by Nic Saint
“I said that one time,” he grumbled.
She smiled. “I’m like an elephant. I never forget a thing.”
“You don’t look like an elephant.” She blushed, and immediately he held up his hands. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”
“No, I take it you meant that as a compliment?”
“Yes, I did mean it as a compliment.”
She gave him a quick sideways glance. The way he was sitting there, with his muscular frame stretching his shirt, his long legs clad in jeans, he looked more than fine. In fact he looked downright sexy. A hottie, Gran would say. But what was up with the compliments? That was definitely a first. Then she decided to focus on the mission at hand: capturing a known drug dealer. She could think about Chase Kingsley all she wanted when this was over.
Finally, they’d reached the road leading out of town, and she slammed down the accelerator, causing Chase to be knocked back against his seat.
“Christ, be careful, will you? I don’t want to die in the line of duty yet.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, gritting her teeth as she kept her eyes focused on the small dot in the distance that was Orville Haggis. “I’m a great driver.”
“If you manage to keep us alive and catch the bad guy, I’ll believe you.”
They were on a straight strip of road now, and she ratcheted up the engine to the sticking point, going as fast as she dared to take it, and still they weren’t gaining on the Ducati. But at least they weren’t falling behind either.
“I better call the Chief,” said Chase. “Maybe he can set up a roadblock.”
“Don’t call him yet,” she said. “I’m going to catch Mr. Ginseng.”
“Are you always so eager to catch your guy?”
“Sure. If you come into my town dealing drugs, I’m going to hunt you down.” She glanced over. “We’re big on civic duty in Hampton Cove.”
“So I’ve noticed,” he said. “And while I think that’s admirable, you might want to leave the heroics to the trained professionals.”
She smiled. “Like the trained professional who couldn’t catch a hipster drug dealer?” To add emphasis to her words, she punched her foot down all the way to the floor of the car. The engine responded with a roaring whine, as if asking her to cut it out already.
“Uh-oh,” said Chase. “This old thing is gonna blow.”
They were finally gaining on the bearded ginseng huckster, and she now overtook him. Chase stared at Orville and Orville stared back, seemingly surprised that his great escape had been thwarted by this duo in a beat-up old Ford pickup.
Chase rolled down the window and shouted, “Pull over!”
“No way, cop!” yelled Orville.
This decided Odelia. She had no time to be chasing drug dealers while she had a murder to solve back in Hampton Cove and about a dozen articles to write. So she quickly swung the car to the right, nudging Motorcycle Man.
“Hey!” the guy yelled, but before he could react, he was on the shoulder in a plume of dust and then drove straight into the ditch.
“Oh, God,” said Chase. “Now you’ve gone and killed a suspect.”
“I didn’t kill him,” she said, pulling over. “I just dented him a bit.”
The car came to a stop in a cloud of smoke, and they both got out to check Ginseng Guy. When they finally found him in the ditch, ten feet from his gleaming red Ducati, he was lying on his back, staring up at the sky with a startled expression on his face, as if he didn’t believe how his day had gone.
The moment he caught sight of Odelia floating into his field of vision, he shouted, “You wrecked my favorite bike!”
“You wrecked my favorite pop star,” she returned.
The guy shrugged. “He was always going to wreck himself. If I hadn’t supplied that G, someone else would have.”
“Always the same lame excuse,” Chase grumbled as he outfitted the man with a nice pair of shiny handcuffs and hoisted him to his feet. “You’re under arrest, buddy. And I’m confiscating your bike. What’s left of it, anyway.”
“See?” asked Odelia. “He’s fine. Just a few bruises.” Her eyes dropped to the seat of his pants where now a large hole had appeared and a pair of Minnie Mouse boxers were visible. “And some vestimentary issues.”
“Oh, my God!” cried the guy when he caught sight of his own underwear sticking out. “I can’t be seen like this! I have to think about my rep!”
“Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of time to think about that in jail,” said Chase, and gave Odelia a wink. “That was some pretty effective driving.”
