by Nic Saint
I gestured with my tail to the bathroom. “In there.”
He glanced over, a puzzled look on his furry face. “Huh?”
“He’s in there! God’s gift to women is taking a shower, acting as if he owns the place, can you believe it? I swear to Sheba, Dooley, that man is moving in.”
Dooley blinked. “You were talking about Chase?”
“Weren’t you?”
In response, he raised his hind paw and started scratching furiously behind his right ear. “No. I. Was. Not,” he said between grunts and scratches. The itch finally abated and he added, panting slightly, “I was talking about these terrible itches. These horrible, annoying itches. They started up last night and I can’t seem to get rid of them.”
“Itches? You have itches?”
“I have—and so do you. And so, for that matter, do Brutus and Harriet.”
“That’s not good.”
“It’s bad, Max,” he said, his whiskers puckering up into an expression of extreme concern. “Do you think we caught some kind of disease? Do you think…” He swallowed visibly and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Do you think… we’re going to… die?”
I groaned. “We’re not going to die, Dooley. It’s just an itch. It will pass.”
He flapped his paws a bit. “But we all have them, Max!” His eyes widened to the size of saucers. “It’s a virus! A virus that will wipe out the entire feline population!”
We’d watched a movie called Contagion the other night with Odelia and Chase. It was about Gwyneth Paltrow who shakes hands with a chef in Hong Kong and dies and pretty soon everyone else also dies except for her husband Matt Damon who doesn’t die. It was horrible. I kept my paws in front of my eyes the entire time. Can you imagine even Kate Winslet died? After surviving that whole Titanic thing she goes and dies from some silly little virus. And now every time someone coughs Dooley thinks they are going to die, too.
“But Brutus and Harriet have it, too, and I’ll bet soon every cat in Hampton Cove will have it, and then it will spread to New York and the country and the world!” He gave a hiccup and grabbed my paw, which hurt, as he neglected to retract his claws. “We’re all gonna die!”
Just in that moment Chase walked in from the bathroom and we both looked up. He had a towel strapped around his private parts and was toweling his long hair. He reminded me of that movie Tarzan we’d seen with that vampire from True Blood. I know, we watch a lot of television in this house. And you thought cats didn’t watch TV. Huh. Think again.
“Oh, hey, Dooley,” said Chase, spotting my friend sitting next to me. Then he grinned and shook his head. “I’m doing it again. Talking to a bunch of cats. I must be going loco.”
Like a pair of synchronized swimmers, both Dooley and I raised our hind paws and started scratching ourselves behind the left ears, then the right ears, then under the chin.
Chase stopped rubbing his scalp with the towel and gave us a look of concern.
“Well, what do we have here?” he muttered.
He sat down on the bed, and for some reason began inspecting me, checking my fur here and there, carefully parting my blorange hair to look at that nice pink skin underneath. Then he subjected Dooley to the same procedure. Finally, he sat back, and glanced at a smattering of red spots on his ankle and nodded knowingly. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Suddenly something jumped from my neck onto the bed. Something small and black.
Quick as lightning, Chase caught it between his fingernails, and studied it for a moment, before mashing it to bits, his face taking on a serious expression. He then gave me and Dooley a long look of concern, not unlike a father about to give his daughter The Talk.
Oh, yes. I’ve seen movies where fathers give their daughters The Talk. But Chase wasn’t my father, and I’m not his daughter, so why would he give me The Talk?
I braced myself for the worst, and judging from Dooley’s claws digging into my skin, so did he.
“I hate to be the one to tell you this.” Chase spoke earnestly and with surprising tenderness lacing his rumbling baritone. “But you guys got fleas.”
Dooley and I shared a look of confusion. “Fleas?” I asked. “What are fleas?”
Dooley was quaking where he sat. “It’s the virus! It’s what killed Rose from Titanic!”
