“I’m also going,” said Scarlett.
“But you don’t have a weapon,” said Norma.
Scarlett shook her décolletage. “My girls are all the weapons I need.”
“Oh, count me in, too,” said Gran, and removed a hairpin from her hair and held it like a dagger. “I can do some real damage with this thing, let me tell you,” she announced.
Odelia looked around, but unfortunately she didn’t see anything that could be used as a weapon. But then she remembered she always carried a can of mace in her purse, so she took that out.
And so, armed to the teeth, five ladies exited the room and took up position in front of the door of the room next door. Four cats followed them out. They had their own weapons built in, in the shape of teeth and claws. It was a formidable miniature army, ready for action.
And it was as Odelia had surmised: the moment the sirens stopped in front of the hotel, the door of the room swung open and two men appeared, looking harried. One was thickset, the other scrawny, but both looked a little sinister. The first thing they saw was Scarlett, wiggling her cleavage. They were distracted long enough for Kimmy to lift her baseball bat and lightly tap the biggest one on the head with it. Stars appeared in the man’s eyes, and he promptly dropped to the floor.
Next up was Norma, who used her nunchucks to give the thin guy a clunking across the noggin. It did little to slow him down, though, for he brusquely swept Norma out of the way and made for the corridor. Odelia was waiting for him, though, and unleashed the power of her mace spray into the man’s face. He screamed up a storm, and even more so when Gran applied her hairpin to the man’s buttocks and made him jump. Another delicate caress of Kimmy’s bat did the rest, and soon he was earthbound and lying motionless next to his partner in crime.
And by the time the police arrived, Chase leading the way up from the lobby, all they had to do was handcuff the two villains, who were coming to, and lead them away to the waiting paddy wagon.
“Are you sure these are our guys?” asked Uncle Alec, who’d also joined the circus. “Cause if not, they might sue for assault and battery.”
“They are our guys,” said Odelia, “and they were getting away, so we did you a favor.”
He smiled, and patted her hand. “I knew you’d catch Kirk’s killers sooner or later, honey. I didn’t doubt it for a minute.”
“Actually it’s Max who caught them,” said Odelia.
“Of course he did,” said Uncle Alec, darting an affectionate glance down at the large blorange cat, who looked appropriately proud.
“So are you going to apologize, old lady?” asked Kimmy, taking a firmer grip on her bat.
“Yeah, I guess apologies are in order,” said Chase.
“Look, I’m sorry, all right?” said Gran. “I just figured that you did it, and you were trying to wiggle your way out of it.”
“I’m sorry, too,” said Scarlett. “I really thought you were guilty, Kimmy.”
“I’m not sorry,” said Kimmy, a sudden grin spreading across the face. “I was getting a little bored on this trip, and this was just what I needed to liven things up.”
“Nothing happened!” suddenly Norma blurted out.
“What?” said Kimmy, staring at her wife.
“I know I said something happened between Kirk and me but I lied. Nothing happened. He came up, and it was pretty obvious what he wanted, but I just couldn’t go through with it. So I told him and he walked out just when you walked in.”
“But why did you lie?”
“Because I wanted to make you jealous, all right? I don’t like this arrangement, Kimmy. I know we said we’d keep our marriage open, and that we could still see other people, but I don’t want to see other people, and I don’t want you to see other people either.” She was looking at her wife piteously, with tears in her eyes now.
“Oh, honey,” said Kimmy, her voice soft now, and her expression tender. “I don’t want to see other people either. I just thought you wanted that.”
“No, I don’t!”
“I’m glad,” said Kimmy, and then they hugged.
“So sweet,” said Odelia as she watched the women return to their room and close the door.
“Yeah, very sweet,” Chase agreed. “Almost as sweet as locking up Kirk’s killers. Though I still don’t understand why they killed the guy.”
“Well, that’s for you to find out,” said Odelia.
Chapter 36
It was the craziest story Chase had heard in a while. As he sat in the interview room, along with Chief Alec, and listened to the man’s confession, he thought it sounded more like something fit for 60 Minutes or Cops.
“Kirk contacted me last month,” said Jack, who seemed to be the brains of the operation. He was a contract killer and this was clearly not his first rodeo. “He told me he was in big trouble and was about to go belly-up. He was up to his eyeballs in debt, and his wife was divorcing him and soon the whole house of cards would come crashing down. So he’d gotten this great idea that he wanted to disappear. Fake his own death and pocket the insurance money. So he hired me and told me to fake-kill him and help him set up the scene.”
“He was going to fake his own death?” asked the Chief.
“Yeah, he’d seen some Lifetime movie and thought it sounded like a great idea. A way for him to leave all his troubles behind. He’d pocket the insurance money through a middle man and escape to Mexico to start a new life. Maybe a little plastic surgery, since he was a TV personality and people might recognize him, buy himself a nice big villa in Tulum or wherever, and maybe even start a new career as a cat whisperer in Mexico.”
“So what went wrong?” asked Chase. “Cause as far as I know, Kirk is really dead.”
“Yeah, that wasn’t supposed to happen,” said Jack, looking a little embarrassed. “Problem was that Kirk had decided that Tuesday was the day. Only I had a last-minute job in Reno that I couldn’t get out of, so I contacted Harlan, one of my associates, and told him to take my place. Only Harlan must have misunderstood, cause instead of fake-killing the client, he killed him for real.”
“Oops,” said the Chief, sharing a look of consternation with his deputy.
“Yeah, oops—you got that right. When I heard I went ballistic. Cause no client, no payment, and probably a lot of tough questions.”
“There would have been tough questions regardless,” said Chase. “At least if the intention was to fake the man’s death.”
“How did Kirk think he’d get away with it?” asked Alec.
“First off, there was going to be a lot of blood. He’d been saving it for a couple of weeks, planning the whole thing. And then there would be the murder weapon, of course. The knife, which would be at the scene. And also, he’d planned for a witness—Mia Gray. He wanted her to see the body, and pass out. I was supposed to help her with the passing-out part by hitting her over the head the moment she came across the body.”
“But don’t you think people would have wondered what happened to the body?” asked Chase.
Jack shrugged. “There would be blood, a murder weapon, and a witness. Who cares what the killer did with the body, or why? The insurance would have plenty to go on and decide the dude was dead and pay out. As far as the cops were concerned, I just had to make sure I didn’t leave any evidence. And I wouldn’t have, if that moron Harlan hadn’t screwed everything up by killing the client for real.”
It was an amazing story, and Chase couldn’t help but wonder why the men had decided to stay in town. If they hadn’t, and if Max hadn’t happened to overhear them, they’d have gotten away with murder.
“We figured we better lay low for a while, and Harlan wanted to visit the Hamptons.” He sighed. “Last time I listen to that idiot.” He looked up. “Now can I ask you a question? How the hell did you find us?”