“But why?” asked Dooley. “I know we only met him briefly, but he seemed like a good person.”
“Good person! He gave Doris a copy ofElements of Style! Basically telling her she can’t write. That’s not the kind of thing you do to a person. Totally out of line.”
“Can Doris write?” I asked.
“Of course she can! She’s the best writer I know.”
Which wasn’t saying much, of course, since Doris was probably the only writer Froufrou knew. Still, it was admirable to see such loyalty in man’s best friend.
“Did Doris kill Michael Madison, you think?” asked Dooley.
Froufrou gave him a look of amusement.“You don’t beat around the bush, do you, Dooley?”
“I believe in the direct approach,” my friend said. “Humans circle round and round and sniff each other’s butts for hours before they get down to brass tacks but not me.”
“I think you’ll find that’s actually dogs,” said Froufrou. “Especially the butts part. But to answer your question: no, Doris did not murder Michael Madison. She was getting even with the man, but she wasn’t going to stoop as low as that. And besides, now that he’s dead, her wrongful dismissal suit is probably going out the window.”
“She can still sue Advantage,” I suggested.
“And she will. But with Michael gone, they’ll claim it was his decision and his decision alone, and they had nothing to do with it.”
“So she was home last night—all night?” I asked.
“She was home last night,” Froufrou confirmed. “We Netflixed and chilled.”
I stared at the doggie“You mean…”
“We watched a Netflix movie and relaxed on the couch.”
“Oh, right,” I said, much relieved. I didn’t think Doris was into any funny business, but one can never be sure, of course. “Netflix and chill. Gotcha.”
“We Netflix and chill all the time,” said Dooley.
I grimaced. This conversation was getting off track.
“Or at least Odelia and Chase do, and we stick around.”
Our humans seemed to have concluded their conversation, and so it was time to leave. But Froufrou had one parting shot to deliver.“Doris is much better off since she left Advantage. Did you know that the day after she quit she was hired by Advantage’s big competitor? She writes forGlam now, and no one has accused her of not being able to spell yet. So it’s all to the good.”
All to the good, except for Michael Madison, who was dead.
Then again, one person’s misfortune is often another person’s fortune.
CHAPTER 26
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We caught Wayne Piscina on his break. The former assistant photographer was working for a local catering company now, delivering meals at home. He might even be the one delivering meals to Ona Konpacka. He was dressed in a snazzy orange outfit, hoisting a bulky orange backpack.
Odelia seated herself on the park bench next to the disgraced assistant, and launched into her spiel.
“Look, I don’t know what you heard,” said Mr. Piscina, “but there was no scandal, and I wasn’t fired, okay? I quit. Creative differences. Mike Madison was a tough man to please, and I just couldn’t function in the kind of toxic environment he created around himself.”
“So you quit and now you’re working as a delivery guy?”
“Hey, it’s a great job. You’re out and about, on your bike, plenty of exercise and fresh air. If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I’m a people pleaser, and there’s nothing more gratifying than delivering a great meal and watching those happy faces when you arrive on their doorstep with their meal.”
“So that story about the tweets?”
“Lies—all lies. Never happened.”
“I’ve got some of those tweets here,” said Odelia, taking out her phone. “Looks like someone took a bunch of screenshots before you removed your account.”
Wayne eyed her nervously, his back stiffly pressed against the bench. Finally he relented.“Okay, so maybe those tweets exist. But like I explained already to anyone who’ll listen, I was young and stupid when I fired off those tweets. Young,drunk and stupid, I might add. And I apologize unreservedly. Absolutely. But to fire me over some old tweets? Come on. That’s just ridiculous. You might as well come after me for stealing Nickie Marshall’s Barbie doll in second grade.”
“So you admit that you were fired now?”
“Yeah, okay. So I was fired. There. Happy now? You got your quote?”
“It’s not about quotes, Wayne. Mike Madison died last night, and rumor has it he didn’t jump but was pushed. So at some point the police will be looking at you.”
“I know, I know,” said Wayne, dragging a hand through a shaggy mane of dark hair. He sat forward. “Look, I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re implying. Okay, so he fired me over some stupid old tweets, and I was unhappy with the guy, hoping he’d have more backbone than that. But I’m not going around murdering people, okay? Like I said, I’m a peoplepleaser, not a people killer.”
“One doesn’t exclude the other,” she pointed out.
He barked a humorless laugh.“Nice. Very nice. Anyway, I can prove it wasn’t me. When was he killed?”
“Around three o’clock last night.”
“Bingo.” He had taken out his phone. “At three o’clock I was delivering a meal to…” He tapped his phone. “Ian McCluster. Three-course meal from Delmonica’s.”
“At three o’clock at night?”
“Sure. You’d be surprised how many people order meals in the middle of the night. Those are the best shifts, by the way. Extra pay and extra tips for the tip jar.”
“So if I contact Ian McCluster he’ll confirm that you were on his doorstep at three o’clock last night?” When Wayne nodded, she added, “What’s the address?”
After he’d given her the address, she closed her notebook, and shook the guy’s hand. And then he was off, to deliver another meal to another happy customer.
“What do you think?” I asked after Wayne had mounted his bike and left.
“Ian McCluster lives awfully close to Advantage Publishing headquarters,” said Odelia. “In fact according to Google Maps Wayne could have reached there in less than twenty minutes, after delivering that three-course meal from Delmonica’s.”
“So he’s a prime suspect?”
Odelia shrugged.“Too soon to tell, but he’s definitely on the list.”
Our next port of call was the Mitchell home. Scarlett had told Odelia to go easy on Tom, since he was probably suffering an acute attack of lovesickness. But still, he was a potential suspect, and so he needed to be interviewed by our relentless reporter!
We found the whole family home, all living under the same roof in a modest row house in one of the less agreeable neighborhoods in Hampton Cove. The streets were clean, though, and the house was nice enough once you stepped inside.
Tom’s mom Melanie was a voluminous woman with a ready smile and a homey demeanor. She clearly loved her son Tom and his little brother Harry, and also Danny, the cousin, Advantage’s mailroom maven.
“So I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions,” said Odelia once we were all seated in the living room, which centered around a very large flat-screen television where some football game was silently playing. “You know that Michael Madison died last night?”
Melanie Mitchell nodded fervently.“Danny told us the news. Bad business. Really bad. Do you have any idea when the boys will be able to go back to work?”
“Mrs. Kingsley doesn’t work for Advantage, Mom,” said Tom.
“I know, but maybe she heard something.”
“I have no idea,” Odelia confessed.
“They have to find a new boss first,” said Danny. “And knowing Advantage that won’t take long. Big conglomerates like that have contingency plans for these types of situations.”
“Suicide situations, you mean?” asked Melanie.
“Death of a CEO type of situations. CEOs get killed all the time. They break their necks skiing in Vail, or burn to death when their private jet falls from the sky, or they choke to death on a caviar sandwich. Very risky being a CEO.”