by Nic Saint
“Oh, crap,” he said, raking his hands through his hair. “Oh, God.”
“You better tell her yourself,” Odelia said. “Before she hears it from a ‘friend.’ Or, worse, gets a link to the video.”
He nodded, now looking a little pale around the nostrils. “I will, Miss Poole. I will tell her the moment my shift ends.”
“And next time you want to get involved with a hotel guest, think twice, Dale,” the Chief admonished him.
“Yes, sir,” said Dale.
They left the kid looking absolutely crestfallen. “It’s not going to happen again,” Odelia told her uncle. “Because he won’t be working here for much longer.”
“He won’t be working here for much longer, but he’ll work at some other hotel, and the same thing will happen again. He’s a handsome looking kid, and women like Cybil Truscott prey on young men like him, just for their own personal satisfaction.” He shook his head. “At least now we know she didn’t kill her husband.”
“Unless she hired a hitman.”
He laughed. “Is that your latest theory?”
“Just something I heard from some tourists. Turns out all Hollywood stars hire hitmen to kill their spouses these days. It’s the latest craze.”
“Gee, I didn’t know that. Pretty bloody custom, if you ask me.”
They reached the chaise lounge Gran had selected for her own. She was sleeping soundly, her head back and her mouth open, snoring softly.
“Maybe we should let her sleep?” Odelia suggested. “She’s had a rough day.”
“She had a rough day? I had a rough day. She can sleep at home,” he said. He reached down and shook her shoulder. “Wake up, Mom. Time to go home.”
She opened her eyes and licked her lips. “I just had the most wonderful dream. Leo was suddenly fifty years younger but he still wanted me.” Then her eyes fell on Dale Hoover. “Oh, my. Looks like my dream just came true.”
“Not happening, Mom,” said Uncle Alec. “The kid is already spoken for.”
“And in enough trouble with his girlfriend as it is,” Odelia added.
“Dang,” Gran said, getting up with a groan. “Why is it that the good ones always are? I could have used a young ‘un for a change.”
“Let’s get you out of here before you cause a fuss,” said Alec.
“I don’t cause a fuss,” she said. “I never cause a fuss. It’s the others that cause all the fuss. Damn bunch of busybodies. There should be a law against people messing with other’s business.” She gave her son a keen look. “You’re a cop, Alec. Can’t you make a law against nosy parkers?”
“I wish I could,” he said with a grin. “But if I did you’d be the first to be thrown in jail, and we can’t have that now, can we?”
“You’d throw your own mother in jail?”
“The law is the law. Can’t bend it just for you, Mom.”
“Oh, hell. What good is it to have a cop for a son if he can’t even keep you out of jail?”
“I kept you out of jail now, didn’t I? Indecent exposure is a serious offense, Mom.”
“Poppycock. It’s the beach. Everybody’s indecently exposed. It’s ageism is what it is. Pure ageism. There should be a law against ageism.”
And so it went on, until they arrived at the library. Odelia was glad to drop Gran off with her mom. She loved her to pieces, but a little of the old woman went a long way, and for now she’d had more than her fill.
Chapter 13
We got home fully expecting to find Brutus and Harriet in the throes of a touching make-up scene. Instead, the moment we walked in, we were shocked once again. Just like on the beach, Dooley and I were forced to close our eyes when we caught Diego and Harriet on the couch—my couch!—doing the kind of stuff Odelia had warned Gran about.
“Omigod!” Dooley cried, immediately averting his eyes. “It burns! It burns, Max!”
Unlike Dooley, I had the opposite reaction. I couldn’t stop staring. It was like a train wreck. I just couldn’t look away. All I saw was a lot of orange, a lot of white, and a lot of pink. In my own home! On my own couch!
This was just too much. This was just… And then I heard it. A soft sobbing sound. It seemed to come from somewhere nearby. I glanced at Dooley, thinking it was him, but he was still squeezing his eyes tightly shut. The sobbing seemed to come from somewhere close by, though. So I went in search of it, and then I saw a shadow flit by. It was a dark shadow, and it hurtled past us with such speed that it was like a black blur. The shadow streaked out the window and was gone.
