“God,” said Scarlett. “What a terrible business.”
“But how did you find out, Max?” asked Harriet. “How did you figure it out?”
“Well, two things,” I said. “First there was the shed, and then there were the slippers.”
“The shed and the slippers? That sounds like a Disney movie.”
“So when we visited the Harrisons we saw that little shed that was half burned down. At first I thought this must have happened a long time ago, but then Jane—she’s the pony who used to belong to Francine’s girls—told me how the gardener was such a marvel. How he always kept the place looking so immaculate. So it got me wondering why a gardener like that would tolerate that decrepit old shed? And of course he didn’t. That fire happened a couple of days ago, when Franklin murdered Marvin. And then he decided to have it torn down to remove the evidence, and build a pagoda in its place.”
“And what about the slippers?” asked Brutus.
“One of the maids had expressed her bewilderment at how she put Franklin’s slippers on one side of the bed at night, and how in the morning she always found them on the other side. A man can change identities, but he just might forget on which side of the bed the twin he murdered used to get up in the morning.”
“But how did you know he was going to try and kill Francine Ritter?”
“I remembered how frightened Franklin had looked just after meeting Francine on the street. I’d figured at the time he was afraid that now he’d have to pay her the child support his brother owed, but why would a man of such wealth be afraid of a measly sum like that? No, he was scared, all right—scared because he knew that Francine had recognized him, and that as long as she was around, his secret would never be safe.”
“And so he tried to make sure she’d never talk again,” said Brutus, nodding.
“What a story,” said Harriet. “And what a good thing you figured it out in time, Max. Or else those two girls would be orphans now.”
“Francine and her girls are going to move in with Ruth Harrison, by the way,” I said. “She’s finally realized that her former daughter-in-law didn’t have a bad influence on Franklin, but that Franklin was actually the debilitating influence in her life.”
“So Jane is going to have her friends back?” asked Dooley happily.
“Yes, Dooley,” I said with a smile. “Jane will finally have her friends back, and Ruth will finally get to spend more time with her granddaughters—in fact she’ll be spending all of her time with them, as she’s looking for a CEO to run the business from now on.”
“See?” said Gran. “I knew that Joshua was innocent. Odelia’s clients always are.”
“Joshua was never my client, Gran,” said Odelia, pressing her point again. “I’m just a reporter, and reporters don’t have clients. We only have stories to pursue.”
“Well, this sure was one hell of a story,” said Marge. “Anyone more potato salad?”
And while Marge ladled more potato salad onto everyone’s plates, Charlene gave Uncle Alec a little shove. “Well?” she said when he didn’t react. “Wasn’t there something you wanted to say?”
“Um…” said the Chief, scratching his scalp. “Well, I’m afraid I’ve acted like a fool, Odelia. I thought you were hampering my case, while in fact you were solving it. So…”
“That’s all right, Uncle Alec,” said Odelia magnanimously. “You don’t have to apologize.”
“Actually I’m the one who should apologize to you, Chief,” said Chase. “Even though you told me not to, I kept feeding Odelia information from the investigation.”
“I knew you did,” Uncle Alec grumbled. “But that’s all right. If you hadn’t, Francine Ritter would be dead right now, and Joshua Curtis would still be in jail—an innocent man.” He sighed deeply. “Maybe I’m getting too old for this stuff.”
“Nonsense,” said Charlene curtly. “You just need to learn to listen to your niece. She’s a smart cookie. But since the apple doesn’t fall from the tree, you’re a smart cookie, too, all right?”
“More like hardtack,” he said with a grimace.
“And you owe me an apology, too, by the way,” said Gran. “Scarlett and I did the right thing trying to get rid of that evidence, isn’t that so, Scarlett?”
“Um, not too sure about that, Vesta,” said Scarlett.
“Yeah, not too sure about that either,” said the Chief with a not-so-apologetic look at his mother and her friend. “Next time you pull a stunt like that I’m keeping you two overnight. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Alec,” said Scarlett meekly.
“Yes, Alec,” Gran said, equally meekly, after getting a full dose of her son’s irritation.
“So how is cat choir?” asked Odelia as she joined us, and came bearing gifts in the form of a few little prize nuggets of meat she’d saved from total annihilation for us.
“Cat choir is just grand,” said Harriet. “Shanille and I have made up, and Max has decided to let us into his new cat choir, isn’t that right, Max?”
“Yeah, but you know the conditions, Harriet.”
“What are the conditions?” asked Odelia with a smile.
“No more fighting!” said Brutus and Dooley in unison.
“Sounds like a great idea,” said Odelia, and gave us all cuddles and kisses, then whispered into my ear, “You did great, Max. And what’s even better: you made me look good, too. So thank you for that.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you, Odelia,” I said. Which was absolutely true.
“We make a great team, don’t we, buddy?”
“Yes, we do.”
Suddenly Dooley raised his eyes, and started saying, “Shoo! Shoo! We don’t want you here, stork! Shoo!”
“That’s not a stork, Dooley,” I said. “That’s a pigeon.”
“Oh, phew,” he said, and sank down onto the porch swing again, not meeting Odelia’s eye.
“Dooley, for the last time, Chase and I are not going to start a family just yet. Okay?” She gave him an extra cuddle. “You guys are my family. And right now you’re all I need.”
And wasn’t that the best endorsement any cat could hope to get from their human?
Dooley leaned over to me and whispered, “Do you think I should take down that ‘Stork, go home!’ sign now, Max?”
“Yeah, I think that’s probably a good idea, Dooley,” I whispered back.
Purrfect Ruse
The Mysteries of Max - Book 33
Chapter 1
Look, don’t get me wrong: I enjoy a murder even less than the next cat, even though it isn’t necessarily my own species who’s affected by this tragic loss of life. But when the only cases coming Odelia’s way are spouses wanting to catch their other spouses in the act of cheating on those selfsame spouses—the first spouses, not the second ones, if you see what I mean—life becomes pretty dull and monotony soon reigns supreme.
Dooley, though, didn’t seem to mind all these people being cheated upon—or is it cheated on—from finding their way into Odelia’s office. But then again, Dooley watches a lot of daytime soaps, and eighty percent of the storylines on these soaps are exactly the cheating kind of stuff. The other twenty percent is probably illegitimate children suddenly popping up out of the blue, which frankly speaking is the same thing.
So it was with a sigh of relief that I greeted the next person entering our human’s office at the Hampton Cove Gazette. She was a large woman with red-rimmed eyes, clearly suffering from some acute or life-threatening trouble. Immediately I assumed murder, which just goes to show how warped my mind has become after having spent the formative years of my life in Odelia’s presence and that of her cop husband, her cop uncle and her neighborhood watch grandma. And it was with bated breath that I pricked up my ears as the woman took a proffered seat and launched into her tale of woe.