by Nic Saint
A bluff, apple-cheeked and heavyset middle-aged lady, she was probably the healthiest person in Hampton Cove, which hadn’t stopped her from suffering a long list of ailments, all of them gleaned from Wikipedia and the medical encyclopedias she collected.
“Hey, Ida,” Gran grumbled.
“Oh, hello there, Vesta,” said Mrs. Baumgartner. She checked her watch.
Gran got the message. “I’m not here to work. I’m here to see the doctor.”
“Ooh, are you sick? You certainly look sick—in fact you look terrible.”
Gran’s eyes shot three sheets of flame in Mrs. Baumgartner’s direction, who quickly shut up.
“I’m not sick,” Gran said emphatically. “It’s Odelia. She’s got this obsession that there must be something wrong with me, even though I keep telling her I’m perfectly fine.”
“Do you mind if we cut in, Mrs. Baumgartner?” asked Odelia.
“Oh, no, I don’t mind at all. In fact I’ve got all the time in the world.”
When the door to the inner office opened and Odelia’s dad appeared, he looked surprised to see his daughter and mother-in-law. “Odelia? Vesta? Is something the matter?”
“No,” said Gran.
“Yes,” said Odelia.
An elderly man Odelia recognized as Mr. Soot came shuffling out, pressed Dad’s hand warmly, and shuffled on out the door.
“Come on in,” said Dad, and ushered the both of them into his office.
“Get well soon, Vesta!” Mrs. Baumgartner yelled before the door closed. “We miss you!”
When Gran was assisting Odelia on her investigations, there was no one to staff the reception at the doctor’s office, so Dad had to work a little harder to answer all the phones. It was one of the reasons Odelia preferred to do these murder inquires by herself. She knew Dad didn’t mind, but she also knew he preferred to have Gran taking care of the front desk, and contend with the patients. The fact of the matter was that Gran liked the change of pace. She didn’t enjoy being cooped up in the office all day and looked forward to these trips with her granddaughter, interviewing suspects and catching killers. It provided her with the kind of excitement and thrills life as a doctor’s assistant lacked.
“So? What’s going on?” asked Dad, a good-natured man with a shock of white hair and the bedside manner of a country doctor.
“Nothing,” said Gran.
“Everything,” said Odelia.
Dad frowned. “So who’s the patient? You or Vesta?”
“Odelia,” said Gran.
“Gran,” said Odelia. She took a deep breath, then placed the pillbox on Dad’s desk. “Gran has been taking these. She bought them off a drug dealer and thought they were vitamins, but in actual fact they’re called ecstasy pills. They’re—”
But Dad whistled through his teeth. “That wasn’t very smart of you, Vesta.”
“Oh, don’t give me that sanctimonious crap,” Gran said. “Just take my temperature or my blood pressure or whatever you quacks do to sick people around this place.”
“You know perfectly well what we do to sick people around this place, Vesta,” said Dad in his kindliest, most reasonable voice.
“Well, get on with it,” she said. “Give me another lecture. God knows I’ve had to endure one lecture after another from my own granddaughter already.”
“I’m not going to lecture you, Vesta,” said Dad. “What I am going to do is tell you that these pills are the equivalent of a severe chemical shock to your system. A shock that at your age could very well have fatal consequences.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Dad couldn’t control himself any longer. “What the hell were you thinking?!”
“I was thinking they were vitamins! Vitamins!”
Dad listened to Vesta’s heart, checked her pulse, listened to her lungs, and did everything a doctor would after hearing that his septuagenarian patient has been popping ecstasy as if they were M&Ms. In the end, he pursed his lips.
“Just give it to me straight, Doc,” said Vesta, looking up at her son-in-law with a modicum of trepidation written all over her features. “How long have I got?”
“You’re actually in excellent fettle for a woman your age.”
“My age!” she said, trepidation quickly giving way to indignation. “I’m a young woman!”