Harriet and Diego didn’t seem to mind that they’d suddenly gained an audience. They just kept smooching and making weird kissing sounds. Yuck.
So I walked out, gesturing for Dooley to come along. But since he still had his eyes closed, that didn’t work.
“Dooley,” I hissed. “Let’s get out of here!”
“I’m not opening my eyes, Max,” he promised me. “No way am I opening them. If I do I might not survive. And since my health isn’t what it used to be, I’m not taking any chances!”
“Oh, all right,” I grumbled, and guided him to the French windows and out.
The fresh air did me a world of good. “You can open your eyes now,” I said. “We’re safe.”
He first opened one eye, then the other one, and looked relieved. “Phew, that was a close call, huh?”
“Yeah. Did you see that shadow? No, of course you didn’t.”
“I did hear the sobbing,” he said. “Do you think that was Brutus?”
I eyed him intently. “You think so?”
He nodded. “Imagine walking in on your girlfriend with… that.”
I shivered. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”
We both looked at the house next door, where Dooley lived with Brutus and Harriet. The hedge between the two gardens had a large hole in it, and we slipped through it, preparing ourselves for the worst. Then I halted. “Are you sure we should get involved? I mean, Brutus isn’t exactly our buddy.”
“I think everybody needs a friend in their hour of need, Max,” Dooley said earnestly. “Even though Brutus isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, he’s a cat in need.”
“Oh, all right,” I said on a sigh, and we padded into the next backyard. And there he was. The big, bad brute. Sitting on the back porch swing and crying his heart out. Even though I’d never gotten along with the cat, my heart went out to him.
We hopped up on the swing and glanced at one another. I’m not exactly the world’s best Samaritan. I mean, if I applied to work at the crisis counseling hotline they probably wouldn’t accept me.
I cleared my throat awkwardly. “There, there,” I murmured, raising my paw to clap Brutus on the shoulder. “There’s a lot of other cats out there.”
In response, he just sobbed louder, his shoulder shaking. “Go away!”
“Max!” Dooley hissed. “Not helping!”
“I don’t see you trying!” I hissed back.
“I went through this, you know,” Dooley told Brutus.
“Just… go away!” Brutus sniffed, turning away from us. It was obvious he was embarrassed that we would see him like this.
“It’s actually a funny story,” said Dooley, undeterred. “You came into our lives and got involved with Harriet and I was the one feeling sad.”
“It’s karma,” I said.
“Max!” Dooley loud-whispered, giving me a look of abhorrence.
“Well, it is, isn’t it?” I asked. Crisis counseling? Not my strong suit.
“It will pass, you know,” said Dooley, addressing Brutus once again.
“It will?” asked Brutus in a strangled voice.
“It will,” Dooley assured him. “I’m over Harriet now. Seeing her with another cat does nothing to me.”
I gave him a critical look.
“Oh, all right. It does something. But I don’t fall to pieces over it anymore.”
“I’m not falling to pieces,” Brutus said, his voice smothered. “I just got
something in my eye.”
“Of course you have,” I said. “A big chunk of Diego, right?”
Brutus produced the loudest wail yet, and Dooley was back to rolling his eyes at me. I shrugged and mouthed, ‘What?’
‘Shut. Up!’ he mouthed back.
“Did you see her?” Brutus asked now.
“Yeah, we saw her,” Dooley said with his best pastor’s voice.
“Was she still… you know?”
“Yep, she was still giving mouth-to-mouth to that orange menace,” I said.
“Oh, God!” Brutus cried, and buried his head in his paws. “Why?!”
“It’s just a fling,” Dooley said. “She’ll snap out of it. She’s just temporarily blinded by passion. Once the initial zing wears off, she’ll see Diego for what he really is: a cad and a nasty piece of work. Trust me, Brutus, once she sees through him she’ll come crawling back to you.”
Now it was my turn to make eyes at Dooley. I pointed at him. “Come back to you, you mean,” I whispered.