“Now, this is nothing to be concerned about,” Chase continued gently, almost as if he could actually understand what Dooley was saying. “I’ll tell Odelia and she’ll take care of this straightaway.” He patted my head again—another one of those awkward prods—and smiled. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And fleas have never killed anyone. I think.”
Dooley, who was on the verge of a full-scale panic attack, wailed, “We won’t die?”
“Didn’t you listen to the man?” I asked. “Fleas are going to make us stronger.”
Another itch suddenly plagued me, and I reached with my hind paw to remedy it. But Chase beat me to the punch. He dove right in, and soon was extracting another one of those jumpy little bugs from my skin, mashing it to pieces between his fingernails.
Both Dooley and I stared at the guy like a pair of hobbits staring at Gandalf the Wizard. “He saved you, Max,” said Dooley reverently. “He killed the killer bug.”
“It’s not a killer bug, Dooley,” I said.
“He killed the killer bug with his bare hands.”
“I’m telling you it’s not a killer bug.”
“He saved you. Chase saved you from the killer bug. He’s a hero.”
“It’s not a killer bug and Chase is not a hero!”
But I had to admit that maybe—just maybe—I’d misjudged Odelia’s boyfriend.
The man was a genuine hero. The fiercest fleaslayer the world had ever known.
Chapter 3
Back at the hotel Odelia was prepared for the worst when she followed her uncle up to the second floor of the Hampton Cove Star. Downstairs, the secondary crime scene had been sealed off from prying eyes by a screen, and techies from the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s office were busily scratching their heads as they stared down at Burt’s head.
Upstairs, the hotel manager, an obsequious little man with a clean-shaven face and shifty eyes, led the way to the room where the tragedy had taken place. Odelia’s uncle Alec Lip, Hampton Cove’s chief of police, hiked up his gun belt, while Odelia and a few more boys and girls in blue followed in the big man’s wake.
As the town’s prime crime reporter—or quite frankly the town’s only reporter, prime, crime or otherwise—Odelia had a front-row seat to most investigations her uncle was involved in, as long as she was discreet and didn’t print stuff in her paper that could hamper the investigation. A fine sleuth in her own right, she’d solved more than one crime in her time, a fact for which her uncle was more than appreciative.
“Where is Chase?” she asked now.
Her uncle cocked an eyebrow in her direction. “I should probably ask you that.”
She blushed slightly. Chase had been living with Uncle Alec, but had been staying over at her place more and more frequently these past few weeks. She didn’t know whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, but she had to admit she’d grown very fond of the cop.
“I called him,” she said. “He said he’d be here.”
Uncle Alec shrugged. “If he says he’ll be here, he’ll be here.”
She glanced back at the line of cops following in her wake. They all looked away, but judging from their barely concealed smiles and pricked-up ears, they were eagerly listening in on the conversation. The whole station knew about her and Chase, and followed the budding romance with the kind of fervor usually reserved for the big Hollywood love stories.
The manager came to a full stop in front of an unremarkable door and inserted an unremarkable badge into the unremarkable slot. The mechanism gave a beep, then the door unceremoniously dropped out of its hinges and collapsed to the side, offering the stunned viewers a glance at the devastated room behind it
. The place looked like a war zone.
“Oh, Lord,” said the little manager, clasping his hands to his face. “Oh, dear. Oh, my.”
“Not much left,” said Uncle Alec gruffly, and ventured inside.
Odelia’s uncle was a big man with a big belly and a big, round ruddy face. At last count he possessed three chins, two man boobs and two russet sideburns. The moment he stepped across the threshold, there was a loud creaking sound and something gave way.
One moment Uncle Alec was there—the next he was gone.
“Uncle!” Odelia cried, and took a step forward, only to be held back by the manager.
“Careful, Miss Poole, please,” the man said in a breathless whisper.
They both glanced down into the chief-of-police-shaped hole at their feet. One floor down, Uncle Alec was staring up at them, looking slightly dazed and covered with chalk and debris. He was lying on a bed, which had broken his fall, an elderly lady lying next to him, clutching a sheet to her chest, and staring at him with a mixture of curiosity and surprise.
