by Nic Saint
The chief had risen. “Um, Odelia, this is Chase Kingsley. Chase, this is my niece Odelia Poole. She’s a reporter with the Hampton Cove Gazette.”
Chase’s eyes were still fixed on her, and judging from the expression on his face he wasn’t happy. “How the hell did you find out about Paulo Frey?”
The chief gave a feeble smile. “Odelia has her sources, don’t you, honey?”
“I sure have,” she said, taking a seat in the other chair, her notebook poised on her lap. “So is it true that you found all of his suitcases, his laptop and all of his belongings buried down there with the body?”
Chase shook his head. “Unbelievable,” he grunted.
She snapped her head up. “What’s unbelievable?”
“The way information gets leaked!” he cried, clearly incensed.
“The press has a right to know what’s going on in this town, Chase,” she said. “So I suggest you get used to it. The people have a right to know.”
“It’s Detective Kingsley to you,” he grumbled.
“We’re all friends here,” said the chief, holding up his hands placatingly. “And Odelia only writes her stories after checking them with me.”
“That still doesn’t explain how she knows about this case,” he insisted.
“A little birdie told me, all right? Now can you or can’t you confirm that Paulo Frey’s body was found at the bottom of the Writer’s Lodge outhouse?”
“Yes, I can,” said the chief, casting a weary glance at Chase.
“Unbelievable,” huffed Chase again, shaking his head.
She turned on the man. “This is the way we do things in this town.”
“It’s certainly different from the way we handle things in the city,” he said, giving her a very stern look. “In fact I can’t even imagine any nosy reporter ever barging into the office of the NYPD commissioner and dictating terms.”
“I’m not dictating terms,” she gritted out. “I’m merely trying to get confirmation on some basic facts pertaining to this case.”
“A case you have no business sticking your nose into.”
“It is my business because I choose to make it my business.”
“Oh? Last time I checked you weren’t on the police payroll, Miss Poole.”
“Odelia is part of the family, Chase,” said Chief Alec, finally managing to get a word in edgewise. “We’re all on the same page here. One great team.”
He held up his hands. “All right, Chief. But I still think it’s highly unorthodox, and if I were you I’d reconsider the leeway you’re granting her.”
“Well, you’re not me, son,” said the chief with a smile.
“Yes, Detective Kingsley, you’re not the chief of police in this town,” said Odelia. “So please stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Perhaps she shouldn’t have said that, for the man’s eyes were shooting fire now. Blue sheets of flame. In fact they now reminded her of twin laser beams, doing their utmost to blast through her skull and incinerate her on the spot. She swallowed. She had the impression it wasn’t wise to be on his bad side.
Chief Alec cleared his throat noisily. “So, about Paulo Frey. I can confirm that we found his body at the bottom of the Writer’s Lodge outhouse well and that it’s been transferred to the ME’s office for an autopsy.”
“Do you think he fell down that well by accident?”
“Considering the fact that his luggage, his clothes, his laptop and all of his other stuff were also down there, I think it’s safe to say he was murdered. But like I said, it’s all up to the Medical Examiner now to know for sure.”
“Do you have any leads on the killer?”
“None yet.”
“When did he disappear again? I seem to remember sometime last year?”
“It’s been over a year,” the chief confirmed, then shook his head. “It’s going to be very hard to figure out what exactly happened.”
She thought she understood. After such a long time there probably wasn’t much left of the body. “Did you…” She swallowed. “Did you see the body?”
He nodded, a grim set to his face. “Yes, I did. We had to disassemble the outhouse and get the cesspool pumping guys in there. Took us the better part of yesterday to do that. The body was pretty decomposed when we finally found it at the bottom. Practically all that’s left is a skeleton with some remnants of skin and hair.” He sighed. “Not a pretty sight, Odelia.”
“So how do you know it’s Paulo Frey?”
