Purrfect Harmony (The Mysteries of Max Book 36)

by Nic Saint

  And as we walked on, I soon found myself engrossed in thought, as I ran through some of the aspects of the case that still puzzled me, trying to make sense of the jumble of information that we’d gathered since that tragic event.

  A red bike suddenly passed, and almost got hit by a car that neglected to respect the cyclist’s right of way. The cyclist, a tourist dressed in a fairly loud shirt and Bermuda shorts, nimbly darted out of the way and then pedaled off in the direction of the beach.

  “I wonder if Dolores will ever discover who that mystery witness was,” said Dooley as we watched as the car, whose engine had stalled after the incident, slowly got moving again. When I glanced over to my friend, he added, “The car crash on Groveler Street?”

  And suddenly, in a flash, I saw all. “Of course,” I said, thunking my head. “Duh!”

  “Duh?” asked my friend. “Is that the name of the witness, Max?”

  But I was lost in thought once more, as I tried to draw all the different strands of the case together in one neat tapestry.

  Dooley must have felt I was in a contemplative mood, for he was very quiet after that, and didn’t try to nudge me out of my thought processes. And we’d just reached Town Hall when suddenly we detected Odelia hurrying in our direction. She was saying something, and as she drew closer, it became clear to me what it was.

  “There’s been an accident!” she said as she finally joined us. “An accident at home!”

  “Oh, no!” said Dooley. “It’s not… Gran, is it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Odelia. “All I know is that Mom texted me telling me to come home immediately. That there’s been an accident.” She threw up her hands in a hopeless gesture. “I’ve tried calling but she won’t pick up!”

  We hurried along to the Gazette office, where Odelia had parked her car, and the moment we were inside, she peeled away from the curb, going from zero to a hundred in a few seconds flat. Or at least she would have, if her aged pickup had been capable of such an extraordinary feat, and if we weren’t located in the heart of town, with its myriad pedestrians, cyclists and fellow motorists.

  We were home in ten minutes flat, which probably was a new record for our human, and were out of the car and hurrying inside moments later. Chase was already there. He must have taken a shortcut—or a faster car, which was more likely.

  Once inside, we didn’t see anyone or anything that appeared alarming, and so we emerged out the back and into the backyard, then into Marge and Tex’s backyard.

  And that’s when we saw it: a man was lying on the grass, looking a little white around the nostrils, with paramedics hovering over him, attending to what looked like a medical emergency. The man was, of course, Jason Knauff, Gran’s diligent, if slightly eccentric, interior decorator.

  “What happened?” asked Odelia, directing her question to Marge, who stood at a little distance, along with Gran and Tex.

  “He fell from the roof,” said Tex, a quiet smile playing about his lips. Clearly he wasn’t exactly bowled over with grief over Jason’s recent mishap.

  “The roof?” asked Odelia. “What was he doing up there?”

  “He was trying to get a feel for the house,” said Marge.

  “He was trying to get in touch with the cosmos,” Gran corrected her. “To direct its subtle energies toward the perfect design that would uplift and enlighten. Or at least that’s what he told me when I found him lying there.”

  “But how did he fall?”

  Three shrugs greeted that question.

  “A gust of wind,” suddenly Harriet piped up. She and Brutus came walking up from the direction of the rose bushes, where they like to hang out of an afternoon. “We saw the whole thing, didn’t we, poopsie?”

  “We sure did,” Brutus confirmed. “He was crawling naked across the roof, until he’d positioned himself right on top, and tried to sit cross-legged. When that didn’t work, he put one leg on one side, and the other on the other side, and when that proved too painful, he got up to scratch himself behind the ear.”

  “And that’s when a sudden gust of wind took him by surprise, and he fell off,” Harriet completed the story. She grinned. “He was screaming a lot of unspiritual things as he came down. I don’t think the cosmos or its subtle energies would have liked it.”

  “Oh, just say it,” said Gran, throwing up her hands. “I know you’re all thinking it.”

