“Maybe. He never said anything, and I never really noticed. Well, other than the fact I had to keep Dmitri locked up whenever Marcus came for a visit.”
Regardless of his reasons for disliking animals, it seemed strange that Marcus would be creeping around the back of a pet shop during an event which brought out dozens of pets.
I tucked that observation away and moved on with my questions. “Okay, so you said he wasn’t living with you. Do you know who he was living with now?”
Scott shrugged. “I don’t know. He doesn’t really talk much about things like that. And come to think of it, he’s blown me off the last few times we were supposed to hang out.”
“So, as far as you know, he was homeless and unemployed?” My soft tone and gentle features did nothing to lessen the impact of this statement.
“That’s offensive,” Scott shot back. “It’s not like he was some scourge on society, but yeah, I guess, technically, he was both of those things at the moment.”
“Thank you, Scott. This has all been really helpful. Are we done here?” I asked, projecting my voice to make sure Octo-Cat would hear the question.
“I sure hope so,” Scott answered with a frown. “It’s bad enough that he’s dead. I really don’t like standing over his corpse and saying awful things about him, too.”
All things that are true, though, I thought but had the good sense not to say.
“Not quite ready yet,” my cat called back. “Can you buy me like five minutes, please?”
“Actually, I have another question,” I told my witness before he could slink away. “Um, why would Marcus have shown up here dressed as Santa?”
“No idea. Maybe it was a last-minute gig or something. I mean, he regularly surfed the gigs section on Craigslist to make quick cash doing whatever someone needed. And a few times a month, he’d hang out at the hardware store looking for day labor or whatnot.”
“But he hates animals,” I countered.
“He probably hated starving even worse, I bet,” Scott said with a sigh. Despite his valid point, something still wasn’t adding up.
“Done,” Octo-Cat shouted.
“Thanks for your help,” I muttered. “We’ll let you know if we have any more questions.”
Scott scooped up his ferret and left after taking one last lingering look at his lost friend.
“Okay, what did you learn from Dmitri?” I asked Octo-Cat quietly.
“Who’s Dmitri?” he asked me with wide, unblinking eyes.
I would have laughed if I weren’t so irritated. “The ferret you just had like a ten-minute conversation with,” I reminded him.
“Oh, right. That guy. Yeah, he said that the stiff is basically a good-for-nothing layabout who hates animals but loves to cheat at video games when he thinks his friends aren’t paying attention.”
“Lovely,” I said with a sigh. “Sounds like a gem of a guy.”
Octo-Cat snorted. “Sounds to me like he’s not going to be missed.”
I thought about this for a second. The pieces had finally started clicking into place. “Maybe that’s what the killer was counting on,” I exclaimed, more than a little excited by the new theory that was forming in my mind. “I have an idea. Let’s go get the others.”
9
Officer Bouchard and Charles joined me in the storage room once the two of them had finished their most recent interviews. I’d interrupted both part-way through to let them know I’d be waiting to speak with them as soon as they were available.
“Okay, what have you got?” Officer Bouchard asked, once the three of us were huddled together at the scene of the crime.
“I have a working theory, but I want to hear what you guys found first,” I said, then sucked in a deep breath and waited for them to share.
“We’ve only made it through a handful of witnesses at best,” my boyfriend said with a heavy sigh. “I’ve got nothing.”
Officer Bouchard nodded as he flicked through his notepad. “I’ve learned that the Santa who was supposed to be here was well known in the area. He’d been acting as Santa for this establishment ever since they first started doing Christmas pet pictures six years back. He usually serves as Santa at outdoor festivals and other seasonal events, too. Basically, if someone wants to hire a Santa, he’s it.”
“So that makes the appearance of a double all the more curious,” Charles said, then bit his lip in thought.
Curious, yes, but with each new fact I heard, my theory only gained strength. Add to that Andy Crenshaw’s behavior during our brief chat and I knew there was no way he could be innocent—or at least not completely.