“Can I quote you on that, Detective?”
He laughed, flashing his dimples. Maybe Gran was right. Maybe she had to snap this guy up before some other bimbo did. Maybe. But not today.
Chapter 10
After Odelia dropped off Chase and Orville at the police station, she drove to the Gazette. While in transit, Orville had intimated he might have an idea who could be responsible for this John Paul George business after all. He said another dealer had been trying to muscle in on his territory and had approached JPG several times trying to hawk his wares. He basically sold the same stuff, only a lot cheaper, and had also approached a couple of Orville’s other regulars—apparently a lot of celebs liked the occasional toke.
This other dealer didn’t operate from a store but sold his stuff from the trunk of his car. Orville had given Chase all the information he had, and the cop had promised he’d be on the lookout for this second dealer.
She parked in front of the Gazette, and for the next couple of hours worked diligently on her stories for tomorrow’s edition. The John Paul George story was obviously the biggest one, but she had a few other smaller articles to finish before deadline. Like the recent Jeanie Fidget wedding, already the fifth attempt at marital bliss for the Oscar-winning actress, and a car crashing into the house of a supermodel, pretty much wrecking the place.
And she was just finishing up an article on the upcoming town hall meeting, when Dan swung by her office. “Hey, kid. How’s it going in here?”
She sat back and smiled up at the aged editor. “Just fine, Dan. I think I’ve got tomorrow’s edition pretty much nailed down.”
“The murder case?”
“Yeah, that’s the big one. Front page, I guess?”
“Damn right. It’s been a while since anyone of JPG’s stature got whacked.”
“I’m guessing someone of JPG’s stature has never been whacked in this town.”
“Ah, but what little do you know, young Padawan. Back in the sixties, when I was just a young whippersnapper myself, Ryland Sundry got whacked in similar fashion. Created a big hullaballoo as you can imagine.”
“Whacked in similar fashion, huh? You mean Ryland Sundry’s vial of GHB got laced with spider venom by his live-in lover and former escort? Because he was jealous a new boy toy had arrived on the scene?”
Dan laughed loudly. “Not exactly! Things were a little different back then, as you can imagine. No GHB and no boy toys. Though we did have escorts, but we didn’t call them that, and they were a lot more discreet about their business as otherwise they would have been arrested for lewd conduct. No, actually Ryland was killed for refusing to marry his housekeeper.”
“Sounds like something out of The Bold and the Beautiful.”
“Ryland, famous in the silent film era, had an affair with his housekeeper and got her pregnant. He’d promised to take care of her and the kid but later reneged on his promise when his wife found out about the affair.”
“So the housekeeper killed him?”
“Not exactly. If I recall correctly, it was actually the housekeeper’s kid that did it. His illegitimate daughter. She got so mad her movie star dad abandoned her and her mother that she decided to take matters into her own hands and commit patricide. I seem to remember an icepick featured pretty prominently in the story.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. The prick deserved it, though. O
r at least that was the prevailing sentiment at the time. The story dominated the front pages for months, especially after a jury acquitted the girl, and she walked free.”
“Did she ever get her payday?”
“Not a chance. She did write a book, though. A real bestseller.”
“I’ll bet they even turned it into a movie.”
“Just a Lifetime movie, but still,” Dan said with a grin.
“You’re right. This JPG business has echoes of that Ryland Sundry case, only I’m afraid that they’ve got the wrong guy in jail. I mean, why would Jasper kill his boyfriend? It’s pretty obvious he loved JPG. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Jealousy, of course. The guy was way past his boy toy prime, honey.”
“He was only forty-three.”
“Exactly. I think he was afraid he’d outlasted his usefulness. Weren’t he and JPG living in separate wings of that big house of theirs?”
She nodded. “Looks like.”
He spread his arms. “Well, then. I’m sure it was only a matter of time before he was pushed out entirely, making space for a new beau. Guys like JPG aren’t exactly known for their faithfulness. The fact that he never put a ring on Jasper’s finger tells you all you need to know about that relationship.”