  “What?” asked Odelia.

  “That I made a mess of things again! I know it, you know it, and this sad excuse for a human being definitely knows it.”

  “I’ll be back!” Jason Knauff yelled as he was carted off. “I’ll be back and together we’ll turn this house into the most harmonious place in Hampton Cove!”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Gran.

  “Will he be all right?” asked Marge solicitously.

  “He broke his leg, but otherwise he seems fine,” said one of the paramedics.

  “Thank God for that,” said Chase.

  The commotion over, I turned to my human. “Odelia, can we have a quick chat? There’s something we need to discuss.”

  “Oh, right,” said Harriet. “Fifi and Rufus want dog choir to join cat choir to join St. Theresa Choir,” she said. “So if you could talk to Father Reilly and set that up for us?”

  “Um…” said Odelia, taken aback by this development. “Dog choir wants to…”

  “Sing at the concert. And if they’re not allowed to join they’re going on a hunger strike. So we probably should humor them. Unless you want to explain to your neighbors how they suddenly ended up with two dead dogs on their hands.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Marge, shaking her head.

  “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about, Max?” asked Odelia as she crouched down next to me.

  I slowly shook my head.

  She eyed me keenly as she tickled me behind my ears.

  “Don’t tell me… you know who killed Neda?”

  This time I slowly nodded, and watched as a smile spread across my human’s face.

  And have you ever seen a more enchanting thing?

  28

  We were in Neda’s office, located in downtown Hampton Cove. It was where the choir conductor had conducted her business affairs, and where Cher Shorn spent her days.

  It was a modest office, as offices go, but airy and bright, just like Neda’s house, and I could imagine that Cher had spent many a happy day there, deciding which charity to contribute some of her employer’s extensive funds to, and what artist to devote an exhibition to at one of the cultural centers she’d granted her patronage.

  There was an outer office, where visitors could sit and wait for their audience with Neda, and beyond that two rooms and consequently also two desks: one for Neda, where she hadn’t spent a lot of time, and one for Cher, her loyal collaborator for many years.

  It was late afternoon, and the sun was already losing some of its pep. We were ensconced in the smallest office, which was Cher’s: Odelia, Chase, and a small cat contingent. Harriet and Brutus had insisted they be present, and Odelia had allowed them, but only if they kept quiet as a mouse. Harriet found that a little insulting: you don’t tell a cat to be quiet as a mouse. But there were bigger fish to fry than Harriet’s touchiness, and the atmosphere in the small space was loaded with expectation.

  “Do you think they’ll show up?” asked Chase, not for the first time.

  “I don’t know,” said Odelia. “Max says they will.”

  Frankly I had no idea either. All you can do is set the bait, and then hope the fish will take it. But as every fisher knows, sometimes the fish simply refuse to bite. Not because of quality issues with the bait, but simply because life is like that: unpredictable.

  Suddenly there was a noise in the outer office, and we all ducked down a little further behind Cher’s desk, making sure we wouldn’t be seen or heard by this intruder.

  The door to the outer office creaked open, then silent footsteps reached our ears, a person walking
through the office on sneakered feet. The person paused for a moment, listening intently for noises signaling another presence than their own. Finally satisfied they were all alone, the intruder set foot for Neda’s office and so Odelia and Chase slowly inched their heads above the desk so they could see what the person was up to.

  We could hear drawers being opened and shut, and office closets, and finally we could hear muffled cursing.

  “Where is that damn thing!” suddenly the person grunted in extreme agitation.

  Chase and Odelia now snuck out of Cher’s office, and emerged in the door to Neda’s, blocking the intruder’s escape route. “Looking for this?” suddenly Chase piped up.

  The intruder froze, and slowly turned to the cop, who was waving a diary.

  “I…” said Titta Riding, for it was her, then sank down on the chair which had belonged to her big sister, and said, dejectedly. “I walked straight into a trap, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did,” said Chase. He and Odelia stepped into Neda’s office. “And this?” he added, throwing the diary onto the desk. “Is a fake.”

