by Nic Saint
A murder had taken place there last year, and Clarice, the cat I was hoping to meet, had helped us solve it. She belonged to no one and got her food all over the place, so she was the right cat to ask if she knew how to catch Commissioner Necker and Mayor Putin’s wife in the act. It was a long shot, but it was the only thing I could think of. We were all out of options, and if we were going to keep Chase around, we had to go for broke.
“Clarice,” I called out. “Are you here? It’s Max.”
“Clarice?” asked Brutus. “Who’s Clarice?”
“Oh, Clarice!” Dooley cried happily, then his face dropped. “You’re not thinking about making another deal with Clarice, are you?” His paw involuntarily reached to his nose and he winced.
The last time we’d talked to the feral cat, she’d made us vow a blood oath, which had involved cutting ourselves and mixing our blood. Only Dooley hadn’t been able to cut himself, so Clarice had done the honors and sliced her claws across his nose. I’d been forced to listen to his laments for days.
“What do you want now?” suddenly asked a hollow voice. It seemed to come from all around us, echoing between the dozens of metal dumpsters.
“A friend of ours is in in big trouble!”
“So you’ve come to ask me for a favor again?” the voice echoed.
“That’s right. We need your help, Clarice.”
“Yes, Clarice,” Harriet chimed in. “We really need your help.”
“Who’s that?” the voice bellowed.
“My name is Harriet. I’m Marge Poole’s Persian? My friend Brutus’s human is in trouble.”
“Helping humans again, are we?” Clarice growled, not sounding convinced. “When are you finally going to realize you’re cats? Cats help themselves! Not humans!”
“Well, we happen to like our humans,” said Dooley. “So we like to help them if we can. And in exchange they give us food and shelter and love and cuddles and—”
“Shut up, you make me sick!” Clarice bellowed.
Suddenly there was a loud clanking sound behind us, and the wild cat appeared at the rim of a dumpster, then gracefully jumped to the floor beneath. She had a fishbone stuck to her brow, and Dooley winced. He didn’t like Clarice, and he didn’t like fish, which was a little strange for a cat.
Clarice was a mangy cat, scrawny and more than a little scary. Her eyes seemed to glow red in the obscurity between the dumpsters, and her claws clicked on the concrete ground. When she spoke, it sounded like a hiss, and she gave the impression she was about to pounce and rip us to shreds.
“What do you want?” she hissed. She wasn’t the most pleasant cat to deal with, but because of her peripatetic ways she was unusually well-informed.
I quickly explained the predicament we found ourselves in, and she eyed me stoically all the while. If she knew something, she wasn’t letting on.
“I might be able to help you,” she finally said, “but what is in it for me?”
“We know a place that serves the most delicious food imaginable,” I said. “Actual pâté in an all-you-can-eat buffet. They’ll even adopt you if you like.”
“Where is this place?” she asked, plucking the fishbone from her brow and throwing it down.
“John Paul George’s house,” I said. “Xanadu.”
“He’s not there right now,” said Dooley helpfully, “because he’s dead, but his boyfriend is. Oh, wait, no. He’s in jail for murder. But the food is there. And so are a dozen cats. But they won’t bother you,” he hurriedly added.
“Pâté, huh?” asked Clarice, her eyes glittering. “I’ve heard rumors about Xanadu, but I always thought it was just a myth. A folk tale.”
“It’s not a myth,” I told her. “We were there, and we ate that pâté.”
“And it was to die for,” said Dooley.
Harriet slowly turned to me. “You ate pâté and you didn’t tell me?”
“We were there on official cat choir business,” I said. “And since you’re not in the cat choir…”
“Cat choir?” asked Brutus. “That sounds like something for me.”
“Oh, God,” groaned Dooley.
“Can you even sing?” I asked. “The first rule of cat choir is—”
“You do not talk about cat choir,” Dooley said, eyeing me reproachfully.
“Is that you have to be able to sing,” I said, ignoring Dooley’s outburst.