“Well, we found his ID, laptop, smartphone, luggage… Hard to tell from the body, of course. But I’m pretty sure dental records will back us up.”
“And DNA.”
“Yeah, if necessary they’ll do a DNA test, I’m sure. But I think dental will provide adequate proof of identity, and much quicker, too.”
“Crap, Uncle Alec. A real murder in Hampton Cove.”
“Yeah, it’s a nasty business,” he agreed. “A very nasty business indeed.”
“You don’t get a lot of murders down here?” asked Chase.
“None,” said Odelia and Chief Alec simultaneously.
“This is a very peaceful town, Detective Kingsley,” said Odelia. “In fact I wonder what a big city cop like you is doing down here.”
“I have my reasons,” he immediately cut her off.
“Let’s just say that Chase here needed a change of pace,” said the chief pacifically. “And we’re mighty glad he chose Hampton Cove. The NYPD’s loss is definitely our gain,” he stressed, giving Odelia a keen look. “We need men like Chase on the force. None of us are getting any younger.”
Crap. Was Uncle Alec thinking about retiring and appointing Chase Kingsley his replacement? Then she’d just antagonized the next chief.
She nodded, and a look of understanding passed between herself and her uncle. She would cut the new detective some slack. But then she remembered something else, and turned to Chase again. “Could you please do something about that cat of yours, Detective Kingsley?”
His eyebrows shot up. “My… cat?”
“Yes. He’s been throwing his weight around all over town, scaring the local cats and behaving as if he owns the place. More specifically, he’s been terrorizing my own cat Max. Really behaving like a genuine bully.”
Chase’s eyebrows shot up even further into his fringe. “Your cat Max.”
She nodded seriously. “He’s chased him out of the park…” She was going to add he’d also barred Max access to the police station, but stopped herself.
The chief coughed. “Odelia loves her cat, don’t you, honey?”
Chase barked an incredulous laugh. “I don’t believe this. You’re telling me that my cat is bullying your cat?”
She pursed her lips. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. You can’t simply barge into town and start throwing your weight around, Detective Kingsley.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“So you better have a talk with your cat and tell him to behave, all right?”
Chase threw up his hands. “Sure! Of course! Why not? I’ll ‘talk’ to my cat. Is there anything else you’d like me to do, Miss Poole? Tell my begonias not to take up so much space in my garden? Cause God knows they shouldn’t simply barge in here and start bullying other plants in other gardens!”
“You’re making fun of me now,” she said, eyeing him darkly.
“No, you’re making fun of me!” he snapped, then turned away from her, muttering something under his breath that sounded an awful lot like ‘Who the heck do you think I am? Doctor frickin’ Dolittle?’
“Well, that’s settled then,” said the chief, placing his hands on his desk. He was looking uncomfortable. “Chase will have a word with his cat, and—”
“—as soon as you hear from the ME’s office—”
“—I’ll be sure to give you a call,” he finished with a wide smile.
“Of course you will,” Chase added with another eye roll.
“You don’t say,” he muttered.
“So I suggest you get used to it,” she added, and without deigning him another glance, swept from the office and slammed the door behind her.
Chapter 5
I decided to return to the house and regroup. This whole business with Brutus had thrown me for a loop. If you can’t even go where you want in your own town, it’s a sad state of affairs. So when I arrived in my own backyard again, I felt both relieved—this was most definitely my domain and no domineering cat could tell me otherwise—and annoyed, for I suddenly felt cooped up for the first time in my life. When you’re a free roaming spirit and suddenly you’re forcibly confined to your own backyard, it’s not much fun.
I suddenly felt what prisoners must feel like once they find themselves locked up in Guantanamo Bay. I even had the orange jumpsuit to go with my current position. Well, not the jumpsuit, maybe. But definitely the right color.
The moment I set foot in my yard, Harriet and Dooley came trotting up. I swear they have a sixth sense about these things. Or maybe they simply gab a lot. Word spreads fast in our small Hampton Cove cat community.