“Not that young,” he said diplomatically. “As I said, for a woman your age you’re in excellent health, and the pills don’t seem to have done any damage to your system. I would like to take some blood, though, and have it examined.”
She stuck out her arm resignedly. “Here. Take my blood, Count Dracula.”
“So I’ll see you tomorrow morning, completely sober.”
“I never drink and you know it.”
He smiled indulgently. “You know the drill, Vesta. First thing tomorrow morning I’m going to draw some blood and we’re going to send it to the lab and then we’ll know more.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. So are we done?”
“For now, we’re done.”
“Good. Let’s get out of here, Odelia. This place makes me sick.” And as they walked out, she muttered, “Too many sick people,” and gave a cursory nod to Mrs. Baumgartner.
It was amazing, Odelia thought, that her grandmother, in spite of her age, and in spite of her shenanigans, was in such good health. Probably her character. God didn’t want to snatch her up from this life and foist her on the next, so he’d decided to leave her be.
“Doctors,” said Gran as she yanked down her seatbelt. “Always fussing, fussing, fussing. Why doesn’t anyone ever believe me when I tell them I’m fit as a frolicking filly?”
“You keep falling asleep,” Odelia reminded her.
“It’s my naptime!”
She held up her hands. “Okay, okay. Fine.”
“So what’s next? Are we going to talk to this Animal person now?”
“I think I’m going to wait until Chase is free. He sounds like the kind of guy you don’t want to meet without some muscle to back you up.”
“I’ll be your muscle,” said Gran, stripping up her sleeve and flexing a non-existent bicep.
Odelia laughed. Looked like Gran was back to her old self, and she was glad for it. The woman might be a pain in the patootie, but she loved her to death.
“I want to drive by Jeb’s place again. Check that fence where our mystery witness says he saw Jeb kill Camilla. And then I want to have another chat with Helena and Fae. Give them an update on the investigation.”
“Good. Let’s get going. I don’t have all day, you know.”
And as Odelia put the car in gear, Gran promptly dozed off again.
Chapter 29
Odelia parked her car on the road’s shoulder, and we all got out.
“So what are we doing here?” asked Dooley.
“She wants to take a closer look at the fence,” I said. “Remember the witness who came forward and said he saw Jeb and Camilla arguing, and then he actually saw Jeb attack Camilla? Well, the only way he could have seen that was if he was standing out there, looking in through a hole in the fence.”
Dooley’s attention was momentarily snagged by a couple of birds tweeting and twittering up a storm in a nearby tree, and I rolled my eyes. And as Odelia checked the fence, I followed close behind. Gran, meanwhile, was still sleeping in the car, her mouth open, and snoring like a lumberjack cutting a particularly thick piece of log. Whatever was in those pills she took, instead of bucking her up, they’d put her to sleep!
“I don’t see it,” said Odelia as we snuck closer to the fence. “Oh, there it is. See? There’s a hole.”
Actually, I couldn’t see, for I’m a lot shorter and closer to the ground than she is. When I reminded her of this fact, she apologized and picked me up. And then I saw it, too. There was a hole in the fence that offered a perfect view of Jeb’s so-called private lodge. From that particular vantage point, anyone could have looked in.
“So thi
s witness was right,” said Odelia. “Too bad he chose to remain anonymous.”
“If he was walking his dog, it must be someone who lives around here,” I said.
“Good point, and I’m sure Uncle Alec and Chase thought of that, too.”
I suddenly noticed something odd. “That hole looks so nice and round. Is that normal?”
We moved closer, Odelia and me both studying the hole in more detail.
The fence was a chain-link contraption, covered with a sheet of dark green plastic to shield the area off from unwanted lookie-loos. But in the exact spot where Jeb’s living room was, someone had cut a round hole of about a foot diameter.
Odelia crouched down and checked the ground, putting me down as well. There were green plastic shavings right below the hole. She checked them.
“These look pretty recent,” she said.
“So what does that mean?”
She got up. “It means that someone wanted to spy on Jeb Pott. And that someone knew exactly where Jeb was going to be.”