“Maybe they had their reasons for not tying the knot?”
“Money being the biggest one,” said Dan. “Mark my words, honey, if Alec thinks Jasper Pruce did it, there’s a very good chance that he did. That uncle of yours is no dummy, and the new guy is no idiot either.”
“We caught a drug dealer together,” she said with a grin.
“Good for you. Just make sure you’re careful out there.”
“Always, Dan. Always.”
Chapter 11
After she had finished writing her articles for the day, she decided to drop by the library to have a chat with her mother. Mom usually had good ideas. And she knew a lot of people through her work at the library. She wasn’t convinced that Uncle Alec had locked up the right guy, and if he thought he had, he wasn’t going to look any further. She felt very strongly he should continue the investigation, but if he wasn’t going to do it, she certainly was.
She walked into the library, and saw that her mother was pushing the book trolley, placing recently returned books back on their shelves.
“Hey, Mom,” she said as she walked up to the woman who was like the spitting image of herself, only three decades older.
“Hey, honey,” said her mother. “I hear you’ve been busy today?”
“Yeah, we had an actual murder case to tackle,” she said as she picked up a book and placed it in its rightful place.
It didn’t surprise her that her mother already knew what had happened. Sometimes she wondered why Dan even bothered to put out the Gazette, as the stories he wrote were old news by the time the paper dropped into people’s mailboxes. Maybe they just wanted to see the pictures that went with the stories, or check up on some detail they might have missed.
“Is it true that the boyfriend did it?” her mother asked now.
“I don’t know. Uncle Alec seems to think so but I have my doubts.”
“Then that makes two of us.”
“It does?” she asked, surprised.
“I’ve met Jasper Pruce,” said her mother, “and he didn’t strike me as a man capable of murder. Such a sweet young man.”
“He’s forty-three.”
“Is he?” asked her mother. “He looks a great deal younger.”
“He probably moisturizes.”
“I’ll bet he does. And not the cheap brands, either.”
“So you met him, huh?”
“We have. He’s in here all the time. He loves his romance novels,” she said with a smile. “He also loves to chat, and he struck me as a very earnest and very nice man. Very concerned about his husband’s health.”
“They weren’t married, Mom.”
“Well, for all intents and purposes they were. Besides, I’m sure they would have gotten married if Johnny hadn’t been married already.”
Odelia frowned. “Married already? What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you know? Johnny married that woman, what’s her name…”
“Johnny was married… to a woman?”
“Sure.” She snapped her fingers. “Bryony Pistol. Used to be his backing vocalist back in the eighties, when he was still carving out a career. They got married at some point and, at least according to Jasper, they still were.”
“But why? Why didn’t he divorce her?”
“Well, he did owe her his career, so maybe that’s why? And they had a daughter together, of course. She must be in her late twenties now.”
“A daughter!”
Mom shook her head. “And you call yourself a reporter. Yeah, Johnny pretty much owed everything to Bryony. She came from money, and supported him in the early days of his career, when he was just a struggling artist. It took him several years to break through and get his first big hit.”
“I’m Your Bi-ba-boy. I loved that song.”
Her mother stared at her dubiously. She might like Jasper, but she was obviously not a fan of Johnny’s music. “Anyway, Bryony paid all the bills and basically squandered her family’s fortune to make it happen for Johnny, simply because she believed in his talent so much.”
“She squandered her own money?”
“All of it.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. Lucky for her the gamble paid off. Big time. Johnny became a global superstar. And then he told her he liked boys better than girls so they separated. This was the nineties, I think. I’m a little fuzzy on the details.”
“How come I didn’t know about this?”
“Because Johnny valued his privacy. I doubt you’ll find this information anywhere. If Jasper hadn’t told me, I would never have known. It was obvious the whole Bryony business didn’t sit well with him, though.”
“Nor would the whole Jasper business have sat well with Bryony.”
