Vaguely, I registered Dooley yelping and crying,“He vanished in a puff of smoke! He’s a demon!” I was too stunned to respond. Had Diego killed Clarice? It wasn’t possible. Or was it?
Chapter 7
Odelia rubbed her eyes. Staring at footage of Dieber dropping to the ground was not her idea of a fun time. When Chase chuckled, she opened her eyes again.“What’s so funny?”
“You! The Dieber fan can’t even watch a few hours of her idol without nodding off.”
“I can watch a few hours of Dieber singing—not the same footage over and over again of him dropping down on his patootie.” Though she had to admit he had a fine patootie. Not as fine as Chase’s, but definitely up there on the Billboard Patootie Top 100.
“I wonder,” said Chase musingly.
“Wonder what?”
“If he’s got a tattoo on his patootie, too. I mean, he’s got tattoos on every other body part, right?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said dismissively. She wasn’t going to discuss Charlie’s tattoos with a non-fan.
“I’ll bet you do. I’ll bet you know every single tattoo the kid’s ever gotten, and you even know their exact significance.”
“And what if I do? What’s it to you?”
“Do you have tats?”
She cleared her throat and pointed at the screen.“Oh, look. Is that the killer?”
Chase laughed.“So you do. Where is it and can I see it?”
She rolled her eyes, then reluctantly got up, turned around and lifted her blouse, displaying a small tattoo on her lower back. It was a butterfly, drawn in blue and pink pastel.
“I like it,” he said finally, gently rubbing his finger along the butterfly. The touch of his hand sent shivers tickling up her spine, followed by a rush of heat, and suddenly she wished he’d put his hands on some of her other body parts. The ones that weren’t tattooed.
She quickly dropped her blouse before things got out of hand. There are places were getting out of hand is fine. Like her living room couch. Hampton Cove police station? No way.
“When did you get it?”
“When I was in college. A friend of mine was into tats, and she convinced me to try one. I have to admit I wasn’t entirely sober when I made the decision, but very happy that my lapse of judgment didn’t get me into greater trouble. And very grateful that that particular tattoo shop had a policy in place not to tattoo on visible places on the body like necks or hands or—gasp—the face.”
“Yeah, imagine having that butterfly tattooed on your forehead.”
“And what if I had?” she challenged.
He smiled.“I guess I’d have to get a matching one of my own.”
She was touched.“Aww. You’d do that for me?”
“I’d do that for me. Who doesn’t want a tattoo of a bug on their face?”
She slapped him on the shoulder, but then noticed something odd on the screen and frowned.“Isn’t that the guy who was shot?”
They watched as the shot rang out and Ray Cooper scrunched up his face. The burly protection agent stumbled backwards, knocking into one of his colleagues, before crumpling into a heap, desperately clutching at his chest.
“Finally,” said Chase. “Some footage of the actual shooting.”
They watched the video again, but as far as Odelia could see there was no trace of the gunman.“Was he shot at close range?”
“They’re still looking into that, but yeah, I think he was shot at fairly close range.”
“So the gunman should be in this clip.”
They watched the same footage a few more times, but if the gunman was in it, they couldn’t find him. At least they now had the incident on film. “I’ll send this to forensics,” said Chase. “Maybe they can see things we can’t. Enhance certain parts or apply some of that CSI mumbo-jumbo to establish a time frame and a blow-by-blow of what happened, exactly.”
Odelia nodded. She hoped he was right. With the kind of high-tech stuff that was available these days, maybe they could unearth things that were invisible at first glance.
There was a knock at the door, and Uncle Alec walked in, followed by a stern-faced man in a three-piece suit that looked like it might have cost a thousand bucks. A lawyer, she knew before Alec introduced the guy.
“This is Paul Seymour,” said the Chief. “Counselor Seymour works for Charlie Dieber. Detective Chase Kingsley, who’s in charge of the case. And Odelia Poole, civilian consultant.”
“Detective. Miss Poole,” said the lawyer. “I only have one question for you at this time. Have you identified the shooter?”
“Not yet,” said Chase. “But we’re working on it.”
The man’s lips tightened. This was not the message he wanted to hear. “Let me be clear. If you don’t find us a shooter we’re going to want to explore some other options.”
“What other options?” asked Odelia.
He jerked his head in her direction.“I’m sorry, who are you again?”
“Odelia Poole. I’m a civilian consultant.” She decided to keep the fact that she was also a reporter for the local newspaper under wraps for now.
He turned away from her, clearly not impressed.“Charlie has fans in high places. He’s proud to count the President among them. One phone call is all it takes to get the Feds out here and poring over this attempt on Charlie’s life.”
“The President?” asked Odelia. “You mean, like,the President?”
The man turned his penetrating gaze on her. She was pretty sure he could cut glass with it.“Is there another one?” He returned his attention to Chase, whom he seemed to have identified as the man in charge. “Make no mistake, Detective. Charlie wants results. If you can’t deliver him the shooter by this time tomorrow, he’ll make the call. Is that clear?”
“Let me tell you something, counselor,” said Chase, not the least bit intimidated by the lawyer’s tactics. “When we tried to talk to Charlie and his people this morning, they brushed us off. I can’t conduct this investigation without full access to both Charlie and his team. They’re witnesses and it’s important they give us their full cooperation. Do I have your word that you’ll get them to talk to me and talk freely?”
The lawyer nodded curtly.“I’ll advise them to give you full access. All the help you need.” He then stuck out his hand, gave Chase a brief handshake and stalked off without offering so much as a glance or a nod in either Odelia or Uncle Alec’s direction.
“Nice guy,” said Chase. “Warm personality.”
“Yeah, he’s a real charmer,” Uncle Alec agreed.
“Do you think he was bluffing?” asked Odelia. “Can he really get the Feds out here to take over the investigation?”
“Oh, I’m sure he wasn’t bluffing,” said Uncle Alec, rocking back on his heels. “So you better get me something, people. I don’t enjoy the prospect of being locked out of my own investigation in my own town. And I definitely don’t want to get in bad with the President.”
“I don’t want to get in bed with the President either,” Chase said cheerfully.
“Wiseguy,” Uncle Alec said, then wagged a finger in Chase’s face. “I don’t care how you do it, Kingsley, but I want results and I want them now, you hear?” He worried the few remaining hairs still desperately clinging to his scalp and sighed. “Or else we’re all sunk.”
Chapter 8
I have to admit that after our recent standoff with Diego in the alley, the three of us were feeling more than a little sandbagged. In fact it wouldn’t be too much to say we were feeling punch-drunk, as if Diego had put on a pair of boxing gloves and dealt us a glancing blow—a tough proposition when you’re a cat—and had knocked us KO in a single round.
As a consequence we were wandering around more or less aimlessly when suddenly a car screeched to a halt right in front of us, just as we were staggering across the road, and I realized we hadn’t even looked left or right and had almost been turned into roadkill.
A head emerged from the car window, and when I looked up with a degree of trepidation, I saw that the head belonged to none other than Odelia.