“Oh, no,” said Odelia quietly.
“Which is why I immediately dispatched several units to arrest Jayme Ziccardi.”
“But why? Why would Jayme kill Dave? I mean, she had never even met the guy.”
“She said that?” Odelia nodded, and her uncle leaned back in his chair, which creaked dangerously as he settled his bulk. “Well, I’m sure the investigation will look into all of that. But you understand that I couldn’t just allow Miss Ziccardi to walk around after finding very significantevidence of her guilt.”
“No, of course,” said Odelia, much sobered after being confronted with this evidence.
“Look, I’ll tell you what,” said the Chief. “Why don’t I put Chase on the case, with you as consultant? And if after you’ve thoroughly investigated Dave’s murder, you can prove to me that Jayme is in fact innocent, I’ll immediately sign her release.”
“Deal.”
“But if not…”
His words hung in the air as a credible threat to Jayme’s future.
“I think Jayme is in big trouble, Max,” said Dooley.
“Yes, Dooley, it certainly looks that way.”
Chapter 7
Now that Chase had been assigned to the case, and so had Odelia, we moved from Uncle Alex’s office to that of his deputy, and soon found ourselves convening with Chase. The detective had placed his long legs on his desk and was dragging powerful fingers through his hair and staring up at the ceiling, as if hoping to draw strength and inspiration from the styrofoam tiles that had beenaffixed there.
“So let me get this straight,” said Odelia, who’d taken a seat on the couch Chase had recently dragged into his office, and where presumably he hadn’t spent a lot of time, since he was mostly out there doing his job. “Dave left Jayme all of his possessions, material and immaterial? What does that even mean?”
“It means that he had selected Jayme as his successor, and was grooming her to take over after he retired.”
“But he never told her. She didn’t even know she was a contender.”
“That remains to be seen. And anyway, whether she knew or not isn’t important at this stage. The assumption is that she could have known, so she has a pretty big motive for getting rid of her benefactor.”
“How big a motive?”
“The way it looks now, and after talking to the lawyer who drew up Dave’s most recent will, around eight hundred million dollars’ worth.”
Odelia coughed, clearly not expecting a number in that order of magnitude.
“Is that a lot of money, Max?” asked Dooley.
“Yes, eight hundred million dollars is a lot of money, Dooley,” I said. It was certainly more than I thought the man was worth.
“Can you really make that much money from drawing an old turtle?” asked Odelia.
Chase grinned.“Looks like, babe.”
“So maybe Gran was onto something when she said she wanted to create her own comic.”
“Yeah, but you’ve got to consider that for every Dave James there are probably hundreds or thousands of artists who’ve tried and failed to capture the readers’ imagination. Tollie the Turtle is an icon, and Dave James one of the last true artists: his lawyer told me that he still created every single comic himself, or at least came up with the original idea and then left the execution to his trusted team of collaborators.”
“Okay, so tell me this: why would he name Jayme his successor when he’s got a team of qualified artists who’ve probably been working with him for years?”
Chase shrugged.“I guess that’s for us to find out, babe.”
“So what about his wife?”
“Doesn’t get a penny.”
“Not even the house?”
“Nope.”
“And what about her son?”
Chase consulted his notes.“Danny Tomon, son of Eddie Tomon, Veronica’s first husband.”
“I take it Danny doesn’t get anything either?”
“Nothing.”
“I can’t understand why Dave would do such a thing.”
“Me neither. According to his lawyer he only made this latest will last month, so looks like something must have happened at some point.”
“But what?”
“Who knows? Marriage on the rocks? Trouble with the wife?”
“I think we better go and have a chat with Veronica James.”
“We better have a chat with everyone who knew Dave. Cause there’s a whole lot here that sounds fishy to me. Oh, and also, we haven’t found the murder weapon, so that’s something we need to look for.”
“I think it’s very sad that there won’t be any Tollie the Turtle cartoons anymore, Max,” said Dooley as we walked out of Chase’s office. “I thought they were very funny.”
“Oh, but there will be more Tollie the Turtle cartoons,” I said, and then mentally slapped myself when I realized that now I was calling them cartoons and not comic strips.
“What do you mean? Dave James is dead, Max, so that’s the end of Tollie, right?”
“No, it’s not. I’m sure he made arrangements for his creation to survive him. He has a studio, Dooley, and they’ll probably keep creating the strip, even though Dave is gone.”
“But Chase said that Jayme is supposed to be Dave’s successor, but she’s in jail.”
“I’m sure that Dave left instructions. Artists like him take precautions for this type of situation. Some of them plan out the future of their creation years and years in advance.”
“We’ll just have to prove that Jayme is innocent, won’t we, Max? So she can go and make people happy with their daily dose of Tollie the Turtle.”
Easier said than done. If Uncle Alec and Chase were right, Jayme not only had an excellent motive to murder her benefactor, but that piece of paper with her name on it went a long way to establishing not only her presence at the scene, but her guilt, too.
Ironic, though, that Dave’s appointed successor would also be the one by whose hand he met his maker. And even though I sincerely hoped that Jayme was innocent, since she was obviously a very talented and likable young woman, as things stood right now, it didn’t look too good for her.
Chapter 8
The moment we left the police station, suddenly we were accosted, not by converging police vehicles intent on arresting us for jaywalking, but by Gran and Scarlett, along with Harriet and Brutus. Scarlett was holding up her phone, and Harriet clearly wanted immediate speech with us, for she was yelling,“Max! Dooley! Come with us—now!”
“I’m sorry but we can’t,” I said, feeling slightly ambushed. “We have a murder to solve.”
“What murder?” asked Harriet, clearly annoyed that I’d come up with such a feeble excuse to try and wriggle my way out of an appointment with her.
“Jayme Ziccardi has been arrested for the murder of Dave James,” I explained, “and Chase and Odelia are going to try and prove her innocence.”
“Well, let them,” said Harriet. “This is much more important than some silly murder.” She gestured for Gran to come over. The old lady had been huddling nearby with Scarlett, discussing who knows what, and both studying their phones for some reason.
“Max, you need to come with us right now,” said Gran, reiterating Harriet’s words. And so I decided to repeat my excuse, hoping it would find more fertile ground with her. “I can’t,” I said therefore. “There’s been a murder and we need to help Odelia and Chase.”
“A murder!” said Gran. “What murder?”
“Dave James has been murdered,” said Dooley helpfully, “but he has an entire studio full of artists to continue his work so Tollie the Turtle will still appear in your newspaper every morning, Gran. Though of course his successor is in prison for murder, but if we manage to get her off, she’ll be able to carry on his work. Unless we can’t get her off, and then maybe you won’t find Tollie the Turtle in your newspaper every morning, Gran.”