“Could be a reporter,” I suggested. “Or a paparazzo.”
“Could be,” she agreed. “Or it could be someone who wanted to keep an eye on Jeb for a different reason.”
“Like our Mr. Animal. The one Jeb owed money to?”
“You’re right. Loan sharks want to keep an eye on their victims. Just in case they decide to make a run for it without paying. This Animal could have sent one of his goons out here to keep an eye on Jeb. And cut a neat hole in the fence just for that purpose.”
It sounded reasonable, but still didn’t explain... “Could it be that this goon was the one who called in the attack? It would stand to reason he wouldn’t want his identity revealed to the police. Not if he was spying on Jeb.”
“Do loan sharks care if their clients murder people?” asked Odelia, more to herself than to me.
“I would think so. A client in jail is a client who can’t pay what he owes, and he can’t be reached to put the squeeze on either. So it would be in the loan shark’s best interest to prevent his client from going to prison.”
“Loan sharks are usually part of a criminal organization. Their reach extends inside most prisons, so I don’t think that would matter a great deal. No, this would have to be a loan shark with a conscience, which seems at odds with the profession.”
“And the name. Animal,” I reminded her.
She suddenly glanced across the street. “I like this idea of a neighbor a lot more, actually. Someone walking their dog. Which would put him in any of these houses. Lots of people don’t want to get involved with the police, or see their names printed in the newspapers. People like their privacy, and coming forward as a witness carries a certain risk. Testimony in court, maybe, scrutiny from the press, potential backlash at work, etcetera. I would understand why this person would choose to remain anonymous. What bugs me is the burner phone. Why would a person walking their dog carry a burner phone? That doesn’t fit with the idea that this is an ordinary neighbor, concerned about Camilla.”
She was following a certain train of thought, I could tell, and suddenly turned and crossed the street, walking straight up the house located there. I followed her, hissing, “Dooley. Leave those birds alone!”
“Huh?” said Dooley, clearly in the throes of the bird spectacle.
For some reason birds flitting about in trees exact a powerful fascination on us cats. We can stare at them for hours upon hours. But now was not the time to practice ornithology. Now was the time to assist Odelia, who was clearly onto something.
“What about Gran?” asked Dooley, hurrying after us.
“Oh, she’s fine,” I said. “Sleeping off her ecstasy bender.”
Odelia glanced through the windows of the house across the street. This was a more modest structure, compared to the place where Helena and her daughter lived. It was built flush with the road, without a front yard, and barely big enough to house a family.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“I’m thinking that if someone wanted to keep an eye on Jeb, this house would be the perfect place to do it from. As a matter of fact, this window is perfectly lined up with Jeb’s window, visible through that hole in the fence.”
“Careful,” I said, “If this Animal is in there, he might not appreciate the company.”
“Maybe we can take a quick peek inside,” Dooley offered. “People are less intimidated by cats than by other people.”
“Okay,” Odelia said reluctantly. I could tell she was raring to barge into the house, to discover if her latest theory had any merit.
Dooley and I headed around the back, hoping to find some access point that would lead us into the house.
The house was clearly deserted, or had been allowed to dilapidate. The backyard was a tangle of weeds, and creepers covered the entire backside, the brickwork crumbling in places. I could see a hole in the roof, and several windows were broken.
We hopped inside through one of those broken windows on the ground floor, and discovered that the house was, indeed, derelict. No furniture, with mold covering the walls.
“Yuck,” said Dooley. “What’s that awful smell?”
“Rot,” I said. “If you leave a place exposed to the elements like this, decay sets in, and before long nature takes over, reducing a sound structure to rubble within a few short years.”
We tripped across the floor and searched around until we found the room Odelia had indicated.
“This is more than just decay, Max,” said Dooley when we arrived in the room, which did, indeed, provide a perfect vantage point to watch the house across the street. A camera tripod stood lined up, but there was no camera mounted on top. Several cigarette butts littered the floor, as did fast-food wrappers, and an old couch had clearly been sat in.