He shook his head. “I’m in the friend zone, Max. I’ve always been in the friend zone, and I’ll always stay there as far as Harriet is concerned. And I’m fine with that. There are more important things in life than being Harriet’s boyfriend.”
“No, there are not!” Brutus wailed.
I went back to patting the big guy on the back. “There, there,” I muttered, for lack of anything better to say.
“I promise you, Brutus,” Dooley said, making a last-ditch attempt to get Brutus to back away from the precipice. “This pain will go away.”
For the first time, he looked up. He looked horrible. His eyes were all red and weepy and his nose was all runny. He wasn’t the Brutus I’d come to know and hate. Not by a long shot. “Promise?”
“Promise,” Dooley said.
He gave us both a watery smile. “You guys are the best friends.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” I said blithely. Even though I’d shaken paws with Brutus and declared ourselves buds, I still had my doubts about his intentions. But now wasn’t the time to get into all of that.
“Us cats have to stick together,” Dooley said. “Hey! I’ve got an idea! Why don’t I wrangle us up some chicken wings?”
“Can you do that?” Brutus asked between two sniffs.
Dooley tapped his brow with a knowing smile. “Power of the mind, Brutus. Power of the mind.” And then he squinched his eyes shut and thought really hard, even placing his paws on his temples to speed up the process.
Chapter 14
That night, the whole family met for dinner. Tex had gotten his famous barbecue skills out and was overseeing the proceedings with his customary flair. Mom had baked a ginormous apple pie that now stood chilling on the kitchen windowsill. Gran had wanted to invite Leo over for dinner but Mom and Dad had put their foot down. No repetition of the beach scene in their house.
Chase had arrived, as Uncle Alec’s guest, and had brought a bottle of the best—Chardonnay from the looks of it—and Odelia was happy to see him, which was a big change from before, when she used to scold her mom for inviting the burly cop. The cats were all there, except for Harriet and Diego, who were conspicuously absent. Brutus, Dooley and Max sat on the porch swing, looking on as dinner progressed, with Brutus looking like a shadow of his former self.
Odelia had no idea what was going on with him until she remembered about Diego making a pass at Harriet. Apparently the Persian’s allegiances had shifted once again, and this time it was Brutus whose heart had been stomped on.
“So what’s all this about a big murder investigation?” Dad asked as he placed a nice, fat kabob on her plate.
She added roasted baby potatoes with rosemary and garlic and dug in. “Famous chef got killed, Dad,” she said. “Niklaus Skad.”
“Oh, the Kitchen Disasters guy? I loved that show!”
Tex Poole, a bluff man with a shock of white hair, loved all cooking shows. He considered himself something of a cuisinier, though the only thing he did well was barbecue. Still, if it made him happy, that was all that mattered.
“Poor man,” said Mom, a delicate, fair-haired woman. “I thought he was a little too harsh on his candidates from time to time, but I think he meant well.”
“He was brutal,” Uncle Alec said, dumping a glob of mayonnaise on his potatoes. “It was car crash television at its best.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” said Gran, who’d been moping all this time. She was probably missing her Leo. “A lot of these so-called chefs can’t cook for crap, and Niklaus Skad didn’t mince words when he told them so. The fact that they couldn’t cope was their problem, not his.”
“I thought he was overly harsh,” said Chase, munching down on a sausage. “The way he treated restaurateurs was uncalled for and more about boosting his ratings than a genuine desire to see those restaurants he selected do better.”
She smiled at Chase. “That’s exactly what I thought, but you put it so much better.”
“I guess I have a way with words,” said Chase.
“You’ve got a way with your lips,” said Gran. “There’s a difference.”
“Mom,” said Chief Alec warningly. “Let’s keep it civilized.”
“I am keeping it civilized. I’m just like Niklaus Skad: I say it like it is.”
“Well, there’s a difference between saying it like it is and intentionally hurting people, and Skad crossed that line many times on his show,” said Alec.
“Which is probably what got him killed,” Odelia added.