“I’m fine!” Alec called out to them, lifting an arm to indicate he was still alive. “The bed broke my fall.”
Suddenly, the woman next to him said, “And my husband.”
“Mh?” Alec asked.
The woman pointed to an object underneath Alec. “My husband broke your fall.”
A muffled sound came from beneath the large man. “Kindly get off me, sir!”
Uncle Alec rolled from the bed, and a rumpled elderly gentleman appeared, his glasses askew. He took a few deep breaths, and proceeded to give the police chief his best scowl. “This is an outrage, sir. An outrage.”
“I’m sorry,” said the policeman. “And thank you.”
The man was shaking his fist at the hotel manager now, visible through the hole in the ceiling. “I’m calling my travel agent, sir. This is not the kind of service I expected from this establishment! First that loud bang that woke us up and now this. Color me dissatisfied.”
“You tell ‘em, Earl,” said his wife, still clutching the sheet to protect her modesty.
“I’m truly sorry, Mr. Assenheimer,” the manager called out. “We’ll comp you your room and your meals. And you can add a week to your stay. No expense.”
“That’s the least you can do,” said the old man, slightly mollified.
Odelia stepped across the hole in the floor and carefully ventured into the room. The devastation was incredible. Walls, floor and ceiling blackened. The bed smashed against the wall. The windows blown out. In fact it was a miracle the damage had been contained to this one room. As far as she could determine—and she was no expert—the explosion must have taken place near the window, the brunt of the force directed outward.
“Maybe we should wait for the fire department, Miss Poole,” said the manager.
She nodded, glancing around. Then her eyes landed on the remains of the man she’d come here to interview. His blackened and charred corpse—now conspicuously headless—had been flung onto the balcony and was now lying there, almost as if in leisurely repose. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought he was sunbathing. And had overdone it.
She narrowed her eyes. Was the man buck naked? It would appear so.
“Better step back, Odelia,” her uncle’s voice sounded from the door. He was scratching his chalky scalp. “This is something for the experts. Not much we can do here.”
He was right, of course. There was absolutely nothing they could do here.
She directed a final look at Burt Goldsmith and shook her head. Such a tragic loss. The man might not have been in the prime of his life, but he still had so much to offer.
She stepped back into the corridor and the manager heaved an audible sigh of relief. He obviously did not want more people to crash through the floor and onto other guests.
Only now did she notice that up and down the corridor doors had been opened and other hotel guests had appeared, discussing the recent events and anxiously awaiting further developments, like people do. And to her surprise she recognized several of the men who stood staring back at her. There was Curt Pigott, Most Compelling Man in the World and the man who’d put Tres Siglas beer on the map. Bobbie Hawe, Most Attractive Man in the World and face of the Quattro Siglas brew. Jasper Hanson, Most Intriguing Man in the World, representing Cinco Siglas. Nestor Greco, Most Iconic Man in the World and iconic Seis Siglas figurehead. And even Dale Parson, who’d recently been voted Sexiest Man Alive.
What was this? A convention of the Most Interesting Men in the World?
Chief Alec’s people spread out and started taking down information and asking these men what they’d seen or heard. They would do the same with the other hotel guests and staff, and hopefully learn what had happened in those crucial final moments of Burt’s life.
Chapter 4
As Odelia walked out of the hotel, Chase walked in. She bumped into him and for a moment thought she’d slammed into a wall. But then the wall became animated and spoke.
“We have a problem, babe,” the wall said.
And when she looked up at his usually inscrutable face, she saw genuine concern there. “What happened?” she asked.
“Check your ankles.”
“My ankles?”
“Uh-huh. I checked mine so now it’s your turn.”
The man was not making any sense. She did as she was told, though, and lifted her pants leg to display a shapely calf and equally shapely ankle. Chase produced a sound of appreciation and his expression darkened.