Officer Bouchard studied the victim with a frown. “No one seems to know who he is or why he was here.”
“One of the customers identified him as Marcus Manetti, a local who was both out of a job and out of a home at the moment,” I revealed.
“Hmm,” Charles said, running a hand across the back of his neck. “Not someone I’ve ever met.”
Well, of course not. Not only did they live in different cities, but they ran in completely different circles.
“According to one of my witnesses, Marcus was desperate, would have done anything for cash.” I carefully watched both men, waiting to see if they might reach the same conclusion I had.
It was Charles’s eyes that sparked with understanding first. “He was desperate. And the pet store has suffered more than its fair share of thefts this year. He turns up dead right here. Seems like that might not be a coincidence.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve already figured this thing out?” Officer Bouchard said, raising his eyebrows in surprise.
I couldn’t have hidden the giant smile that creeped across my face even if I’d wanted to. If my suspicions were correct, then Octo-Cat and I had managed to solve this one in record time. “Actually, I think I might have,” I told my co-investigators. “But to catch our killer, we’re going to have to put on a little play.”
I caught them up on my conversations thus far and how I’d reached my theory.
“Sounds pretty logical to me,” Charles said, then gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “You’re so sexy when you’re smart.”
“So all the time?” I asked with a laugh.
“Ugh. Gag me,” Octo-Cat spat. “Just because you and Up-Chuck are an item doesn’t mean you have to flaunt it everywhere. Some of us have delicate dispositions. Also, how about you don’t steal my lines next time?”
I briefly remembered Octo-Cat’s and my conversation in the bathroom after we’d questioned Andy Crenshaw and how he’d likewise claimed to be smart all the time. Maybe he was rubbing off on me a little too much these days.
Deciding not to worry about it, I grabbed Charles by the shirt collar and pulled him in for a deeper kiss, much to my cat’s chagrin.
“All right, all right,” Officer Bouchard interrupted. “Break it up. We’ve got work to do.”
Less than ten minutes later, we found ourselves assembled in the storage room once more, now with one dead body, two store employees, and our two most likely suspects. One of them had killed Santa, and I felt pretty confident I knew whodunnit. If everything went according to plan, we could trick the killer into a confession that would clarify everything—and all before local police arrived on the scene.
Officer Bouchard led the charge. His uniform and badge lent an air of authority that neither Charles nor I could hope to replicate. “Thanks for joining us back here. We’re just about done with the primary stage of our investigation, and your cooperation will get us all out of lockdown and headed home just as quickly as possible.”
“I hope whoever did this goes away for a long, long time,” Shirley, the store manager, grumbled while smoothing unseen wrinkles from her skirt. As far as she knew, we’d asked her back to help corral the suspects. She hadn’t been too keen on leaving the store unattended during a lockdown, but Nan had agreed to keep an eye on things up front for as long as this took, which at least was enough to get her back her
e.
We’d also invited Andy, the man who was supposed to be playing Santa for the event, and Scott, the one who had correctly identified Santa. Rounding up our little group was a sixteen-year-old girl named Bella. She was the employee who had first discovered the dead body.
It had been much more difficult to convince the three of them to join us. Might a guilty conscience be at play? I was betting on it.
“This is Marcus Manetti,” Officer Bouchard said next, motioning toward the victim. “As far as we know, he was unemployed, hated animals, and had absolutely no reason to be in the store today.”
“Somebody, however, made sure he was,” I said shooting a sad smile toward poor Marcus. “This wasn’t a case of mistaken identity. The killer nabbed his intended victim.”
“But why would someone kill Marcus?” Scott, the ferret guy, asked with a sniff. Even though he’d already spent time with his fallen friend, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. It was almost as if he expected Marcus to cry GOTCHA and jump back to his feet.