  Titta picked it up and leafed through it. “Figures,” she said as she discovered that the diary was empty—not a single page covered by writing. “So what happens now?”

  “Now I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of your sister,” said Chase simply.

  “How did you figure out it was me?” asked Titta.

  “We talked to Neda’s lawyer,” said Odelia as she also took a seat at the desk. “He told us how when your father cut all ties with you, he also cut you out of his will.”

  “He didn’t even have the decency to tell me,” Titta scoffed. “I had to find out from that same lawyer after my dad died that Neda had inherited the entire estate: all of Dad’s many millions, the house, everything. As if I never even existed.” She shrugged. “But I didn’t care, you know. I was happy doing what I was doing. I didn’t lie to you about the orphanage. It has become my life, and so whatever was going on over here seemed like a different world—a world I never belonged in, and frankly didn’t want to belong in.”

  “But you needed money,” said Odelia. “Or at least your orphanage needed money. So you figured that since Neda had plenty, it wouldn’t hurt to ask her to share some of it with you.”

  A hard look had come over the young woman’s face. “I called her, out of the blue, and told her I was going to be in the country for a couple of weeks, talking to potential donors, and could we meet. She didn’t sound happy about it, but obliged me. So yesterday I came over to see her, and asked if she wanted to be a donor. I was sure she’d be interested, since over the years I kept reading how she donated to this foundation and that charitable institution. So why not my orphanage? You know what she said?”

  Odelia shook her head.

  “Over my dead body. She said she owed me nothing, and she wasn’t going to waste her money on some third-world orphans. I told her I was practically an orphan myself, the way Dad had cast me out, but she said I only had myself to blame for that. So we argued. I told her a couple of home truths that she didn’t appreciate, and finally she decided to rub it in and said Dad had claimed I wasn’t even his—that Mom must have had an affair with the plumber or the milkman, because I looked nothing like him. He said I was my mother’s daughter—that she’d been a disappointment and a failure, just like me, and that her death had been a blessing, and he’d been glad to be rid of me, too.”

  “Your sister said that?”

  Titta nodded. “And a lot of other stuff, too. She really unloaded on me, you know, as if she’d been waiting a long time to get this stuff off her chest. So finally I couldn’t take it anymore, and gave her a pretty hard shove. She landed badly, hit her head against the fireplace and the rest of the story you already know.”

  She stared down at a framed picture of her sister for a moment, then picked it up to study it. “You know, when I came to Hampton Cove, I really did so with an open and a hopeful heart. I was actually excited finally to meet my big sister again, eager to recreate a bond that probably only existed in my imagination. I already saw us working together, with her providing the funds, and me out there on the ground, maybe setting up more orphanages in other parts of the country, or the world.” She replaced the frame. “I always thought Dad hated me for my teenage shenanigans, and if only Neda and I could reconnect, I’d find a sister, and maybe even a friend.” She grimaced. “How wrong I was.”

  Epilogue

  We were out in the backyard of Marge and Tex’s house, and even more than usual, the doctor was giddy with excitement. He was manning his grill again, just like old times, and he was doing it in his own backyard—of the house they were about to move into!

  The house wasn’t completely ready for human habitation yet, but that was only a matter of time. With Gran’s unfortunate interior decorator having been struck down on the battlefield and carted off, the road was clear for more sensible minds to figure out how to repopulate the house with the kind of stuff that turns a house into a home.

  And Marge and Tex had decided to wrest control away from Gran, and to do what they wanted for a change, and Gran had reluctantly decided to let them. She’d even dropped her plans to turn the house into a show home, where hordes of visitors would come shuffling through on a daily basis, preventing a normal existence for the Pooles.

  So the new house would have some old stuff making a comeback, and some new stuff to appear onto the scene, sourced from the visits Odelia’s parents planned to pay to the many furniture stores and home decoration shops that festoon our neck of the woods.