“Someone’s been here,” I said.
“Odelia was right,” said Dooley.
“So where is this person?” I asked.
I now became aware of the fact that Dooley had been right about the smell. This was not ordinary rot. This smelled more... coppery. Almost like… blood.
I stuck my nose in the air and sniffed, then let my keen sense of smell carry me to the source of the strange odor. In the hallway I found a door that led into the basement, the door itself dangling from its hinges. And as I stared down, my eyes quickly adjusting to the darkness, I noticed how several stairs were broken. And when I looked beyond them, I saw a large object lying on the cement floor below. It was a human being, and he wasn’t moving…
Chapter 30
When Max and Dooley came racing out of the house, meowing up a storm, Odelia knew something bad had happened. Still she had the presence of mind not to go inside but instead to call her uncle. Within minutes, he arrived, Chase riding shotgun, and both men jumped out.
“There’s a body of a man inside,” she said, as she pointed to the house. “I mean,” she quickly corrected herself, “I think there is. I’m not sure. You better take a look.”
Chase checked through the window. “I don’t see a thing.”
“I have a hunch,” said Odelia.
“Odelia has good eyes,” said Uncle Alec. “Cat’s eyes.”
“Let’s take a look inside,” said Chase, then noticed how Gran was sitting in Odelia’s car, her mouth open, still snoring up a storm. “Is she all right?” he asked, concerned.
“Don’t mind her,” said Alec. “She’s taken ecstasy pills and is sleeping them off.”
“Ecstasy,” Chase repeated.
He had that Alice in Wonderland look on his face again, a look he’d worn many times since making Odelia’s acquaintance.
“Don’t ask,” said Alec. “So let’s see who the dead guy is, shall we?”
They moved to the front door and it easily gave way, the wood having rotted away. Odelia followed in their wake, Max and Dooley keeping their distance. They didn’t like the smell of dead people. Neither did she, but she needed to take a look anyway. This was her investigation, and t
he plot had just thickened considerably.
“Huh,” said Chase as he let the light from his smartphone flicker over the man lying at the bottom of the basement stairs. The man had his eyes open, staring unblinkingly into space. “He looks pretty dead, all right.” He turned to Odelia. “Are you sure you didn’t go in?”
“I… I guess I must have smelled him,” she said lamely.
She studied the man, then gasped. “I think I’ve seen him before.”
“Who is he?” asked Uncle Alec.
“He looks like Jack Palmer. A reporter for the Happy Bays Gazette.”
“The Happy Bays Gazette?” asked Alec. “What the hell was he doing here, then?” He took out his phone and called in an ambulance, as well as the county coroner’s people.
Odelia and Chase moved to the living room, and studied the tripod. If a camera had been placed on top of it, it would have offered a perfect look into Jeb Pott’s lodge.
“Looks like he was snapping pictures of Jeb,” said Chase, checking the angle.
“He probably cut the hole,” said Odelia. “Jack specialized in digging up dirt on celebrities. He must have heard Jeb was in town and decided to poke around.”
“Looks like he found more dirt than he bargained for,” said Chase.
“So if he was taking pictures of Jeb,” said Alec, putting his phone away, “where is his camera?”
“Good question,” Odelia murmured. There was no trace of a camera anywhere, or a phone, or a laptop.
“So let me get this straight. Our guy here comes into town to spy on Jeb. He stumbles down the stairs, breaks his neck, and his camera magically vanishes into thin air.”
“He could have hidden it somewhere,” said Odelia. “This place was crawling with reporters two days ago. If he took pictures of…” Her eyes widened. “What if Jack is our mystery caller—the anonymous witness?! If he was taking pictures of the house across the street, he could have seen the murder—he could have gotten the whole thing on film!”
“We need that camera,” Alec muttered. “And by God I’m gonna find it, if I have to tear down this place to do it. If what you’re saying is true, and I think it is, this cinches it.”