Another reason for the family to celebrate was that they’d finally managed to get rid of their house guest. Following one of my less inspired interventions, a man named Rudolph Vickery had been staying with us. He was Wilbur Vickery’s brother, one of our local shopkeepers, and an aspiring musician, having chosen the heavy metal genre as a potential career path. Unfortunately he didn’t possess a great deal of talent. Still, since he had now decided that to further his musical career he had to be in LA, we had wished him good luck—and in fact I think these good wishes came from the bottom of everyone’s heart, since no one wanted to ever see the man’s face again.
“Popcorn, anyone?” asked Uncle Alec, returning from the kitchen with two big bowls of steaming hot popcorn. “They’re hot and fresh from the oven.”
“You’re making it sound as if we’re going to watch an entire movie with Chase in the lead,” Gran grumbled. “It’s only a short interview, Alec. Blink and you’ll miss it.”
“It’s Chase’s big television premiere, Ma,” said Uncle Alec as he let himself fall down onto the couch next to Charlene and handed her the second bowl.
“Did they make you wear makeup, honey?” asked Marge with a touch of concern in her voice. “I’ve heard that sometimes they put on so much makeup you end up looking completely different. It’s to make sure you don’t look shiny,” she added as an explanation.
“No makeup,” said Chase curtly as he dipped into the bowl of popcorn and sampled one or two kernels before settling back and fiddling with the remote.
“You see, when you’re on TV, all your little skin blemishes are enhanced,” Marge explained to the others, who weren’t really listening. Charlene was checking her smartphone, no doubt making some last-minute important decisions, like whether to plant fuchsias or roses in the municipal flowerbeds—Charlene is the mayor of our town, you see, and always busy-busy-busy. And Scarlett, too, was smiling and tapping on her smartphone, presumably chatting with one of her many male admirers.
“Will you cut that out,” Gran grumbled, taking her friend’s phone away.
“Hey, I wasn’t finished,” Scarlett protested.
“You’re finished now,” said Gran. “It’s Chase’s big debut. And it doesn’t happen every day that a member of this family is live on television.”
“He won’t be live, Ma,” said Tex. He turned to his son-in-law. “When did you tape this, Chase?”
“This afternoon,” said Chase. “Just after we found Josslyn Aldridge’s body.”
“So soon? But why?” asked Marge, who’s always interested in the minutiae of Chase’s police investigations. Being a librarian, she has an important role to play in the local community, providing fresh gossip to all who visit the library, which is a large contingent on normal days, and even more when a tragic event like a murder has taken place.
“It’s probably a mugging gone wrong,” said Uncle Alec. “And from experience we know that it’s very difficult to solve cases like this, especially when there are no witnesses.”
The woman Uncle Alec was referring to had been found on the beach by one of those people who like to go for a jog first thing in the morning. I’d never want to be seen dead going for a jog, especially that early, but then again I’m a cat. We don’t go in for sports.
Josslyn Aldridge had been found next to a concrete staircase leading down from the boardwalk to the beach. The coroner ascertained that her head had been smashed against that concrete staircase. And since her purse was missing, and later found nearby, minus the woman’s wallet, it stood to reason that the police was now looking for the mugger.
“Was she local?” asked Charlene, her business apparently concluded.
“A tourist,” said Chase, who was heading up the investigation. “I talked to her friend, and they came down here for a one-week vacation, arriving in town two days ago.”
“Oh, that’s so sad,” said Marge. “Where was she from?”
“Middletown, Ohio.”
“And you have no idea who did this to her?” asked Tex with a frown. He seemed anxious to see his tax dollars not go to waste on fruitless police investigations.
“No, her friend told us that she happened to bump into an old work colleague that morning, and had arranged to have a drink, to talk about old times, but when she woke up this morning, and her friend’s bed had not been slept in, she sounded the alarm.”
“Do you think this colleague might have something to do with it?” asked Odelia.
“I doubt it,” said Chase. “Like the Chief said, it’s probably a mugging gone wrong. She must have met up with this colleague, then taken a stroll along the boardwalk when she ran afoul of a mugger who forced her down those steps where he proceeded to grab her purse. She must have put up a fight, and that’s when he gave her a shove, her head hit the concrete steps, and when the mugger saw that she was dead, he panicked and ran off.”
“Sad business,” said Marge, shaking her head.
“And bad for tourism,” Charlene added with a grim look on her face. “I hope you catch the bastard quickly, Alec.”
“Oh, we will,” Uncle Alec assured her.
“Ooh! It’s about to start, you guys!” said Scarlett, pointing with one of her long-nailed fingers to the screen, where a picture of the unfortunate tourist had appeared, while the newscaster reiterated the events as Chase had already outlined them. Josslyn Aldridge was in her early sixties, with gray curly hair, and a sort of startled look on her face.
“Where did they get that horrible picture?” Marge muttered.
“We got it from her friend,” said Chase. “It was the only one she could give us on such short notice.”
And then the moment had come: Chase was on TV, being interviewed by a peppy young blonde, who seemed fresh out of school, holding a microphone under his nose.
“You were right, Chase, honey,” said Marge. “They didn’t use makeup.”
“Look how shiny his face is,” said Gran. “It looks like an ice skating rink.”
“Gran is right, Max,” said Dooley. “He does look very shiny.”
“It was a warm day today, Dooley,” I said. “And when humans sweat, they shine.”
“I’m not sure makeup would have helped,” said Scarlett. “It might have made things worse.”
“Will you shut up,” Uncle Alec growled. “You’re missing Chase’s big moment.”
“So we’d like to ask that the colleague Josslyn had arranged to meet comes forward as soon as possible and gets in touch with us,” Chase was saying on TV, looking straight into the camera now. “So we can reconstruct the last hours of her life, and hopefully catch the person responsible for this terrible crime.”
“Don’t you have a name for this colleague?” asked Marge.
Chase shook his head.“Josslyn never said, and Sadie didn’t think it was important to ask.”
“Sadie?”
“Josslyn’s friend.”
“Oh, right,” said Marge.
“I think he looks good on screen,” said Scarlett. “Don’t you think he looks good on screen, Vesta?”
“His head looks big,” said Gran.
“That’s because he’s on camera. They say the camera adds ten pounds.”
“Well I think he looks great,” said Odelia, patting her hubby on the arm. “In fact I think he looks amazing and he’s doing a great job.”
“Thanks, babe,” Chase grunted.
“Why is he pulling at his nose, Max?” asked Dooley.
“Probably because he’s nervous,” said Brutus. “People who aren’t used to being interviewed on camera always get nervous, and start doing stuff like pulling their noses or pulling their ears, or sweating and looking shiny.”
We watched as Chase first pulled his nose, then pulled his ear, then pulled his nose again. All while looking very shiny indeed.
“He looks very shifty,” said Harriet. “If I didn’t know any better I would have thought he was the mugger.”
“Yeah, well, the man is a cop, smoochie poo,” said Brutus. “Not a professional actor.”