  “So how did you do it, Max?” asked Harriet as we all sat side by side on the porch swing, which had been dragged from the storage facility where the Pooles had kept their stuff until the house was ready. “How did you figure out that Titta killed her sister?”

  “Well…” I said as I marshaled my thoughts. “I think I first started putting two and two together when I saw that missing photo album.”

  “What missing photo album?”

  “You’ll remember that when Neda’s house was burgled a second time—or seemingly a second time, since it was never burgled the first time—that the only thing that was found missing was a photo album. At the time I thought it was odd that the missing album would look completely different than the other ones. I mean, Neda had a dozen or so of them, and they were all expensive ones. Fancy, you know. But this? This was a small album, and looked as if it was handmade. It looked… Oriental. So that made me think.”

  “Why would anyone want to steal a photo album?” asked Brutus.

  “Unless it held a clue to the identity of Neda’s killer,” I pointed out. “Which it did. That photo album belonged to Titta. It contained pictures of the orphanage she wanted to show to her sister—the orphans she cared so much about, and for whom she was making a plea with Neda to donate money.”

  “Which Neda wanted nothing to do with,” said Harriet, nodding.

  “Exactly. And then of course there was the witness on the red bike.”

  “What witness? What red bike?”

  “Well, the morning Neda was killed, a traffic accident happened just down the road from where she lived. Head-on collision. And one of the drivers had seen a person pass by on a red bike—a potential witness. And since they couldn’t come to an agreement on who was to blame for the accident, one of the drivers desperately wanted to get in touch with that witness to support their statement. They had no idea if it was a man or a woman since the witness was wearing a hoodie, but they knew they were on a red bike.”

  “One of those rental bikes,” Dooley explained.

  “Yes, Titta had come down to Long Island on the Jitney and had rented a bike from one of the rental agencies that rent to tourists. So I suddenly put two and two together and wondered if this witness could possibly be connected to our murder case.”

  “And she could,” said Dooley.

  “Odelia contacted the rental agency, and showed them a
picture of Titta, which they recognized. Turns out she’d been in town the morning Neda died, and not in Brooklyn with her friend Kirstin as she claimed. Chase got in touch with Titta’s friend again, and this time she admitted she had no idea where Titta had been. Titta said she’d been in a traffic accident, and could her friend tell the police, in case they called, that she was in Brooklyn, since she didn’t need the aggravation. So Kirstin did, as a favor to her friend.”

  “That wasn’t nice,” said Dooley.

  “Or it was too nice,” Brutus grunted.

  “So how about the safe?” asked Harriet. “How did Titta manage to open her sister’s safe?”

  “Well, that safe has always been in that house. It was installed by Titta and Neda’s dad. And since Neda had taken over the house, she’d also taken over the safe. Now Neda had never seen the need to change the combination—possibly she didn’t even know how. So Titta took a gamble and discovered that the safe still operated on the same combination she remembered from when she lived there herself twenty years ago.”

  “Did she take those jewels and that money and that gold for the orphanage?” asked Harriet. “Cause I could understand if she did. Noble cause and all.”

  “She took it so she could make the murder look like a robbery gone wrong.”

  “It wasn’t really murder, though, was it?” said Brutus. “It was an accident.”

  “That’s for the judge to decide,” I said with a shrug. “Not up to us, Brutus.”

  “So how about that diary?” asked Harriet. “What was the deal with that?”

  “Neda was meticulous about her appointments. She wrote every appointment in her diary. So when her sister called she wrote down her name on the designated page and the designated time. Titta tore the pages from the diary, to hide her visit, and it got me wondering: what if a second diary would exist? One at home, and one at the office. And what if we slipped the message to Titta that this second diary was still at her sister’s office—untouched, with her name in it, on the date and time of the murder? So Odelia talked to Cher, and together they set the trap: Cher contacted Titta, and asked her what to do with her sister’s office paraphernalia, and also happened to mention the double diary thing, and made sure to stress that the police still hadn’t searched the office.”