“You didn’t choose this time and place to coincide with Burt’s shoot?” asked Odelia.
“No, I did not. None of us did. It was the other way around. We put on this conference and then Burt decided to drop by unannounced, no doubt trying to steal our thunder. The conference has attracted a lot of attention and Burt, who was a real attention whore if you pardon my French, couldn’t resist the temptation to bask in our limelight.”
A black cat had entered the room from the balcony and stood perfectly still, eyeing Max and Dooley with menace. Uh-oh.
“So you never sent up that bottle?” asked Chase, struggling to contain Odelia’s cats.
“No, detective, I didn’t,” said the Most Compelling Man in the World haughtily. “This hotel doesn’t even carry Tres Siglas, which goes to show how low standards have dropped. Furthermore, I don’t understand the significance of this bottle. Who cares what beer Burt drank? It certainly wasn’t Tres Siglas. It wasn’t even Dos Siglas, the brand he represented. Burt hated beer. Said it tasted like dishwater. He preferred his liquor strong and undiluted.”
Chase finally gave up the battle and dropped Max and Dooley to the floor. They stood poised, watching Curt’s cat intently, every muscle in their small bodies flexed.
“It would appear that the final bottle you sent up—or someone else sent up—contained the powerful explosive that ended Burt Goldsmith’s life,” said Chase. “Which is why it’s imperative we find out who sent that bottle.”
The man’s jaw dropped. “An exploding bottle of beer? Oh, my. Oh, dear me.” Suddenly his face twisted into an expression of peevishness. He stomped his foot. “That foul old bird! Can’t you see what’s going on here, detective? Can’t you read between the lines? He sent it to himself! Burt sent that bottle to himself! He wanted to go out with a bang and he did! Now every newspaper in the country will headline the story—people will be talking about this for days. He wanted to best us one final time. Oh, the horrible, nasty old bird!”
“You think he killed himself?” asked Odelia, surprised.
Curt Pigott swung his arms. “Of course he did! The man was pushing eighty. He didn’t have a lot of time left. And it wouldn’t surprise me if he wasn’t sick from some wasting disease, judging from the way he’d lost the pounds in recent years. He wanted to kick the bucket on his own terms and put in one last performance. A most fascinating death.”
It was a most interesting theory—one Chase seemed to consider credible, judging from the way he was rubbing his chin. “Room service staff said the order to bring up those bottles came from your room,” he said.
“I swear to you, detective—I had nothing to do with it! And how easy would it be to tell room service that I gave the commission. There are no papers to sign when you call down an order—simply a phone call and the mention of your room number. Anyone could have given my name and number—anyone at all.” He wagged a finger in their faces, his own face clouding. “Especially Burt Goldsmith, who was a cunning old coot right up until the very end. He knew he could get me into hot water with this stunt. One final blow. One final insult.”
“I take it the dislike between you two was mutual?” asked Odelia.
“Oh, it most assuredly was.” He tapped his hairy chest. “I was supposed to be the Most Fascinating Man in the World. Me! Dos Siglas asked me first. But Burt, who was a down-on-his-luck two-bit actor at the time, decided to improve his chances by sleeping with the casting lady. The rest is history. Fifteen years later he’s the star and I’m the also-ran. And ever since he’s been rubbing it in my face,” he added between gritted teeth.
The guy definitely had motive, Odelia decided. He seemed to hate Burt’s guts with a vengeance. But did he do it? Hard to prove. Unless they found trace evidence of the nitroglycerin on his person or this hotel room, they didn’t have a lot to go on.
Just then, war broke out in the room. The black cat, who’d been staring down Max and Dooley, suddenly jumped their bones, and for the next few minutes the world was a maelstrom of claws, piercing yowls and screams, and fur flying all over the place.
The fight began in the center of the room, then moved across its full acreage.
“Max! Dooley!” Odelia cried, desperately trying to separate the warring parties.
It’s hard to stop a cat fight, though. Cats tend to get caught up in the melee, and lash out indifferent of whether the other party is friend or foe. In other words, you step in at your own peril.
And as the fight moved towards the bed, suddenly Chase stepped to the fore, picked up two cats in his right hand, another in his left hand, and pulled. There was a rending sound, and when finally the smoke and fur cleared, he had effectively broken up the fight.
Odelia stared at the man, and so did Curt Pigott.
“You, sir, are marvelous!” Curt exclaimed, and Odelia couldn’t have put it better.
Chapter 15
I was feeling slightly dazed. Being in a huge fight with a princess will do that to a cat. Princess might be slightly clueless about whether he or she was a she or a he but they definitely fought like a tomcat and I had the scratches and the bite marks to prove it. I was tucked away in the crook of Chase’s right arm while Dooley was tucked away in the crook of the burly cop’s left arm. All in all it was a decent proposition and I was slowly starting to feel safe again. To serve and protect was one of those mottos I’d never given much thought, but now that I saw that it extended to me, myself and mine, I was all on board. I was a fan.
“That was a wonderful thing you did back there, Chase,” said Odelia as we descended down to the lobby in the hotel elevator.
“Just doing my job,” Chase grunted, though I could sense Odelia’s words pleased him.
“No, I mean, you could have gotten yourself hurt. That cat meant business.”
“Eh. Just a little pussycat. What harm can it do?”
“Did you see those claws?” Dooley cried. “That cat was going for the kill.”
Muzak softly played on the elevator sound system. ‘Raindrops are falling on my head,’ someone crooned. A cat had just fallen on my head, and Chase had saved us. Suddenly I was feeling all warm and fuzzy, and gave the cop’s square chin a nudge with the top of my head.
“Aww,” Odelia said.
“Hrmph,” Chase said, stiffening.
I could be mistaken, but I had the distinct impression Chase was not a cat person, and he was merely doing this to get in good with Odelia. I would have said he did it to get in bed with Odelia, but he’d already accomplished that particular feat. So what was he after?
“Babies!” Dooley cried suddenly.
I turned to him. “What are you talking about, Dooley?”
“He wants babies! That’s why he’s being so nice to us all of a sudden!”
I hate to admit it but once in a while Dooley gets it right. Now was such an occasion. There’s only one reason why a dog person would suddenly turn into a cat person—or at least pretend to do so: the old baby maker is stirring its ugly head. “You know what, Dooley?” I said. “I think you just might be right.” Then again, maybe a couple of babies wasn’t so bad?
‘Because I’m free. Nothing’s worrying me.’
The elevator dinged and the doors opened, allowing us a nice view of the lobby. I had no idea why Chase insisted on carrying us. We might have been dinged a little, and lost some of our fur and a lot of our dignity, but my paws still worked. And yet I didn’t stir from my comfortable perch, and neither did Dooley. As far as I was concerned, Chase could make as many babies with Odelia as he liked. I’d suddenly grown quite fond of the sturdy cop. First he’d turned out to be Hampton Cove’s fiercest fleaslayer, and now he’d saved our lives.