“Whoever did it was really angry,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself and letting a shudder overtake my body. I wasn’t the best actress in the world, but my former Broadway starlet nan had made sure I was at least passable. “When we flipped him over, we found several knife wounds in his back.”
“Knife wounds!” Bella cried just as we knew she would. “That’s it. I quit. I know you needed the help, Miss Shirley, but there is no way I’m working at a place where someone was stabbed to death, and during business hours, too.”
“Stabbings aren’t very common,” Charles said with an understanding nod. “I wouldn’t give up your job on the off chance that lightning could strike twice. Don’t you depend on the income for gas and trips to the mall and stuff?”
“Hardly.” Bella pulled the uniform shirt off over her head, leaving only a thin-strapped tank top beneath. “I’ve only worked here for a few weeks, anyway. And my life is worth way more than some spare change.”
“Only a few weeks?” I asked, tilting my head to the side as I repositioned myself to face Shirley. “Then who worked for you before that?”
“No one,” the manager complained with a grimace. “Apparently I can’t keep an employee to save my life.”
“Interesting choice of words,” Officer Bouchard noted. “Did you ever employ Marcus Manetti?”
She shook her head, but not with much vigor. “No, he dropped off an application several months back, but he had too many holes in his work history for me to even consider hiring him.”
“I thought you’d never seen him in your life,” Charles pointed out gently, taking a couple steps toward Shirley.
She stood her ground. “I hadn’t, but I recognize the name, now that you’ve said it,” Shirley answered, nonplussed. If she was guilty, then she was doing an amazing job of hiding it.
I took two steps forward as well. “So are you saying it wasn’t you who stabbed him in the back?”
Only now that Charles and I had formed a wall before her did she appear nervous. “Of course not! And if he was stabbed, where’s the blood?”
“Oh, good point,” Charles said. “There’s no blood, but he was definitely stabbed in the back.”
We all turned to stare at her, but Shirley held her ground even as Officer Bouchard moved toward the door to block the exit.
“Well, it wasn’t me,” she said coldly.
“No, it wasn’t you who did the deed,” Charles said without breaking his glare toward Shirley.
“But that doesn’t mean you’re not guilty,” Officer Bouchard finished.
And that was the end of act one.
In act two, we would catch a killer.
10
“I don’t have to take this,” Shirley cried, marching straight up to Officer Bouchard and pushing his chest.
He refused to budge from his place in front of the door.
“You’ve got the wrong person,” she hissed, fury building to a fever pitch. “It’s bad enough this happened in my store during a very public event, but to have you accuse me as well?”
I approached slowly and put a hand on Shirley’s shoulder. She spun around and faced me head-on. “We know you didn’t kill him, but we also know you wanted him dead.”
I was taking a risk with this proclamation, but given the store manager’s flaring temper, I was banking on the fact she wouldn’t be thinking logically—just as Bella’s fear kept her from thinking logically about our claim of stab wounds on the victim’s back. Sometimes it took a few well-placed lies to suss out the truth.
Shirley breathed heavily, her entire chest heaving as she regarded me coldly.
I matched my breathing to hers and waited. I would wait as long as it took.
“I wanted the thief who was stealing from my store punished," she said at last. “I didn’t want anyone dead.”
And there it was.
Officer Bouchard removed the handcuffs from his belt but made no move to slap them on Shirley. “So you ordered the hit? Who carried it out?”
Panic mounted. I so badly wanted to turn and see how the others were reacting, but I had to count on Octo-Cat and Charles to keep eyes on them until we were done with Shirley.
“No, of course, I didn’t order a hit,” she insisted, her voice breaking. “Can you hear what you’re saying? I told you I’ve never seen that man before in my life, and I wasn’t lying about that.”
“Then how did you find out Marcus was the thief who’d been stealing from your store?” I asked, shaking my head.
“Why are you so convinced it was me?” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. Crimson droplets of blood fell to her candy cane skirt. A stress nosebleed. Gross.
“I didn’t do it,” she said in a husky growl.