Her mother held up her hands. “That, I don’t know. I never met Bryony. She’s not a library person, apparently,” she said with a look of distaste.
For Odelia’s mother, there were only two types of people in the world: people who liked books, and people who didn’t. It was obvious which kind she favored. “I wonder what Bryony thought about this whole drug thing.”
“Why don’t you ask her? I’m sure it’s an angle your uncle Alec hasn’t thought about yet. And it would make for a great article for your paper.”
“You just might be right,” she agreed.
“Of course I’m right.”
“Now about dinner tonight. Don’t be late, because we have a guest over.”
She groaned. “Not Chase Kingsley again?”
“Yes, Chase Kingsley again. I really don’t know what you’ve got against that man.”
“He keeps showing up.”
“Well, that’s because he’s a cop, dear. Cops have a habit of showing up everywhere. They wouldn’t be doing their jobs if they didn’t.”
“But why do you insist on feeding him? I’m sure he can take care of himself.”
“I doubt that. Living with Alec as he does the man would simply starve to death if he didn’t get fed, and so would your uncle himself, for that matter.”
“I’m sure that Alec cooks, and so does Chase.”
“And I’m sure they don’t,” said her mother decidedly. “Now please be punctual. Dinner will be served at seven, and I expect you to be there.” She frowned. “Why do I have the feeling I’m forgetting something?” Then her face cleared. “Oh, that’s right. Can you bake a cake, honey? Your gran was going to, but she forgot she had bingo at the senior center this afternoon.”
“Cake?” she asked. “I don’t have time to bake a cake, Mom. Why don’t you buy one from the general store?”
Her mother’s face puckered up into an expression of distaste. “You know those aren’t freshly baked, honey. They make them in som
e factory somewhere by mixing a bunch of chemicals and other goop. No, what we need is that chocolate cake of yours. I’m sure Chase will be impressed.”
She glared at her mother. “You’re trying to set me up with Chase again, aren’t you? First Gran, and now you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, honey,” said her mother primly. “But you could do a lot worse than Chase Kingsley. He’s a nice, big, strapping young man, with a nice, secure income, a good position in this community, and I’m sure he’ll make some girl a very happy bride some day so why not you?”
“His position in this community is pretty rocky right now, and if he doesn’t watch his back he’s going to be out of a job soon, too,” she said.
Mom rolled her eyes. “Still with that horrible harassment thing?”
“Still with the horrible molestation thing. There’s several petitions doing the rounds to have him kicked off the force. I even saw one at that health food store you like so much. The one that deals GHB under the counter.”
“Well, then you’ll just have to make sure those silly charges go away, won’t you?” asked Mom as she plunked another large volume onto the shelf and decidedly pushed it into place. “You know as well as I do that Chase is innocent of those silly charges, and I’m sure that if you clear his name he’ll be ever so grateful.” She gave her a knowing glance. “And a grateful man is a marrying man, honey. Remember that.”
She left the library feeling a little annoyed. First her grandmother tried to push her into Chase’s arms and now her mother. It was a concerted matchmaking effort that didn’t sit well with her. If she was ever going to choose a mate for life, as her grandmother put it, she’d do it herself, without anyone’s help. Besides, clearing Chase’s name wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
Back when he was still an NYPD detective, the wife of a suspect had accused him of molesting her, and those charges had lost him his job and, very briefly, his freedom. And they weren’t going away. Instead, they’d followed him to Hampton Cove, where his job now hung in the balance.
Chase claimed he’d caught the NYPD commissioner and the wife of the mayor of New York in a torrid affair, and they’d set up this molestation claim to discredit him and shut him up. Since arriving in Hampton Cove, he’d apprehended the killer in another murder case, that of a well-known bestselling novelist, and that had gotten him a reprieve from the mayor of Hampton Cove, but it didn’t sit well with several concerned citizens that a cop on the Hampton Cove Police Department was an NYPD reject, so they’d been pressuring the council and Mayor Turner to have him dismissed.