“What happened?” asked Harriet. She appeared genuinely worried, which felt like balm to my wounded pride.
“Yeah, what’s going on?” Dooley asked. “I heard you got kicked out of the police station by that brute Brutus?”
“And is it true that a man was murdered?” asked Harriet, eyes wide.
“How do you guys even know about that?”
“Well, Stacy Brown’s cat witnessed the standoff between you and Brutus, and Father Reilly’s tabby Shanille was out snooping around the Writer’s Lodge yesterday,” said Harriet, studying her paw intently. “The place was crawling with cops, and next thing she knew an ambulance rode up and took away what looked like a corpse. She had to move upwind at some point, as the place was stinking to high heaven.” She wrinkled her nose. “Shanille said they found the body in the lodge’s poo-poo pit.”
“It’s true,” I confirmed. “They found the body of that writer that went missing last year. Paulo Frey, remember? He used to stay at the lodge at least once a year, to write his bestsellers, and last year vanished without a trace.”
“So they found him, huh?” asked Dooley, licking his butt. All this talk about poo-poo had apparently inspired him to have a taste of his own poo-poo pit. What can I say? Us cats are a very suggestible bunch.
“So what happened? Did he commit suicide? Jump into the pit?” asked Harriet, her green eyes glittering with excitement. “Why would he do that?”
“Humans love poo-poo,” said Dooley wisely. “He must have wanted to take a bath in the stuff and accidentally drowned. It’s the latest craze.”
I stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“The latest craze!” he repeated. “Out in Hollywood they take baths in their own poo-poo now. It’s supposed to rejuvenate the skin. And that’s not the only thing. They even drink their own pee-pee,” he added knowingly. “First thing in the morning. It’s like a tonic or something. Juice of life stuff.”
“That’s crazy talk,” I said. “Nobody takes a bath in their own poo-poo, except maybe for pigs, but that’s just because they don’t know any better.”
“Duh. Pigs are dumb,” said Harriet. “Everybody knows that.”
Yes, I know. We’re not averse to pig shaming. Sue us.
“No, I’m telling you, Max. It’s a real thing,” said Dooley. “Celebs smear their own poop on their faces all the time. It’s been on that website POOP.”
“GOOP,” Harriet corrected. “Not POOP, Dooley. GOOP.”
Gwyneth Paltrow’s website was a hit with Hampton Covians as she was a local girl done good. I’d never met her, as she spent most of her time in Amagansett, but I was a fan, and so were all the other cats. Her site often featured articles on what cats are thinking. Rubbish, of course, but very droll.
“I’m pretty sure Gwyneth would never propagate something silly like smearing poop on your face,” I said, though maybe she would. The things that celebrities did to stay young was frankly amazing.
“It’s a thing,” Dooley insisted, giving his butthole another lick.
“Anyway,” I said, trying to get the conversation back on track. “Paulo Frey didn’t take a bath in his own poop. He was killed and then his body was dumped in there so nobody would find out. At least that’s what the police think. Since they also found his laptop in there, and all his belongings.” I cocked an eye at Dooley. “If he wanted to take a poop bath, would he have jumped in with his laptop?”
Dooley shrugged. “Maybe he wanted to take notes while he was doing it? Writers are crazy, buddy. Maybe he was researching the perfect murder, decided to try out this poo thing for himself and got in way over his head.”
Harriet laughed. “That’s actually funny, Dooley. Way over his head.”
Dooley gave her a blank stare. He obviously didn’t get his own pun.
Dooley was right, though. Writers were a little crazy. Year after year they came to the Writer’s Lodge to hatch up their harebrained plots, roaming the woods muttering to themselves, or soaking in the Jacuzzi Hetta had installed for their benefit, staring up at the sky and begging the gods of creativity to help them out when they got stuck again. So yeah, they were a crazy bunch, but not so crazy to jump into the toilet with all of their belongings, almost as if they were jumping into a Hot Tub Time Machine, hoping to be transported to another time and place. No, this case had the stench of foul play all over it.
