Marsella was seated at the head of the table, with Chase, Odelia, Shelley and Gavin distributed amongst the other seats.
Dooley and I had been relegated to the floor, but that wasn’t a hardship, as we’d discovered a bowl with kibble, and were happily tucking in. I wasn’t sure if it was dog kibble or cat kibble but then beggars can’t be choosers. It tasted great all the same.
“So what’s going on?” asked Marsella, leading the meeting—or so she thought.
“You’re probably aware that we’ve been investigating the murders of two women,” said Chase, opening proceedings. “Dotty Ludkin, also known as Dotty Berg, and Calista Burden, also known as Calista Dunne. Both women were strangled in their respective homes last week.”
“Yes, of course,” said Marsella. “But what does that have to do with me? I already told you that I never met either of these women, and I’m pretty sure Dewey didn’t, either.”
“Dewey told us that he hadn’t met Dotty recently,” Odelia clarified, putting the emphasis on the last word, causing Marsella to frown, “and now we think he was telling us the truth. You see, Dotty and Calista were involved in a scheme whereby they offered their services to take potential husbands for a test run, as they called it. Dotty would try to seduce them and if they failed, their clients would know they weren’t marriage material. If they didn’t fall for Dotty’s charms, they could count themselves lucky.”
“What a perverse setup,” said Shelley. “I never heard of such a thing.”
“Did a lot of women go for this arrangement?” asked Marsella.
“Yes, they did,” said Odelia. “By all accounts Calista was very successful, and made a lot of money in a short amount of time. And so did Dotty. So much so that she told her boyfriend that soon she’d have enough money to buy an apartment or even a house.”
“I can’t imagine trying to trick your fianc? into that kind of thing,” said Shelley.
“Yeah, me neither,” said Marsella, though she appeared thoughtful now.
“Which brings us to you, Shelley,” said Odelia, turning her attention on the young volunteer. “We heard through the grapevine that you and Gavin are secretly engaged?”
Shelley’s cheeks colored, and so did Gavin’s. The young couple shared a look of confusion. “Who told you that?” Gavin demanded.
“Let’s just say a reliable source,” said Odelia, briefly glancing down at me.
“Is it true?” asked Chase. “Are you planning to elope and get married on the sly?”
“Well… yes,” Shelley admitted, even as Gavin shook his head, clearly annoyed.
“You’re getting married?” asked Marsella, who seemed completely surprised.
Shelley nodded.“I’m sorry I haven’t told you, Marsella, but it was important for us that no one knew. Not even our best friends.”
“But why elope?” asked Marsella. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s my dad,” said Shelley. “He has some very fixed ideas about the kind of husband I should marry.”
“And I don’t fit in with those ideas,” said Gavin. “Not rich enough for his taste, I guess.”
“Dad is afraid that I’ll marry someone who’s not in his class, whatever that means,” said Shelley. “And when I introduced him to Gavin the first thing he said was, ‘I hope you don’t plan to marry that guy, honey. He’s a frickin’ shoe salesman for crying out loud.’”
“I’m not justa shoe salesman,” said Gavin. “I stand to inherit my dad’s business.”
“Which is exactly what I told him, but he wasn’t impressed.”
“So you decided to elope and get married without your dad’s permission,” said Odelia.
Shelley nodded.“It seems like the best idea. He’ll kick up a fuss, but there won’t be anything he can do about it. By the time he finds out, it’ll be too late.” She gazed at her fianc? with loving eyes, and gave his hand a squeeze. “Won’t be long now before I’ll be Mrs. Gavin Blemish.”
“The problem is that your dad must have realized how serious you were about Gavin,” said Chase, “so he booked an interview with Calista Burden. Basically he asked her to set up a chance meeting between Gavin and Dotty, and see if she couldn’t get him to fall for her charms. He gave them allthe information he had on Gavin, which was extensive, since he’d also hired a private detective to find out as much as he could about Gavin’s past, especially the girls he dated and his sexual preference, and relayed this information to Calista. Dotty took this information and used it to set a trap for Gavin.”
Shelley’s jaw had dropped, and she regarded her fianc? with consternation written all over her features. “No, she didn’t. Gavin, tell me she didn’t.”
But Gavin had suddenly gone very still and quiet, and refused to meet Shelley’s eyes.
“It pains me to say this, Shelley,” said Odelia gently, “but I’m afraid the test was successful… from Calista and Dotty’s perspective, at least—and your dad’s, of course.”
“You had a date with this woman?” Shelley demanded. “This-this prostitute?” Gavin’s cheeks had flushed scarlet, extending both up and down his face. His ears were practically glowing, and he had bowed his head. His body language told us everything we needed to know, and Shelley cried, “Oh, my God, Gavin!”
“I’m sorry, all right!” the kid cried. “She was… very convincing.”
“In Gavin’s defense, Dotty made sure to transform herself so she looked exactly like the type of girl Gavin would fall for. She even made sure to get acquainted with some of his hobbies so she would be more convincing and have something to talk about.”
“She said she was an animal rights activist,” Gavin said quietly. “A true animal lover.”
“Gavin!”
“I know, and I’m sorry!”
“I don’t believe this,” said Shelley. “And you’re saying my dad set them up to this?”
“Yes, he did,” said Odelia.
“But… why didn’t he tell me about it? I mean, why didn’t he gloat?”
“Because your dad got the message from Calista that Gavin had passed the test with flying colors. That not only didn’t he fall for Dotty’s charms but he told her he was in love with another girl and he planned to marry her and make her happy.”
Shelley frowned.“I don’t get it. Why would this Calista person do that?”
Odelia took a deep breath.“Because it wasn’t Calista writing that message, but Gavin.”
Shelley seemed confused for a moment, then finally understanding dawned.“No,” she said in a low voice. “Oh, please God, no!”
“I’m afraid so,” said Chase. “Once we suspected Gavin, we tracked his movements for that night. His dad told us he said he was going out to a club, and from that point it wasn’t hard to reconstruct the events as they unfolded.” He placed a series of pictures on the table in front of theyoung couple: a picture of Gavin and Dotty on the dance floor, one of them at the bar. A picture of the two of them walking along a street at night, and one in his car driving away. “Notice the time code,” said Chase. “Ten forty-five on the night Dotty and Calista were both murdered. We also searched your apartment, Gavin, and found Dotty and Calista’s phones and laptops. So will you tell us what happened, exactly?”
Gavin, who’d hung his head, spoke haltingly, clearly deeply ashamed of what he’d done. “I left Dotty’s apartment around midnight, but realized I’d left my phone so I went back to grab it. The door wasn’t locked so I pushed it open. She was on the phone, reporting to her boss about how the night had gone. She said I’d fallen for her like a sucker, and how happy Burke would be with her work. Said I’d been the easiest mark she’d ever had and that fat bonus Burke had promised was theirs.
“So I confronted her, and she confessed that she was working for your father. That he was going to tell you everything. That they had pictures, video, the works, and that I was never going to see you again.” He rubbed his cheek. “I don’t know, I just suddenly saw red. I don’t even remember what happened next, but when I came to my senses, she wasn’t moving. She just lay there, staring up at me—dead. I just sat there for a while, realizing what I’d done, and thinking about what I needed to do to make sure this never came back to me. So I took her phone and checked it for the address of her boss. I drove over there and…” His voice faltered, and a tear slid down his cheek.