“She’s glowing, isn’t she, Max?” said Dooley. “She’s actually glowing.”
“Glowing from all the junk they’ve put on her,” I grumbled.
Okay, so I wasn’t in a good mood. Can you blame me? My human had asked me to assist her in cracking this case, and so far all I’d done was move around in circles, not getting any closer to the truth. It was frustrating, to say the least.
The photographer had been getting ready, placing several cameras on a table. I wondered why he needed so many of them. A cover picture is just that: one picture. But as I was about to find out, before he selected the perfect picture, he was going to take dozens and dozens of them. Hundreds, perhaps. And Harriet was sitting through them with perfect—and uncustomary—patience.
During a break in the proceedings, which was necessary to touch up Harriet’s makeup, the photog sauntered over in our direction. “I heard you guys are looking into what happened to Mike?” he said, addressing Odelia.
“Yeah, we’re trying to find out how he died,” Odelia confirmed.
“Good luck with that,” said the photographer, who was a thirty-something male with a ponytail, a long black beard, and plenty of tattoos on his arms and neck. “From what I heard there were no witnesses, so who knows what happened.”
“Did you know Mike Madison?” asked Odelia, who never missed an opportunity to talk to a potential witness.
“Sure. Mike was always interested in every part of the business. He was in here all the time, sitting in on creative meetings, and even accompanying us on shoots. The guy was a micromanager.” He eyed Odelia curiously. “So is it true he was murdered? Only I heard he killed himself, but now rumor has it he was killed.”
“At this stage we are treating his death as suspicious,” Odelia confirmed.
“Christ,” said the guy, sliding a hand along his beard. “This isn’t going to do the stock a lot of good. Which isn’t going to do any of us any good either.”
“You have stock options?”
“Sure. We all have stock options. Only they’re probably going to be worthless now, aren’t they? Unless you got the kind of options that speculate on the stock dropping, of course. But who would bet on the stock dropping? Not me!”
“How is she doing?” asked Gran, referring to Harriet.
“She’s a born model,” said the photographer. “A delight to work with. Some photographers hate working with pets. They’re hard to handle. Won’t sit still, keep shifting position, walk off stage—whatever. But Harriet here is a real pro. Gets the right shot every time. Almost as if she can understand what I say!”
“She probably does,” said Gran with a wink.
“Yeah, right.” The guy had to laugh at this, even though Gran wasn’t kidding.
Harriet was ready for her second round, and the photographer conferred with his art director for a moment, before launching into another series of pictures.
I have to say that the photographer’s words touched a chord. It had set the machinery in my noggin shifting into gear, and before long I was lost in thought.
Could it be?
Mh…
CHAPTER 34
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The scene at the Mitchells was a happy one. Tom was there, of course, and his little brother Harry and cousin Danny, and his mother Melanie. But more importantly, the scene was set for Natalie Ferrara to arrive in their midst, having agreed to pay a visit to Tom’s home, and meet his mother for the first time.
Ever since Tom’s initiative in casting Natalie’s brother from her home, the two young people had lived through a whirlwind romance that had quickly brought them closer together. Natalie’s brother was gone, and had stayed gone, and Natalie’s gratefulness was thus that the couple had gone on several dates.
And now the time had come for Natalie to meet Tom’s dearest mom.
Everything was in position for the auspicious meeting, with Melanie having put on her best dress for the occasion, and Harry and Danny having pitched in to clean up their home as best they could. Harry had handled the vacuum cleaner, and Danny the duster, and together they’d turned the house into a picture of domestic cleanliness.
Meanwhile, Melanie had been busy in the kitchen, preparing a delicious meal. Spring potatoes were on the menu, and veal and peas, with homemade cheesecake for dessert. She just hoped Tom’s new girlfriend would like it. He was nervous enough himself, and not in the mood for a lot of questions, even though she had been peppering him with them, and so had Harry and Danny.
Finally the doorbell chimed and Melanie wiped her hands on her apron, then took it off and draped it over a kitchen chair.“She’s here!” she announced as she hurried into the living room. She glanced round, and saw that the place looked better than it had looked in years, with Harry and Danny standing at attention.
Tom had already gone into the hallway to open the door to his great love. But when he returned, it wasn’t Natalie Ferrara accompanying him but that reporter woman, Odelia Kingsley, and a big, burly male who looked like a cop. Behind them, two cats trailed. The fat orange one the reporter had brought along last time, and a fluffy gray one.
The big guy flashed a badge.“Detective Chase Kingsley,” he said. “Hampton Cove PD.”
She blinked.“What’s going on?” she demanded. “Where is Natalie?” And then it hit her, and she clutched both hands to her face. “Oh, dear God, no. Not again! Did something happen to Natalie? Did she have an accident? Tell me it isn’t true!”
“Natalie is fine,” the Kingsley woman assured her. “We’re not here about her.”
“So what are you here for?” asked Melanie, confused. “I don’t understand.”
“I think you better take a seat, Mrs. Mitchell,” said Mrs. Kingsley. “In fact why don’t we all take a seat?”
Melanie plunked herself down on the couch, staring at the twosome.“What is this?” she asked. “What happened?”
“I’m afraid we’re both here in an official capacity, Mrs. Mitchell,” said the cop. “Odelia here is a police consultant, and I’m the detective in charge of the investigation into the murder of Michael Madison.”
“Again with this murder business? What’s that got to do with us?” She glanced to her eldest, but Tom seemed as stunned by this development as she was.
“Because at this stage of the proceedings,” said the detective, “I think we have a fairly accurate idea of what happened that night.”
“You see,” the Kingsley woman said, “all this time we were looking at people who held a grudge against Michael, but instead we should have been looking for the people who had something to gain from his death. So you might say we were looking in the wrong direction, which is exactly what the murderer wanted.”
“There were plenty of people who held a grudge against Madison,” Detective Kingsley continued. “But not that many who had anything to gain. In fact the only person who benefited from Michael Madison’s death was an investor.”
“An investor?” asked Melanie. “I don’t understand.”
“It took us a while to see the full picture ourselves,” said Mrs. Kingsley. “You see, every employee of the Advantage Publishing Company is given stock options when they sign their contract. It’s up to them if they choose to take advantage of those options, but most do. Of course you want the stock of the company to go up, in which case your options will increase in value. Not down, reducing the value.”
“Okay,” said Melanie, wondering what they were talking about.
“But there is a different kind of option,” said the detective. “It’s called a put option, and it speculates that the stock of a company will go down. In other words decrease in value. The more the stock drops, the bigger the gain. And since options work on the principle of leverage, the value increase of the put option is many times greater than the value decrease of the stock.”