’t take long,” Odelia assured the other woman as she took a seat. “So where is your son? I thought you said over the phone he’d join us?”
“Trey!” Mrs. Ackerman bellowed. “Get in here!”
A connecting door opened and a lanky young man strode in. He had a pale, thin face and a buzzcut and looked more like a drug addict than any drug addict Odelia had ever met.
“This is Trey,” said Mrs. Ackerman, indicating the young man. “Trey, these two are from the police, apparently.”
“Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Ackerman,” said Odelia.
“Have you found my father’s murderer yet?” asked Trey, giving them a glum look.
“My uncle does have someone in custody,” said Odelia. “My uncle is the chief of police.”
“You made an arrest?” asked Mrs. Ackerman. “Why weren’t we informed?”
“The guy didn’t do it,” said Gran, who’d placed her phone on the table, propped up against a potted mini-cactus, where it continued filming the scene.
Odelia gritted her teeth. “What Vesta means to say is that the person who was arrested denies all involvement. He does, however, admit that he stole certain valuables from Mr. Ackerman’s person.”
“Valuables? Like what?”
“Diamond watch, money, iPhone,” said Gran. “That kind of stuff.”
“The bastard,” muttered Trey.
“Yeah, he’s a piece of bad news, all right,” Gran admitted. “But as far as I can tell he’s not the killer.”
“That’s up to the prosecutor to decide,” said Odelia pointedly. “What we’re here to determine is if perhaps you noticed something last night when you went to visit your husband at the library?”
Mrs. Ackerman exchanged a quick glance with her son, who turned to look out the window, arms folded across his chest. His mother, meanwhile, plunked her heavy frame down on a settee and cast down her eyes. “You’ll probably know this already, but my husband and I… we were in the process of getting a divorce.”
Gran’s eyes went wide, and she quickly cast a look at her phone. This was the stuff she wanted featured on Desperate Housewives. “A divorce?” she asked. “You mean he was involved with another woman?”
Mrs. Ackerman frowned, and so did Odelia. “As a matter of fact he was,” said Mrs. Ackerman. “He was having an affair with his editor. She’d recently gotten a job at a different publisher and had enticed Chris to change publishers as well.” She heaved a deep sigh. “My husband was about to embark on an entirely new life, Miss Poole. Without his wife of thirty years, and without the publisher responsible for his success. And all over a woman.”
“Who’s this editor?” asked Gran.
“Her name is Stacey Kulcheski.”
“Is she staying in town?” asked Odelia.
“I don’t think so. At least I haven’t seen her.”
“So why did you join your husband at the library last night?”
Mrs. Ackerman briefly wrung her hands. “I—I decided—we decided to try and talk to him one more time. He didn’t even know we’d flown in. He was quite surprised when we suddenly turned up out of the blue. You see, my husband had stopped taking my calls.”
“Our calls,” her son corrected her.
“Our calls,” said Mrs. Ackerman with a vague smile. “Ever since he packed up his things and walked out on us we’d had no way of getting in touch with him. So when Trey saw he was scheduled to speak at your local library, we decided to confront him.”
“Talk some sense into him,” Trey clarified. He turned to face them. “My father was under a spell. He didn’t know what he was doing. This Kulcheski woman had hypnotized him.”
“She had?” asked Gran.
“Not literally, Gran,” Odelia murmured.
“Oh.”
“She had him eating out of her hand—doing her bidding at every turn. We knew that the only way to break the spell was to lay it all out for him. Expose the woman as the wily little gold digger she was.”
“And? How did he respond?” asked Odelia.
“Not well. He kicked us out. Said he never wanted to see us again.”
“After all I’d done for him,” said Mrs. Ackerman bitterly. “I stood by his side when he was a struggling author. I worked my butt off to keep our family afloat in the early years, when every submission ended in a flutter of rejection letters. If not for me he’d never have become a success. He’d have given up long ago. But I believed in him. I believed in his talent as a storyteller. It took him ten years to sell his first novel. And another ten to become a household name. And this is how he repa
id me. By chasing the first skirt that came along.”
“She wasn’t the first skirt, Mom,” said her son. “There were others.”
“I could deal with that. We had an understanding. They were butterflies. I was his wife. The woman he came home to. Until he decided he no longer needed me.”