“I sing like a nightingale,” Brutus grunted. “Listen to this.” And he suddenly broke out into a caterwauling the likes of which I’d never heard before—it was truly terrible. Like a cat being castrated without sedation.
“Shut the hell up!” growled Clarice. “If you don’t want me to cut you.”
Offended, Brutus said, “If you think you can do better…”
“I don’t think I can do better,” Clarice hissed. And at this, she burst into song, belting out an aria from some little-known opera. It sounded… nice.
“Hey, that was great!” cried Dooley. “You have to join the choir!”
“Over my dead body,” she grumbled. “I wouldn’t be seen dead with a bunch of namby-pamby losers like you.”
“You could be our conductor,” I said. “We have a conductor now, but she’s… not very good.” In fact Shanille simply tried to copy her human, Father Reilly, who led the church choir, and did a pretty lousy job as well.
“Enough about the cat choir,” she said. “Do you want to know about this cheating commissioner business or not?”
“Yes, please,” said Harriet, clutching Brutus’s paw. “It’s a matter of life and death.” She turned to Brutus. “I can’t imagine life without you, sweets.”
“Aw, sugar pie,” said Brutus, touched.
“Enough with this nonsense!” cried Clarice. “I’ll take your offer of the Xanadu pâté, but first we need to do the oath.”
“Oh, not the oath!” Dooley cried.
“Yes, the oath. I can’t tell you about my private affairs unless we all swear an oath to secrecy.” She held up her right paw and gave it a quick slit with her left claw. A drop of blood appeared, and suddenly there was a sigh behind me and a dull sound. When I looked, I saw Brutus had collapsed.
“Brutus!” cried Harriet. “Sweetie, baby!”
She managed to revive him while we watched on, and he stared up at us, looking woozy. “Blood,” he finally muttered. “Can’t stand the sight of it.”
“Oh, you bunch of sissies,” Clarice growled. “Look, no oath, no information.”
“I’ll do it for you, my turtle-dove,” said Harriet. “You just close your eyes.”
Brutus squeezed his eyes tightly shut, and Harriet made a small incision in his paw, then in her own. That only left Dooley and me. I winced when I made the cut, and Dooley… just stood there, lips trembling, eyes locked on Clarice, who was eyeing him grimly.
“Well?” she asked. “What’s it gonna be? I haven’t got all day.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” I grunted, and walked over to him and scratched his nose.
“Ouch!” he cried. “What did you do that for?!”
“Because I know that you don’t want to be the one who prevented us from saving Chase!”
“You’re dead to me,” he said in a whiny voice.
“That’s fine with me. Just do it already,” I told Clarice.
She held her paw against mine, then Harriet joined in and then Brutus, his eyes still shut tight, and then we all pressed our bloody paws against Dooley’s injured nose, who whimpered in pain, even though I can’t imagine it could have hurt all that much.
“Wimp,” Clarice muttered.
“It hurts!”
“Right,” said Clarice, satisfied as we all started licking our paws, and Dooley his nose. “Commissioner Necker and Malka Putin have been using the Writer’s Lodge for months now. Since there are no bookings—because of that murdered writer—they’ve got the place all to themselves, and have been coming out here every weekend. I’ve seen them at it,” she said wit
h a grimace. “And let me tell you, it’s not for the faint of heart. I consider myself a pretty tough baby and the way they go on is pretty damn disgusting.”
“Sex?” I asked.
“Human sex,” she clarified.
“Yuck,” I said.
“Tell me about it.”
“So are they there right now?” I asked.
She smiled, flashing her razor-sharp teeth. “Oh, yes, they are.”
Chapter 27
It is one of those annoying things when a detective comes at the end of her long list of suspects and discovers there aren’t any left. Odelia wasn’t a detective, per se, but she certainly wanted to catch a killer, and when she stared down at her notebook, she found she’d scratched out all the names. Veronica had been her final and most promising suspect, and now she’d lost her as well. Dang, she thought, as she threw her notebook on the dash.
So now what? Start from scratch?
