Odelia finally got up and stretched. “I better get back to the office, or Dan will wonder what happened to me.” She grimaced. “I need to go and talk to the winner of the hog wrestling competition that took place last weekend.”
I grinned. “What a fascinating life you lead, Odelia.”
She gave me a mock flick on the ear, and then we were heading into town again. And we’d just arrived at her office when suddenly the door of a car parked in front of the Gazette swung open and a man came out, looking positively annoyed. He was big and burly and had one of those battering rams for chins that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a boxing ring. He was also wearing a nice suit, but that didn’t detract from the menace he exuded.
“Miss Poole!” he said, striding up to us with purposeful stride. “I want a word with you.”
“Mr. Kemp, isn’t it?” she said. “Leo Kemp?”
“That’s right. You have got to stop spreading these nasty rumors about me, Miss Poole,” said the man, and took an intimidating stance right in front of our human. So intimidating in fact that I eyed the man with a heightened sense of alarm.
“What rumors?” asked Odelia, clearly taken aback by this sudden intervention.
“You have been telling people that I murdered my banker, haven’t you? And spreading all kinds of lies about the deal Dino Wimmer and I were working on. Well, I’m telling you now that this has got to stop or I’m filing charges—is that understood?”
Odelia frowned. “I didn’t spread any rumors, Mr. Kemp. I haven’t written a single word about Mr. Wimmer’s death. Yet.”
“And if you know what’s good for you, you won’t,” he said, and was stabbing a finger in her direction. “I’ll sue you and your two-bit newspaper for slander and defamation of character. I’ll put you out of business! You’ll never work in this town again!”
Odelia was so taken aback by this that she didn’t say a word, but merely watched the man get back into his car and drive off. Then she took out her phone and started snapping pictures of the car as it made a U-turn then drove off with tires screeching.
“Well, I never,” she said.
“Who was that horrible man?” asked Dooley.
“Leo Kemp. Real estate developer involved in a deal with First Financial Crest,” she said as she checked if the pictures she’d taken had come out all right. “I just changed my mind, you guys. The winner of the hog wrestling competition will have to wait. First I’m going to show these pictures to Rose’s neighbor and ask her if she recognizes this car.”
And as she took off in the direction of her own car, Dooley and I hot on her trail, I noticed how a young woman with green-rimmed glasses had just stepped out of the Gazette office and was intently staring after us. It was Kimberly, Odelia’s new colleague.
Chapter 21
We arrived at the home of Rose Wimmer and her mother Daphne soon after and Odelia immediately walked up to the house right next door and rang the bell. When an older woman appeared, a puzzled look on her face, Odelia said, “Mrs. Bird?”
“Uh-huh.”
“My grandmother was here yesterday,” Odelia explained, “and you told her about a car you saw the night Mr. Wimmer died, remember?”
“Oh, sure,” said the woman, and directed a curious glance down at Dooley and me. “These your cats?” she asked.
“Yeah, they’re with me,” Odelia confirmed. “So I would like you to look at a picture of a car now and tell me if you recognize it as the car that you saw that night.”
“I have a fur baby myself, you know,” said Mrs. Bird. “I don’t know if your grandma told you this but I have a precious baby named Earl.” And to show us she meant what she said and intended to prove it she half-turned and bellowed, “Earl! Come over here a minute, will you!”
Immediately a small furball came tripping up to the door and halted in his tracks the moment his beady little eyes landed on us.
“Hey, Earl,” I said. “How’s it going?”
“More cats,” he said.
“Oh, that’s right. You talked to Harriet and Brutus yesterday, didn’t you?” I said.
“Will you look at that,” said Mrs. Bird. “They’re communicating. Getting to know each other. How sweet.” She smiled at Odelia. “They tell you that cats and dogs don’t get along but that’s just a load of rubbish. My Earl loves cats. Isn’t that right, Earl?”
Earl grunted, “I wouldn’t go so far as to say I love cats, but I don’t mind them.”
“So about this car,” said Odelia, holding up her phone. “Could you just take a quick look and tell me—”
“I used to have a cat, you know,” said Mrs. Bird. “But her and Earl didn’t get along for some reason. She kept clawing at him and hissing and hitting him. Once she scratched his nose so hard it bled.”
“Right,” said Odelia, who clearly wasn’t all that gripped by this fascinating story as she should have been. She was still holding up her phone in a fruitless attempt to interest Mrs. Bird in the picture of Leo Kemp’s automobile.
“So I had a choice to make, didn’t I? So I got rid of the cat for Earl’s sake.”
“You got rid of the cat?” I said, highly perturbed by this denouement.
“I didn’t have her put down if that’s what you’re thinking,” Mrs. Bird hastened to clarify as if she’d noticed my surprise. “I gave her to my niece, who just loves cats.” She shrugged. “Ever since then Earl has been a little gun shy around cats. Isn’t that right, Earl?”
“What do you expect when you’re suddenly attacked without warning?” Earl grunted.
“So about this car,” Odelia prompted, still holding onto a glimmer of hope that the conversation would wend its way to a more productive stage, more specifically the identification of Leo Kemp’s car.
“I’m not going to scratch you,” I assured Earl. “In fact I don’t think I’ve ever scratched a dog in my life.”
“We’ve scratched plenty of humans, though,” said Dooley.
“All of them bad guys,” I hastened to clarify when Earl lifted an eyebrow.
Mrs. Bird was finally glancing at the phone Odelia held out for her. “Could be,” she allowed. “You know, cars all look the same to me. It could have been this car or it could have been a different one. Whose is it?”
“Leo Kemp. A businessman.”
“Well, like I said it’s possible. Some people know their cars. My husband was like that. He could recognize any car. Make and model and even the year they were built and what engine and all of that nonsense. For me a car is a car.” She smiled. “But that doesn’t help you much, does it, sweetie?”
“No, it doesn’t,” said Odelia, looking slightly disappointed.
“So you still think Dino Wimmer was murdered, do you?”
“It’s a possibility,” said Odelia cautiously.
“No neighbor of ours has ever been murdered before,” said Earl, and gave me a look that seemed to indicate it was entirely my fault that now someone had.
“You didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, did you?” I asked.
“I already told those friends of yours,” said the dog. “I didn’t notice nothing, except a big to-do when the police arrived and that ambulance.”
“But before that…”
“Nothing,” he said. “And believe you me, I would have barked the house down if anyone so much had dared enter Mr. Wimmer’s house to murder him.” And then he thrust out his puny chest. “I may not look like much of a guard dog but I will protect my human at all cost, and if a killer had been sneaking around next door, I would have noticed. And you can quote me on that.”