by Nic Saint
“You want to find out if Chase is innocent, right?”
This time she did look up, and gave me a sideways glance. “Yes? So?”
“Well, if the commissioner and the mayor’s wife are having a torrid affair, it’s bound to have spilled over from his office to other places as well, right?”
“Probably,” she agreed.
“I mean, if the flames of passion are that high, they won’t be able to confine themselves to doing it in his office, right?”
She laughed at his. “I don’t know if this is an appropriate conversation for a young cat like yourself, Max.”
I puffed up my chest. “Young cat? Haven’t you ever heard of cat years? I’m not a spring chicken, honey. I’m a grown-up. I can handle this stuff.”
“All right,” she said with a slight smile. “So what’s your big idea?”
“Well, it’s not as if you can walk up to the commissioner and ask him point blank if he’s having an affair with the mayor’s wife, right?”
“No, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” she agreed with a grimace.
“What are you guys talking about?” asked Dooley from the backseat. He’d woken up and was yawning cavernously, inspiring me to follow suit.
“Max has got an idea,” said Odelia.
“Well that’s a first,” said Dooley, joining me on the front seat.
I scowled at him. “I’ll have you know I get plenty of ideas, and a lot of them are pretty smoking hot, too.”
“Sure, sure,” he said. “Just tell us already. Don’t keep us in suspense.”
After a last censorious look at my friend, I continued. “Like I was telling Odelia, if the commissioner and the mayor’s wife have been doing it all over the place, as they probably have, seeing as they’re probably in love and all of that soppy stuff, someone’s bound to have noticed.”
“Someone?” asked Odelia. “I doubt that very much, Max.”
“Did I say ‘someone’? I meant ‘some cat,’ of course. Whatever humans do, there’s usually a cat around, as there’s so many of us, and humans tend not to notice we’re even there half the time. They don’t realize we’re everywhere—and we like to blab.”
“Oh, do we like to blab,” Dooley confirmed, stolidly licking his paws.
“We blab a lot.”
“All the time.”
“So there you have it!” I said triumphantly, settling back to collect my well-deserved round of applause.
But Odelia didn’t seem convinced. “I don’t get it. What are you saying?”
I frowned at her. Sometimes I wonder if human intelligence is as well-developed as they seem to think it is. “I’m saying that there’s bound to be a cat out there who has seen something, and since all cats blab, probably the entire cat community of New York knows about this by now, and since cats also like to wander around, word has probably reached beyond city limits and might even have traveled as far as Hampton Cove. Do you get it now?”
Dooley didn’t seem to think she had, for he explained, “So all we need to do is find us a cat who knows a cat who knows a cat who’s seen—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said, stemming the flow of words. “What Dooley means is that we need to find a cat who knows a cat who’s seen—”
“Hey! That’s what I said!” exclaimed Dooley.
“No, it’s not,” I argued.
“It is, too!”
“Not!”
“You guys!” Odelia cried, laughing. “I get the picture. So you’re telling me you’re willing to look into this whole Chase Kingsley harassment case?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” I said.
“And what I’m saying too,” Dooley said.
Odelia glanced at us. “It’s very sweet of you to offer, but I don’t know…”
“Well, I do,” I said. “Not that we need to, mind you, cause us cats have a sixth sense so we already know if Chase Kingsley is telling the truth or not.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh? So is he telling the truth?”
I stared at her, not sure how to respond. I knew a lot depended on my answer. For one thing, if she started bumping and grinding with this Chase, like humans tend to do, our lives would never be the same again. Sooner or later she’d hook up with the guy, him being an alpha male and all, and then Brutus would become part of our extended family, which would turn our lives into a living hell. On the other hand, if it was Chase she wanted, it was Chase she should get, for deep down I thought he wasn’t as bad as all that, as men went. And God knows that Odelia deserved to get herself a decent guy for once, especially after that creep Sam she’d dated last time. Dooley and I had warned her the guy was up to something, but she hadn’t listened, and not only had he turned out to be a grade-A creep, but a nasty little thief, too.
“Look, I’ll tell you what I think, but on one condition,” I finally said.
“What’s that?” she asked tensely.
“Yeah, what’s that, Max?” Dooley chimed in.
“You have to get that cat of his neutered! It’s the only way I’m ever going to tolerate him living with us.”
“You’ve got a point, Max,” Dooley admitted. “Fix Brutus or else.”
Odelia stared at us. “Brutus living with us? What are you talking about?”
I sighed. “You know as well as we do that you like the guy, honey. Once you guys move in together and start nesting and making babies, Brutus becomes a fixture. The only way to take him down a peg or two is to fix him.”
“Yeah, that’ll fix him,” said Dooley.
To my surprise, Odelia burst out laughing.
“Hey, this is not a joke!” I reminded her. “Our lives are at stake here.”
“Our very lives,” Dooley muttered, closing his eyes and drifting off.
“You really think that Chase and I…” She shook her head, still laughing. “So you actually think that Chase and I are going to move in together?”
“Of course! Isn’t it obvious? You like the guy and he likes you, so you’re bound to end up together at some point in the future. I know humans, Odelia. I’ve studied the species extensively. I know attraction when I see it.”
