“So your carefully crafted plans of succession suddenly fell through.”
Marcia nodded. “So you see, there was only one thing to do. One course of action to guarantee the future of Garibo Enterprises.”
“You kidnapped Vicky.”
“I invited her over for tea. She never even knew what happened. When she woke up in here, shackled to the wall, she asked me what was going on, the naive little bimbo.”
“So… you killed her?” asked Scarlett, gulping a little.
“I didn’t have to. I discovered she was willing to do whatever it took to regain her freedom, so I removed the shackles and fixed up the basement to make it more homey.”
Vesta looked around. The place didn’t look very homey to her.
A sudden noise had them all look up, and Vesta picked that moment to take a good grip on the figurine, then aim it straight at the woman’s head. It hit its mark beautifully, causing the other woman to utter a sharp cry of surprise, then drop to the floor.
Quick as a flash, both Vesta and Scarlett were on her, one wresting the gun from her hand, the other taking a seat on top of the woman.
The door to the basement suddenly burst open, and Alec came charging down, followed by Chase, and what looked like the entire Hampton Cove police department.
“Finally,” said Vesta, panting a little from the exertion. “What took you so long?”
Epilogue
“So the cats saved the day,” said Marge as she put a big bowl of potato salad on the table.
“No, the watch saved the day,” said her mother.
“But the cats found the solution.”
“No, the watch found the solution. The watch caught the killer.”
“More like the killer caught you,” said Uncle Alec with a twinkle in his eye.
“Oh, when are you going to admit that the watch beat you fair and square? We won, Alec, and the police lost!”
“I seem to remember it was us who came barging in to save your ass,” growled the Chief.
“My ass didn’t need saving! I’d already saved my own ass, thank you very much!”
“Are they going to argue like that all day, Max?” asked Dooley.
“All week, I imagine,” I said.
We were in the backyard of Tex and Marge’s house, where Tex was manning the grill, whipping up some prime beef, sausages, steaks and ribs for anyone with an appetite, which apparently was everyone present: Odelia and Chase, of course, Marge, Gran and Scarlett, Tex the grillmeister himself, and Uncle Alec and Charlene.
We cats, meanwhile, patiently waited for those tasty slivers of meat that Odelia usually likes to dole out on these occasions.
The only one who wasn’t present and accounted for was Vicky Gardner, but I had a feeling that very soon now we’d be making her acquaintance. Though these days she wasn’t called Vicky Gardner but Erna Potch, having married a man named Walter Potch.
“I still can’t believe Vicky is alive,” said Brutus. “I thought for sure she’d be dead by now.”
“I thought so, too,” said Harriet.
Marcia Gardner might be an abductor of women, but apparently she was no murderer. One day, while trying to escape, Vicky had tumbled down the stairs and hit her noggin against that cement floor. It had not only created a dilemma for Marcia, who couldn’t just call an ambulance, it had also caused Vicky to develop a serious case of amnesia. It had given Marcia a great idea, though, and she’d decided to get rid of her brother’s wife once and for all, by shipping her to a friend in Belize, where Vicky was still living to this day, being under the impression that her name was Erna, and that she was born and raised in Illinois and happily married to a local expat, who hadn’t even been aware that she’d been abducted—Marcia had said Vicky had fled an abusive husband, something Walter Potch had happily accepted as the truth. When Vicky had recovered from her fall, love had blossomed, and Vicky, unbeknownst to herself, had soon become a bigamist. She’d had her baby over there, and the couple had lived a happy life.
“So what about this fitness instructor?” asked Brutus. “How does she fit into the story?”
“Well, Marcia had hoped that the loss of his wife would make her brother hand over the company to Bobby, who was fresh out of college twenty years ago. But Quintin refused to accept that Vicky was dead, and kept looking for her all these years. So when Marcia met Joanne Whittler, and saw the striking resemblance to her sister-in-law, she figured she might use her to drive her brother over the edge.”
“By killing her and making her brother think it was Vicky?” asked Harriet.
“Again, no,” I said. “Marcia hired Joanne as a private fitness instructor, and was wondering how she could use the young woman’s resemblance to Vicky to her advantage somehow. And then one day last week Joanne was showing Marcia a particular routine when she tripped and fell… and broke her neck in a freak accident. So Marcia found herself staring down at the dead body, and suddenly got a great idea.”
“How to drive her brother crazy,” said Harriet, nodding.
“And it worked—more or less. Quintin really did think the dead woman was his wife—after Marcia had judiciously applied a beauty spot on the girl’s face with permanent marker—and it really did put him in a serious funk. And when Marcia pushed him to finally hand over control of the business to her son, Quintin relented. That was the midnight meeting Gran and Scarlett interrupted.”
“And Bobby himself? How was he involved?” asked Brutus.
“He wasn’t. His mother never told him any of this. Not about Vicky’s disappearance, not about the half a million dollars she took from her brother’s account to make it look as if Vicky had run away, and certainly not about Joanne Whittler’s death. She did it all for him, but carefully kept him out of it, just in case the truth was ever revealed.”
“That smells delicious, Tex,” said Charlene. “Your skills as a grill master are improving with leaps and bounds.”
“I’ve been taking this online course,” said Tex, well pleased with this rare compliment. “And I think it’s taught me a couple of really good pointers. Like did you know you have to baste your meat before you grill it? Go figure!”
“Yeah, go figure,” murmured Uncle Alec as he stared at the piece of leathery meat his brother-in-law had just dumped on his plate. It resembled a well-baked shoe sole.
“At least now the meat is finally cooked to perfection,” said Tex proudly.
Marge, as she tried to saw through her steak, said, “I think you may have overdone it just a little bit, sweetie.” The tip of the knife suddenly broke off, and she blinked.
Odelia, as she tried to chew through a piece of sausage, said, “Are you sure this course you took is kosher, Dad?”
“Of course it’s kosher. It’s got five thousand views.” He sat down at the table with his family, picked up his steak knife and his fork and beamed at those around him. “This is my favorite time of the week. Sitting down with you guys—enjoying a nice meal.”
They all watched as he stuck his fork into his piece of steak, then started to saw—and saw—and saw…
Odelia hadn’t brought us a piece of meat yet, as she usually did, and I was starting to see why.
“I think Tex cooked up a stinker again,” said Brutus.
“Yeah, I guess he took the wrong course,” I said.
“How to turn your meat into charcoal,” said Harriet, much to our amusement.
“I don’t understand,” said Tex, perspiration appearing on his brow as he tried to cut his meat. “I followed the instructions in that video to the letter. It had so many likes.”
Marge spirited a smile of faux cheer onto her face and got up. “Anyone want spaghetti? I have some in the freezer. I’ll have it heated up in no time.” And with these words, she disappeared into the house, shaking her head at her husband’s lack of cooking skills.