With a press of his finger, he started the car and drove off, closing the door as he moved away. It was amazing, Odelia thought. The car hardly made any noise. It just… glided away ever so gracefully. Then she groaned in dismay. The guy was as slippery as they came. And she had nothing on him. Nothing at all.
She mounted the sidewalk and staggered off, feeling utterly dejected. Chase thought she was a flake and that she was hiding something. She’d just angered a fashion designer who probably had nothing to do with this whole Niklaus Skad thing. And she had to sort out the mess her cats had made. This whole Diego versus Brutus thing was getting out of hand.
She set foot for the alley Brutus had been talking about. Maybe she should sort this out once and for all. It wasn’t as if she had anything better to do. Like her uncle said, they caught the killer. He confessed. The rest was conjecture.
The first thing she saw when she entered the alley was Max and Dooley sauntering towards her.“Hey, Odelia,” said Max. “How did it go with Ziv Riding?”
“It didn’t. Though he drives a really cool car. How did things go with Diego?” Dooley jerked his thumb in the direction of the alley, and she saw Brutus and Harriet, smooching up a storm. “I take it things worked themselves out?”
“They certainly did,” Max said. “With a little help from Clarice.”
“Right,” she said.
“Hey. Isn’t that Grandma?” asked Max.
She looked in the direction indicated, and saw that it was indeed her grandmother, and she was looking just as dejected as she was feeling. She was shuffling along on the other side of the street. So she quickly crossed and joined her.“Gran? What’s wrong?”
Gran looked up, her wrinkly face drawn.“Oh, I won’t tell you.”
“You won’t tell me what?”
“You’ll just laugh at me.”
“I promise I won’t laugh at you.”
“It’s Leo. He left me.”
“He left you?”
“Yeah, for a younger woman. Can you believe it? We were making out in the park when some hot young dame sat down next to us. Leo’s eyes wandered, the hot chick giggled, and then his hands wandered and next thing I knew he was making out with her instead of me! I just left.”
“Some hot young chick made out with Leo? How old was this chick?”
“You know her. Frankie Canolli’s grandmother Jackie.”
“Jackie Canolli? But she’s like a hundred!”
Gran gave her a hard stare.“She’s younger than me!”
“Not by much.” Odelia had been in school with Frankie. They were the same age.
“Didn’t you tell her off? Or Leo?”
Gran shrugged her bony shoulders.“Ah. No use talking to Leo. We were never much for talking anyway. Ours was more a physical bond.”
“I’ll say,” she muttered.
“And I’m not speaking to Jackie. Haven’t said a word to her since she took my roast beef recipe and passed it off at the pinochle club as her own.”
She placed an arm around her grandmother’s shoulders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t like Leo, but that’s just because I didn’t think he deserved you.”
“I know he didn’t deserve me, but at my age you can’t afford to be choosy, honey.”
They walked in silence for a while.“Chase is mad with me,” she finally said.
“Oh? And why is that?”
“He thinks I’m hiding something from him.”
“About the cats, huh?”
“Yeah. He knows something is going on but he can’t figure out what it is and now he’s mad I’m not telling him.”
“So tell him.”
She looked at her grandmother.“What?”
“Just tell him. See how he reacts. If he’s fine with it, he’s a keeper. If not…” She held up her hand. “Well, then at least you know he doesn’t deserve you.”
She gave her grandmother a hug.“Thanks, Gran. I won’t tell him but still, thanks.”
“If you’re not going to tell him, and he’s going to stay mad at you, can I have a shot at him?”
“Gran!”
“Just asking.”
Chapter 29
Chase had placed his long legs on Chief Alec’s desk, while the chief had done the same on his side. They sat staring out the window. Chase still couldn’t get over the fact that Odelia would stubbornly insist they needed to go after this Ziv Riding character. The only thing the guy had done wrong—apart from running a sweatshop in this town—was drive the wrong car.
“I mean, you see that, right?” he asked for the umpteenth time. “It’s a Tesla! Everybody drives a Tesla these days. A buddy of mine is visiting Belgium and he said it’s full of Teslas over there. Frickin’ Belgium, for crying out loud!”
“Is Belgium even a country? I thought it was a city.”
“Pretty sure it’s a country, Chief. Beer, chocolate and waffles?”
“Oh, right.”
He lapsed into silence again.“And what about this cat business? There’s something going on with those cats of hers. Like she’s got some kind of intuition when it comes to Max. Is that even possible? Or normal?”
“Why not? It’s called women’s intuition, Chase. And Odelia loves her cats.”
“But cats are just a bunch of dumb animals. They can’t figure out that there’s a sweatshop in town. Or that there’s a black Tesla parked outside a restaurant. She’s hiding something, Chief. She’s got some secret informant and she won’t reveal her name. Yeah, it’s a she. She admittedthat much.”
“Odelia is a reporter, Chase. Working with informants is what she does. And you know how a reporter feels about protecting a source. It’s important.”
“I know that. I just…” He gave an annoyed grunt.
“You just hoped she would tell you all her secrets,” the Chief said with a grin.
“Well, yeah. I mean, why wouldn’t she? We work well together. She knows she can trust me. I won’t reveal her sources to anyone.”
“Just give her time, Chase. And don’t push her. The more you push her to give up her secrets the more she’s going to clamp up.”
“So what you’re saying is I should just let her harass this guy Ziv Riding?”
“He’s no boy scout. He did organize a sweatshop.”
“That doesn’t make him a killer.”
“No, it does not. It does make him a very bad man. Though it looks like he’ll walk away from this mess. Guy lawyered up big time.”
“Sure he did. He’ll pay a big-ass fine and he’ll go on making millions.”
“Oh, before I forget, the NYPD guy I talked to said they found a link between Niklaus Skad and Riding. Wanna hear about it?”
He jerked up, almost dropping out of his chair.“What?”
“Yeah. Funny thing is, I found the same email in Skad’s account.”
“And you’re only telling me this now?! Show me!”
“Hold your horses, cowboy. Now where is this darn thing…” He messed around on his computer, cursed a lot, and finally found it. “Here you go,” he said, swiveling the screen and stabbing at it with his finger. “Read it and weep.”
Chase scanned the email, then his eyes landed on the crucial paragraph.“I know about your dirty little secret and I’m not going to keep quiet unless you double your investment,” he read with rising surprise. “This is non-negotiable, Riding. You better do as I say or else.” Say what?
“Huh? Pretty explosive stuff.”
“Jeez…” he said, absolutely dumbfounded. “Oh, my God…”
“What?” Chief Alec asked with a chuckle. “Just proves these celebrities are all in bed together. All one big happy family, huh?”
His brain worked feverishly.“So Riding was an investor in Skad’s business. And somehow Skad had found out about the sweatshop and was threatening to expose it unless Riding doubled his investment.”
“Do you think that’s what he meant with ‘dirty little secret?’”
“What else could it be?”
They stared at one another.“We have our killer, Chase. He confessed.”
“What if Konrad isn’t the killer? What if Riding’s car really was parked outside the restaurant that night and he’s the killer? Wanting to shut Skad up before he blew the lid on this whole sweatshop affair?”