“Nice,” he grunted.
“Look, if this is your idea of foreplay, I’ve got better things to do right now. We’ve got a dead body upstairs.” And part of it downstairs, too.
But Chase wasn’t listening. Instead he’d crouched down and was inspecting her ankle, the procedure sending a pleasant tickle up her spine. The man had the touch.
“Thought as much,” he said. “They got you, too, babe.”
“Who got me?”
He rose to his feet again. “The fleas.”
This was the absolute last thing she’d expected. “The fleas?”
“Yup. Your cats got fleas. And they’ve been biting us in the ankles. The fleas, not the cats. Max or Dooley must have jumped into bed at some point during the night and left some of the little critters to feast on us, too. Fleas love to go for the ankles for some reason.”
With a yelp of horror, she checked her ankles. Chase was right. The skin was dotted with red spots. Yelp! “Fleas!” she cried. “I’ve got fleas!”
“Not you. Your cats. I checked them before I left. They’re full of the nasty little bugs.”
She buried her face in her hands. “My babies got fleas! I’m officially the world’s worst cat person!”
“No, you’re not. No pets are safe from these pests. Probably picked them up out in the yard or got them from some neighbor cat.”
She peeked between her fingers. “They all got them?”
“Yep. After I found them on Max and Dooley I went next door and Marge checked Brutus and Harriet and they got them, too.” He smiled. “I feel a trip to the vet coming up.”
She shook her head. “They hate going to Vena. Last time I took them they didn’t stop whining for weeks.”
“Yeah, well, better Vena than this flea infestation.” He glanced at a couple of cops who stood interviewing hotel guests, notebooks out, pencils poised. “So what happened here? Your uncle said something about an explosion?”
The topic of the fleas dispensed with, she nodded. “Burt Goldsmith was blown up.”
“The Dos Siglas guy?”
“I was just on my way to interview him when his room exploded and his head came tumbling down at my feet.”
In spite of the circumstances, Chase grinned. “His head, huh?” He shook his own head. “This could only happen to you.”
She whacked him on the arm. “It’s not funny.”
He sobered. “No, I guess it’s not. So what do they think happene
d?”
“No idea. The room is blown to bits. Looks like a bomb went off or something.”
“So no gas explosion?”
“Definitely not.”
“Maybe he accidentally blew himself up?”
“Or maybe he blew himself up on purpose.”
They watched as a team of Suffolk County fire marshals double-parked their big rig in front of the hotel and walked in. If anyone could find out what happened in there it was these guys. Just then, Chief Alec came walking out, wiping his brow.
“What a mess,” he grumbled as he joined them on the sidewalk.
“Any leads?” asked Chase.
“Yeah, one. Kid who works room service says he brought a bottle of beer up to Goldsmith’s room about fifteen minutes before the explosion. Third bottle in two days.”
“Beer? You think Burt Goldsmith was killed by an exploding bottle of beer?”
Uncle Alec turned up his hands. “Who knows? Apparently there was some kind of private war going on between Burt and some of these other interesting guys. They all work for different beer companies and can’t stand the sight of each other. So they like to send each other beer bottles as a taunt. These particular bottles were sent by…” He took a notebook from his pocket then groped around his head for a moment. “Where are my damn glasses?” he grumbled.
Odelia helpfully pointed to the glasses that were sticking out of his shirt front pocket.
He took them and placed them on his nose. “Thanks,” he muttered, then read aloud, “A Curt Pigott. Calls himself the Most Compelling Man in the World.” He removed the glasses and gave them a dubious look. “And of course Pigott claims he never sent any bottles. And definitely no exploding ones.”
“He would say that, wouldn’t he?” said Odelia.
“Then again, why would he use room service to kill his competitor?” Chase said. “That would be dumb.”
“Good point,” Alec grunted. “And if he did put some type of explosive in that bottle there would be traces on his person and in his room. Which is what we’re trying to determine right now.”