“Amen to that,” her uncle said, clinking his glass of Chardonnay against hers.
“So how was the interview with Hendrik Serarols?” she asked. She’d forgotten to ask her uncle about that.
“He’s a suspect,” said her uncle.
“A very strong suspect,” Chase added.
“Who’s Hendrik Serarols?” asked Tex, flinging more kabobs on the grill.
“The chef at Fry Me for an Oyster,” Odelia explained.
“He was the one who suffered the most abuse,” Chase said. “There’s a video online of Niklaus having a go at him.” He shook his head. “Not pretty.”
“I saw that,” said Odelia. “So did he have an alibi for last night?”
“He does, but he doesn’t want to supply it,” said her uncle.
She frowned. “He’s refusing to tell you where he was?”
“Yup. He says he was nowhere near the restaurant, but when I asked him where he was, he refused to tell me.”
“That’s odd,” said Mom.
“That’s suspicious,” Gran said. “If you ask me, he did it.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” said Alec.
Chase dabbed at his lips with his napkin. “He had motive—he had opportunity—and he’s certainly strong enough to have pulled this off. I say we have plenty of grounds for an arrest, Chief.”
“And I say my gut tells me he didn’t do it.” They all looked down at Chief Alec’s sizable gut, and he laughed. “Now don’t start with me, you people.” He patted his round belly. “A good chief needs bulk.”
“A good chief needs muscle,” Chase chided him.
“Fair enough. I have gained a few pounds. And I blame my sister’s cooking.” He glanced at Marge, who smiled indulgently.
“A good chief needs to be fed properly,” she said. “And I know that if I don’t do it, you certainly won’t.”
That was true enough. After his wife had died, Uncle Alec had let himself go for a while, snacking on fast food and anything he could get his hands on. Since then, Mom had taken him under her wing, and now he ate out here most nights.
“Great food as usual, Mrs. Poole,” said Chase appreciatively. “Doc.”
“Thanks, Chase. It’s nice to cook for someone who appreciates it,” said Mom.
“I think you should lock up this chef and force him to supply you with an alibi,” said Gran, who was starting to sound as harsh as Niklaus Skad.
Chief
Alec grimaced. “I’m doing no such thing, Mother. And may I remind you that I’m the one in charge of this investigation and not you?”
“You reminding me won’t stop me from giving you my opinion.”
“So what happened to Leo?” Chase asked, giving Odelia a wink.
Gran shrugged. “How should I know? They’ve forbidden him from the house—kicked him out on his ear. The poor man is probably lying in a gutter somewhere, wondering what he did wrong.” She wagged an admonishing finger. “You can’t stop true love. You can beat us—you can arrest us—you can send us to the electric chair for all I care, but nothing will keep Leo and me apart. We’re like Romeo and Juliet. Though Leo told me he’s not going to try and climb to my balcony on account of his arthritis. That and he just had a hip replacement.”
“Leo Wetland is married, Mom,” Chief Alec said with a sigh.
“His wife is in a retirement home so that doesn’t count,” Gran said stubbornly. “She’s no good to him all drugged up and bedridden and all.”
“I just don’t think it’s very nice of him to run around with you while his wife is laid up is all,” said Uncle Alec, throwing down his napkin.
“The man has needs,” Gran insisted. “And so do I.”
“So find yourself a decent man,” Mom insisted. “Not this… weasel.”
Gran narrowed her eyes into slits. “Who are you calling a weasel?”
“Leo! He should be by his wife’s side—her aid and support.”
“You know how hard it is for a girl to find a decent guy at my age?” Gran asked, changing tack. “There’s so few good men out there.”
“So? That doesn’t mean you have to steal other people’s husbands.”
Gran threw up her hands. “If you’re all going to gang up on me I’ve got nothing more to say. I’m out of here.” At this, she got up, her chin in the air. Then she caught sight of Mom’s apple pie and promptly sat down again. “Maybe after dessert.”
“Don’t you have any other suspects apart from this chef?” Dad asked.