She was still shaking her head, her blond hair dangling around her shoulders. She looked lovely, I thought. Sunlight slanted in through the grimy windshield and lit up her features, and made her hair shine golden. No wonder this Chase couldn’t keep from bumping into her wherever she went.
“Look, Max. I don’t know what you think you saw, but Chase and I are never going to become an item. He doesn’t even like me. In fact he hates me. And I…” She faltered, and then said stubbornly, “I don’t like him either.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just keep telling yourself that. Anyway, here’s the deal: promise to have Brutus fixed and I’ll tell you what kind of guy Chase Kingsley really is.”
“All right,” she said. “If Chase and I should ever get together—and that’s a very big if, mind you—I’ll talk to him about having his cat neutered.”
“Great,” I said, the prospect of Brutus having his nuts chopped off suddenly putting me in a great mood. Hey, I never said we’re always the cuddly, sweet-tempered creatures you humans seem to think we are!
“Now tell me,” she insisted. “Is Chase Kingsley innocent of these harassment charges like he claims, or is he simply lying through his teeth?”
She gazed at me expectantly, and I gave her a reassuring grin, though I doubt whether she could spot it. “He’s innocent,” I told her. “The guy’s as honest and valiant as they come. You’ve got yourself a regular white knight here, honey. Chase Kingsley would never harm a woman or touch her in anger, nor force himself upon her. I’m pretty sure the commissioner and the mayor’s wife have been very naughty, and did a real number on the guy.”
“No wonder he looks so angry all the time,” she murmured, and I thought I could see a small smile tugging at her lips. My assessment of Chase had obviously pleased her, which just went to show I was right about them.
/> “So what do you think, Dooley?” she asked, keen to get a second opinion. Her dad was a doctor, after all. Getting a second opinion was what they did.
“Max’s right,” muttered Dooley, not even bothering to open his eyes. “The guy is golden.”
“That settles it,” said Odelia, now looking grim. “I’m going to expose the commissioner and the mayor’s wife and clear Chase’s name.”
I looked up in alarm. “Um, I wouldn’t do that if I were you, honey.”
“Why not? He’s been wrongfully accused. You said so yourself. It’s my job to right this wrong. It’s what I do.”
Uh-oh. I shook my head. “If you’re going after those two they’ll simply deny the whole thing and get you fired. You’ll never work in this town again.”
“Ever, ever, ever again,” muttered Dooley, who was living proof that while cats might appear to be sleeping, they’re actually fully alert.
“They can’t do that!” Odelia cried. “He doesn’t have that authority. Dan would never fire me just because the NYPD commissioner says so.”
“No, but they could make your life very difficult,” I said. “These two are up there with the happy few, honey. They’ve got powerful friends who might put the squeeze on Dan and his advertisers until he’s forced to choose between you or the survival of his paper. No, if you’re going after those two you’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way: by launching a smear campaign.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re a reporter. You write the story and credit an anonymous source.” I pointed at myself and Dooley. “We’re your anonymous sources, honey.”
“But how can I go after him? I don’t have a single shred of proof.”
“Leave that to us,” I said. “First we’ll find ourselves a witness of the commissioner’s indiscretions, and then we’ll get you your proof. Like I said, someone somewhere saw those two, and, like with cats, nowadays smartphones are pretty much ubiquitous, so someone’s bound to have snapped a picture, even if they don’t know its importance. And once those pictures surface, they’ll corroborate the story you’re about to write.”
She smiled down at me. “You guys are really special, do you know that?”
“I do know that,” I acknowledged. “Of course we’re special.”
“Just like Babe,” Dooley muttered.
“Just like Babe,” I said. Dooley had been right all along. We were special, and we didn’t even have to speak sheep to prove it. Or dance like penguins.
Chapter 16
Odelia pulled the car up in front of the police station, and let the cats out. Dooley seemed reluctant to be shifted, so Max gave him a poke and he finally relented, muttering something about never being allowed to get any sleep.
“We have a job to do, Dooley,” said Max solemnly. “Sleep can wait.”
She watched the two cats stalk off, launching their all-important mission, and smiled to herself. If it hadn’t been for her special talent of being able to talk to cats, her life would have looked quite different. She walked into the police station and waltzed straight past Dolores, who announced that this time the chief was in, and would be more than happy to see her.
Happy or not, he was going to see her anyway. She needed to know what the medical examiner had discovered.
“Hey, Odelia,” said her uncle when she breezed into his office. “I was just going to call you.” And he held up his phone as proof of these words.
She plunked down in a chair and gave him a tense look. All this business with Chase had only served to take her mind off the murder case, which was probably a whole lot more important than whether the detective was innocent of the crime he’d been accused of or not.
“Shoot,” she finally said. “How did Paulo Frey die?”
“Well,” said her uncle, leaning back in his chair, “looks like bludgeoning.”
“Bludgeoning?”
“The guy had his head smashed in. And since we found a poker next to the body, that just might be our murder weapon. Especially since it was a little bent out of shape, exactly the shape of a person’s head, actually.”
She whistled through her teeth. “That must have been some hit.”