“Can we stop with this now?” her employee Bella whined. “I just want to go home.”
“Me, too,” our hired Santa Andy said.
“Nobody’s going anywhere,” Charles snapped.
Only Scott remained silent. Well, and Marcus.
“You.” Shirley rounded her shoulders and snapped her attention toward Andy. “What is wrong with you? Are you honestly going to let me take the fall for your stupidity?”
“I didn’t do it. I wasn’t even here!” Andy exploded.
“Weren’t you, though?” I asked, crinkling my nose as I spun on my heels to face him.
“Ooh, goodie! Now we get to play with the moron. I’ve been waiting for this.” Octo-Cat unsheathed his claws and ran a gentle tongue over them. “Want me to take him out at the ankles?” my cat offered, and I motioned for him to hang tight.
Confusion crossed Andy’s face. It seemed he’d taken my wild motioning to be some sort of signal to Charles. Well, good.
“You all saw me come in after you’d already barricaded the doors,” he reminded us.
“Yes, that was a valiant attempt at an alibi,” Charles said with a chuckle. “But it doesn’t actually clear you at all.”
“I didn’t kill the guy,” Andy protested. His eyes zoomed toward the door where Shirley still stood near Officer Bouchard. “Why would I when you told me just to scare him a little bit?”
“Is that why you stabbed him?” I asked before he even realized he’d said too much.
“I didn’t stab him,” he mumbled. “I just strangled him a little bit.”
“So you admit it!” Shirley screamed and held both arms out to indicate Andy. “There you go, there’s your guy. Arrest him.”
“No, I didn’t kill him!” Andy shouted back. I had no doubts that the people at the front of the store could hear every word that passed between us now. We needed to hope that they didn’t storm Nan in a desperate attempt to get away from the murderous shouting match.
“Like I said,” Andy said with a clenched jaw. “I just strangled him a little. Not enough to kill him. The leash was around his neck for less than a minute while I whispered a warning in his ear. I scared him, just like I was paid to do. I did not kill him.”
“If I didn’t kill him, and you didn’t kill him…” Shirley’s voice trailed off as everyone turned toward Scott, the only remaining suspect.
Scott grabbed the ferret from his shoulder and cuddled the thin white creature as he spoke. “He may have been lazy and a cheat, but he was my friend.”
“One of you did it,” Officer Bouchard said sternly. “And so far all of you have freely admitted your motives. Well, all of you but one, that is.”
“Are you even kidding me with this right now?” Shirley growled. “Stop throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping it will stick, and stop holding my customers hostage. If you need to arrest Andy, just do it and let’s get on with our day. Whether or not he confesses to the murder, he admits to the strangling.”
Officer Bouchard swung the handcuffs and traded places with Charles. “Actually, we’ll be making three arrests today. Yours included,” he informed Shirley.
“Who’s the third?” Scott asked, his voice shaking. “Because I didn’t—”
“I didn’t mean to kill him!” Bella cried out. “When I found him, he was already laying on the floor and gasping for air. I thought I could help by using my CPR training, but the beard got in the way and… and…” The teen broke apart in sobs.
And scene. I hadn’t known for sure that Bella played a part in Marcus’s death, but there was no mistaking the girl’s frantic confession for the truth.
“So Shirley wanted the person stealing from her store to be found and stopped,” I summarized, pacing the length of the room. “She hired Andy to put a little fear into him. Andy, in his own words, strangled him just a little bit, and Bella accidentally smothered him while trying to administer a life-saving procedure. What I still don’t understand is why he was even here and dressed as Santa Claus in the first place. Especially when Shirley hired Andy, not Marcus.”
“Bella…” Shirley whispered, but could hardly be heard over the girl’s sobbing.
Scott spoke up next, still stroking his ferret for comfort. “This all sounds pretty crazy to me. Marcus may have been a cheat, but he wasn’t a thief.”
Six Merry Little Murders Page 27