Gran cleared her throat. “Do you have any idea who might have killed your husband, Mrs. Ackerman?”
Mrs. Ackerman raised her eyes to Gran. “You think I did it, don’t you? And you’re right.”
Both Odelia and Gran held their breath. Was a confession coming?
Instead, Mrs. Ackerman said, “I could have killed him. I know I was hopping mad when I left that library. But I’m not a killer. Instead I was going to take my husband to court and clean him out. I was prepared to make sure that he was left with nothing. That would have been my revenge.”
“Very iffy proposition,” said Gran. “Better to kill him and collect the inheritance.”
Trey Ackerman’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Are you accusing my mother of murder?”
“Just throwing it out there,” said Gran. “If long experience as a homicide detective has taught me one thing it’s that it’s almost always the spouse that did it. So convince me otherwise. Prove your innocence, Mrs. Ackerman.”
A quick smile flitted across the woman’s face. “I don’t have to prove my innocence. There’s a man who can prove it for me. When Trey and I left Chris was still alive. Just ask Malcolm Buckerfield. He walked in as we walked out. And he had every reason to murder Chris. Without Chris, Buckerfield had nothing. Chris Ackerman was Buckerfield Publishing.”
Chapter 22
Odelia had signed us up to interrogate the suspects’ and witnesses’ pets and so that’s what Dooley and I set out to do. Only as far as we could ascertain there were no pets in evidence. I did pick up a strange odor, though. It didn’t belong to a cat or dog or any other animal I’d ever encountered. In fact it smelled oddly… floral.
We stealthily moved from the living room into the bedroom in search of our prey, but it was Dooley who finally discovered the anomaly. I call it an anomaly because it was the one animal I would never have advised any human to keep as a pet.
“Oink oink,” said the anomaly.
We both stared at it. It was small, it was pink, it was cuddly, and it was looking at us through beady little eyes. Perched on the foot of the bed, it even had its own little basket.
“Oink oink,” it repeated.
“What is it, Max?” asked Dooley.
“I think it’s a… pig,” I said.
“Oink oink.”
“A pig? Are you sure?”
I wasn’t. For that I needed to take a closer look. So I jumped on the bed and stared at the thing. It was a pig, all right. Round and pink and small. Not a pig. A piglet.
The piglet snuffled for a moment, seemingly interested in our sudden appearance.
“Hey, there,” I said finally, when I’d gotten over my initial surprise.
“Hullo,” said the pig, in a surprisingly deep voice for such a tiny creature.
“My name is Max,” I said, “and this is Dooley.”
“Is it safe to come up, Max?” asked Dooley from the floor.
I’d heard stories about pigs biting people, but this little dude didn’t look like a biter. “Sure,” I said therefore. “He looks like a nice piglet—are you a nice piglet, piglet?”
“Of course I’m a nice piglet, cat,” growled the piglet. “We’re all civilized here.”
“You look awfully young,” I said. “How old are you?”
“Three.”
“Years?”
“Months.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah. I still have to get my growth spurt. Which I trust will kick in any day now.”
“So are you—”
“A potbellied pig, yeah,” he nodded. “Humans love us for our lovable yet surprisingly mature personalities and our positive outlook on life. How about you guys?”
“I’m four,” said Dooley. “Years, not months.”
“Me, too,” I said.
“Humans love us for the cuddles,” said Dooley. “Though they come back for the conversation.”
The pig gave Dooley a dubious look, then said, “I’m Kevin Bacon, by the way, and this is Miss Piggy.”
We looked up to see a second piglet, even pinker than the first one, waddle across the bed in our direction.
“Hey, you guys,” said Miss Piggy. “Great to see you. I’ve never actually seen a cat up close before. Heard a lot about you, of course, but this is definitely a first for me. You don’t bite, do you? Ha ha. Just kidding. I know you don’t. Make yourselves comfortable and welcome to our humble abode.”
Dooley and I stared at the newcomer. I’d never met a motormouth pig before, and it was fascinating to see how long she could continue talking without coming up for oxygen.
“So… we’re actually here to talk about Chris Ackerman,” I said, deciding to get down to business before Miss Piggy burst into speech again. Odelia and Gran were only going to be in here for so long, so we had a pretty strict deadline to adhere to.
“Who?” asked Kevin Bacon.