She stared out through the windshield, gathering her thoughts. After dropping off her litter of cats, she’d idly driven around, trying to gather her thoughts, and now found she’d returned to Bryony Pistol’s place. Which was just as well, for she wanted another word with Johnny’s widow anyway. Last time she’d practically been shown the door, and she wanted to talk to her a little more about Johnny, and whether the man had any other enemies.
And as she thought some more about this, she found that there were many more suspects to be interviewed: perhaps Johnny’s housekeeper had seen something, or his gardener, or his pool boy. And then there were his manager, fellow musicians, perhaps a lawyer… Though she was pretty sure Uncle Alec had covered all his bases and had questioned all those people.
She got out of the car, walked up to the gate and pressed the bell. She just hoped that Bryony wouldn’t hold her attitude toward her daughter against her. Maybe she should start by apologizing for her earlier behavior. But the gate immediately swung open, which she took as a good sign, and she took a firmer grip on her clutch and crossed the gravel driveway to the house.
Yellow and gold gravel crunched under her feet, reminding her of the brown sugar she liked to put on her pancakes. There was a small pink fountain in the driveway, a replica of the one in front of Johnny’s house, only instead of Johnny spewing out the water, a cherubic angel did the honors.
The moment she arrived at the door, it swung open, revealing Bryony.
“Hi,” she said. “Sorry to bother you again, Mrs. Pistol. I wanted to apologize about before, and ask you a few more questions if you don’t mind.”
“Apology accepted,” said the woman curtly. As she led her inside, she said, “You just missed Veronica and… that man. She told me about your incident. And how she decided to come clean about Detective Kingsley.”
“Yes, that’s right. She told me Detective Kingsley is innocent after all.”
They’d arrived in the same parlor where they’d held their earlier interview, and Bryony raised her eyes skyward. “How any child of mine could turn out to be such a liar… and all because of that horrible man.”
Bryony took a seat on the red velvet sofa while Odelia took the chair. “He promised me he’s out of the drug business. And I happen to believe him.”
“Men lie, Miss Poole, and men who use drugs even more. I’ve seen it with my husband. When we were still together he promised me time and time again he’d quit using, and the moment my back was turned he was at it again. It’s a very hard habit to kick, and the last thing I wanted was for my daughter to get involved in the same nasty business that ruined her father.”
“At least she’s not a user herself,” said Odelia.
“No, at least there’s that. Thank heaven for small favors. With a father who’s a heavy user and a boyfriend who’s a dealer that’s a small miracle.”
“Were you never tempted yourself?”
“Never,” said Bryony adamantly. “I witnessed firsthand what drugs did to Johnny. He could have been one of the true greats, and instead he chose to waste his entire life and throw away his unique gift. Such a terrible shame.”
“Yes, it is a terrible thing.” She looked around the room. It was decorated in a floral motif, both wallpaper and upholstering pink roses on an off-white background. Even the parquet floor was inlaid with a rose motif. Very pretty.
“So what did you want to know?” asked Bryony.
“Well, Veronica told me her father set up a trust fund in her name. So she would never have to worry about money ever again?”
“That’s right,” she said with a smile. “I told him to, so he did.”
“Did he make the same arrangement for you? If I’m being too blunt, just tell me,” she quickly added when the woman’s face clouded.
“No, that’s all right. It’s not a great secret. Johnny never saw any reason to set up a trust fund for me, as we never divorced. And as his wife I was entitled to half his fortune in case something ever happened to him.”
“And in case he remarried?”
“Well, he said he would take good care of me,” the woman said with a tight smile. “Johnny knew he owed me his career, and he wasn’t going to leave me penniless. So I’m sure he was going to make some arrangement.”
Odelia’s eyes darted to a side table carrying at least a dozen framed pictures. Most of them were of Veronica, with one picturing her donning a graduation cap and gown, smiling into the camera. Then she suddenly saw another picture and she blinked, startled. It showed Bryony and looked recent. Very recent. Bryony, who’d followed Odelia’s gaze, now rose. “Can I get you something, Miss Poole? Tea, perhaps, or coffee? I just made some.”