“Yeah, whoever killed him hit him so hard they fractured his skull, which, according to the ME, is what caused his death. And a good thing, too.”
“That’s a little harsh. You didn’t even know the guy.”
Her uncle emitted a chuckle. “I mean that if he’d been stabbed or had his throat slit we might never have found out, as the body was too decomposed.”
“Anything else? Chase told me you pinpointed time of death?”
“Yeah, the techies discovered that Frey used to sync his smartphone to his laptop, which was an automated process, apparently. The last time he did was September sixteen, which is also the last time the laptop was accessed.”
“Because it ended up in the cesspit along with the body.”
“Exactly.”
“Did you get anything off his phone?”
“Nope. We’re checking his laptop, but so far it hasn’t yielded any clues.”
“No webcam picture of the killer bending over the victim while he was busy working on his next masterpiece?”
He laughed. “Now wouldn’t that be something? But no. No picture of the killer.”
“Too bad.”
“Yeah.” He gave her a quick look. “Chase tells me you keep popping up wherever he goes?”
“I could say the same thing about him.”
“It’s driving him nuts,” said her uncle with a grin. “I guess NYPD cops aren’t used to reporters interviewing suspects and going over the crime scene.”
“I guess not,” she said with a smile.
“You talked to Aissa Spring and Gabby Cleret, so there’s not much you don’t already know, I guess,” he said, checking a file on his desk.
“Apart from the fact that Paulo Frey was not a nice person? I guess not.”
“Yeah, he was a piece of work, all right,” her uncle admitted. “I talked to Hetta Fried, by the way.”
“The owner of the Writer’s Lodge? What did she have to say?”
“Well, apparently Frey never paid his bills. He had this thing where he simply ignored any reminder she’d send him until she threatened with a lawsuit. Then he’d pay up, but only a fraction of the total amount.”
“But why? I thought he was rich.”
Her uncle shrugged. “Maybe that’s how he got rich? He hadn’t paid his bills for the last two years.”
“And she still allowed him to come back?”
“Sure. Having a big-name author like him was good for business. Just the mention of his name on the website attracted a lot of lesser writers, who wanted to write in the same place as the master, hoping to catch some of the magic.” The last word he said making air quotes.
“I can’t imagine Hetta would kill him over unpaid bills, though.”
“Me neither. She wasn’t going to kill the goose with the golden eggs, even if he didn’t pay his bills. Besides, this murder is murder on her business. She told me she’s received a dozen cancellations already and might have to close down the lodge if this keeps up.”
“I guess lesser writers don’t want to write where the master got killed.”
“I guess not,” he said with a grin. “Oh, and I also talked to the production company that went belly up after that Indiana Jones fracas.”
She sat up. Now that was a valuable lead. “And? Any suspects?”
He studied his notes. “I talked to one of the principals, and he didn’t have a lot of good things to say about Frey. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever heard so many four-letter words in such a short space of time. But he also assured me he didn’t kill Frey. And yes, I checked his alibi,” he said before she could ask. “You’re talking to an old dog here, honey. I know how to do my job. The guy was at a party in Beverly Hills, and so was his partner. So no dice.”
“Too bad,” she said, disappointed. Th
at was such a good lead. Then she brightened. “Maybe they hired a professional to get rid of Frey?”
He stared at her. “Odelia, honey, movie producers don’t go around having people killed. It’s Hollywood, not the Mob.”
She shrugged. “Just saying. It’s a possibility.”
“A very implausible one.”
“So, um…” She stared at the desk. “Have you heard from Chase?”
He eyed her with a humorous expression on his face. “Yeah, he told me he saw you snooping around the lodge. He also told me you almost broke your neck.”
“I didn’t break my neck,” she protested. “I would have been perfectly fine if he hadn’t started badgering me, causing me to lose my footing.”
“So he caused you to lose your footing, huh? How did that happen?”
She noticed he was grinning from ear to ear, and glared at him. He was just as bad as Max and Dooley. Did everyone think she had the hots for Chase Kingsley? “He caught me just as I was trying to get into the place.”
“You should have asked for the key,” he said, still smiling.
“I didn’t think about that,” she admitted.
“Well, you wouldn’t have found anything of importance in there anyway. We searched that place top to bottom. Went over it with a crime scene team.”
“No fingerprints?”
“Oh, sure. Lots and lots of them. That place gets rented out on a weekly basis, honey, and let me tell you, Rohanna Coral, whatever her other qualities, is a lousy cleaner. We found dust that hadn’t been shifted in years.”
“Yeah, I talked to Rohanna. She said Frey was a good tipper.”
“At least someone got some money out of the guy.”
They stared at each other for a beat. “So who killed him, Chief?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” he grumbled. “And I’m also sure you’ll find out.”
She laughed. “And why is that?”
“You’ve got skills, honey. Skills that no one else has. So…”
She stared at him. She’d long suspected that her uncle knew about the special talent she’d inherited from his sister. Dad knew, of course. You can’t live with three generations of women and not know. Had Marge told her brother? Or had he noticed her uncommon affinity with cats growing up together? She gave him a grateful smile now. If he knew about their secret, he certainly hadn’t told anyone. “Thanks, Uncle Alec.”