“Achoo!”
She lifted her head from the pillow and saw, in the relative darkness of the room, a small form at the foot of the bed. She smiled and propped herself up on her elbows.
“Max? Is that you sneezing?”
In response, four distinctly different sneezes rang out like cannon shots in the silence of the room.
“Achoo!”
“Achee!”
“Achoum!”
“Achaa!”
She flicked on her bedside Betty Boop lamp and blinked against the sudden light. When her vision cleared, she saw four cats staring back at her. Max, Dooley, Harriet and Brutus. They didn’t look very happy. In fact they looked distinctly despondent.
“You have a cold,” she said matter-of-factly. “All four of you.”
All four cats nodded gloomily.
“I better take you to Vena,” she said.
Four equally cheerless nods, followed by four more sneezes.
“Better tell her about your spots,” said Max.
“Oh, all right,” muttered Brutus.
“What spots?” asked Odelia.
“I have spots on my chest,” Brutus announced. “They’re red.”
“Which is why we now all have a cold,” explained Max.
“I don’t get it,” said Odelia. “How do you go from spots to a cold?”
“It’s a long story,” said Max. “And it involves a baptismal font with very cold water.”
“It’s all Shanille’s fault,” said Harriet. “I should have known that flighty feline would get us into trouble.”
“At least our souls are with Jesus now,” said Dooley.
Odelia blinked. Looked like it had been a long night for her cats. Checking her phone she saw that it wasn’t even five o’clock yet. Pretty sure she wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep, she decided to get up instead. Moving over to the window, she peeked through the curtains and saw that first light was painting the sky in brilliant reds and blues.
“Can you guys give me a hand or are you too sick to do a little sleuthing?” she asked.
“I’m never too sick to do a little sleuthing,” said Max.
“Great. I saw this on a TV show the other day. It’s called a vision board.”
She tripped down the stairs, four cats close on her heels, switched on the lights in her cozy little living room and gestured triumphantly to the whiteboard the UPS guy had delivered the day before.“Ta-dah!” she said.
“Achoo!” said Max in earnest admiration.
“What is it?” asked Dooley.
“A vision board,” said Max.
“Yes, but whatis it?”
“I’m going to collect all the clues relating to the crime on this board and then I’m going to look for links,” Odelia explained. “That way I might be able to make connections I wouldn’t otherwise make. At least that’s the theory. I’m not sure how it works in reality.”
“I think it’s a brilliant idea,” said Harriet. “I’ve always been a very visual cat. I need to see things before I decide what’s what and you’re exactly the same, Odelia.”
“I am,” Odelia agreed.
And she was. It was all fine and dandy mulling things over in your head but there were only so many elements you could juggle before losing the thread. And since there were so many suspects in this case she needed to make things visual to make sense of them all.
She started by writing the name of the victim in bold at the top of the whiteboard. Then, underneath, she neatly wrote the names of all the people involved—starting with the seven suspects who’d been identified as having been present around the time Ackerman died. She decided not to include Gran or Mom or Dad, even though they’d been at the library. There was no way they were involved. Even Uncle Alec agreed on that.
There was movement behind her and when she looked up she saw that Gran had walked in through the sliding glass doors.
“Can’t sleep either?” she asked.
Gran shook her head. She was looking even more crusty than usual.“I hate it when I can’t sleep. I can just feel my face getting wrinklier and my skin drying out like a mummy’s. What are you doing?”
“It’s called a vision board,” said Brutus. “It’s what real detectives like Odelia use.”
“Oh, right. Like what cops use. They call it an evidence board, though.”
“Achoum!” said Brutus in agreement.
“Oh, dear. Do you have a cold?” asked Gran.
“Achaa!” Dooley sneezed, as if in response.
“We better take them to Vena’s,” said Gran.
Four cats groaned. Going to Vena’s was agony to them.
A rustle at the window announced that one more person had decided to join them.
“Hey, Mom,” said Odelia. “Can’t sleep either?”
“It’s this Ackerman business,” said Mom. “I haven’t slept a wink since I saw his… body.” She gave a quick quiver to demonstrate how she felt about finding bodies of dead writers in her library—or anywhere else for that matter. “I can’t help feeling people all think that I did it.”
“Nonsense,” said Gran firmly. “Nobody thinks that, Marge.”
“I walked down to the General Store yesterday and I swear people were actually whispering behind my back. And when I tried to talk to Ida Baumgartner she ignored me.”
“That’s because Ida Baumgartner has a crush on Tex,” said Gran. “Everybody knows that.”
It was obvious that Mom didn’t, judging by the way she sucked in her breath. She then seemed to notice for the first time that Odelia was scrawling strange scribblings on a whiteboard. She moved closer. “Why are those names written in red?”
Odelia tapped the whiteboard.“Darius Kassman, Aldo Wrenn and Sasha Drood. These are our most likely suspects. Wouldn’t you agree, Gran?”
Gran had plunked her bony frame down on a chair and was inspecting Dooley, much to the latter’s exasperation, as Gran dug her fingers into his tummy and underneath his chin. “Mh?” she said, looking up. “Oh, yeah, right. Most likely suspects. Sure thing, hon.”
“Darius Kassman stalked Chris Ackerman and approached him in spite of the restraining order. He struck me as mentally unstable and could have killed Ackerman in a fit of rage. Then there’s Aldo Wrenn, or Aldo Ackerman as he now calls himself. Claims he’s Chris’s son and if he’s right he just might share in the writer’s substantial inheritance. And finally Sasha Drood, the man who robbed Chris and might have killed him in a struggle.”
“Tough,” said Gran. “So many suspects. How to determine who did it?”
“And what about Chris Ackerman’s wife and son?” asked Marge.
“Chris was still alive after they left,” Odelia explained. “They claim Malcolm Buckerfield saw them leave.”
“Rockwell Burke said the same thing,” Gran pointed out. “Which seems doubtful.”
“Not necessarily,” said Odelia. “If Malcolm Buckerfield arrived just as Rockwell Burke changed his mind about going in, he could have met him and then met Angelique and Trey as he walked into the library.” She wrote, ‘TALK TO BUCKERFIELD’ and added five exclamation marks, then five morefor good measure.
“Hasanyone talked to this publisher?” asked Mom.
“Not yet. He drove home after delivering his final plea to Ackerman.”
“And home is…”
“Boston. He’s agreed to fly in today, though, and talk to Uncle Alec. So then we’ll know more about what he was doing there and why he didn’t stick around for the reading.”
“I would have liked to meet him. He’s almost as famous as the writers he publishes.”
“So basically we have three likely suspects and four iffy ones,” said Gran.
“And don’t forget about the pizza guy,” said Max.
Odelia pointed at him.“Thanks, Max. I’m going to track him down today.”
“Imagine the pizza guy did it,” chuckled Gran. “Because Ackerman wouldn’t tip him.”
Odelia scribbled‘pizza guy’ in the margin. She was nothing if not thorough. She stepped back to admire her handiwork. “So what does this teach us?” she asked her audience.
“That we’re screwed,” grunted Gran. “All these people could have done it for various reasons and we have no way of figuring out who did do it.” She threw up her hands. “Jessica Fletcher makes it look so easy on TV! Only takes her fifty minutes to find the killer—ninety minutes in the movies.”