“Yes, please,” she said, nodding distractedly.
She now saw she’d been wrong… about everything.
“Don’t go anywhere,” said Bryony with a smile, and left the parlor.
She quickly got up and checked the picture more closely. There was no mistaking the background. It was the iconic Sydney opera house, a popular and famous landmark. Suddenly, Bryony’s voice sounded behind her. “That was taken last month. I was there to take care of some business for Johnny.”
She set a tray of cups and saucers down on the coffee table.
“Last month?” she asked, suddenly feeling a little out of her depth.
Bryony gave a tight smile. “Johnny wanted to relaunch his career. He’d had an offer to join the jury on the Australian version of The X Factor. He figured it would give him some much-needed exposure so I went to talk to the producers about his involvement.” She absentmindedly brushed a strand of hair from her brow. “In spite of the divorce Johnny insisted I represent him. I don’t know why, as he was casting me aside for Jasper, but then Jasper was always more like a glorified butler than a genuine manager.”
Odelia swallowed. “You… didn’t like Jasper?”
Bryony swept up her hand. “You can drop the charade now, Miss Poole. We both know perfectly well why you’re here. I don’t know how, but you discovered my little secret, didn’t you? You discovered I killed Johnny.”
“No, I…” But then she noticed the small revolver in Bryony’s hand.
“How did you find out? Was it something I said?” Her eyes quickly cut to the picture. “I should never have left that out in the open.”
“You got the venom when you were over there,” she said.
“Yes. It wasn’t hard. They gave me a tour of one of those reptile parks, and showed me where they kept the venom they collect to create anti-venom. It wasn’t difficult for me to grab some and bring it back to the States.”
“You do know that spider venom isn’t lethal when ingested?”
Bryony stared at her. “What are you talking about? It killed Johnny, didn’t it?”
“Only because he had a preexisting heart condition. If he’d been healthy he would have survived.”
Bryony gave an annoyed shrug. “Who cares? He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“But why?” she asked. “Why would you want to kill your husband?”
�
��Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know,” said Bryony. “I’m sure you figured it all out before you set foot in here. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t bring your uncle along this time, to place me under arrest. Or perhaps you weren’t entirely sure and decided to confront me first?” She waved the gun. “Bad idea, Miss Poole. Very bad idea.”
“You’re not going to kill me, are you?” she asked, frozen to the spot.
“Move over to the window,” Bryony said.
Odelia did as she was told, and saw that a blue tarp was placed between the couch and the window. Oh, God. Bryony was going to kill her.
“The painters are coming in tomorrow,” Bryony explained. “But they’ll just have to find themselves another piece of plastic, won’t they?”
“But why?” she asked, tears springing to her eyes.
“Isn’t it obvious? You’re here to arrest me. And I can’t have that.”
“I can’t arrest you. I’m not a cop.”
“You sure act like one. And your uncle seems to consider you his deputy. Did you tell him about me?”
She shook her head, living through this entire scene like a dream. She’d never been threatened before, and definitely not been on the verge of being shot before, and her preservation instincts were decidedly slow to respond to this crisis. “I honestly didn’t know you killed Johnny,” she said now.
Bryony shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. You know now, so I can’t let you live.”
“But why did you kill him?”
“And here I thought you were so smart. The man was going to divorce me. After all those years he was going to leave me and marry that fool Jasper. After I spent a fortune and my entire life turning him into a star he was going to give me a measly annuity. Not even a lump sum but a paltry allowance.”
“You could have gotten a lawyer and gotten a better deal.”
“I couldn’t. We signed a prenup.”
“In Johnny’s favor? I thought he was the pauper and you the rich girl?”
Bryony shifted the gun to her other hand. “Nicely put. And you’re right. I was rich and Johnny was poor, which is exactly why my father demanded we sign a prenup. Unfortunately I neglected to include a clause that would grant me a portion of moneys earned during our marriage, only that we’d both get back what we’d put in.”