“Oh, you know, Kevin Bacon,” said Miss Piggy. “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”
“Oh, him,” said Kevin Bacon, then shook his head. “We’re not supposed to mention him. Or discuss him. Angelique gave us strict instructions, remember?”
“Angelique?” I said.
“Our human,” Miss Piggy explained. “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was her husband. Until he ran off with another woman. Now he’s dead to us.”
“He’s actually really dead,” said Kevin Bacon.
“He is,” Miss Piggy confirmed. “Angelique told us this morning.”
“Did Angelique also mention to you who killed Mr. Ackerman?” I asked.
“Karma,” said Kevin Bacon.
“Who’s Karma?” asked Dooley.
“Not who, what,” I said. “Did she really say that?”
“Karma in action,” Miss Piggy confirmed. “Said he got what he deserved. Well, she used slightly stronger language than that, but that’s the gist of it. Angelique wasn’t very fond of her husband. She used to be, but since he started boning a skirt half his age she wasn’t. At least that’s what she told us.” She laughed. “I honestly have no idea what half the stuff she tells us means but there you have it in a nutshell. So why do you want to know about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? Are you police cats or something? I’ve heard of police dogs but I’ve never heard of police cats. Though it stands to reason they would exist. Cats are pretty savvy, after all. Not that I would know. Like I said I’ve never met a cat before. Not in the flesh, I mean. But you look pretty savvy to me. At least one of you does.”
She gave Dooley a hesitant look, as if fully expecting him to be upset, but Dooley was merely looking slightly dazed. Like me, he’d never met a talkative pig before either.
“We, um, we’re actually working with our human,” I said, after I’d remembered there was a question hidden amid the word diarrhea. “She’s a police consultant and a reporter and she’s trying to figure out who killed Chris Ack—He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”
Kevin Bacon and Miss Piggy shared a quick look of concern. “Oh, dear. This is going to bring Angelique to tears,” said Miss Piggy. “She still has feelings for her ex-husband.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t,” grunted Kevin Bacon.
“And I’m sure she does. She’s been crying herself to sleep for weeks, Kevin Bacon, or haven’t you heard?”
Her porcine helpmeet muttered something incomprehensible, then waddled off to the edge of the bed and jumped off onto the fluffy carpet below.
“He’s very sensitive about our human’s predicament,” Miss Piggy whispered. “Ever since He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named walked out on Angelique, Kevin Bacon has been suffering from heart palpitations. Sympathy symptoms, the vet says.” She shook her head. “It’s been a terrible, trying time. Hope
fully the man’s death will bring a measure of closure.” She then plastered a cheerful expression onto her face. “So. Cats, huh? Tell me about those nine lives. What’s your secret? Can you teach me? I mean, who doesn’t want nine lives, right? Seriously, though. Tell me. I need to know.”
“Um…” I said.
“Max, Dooley!” Odelia yelled from the other room.
“Sorry, Miss Piggy,” I said, hopping down from the bed. “Time to go!”
“Hey!” she said. “You haven’t told me your secret!”
“It’s very simple,” said Dooley. “A balanced diet, plenty of sleep, and try to stay out of trouble.”
“That’s your big secret? There’s something you’re not telling me, cat! Come back here!”
But we were already on our way out. We hadn’t learned a thing in there, apart from the fact that pigs could be real chatty and that Angelique Ackerman had loved her husband.
I sure hoped that the next interview would land us a few more revelations. Then again, the true detective takes the bad with the good and knows that not every clue will lead to the killer. There will always be a few red herrings buried in there. Or pink piglets.
Chapter 23
It was a nice concatenation of circumstances that Rockwell Burke was staying at the same hotel as Chris Ackerman’s widow. It meant that Odelia and her entourage—consisting of her aged grandmother and two cats—didn’t have to travel all the way out to Hampton Cove’s billionaire lane, where all the rich people lived. Instead, they went one floor up to arrive at the boutique hotel’s penthouse suite and knocked on the door.
Rockwell Burke himself opened the door, barefoot and dressed in tattered jeans and an equally tattered T-shirt that proclaimed he loved The Walking Dead. Not surprising as he was, after all, a famed horror novelist.
For a moment, Odelia was speechless. She was in the presence of greatness, not to mention one of her childhood heroes, as she’d practically grown up with the man’s books. Lucky for her Gran had never suffered from being tongue-tied or diffident.