“Dooley—it’s not polite to demand food from your host,” said Harriet.
“Technically Brenda is not our host,” I said. “We snuck in, remember?”
“If you must know, I’m quite partial to worms,” said Humphrey.
“Worms?” asked Dooley, wriggling from under the desk. “What kind of worms?”
“Oh, waxworms, silkworms, butterworms, red worms, earthworms, mealworms, superworms…”
“I didn’t even know there were so many different worms!” Dooley cried, looking horrified. He was clutching his tummy and I just knew he was thinking of Milo’s words again.
“I like crickets, too,” said Humphrey conversationally. “And the occasional leafy greens, of course. I’m not choosy. Oh, and pinky mice. I am a sucker for a juicy pinky mice.”
Now he had Harriet’s attention. “What’s a pinky mouse?” she asked.
“Frozen baby mice. A real delicacy.”
We were waiting for him to offer us some, but that was apparently asking too much. If we wanted mice—pink or otherwise—we’d have to catch them ourselves.
“So… about Dick Dickerson,” I said, returning to the topic under discussion.
“Oh, right. How am I so certain Brenda didn’t do it. Well, she was here, for one thing, working at her desk in this very room, under my watchful eye.”
“You watch your human work?” asked Harriet.
“Why, yes. She seems to enjoy my company. Often she has remarked that I have a soothing effect on her, and why not? I am, after all, very easy on the eyes and pleasant to be around.” For some reason he’d lifted his paw in greeting, so I lifted mine in response.
“So… who do you think might have done Dickerson in?” I asked.
He was lifting his other paw now, so I followed suit. Weird.
“Mr. Dickerson seemed to have a lot of enemies,” said the reptile. “Brenda often fumed about some of the stuff he wrote about her. He did the same to others, as well. One of his frequent targets was a man who liked to portray the President to humorous effect on television. Brenda also expressed the opinion that the man might have killed himself.”
“Suicide?” said Harriet. “That doesn’t seem likely, considering the way he died.”
“Yes, he drowned in his own feces, did he not?”
“Not his own feces,” said Harriet. “Duck poop.”
“Another species’ feces. How extraordinary.” The lizard frowned, or at least I thought he did. Tough to read facial expressions on a lizard. “I thought he died in his own excrement.”
“Why would he kill himself?” I asked.
Dooley had approached the glass terrarium, probably looking to get in on the pinky mice action. The lizard eyed him with suspicion. “Brenda said Dickerson was under investigation. Apparently he’d aided the President in his election by engaging in some form of illegal activities and prosecutors were going through his business with a fine-tooth comb. He was looking at dismissal from his own company and possibly prison, hence the suicide theory. Though as you say, the duck poop thing seems to preclude such a possibility.”
“Unless he staged the whole thing to make it look like murder,” said Harriet, who was thinking hard. “All so he could cast the blame on one of his opponents.”
“But who?” I asked. I turned to Humphrey. “Does the picture of a rose mean anything to you? It was left at the scene of the crime.”
Humphrey regarded me sternly. “I don’t like roses. They give me stomach cramps. I will eat fruits and vegetables, provided they’re nicely chopped up, but no flowers thank you very much.” He’d climbed a tree branch that had been placed inside the tank.
I had a feeling we’d gleaned as much information from Humphrey as we could, so I held up my paw in greeting and he did the same, though I had the impression he was merely trying to protect his stash of frozen baby mice from Dooley.
“Dooley, let’s go,” I said. “Thanks, Humphrey. You’ve been most helpful.”
“Glad I could help, cat,” he said.
“Max,” I said, realizing my social faux-pas. “And this is Dooley and that’s Harriet.”
“Lovely,” said Humphrey graciously. “Fare-thee-well—cats.”
And we’d just stepped out of the room when we bumped into an angry-looking female. Judging from the cap she was wearing, and her blue apron, she was part of the cleaning crew. “Cats!” she screamed the moment she saw us. “We’ve got cats!”
And then she was coming at us with a very large broom!
Chapter 32
Brenda Berish—Secretary Berish to her friends—was a motherly woman in her late sixties. She had a round face and a bouffant blond-gray hairdo. As in all the pictures I’d seen of her she dressed in a brightly colored pantsuit, this one a dazzling heliotrope.
The drawing room where she met us was light and airy, a floral motif extending from the upholstery to the wallpaper and even the carpet. Light slanted into the room, lending it a pleasant atmosphere, and the window had been cracked to allow some air in.
“Detective Kingsley—Miss Poole, how can I be of assistance?” asked Brenda, a kind smile playing about her lips.
“As I told your assistant over the phone, we’re looking into the death of Dick Dickerson,” Chase said, flipping open his notebook and taking a firmer grip on his pencil. “Mr. Dickerson was known to be a fan of your political opponent—not so much of you.”
“Which led you to think I might have done him harm,” said Brenda, nodding. “First of all, the night Mr. Dickerson was killed, I was in my study, working until late at night.”
“Can anyone verify that, Secretary Berish?” asked Chase.
“Oh, please, Detective. You don’t really think I drove a tractor up to Dick’s house and poured nine thousand gallons of duck poop into his safe, do you? So what you’re really asking is if I hired a crew of professionals to do that for me. I can assure you I didn’t. There was no love lost between Dickerson and my family but I’m not the kind of person who settles her scores by going around murdering people.” She’d placed her hands in her lap and sat poised and calm. “And to answer your question, my husband can verify that I was right here at the house. And if not him, my pet lizard can. Although I can’t imagine he’ll be willing to testify on my behalf.” She threw her head back and laughed a tinkling laugh.
“What about your husband? Did he have reason to harm Mr. Dickerson?”
“Of course he did. Do you have any idea what that man did to us?” She took out her phone and held it out to them. A few choice covers of the National Star appeared. ‘Brenda’s Cancer Scare.’ ‘Brenda Admitted—Her Fatal Collapse.’ ‘Brenda’s Abortion—Her Secret Love Child.’ ‘Brenda Going To Jail!’ ‘Brenda Confesses: I’m a Crack Addict!’ ‘Brenda Is A Lesbian!’
“That’s quite the collection,” said Odelia. She’d always known journalistic standards at the National Star were low, but she’d never fully realized how low they really were.
“Dickerson was the President’s hatchet man,” said Brenda, placing the phone on a gateleg table that held a portrait of her, her husband John and their daughter. “So he tried to destroy us. Naturally John wanted to hurt him. But he didn’t. He would never stoop that low.”
“Does the picture of a red rose mean anything to you?” asked Odelia.
Brenda shook her head. “No. Why?”
“It was found inside the safe—in fact it was the only thing found in that safe.”
“Dickerson’s files?”
“Gone. Every last one of them.”
She mused on that. “Dickerson had many enemies. And he kept extensive files in his safe. Everybody knew that. He propagated the idea he was the new Hoover. That he could break anyone with the dirt he collected on them. But this rose business doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Do you know of anyone else who could have done this?” asked Chase.
Brenda laughed. “Do you have a couple of hours? Like I said, he made a lot of enemies over the years.” When they both stared at her, she relented. “You want names? Well, I’ll give you names. There was the President himself, of course. The DA was coming after Dickerson for election fraud and he was prepared to make a deal in exchange for giving up Wilcox. Then there was that Russian mobster he was rumored to be blackmailing.”