“Horrible boy?”
“Danny. Mrs. James’s son.” She lowered her voice. “Don’t tell her I said this, because she’ll fire me on the spot, but that boy is an absolute terror, detective. A monster!”
“A monster? What do you mean?”
“The way he speaks to me, giving me orders and shouting when he doesn’t like something. He’s got the same personality as his mother but only much, much worse.”
“So Mr. and Mrs. James didn’t get along?” asked Odelia, jotting down a note on her tablet.
“We were all expecting them to get a divorce any moment. First there were the rows, and the last couple of weeks it was cold war.”
“Any chance of a reconciliation?” asked Odelia, as she fastened her eyes on Chase in a look of significance.
“No, not a chance. Mrs. James always spoke ill of her husband, and of course Danny has always hated his stepfather, and has always spoken very badly of him.” She made a quick sign of the cross. “He uses very bad language, detective. Very, very bad language.”
“Can you give me an example?” asked Chase.
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t repeat such foul language. And please don’t make me. But imagine the worst insults possible, and he’s used them all to talk about his stepfather.”
“I see,” said Chase thoughtfully.
“Do you happen to know where Tollie is?” asked the housekeeper now, wringing her hands. “I’m very worried about him.”
“Tollie? What do you mean?” asked Odelia.
“Tollie,” said the housekeeper. “You know, Tollie the Turtle?”
“You mean the real Tollie is still alive?” asked Odelia.
“Of course. Dave met Tollie on the desert island where he was stranded after his boat sunk in a storm, and brought him home with him, since they’d become such good friends. He must be more than one hundred years old by now, but then turtles do get very old, you know. Dave once told me that the oldest turtle alive is almost two hundred years old now. And he said he hoped Tollie would also live that long and so would he.” Her face crumpled again. “Looks like he won’t make it, and now Tollie is gone, too. Oh, this is such a sad day.”
“Where did Dave keep Tollie?”
“He built him a special room. Mrs. James didn’t like it, but Dave liked to keep Tollie close. He was actually one of the reasons Mr. and Mrs. James fought so much. Mrs. James said Dave cared more for that stupid turtle than he did for her.” She shrugged. “Maybe she was right. Dave did love Tollie very much. They had that shared history, you see.” She glanced up at Odelia with a look of concern. “You don’t think the murderer took Tollie, do you? He must be worth a lot of money—he’s a very famous turtle, after all, because of the cartoon.”
“I’m sure I don’t know, Mrs. Brae,” said Chase. “But if you give me a picture of Tollie, I’ll send it to our officers and tell them to be on the lookout.”
“He couldn’t have escaped, you think?” asked Odelia.
“Oh, no. Tollie always sticks around. He’s very territorial, like most turtles, and never wanders off too far.” She brought two distraught hands to her face. “I do hope he’s all right. We all love him so much. He’s just the sweetest turtle. And so very, very wise.”
“So Dave did have a pet,” said Dooley. “Only he’s gone missing.”
“Yeah, looks like,” I said, and we both wandered off in the direction of the den, where our noses told us a large slow-moving reptile may have been kept. And we did indeed find traces of turtle habitation, where Dave had made Tollie a home. There was even a pet flap, through which Tollie had been able to come and go—to take a nice ramble around the garden. Plenty of heads of lettuce told us Tollie had only recently taken leave.
“Dave seems to have cared for his turtle a lot, Max,” said Dooley.
“Yeah, obviously he loved the creature,” I agreed.
“Do you think Mrs. Brae is right, and the killer took Tollie?”
“I don’t know, Dooley, but we better find out.” I wandered over to the door and looked out. “I wonder how big Tollie is.”
“Why, Max?”
“Some turtles can get really big, and if Tollie was like that, the person who took him must have needed a truck and would have had to back it up against the house.”
“Do you think that Tollie might have been the target, and Dave collateral damage?”
“It’s possible,” I agreed. “If Tollie is the turtle the comic is based on, he must be worth a lot of money. So maybe the idea was to grab him for ransom, but they hadn’t reckoned on finding Dave home, and so perhaps a struggle ensued and Dave’s death was an accident.” Which still didn’t explain why Dave would scribble Jayme’s name on a piece of paper.
“Poor Tollie,” said Dooley. “Far from home and with his best buddy now dead. Life will never be the same for the old turtle.” He turned to me. “We have to find him, Max. We have to bring Tollie home.”
“Unless…” I said, thinking the unthinkable.
“Unless what?”
“Unless they killed Tollie, too,” I said, speaking the unspeakable.
Dooley’s eyes went wide. “And turned him into turtle soup? Oh, Max, no!”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, Dooley. For all we know Tollie was turtle-napped, and so our first priority should be to find him and bring him home safe.”
Though where was home for Tollie now? With Dave gone, and Veronica and her son detesting him as much as they did, home just might be in a zoo from now on, or with some other benefactor. Though if Tollie was included in Dave’s will, and most probably he was, perhaps Jayme was Tollie’s new mom from now on. If she was innocent, of course.
“Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us, Dooley,” I said in conclusion as we turned away from Tollie’s home and joined Odelia and Chase once more.
“Good thing we’re only co-stars in Harriet’s new cartoon,” said Dooley, “or else we’d have to pose for her. Now we can focus on the investigation… spider.”
I smiled.“Yeah, a good thing indeed… Odie.”
Chapter 10
As we were checking around, Odelia and Chase had gone upstairs to take a look at the crime scene—a privilege I decide to forego, as I’m not all that keen on looking at dead people, unlike that kid inThe Sixth Sense. Suddenly there was a sort of commotion or ruckus at the front door, and a strikingly beautiful and statuesque blonde walked in, followed by a sullen-looking teenager. The blonde wouldn’t have looked out of place inSports Illustrated, modeling swimwear, and the kid resembled her to such a great degree that this could only be the now infamous Veronica James and her son Danny.
“Who’s in charge here?” the woman demanded heatedly as she addressed the first person she saw, a hapless lab technician, carrying a laptop around.
“Um… that would be Detective Kingsley, ma’am,” said the lab techie, and pointed in the direction of the staircase.
The blonde, instead of stomping up the stairs and going in search of Chase, instead hollered,“Detective Kingsley!”
“Yup!” immediately Chase’s voice came from one floor up.
“I want a word with you, Detective—now!” she bellowed, and in view of this vocal performance I amended my opinion that Veronica James was a swimwear model and now assumed she must at some point in her life been a very effective drill sergeant.
Chase now came hurrying down the stairs, clearly thinking that another member of the James household must have fallen prey to foul play, but when he saw Veronica, looking very much alive, halted in his tracks, no doubt struck by the woman’s frankly stunning good looks. “Yes?” he said, examining her with a puzzled look on his face.
“I demand to know what all these people are doing in my house!” the woman said. “And why I had to show my ID before I could enter the place where I live!”