“He was killed,” I said adamantly. “The Chief is sure of it. Now all he needs is cause and time of death, which the medical examiner will hopefully figure out from what’s left of the body, and he can start his investigation.”
“Who’s running the investigation?” asked Harriet. “Is it true that Chief Alec is handing it to the dreamboat?”
“How do you even know about that?” I asked. I was starting to wonder if all my snooping around the police office was even necessary. If Harriet could find out as much as I had simply by talking to other cats, what was the point?
“Well, it’s only common sense,” she said. “Chase used to be NYPD, after all, so what better person to run a murder investigation than him, right?”
“Yeah, what about that?” asked Dooley, nodding. “A genuine NYPD cop. How cool is that, huh?”
“Way cool,” Harriet agreed with a grin.
“If he’s so cool, what is he doing here?” I asked. “Why didn’t he simply stay in New York with the big boys?” It was a question that begged asking. If this hotshot detective was so cool, why choose to bury himself in a small town like Hampton Cove, where the homicide rate was probably close to zero?
Harriet stared at me. “Don’t you know?”
“Know what?”
“Well, he was fired.”
“Fired! But why?” Now this was news. If I’d known this before, I could have told Odelia. Make sure she didn’t do something stupid like fall for him.
Harriet slowly and methodically started licking her paw and then rubbing it across her face. “Gross misconduct. At least that’s what Shanille said, who heard it from Trudy, Lora Escort’s cat, who’d read it in the New York Post.”
“That’s impossible,” I scoffed. “If Chase Kingsley was fired for gross misconduct, he would never be able to work as a cop again, not even in Hampton Cove. No,” I mused, “it must be something else.”
“Shanille was pretty adamant. And you know tabloids never lie.”
“Right. They wouldn’t dare,” I said. Could it be? Could Chase have been a bad boy? Why else would he accept a job here? Not for the excitement. Unless riding around on a dune buggy was Chase’s idea of excitement.
“What’s gross misconduct?” asked Dooley. “I mean, is it really gross?”
“Something about
the wife of a suspect,” said Harriet. “She claims Chase molested her during an interrogation, so she filed charges against him. He was consequently suspended pending an investigation, and eventually forced to hand in his gun and badge, his employment effectively terminated.”
I stared at her. “He was discharged for molestation and you still think he’s a dreamboat?”
“I don’t believe it, all right?” she said, holding up her paw, then continuing to groom the left side of her face. “I’m sure he was framed.”
“Framed?” I asked, incredulous.
“It happens all the time. Supercop gets framed. At least that’s what Brutus says and I happen to believe him.”
“Brutus says his human was framed,” I said blankly. Now I’d heard it all.
“Yes, he did. He said he saw something he wasn’t supposed to see, and so they set him up to destroy his credibility. It happens all the time,” she added when she caught my dubious look. “Successful people often get a lot of flak. And I’m sure this woman who accused him must have perjured herself.”
“Ouch. That must have hurt,” said Dooley.
“Perjured, Dooley,” I said automatically. “Not injured.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, go away,” I muttered, thinking hard. This changed matters entirely. If this was true, and I didn’t doubt it since Brutus himself had confirmed the story, Odelia had to be warned. I was sure that once she found out she’d never want to come near the guy. Which solved the Brutus situation nicely.
“I’m telling Odelia,” I said. “She needs to know who she’s dealing with.”
Harriet sighed. “I was afraid of this. Can’t you just let it go, Max?”
“Let it go! Are you nuts?!”
“Why can’t you just give Odelia a shot at real happiness? I’m sure that she and Chase are simply made for each other. Two beautiful people like that? It’s a match made in heaven. The moment they walk down the aisle together, we’ll all be family.” She sighed again, wistfully this time. “You, me, Dooley… Brutus… just one big, happy, family.”