“I’m the cat who’s canceling the show and launching his own spinoff.”
“Like… The Big Diego Theory?”
“I like that,” Diego admitted with an indulgent smirk. “Though I might go with The Diego and Harriet Show. Cause it’s gonna be Diego and Harriet doing the horizontal mambo every hour, on the hour.”
“Don’t even think about it,” grunted Brutus. “Your little show won’t even make it past the writing stage. The network will cancel you before you make it into production.”
“Me and Odelia, who’s the network executive in charge of greenlighting new shows, are this close,” he said, holding his claws an inch apart, “and she told me my show’s a go.”
I was having a hard time following the analogy, but I didn’t like what I was hearing. “Odelia told you… what, exactly?”
He shrugged. “Odelia is tired of you, Max. Oh, she liked you well enough in the beginning, but after seeing your ugly mug moping around the house all these years she’s in the market for something new. Something fresh and exciting.” He gestured at himself. “Moi.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “Odelia would never say something like that.”
“She would never say it to your face, Max, which is why she said it to me. She’s had it with you. She’s sick and tired of having some fat slob stalking her and she’s thinking hard about how to get rid of you so you’ll never come back.”
“She-she told you this?”
“Sure she did. And don’t even think about asking her about it. She’ll deny everything, of course.”
“He’s lying, Max,” said Brutus. “He’s full of crap. Just like he’s full of crap about the Diego and Harriet Show. Harriet would never star in a show with the likes of you, Diego. Harriet loves me.”
Diego laughed. “It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.” He gave us a horrendously fake pout. “Poor Brutus. Dumped by his sweetheart. And soon dumped by his human, too.”
“My human would never dump me. Chase is crazy about me.”
“No, he’s not. And neither are Marge or Vesta. Or Tex for that matter. The Pooles are done with you three—yeah, you, too, Dooley. Out with the old—in with the new.” He shook his head and tsk-tsked. “If I were you, I’d do the honorable thing and leave now, with your dignity intact. Beats being kicked out and humiliated by the Pooles. Oh, and you don’t have to thank me for the heads-up. I believe in doing the right thing. That’s the kind of cat I am.”
“I’m going to get you for this,” Brutus said, holding up one paw, his claws extending menacingly.
“Wow, Wolverine!” said Diego, laughing. “You and whose army?”
“Clarice,” said Dooley. “She’s going to help us get rid of you.”
“Dooley, shut up!” I hissed. “She’s our secret weapon—emphasis on secret.”
“Clarice is gone,” said Diego, casually giving his paw a lick.
“Gone?” I asked, and I could see the consternation on Brutus and Dooley’s faces.
“How can she be gone?” asked Dooley.
“He’s lying,” said Brutus. “Can’t you see he’s lying through his teeth?”
“Oh, no, I’m not,” said Diego, then fixed us with a nasty stare. “Why do you think I came back? I took care of Clarice. Payback for what she did to me. She’s gone, dudes. And she’s never coming back. I made sure of that.” And then he produced the most hideous laugh I’d ever heard. It chilled me to the bone. When I glanced up again—Poof!—he was gone.
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.”